Tuesday, April 22
"The millions who opposed the war before it happened have not evaporated. They were moved neither by cowardice nor moral frailty in the face of evil. They were more serious than that and their solemnity remains. The YouGov poll in yesterday's Telegraph showed that 66% remain worried about the war's possible consequences, and 30% feel less safe than they did before".
Yes, it's Hugo Young, writing last week. Basically he's worried that Blair won't take us into the Euro. Well, fair enough, if you like the Euro. But there are weak arguments. 66% being worried about the consequences of the war isn't enough, reckon. I'm worried about the consequences. So should everyone. 30% feel less safe? Which means, to those not of a mathematical bent, means that 70% feel more safe ( aside from the 'don't knows'. Are there any? I dare say ). That sounds pretty good, but trust our Hugo to try and put a downer on things.
George Monbiot, by contrast has no such fears. Usually he's a Job-like creature, but without the sense of humour. But when he's on the up, there's nothing to stop him:
"If the euro is adopted by all the members of the union, which suffers from none of the major underlying crises afflicting the US economy, it will begin to look like a more stable and more attractive investment than the dollar. Only one further development would then be required to unseat the dollar as the pre-eminent global currency: nations would need to start trading oil in euros".
That's quite a big if there, George.
"The global justice movement, of which I consider myself a member, has, by and large, opposed accession to the euro, arguing that it accelerates the concentration of economic and political power, reduces people's ability to influence monetary policy and threatens employment in the poorest nations and regions".
So maybe the global justice movement, of which I am not a member, are right for once. No, says our George.
"That we have a moral duty to contest the developing power of the US is surely evident. That we can contest it by no other means is equally obvious. Those of us who are concerned about American power must abandon our opposition to the euro".
And sink further into the abyss.
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Yes, it's Hugo Young, writing last week. Basically he's worried that Blair won't take us into the Euro. Well, fair enough, if you like the Euro. But there are weak arguments. 66% being worried about the consequences of the war isn't enough, reckon. I'm worried about the consequences. So should everyone. 30% feel less safe? Which means, to those not of a mathematical bent, means that 70% feel more safe ( aside from the 'don't knows'. Are there any? I dare say ). That sounds pretty good, but trust our Hugo to try and put a downer on things.
George Monbiot, by contrast has no such fears. Usually he's a Job-like creature, but without the sense of humour. But when he's on the up, there's nothing to stop him:
"If the euro is adopted by all the members of the union, which suffers from none of the major underlying crises afflicting the US economy, it will begin to look like a more stable and more attractive investment than the dollar. Only one further development would then be required to unseat the dollar as the pre-eminent global currency: nations would need to start trading oil in euros".
That's quite a big if there, George.
"The global justice movement, of which I consider myself a member, has, by and large, opposed accession to the euro, arguing that it accelerates the concentration of economic and political power, reduces people's ability to influence monetary policy and threatens employment in the poorest nations and regions".
So maybe the global justice movement, of which I am not a member, are right for once. No, says our George.
"That we have a moral duty to contest the developing power of the US is surely evident. That we can contest it by no other means is equally obvious. Those of us who are concerned about American power must abandon our opposition to the euro".
And sink further into the abyss.
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Commander Cressida Dick is not a porn actress. She is in fact the head of the Metropolitan Police's diversity directorate. Yesterday she spoke to the Indy:
"It's very difficult to imagine the situation where we will say we are no longer institutionally racist. It's a long way off".
Yes, well she would say that, wouldn't she? Otherwise she'd be out of a job. What the hell does she do all day, anyway?
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"It's very difficult to imagine the situation where we will say we are no longer institutionally racist. It's a long way off".
Yes, well she would say that, wouldn't she? Otherwise she'd be out of a job. What the hell does she do all day, anyway?
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"I thought this war justified, until this evidence that it was being conducted in an improper and uncaring way".
writes Philip Hensher. Wow! This must be bad. He approved of an invasion of a country, but something has changed his mind. What terrible atrocities have occurred that means Bush and Blair must be prosecuted for war crimes?
"It would not have been hard to foresee that law and order would have been difficult to maintain in the wake of the collapse of the Iraqi regime, and it would have been quite proper for American troops to have shot looters in these circumstances. That is what war consists of, and it would have saved a culture from this catastrophe".
Things are more important than people. So much so, that the looters should have been shot. You read it here first, in the Independent.
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writes Philip Hensher. Wow! This must be bad. He approved of an invasion of a country, but something has changed his mind. What terrible atrocities have occurred that means Bush and Blair must be prosecuted for war crimes?
"It would not have been hard to foresee that law and order would have been difficult to maintain in the wake of the collapse of the Iraqi regime, and it would have been quite proper for American troops to have shot looters in these circumstances. That is what war consists of, and it would have saved a culture from this catastrophe".
Things are more important than people. So much so, that the looters should have been shot. You read it here first, in the Independent.
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Here's one old Guardian column I do want to link to. It's by Rod Liddle. I remember the prediction he made, and am glad he brought it up again. It's about Clare Short, and was so accurate that it demands attention.
"Short likes being in the cabinet more than she doesn't like bombing Iraq".
I think that gets it just about right.
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"Short likes being in the cabinet more than she doesn't like bombing Iraq".
I think that gets it just about right.
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Greetings, plutocrats! In the unlikely event that there are some Times readers who have never visited before, the basic purpose of this site is to ridicule the British commentariat. This task has been inhibited recently by my strange, pseudo-religious, self-inflicted challenge of giving up reading both the Guardian and Independent for Lent. ( A task I failed at quite spectacularly. ) So I've been concentrating on some of the strange pronouncements of the right-wing press in recent weeks.
But I shall now be returning to my natural homeland.
I did promise to myself to read the complete works of Robert Fisk, but then a column in the Spectator claimed that the old boy had been filing 3000 words a day, every day, so there goes another promise, fallen by the wayside. 120 000 words of increasing hysteria is really too much even for my stomach. I had also intended to do an overview of the war commentary, and see how badly things went for the "This war will last forever and will be another Vietnam" brigade, but thinking about it I really don't think mocking three week old columns by Deborah Orr is really necessary. Though I may go back to them as the mood demands it.
Also, for what it's worth, I'm not the only one who does this. There are a whole bunch of people, largely amateur, who write this sort of stuff just for the sheer damn fun of it. So go check out the links on the left.
If I'm too right-wing for your tastes, well there are plenty who are more right-wing than me, believe me. But there are also lefties, and even a few liberals there too. Generally I link to people who are polite and good-humoured. A lot of them know a lot more about politics than I do, but I've got my niche of parody, satire, and cynicism, and I'm sticking to it.
UPDATE: And here is the article:
"I feel slightly appalled at having to write the following sentence but I thought I'd better get it out of the way first. l disapprove of murder. All of it. Black, white, gay, straight, young, old. You name it, I'm against it.
Why should I have to start by pointing out a basic moral truism? Because the outrage we all feel at murder has been exploited in the aftermath of one particular killing, in a way that undermines the justice system which should exist to defend us all. Today is the tenth anniversary of the death of Stephen Lawrence.
I feel for the parents of Stephen Lawrence. I hope that whoever murdered him is brought to justice.
The best way of remembering Stephen Lawrence is hoping that justice will be done.
Which is why it is such a tragedy that the Macpherson inquiry, which tried to learn the lesson of his death and the botched investigation that followed, produced nothing but nonsense. Vacuous nonsense at best, dangerous nonsense at worst.
Why? Here's an example, a piece of gibberish that ought to have made the judge a laughing-stock. Sir William Macpherson argued that a crime can be defined as racist if it is felt to be so in the view of the victim "or any other person".
Which means that racism can be defined any way you want it. If I think that Wayne Rooney spitting in front of Liverpool fans is a hate crime, then according to Sir William, our Wayne's guilty.
If Sir William's definition of a racist incident was vacuous, however, his attempt to label the entire Metropolitan Police as "institutionally racist" was positively dangerous. It gave a green light to leftists to denigrate any symbol of authority and crippled the police's ability to act effectively.
After Sir William's judgment that the Met was unconsciously in league with the Ku Klux Klan, there became a trend for every new boss of any old institution to rush in and denounce the place as institutionally racist. Or institutionally sexist. Or institutionally...anything. It was all just code for: "Hi. I'm new. I'm different. I've got a social conscience."And it gave excuses to pen-pushers all over to justify their existence by bringing in race initiatives, training programmes and the like.
This orgy of self-hatred was bad enough. What was worse is that what Macpherson dismissed as "institutionalised racism" can sometimes be justified as plain old commonsense policing. If the police strongly suspect a murder has been committed by a Triad sect, there's little point in them going along to a white lesbian separatist group to try to find the killer. Every statistic going indicates that a disproportionate amount of street crime is committed by young, male, black Britons, often against other black Britons. So it's no good the force going mob-handed into Women's Institute meetings in order to keep the streets safe.
The Lawrence inquiry failed because it was doomed to fail. How could it prove racism when it didn't even prove, and nor has anyone else, who committed the murder? And would the murder have been any better or worse if the victim had been white, poor and female?
If the police who handled the murder of Stephen Lawrence bungled the case because they viewed it as a relatively low priority, they should have been fired for incompetence, not racism. But because the inquiry wasn't a court case and could not find anyone guilty of any crime it went searching for some oblique and obscure term that could be thrown around in all manner of oblique and obscure ways. The victims of crime, whose numbers have risen remorselessly since Stephen's death, deserve better".
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But I shall now be returning to my natural homeland.
I did promise to myself to read the complete works of Robert Fisk, but then a column in the Spectator claimed that the old boy had been filing 3000 words a day, every day, so there goes another promise, fallen by the wayside. 120 000 words of increasing hysteria is really too much even for my stomach. I had also intended to do an overview of the war commentary, and see how badly things went for the "This war will last forever and will be another Vietnam" brigade, but thinking about it I really don't think mocking three week old columns by Deborah Orr is really necessary. Though I may go back to them as the mood demands it.
Also, for what it's worth, I'm not the only one who does this. There are a whole bunch of people, largely amateur, who write this sort of stuff just for the sheer damn fun of it. So go check out the links on the left.
If I'm too right-wing for your tastes, well there are plenty who are more right-wing than me, believe me. But there are also lefties, and even a few liberals there too. Generally I link to people who are polite and good-humoured. A lot of them know a lot more about politics than I do, but I've got my niche of parody, satire, and cynicism, and I'm sticking to it.
UPDATE: And here is the article:
"I feel slightly appalled at having to write the following sentence but I thought I'd better get it out of the way first. l disapprove of murder. All of it. Black, white, gay, straight, young, old. You name it, I'm against it.
Why should I have to start by pointing out a basic moral truism? Because the outrage we all feel at murder has been exploited in the aftermath of one particular killing, in a way that undermines the justice system which should exist to defend us all. Today is the tenth anniversary of the death of Stephen Lawrence.
I feel for the parents of Stephen Lawrence. I hope that whoever murdered him is brought to justice.
The best way of remembering Stephen Lawrence is hoping that justice will be done.
Which is why it is such a tragedy that the Macpherson inquiry, which tried to learn the lesson of his death and the botched investigation that followed, produced nothing but nonsense. Vacuous nonsense at best, dangerous nonsense at worst.
Why? Here's an example, a piece of gibberish that ought to have made the judge a laughing-stock. Sir William Macpherson argued that a crime can be defined as racist if it is felt to be so in the view of the victim "or any other person".
Which means that racism can be defined any way you want it. If I think that Wayne Rooney spitting in front of Liverpool fans is a hate crime, then according to Sir William, our Wayne's guilty.
If Sir William's definition of a racist incident was vacuous, however, his attempt to label the entire Metropolitan Police as "institutionally racist" was positively dangerous. It gave a green light to leftists to denigrate any symbol of authority and crippled the police's ability to act effectively.
After Sir William's judgment that the Met was unconsciously in league with the Ku Klux Klan, there became a trend for every new boss of any old institution to rush in and denounce the place as institutionally racist. Or institutionally sexist. Or institutionally...anything. It was all just code for: "Hi. I'm new. I'm different. I've got a social conscience."And it gave excuses to pen-pushers all over to justify their existence by bringing in race initiatives, training programmes and the like.
This orgy of self-hatred was bad enough. What was worse is that what Macpherson dismissed as "institutionalised racism" can sometimes be justified as plain old commonsense policing. If the police strongly suspect a murder has been committed by a Triad sect, there's little point in them going along to a white lesbian separatist group to try to find the killer. Every statistic going indicates that a disproportionate amount of street crime is committed by young, male, black Britons, often against other black Britons. So it's no good the force going mob-handed into Women's Institute meetings in order to keep the streets safe.
The Lawrence inquiry failed because it was doomed to fail. How could it prove racism when it didn't even prove, and nor has anyone else, who committed the murder? And would the murder have been any better or worse if the victim had been white, poor and female?
If the police who handled the murder of Stephen Lawrence bungled the case because they viewed it as a relatively low priority, they should have been fired for incompetence, not racism. But because the inquiry wasn't a court case and could not find anyone guilty of any crime it went searching for some oblique and obscure term that could be thrown around in all manner of oblique and obscure ways. The victims of crime, whose numbers have risen remorselessly since Stephen's death, deserve better".
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Thursday, April 17
Bless me, Cinders, for I have sinned.
