Wikileaks, war and calling the kettle black?
The feverish activity across global news rooms to ferret out the best of the leaks from the morass of military material about the Afghan war disclosed on Wikileaks is continuing apace.
Undoubtedly, we are learning more of the scale, more of the mess that is military service in this war with its still indistinct concept of what “success” constitutes.
There is much finger pointing at military inaccuracy, secrecy, cover-up and the rest. But I find myself wondering how history will judge the media’s role.
Last year I reported a documentary entitled Gaza Unseen. We contrasted what the Arab TV world was transmitting of the Israeli invasion and what we were putting out.
Whilst Arab television was showing unexpurgated footage of the most appalling death, destruction, and maiming. We in Britain were subjected to much less body-strewn coverage.
Of course, the UK media is overseen by a regulatory system which is in place to ensure ”taste and decency”. Much war transcends all concepts of taste and decency. Indeed one could argue that by definition war can be both indecent and tasteless.
Indeed on such grounds my Gaza documentary had to be transmitted at 11.00 pm on Channel 4.
The other night I gave a talk at the Frontline Club and showed some reports I’d made in El Salvador and on the frontline of the Iran/Iraq war. There was a distinct awareness in the room that many of the images that were acceptable in 1981/2 might struggle to pass the “taste and decency” test today.
My concern is that we may be doing a little of what we are today accusing the military.
I have Snowblogged before about the sanitisation of war. Could the Afghan war be waged if the unexpurgated images were transmitted?
It has long been argued that World War One would never have lasted so long had the television age already dawned. The Afghan war has raged for nigh on twice the length.
Is there not a danger that what the military and the media have left out of our accounts might have served to shorten it?
Related posts:
- Was truth the first casualty in Gaza?
- Gaza journalists who defied Israel deserve their gongs
- Stephen Farrell and the lethal pursuit of truth
- Israel's workforce reflects security fears
- Calling time on the war on terror?
There are 63 comments on this post
If one of the by-products of the communications age were to be the unfeasibility of warfare, then that’s a pretty big positive for our future.
My peace-loving father was a conscript Desert Rat in WWII, in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, D-Day and through to Germany. He spoke willingly of all the funny experiences and cock-ups during that enforced 6-year gap in his life. Only when pressed would he open up about the volume of sheer horror he witnessed and became innured to by participation – he did not think the folk back home would believe what man could do to man under the guise of ‘honourable warfare’.
With channels such as Wikileaks, just as with the earlier TV coverage of Vietnam, the ‘folk back home’ are now getting an even fuller picture of what is done in their name. In mature Western democracies the conduct of wars should soon become unsustainable as a result.
The danger, of course, lies with less mature nations, unexposed yet to these channels of truth. If they continue to adopt warlike stances, but the democracies can no longer respond, what happens then ?
The difficullty in trying to predict what might have been if atrocities were shown on TV explicitly requires the population to get inside the heads of the sufferers. Frequent live images might consequently dull senses and emotional response.
In my career, I Have seen, throughout 40 years, horrific images of dismembered bodies, yet it is the grief of relatives and sufferers which still chokes me. Images of butchered people become like any other mammal visually.The cruelty and dissapointment in humanity which accompanies the butchery is the gut-wrenching twist in events.
Our supposed higher sentience is the measure we use to distinguish between decency and taste.I say ‘supposed’ as I am not convinced of human sentient superiority.
War poems , verbal accounts in the form of loved ones letters can effectively relay grotesque realities of war, films centered on real events can all add to visual impact.
Whether more gore would be a trigger to stop war is debatable.
That’s very interesting, Margaret. Just as we can’t understand billions of pounds but know how it feels not tobe able to pay a bill, it is hard to comprehend thousands of deaths. But the individual grief of a family whose children have become ‘collateral damage’ is easy for everyone to empathise with.
Perhaps what we need is the war-zone version of Michael Buerk’s famine reporting, or the kind of thing Jon was doing in Haiti.
I can never see the images of the ‘shock and awe’ firework spectacular at the start of the Iraq war without thinking how terrifying it must have been for everyone, especially chidren. And most of them had done nothing to warrent such an attack that left thousands dead or maimed.
