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Silence of The Hawks
As The Humanitarian Crisis In Iraq Goes From Bad To Worse, The War Propagandists Are Turning To More Trivial Matters.
The International Red Cross warned this week that the humanitarian crisis in Iraq is getting even worse. At the same, time a major academic study by the Oxford Research Group concludes that the illegal US/UK invasion has "spawned new terror" in the region. In the light of the latest damning evidence of the consequences of the invasion, what has been the reaction of the lap-top bombadiers who five years ago so energetically propagandised for war? I've been trawling the web to find out.
Melanie Phillips, the "moralist" who condemns teenage youths for smashing up bus shelters but not coalition forces for smashing up Iraq, makes no mention of either report on her website this week.
Ditto William Shawcross and Nick Cohen, self-appointed scourge of the anti-war left.
David Aaronovitch has kept his silence too (perhaps he's in training for another London marathon), as has Andrew Roberts, the "talented historian" who argued that we could equate sanctions-devastated Iraq (including its non-existent air force and its Dad's Army) with Nazi Germany at its peak.
Harry's Place, favourite watering hole of "pro-liberation left" prefers to discuss road rage, school history syllabuses and union-made hoodies.
Daniel Finkelstein of The Times has discovered an interest in mediums.
Stephen Pollard informs us that he's been reading Norman Lebrecht's Maestros and Madness: The Secret Life and Shameful Death of the Classical Record Industry. The Daily Telegraph's 'Neo' Con Coughlin, who regaled us with tales of Saddam's deadly armoury, has turned his attention to Russian bear-baiting.
Across the pond, Andrew Sullivan opines about shopping bags, while David 'Axis of Evil' Frum tells us about his grandfather.
Mark Steyn, who once accused anti-war demonstrators of having blood on their hands, focuses on the trial of his old mentor, Conrad Black.
Down Under, Tim Blair, who in 2004 ridiculed claims that the future in Iraq was "frightening", shares his thoughts on Alaskan sea otters.
From all these people, not a single word about either the International Red Cross or the Oxford Research Group reports. How very different it was four years ago! On the day that Saddam's statue toppled in Baghdad, the neo-cons couldn't wait to brag about the "success" of the war they had so enthusiastically supported. This was William Shawcross, writing in the Wall Street Journal:
April 9 - Liberation Day! What a wonderful, magnificent, emotional occasion - one that will live in legend like the fall of the Bastille, V-E Day or the fall of the Berlin Wall. Watching the tearing down of Saddam Hussein's towering statue in Baghdad was a true Ozymandias moment. All those smart Europeans who ridiculed George Bush and denigrated his idea that there was actually a better future for the Iraqi people - they will now have to think again."
Really, William? Since the illegal invasion, an estimated 600,000 people have lost their lives in Iraq. Twice as many people have died in Iraq in the last four years as were killed in the previous 23 years under Saddam. The only people who need to "think again" are not those "smart Europeans" who opposed the war, but those far from "smart" people who faithfully parroted - for whatever reasons - the official US/UK propaganda.
Forget mediums, shopping bags and union-made hoodies: it's apologies that we really want.
Neil Clark is a UK-based journalist, blogger and writer. A regular contributor to the Guardian, the Times, the New Statesman and the Spectator, his work has also appeared in publications as diverse as The American Conservative, Pravda, the Morning Star and the Racing Post.
© 2007 The Guardian
Comments
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23 Comments so far
Show AllChicken hawks associated with the Bush-Cheney administration and the invasion and occupation of Iraq seem to avoid responsibility for their actions.
The thousands of deaths of and terrible injuries to US troops and innocent Iraqis, including children, is something that the chicken hawks don't want to talk about.
The fact that the invasion of Iraq and other activities have markedly increased disrespect, dislike and hatred for the US is also something they avoid talking about.
For more on this, see:
"Chicken hawks are real and dangerous"
PopulistAmerica.com
November 26, 2006
http://www.populistamerica.com/chicken_hawks_are_real_and_dangerous
This is a test.
OK, so now I can post. Something screwy going on here.
Neil Clark got that right. My Rottweiler, who never in his life fought or bit anyone - person or dog, would give a bullying dog a hard look, and that dog would suddenly lose interest in whatever he had been doing.
So what we have here running the country is a bunch of bullies. And we all know that underneath the bullying behavior, lives a coward. Yes, Chicken hawks. I just hope the rest of America wakes up to that. Certainly their behavior the investigating committees are triggering isn't doing them any credit.
I read a poll that 65% of Americans think the investigations are uncovering malfeasance, and 70% of Americans think the Dems are doing it for political purposes.
"it's apologies that we really want". Or resignations (or ritual suicide - that would be better). Honestly, think if you were an 'expert' or a journalist who said all those fanciful and fanatical things 4 to 5 years ago then do you have much place to opine in public any more? If I was that bad at my business then I would have no clients and no right to expect any. And yet the pundits and the 'journalists' of 5 years ago are still plying their trade.
I used the word fanatic above and really these people are. Imagine if the US government captured a journalist from the Muslim world who had helped to incite a murderous and illegal war that killed 600,000 people and led to his side torturing, raping and displacing millions more. That journalist would be labelled a fanatic and bundled off to guantanamo for her five years of daily torturing. So let us not pull any punches with the journos who brazenly predicted that Saddam had WMDs and that the war would be an easy win for democracy: they are dangerous fanatics, just like their buddies in the whitehouse.