I've got to come clean. Last Monday, ( six o' clock, GMT, April 7th., for the record ) I was on a bus, sitting there with the wife, minding my own business. Then there it was: The Independent. It was the tabloid section, with Francis Fukayama, telling the world how he had changed his mind about Iraq. From what to what? Pro to against? Against to pro? For the life of me I can't even remember, much less do I care. In fact, I didn't even care then, but somehow the Devil - for no worldly explanation will satisfy - forced me into picking it up. And then beneath it was the whole damn rest of the thing, with Robert Fisk going ape about the euphemisms of war, and Andreas Whittam Smith talking about how Quagmire was the word on every American's lips. I was reading this at about six o'clock in the evening, and Baghdad had fallen that very day. Tempting or what?
So there it is. I failed. I didn't mean to read it. I didn't buy it. I didn't click on it, but there it was, sent by Satan and I fell.
I'll now go away to beat my bare back with nettled dripped in vinegar while Cinders can go figure out who wins the money. The rest of you can enjoy your Easter, by which time I might well have read a few columns by all the goons I've been spoofing in recent weeks. Feel pity for me. The originals aren't nearly as funny. I know, I remember.
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I've got to come clean. Last Monday, ( six o' clock, GMT, April 7th., for the record ) I was on a bus, sitting there with the wife, minding my own business. Then there it was: The Independent. It was the tabloid section, with Francis Fukayama, telling the world how he had changed his mind about Iraq. From what to what? Pro to against? Against to pro? For the life of me I can't even remember, much less do I care. In fact, I didn't even care then, but somehow the Devil - for no worldly explanation will satisfy - forced me into picking it up. And then beneath it was the whole damn rest of the thing, with Robert Fisk going ape about the euphemisms of war, and Andreas Whittam Smith talking about how Quagmire was the word on every American's lips. I was reading this at about six o'clock in the evening, and Baghdad had fallen that very day. Tempting or what?
So there it is. I failed. I didn't mean to read it. I didn't buy it. I didn't click on it, but there it was, sent by Satan and I fell.
I'll now go away to beat my bare back with nettled dripped in vinegar while Cinders can go figure out who wins the money. The rest of you can enjoy your Easter, by which time I might well have read a few columns by all the goons I've been spoofing in recent weeks. Feel pity for me. The originals aren't nearly as funny. I know, I remember.
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Wednesday, April 16
The Observer comes out on Sunday. Don't bother to read it, as, by an amazing coincidence, I have found a copy of it already. Here are some of the choice bits from next week's editorials:
Will Hutton:
Like a great white shark which has just supped of human flesh for the first time, George W. Bush is looking around for new prey. Like a latter day Alexander the Great, he is sitting in the White House, globe - or maybe atlas - at hand, searching for new worlds to conquer. It seems he has settled on Syria.
The American President can issue all the denials he wants, but nobody believes him any more. Not only does he look like a monkey, he is, for all practical purposes one too, and Donald Rumsfeld is his organ-grinder. Rummy wants another war, and Rummy calls the shots these days.
So Syria it is to be, and not even Rumsfeld can pretend that this invasion would benefit its citizens, who are by no means oppressed. On the contrary, the Syrians enjoy a standard of health care that we in Britain can only envy, and a transport system second to none. No, this is part two of the neverending story of the New Bush Colonialism.
Andrew Rawnsley:
While the Prime Minister has been proving his virility by invading Iraq, Gordon Brown has been proving it where it counts: in the bedroom. News that his wife was pregnant once again came just days before the recent budget, and proves once again what a shrewd political operator he just is. If Tony falls, this will be my moment, Gordon must have been thinking.
But there are harder battles ahead than that little contretemps in the desert. No, the big battleground now is where it always is in Britain: Europe. And the prize? British membership of the Euro.
Peter Preston:
The other week, I found myself in an idle moment contemplating what the world would look like had not George W. Bush stolen the election from under the nose of Al Gore. Would things really have changed, or would we still be in the current pickle? Bill Clinton, after all, was not unknown for foreign adventures. Who can forget his completely unprovoked bombing of a Sudanese aspirin factory? But Al Gore, I feel, was different. In the first place, he was, and still is, an ultra-intelligent, environmentally-conscious Democrat, and only the sternest reactionary would demur from the salient fact that, had Gore been President, he would quickly have ratified the Kyoto Agreement and might thereby have averted September 11th and all its attendant difficulties.
Is it really too fanciful to suggest that Gore might already, all within the first few months of his first term, have abolished capital punishment, conquered poverty, and saved the world from global warming? Perhaps. But then look at the world now, ruled as it is by the American Emperor, George Bush the Second.
Cristina Odone:
All right. I was wrong. Unlike many of my colleagues I predicted this war would be a quagmire. It would be like Vietnam exacerbated by the blistering desert heat. Indeed, there were moments not only that I thought that the Coalition would lose, but that they would be so humiliated that thousands of Iraqi Republican Guard soldiers would soon be parachuting into Hyde Park, and marching on Downing Street to the accompaniment of happy, smiling Moslems from Brick Lane.
I am so pleased to admit that I was wrong. Unlike so many of my male colleagues who are now rewriting history with Stalinist application, pretending they knew all along that Baghdad would collapse like a meringue.
Why are men so loathe to admit mistakes, I often wonder? Is it, perhaps. because they are men? That is, is it genetic? Or is it a result of the society that we have created for them, all of us, male and female?
Richard Ingrams:
The violent scenes of looting and greed by the Iraqi populace calls to mind the worst excesses of the Thatcher regime. But at least the poor people of Britain had a reason to riot. Remember the Poll Tax? The closure of the coal mines? Eighteen years of Thatcherism could get anyone to go on the rampage.
The Iraqi people we were told, were supposed to be suffering. The invasion was supposed to put an end to it. Why would theft and violence combat suffering? Is this really the behaviour of a people who were oppressed and persecuted? Or is it, more likely perhaps, that far from being oppressed that the Iraqis were a pampered people, given the good things in life by an indulgent government?
This is not how the British behaved when Hitler was toppled. Nor even the French. Yet we are supposed to applaud such blatant violence as the action of a freed people.
Remember the outcry last week, when a few hotheads wrote graffiti on a few British war graves? The French president was forced to apologise. Yet when a statue of the democratically-elected Iraqi President was pulled down by a handful of no doubt CIA-sponsored hooligans, the picture is plastered all over the front pages, as though this was something to be proud of.
Roy Hattersley:
It is an immature mind that revels in 'I told you so'. So it gives me no pleasure in being proved right, yet again. But the disastrous way this war has gone only goes to show just how correct I was in my assessment of the sheer folly of this invasion.
Indeed if it weren't for the opportunism of the Liberal Democrats and the incompetence of the Tories, I might be a little bit worried for the Prime Minister's future. Perhaps the greatest stumbling blocks for him remain on his own backbenchers, with the magisterially intelligent Robin Cook and the refreshingly earthy Clare Short waiting for his first serious disaster.
I remember well when I was Neil Kinnock's bag carrier, and we had to fight off the combined threat of Ken Livingstone and Bernie Grant.
Mary Riddell:
With a yawning predictability, Hollywood companies are lining up to make films of the famous blonde American soldier supposedly 'rescued' last week. What titles will they give it? 'Saving Jessica Lynch'? Too obvious. 'Rescuing Jessica'? That sounds like a kids' film.
But the one title no film director will ever dare to make - not even Tim Robbins, with Susan Sarandon in the starring role - is 'The Rape of Jessica Lynch'. For this was what this was: a rape, as bloody and savage as any conducted by the Yorkshire Ripper in his heyday. Ms Lynch, far from being the captive of the Iraqi soldiers, was in fact their honoured guest. She was in need of medical attention, and they were giving it to her, in spite of the fact that only moments earlier she had been hellbent on blowing their brains out with a machine gun. So how did the Americans repay this gentle act of kindness? By abducting her, and returning her to the overarching values of male imperialism.
Terry Jones:
There is only one solution to the current wave of lawlessness that is quickly turning Iraq into an anarchic state. Bring back Saddam!
For all his much-talked of faults, no one ever accused Saddam of being soft on crime. Of course, we might quibble with some of the procedures and nature of the punishment. But it is hardly right that we in the west dictate to people in other cultures the way they go about things.
Unless it is proved otherwise it seems safe to say that he is still alive. The Americans would love to see him dead, and if dead, would love to tell the world about it. So presumably he is still around, living in a cave in Syria, with a shaven moustache and perhaps considering plastic surgery. I say, he should come back and be given a second chance!
The Leader column:
Although the Observer is a secular newspaper, we still treasure our rich Christian heritage. Certainly there are elements within it that are a continuing source of shame: the sexism, homophobia, and racism inherent within its beliefs. But it has provided much comfort for many of the world's poor and to dismiss it out of hand is to dismiss many of the foundation stones of our so-called 'civilisation'.
As today is Easter Day, an important day in the Christian calendar, it is as well to remind ourselves of one of its most enduring myths. Many of you will recall that St. Paul, was converted to Christianity on the road to Damascus. Well, it seems that Tony Blair too has been converted, only this time his road to Damascus has entailed his transformation into a bloodthirsty warmonger.
George W. Junior by contrast seems to revel in his religiosity. And so he had decided to invade Syria. We can ignore the customary denials emanating from the White House. Yes, there have been protestations of innocence from our own Foreign Secretary, and an outright denial from the President. Nonetheless it seems only a matter of weeks before the United States embarks on its next dangerous venture into Middle Eastern affairs. The American soldiers will barely have touched soil and been reunited with their loved ones before once again venturing into the burning heat of the desert.
Bush can deny it all he wants, but after all, we only have to look at his track record. In any case there is an election next year, and not even Dubya can steal two elections in succession.
It seems to us, here at the Observer, that there are only two options left to the responsible progressive opinion. Firstly, if we can't prosecute him for war crimes, it seems to then that we are left with little alternative than this final solution.
The assassination of a sitting President of the United States is not something the Observer would ever have endorsed before. Not even Ronald Reagan deserved such a fate. And the ramifications are legion. It sets a dangerous precedent, with many potential pitifalls along the way. Yet it would be the height of arrogance for reasonable people to rule out such an act, unequivocally.
David Aaronovitch:
Did I ever tell you of my first wet dream? It happened when I was a boy scout. I was around about 12 years of age ( precocious child that I was ), and while I was trying to light a camp fire in the Epping Forest a friend of mine came up to me with a copy of 'Health and Efficiency', a magazine few of my younger readers will remember. It was the Playboy of its period, full of pictures of pretty girls playing volleyball, and for no good reason I can remember, naked from the waist up.
Nick Cohen:
Oh my God. These lefties are nuts. AM I THE ONLY SANE ONE LEFT?
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Will Hutton:
Like a great white shark which has just supped of human flesh for the first time, George W. Bush is looking around for new prey. Like a latter day Alexander the Great, he is sitting in the White House, globe - or maybe atlas - at hand, searching for new worlds to conquer. It seems he has settled on Syria.
The American President can issue all the denials he wants, but nobody believes him any more. Not only does he look like a monkey, he is, for all practical purposes one too, and Donald Rumsfeld is his organ-grinder. Rummy wants another war, and Rummy calls the shots these days.
So Syria it is to be, and not even Rumsfeld can pretend that this invasion would benefit its citizens, who are by no means oppressed. On the contrary, the Syrians enjoy a standard of health care that we in Britain can only envy, and a transport system second to none. No, this is part two of the neverending story of the New Bush Colonialism.
Andrew Rawnsley:
While the Prime Minister has been proving his virility by invading Iraq, Gordon Brown has been proving it where it counts: in the bedroom. News that his wife was pregnant once again came just days before the recent budget, and proves once again what a shrewd political operator he just is. If Tony falls, this will be my moment, Gordon must have been thinking.
But there are harder battles ahead than that little contretemps in the desert. No, the big battleground now is where it always is in Britain: Europe. And the prize? British membership of the Euro.
Peter Preston:
The other week, I found myself in an idle moment contemplating what the world would look like had not George W. Bush stolen the election from under the nose of Al Gore. Would things really have changed, or would we still be in the current pickle? Bill Clinton, after all, was not unknown for foreign adventures. Who can forget his completely unprovoked bombing of a Sudanese aspirin factory? But Al Gore, I feel, was different. In the first place, he was, and still is, an ultra-intelligent, environmentally-conscious Democrat, and only the sternest reactionary would demur from the salient fact that, had Gore been President, he would quickly have ratified the Kyoto Agreement and might thereby have averted September 11th and all its attendant difficulties.
Is it really too fanciful to suggest that Gore might already, all within the first few months of his first term, have abolished capital punishment, conquered poverty, and saved the world from global warming? Perhaps. But then look at the world now, ruled as it is by the American Emperor, George Bush the Second.
Cristina Odone:
All right. I was wrong. Unlike many of my colleagues I predicted this war would be a quagmire. It would be like Vietnam exacerbated by the blistering desert heat. Indeed, there were moments not only that I thought that the Coalition would lose, but that they would be so humiliated that thousands of Iraqi Republican Guard soldiers would soon be parachuting into Hyde Park, and marching on Downing Street to the accompaniment of happy, smiling Moslems from Brick Lane.
I am so pleased to admit that I was wrong. Unlike so many of my male colleagues who are now rewriting history with Stalinist application, pretending they knew all along that Baghdad would collapse like a meringue.
Why are men so loathe to admit mistakes, I often wonder? Is it, perhaps. because they are men? That is, is it genetic? Or is it a result of the society that we have created for them, all of us, male and female?
Richard Ingrams:
The violent scenes of looting and greed by the Iraqi populace calls to mind the worst excesses of the Thatcher regime. But at least the poor people of Britain had a reason to riot. Remember the Poll Tax? The closure of the coal mines? Eighteen years of Thatcherism could get anyone to go on the rampage.
The Iraqi people we were told, were supposed to be suffering. The invasion was supposed to put an end to it. Why would theft and violence combat suffering? Is this really the behaviour of a people who were oppressed and persecuted? Or is it, more likely perhaps, that far from being oppressed that the Iraqis were a pampered people, given the good things in life by an indulgent government?