Two planes flying into buildings into Manhattan had been made the excuse to bomb a whole city even though there was no link between the two.It was the response you expect from gangsters not leaders of the western world.
Perhaps if we had seen the reality the next day, witnessed the suffering, both physical and emotional, we would be taking more action to make sure our gung-ho politicians never acted like that again.
Jon, you’ll remember the chant “LBJ, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” which conributed to the ending of the USA’s campaign in Vietnam, after appalling images of napalmed children, and in particular one young girl running naked and screaming, her back on fire, towards the cameraman. That’s just what we need today. Not to saturation-point: just a few of our soldiers with their legs and testicles blown off, a few mangled Afghan children…
“Taste and decency”? A convenient cloak for the powers-that-be to suppress any perceived subversion of their futile and criminal policies.
No doubt any media outlet that disobeyed would be hit with a crippling fine “pour encourager les autres”, but something needs to be done.
I read cameraman Stuart Webb’s chilling blog tonight, after seeing Nick Paton Walsh’s excellently objective piece on C4 News. It was Sgt. Best saying in such a resigned, accepting way that after his four annual deployments nothing had changed except that now he had lost 8 friends, that gave the lie to the official propaganda and underlined the pointlessness. But you need imagination to flesh it all out. Pictures would do that instantly. “LBJ, LBJ ..”
You have a better chance of winning the lottery than seeing images like the famous napalm girl of the Vietnam war[ there was a film re her some years back - she still suffers - and I think lives in the USA now ] – or other images as u describe . The image of the Npalm burned girl togetehr with Tet was end of Vietnam war – the end of the media lies .
You express this situation so well.
How can the media claim to represent truths when it has to veil them?
I believe there would eventually be an end to the horrors that can’t be shown… if only we were witness to them.
Namaste,
Tina Lousie
“I believe there would eventually be an end to the horrors that can’t be shown… if only we were witness to them.”
I agree. It is the duty of the media to show war as it is and from all sides. These leaks, to my mind, are good just as anything that shows the establishment to be other than truthful is good.
How can invading Afghanistan/Iraq and killing thousands of innocent people make our streets safer? It’s a recipe for the opposite.
The problem is, every now and then a war comes along which does have to be fought. I very much doubt, for example, that the UK could have been provided with realistic reporting of Dunkirk or the Blitz, or the many strategic, political and military failures of 1938-41, without looking for a peace settlement. What would the world look like had they done so?
What would Dresden and most of mainland Europe have looked like had the British press had held ‘Bomber’ Harris to account for pursuing bloody revenge ahead of fighting to win the war?
Some wars are unavoidable, sometimes you have no choice but to defend yourself, sometimes you just can;t sit back and watch what is happening and not act. Journalist and politicians are relied on to make the case (for and against) war and for continuing it.
Had the reporting been better during WWI (and certainly during the armistice talks) we might never have had WWII.
Paul
I take your point but our polticians seem to have lost the ability to tell the difference between someone like Hitler, who presented a real threat by his actions as well as his words, and Saddam Hussain.
We had dealt with Hussain’s threat in the first Gulf War and while he was an evil man, oppressing his people, he was not alone in that. The Iraq war was GWB’s pet project,unneccessary and almost certainly illegal.
Afghanistan made sense at first when the objective was to try and track down the people who perpertrated 9/11 and destroy their camps. But all these years later we are mired in something completely different with no one apparently having any idea what the end will look like when it comes.
The people of London were not turned against the war even in the height of the blitz because they believed it was just; but in conflicts since from Vietnam to Iraq, there have been serious doubts about why they were being fought.
Peter and Sam make valid points, but the point I was trying to make was that the current style of journalism would not distinguish between a “just war” (if there is such a thing) and an “unjust war”. If the reporting focuses on individual tradgedy and the horrific effects of weaponry – ie the aspects which will provoke an immediate emotional response – then the “just war” and “unjust war” are indistinguishable.
In order to judge whether, say, Afghanistan is a “just” war, we have to consider whether the reasons we conduct it are legitimate (UN backing is a good test for this), whether the manner we conduct it is proportionate (military and civilian casualties reflect some progress towards “success”), and whether a stable political outcome that benefits the victims will result. There is a serious argument to be had about these issues, but images of casualties don’t contribute much to resolving it.
I find there are two main questions from the wikileaks on the Afghanistan war.Why are they publishing the leaks,and who initially leaked and for what purpose.
I can imagine the leaker , thinking that this war is wrong and here are a thousand reasons ,so i will let it go public .He/she has scant regard for those servicemen who are obeying orders and whose lives could be put at risk.So from a position of security leaks material that is detrimental to the allies war effort, irrespective of the consequences.That is not an argument against the leaks but just an observation , for i believe it is yet another war we should never have been involved in.
The wikileak people seem to have a different purpose .Judging by their spokesman , i believe an unemployed aussi,they neither have a moral cause nor a patriotic one .Could it be more sinister ,an anti coalition , pro Taliban or just an egotistic adventure of a group of computer geeks?
What a prejudiced mean-spirited response, Adrian – ‘unemployed aussi’. You seem unable to comprehend an approach to life which differs from your own. As the man once said: ‘Philosophers have only interpreted the world. The point is to change it’ – to which I would add ‘In order to do so, we need to understand and change ourselves’.
Memo to IT dept: waiting keenly for the ‘thumbs’!
Julian Assange an ‘unemployed aussie’?
I think his job title is something a little more along the lines of ‘journalist’ to be honest with you.
I don’t think Wikileaks are truly pro- or anti-anything, they’ve leaked on banks, American Govt., Businesses, African Govt. – aside from a respect for human rights and human life they are as neutral as it comes.
Wikileaks certainly are a group of computer geeks but that doesn’t preclude them from having lofty goals beyond ego and cyber-adventure. I am an IT professional and a computer geek and I have used those skills to defend things which I believe in, such as providing a conduit for information to get out of Iran during last year’s riots. I had a moral cause for that which I hope you can see.
As for a patriotic cause… think of the environment in which Wikileaks operates, the environment in which we are communicating now. The Internet doesn’t care what country you live in, it transcends national barriers – many people like me think in exactly the same way.
It says British on my passport, but I am an individual in one big world. The idea of nationhood or patriotism means nothing to me or, I suspect, the Wikileaks team.
What a prejudiced mean-spirited response, Adrian – ‘unemployed aussi’. You seem unable to comprehend an approach to life which differs from your own.
Meg,you may be right , but i hope you are not.I am not sure what you see as mean spirited.I am totally against the war in Afghanistan,as i was the war in Iraq.I also believe our leaders have a lot to answer for and that includes war crimes.I am just not sure that the leaks as they were released are the best way to do it .I favour a more controlled approach as in the Telegraphs reporting of MP’s expenses.
I fear that the way the wikileaks team have released the information is detrimental to all the coilition fighting men in the field.If as a result of this method of leaking we see an increase in militant activity both in the war zone and across our respective countries , whom will you blame for the information being in the public arena
I ditto Meg’s memo.
‘Mean-spirited’, Adrian, because you seem to attribute the worst of the leakers.
Re responsibility for any (further) increase in militant activity – an increase was already underway before the leaking.
Above should have read ‘attribute the worst to the leakers’.
Adrian’s wrong about Assange. But he’s not wrong about wikileaks. Wikileaks is not quite the noble whistle blower we’ve been lead to believe. Check out this interview with wikileaks co-founder John Young. Young runs a not-for profit site called http://www.cryptome.org which has been in operation for ages. He left wikileaks because it is a commercial organisation – the implication being that wikileaks do what they do in return for payment. Many believe the CIA is a principle customer. CNet is a reputable source of news for teh tech sector.
http://tiny.cc/mtfpj
These people aren’t there for our good – they are in business – I was absolutely disgusted to discover this.
NB bring back the thumbs.
It seems to me that it’s only in the last decade or so that broadcasters have begun giving a warning at the beginning of a programme or report that it may contain ‘upsetting scenes’. I remember being confronted by some grim shots unexpectedly in the past, including when I was a teenager, and I ended up feeling traumatised by it sometimes. Especially when it felt perhaps it had been done for shock value.