This is not how the British behaved when Hitler was toppled. Nor even the French. Yet we are supposed to applaud such blatant violence as the action of a freed people.
Remember the outcry last week, when a few hotheads wrote graffiti on a few British war graves? The French president was forced to apologise. Yet when a statue of the democratically-elected Iraqi President was pulled down by a handful of no doubt CIA-sponsored hooligans, the picture is plastered all over the front pages, as though this was something to be proud of.
Roy Hattersley:
It is an immature mind that revels in 'I told you so'. So it gives me no pleasure in being proved right, yet again. But the disastrous way this war has gone only goes to show just how correct I was in my assessment of the sheer folly of this invasion.
Indeed if it weren't for the opportunism of the Liberal Democrats and the incompetence of the Tories, I might be a little bit worried for the Prime Minister's future. Perhaps the greatest stumbling blocks for him remain on his own backbenchers, with the magisterially intelligent Robin Cook and the refreshingly earthy Clare Short waiting for his first serious disaster.
I remember well when I was Neil Kinnock's bag carrier, and we had to fight off the combined threat of Ken Livingstone and Bernie Grant.
Mary Riddell:
With a yawning predictability, Hollywood companies are lining up to make films of the famous blonde American soldier supposedly 'rescued' last week. What titles will they give it? 'Saving Jessica Lynch'? Too obvious. 'Rescuing Jessica'? That sounds like a kids' film.
But the one title no film director will ever dare to make - not even Tim Robbins, with Susan Sarandon in the starring role - is 'The Rape of Jessica Lynch'. For this was what this was: a rape, as bloody and savage as any conducted by the Yorkshire Ripper in his heyday. Ms Lynch, far from being the captive of the Iraqi soldiers, was in fact their honoured guest. She was in need of medical attention, and they were giving it to her, in spite of the fact that only moments earlier she had been hellbent on blowing their brains out with a machine gun. So how did the Americans repay this gentle act of kindness? By abducting her, and returning her to the overarching values of male imperialism.
Terry Jones:
There is only one solution to the current wave of lawlessness that is quickly turning Iraq into an anarchic state. Bring back Saddam!
For all his much-talked of faults, no one ever accused Saddam of being soft on crime. Of course, we might quibble with some of the procedures and nature of the punishment. But it is hardly right that we in the west dictate to people in other cultures the way they go about things.
Unless it is proved otherwise it seems safe to say that he is still alive. The Americans would love to see him dead, and if dead, would love to tell the world about it. So presumably he is still around, living in a cave in Syria, with a shaven moustache and perhaps considering plastic surgery. I say, he should come back and be given a second chance!
The Leader column:
Although the Observer is a secular newspaper, we still treasure our rich Christian heritage. Certainly there are elements within it that are a continuing source of shame: the sexism, homophobia, and racism inherent within its beliefs. But it has provided much comfort for many of the world's poor and to dismiss it out of hand is to dismiss many of the foundation stones of our so-called 'civilisation'.
As today is Easter Day, an important day in the Christian calendar, it is as well to remind ourselves of one of its most enduring myths. Many of you will recall that St. Paul, was converted to Christianity on the road to Damascus. Well, it seems that Tony Blair too has been converted, only this time his road to Damascus has entailed his transformation into a bloodthirsty warmonger.
George W. Junior by contrast seems to revel in his religiosity. And so he had decided to invade Syria. We can ignore the customary denials emanating from the White House. Yes, there have been protestations of innocence from our own Foreign Secretary, and an outright denial from the President. Nonetheless it seems only a matter of weeks before the United States embarks on its next dangerous venture into Middle Eastern affairs. The American soldiers will barely have touched soil and been reunited with their loved ones before once again venturing into the burning heat of the desert.
Bush can deny it all he wants, but after all, we only have to look at his track record. In any case there is an election next year, and not even Dubya can steal two elections in succession.
It seems to us, here at the Observer, that there are only two options left to the responsible progressive opinion. Firstly, if we can't prosecute him for war crimes, it seems to then that we are left with little alternative than this final solution.
The assassination of a sitting President of the United States is not something the Observer would ever have endorsed before. Not even Ronald Reagan deserved such a fate. And the ramifications are legion. It sets a dangerous precedent, with many potential pitifalls along the way. Yet it would be the height of arrogance for reasonable people to rule out such an act, unequivocally.
David Aaronovitch:
Did I ever tell you of my first wet dream? It happened when I was a boy scout. I was around about 12 years of age ( precocious child that I was ), and while I was trying to light a camp fire in the Epping Forest a friend of mine came up to me with a copy of 'Health and Efficiency', a magazine few of my younger readers will remember. It was the Playboy of its period, full of pictures of pretty girls playing volleyball, and for no good reason I can remember, naked from the waist up.
Nick Cohen:
Oh my God. These lefties are nuts. AM I THE ONLY SANE ONE LEFT?
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Yes, I know this is a bit of a hostage to fortune, but as a master of the art, takes some advice, Simes. You see, one of the problems with writing satire, reckon, is that the reader gets the point pretty early on, and usually well before the writer is done with the idea. I defy anyone not to be yawning by the time he has finished reading this rib-tickler by the mighty Simon Jenkins about the forthcoming invasion of France.
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"Nothing became him in life as the leaving of it".
Alfred Sant defends himself. Or at least his attitude, if not his behaviour.
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Alfred Sant defends himself. Or at least his attitude, if not his behaviour.
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Tuesday, April 15
Alfred Sant has decided to stand down as leader of the Maltese Labour Party. And about time too. This is a man who boycotted the recent referendum, though half his shadow cabinet didn't. Then, when the result went against him, he announced that because not every member of the electorate, including those who hadn't voted, hadn't voted for joining the Euro, that he, and the antis, had therefore won the referendum. Go figure. And now he's lost the election called to confirm the referendum result he has finally decided to go.
You really couldn't make this up. Why did he boycott the referendum in the first damn place? If he'd gone with the more real-life based crew in the rest of his party the referendum might have been won, and he might well now be Prime Minister again.
Pathetic.
Whoever replaces him can't be worse. But it's all a bit too late now, anyway. They're going to be in Europe, and run by Europe. The die is cast.
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You really couldn't make this up. Why did he boycott the referendum in the first damn place? If he'd gone with the more real-life based crew in the rest of his party the referendum might have been won, and he might well now be Prime Minister again.
Pathetic.
Whoever replaces him can't be worse. But it's all a bit too late now, anyway. They're going to be in Europe, and run by Europe. The die is cast.
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I am in shock. Vicki Woods reads Sgt. Stryker. Whatever next? Yasmin Alibhai-Brown demands war on Syria?
I need to go and have a lie down.
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I need to go and have a lie down.
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Monday, April 14
Meanwhile there's a war on. Or is there? This bloke, Mick Hume, seems disappointed that not enough people died. Particularly American and British ones:
"What sort of war was that? It began without any immediate casus belli; no islands or small countries invaded, no archdukes assassinated. It was launched with uncertain aims; one day it was to destroy weapons of mass destruction and save America, then it was to destroy Saddam Hussein’s regime and liberate Iraq.
It was fought against an enemy that did not want to fight; despite the tragic casualties, there has not been one encounter with Iraqi forces that could qualify as a battle. And it is ending amid scenes of chaos, with nobody sure exactly what might constitute victory, barring perhaps the sudden appearance of Saddam’s head on a pole".
He then makes a fatuous Jessica Lynch/hollywood movie reference. That comparison was stale a week ago, Mick. I thought these former Marxists were supposed to be a bit more up to speed than this. Steven Chapman delivers the definitive Spiked on-line put down here. I didn't read the piece Steven linked to, but it seems just the same, as indeed to most of the Spikey pieces. One trick pony or what? 'On the one hand... on the other hand... I hate New Labour, but the Tories are even worse. There's a war on, but everyone is so obsessed by Big Brother. Etc. WHY DOESN'T EVERYONE JUST GROW UP?'
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"What sort of war was that? It began without any immediate casus belli; no islands or small countries invaded, no archdukes assassinated. It was launched with uncertain aims; one day it was to destroy weapons of mass destruction and save America, then it was to destroy Saddam Hussein’s regime and liberate Iraq.
It was fought against an enemy that did not want to fight; despite the tragic casualties, there has not been one encounter with Iraqi forces that could qualify as a battle. And it is ending amid scenes of chaos, with nobody sure exactly what might constitute victory, barring perhaps the sudden appearance of Saddam’s head on a pole".
He then makes a fatuous Jessica Lynch/hollywood movie reference. That comparison was stale a week ago, Mick. I thought these former Marxists were supposed to be a bit more up to speed than this. Steven Chapman delivers the definitive Spiked on-line put down here. I didn't read the piece Steven linked to, but it seems just the same, as indeed to most of the Spikey pieces. One trick pony or what? 'On the one hand... on the other hand... I hate New Labour, but the Tories are even worse. There's a war on, but everyone is so obsessed by Big Brother. Etc. WHY DOESN'T EVERYONE JUST GROW UP?'
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Oh well. There's no disgrace in coming second. Except in a general election. I can't say I'm a well-travelled bloke, but in my opinion Malta is just about the closest thing on God's planet to a conservative/libertarian paradise. This is a country which, up until about ten years ago, didn't even have compulsory seat belts, nor even a drink driving law. And now it's going to be over run with bureaucrats, liberals, feminists, and Germans. They fought off the Turks, the Romans, Napoleon, Hitler and Mussolini, even the dear old British, but the notoriously fickle charms of the Common Agricultural Policy have proved irresistible. It won't be the same.
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Friday, April 11
See you on Monday. The Maltese election takes place tomorrow. If the socialists win, we're out of the EU. If they lose, it's the Euro all the way. So, for once in your life I can say it with pride: Vote Labour!
Of course, these guys disagree, but then they're the lapdogs of international capitalism.
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Of course, these guys disagree, but then they're the lapdogs of international capitalism.
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"The toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue in Baghdad on Wednesday did not take 20 minutes or 20 days, but 12 years of Western misjudgment. But it is over. Thank Goodness that man is gone".
Says the peerlessly snooty Simon Jenkins. I imagine Stephen Pollard will have something to say about this. As will I: Thank Goodness, but don't thank Simon Jenkins. If he'd had his way Blix would still be ferreting about in some warehouse somewhere, issuing statements that Saddam was still obstructing, but that somehow inspections needed more time.
Does Jenkins worry that he is a bloated bullshit artist, or does he just think, if someone points out the error of his ways: oh well, who gives a damn, so long as they pay me, why should I care? I fear the latter. As will the Not In My Name crowd, who will carry on regardless. Witness this selection of letters to the Times, at least three of whom need a spell in detention at the very least. Still, it ends with a good one:
"Sir, How do we know that the giant statue of Saddam destroyed on Wednesday wasn’t of one of his doubles?"
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Says the peerlessly snooty Simon Jenkins. I imagine Stephen Pollard will have something to say about this. As will I: Thank Goodness, but don't thank Simon Jenkins. If he'd had his way Blix would still be ferreting about in some warehouse somewhere, issuing statements that Saddam was still obstructing, but that somehow inspections needed more time.
Does Jenkins worry that he is a bloated bullshit artist, or does he just think, if someone points out the error of his ways: oh well, who gives a damn, so long as they pay me, why should I care? I fear the latter. As will the Not In My Name crowd, who will carry on regardless. Witness this selection of letters to the Times, at least three of whom need a spell in detention at the very least. Still, it ends with a good one:
"Sir, How do we know that the giant statue of Saddam destroyed on Wednesday wasn’t of one of his doubles?"
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Thursday, April 10
Only a week to go before I can read them, but these are how I imagine my two favourite newspapers reported on yesterday's events.
First up, the Indy:
A dark day in history.
April 9th 2003 will go down in history as one of the bleakest days in the history of humanity. There are some who will have been rejoicing at the death of a so-called tyrant, but we here at the Independent have stood fast against this war, and just because it has ended that is no reason for us to change our mind.
The simple people of Iraq may be knocking down statues today, but will they be so happy tomorrow, when the full forces of American capitalism ride roughshod over their most cherished values? With a Starbucks in every town, and a Mcdonalds in every village they will be oppressed like never before. They may have food, clothing and water, but will they be truly happy?
Recent commentators have not been very generous to Saddam Hussein, but history perhaps will be kinder. He may not have been the most compassionate of men, but he was a socialist, and even his harshest critic never said that he did not try to do the best for his people.
Schools, hospitals and even the International Airport were all named after him, so, in spite of what the rest of the Murdoch press will tell you, a lot of people in Iraq really liked Saddam Hussein. Think of them today, as they mourn their lost leader, forced to flee his palace in an illegal war. Remember their crying faces, the ones you will never see on your televisions.
It is after all, only a matter of months since Saddam Hussein was returned to power with an overwhelming mandate. Unlike a certain American President we could mention.
So, if Saddam is alive today, we wish him well in his new life.
Second, the Guardian:
When the rubble is cleared away.
That of course was the easy part.
Even though we never approved of this war, we have still always been realistic enough to realise that the massive forces of the American military would soon see the end of the Iraqi army. Some may have talked of quagmire, but we at the Guardian never fell into that trap. Once started, there was always only going to be one winner. But winning the war was the easy part. What comes after will prove much more tricky.
Unlike the rest of the Western media, the Guardian has never been an apologist for dictators. We dislike and disapprove of fascists of all stripes: be they left or right. While we may occasionally print editorials written by such diverse individuals as Fidel Castro and Bill Clinton, this does not mean we agree or approve of either of them. Free speech is our watchword.