I remember a news shot filmed in Northern Ireland in the 1970′s of a fireman literally shovelling up the remains of a bomb victim in long shot. This was shown in a documentary. I wondered whether, from the details given, a relative or friend might realise it was actually their loved one and why should they be subjected to that scene on TV unexpectedly?
On the other hand, when you consider the themes that were covered in the 1960′s and 1970′s, the news footage, nudity and sex that was on screen, TV in general seems much less ‘grown up’ now.
It’s not just about TV images tho I remember, vividly the carpet bombing of Baghdad shown on CNN in 1991 – and they still haunt me; we need a change of attitude where we stop regarding our soldiers as passive individuals who have no other alternative but to become legal state murderers and then, when they run the risk of getting killed – which they invariably do (it’s err, in the job description) we glamourise their deaths and call them heros. No, I don’t think so. Anyone can read the UN statistics on the thousands of civilians who have died in Afghanistan – I wrote a letter for the SundayIndie researched on the environmental atrocities – so this latest report should come as nothing new or surprising. The fact is, the patriots and nationalists are behind the media/govt… the public are horrifying closer to sharing BNP beliefs than we like to think.
So there have been leeks from the Afghan conflict.
Does that mean that more of the general public feel worse about what is actually happening over there?I just don’t think so. As we know, this war has been going on for the same amout of time as WWI,WWII & the Falklands put together. What a disgrace. I am a little pessimistic I know but I just don’t see our girls & boys being back by 2015. This war, mostly higly secret and covert, is going to last a lot longer than another 5 years. The main reason being that the occupying forces there are going to have too much trouble and not enough trust in leaving the country in the hands of a foreign trained Afghan security force.
adzmundo The Venus Project,ZM,GP & CND
You don’t need shocking pictures of mutilation to communicate (though physically modelling a 1:1 scale funeral pyre to the death total might help) effectively, stories of plucky survivors, brave soldiers and obscene bullies are the stuff for the movie adaptation not a news report.
The positive side (for the general public) to Wikileaks making the military document public is that we now have evidence of the under-reported causalities and the nature of their deaths. The downside for journalists is that it highlights not just sanitisation of pictures, but of the very meat in their stories. Propaganda is what I’m concerned with, that and the shocking number of bungled/bloody operations, the unacceptable civilian death tolls, and the fact that journalists seems incredibly unwilling to investigate.
No fan of the Taliban me, in fact I’d have been all for going in there back in the 1990s, Kosovo-style, but with civilian death orders of magnitudes greater than our soldiers I’m afraid there is something fundamentally wrong with the war we are fighting and wrong with our press/politics that no one is bring any pressure.
In the wake of the 7/7 attack’s, London’s then Mayor Ken Livingstone made the decision to go public on the cause of the explosions immediately, against the advice of the Met Police Commissioner.
Livingstone did this because modern communications networks had made prevaricating impossible – mobile phone footage had already made it to the internet – just as the footage of Ian Tomlinson being coshed by the police at the G20 protests made it to the Guardian.
The taste and decency standard is basically censorship, and it is self defeating, it simply moves consumption of news to less accurate but uncensored sources.
Our Muslim community is not limited to terrestrial broadcast media. They are watching the footage John describes on Al Jazeera and comparing it to mainstream news. In these circumstances is not hard for them to leap to the conclusion that they are being lied to: censorship is feeding terrorism. Not quite what the Mary Whitehouse taste and decency brigate had in mind.
We would be far better of seeing the truth, precisely because it will make us feel sick; that’s how democracy functions: we cannot point an electoral finger if we do not see the crime.
‘We would be far better of seeing the truth?’ That’s what you believe we see on TV is it? No wonder we’re doomed!
Eccy, go back and read the post again. I said we would be better off seeing the truth. As in, we don’t get to at the moment because of taste and decency censorship. You will be surprised to find that I agree with you.
jonny, this looks like a debate for the “moral maze”. Although I wouldn’t recommend it, it’s dreary listening.
I guess there’s always a risk that showing the mangled bodies of conflicts eventually turns into “war porn” and merely desensitizes a large part of the population (or worse still excites it).
But on the question of whether or not graphic media coverage would shorten a war ask yourself this. Was it a). The image of Kim Phuc running down the road with Naplam burning her flesh. b). The images of American students demonstarting across university campuses. Or c). Gerald Ford concluding that he was in a war he couldn’t win. That shortened the Vietnam war – which lasted a mere 10 years.
When you’ve answered that question don’t forget to qualify your answer with the fact that it is only an opinion.
RoN you make a good point about how hard it is to deliberate set out to deliver an impact beyond narrow/specific areas and subjects, but thankfully this difficulty can make it hard to unduly influence public opinion, which is ultimately for the best.
That said something you wrote does point towards a place were war reporting is more responsible:
“I guess there’s always a risk that showing the mangled bodies of conflicts eventually turns into “war porn” and merely desensitizes a large part of the population (or worse still excites it).”
So long as your news report can’t be easily (and unflatteringly) compared to ‘The Day Today’ then there you aren’t doing such a terrible job of covering the news.
The hunt is on for the person who leaked it rather then deny the facts, so they really dont want anybody to know what is really happening. Censored war is the future, real war is too gruesome. Dont know who is winning but the one losing are the civilians.
I think The Guardian said there are so many documents that some haven’t been read before release. This seems wrong to me and strengthens the argument that lives may be put at risk. For example what if the pages include details of Iraqis who have given help and information in secret?
I meant Afghans not Iraqis.
”have Snowblogged before about the sanitisation of war. Could the Afghan war be waged if the unexpurgated images were transmitted?”
–No I doubt if it would survive – and the lives of the troops would be safer – as they would be home – but can anyone say when the USA was NOT at war during the last 50 years . The idea of an everlasting war has been sold via PR ie Propaganda . There is no end in sight for Afghan war – the media will ensure that, the lack of investigative journalism – along with the fact of the vast mineral discoveries in that country – it will go on and on – and the ” brave heroes ” will continue to die – for the Rich.
Neil Sheehan’s brilliant book on the Vietnam War; “A Bright Shining Lie”; chronicles how Politicians and Generals come to believe that they are ‘winning’.
Indeed, General Westmorland toured the USA with the ‘victorious’ message one month before the Tet Offensive!
Our Politicians and Generals appear to be falling into the same trap although the 2014 then 2011 dates for some withdrawal give a glimmer of hope.
The war in Afghanistan, as I have written before, has always been unwinnable by external forces. So anything that stops the killing gets my vote.
I think that the horrors of war are simply too awful for TV and could become the latest spectacle for the morbidly curious.
Sometimes the number of casualties of bombs in Northern Ireland could only be confirmed by the number of livers counted in the Morgue! Imagine what it must be like with IEDs. This is not entertainment.
War is not glamourous but sometimes necessary. Iraq and Afghanistan fail on both counts. But our Politicians have access to the films and photographs of every conflict. They start unjust wars and they could, if they had any decency, stop them.
Moon beach,i agree,what is the point of showing human carnage.Just another form of pornography.Would it stop wars ?I very much doubt it.There is only one way to stop wars and that is prosecute the perpetrators ,and in the absence of the death penalty . lock those responsible up for life.
The only problem with that, Adrian, is that the perpertrators of war tend to be the same people who make the laws about who will be prosecuted. While the US is pleased to see others at the Hague it has made sure none of its leaders will ever be brought there. Similarly I have more chance of swimming the Atlantic than Tony Blair has of being prosecuted for Iraq.
There needs to be a balance – we need the judgement of people like Jon and his colleagues, which is a hell of a burden on them. But there is no doubt that some of the coverage coming out of Vietnam helped bring that to an end. As I’ve said elsewhere, it probably needs to be more of a focus on the human emotional casualties rather than straightforward carnage, but just occasionally the reality of limbs torn apart might make people pause.
One of the problems with current coverage is that there can be too much courage – limbless soldiers ski-ing or climbing. Perhaps more attention on those who fail to return to society would also concentrate minds.
“There is only one way to stop wars and that is prosecute the perpetrators ,and in the absence of the death penalty . lock those responsible up for life.”
And how would you go about doing that?
Exactly
Well Saltaire and Kate,i agree it is not an easy solution to stopping warfare but i seem to remember that the Nazis were tried for war crimes.There are also several alleged war crime perpetrators locked up in the Hague , so do not suggest it can not be done .That attitude would have stopped us reaching the moon or exploring space .