Still, perhaps amid all the commotion, and somewhat excessive scenes many of us may have witnessed on our television screens yesterday, maybe now it is time to pause and reflect. While a lot of ink has been spilled in recent months detailing the crimes and misdemeanours of President Saddam Hussein, very little has been made mention of the crimes and opportunism of George W. Bush.
Few remember, even now, that this is a man who stole the 2000 election.
Somebody, please, tell me they didn't come out like this.
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First up, the Indy:
A dark day in history.
April 9th 2003 will go down in history as one of the bleakest days in the history of humanity. There are some who will have been rejoicing at the death of a so-called tyrant, but we here at the Independent have stood fast against this war, and just because it has ended that is no reason for us to change our mind.
The simple people of Iraq may be knocking down statues today, but will they be so happy tomorrow, when the full forces of American capitalism ride roughshod over their most cherished values? With a Starbucks in every town, and a Mcdonalds in every village they will be oppressed like never before. They may have food, clothing and water, but will they be truly happy?
Recent commentators have not been very generous to Saddam Hussein, but history perhaps will be kinder. He may not have been the most compassionate of men, but he was a socialist, and even his harshest critic never said that he did not try to do the best for his people.
Schools, hospitals and even the International Airport were all named after him, so, in spite of what the rest of the Murdoch press will tell you, a lot of people in Iraq really liked Saddam Hussein. Think of them today, as they mourn their lost leader, forced to flee his palace in an illegal war. Remember their crying faces, the ones you will never see on your televisions.
It is after all, only a matter of months since Saddam Hussein was returned to power with an overwhelming mandate. Unlike a certain American President we could mention.
So, if Saddam is alive today, we wish him well in his new life.
Second, the Guardian:
When the rubble is cleared away.
That of course was the easy part.
Even though we never approved of this war, we have still always been realistic enough to realise that the massive forces of the American military would soon see the end of the Iraqi army. Some may have talked of quagmire, but we at the Guardian never fell into that trap. Once started, there was always only going to be one winner. But winning the war was the easy part. What comes after will prove much more tricky.
Unlike the rest of the Western media, the Guardian has never been an apologist for dictators. We dislike and disapprove of fascists of all stripes: be they left or right. While we may occasionally print editorials written by such diverse individuals as Fidel Castro and Bill Clinton, this does not mean we agree or approve of either of them. Free speech is our watchword.
Still, perhaps amid all the commotion, and somewhat excessive scenes many of us may have witnessed on our television screens yesterday, maybe now it is time to pause and reflect. While a lot of ink has been spilled in recent months detailing the crimes and misdemeanours of President Saddam Hussein, very little has been made mention of the crimes and opportunism of George W. Bush.
Few remember, even now, that this is a man who stole the 2000 election.
Somebody, please, tell me they didn't come out like this.
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"What's Next for the Peace Movement?"
asks Brian Corr, who has been a 'progressive activist' for 21 years thus far. He has three answers.
"First, we must put forward a clear and achievable plan for ending the war in Iraq and preventing similar future conflicts".
Sorry. That's all sorted. As for preventing similar future conflicts: this sounds a bit 'root causes' to me. So forget it.
"Second, we need to make sure that our movement looks like our country".
Hey, bud, it doesn't matter what you look like. You're all freaks.
"Finally, after this war ends, the peace movement needs to begin working on its own project of regime change -- not in Iran, or North Korea, but in Washington. And our "regime change" won't come through an invasion or bombing, but through sustained, grassroots, democratic activism".
You've got to hand it to him. At least he's patient.
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asks Brian Corr, who has been a 'progressive activist' for 21 years thus far. He has three answers.
"First, we must put forward a clear and achievable plan for ending the war in Iraq and preventing similar future conflicts".
Sorry. That's all sorted. As for preventing similar future conflicts: this sounds a bit 'root causes' to me. So forget it.
"Second, we need to make sure that our movement looks like our country".
Hey, bud, it doesn't matter what you look like. You're all freaks.
"Finally, after this war ends, the peace movement needs to begin working on its own project of regime change -- not in Iran, or North Korea, but in Washington. And our "regime change" won't come through an invasion or bombing, but through sustained, grassroots, democratic activism".
You've got to hand it to him. At least he's patient.
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Wednesday, April 9
Tonight on British terrestrial television is, so far as I am aware, the first widescreen showing of Lawrence Kasdan's Body Heat. It's also on the BBC, which means there are none of those horrible adverts in the middle. I've watched it several times, the last of which was only a month or so ago, but seeing as it'll be in widescreen I shall certainly make a point of taping over my old, ITV, cut to ribbons version to see how different it is. It isn't a perfect movie, but it is still one of my ten favourite movies. Obviously it's not as good as Laurel and Hardy, but it's still a cracker. I actually once wrote a two thousand word thesis on it and toyed with posting it here, but then I didn't think I could face being accused of pretentiousness twice in one week by the exiguous Emily, so you're denied that pleasure. Anyway, enjoy.
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"Richard L. Clinton is a political science professor at Oregon State".
He's also a paranoid leftist with masochistic cravings, judging by this nonsense. Common Dreams indeed.
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He's also a paranoid leftist with masochistic cravings, judging by this nonsense. Common Dreams indeed.
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Simon Jenkins, April 9:
"As of last night, the military phase of the Iraqi adventure appeared to be coming to an end. Some thought that victory would be quicker, others thought that it would be slower".
Some?
Simon Jenkins, March 28:
"Baghdad will be near impossible to conquer".
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"As of last night, the military phase of the Iraqi adventure appeared to be coming to an end. Some thought that victory would be quicker, others thought that it would be slower".
Some?
Simon Jenkins, March 28:
"Baghdad will be near impossible to conquer".
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Tuesday, April 8
I don't know what's happened to the Telegraph. Once it was a paper of repute. But look at this selection from the past week.
Max Hastings:
As you may recall I had certain reservations about this conflict. Not that I thought that anyone other than the Coalition would win. I know some commentators thought that the problem would be quagmire, Vietnam, the fighting spirit of the plucky little Iraqis, and all the rest of it. These weren't my worries, however, as it seemed to me that the overwhelming superiority of the American military would soon put a stop to all those pitchforks and bayonets. It seems I was proved right.
No, my worries concerned the post-war discussion which has only just begun. I know Rumsfeld and his band of gung-ho right-wingers see this as a 'to the victor the spoils' situation and that, seeing as the French and Germans made absolutely no contribution to the victory, they should have no contribution to make to the peace. This seems to me to be short-sighted.
Here at last, I would hazard is an opportunity for bridges to be built. Specifically those bridges between Europe and the US. One senior diplomat said he thought the UN should have nothing to do with any of this. Kofi Annan, in his colourful phrasing, 'couldn't organise a crap in a lavatory'. I thought this grossly unfair. I 'countered with the example of Bosnia, and the outstanding behavior of the UN in that little conflagration.
Armando Ianucci:
This war isn't over. Nor is the Stop the War Coalition. It will take more than the end of the war for us to stop.
Face it: if the war was wrong on Wednesday then it's still wrong on Thursday. And it doesn't matter if Saddam had thrown in the towel the moment Bush announced the war had started. Or taken an early Ba'ath. It doesn't matter if no one had died, let alone the millions of Iraqis who are now starving and dying of thirst; nor if the allies had found a million gallons of anthrax, which they clearly didn't have or Saddam would have used it by now. And if he had had it, Blix would have found it all eventually, anyway.
But this is a war Bush had always wanted, and together with Blair, nothing was going to stop them. Except us. And maybe we still will.
Vicki Woods:
All the models I know are in a frightful state, and I bet you know why. I popped over to the Vogue offices in L.A last weekend, and instead of the usual talk of J-Lo and cellulite, it was all about G.W.B. and Iraq. Instead of MTV blaring out like a foghorn, all the tvs at the gym were tuned to CNN, and all the girls were glued to it. Instead of drooping bums, all the conversations was about dropping bombs.
Just because they like to take their kit off for vast amounts of sponduliks, people like to caricature models as thick and dumb - jealous, I suppose - but you could get more sense out of these girls than from the whole of the Parliamentary Labour Party. And social consciences to boot. This is a war none of them wanted, believe me.
The peace movement just caved in, but the models didn't. No, they were all very angry, and there was talk of organising a whip round. Someone even went so far as to suggest that each girl ought to sell one of their black Versace top to pay for a casket for a poor little Iraqi baby killed at a checkpoint.
Still, there are compensations, aren't there? Some of those soldier chaps look awfully fit, don’t they? I wouldn't mind one of them sticking their rifles into my tent on a cold desert night. Makes it all worthwhile. Almost.
Actually, it makes my blood boil, and being so facetious is the only way I have of keeping sane. I am agin this war, and the more it goes on the more blooming narked I become. If it weren't for the dry martinis, I think I'd have gone overboard.
Three cheers for George Galloway!
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard:
The bureaucrats never sleep. Many over Europe will be regarding with envy those Iraqis who are now preparing to embrace their liberators. When will the Americans fly into the main cities of the EU to liberate them, they will be wondering? For, if Tony Blair and his friends in the Council of Ministers have their way, the seldom-mentioned Directive C5 7863 (ii ) of the new European Constitution will actually make it a criminal offence to urinate within five hundred metres of an abattoir.
Of course, this is all being carefully presented as a health measure, but these Eurodirectives have a way of getting under the skin and upsetting a way of life settled for decades. On Continental Europe no one ever pays a blind bit of notice to them. But in Britain? If only.
Boris Johnson:
"Blair's played a blinder, eh, Boris?"
No, this wasn't just another comment from some New Labour lickspittle. No, this came from a former minister. A former Cabinet Minister. A former Tory Cabinet Minister. Well, it even stopped me in my tracks.
But think again, old chum. The way I see I, this is the apex. There's only one way to go now, for old Tony, and that way is down. National Insurance has just gone up, the health service is in an even worse state than when we left it, sixty percent of all school-leavers are so illiterate they can't even read the instructions on their packets of condoms, and crime is not so much spiralling as sprawling. I can't even get insurance for my bicycle.
Zoe Heller:
You can't say Americans don't have a sense of humour. Specially New Yorkers. You'd think, only 18 months after 9/11, that they'd all be a bit sensitive about the subject, but the latest fad here, among the single girls I know who live in the Upper West Side, is spending the night with a male prostitute. And not just any guy. He has to look like Saddam Hussein. That's right. All my girlfriends want to have their evil way with the Evil One himself.
Yes, I know there are plenty of lookalikes out in Iraq, though I don't envy them one minute, but here in Manhattan, any greasy Arab with a thick walrus on his upper lip can earn up to 800 bucks a night, making love to his pick of some of the horniest girls this side of the Eastern Seaboard.
Talk about weapons of mass destruction! And it's not just five minutes of pash with the Great Dictator. No, we're talking the whole bang-shoot: torture chamber, rack, whips, and electric shock treatment. And that's just foreplay.
Sick, no? But done with a certain, ironic post-modern sensibility, I can't see the harm. On the other hand, I can't see the attraction, either. But each to his own. After all, I mentioned this to an old boyfriend of mine while we were having breakfast at Sardis the other day ( him five rashers of bacon, two eggs, four pieces of toast, me a lettuce and two tomatoes ), and he told me that while we'd been going out he used to taxi off every Thursday lunchtime to some lady down in the Bronx who used to dress up as Imelda Marcos and stomp all over him in gold-plated stilettos. No wonder I dumped him.
WF Deedes:
People talk a lot of tosh about chemical weapons. I remember, back in 1915, when I first came across the wretched stuff. This was in the days before the internet and I, as a young cub reporter, had to send my missives from the front line back to the Telegraph by carrier pigeon.
I was especially fond of dear old Dolores. Anyway, it was a dull day at Ypres and I'd just penned some ramblings about how dashed boring war can be, and stuck it into the metal ring on Dolores' foot. I managed to persuade Bunny Grosvenor, who was a freelance stenographer working for the Port Merion Evening Gazette, to take the pigeon off into no man's land to give her a good send-off. Well, five minutes after Bunny had strolled off there came a plume of yellow gas. At first we all thought it was something he'd been smoking, maybe picked up from one of the dens in Shanghai he used to frequent. But take a deep breath of it! Let's just put it this way: you didn't want to have eaten your lunch just beforehand.
Still, it didn't do me any lasting damage. And I'm sure our young people, all very robust and with far better diets than we ever had, will be able to take it well.
Janet Daley:
This is almost certainly the end. And it isn't just Saddam Hussein who is quaking in his boots. No, Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Shroeder, and Chris Patten are all, in their various differing ways, finished. The UN, the EU, the BBC and all the rest in the alphabet soup of liberal democracy are stewing in the cesspit of compassion, the flailing remnants of the permissive society which, formed during the Sixties - that pernicious decade that elevated peaceniks and pop singers to the status of gods - is finally drawing to its well-deserved death.
Irvine Welsh:
The only Chemical Ali I ever knew was a five foot two lad from the Gorbals, so unless he's thrown away his CND badge and converted to Islam I don't suppose it's his body the Coalition have found out in Basra in the stinking Iraqi desert. No, when I first met wee Alastair McTavish he'd just come back from a six week holiday in Morocco. I remember going round to his place for a cup of tea one afternoon, and the next thing I knew we were out on our mopeds, with Steppenwolf playing on our walkmans, half way to Edinburgh Castle. Cycledelic or what?
It took me another fortnight to get over the high but it was worth it. I hadn't felt that good since tearing down the goalposts at Wembley, and I wasn't to feel that good again until Tommy Sheridan got elected to the Scottish Parliament. The seventies, eh? What a time.