There are laws already to bring war criminals to book.The trouble is how are they enacted.Who can press charges and what evidence is needed.
Where there is a will there is a way.Does anyone on this blog know how Tony Blair and Bush could be summoned to the Hague? What criteria sets the process in motion ?
It needs such a high profile prosecution ,for a message to be sent to other leaders to say ,you are responsible for your actions .There are several around the world .The Israeli and Hamas leaders too.It is time ordinary people had their say
Please, please please bring back the thumbs.
When a comment goes up on an story I care about, I vote for or against it, and I stay on the page avidly to see if the community around the blogs takes the same view, and to see if the comment visibly shapes the view of the community.
Similarly, when I make a post I want to see what others will make of it. Do they agree? If I am wrong, will they put me straight, help me to learn and understand?
Note the word I’m using here ‘community’. Most if not all the comments on this site are from regular users. Users who have come to ‘know’ each other and their opinions and who are able to make those opinions shift and interact. The lack of voting is killing this engagement – the engagement we have with each other as well as with the site.
Sounding off an opinion without getting any feedback is inherently sad, egoistic. No voting = no dialogue and none of us like talking to ourselves.
Tom i utterly agree .To date this new sight is a disaster.I like to see what people think of my comments and like to show my apreciation or otherwise of my fellow bloggers
Surely those that initiated change for no apparent reason are able to at least put in the thumbs.They are capable of refusing to put in my comments on a particular blog , so they read our comments.Its time for action or heads to roll.If WE cant get them to put the site to rights how will we ever get Blair to the Hague
Tom, I agree. We don’t all have the time to be able to debate with each individual whose views we aren’t easy with – and we’d soon choke up this blog even if we did have the time. To be able to indicate general agreement or approval, or a definite “No”, at one click is a reasonable and practical compromise. This blog is the poorer without it. Even my little local newspaper’s website can manage “the thumbs” – what’s so difficult here?
Agree with Tom, Adrian and anniexf, particularly Annie’s points about economical use of time/choking up the blog, and Tom’s about snowbloggers informing/helping shape each other’s views. Adrian is/was, for example, considering LVT as a result of this blog – supported fully now, Adrian, by FT’s Martin Wolf. Will try and find link and post either here on Jon’s next asap.
Snowblog is the only blog I (have time to) bother with, and incomparably better than the Guardian’s Cif site: intelligent, serious, sometimes lighthearted but a real online community. Thumbs back without further delay, please!
” Well Saltaire and Kate,i agree it is not an easy solution to stopping warfare but i seem to remember that the Nazis were tried for war crimes.There are also several alleged war crime perpetrators locked up in the Hague , so do not suggest it can not be done”
Adrian, your argument was that this was the way to stop wars. It’s too late locking them up AFTER one!
Kate,how do you propose stopping something.It is easy to make laws but they are always in response to events.So to make sure people realise those laws are serious ,you need to punish the offenders ,but hard , in a way that says if you do this , this is the penalty you will suffer.It is always in retrospect .Why produce a law against something that has not happened?????
The problem with most laws is the punishment and the liberal attitude of protection for the guilty.
Why give prisoners rights??? Why give them a lifestyle that many would not experience in freedom .Prison should be harsh and a deterrent, plus a chance of improvement .The current liberal system does not work so try something new .
Adrian, I know you like to provoke but ‘why give prisoners rights’!
You say the current system does not work and to an extent you might be right. But my understanding is that there are two main reasons why it doesn’t work:
1 Not enough attention is given to getting people off drugs – and a lot of crime is caused by the need to fund drugs
2 Not enough attention is given to education. I forget the actual figure but a horrifying percentage of prisoners can’t read or write.
The flog ‘em and whip ‘em and treat them harsh regime might satisfy the baser instincts of some of our citizens but any reader of 19C history will know that it doesn’t deter hardened criminals.
Brutalising people doesn’t turn them into pillars of society. You’ve only got to look at the high number of abused children who become abusing adults. Or look at the backgrounds of many wife beaters and you will find a brutal past.
Harsh regimes might satisfy the public’s desire for revenge but it won’t cut crime.
Saltaire,you misrepresent me or did not understand my argument.I totally agree two of the problems of those in prison are drugs and a lack of education
Prison should certainly address those issues.It also has a duty to protect the innocent from the criminal.The point,to me of prison is to take the criminal off the street , attempt to educate them,and at the same time deter them from repeat offending.I believe that prisons are failing in all except momentarily taking the criminal off the street .They are failing because of the liberal regime within prisons.
There should not be radios , phones ,internet access in cells.There should not be a choice of several different meals.There should be zero tolerance of drugs.Any hardened user should have a short substitute drug for a very limited time.
Prison should be a place of learning, either vocational or educational.
TV should be of limited content.I do not believe in brutalisation , infact that should be punished severely , from wherever it arises
” Similarly, when I make a post I want to see what others will make of it. Do they agree? If I am wrong, will they put me straight, help me to learn and understand?”
Tom – the thumbs up/down facility isn’t going to tell you if you are “wrong” – whatever that means on here. If people are sufficiently interested and have a point or counterpoint to make on your post, they will.
But I too would like to see its return. It’s weird as some days, it’s there and then gone again later on. Kinda spooky!
I agree with Kate and Sam – waht are chnces of seeing Obama , Blair , Bush , Brown ,Nethanyu et all in the dock – ZERO . Cameron is in India doing big Arms deals – including according to BBC radio yestrday morning selling nuclear thechology to India – all things are flexible – when money is at stake . One could say jobs are at stake – would these jobs not be better served if they were buliding and manning hospitals and schools . The Arms industry is IMO a big driver in all thses everlasting wars – and they care about profits not the dead and the armless and legless . We saw recntly a rewrd offered for two soldiers return -$ 20,000 – so now we know waht value the leaders put on a soldiers life – ie $ 10,000. And where is the Religous voice in all this – they are quick enough to get het up re sexual matters – but the deafening silence re the Arms trade and the Everlasting war indites them – but does anyone care – and wait for the big one –Iran . Just as Iraq was olanned for years – now Iran will IMO be next .
Jim, Weapons don’t cause wars, Politicians do! They start them, ensure their own sons are not called up and send people like me to get them out of the mire. But they are also the only ones who can stop them.
A private prosecution of Blair by the family of one of our battle casualties, perhaps funded by an altruistic millionaire, might be very interesting.
It seems likely that the Iraq war was illegal and Blair as a lawyer must have suspected this. Thus he ordered our soldiers to fight in an illegal war.
It would be worth testing whether that was passed on as a lawful command as defined by the Manual of Military Law.
I agree with moonbeach.Not only do i agree but the evidence going into the Chilcot enquiry has supported the fact that the war was illegal and that fact was known in the upper reaches of government .Dare the enquiry say or suggest that or are we to see another whitewash?
A further point to those that were criticising my response to wikileak.I suppose you think that the Taliban’s ultimatum that they will behead any civilian Afghan responsible for giving information to the coalition ,whose identity has been leaked by the information put on the net,is a price worth paying!!!!!
Jim: what you said was pitifully naive. Why should Blair, etc., be in the dock? They were just servants of that grim, inevitable paranoia called “national security”. Every war’s illegal – if you’ve enough fancy lawyers, you can say “we are the definers of legality”.
War has nothing to do with legality – it is 100% to do with sensibility. Did it feel right to take Saddam on? Yes.
We will all have to live with the horrible consequences of a right decision.
PHIL!!! REALLY!!! Blair, etc., “just servants…?
They were the ones whipping up a frenzy – they were the paranoid ones! A million of our SANE compatriots marched in protest, remember? And millions more agreed with them
Never mind whether it FELT right – neither morality nor legality should depend on how one feels. Saddam hadn’t attacked us or our allies, nor had he threatened to. He was manipulative, a congenital liar and a butcher – but so is Mugabe. It FEELS right to take HIM on. Should we?
Annie: your responses are a treat and bracing!
We’ll just have to agree to disagree – Planet Phil and the constellation of saints who made up the Million March are simply not in alignment.
You have genuine spirit – I just doubt that the morose off-the-peg-liberals who did march had anything other than cheap politicking on their minds. And now, with their patron Saint Clegg, they have the world at their feet – but then they would; it was an easy dice to throw.