Anne Robinson:
Saddam Hussein, you're the weakest link. Goodbye.
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Max Hastings:
As you may recall I had certain reservations about this conflict. Not that I thought that anyone other than the Coalition would win. I know some commentators thought that the problem would be quagmire, Vietnam, the fighting spirit of the plucky little Iraqis, and all the rest of it. These weren't my worries, however, as it seemed to me that the overwhelming superiority of the American military would soon put a stop to all those pitchforks and bayonets. It seems I was proved right.
No, my worries concerned the post-war discussion which has only just begun. I know Rumsfeld and his band of gung-ho right-wingers see this as a 'to the victor the spoils' situation and that, seeing as the French and Germans made absolutely no contribution to the victory, they should have no contribution to make to the peace. This seems to me to be short-sighted.
Here at last, I would hazard is an opportunity for bridges to be built. Specifically those bridges between Europe and the US. One senior diplomat said he thought the UN should have nothing to do with any of this. Kofi Annan, in his colourful phrasing, 'couldn't organise a crap in a lavatory'. I thought this grossly unfair. I 'countered with the example of Bosnia, and the outstanding behavior of the UN in that little conflagration.
Armando Ianucci:
This war isn't over. Nor is the Stop the War Coalition. It will take more than the end of the war for us to stop.
Face it: if the war was wrong on Wednesday then it's still wrong on Thursday. And it doesn't matter if Saddam had thrown in the towel the moment Bush announced the war had started. Or taken an early Ba'ath. It doesn't matter if no one had died, let alone the millions of Iraqis who are now starving and dying of thirst; nor if the allies had found a million gallons of anthrax, which they clearly didn't have or Saddam would have used it by now. And if he had had it, Blix would have found it all eventually, anyway.
But this is a war Bush had always wanted, and together with Blair, nothing was going to stop them. Except us. And maybe we still will.
Vicki Woods:
All the models I know are in a frightful state, and I bet you know why. I popped over to the Vogue offices in L.A last weekend, and instead of the usual talk of J-Lo and cellulite, it was all about G.W.B. and Iraq. Instead of MTV blaring out like a foghorn, all the tvs at the gym were tuned to CNN, and all the girls were glued to it. Instead of drooping bums, all the conversations was about dropping bombs.
Just because they like to take their kit off for vast amounts of sponduliks, people like to caricature models as thick and dumb - jealous, I suppose - but you could get more sense out of these girls than from the whole of the Parliamentary Labour Party. And social consciences to boot. This is a war none of them wanted, believe me.
The peace movement just caved in, but the models didn't. No, they were all very angry, and there was talk of organising a whip round. Someone even went so far as to suggest that each girl ought to sell one of their black Versace top to pay for a casket for a poor little Iraqi baby killed at a checkpoint.
Still, there are compensations, aren't there? Some of those soldier chaps look awfully fit, don’t they? I wouldn't mind one of them sticking their rifles into my tent on a cold desert night. Makes it all worthwhile. Almost.
Actually, it makes my blood boil, and being so facetious is the only way I have of keeping sane. I am agin this war, and the more it goes on the more blooming narked I become. If it weren't for the dry martinis, I think I'd have gone overboard.
Three cheers for George Galloway!
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard:
The bureaucrats never sleep. Many over Europe will be regarding with envy those Iraqis who are now preparing to embrace their liberators. When will the Americans fly into the main cities of the EU to liberate them, they will be wondering? For, if Tony Blair and his friends in the Council of Ministers have their way, the seldom-mentioned Directive C5 7863 (ii ) of the new European Constitution will actually make it a criminal offence to urinate within five hundred metres of an abattoir.
Of course, this is all being carefully presented as a health measure, but these Eurodirectives have a way of getting under the skin and upsetting a way of life settled for decades. On Continental Europe no one ever pays a blind bit of notice to them. But in Britain? If only.
Boris Johnson:
"Blair's played a blinder, eh, Boris?"
No, this wasn't just another comment from some New Labour lickspittle. No, this came from a former minister. A former Cabinet Minister. A former Tory Cabinet Minister. Well, it even stopped me in my tracks.
But think again, old chum. The way I see I, this is the apex. There's only one way to go now, for old Tony, and that way is down. National Insurance has just gone up, the health service is in an even worse state than when we left it, sixty percent of all school-leavers are so illiterate they can't even read the instructions on their packets of condoms, and crime is not so much spiralling as sprawling. I can't even get insurance for my bicycle.
Zoe Heller:
You can't say Americans don't have a sense of humour. Specially New Yorkers. You'd think, only 18 months after 9/11, that they'd all be a bit sensitive about the subject, but the latest fad here, among the single girls I know who live in the Upper West Side, is spending the night with a male prostitute. And not just any guy. He has to look like Saddam Hussein. That's right. All my girlfriends want to have their evil way with the Evil One himself.
Yes, I know there are plenty of lookalikes out in Iraq, though I don't envy them one minute, but here in Manhattan, any greasy Arab with a thick walrus on his upper lip can earn up to 800 bucks a night, making love to his pick of some of the horniest girls this side of the Eastern Seaboard.
Talk about weapons of mass destruction! And it's not just five minutes of pash with the Great Dictator. No, we're talking the whole bang-shoot: torture chamber, rack, whips, and electric shock treatment. And that's just foreplay.
Sick, no? But done with a certain, ironic post-modern sensibility, I can't see the harm. On the other hand, I can't see the attraction, either. But each to his own. After all, I mentioned this to an old boyfriend of mine while we were having breakfast at Sardis the other day ( him five rashers of bacon, two eggs, four pieces of toast, me a lettuce and two tomatoes ), and he told me that while we'd been going out he used to taxi off every Thursday lunchtime to some lady down in the Bronx who used to dress up as Imelda Marcos and stomp all over him in gold-plated stilettos. No wonder I dumped him.
WF Deedes:
People talk a lot of tosh about chemical weapons. I remember, back in 1915, when I first came across the wretched stuff. This was in the days before the internet and I, as a young cub reporter, had to send my missives from the front line back to the Telegraph by carrier pigeon.
I was especially fond of dear old Dolores. Anyway, it was a dull day at Ypres and I'd just penned some ramblings about how dashed boring war can be, and stuck it into the metal ring on Dolores' foot. I managed to persuade Bunny Grosvenor, who was a freelance stenographer working for the Port Merion Evening Gazette, to take the pigeon off into no man's land to give her a good send-off. Well, five minutes after Bunny had strolled off there came a plume of yellow gas. At first we all thought it was something he'd been smoking, maybe picked up from one of the dens in Shanghai he used to frequent. But take a deep breath of it! Let's just put it this way: you didn't want to have eaten your lunch just beforehand.
Still, it didn't do me any lasting damage. And I'm sure our young people, all very robust and with far better diets than we ever had, will be able to take it well.
Janet Daley:
This is almost certainly the end. And it isn't just Saddam Hussein who is quaking in his boots. No, Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Shroeder, and Chris Patten are all, in their various differing ways, finished. The UN, the EU, the BBC and all the rest in the alphabet soup of liberal democracy are stewing in the cesspit of compassion, the flailing remnants of the permissive society which, formed during the Sixties - that pernicious decade that elevated peaceniks and pop singers to the status of gods - is finally drawing to its well-deserved death.
Irvine Welsh:
The only Chemical Ali I ever knew was a five foot two lad from the Gorbals, so unless he's thrown away his CND badge and converted to Islam I don't suppose it's his body the Coalition have found out in Basra in the stinking Iraqi desert. No, when I first met wee Alastair McTavish he'd just come back from a six week holiday in Morocco. I remember going round to his place for a cup of tea one afternoon, and the next thing I knew we were out on our mopeds, with Steppenwolf playing on our walkmans, half way to Edinburgh Castle. Cycledelic or what?
It took me another fortnight to get over the high but it was worth it. I hadn't felt that good since tearing down the goalposts at Wembley, and I wasn't to feel that good again until Tommy Sheridan got elected to the Scottish Parliament. The seventies, eh? What a time.
Anne Robinson:
Saddam Hussein, you're the weakest link. Goodbye.
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Monday, April 7
Incidentally, I forgot, but always try and link to this discussion between Richard Littlejohn and Will Self, whenever I mention the latter. I heard the last couple of minutes of it. Cracking radio. I actually think Self came out of it pretty well, as did Littlejohn who jumped in swinging punches from the first bell. Honours even, really. Maybe they should have a rematch.
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SAVING DEBORAH ORR
Starring Renee Zelwegger and Hugh Grant
She was a blonde bimbo, he was a lanky heroin abuser. But when Will Self realised that Deborah Orr was wasting her time writing recipes for the Bishops Stortford Citizen he knew he had to save her.
It's a thrill-a-minute high-octane testosterone-filled adrenalin rush about what really happens when you fall in love. Coming to a cinema near you, Soon.
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Starring Renee Zelwegger and Hugh Grant
She was a blonde bimbo, he was a lanky heroin abuser. But when Will Self realised that Deborah Orr was wasting her time writing recipes for the Bishops Stortford Citizen he knew he had to save her.
It's a thrill-a-minute high-octane testosterone-filled adrenalin rush about what really happens when you fall in love. Coming to a cinema near you, Soon.
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Friday, April 4
Sorry about the exiguous nature of my recent postings but I've been busy contemplating the future of western civilisation. Back on Monday.
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Wednesday, April 2
"Whenever I hear the drums of war I reach for Barbara Tuchman", Simon Jenkins reveals. Well, lucky old Babs, I say. Whenever I hear the drums of Simon Jenkins I reach for my sickbag.
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Tuesday, April 1
I guess it's that time of year. I think Hamish might prove more useful for sweeping for mines than the dolphins, anyway.
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Now, the third in an occasional series. I'm feeling lazy today, and seeing as I know so many of you live abroad and haven't subscribed to the Times I thought it might be time to bring you a taster of what they've given you this week. All this is yours, for a mere forty smackers a year. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you, the Times:
Matthew Parris:
I don't know if you're aware that both Cary Grant and Randolph Scott were gay. Further, they were gay together, as it were. Indeed they set up home together, and lived happily for years until studio pressure forced them both into taking part in preposterous, faked, heterosexual unions that kept their careers going while ruining their chances of personal happiness.
Cary Grant, you will remember, was the sophisticated, urbane Englishman. Yet in reality, he came from Bristol, and had a working-class upbringing and accent, both of which he assiduously tried to destroy in order to perpetuate his smooth image.
Randolph Scott, on the other hand, was the ruggedly handsome Texan cowboy. I don't know if they had elections for that sort of thing, back then in Hollywood. But if they did, I fancy Scott would have stolen it. He had that sort of way about him.
Why, I wonder, do I think of them both, when I think of Tony Blair, and George W. Bush?
Libby Purves:
We were told it would be over in a week. We were told that there would be no civilian casualties. We were told that the Iraqi people would rejoice when they saw the Allied troops entering their country, that the people would throw flowers over the tanks as they rolled down the motorways. We were lied to.
George W. Bush and his loyal poodle Tony Blair must have thought we were fools. And we were, because we believed them. Those of us who had reservations about this war, who thought that the inspections were, for all their faults, actually working, yet who decided, once the action had started, to keep their doubts to themselves, bite their tongues, and back the now laughably entitled 'Operation Iraqi Freedom', have been made out to look like gullible twits, whereas Robin Cook, Tam Dalyell and the Archbishop of Canterbury have been made to look like visionaries, people of profound moral stature.
Simon Jenkins:
This is not a sensible war. If Tony Blair knew anything of warfare, if indeed he knew anything about history, and more specifically the history of Mesopotamia, he would know this would be no cakewalk.
I did indeed warn him that the Iraqis would be no pushover. To say that they enjoy being persecuted would be an overstatement. No intelligent Iraqi enjoys seeing his baby have its eyes plucked out without an anaesthetic. And few of the peasantry would walk willingly into a plastic-shredding machine with any degree of equanimity. But the fierce, nationalistic spirit that we now witness fighting against the Western Coalition with such resolve has been severely underestimated by the Bush regime, who are ruled, remember, by a man who can't eat a pretzel and watch television at the same time.
Meanwhile, the one man who is enjoying this the most, is sitting in front of a video camera in a cave with his cohorts, planning his latest message to the rest of the Arab Street. I refer of course, to Osama Bin Laden.
Mary Ann Sieghart:
This is the nightmare scenario.
Remember him when he first walked into Downing Street? Smiling, bushy-haired and bushy-tailed, with a young family and guitar. Now, Tony Blair appears gaunt, his features chiselled, ashen-faced, his cheeks sunken in, his brow furrowed, his hair greying when it is not receding; this war, and its attendant difficulties have aged him fast. Senior colleagues tells me he lost at least a stone since it started and can hardly sleep, staying up into the early hours, flicking aimlessly between the news channels, a glass of Dewer's whiskey in front of him, hoping against hope for a phone call from across the Atlantic telling him that Baghdad has finally fallen.
Indeed one cabinet minister, who preferred not to be named, grabbed me by the water cooler the other day and told me that things were now so bad that, ever since the Prime Minister had failed to secure a second UN resolution, that he has not even been able to perform his marital duties. And when that happens Cherie gets angry, and believe me, I was assured, 'You don’t want to be near the crockery when that happens'.
This is a Prime Minister standing on the very threshold of the abyss.
William Rees-Mogg:
I think that the time has come to appraise the military situation. It looks to me that the difficult part is now almost over. With the troops a mere fifty miles from Baghdad, I predict, indeed expect, the war to be concluded within a fortnight. However, I would hope that this does not mean that the Allies have fully ruled out the prospect of opening up its rich nuclear arsenal. At this stage in the conflict, a carefully targeted nuclear strike on Baghdad would finally finish off the small pockets of resistance that lie in caves and crawl on rooftops, and might very well kill off the Arab tiger once and for all.