Phil, exactly what is ‘cheap politicking’ about trying to persuade politicians not to bomb thousands of innocent people on grounds that then looked suspect and now were clearly lies?
Is it your belief that we, the mighty Brits, have the right to wage war against any country whose leader we disapprove of or whose way of life is contrary to our own? Presumably that only applies to us, or do you also approve of terrorists attacking us because they ‘believe’ we and our policies are evil?
Get your retaliation in first is dubious in a rugby match or bar, as the philosophy for a foreign policy, it’s disastrous.
Glad to oblige with the odd “bracing” response – but you are a bit of a cynic, Phil! (and long may you continue ..)
Saltaire and Annie: thanks for responding. It must be me.
I’ve decided to check into ideas-rehab for a few months, for a bit of Orwellian re-programming. Don’t worry; they probably don’t use the high-voltage stuff anymore. Pretty soon I’ll be able to convince myself that I actually care about Mugabe and dead civilian Iraqis, without any political-argument expediency! I’ll be a post-cynic!!! I’ll finally be sane enough to fit-into a mental society.
Wish me luck.
Phil
No need for re-hab, just remember the simple rule:
The left is more often right and the right is more often wrong
(Of course that’s very confusing if you are Nick Clegg and not sure which is left and which is right)
Annie i would love to give you a thumbs up as i could on the old snowblog.
I find that the computer geeks who devised this new site are as bad as the Blair and Bushes of this world who promise something and can not deliver .I am glad i grew up in the 50′s in an age of innocence,instead of the 00′s an age where we know everything and can do it better.
If the idiots who changed this site worked for me, they would now have their P45 and i would be employing people who said it works why change it.
IMO – it was not the right decision – and Iraq has paid the price . Why did the US / UK etc [ NATO!!!!] not take on The Shah of Iran or Israel whose brutal actions daily affect Palestinians and Bedouins – becuse it is not in USA interets – but war on Iraq was in USA interests – oil and the tip of iceberg http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/07/2010727133151458970.html – just daily Iareali actions – no action agaist them or any other dictaor that USA supports . Yes Blair, Bush , Obama and all those warmongers should be in the dock – thats where they belong – it is the who have blood on their hands – not the wikileaks man – who like Ellsberg before him exposed the lies regarding the war . http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/07/2010726112724506988.html
Wikileaks supplies the names of Afghans loyal to their elected government who passed on their knowledge about the activities of sadistic murderers of children: we can now expect many of these public-spirited individuals to be targeted by assassination squads made up of unemployed foreigners (most of the Taliban are not originally from Afghanistan) paid by politicians disguised as religious bigots.
I am given to understand that Wikileaks has done this to make money (a spin-doctor’s alternative is that Wikileaks did not notice that it was doing this in its rush to make money)
I do not think queries about the quality of the election goes anywhere towards suggesting that the Taliban have popular support comparable to the elected government or the elected opposition.
Yes, the media has much to answer for – in particular the idea that it is moral to stand back and let mass murderers like Stalin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh or Pol Pot get on with it because we might hurt one person in order to save 100. Have you issued a statement in Arabic that condemns the murder of schoolgirls as contrary to the teachings of the Qu’ran?
From the Dalai Lama’s facebook page Saturday
The use of force is a last resort. One aspect of violence is that it is unpredictable. Although your initial intention may be to use limited force, once you have engaged in violence the consequences are unpredictable. Violence always brings about unexpected results and almost always provokes retaliation.
I agree
Saltaire , i do not know this Lama fellow,but i thought his philosophy was like Gandhi, advocating passive resistance.In which case there is no violence .Those that commit violence commit an offence .Those that commit a country to violence , likewise commit an offence. To do it knowing that those it is committed against pose no threat is even worse.There is not even the defence of self defence.Therefore , those responsible for the violence have a case in law, to answer.
The real way to deal with any illegal violence is through the appropriate courts
Hi Jon
Would be great if you could highlight Haiti, especially this aspect of this story, 1.3 million people living in tents, badly in need of assistance, I just think you did a terrific job the last time you were out there.
Best,
Ger
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/aug/16/haiti-france