Of course this would be an act rife with potential pitfalls. Aside from the nuclear fallout, which would indeed be immense, there would also be the political fallout. What would Jacques Chirac think? How would the Russians react? What about the UN? Would this not come into conflict with the august aims of the Geneva Convention? Possibly, but it would also contain the element of surprise, and prove, once and for all, that George W. Bush, who I know intimately, means business.
India Knight:
This is no liberation. Liberation for me was the Sixties. Walking down Carnaby Street in a miniskirt, with the Beatles on the tranny, while blokes on building sites gave you a wolf whistle. Sexist? Sure. But at least it was fun.
What's going on in Iraq is not fun. Being shot at by a bloodthirsty Yank is not my idea of fun. Sitting in a market in Baghdad nursing a baby whose eyes have been eviscerated by a pair of cruise missiles, personally autographed by George W. Bush? That's not much fun, either.
These people aren't terrorists. They're errorists. They made a mistake. So? Does that mean they deserve to die? Hasn't George Bush ever made a mistake? Hasn't Tony 'Millennium Dome' Blair ever made a mistake? Look at our health service, our schools and our roads.
And to those who say, yes, war is terrible, but what is the alternative? I say to you: Yes, there is an alternative. Peace is the alternative! Caring is the alternative! Food is the alternative! Jobs are the alternative!
Mick Hume:
If there is one thing more pathetic than the sight of those weary, oh so 1980s peaceniks wandering through Oxford Street with their stupid, self-advertising slogans - Not In My Name, indeed - then it is the war-mongerers. Those armchair generals, sitting at home, watching Sky News, and cheering all the while as plucky little Tommy and GI Joe blow seven shades of faecal matter out of the desperately underarmed Iraqis.
What a feeble, inadequate nation this is: Britain, in all its post-imperial, post-Diana emotionalism. A clapped-out washed-out country of victims and losers, caught between the socialist platitudes of the European ideal, and the fatuous cowboys now in control of the White House.
Why doesn't everyone just grow up?
Anatole Kaletsky:
I hold no brief for Saddam Hussein. The Butcher of Baghdad, the man who has killed more of his own people than anyone since Pol Pot has few defenders. But then again, neither do I hold any brief for George W. Bush. That is a man, in case you had forgotten, who, with the help of seven quisling Supreme Court justices, stole the election from Albert Gore, and who has since embarked on a trade war with Europe. He has alienated our closest allies France, cut US taxes to the point that the whole economy is in freefall, and walked roughshod over civil liberties to the extent that the few who dare to raise their head above the parapets, like Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky, have had to move to Canada.
Patience Wheatcroft:
Robin Cook and Clare Short make an improbable dream ticket. The former is the forensically-intelligent, if pulchritudinously-challenged ex-foreign secretary. The latter is the warm-hearted Brummie lass who speaks from the heart. And yet their combination of coldness and charisma, principle and opportunism, intelligence and stupidity could prove the ideal antidote to the Blair-Brown partnership that has run this country with such efficiency these past six years. And, if the unthinkable happened, and Labour panicked and ousted the Blair-Brown twosome from their perch, then both Robin and Clare are well-placed to succeed them.
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Matthew Parris:
I don't know if you're aware that both Cary Grant and Randolph Scott were gay. Further, they were gay together, as it were. Indeed they set up home together, and lived happily for years until studio pressure forced them both into taking part in preposterous, faked, heterosexual unions that kept their careers going while ruining their chances of personal happiness.
Cary Grant, you will remember, was the sophisticated, urbane Englishman. Yet in reality, he came from Bristol, and had a working-class upbringing and accent, both of which he assiduously tried to destroy in order to perpetuate his smooth image.
Randolph Scott, on the other hand, was the ruggedly handsome Texan cowboy. I don't know if they had elections for that sort of thing, back then in Hollywood. But if they did, I fancy Scott would have stolen it. He had that sort of way about him.
Why, I wonder, do I think of them both, when I think of Tony Blair, and George W. Bush?
Libby Purves:
We were told it would be over in a week. We were told that there would be no civilian casualties. We were told that the Iraqi people would rejoice when they saw the Allied troops entering their country, that the people would throw flowers over the tanks as they rolled down the motorways. We were lied to.
George W. Bush and his loyal poodle Tony Blair must have thought we were fools. And we were, because we believed them. Those of us who had reservations about this war, who thought that the inspections were, for all their faults, actually working, yet who decided, once the action had started, to keep their doubts to themselves, bite their tongues, and back the now laughably entitled 'Operation Iraqi Freedom', have been made out to look like gullible twits, whereas Robin Cook, Tam Dalyell and the Archbishop of Canterbury have been made to look like visionaries, people of profound moral stature.
Simon Jenkins:
This is not a sensible war. If Tony Blair knew anything of warfare, if indeed he knew anything about history, and more specifically the history of Mesopotamia, he would know this would be no cakewalk.
I did indeed warn him that the Iraqis would be no pushover. To say that they enjoy being persecuted would be an overstatement. No intelligent Iraqi enjoys seeing his baby have its eyes plucked out without an anaesthetic. And few of the peasantry would walk willingly into a plastic-shredding machine with any degree of equanimity. But the fierce, nationalistic spirit that we now witness fighting against the Western Coalition with such resolve has been severely underestimated by the Bush regime, who are ruled, remember, by a man who can't eat a pretzel and watch television at the same time.
Meanwhile, the one man who is enjoying this the most, is sitting in front of a video camera in a cave with his cohorts, planning his latest message to the rest of the Arab Street. I refer of course, to Osama Bin Laden.
Mary Ann Sieghart:
This is the nightmare scenario.
Remember him when he first walked into Downing Street? Smiling, bushy-haired and bushy-tailed, with a young family and guitar. Now, Tony Blair appears gaunt, his features chiselled, ashen-faced, his cheeks sunken in, his brow furrowed, his hair greying when it is not receding; this war, and its attendant difficulties have aged him fast. Senior colleagues tells me he lost at least a stone since it started and can hardly sleep, staying up into the early hours, flicking aimlessly between the news channels, a glass of Dewer's whiskey in front of him, hoping against hope for a phone call from across the Atlantic telling him that Baghdad has finally fallen.
Indeed one cabinet minister, who preferred not to be named, grabbed me by the water cooler the other day and told me that things were now so bad that, ever since the Prime Minister had failed to secure a second UN resolution, that he has not even been able to perform his marital duties. And when that happens Cherie gets angry, and believe me, I was assured, 'You don’t want to be near the crockery when that happens'.
This is a Prime Minister standing on the very threshold of the abyss.
William Rees-Mogg:
I think that the time has come to appraise the military situation. It looks to me that the difficult part is now almost over. With the troops a mere fifty miles from Baghdad, I predict, indeed expect, the war to be concluded within a fortnight. However, I would hope that this does not mean that the Allies have fully ruled out the prospect of opening up its rich nuclear arsenal. At this stage in the conflict, a carefully targeted nuclear strike on Baghdad would finally finish off the small pockets of resistance that lie in caves and crawl on rooftops, and might very well kill off the Arab tiger once and for all.
Of course this would be an act rife with potential pitfalls. Aside from the nuclear fallout, which would indeed be immense, there would also be the political fallout. What would Jacques Chirac think? How would the Russians react? What about the UN? Would this not come into conflict with the august aims of the Geneva Convention? Possibly, but it would also contain the element of surprise, and prove, once and for all, that George W. Bush, who I know intimately, means business.
India Knight:
This is no liberation. Liberation for me was the Sixties. Walking down Carnaby Street in a miniskirt, with the Beatles on the tranny, while blokes on building sites gave you a wolf whistle. Sexist? Sure. But at least it was fun.
What's going on in Iraq is not fun. Being shot at by a bloodthirsty Yank is not my idea of fun. Sitting in a market in Baghdad nursing a baby whose eyes have been eviscerated by a pair of cruise missiles, personally autographed by George W. Bush? That's not much fun, either.
These people aren't terrorists. They're errorists. They made a mistake. So? Does that mean they deserve to die? Hasn't George Bush ever made a mistake? Hasn't Tony 'Millennium Dome' Blair ever made a mistake? Look at our health service, our schools and our roads.
And to those who say, yes, war is terrible, but what is the alternative? I say to you: Yes, there is an alternative. Peace is the alternative! Caring is the alternative! Food is the alternative! Jobs are the alternative!
Mick Hume:
If there is one thing more pathetic than the sight of those weary, oh so 1980s peaceniks wandering through Oxford Street with their stupid, self-advertising slogans - Not In My Name, indeed - then it is the war-mongerers. Those armchair generals, sitting at home, watching Sky News, and cheering all the while as plucky little Tommy and GI Joe blow seven shades of faecal matter out of the desperately underarmed Iraqis.
What a feeble, inadequate nation this is: Britain, in all its post-imperial, post-Diana emotionalism. A clapped-out washed-out country of victims and losers, caught between the socialist platitudes of the European ideal, and the fatuous cowboys now in control of the White House.
Why doesn't everyone just grow up?
Anatole Kaletsky:
I hold no brief for Saddam Hussein. The Butcher of Baghdad, the man who has killed more of his own people than anyone since Pol Pot has few defenders. But then again, neither do I hold any brief for George W. Bush. That is a man, in case you had forgotten, who, with the help of seven quisling Supreme Court justices, stole the election from Albert Gore, and who has since embarked on a trade war with Europe. He has alienated our closest allies France, cut US taxes to the point that the whole economy is in freefall, and walked roughshod over civil liberties to the extent that the few who dare to raise their head above the parapets, like Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky, have had to move to Canada.
Patience Wheatcroft:
Robin Cook and Clare Short make an improbable dream ticket. The former is the forensically-intelligent, if pulchritudinously-challenged ex-foreign secretary. The latter is the warm-hearted Brummie lass who speaks from the heart. And yet their combination of coldness and charisma, principle and opportunism, intelligence and stupidity could prove the ideal antidote to the Blair-Brown partnership that has run this country with such efficiency these past six years. And, if the unthinkable happened, and Labour panicked and ousted the Blair-Brown twosome from their perch, then both Robin and Clare are well-placed to succeed them.
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Monday, March 31
And if you don't believe me, here's a Telegraph leader on Cook. And here's one from the Times; both are even more critical than I am. And the Sun don't like him neither.
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Sunday, March 30
Robin Cook, on the other hand, has finally lost it. The former Foreign Secretary and current Garden Gnome thinks our Boys should pull out now.
"This was meant to be a quick, easy war. Shortly before I resigned a Cabinet colleague told me not to worry about the political fall-out".
Well if he believed him then Cook should never have been in the Cabinet, not even to dish out the sandwiches.
"The war would be finished long before polling day for the May local elections".
It still might be. The war is only ten days gone and Robin the chicken is already fluttering around the coop like the fox is prowling around outside, instead of stuck in a bunker with half his arm blown away. I suppose this is how Cookie justified poking his secretary while his wife stayed home, peeling the potatoes: 'It isn't really adultery if it's over in thirty seconds'.
"I just hope those who expected a quick victory are proved right. I have already had my fill of this bloody and unnecessary war. I want our troops home and I want them home before more of them are killed".
It ain't going to happen, Cookie Monster.
"It is OK for Bush to say the war will go on for as long as it takes. He is sitting pretty in the comfort of Camp David protected by scores of security men to keep him safe".
As opposed to Robin, who lives in a tent.
So this is Cookie's Heseltine moment. Unfortunately, he lacks Hezza's subtlety and panache. His argument isn't so much anti this war as anti all war. So he's redicovered his CND roots. Well, that may salve his conscience for sending troops into Kosovo without a UN mandate but it will do damn all for his electoral prospects. As a Tory I'd be delighted if he replaced Blair, but not even the numbskulls who make up so much of the Labour rank and file membership would be dumb enough to vote for a yellowbelly.
The guy's finished.
UPDATE: Well I said he was finished, but I didn't think he'd change his mind this quickly. Who does he think he is, Clare Short? Now, less than twenty-four hours after throwing up the white towel, Cook issues a statement to clarify matters:
"Now that the war has started it's vital that it ends in victory. There could be no worse outcome than one that lets Saddam Hussein survive".
An amazing turnaround, even for this chameleon. Clear as mud, eh?
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"This was meant to be a quick, easy war. Shortly before I resigned a Cabinet colleague told me not to worry about the political fall-out".
Well if he believed him then Cook should never have been in the Cabinet, not even to dish out the sandwiches.
"The war would be finished long before polling day for the May local elections".
It still might be. The war is only ten days gone and Robin the chicken is already fluttering around the coop like the fox is prowling around outside, instead of stuck in a bunker with half his arm blown away. I suppose this is how Cookie justified poking his secretary while his wife stayed home, peeling the potatoes: 'It isn't really adultery if it's over in thirty seconds'.
"I just hope those who expected a quick victory are proved right. I have already had my fill of this bloody and unnecessary war. I want our troops home and I want them home before more of them are killed".
It ain't going to happen, Cookie Monster.
"It is OK for Bush to say the war will go on for as long as it takes. He is sitting pretty in the comfort of Camp David protected by scores of security men to keep him safe".
As opposed to Robin, who lives in a tent.
So this is Cookie's Heseltine moment. Unfortunately, he lacks Hezza's subtlety and panache. His argument isn't so much anti this war as anti all war. So he's redicovered his CND roots. Well, that may salve his conscience for sending troops into Kosovo without a UN mandate but it will do damn all for his electoral prospects. As a Tory I'd be delighted if he replaced Blair, but not even the numbskulls who make up so much of the Labour rank and file membership would be dumb enough to vote for a yellowbelly.
The guy's finished.
UPDATE: Well I said he was finished, but I didn't think he'd change his mind this quickly. Who does he think he is, Clare Short? Now, less than twenty-four hours after throwing up the white towel, Cook issues a statement to clarify matters:
"Now that the war has started it's vital that it ends in victory. There could be no worse outcome than one that lets Saddam Hussein survive".
An amazing turnaround, even for this chameleon. Clear as mud, eh?
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Some people are born pillocks, and some people have pillock thrust upon them. Matthew Parris, I am sure, is the latter. His besetting problem, I reckon, is always wanting to be ahead of the pack. This isn't helped by the more practical problem of having to write too much. If he only had one column a week, I can't believe he would waste it on nonsense like this.
The thrust of it is that Our Tone is ''unhinged'. Well I've been a bit of a critic of the PM in the past, but this is going too far.
"Mr Blair has stopped sounding like a career politician. He has lost the professional polish of a man doing a job, and developed that fierce, quiet intensity which, from long experience of dealing with mad constituents, I know that the slightly cracked share with the genuinely convinced. He has lost his feel for whom to confront, or when and where, and puts himself into situations (like the slow handclapping by anti-war women) which do not assist his case. Historians may point to Mr Blair’s private — but publicised — audience with the Pope as an early sign of a dawning unrealism about the perceptions of others. Did he this week stop for a moment to think what impression would be made on grieving parents by his wild-eyed suggestion (based on misinformation) that two British soldiers had been executed by the Iraqis in cold blood?"
Okay, so he's stressed. And when stressed he bullshits. So what's new?
"He keeps retreating into a hopeless, desperate optimism: another sign of lunacy. He seems to have promised the Americans he could deliver Europe, and told the Europeans he could tame America. There was scant ground for hope on the first score and none on the second. The belief that irreconcilables can be reconciled by one’s personal contacts and powers of persuasion is a familiar delusion among people who are not quite right in the head".
Yes, but he's always done that. You can say he was always mad, but I think it's absurd to say he's mad now. Still, I dare say if I had this many columns to fill I'd come up with crap like this sooner or later.
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The thrust of it is that Our Tone is ''unhinged'. Well I've been a bit of a critic of the PM in the past, but this is going too far.
"Mr Blair has stopped sounding like a career politician. He has lost the professional polish of a man doing a job, and developed that fierce, quiet intensity which, from long experience of dealing with mad constituents, I know that the slightly cracked share with the genuinely convinced. He has lost his feel for whom to confront, or when and where, and puts himself into situations (like the slow handclapping by anti-war women) which do not assist his case. Historians may point to Mr Blair’s private — but publicised — audience with the Pope as an early sign of a dawning unrealism about the perceptions of others. Did he this week stop for a moment to think what impression would be made on grieving parents by his wild-eyed suggestion (based on misinformation) that two British soldiers had been executed by the Iraqis in cold blood?"
Okay, so he's stressed. And when stressed he bullshits. So what's new?
"He keeps retreating into a hopeless, desperate optimism: another sign of lunacy. He seems to have promised the Americans he could deliver Europe, and told the Europeans he could tame America. There was scant ground for hope on the first score and none on the second. The belief that irreconcilables can be reconciled by one’s personal contacts and powers of persuasion is a familiar delusion among people who are not quite right in the head".
Yes, but he's always done that. You can say he was always mad, but I think it's absurd to say he's mad now. Still, I dare say if I had this many columns to fill I'd come up with crap like this sooner or later.
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Friday, March 28
Of course, it would help if the comments section actually worked occasionally. If you don't know the answer you'll just have to be patient.
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WARNING
There now follows a joke.
Q. What time does Saddam have his dinner?
Answer is in the comments section.
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There now follows a joke.
Q. What time does Saddam have his dinner?
Answer is in the comments section.
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Today Richard Littlejohn tears into our useless police force, the useless BBC, and the Salford Shi’ite. I found the story on the cops arresting someone for performing a citizen's arrest particularly interesting. I wonder what would have happened had someone performed a citizen's arrest on them. We could have all joined in.
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This guy, the most arrogant person I have ever met, has died. I'm almost delighted to discover that he wrote a film that blighted my childhood, "The Best Pair of Legs in the Business", starring Reg Varney as 'an ageing holiday camp drag artist', it says here. Oh, how we laughed. Not.
I was a surly teenage then, and it didn't do much for my complexion or temper. I have instant recall for its mesmerising humourlessness. It also had a bloodcurdlingly sentimental ending. Foolishly, I denounced 'Love, Honour and Obey' as the worst film ever a few weeks back. But that disaster didn't send me into therapy, feng shui, and colonic irrigation. Also, I've never watched more than twenty consecutive seconds of Emmerdale, which considering that I have watched Eastenders, Coronation Street, Family Affairs, and even the odd five minutes of Home and Away must mean that my subconscious has still to excise the trauma. Maybe, now that he has gone off to that great Soap Opera in the sky, I shall live a serene and happy life. But I doubt it.
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I was a surly teenage then, and it didn't do much for my complexion or temper. I have instant recall for its mesmerising humourlessness. It also had a bloodcurdlingly sentimental ending. Foolishly, I denounced 'Love, Honour and Obey' as the worst film ever a few weeks back. But that disaster didn't send me into therapy, feng shui, and colonic irrigation. Also, I've never watched more than twenty consecutive seconds of Emmerdale, which considering that I have watched Eastenders, Coronation Street, Family Affairs, and even the odd five minutes of Home and Away must mean that my subconscious has still to excise the trauma. Maybe, now that he has gone off to that great Soap Opera in the sky, I shall live a serene and happy life. But I doubt it.
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Now I know why some were taken in by my mockery. Check this out from the Telegraph of all places.
"This is a man's war - for the moment"
says Alice Thomson.
"The Afghan war was the mother of all wars. It was very feminine; all about burqas, saving women from being brutalised by the Taliban, liberating little girls to go to school, letting widows work and teenagers wear make-up.
The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan urged feminists to help their cause. The war, with the help of Cherie Blair, became a mission to replace the Taliban with a regime where women weren't flogged to death for showing an ankle and children weren't left to die in refugee camps.
It was an emotional war. Pictures of American widows who had given birth months after September 11 shared space with images of Afghan mothers and babies crossing treacherous mountain paths. There were more female reporters. GMTV's Lara Logan discussed her make-up regime on the front line. In Kabul, American Vogue has sponsored a beauty school. A nail bar has sprung up.
A week into the second Gulf war and it is already clear that this is a man's war. The jargon is about pushing and thrusting, conversation revolves around weapons and gadgets, graphics and maps. Men debate whether they've just seen the biggest tank battle since the Second World War. Max Hastings writes about how this is a Boys' Own war.
How can you parody that?
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"This is a man's war - for the moment"
says Alice Thomson.
"The Afghan war was the mother of all wars. It was very feminine; all about burqas, saving women from being brutalised by the Taliban, liberating little girls to go to school, letting widows work and teenagers wear make-up.
The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan urged feminists to help their cause. The war, with the help of Cherie Blair, became a mission to replace the Taliban with a regime where women weren't flogged to death for showing an ankle and children weren't left to die in refugee camps.
It was an emotional war. Pictures of American widows who had given birth months after September 11 shared space with images of Afghan mothers and babies crossing treacherous mountain paths. There were more female reporters. GMTV's Lara Logan discussed her make-up regime on the front line. In Kabul, American Vogue has sponsored a beauty school. A nail bar has sprung up.
A week into the second Gulf war and it is already clear that this is a man's war. The jargon is about pushing and thrusting, conversation revolves around weapons and gadgets, graphics and maps. Men debate whether they've just seen the biggest tank battle since the Second World War. Max Hastings writes about how this is a Boys' Own war.
How can you parody that?
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I've always had an off-on relationship with feminism, switching between condescending bemusement and outright contempt. This straddles the two. No, this is not a spoof!
"I do peace work".
Claims Mary Ann Maggiore, a 'history professor'.
"I organize groups against war. My grandmother did a different kind of "piece work". She sewed buttons on dresses in a factory. A penny a button, 1200 buttons a week for $12.00. She supported a family of four. She was a proud card carrying member of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. Because she did what she did, I have the privilege to do what I do.
I see clearly that I stand upon the shoulders of the women, including my grandmother, who went before me. Tonight I want to give a salute to some of them".
Yeah, me too. Now go polish your nails, floozy.
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"I do peace work".
Claims Mary Ann Maggiore, a 'history professor'.
"I organize groups against war. My grandmother did a different kind of "piece work". She sewed buttons on dresses in a factory. A penny a button, 1200 buttons a week for $12.00. She supported a family of four. She was a proud card carrying member of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. Because she did what she did, I have the privilege to do what I do.
I see clearly that I stand upon the shoulders of the women, including my grandmother, who went before me. Tonight I want to give a salute to some of them".
Yeah, me too. Now go polish your nails, floozy.
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Baghdad will be near impossible to conquer
Simon Jenkins explains. In which case I imagine it will have fallen by Monday.
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Simon Jenkins explains. In which case I imagine it will have fallen by Monday.
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Thursday, March 27
By the way, the previous post was a spoof. I did one last week on the Guardian, and thought it would be fairly obvious. I don't think even Joan Smith would be quite so crass as that, and as for Yazza... well, maybe.
Busy today, back tomorrow.
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Busy today, back tomorrow.
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Wednesday, March 26
And now, the Indy:
Joan Smith:
It's boys' time again. Boys and their toys. Boys and their weapons. We have B52s, MOABs, WMDs, and a whole lot of BS. Am I the only one to be sickened by the acronyms that act as duct tape for the bombs, the guns, the bullets and the death camps? It's not as if it's the men who suffer, who are the chief victims of this illegal war. It is, as always, the women. It's the women who are at the forefront of all the bloodshed, it's the women who have to carry the can and take the flak. Men built those rockets, those bombs, and the aeroplanes, but it is the women who lick the wounds, who wipe away the tears.
Terence Blacker:
These are difficult times for the liberal. For the conservative, the choice is easy. On the one hand there is George W. Bush, the illegitimately-elected, gun-toting, prisoner-executing bible-bashing oil guzzler from Texas. On the other hand their Saddam Hussain, the western-sponsored socialist who only ever wanted what was best for his people. For the liberal, for whom every issue has a millions shades of grey, there are the nuances, there is indeed, complexity.
Deborah Orr:
I remember May 1st, 1997 as if it were yesterday. Eighteen years of discredited Conservative rule. Was I naïve? But when I voted New Labour that day I wanted the government to build hospitals, not destroy them. I wanted it to look after the poor, the vulnerable and the disenfranchised. Not to bomb them. I voted Labour that day, and cheered when Portillo lost his seat at Enfield. I drank champagne at the dawning of a new era in British Politics of honesty and decency. And I have defended them stoutly. I have written a hundred articles proclaiming my faith in the Project, while the cynics said it would all blow up in my face. I was wrong. The cynics were right. For now, at last, the brutal, Stalinist mask of New Labour has been exposed for what it is: Blair, Bush's poodle, is in fact a Thatcher in sheep's clothing.
Adrian Hamilton:
America is a country divided. Check the latest polls. Yet if you were to venture to any of the universities, visit any campus and the scene is the same. I have lost count of the number of effigies of Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore I have seen being burned. For this is the crushing of dissent. Americans are a paranoid, conformist nation. Much as they pride themselves on their supposed belief in diversity and the individual they are the champions of consumerism and the two-minute culture. This is the MTV generation, stupid, unquestioning, moronic. I am not anti-American - the easy glib retort by that is repeated parrot-fashion whenever one raises these issues - no, I love America, and I hate to see what this wretched war is doing to its people.
Natasha Walter:
This is no computer game played by a sulky teenager in the privacy of his bedroom. This is the obscenity of war, the hideous, ghastly pornography of carnage. We call ourselves civilised. But who is the more civilised here? People who live huddled together in caves, chopping of the hands of thieves and lopping off the heads of adulterous women, or those westerners who live comfortable, empty lives, surrounded by stereos and widescreen televisions?
Yet you'd never know from reading the papers or from watching the news, but there are other atrocities going on in the world. By the time you finish reading this sentence five Afghani children will have died of cholera, three of smallpox, and two of child abuse: the rest will have been blow to smithereens by the so-called dust-cropper bombs.
Philip Hensher:
It is eighteen months now since September 11th. How the world has changed. America had a chance that day to unite the world. Instead it has sacrificed all the world's sympathy, squandered that support. Now, any hesitant suggestion that all is not right with the Bush regime is met with a howl of outrage reminiscent of McCarthyism at its worst. Fratboy George W. Bush and that grinning bible-basher Tony Blair have led us a homoerotic dance, and now we are playing the tango.
Robert Fisk:
In spite of what the supine western media will tell you, life carries on in Baghdad very much as normal. Yes, there is the acrid, all-pervasive odour of stinking corpses, yes, there are the government buildings turned into a cocktail of rubble and molten glass, smoking like factories smelting iron in nineteenth century Lancashire, but still cars drive down the motorways, secretaries stand outside offices smoking cigarettes, and life, one way or the other, carries on.
Yesterday, I strode down my local street, and stumbled across a bar Mitzvah. This is not something you will see on Fox News, let alone the BBC, but believe me, there are plenty of Jews living here, happily rubbing along with their Muslim neighbours. This is the reality of modern day Baghdad.
Walk down another street, and there amidst the panoply of death I find a mother cradling a baby, long since dead, his face completely blown away by American cruise missiles. The rotting charred remains of the burnt carcases of a thousand Iraqi children fills the air.
There are no plastic-cutting factories in Baghdad, believe me, I have looked. I've been coming here for over forty years and the idea that the warehouses here are secret factories storing chemical weapons is too laughable to be taken seriously. But George Bush wanted this filthy, dirty war, and by God I hope he is happy now.
Donald MacIntyre:
Let us now consider the role that Jacques Chirac and the rest of the European Union might play in the post war reconstruction of Iraq. There are those who think that, merely because Chirac may have slightly overplayed his hand in the recent stand-off with Blair and Bush that he is dead in the water, a failed frog boiling away in the pan, ignorant of the ever-increasing temperature. But in the coming months that will be put in the right context, for there are bigger things at stake. In particular, what kind of electoral system will the Iraqis embrace, post-Saddam?
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown:
I am angry. You think you've seen me annoyed before? You don't know the half of it. And it isn't just me. I speak on behalf of all Britain's Muslims. People say to me, they stop me in the streets, and dare to ask how I can let my daughter stop going to school, and go on peace marches instead. Like I have any choice in the matter. Why, she knows more about what's going on than I do! People say that the young aren't interested in politics, that they are disenfranchised, disillusioned and apathetic. Well take a look at my daughter. Gone at last are the sensible shoes and blue skirt. Now she wears a combat jacket, she hasn't washed her hair in a fortnight, and has a tattoo on her backside saying 'Blix not Blair'.
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Joan Smith:
It's boys' time again. Boys and their toys. Boys and their weapons. We have B52s, MOABs, WMDs, and a whole lot of BS. Am I the only one to be sickened by the acronyms that act as duct tape for the bombs, the guns, the bullets and the death camps? It's not as if it's the men who suffer, who are the chief victims of this illegal war. It is, as always, the women. It's the women who are at the forefront of all the bloodshed, it's the women who have to carry the can and take the flak. Men built those rockets, those bombs, and the aeroplanes, but it is the women who lick the wounds, who wipe away the tears.
Terence Blacker:
These are difficult times for the liberal. For the conservative, the choice is easy. On the one hand there is George W. Bush, the illegitimately-elected, gun-toting, prisoner-executing bible-bashing oil guzzler from Texas. On the other hand their Saddam Hussain, the western-sponsored socialist who only ever wanted what was best for his people. For the liberal, for whom every issue has a millions shades of grey, there are the nuances, there is indeed, complexity.
Deborah Orr:
I remember May 1st, 1997 as if it were yesterday. Eighteen years of discredited Conservative rule. Was I naïve? But when I voted New Labour that day I wanted the government to build hospitals, not destroy them. I wanted it to look after the poor, the vulnerable and the disenfranchised. Not to bomb them. I voted Labour that day, and cheered when Portillo lost his seat at Enfield. I drank champagne at the dawning of a new era in British Politics of honesty and decency. And I have defended them stoutly. I have written a hundred articles proclaiming my faith in the Project, while the cynics said it would all blow up in my face. I was wrong. The cynics were right. For now, at last, the brutal, Stalinist mask of New Labour has been exposed for what it is: Blair, Bush's poodle, is in fact a Thatcher in sheep's clothing.
Adrian Hamilton:
America is a country divided. Check the latest polls. Yet if you were to venture to any of the universities, visit any campus and the scene is the same. I have lost count of the number of effigies of Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore I have seen being burned. For this is the crushing of dissent. Americans are a paranoid, conformist nation. Much as they pride themselves on their supposed belief in diversity and the individual they are the champions of consumerism and the two-minute culture. This is the MTV generation, stupid, unquestioning, moronic. I am not anti-American - the easy glib retort by that is repeated parrot-fashion whenever one raises these issues - no, I love America, and I hate to see what this wretched war is doing to its people.
Natasha Walter:
This is no computer game played by a sulky teenager in the privacy of his bedroom. This is the obscenity of war, the hideous, ghastly pornography of carnage. We call ourselves civilised. But who is the more civilised here? People who live huddled together in caves, chopping of the hands of thieves and lopping off the heads of adulterous women, or those westerners who live comfortable, empty lives, surrounded by stereos and widescreen televisions?
Yet you'd never know from reading the papers or from watching the news, but there are other atrocities going on in the world. By the time you finish reading this sentence five Afghani children will have died of cholera, three of smallpox, and two of child abuse: the rest will have been blow to smithereens by the so-called dust-cropper bombs.
Philip Hensher:
It is eighteen months now since September 11th. How the world has changed. America had a chance that day to unite the world. Instead it has sacrificed all the world's sympathy, squandered that support. Now, any hesitant suggestion that all is not right with the Bush regime is met with a howl of outrage reminiscent of McCarthyism at its worst. Fratboy George W. Bush and that grinning bible-basher Tony Blair have led us a homoerotic dance, and now we are playing the tango.
Robert Fisk:
In spite of what the supine western media will tell you, life carries on in Baghdad very much as normal. Yes, there is the acrid, all-pervasive odour of stinking corpses, yes, there are the government buildings turned into a cocktail of rubble and molten glass, smoking like factories smelting iron in nineteenth century Lancashire, but still cars drive down the motorways, secretaries stand outside offices smoking cigarettes, and life, one way or the other, carries on.
Yesterday, I strode down my local street, and stumbled across a bar Mitzvah. This is not something you will see on Fox News, let alone the BBC, but believe me, there are plenty of Jews living here, happily rubbing along with their Muslim neighbours. This is the reality of modern day Baghdad.
Walk down another street, and there amidst the panoply of death I find a mother cradling a baby, long since dead, his face completely blown away by American cruise missiles. The rotting charred remains of the burnt carcases of a thousand Iraqi children fills the air.
There are no plastic-cutting factories in Baghdad, believe me, I have looked. I've been coming here for over forty years and the idea that the warehouses here are secret factories storing chemical weapons is too laughable to be taken seriously. But George Bush wanted this filthy, dirty war, and by God I hope he is happy now.
Donald MacIntyre:
Let us now consider the role that Jacques Chirac and the rest of the European Union might play in the post war reconstruction of Iraq. There are those who think that, merely because Chirac may have slightly overplayed his hand in the recent stand-off with Blair and Bush that he is dead in the water, a failed frog boiling away in the pan, ignorant of the ever-increasing temperature. But in the coming months that will be put in the right context, for there are bigger things at stake. In particular, what kind of electoral system will the Iraqis embrace, post-Saddam?
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown:
I am angry. You think you've seen me annoyed before? You don't know the half of it. And it isn't just me. I speak on behalf of all Britain's Muslims. People say to me, they stop me in the streets, and dare to ask how I can let my daughter stop going to school, and go on peace marches instead. Like I have any choice in the matter. Why, she knows more about what's going on than I do! People say that the young aren't interested in politics, that they are disenfranchised, disillusioned and apathetic. Well take a look at my daughter. Gone at last are the sensible shoes and blue skirt. Now she wears a combat jacket, she hasn't washed her hair in a fortnight, and has a tattoo on her backside saying 'Blix not Blair'.
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Tuesday, March 25
I suppose there are two roads to travel for your average paxophile at the moment. One, you speak gobbledygook. Two, you go paranoid. I guess it's all just a matter of temperament. Take Archbishop Catweasel, who today has a column in the Times. Last week he was against the war. This week he's... Well I ain't got a clue. If you want to read several hundred words of evasive flimflammery, here's the place. It's full of 'We must do this' and 'we must do that' stuff, and concludes:
"We have to pray that the risks consciously undertaken will be less costly than some still fear; that relatively swift progress towards a settlement will follow. We must get on with addressing some of the underlying weaknesses and moral inconsistencies that have led us to a situation where our leaders have concluded that we have no alternative to war. We must not easily travel that road again".
Compare and contrast this with the eminent linguist Noam Chomsky. Reading between the lines, it appears that the great man has reservations.
"At this grim moment, we can do nothing to stop the ongoing invasion".
Why not? Get on board the peace train. Or become a human shield. Go for it, Noam.
"But that does not mean that the task is over for people who have some concern for justice, freedom, and human rights".
Indeed not. Noam is thinking long-term.
"As for the outcomes, it will be a long time before preliminary judgments can be made".
I wish people didn't write things like that.
"It is easy to go on, and important to think these matters through, with care and honesty".
I really wish people didn't write things like that.
"There are two ways for Washington to respond to the threats engendered by its actions and startling proclamations. One way is to try to alleviate the threats by paying some attention to legitimate grievances, and by agreeing to become a civilized member of a world community, with some respect for world order and its institutions. The other way is to construct even more awesome engines of destruction and domination, so that any perceived challenge, however remote, can be crushed – provoking new and greater challenges. That way poses serious dangers to the people of the US and the world, and may, very possibly, lead to extinction of the species - not an idle speculation".
Sounds like a preliminary judgment to me, that.
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"We have to pray that the risks consciously undertaken will be less costly than some still fear; that relatively swift progress towards a settlement will follow. We must get on with addressing some of the underlying weaknesses and moral inconsistencies that have led us to a situation where our leaders have concluded that we have no alternative to war. We must not easily travel that road again".
Compare and contrast this with the eminent linguist Noam Chomsky. Reading between the lines, it appears that the great man has reservations.
"At this grim moment, we can do nothing to stop the ongoing invasion".
Why not? Get on board the peace train. Or become a human shield. Go for it, Noam.
"But that does not mean that the task is over for people who have some concern for justice, freedom, and human rights".
Indeed not. Noam is thinking long-term.
"As for the outcomes, it will be a long time before preliminary judgments can be made".
I wish people didn't write things like that.
"It is easy to go on, and important to think these matters through, with care and honesty".
I really wish people didn't write things like that.
"There are two ways for Washington to respond to the threats engendered by its actions and startling proclamations. One way is to try to alleviate the threats by paying some attention to legitimate grievances, and by agreeing to become a civilized member of a world community, with some respect for world order and its institutions. The other way is to construct even more awesome engines of destruction and domination, so that any perceived challenge, however remote, can be crushed – provoking new and greater challenges. That way poses serious dangers to the people of the US and the world, and may, very possibly, lead to extinction of the species - not an idle speculation".
Sounds like a preliminary judgment to me, that.
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Monday, March 24
I know it's five days ago, and I never actually read it, but it seems that the day before war broke out the Guardian was actually advising Saddam Hussein to capitulate to those dastardly Americans.
"Iraq must surrender... It really has no other viable choice... Iraq's armies should simply lay down their arms... If plans exist to use chemical weapons, or torch the oil wells, or mount resistance under cover of civilian areas, or launch terror attacks, they should be aborted."
Did they really write this? Is this a spoof? Until Good Friday I have no way of knowing. However, the Sunday Telegraph is a paper of record, so I assume it really happened. Journalist Nigel Farndale expressed mild surprise at this, but one thing he misses out on is the mixed message this sends out to the Great Dictator. After all, if you were a much-misunderstood, some would say unfairly-maligned politician, recently returned to office by over 99% of your electorate, would you be happy to hand over your country to a bible-bashing, illegitimately-elected etc. etc. from Texas who is only after your oil? Or perhaps it was a brilliantly argued article, and that, by selective quotation, I, and for that matter Nigel too, have been outrageously unfair and exposed what was a superb piece of analysis to ridicule. In which case I apologise to the Guardian.
On the other hand, they must be mighty annoyed that such magnificent reasoning was ignored.
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"Iraq must surrender... It really has no other viable choice... Iraq's armies should simply lay down their arms... If plans exist to use chemical weapons, or torch the oil wells, or mount resistance under cover of civilian areas, or launch terror attacks, they should be aborted."
Did they really write this? Is this a spoof? Until Good Friday I have no way of knowing. However, the Sunday Telegraph is a paper of record, so I assume it really happened. Journalist Nigel Farndale expressed mild surprise at this, but one thing he misses out on is the mixed message this sends out to the Great Dictator. After all, if you were a much-misunderstood, some would say unfairly-maligned politician, recently returned to office by over 99% of your electorate, would you be happy to hand over your country to a bible-bashing, illegitimately-elected etc. etc. from Texas who is only after your oil? Or perhaps it was a brilliantly argued article, and that, by selective quotation, I, and for that matter Nigel too, have been outrageously unfair and exposed what was a superb piece of analysis to ridicule. In which case I apologise to the Guardian.
On the other hand, they must be mighty annoyed that such magnificent reasoning was ignored.
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Apparently Diego Maradona isn't a bloated has-been after all. In fact, he's a visionary foreign policy wonk. At least according to Hernan Etchaleco of Pravda, who confirms the former midfield dynamo's worst fears about the forthcoming US invasion of South America:
"According to analysts and several sources in the region, the new Washington's preventive war doctrine could be soon deployed in South America. The CIA and the Pentagon have two known targets and are currently working on them: Colombia and the "Triple Border" between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay".
I bow down to Senor Etchaleco's greater knowledge.
"Washington already has over 400 troops operating within the country. It is only a matter of time to see a larger force "securing" nation's natural resources".
I dare say there are a thousand Greyhound buses, poised on the Texas/Mexico border, just waiting for the greenlight from Washington.
Watch this space for further developments.
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"According to analysts and several sources in the region, the new Washington's preventive war doctrine could be soon deployed in South America. The CIA and the Pentagon have two known targets and are currently working on them: Colombia and the "Triple Border" between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay".
I bow down to Senor Etchaleco's greater knowledge.
"Washington already has over 400 troops operating within the country. It is only a matter of time to see a larger force "securing" nation's natural resources".
I dare say there are a thousand Greyhound buses, poised on the Texas/Mexico border, just waiting for the greenlight from Washington.
Watch this space for further developments.
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