The chickenhawks are also busy thinking about more important matters, like genocide in Darfur. In Iraq hundreds of thousands of people were killed, but it's not genocide, so it's not as bad as Darfur. In Darfur, nomads have have killed hundreds of thousands of Darfuris just because they are Darfuris, which is genocide. In Iraq, US-Americans and Britons have killed hundreds of thousands of Arabs, but they did not kill them because they were Arabs, so it's not genocide. The US-Americans and Britons in Iraq killed hundreds of thousands of Arabs for no reason, and they are continuing to kill them to this very day for no reason. That's bad, but it would be even worse if they had killed hundreds of thousands of Arabs because they were Arabs. It's worse to kill people because of what they are than to kill them for no reason. If the Nazis had killed six million Jews for no reason rather than killing them because they were Jews, that would not have been as bad. It would have been mass murder, but it would not have been genocide.
Mark Marshall
Toronto
The Chicken Hawks have another target these days: Iran.
When the right wants to focus public attention away from anything uncomfortable for the right, the mainstream press goes along. Always. And why not? All are owned by "the corporate sector". It is so blatant that even Saturday Night Live makes fun of it (e.g. re Anna Nicole Smith ... "Anna!, Anna!, Anna! ......".
One of Tom Brokaw's most famous comments was about his boss, General Electric (owns NBC) CEO Jack Welch. Brokaw said "Jack Welch is the smartest boss I ever had, and he signs my paychecks." Among other things, the corporate owned media can perpetuate the myth of "the liberal media" and showcase their talking heads as "journalists".
Apologies? Resignations? No! Hangings. This debacle is not about right and left! It's about life and death.
If you kill 600,000 people, does it really matter if you label it genocide or homicide? They're still dead.
We should start badgering our Representatives to return to the fairness doctrine and reregulate the airwaves. They belong to us, not the CEOs running this country.
It's war crime trials that we want.
war crimes trials are what we want!
As I posted to another article, if the media and its sponsors are supported by its subscribers, then those subscribers are complicit in the crimes of this administration. If over 65% of US-Americans oppose the war and the job of this administration in prosecuting it, then their cancellation of their subscriptions and notification of some of the commercial sponsors of that action, may have more of an effect than writing the editors and asking for a change in policy. The policy won't change as long as the bottom line is healthy. Cancel your subscription and get the truth from another source. ABC, NBC, The Tribune Companies, The New York Times, CBS, FOXNews, et al, do not report the news accurately and are not balanced, so remove their financial support. Don Imus was not fired because of what he said, but because his sponsors removed their financial support. When you tell the sponsors you will shop elsewhere as long as they support hypocrisy, they may get the message and make an economic decision. Cynical as it is, it is a start.
Blessings and Peace,
st john
It's the removal of the impediments to justice and human dignity that "We" want. It's getting off the road to increased physical and economic insecurity that "We" want.
The most expediant and effective action for what "We" want is impeachment.
Give them immunity for all "We" care: removal from the White House and a closed door session with Congress where the "energy papers" are exposed and dealt with.
Let them go back to Crawford and baseball and barbeque for all "We" care: Stop the daily homicide, stop the daily genocide, stop the daily rape of the Treasury and Iraqi sovereignty: Impeach!
The Civil Rights Bus Boycott lasted 381 days. Walk, talk, write: Call for Impeachment everyday.
Start your 381 day tour of civic and moral duty today!
Stop the daily suicide too!
and we can't forget peggy noonan who called bush "a gift" in the wall street journal,even she has given up on fearless leader
What do you expect from the enslaved from cradle to the grave.Save my skin and what ever else, after allit's the wogs who are paing the price
What do you expect from the enslaved from cradle to the grave.Save my skin and what ever else, after all it's the wogs who are paying the price
They who are now ignoring the reports on the realities of Iraq are, just as their fearless leader, not inclined to pay attention to anything that does not support their views, their causes, their methods, their madness.
After all, the right is always right, is it not?
When will we finally realize that a job is no longer a means to an end (survival) as it was a century ago, but instead, an end in itself?
The only sensible answer to this suicidal trend of consuming exhaustible resources, and poisoning our environment, is to reduce - drastically - the standard workweek in every industrial country.
Honestly you people, look murder of Two million children have been and are being murdered by stealth by the international moneylenders every year, not forgetting the millions of the old and the infirm.The holocaust has been and is alive and well for decades. I agree it's the lesser breed that are being systematically murdered, as part of the population control so that the resources could not be over consumed.
You all cannot be bothered except to react to sudden bombings.
Warmongers suffer from a serious disease that divorces them from reality. It is a form of insanity often (though not always) driven by perverted idealogical religious beliefs, or lust for money, or both. Power, though, is the ultimate goal.
Many 'chickenhawks' suffer from over-compensation for inferiority complexes, leading them to have to control everyone & everything. They also harbor feelings of guilt for neglecting duties that gave them the title of 'chickenhawk' in the first place. Often, they will react to a situation by using their 'reptilian' brain, which demands they attack what they don't understand. A 'scared dog response' is sometimes accepted as their norm. This is when the smaller dog bites a bigger dog first for fear the bigger dog is about to bite them.
Compound these traits and the result is a warmongering, guilt ridden, fearful, bullying, coward, greedy for power, money, & control, much the same as those in the Bush administration & media people mentioned in this article. Suffering of others is not a concern, conscience a foreign concept, and altruist deeds are considered a sucker's game. Their only concern is for their self-centered selves and other individuals with similarly perverted minds. Their delusions of grandeur are so ingrained they will never be able to see themselves as others see them, and of course admitting a mistake is out of the question, because guilt brings the whole house of cards crashing down.
Take a look at how Saddam Hussein was defiant & professing until the end he was innocent. I expect the same from Bush & cronies when they are herded into the docket. It will take a long time to get them there, because they will kick & scream like the crazy people they are all the way, but we can't have inmates running the asylum now, can we?
The Bush and Cheney bandwagon is just about out of gas.They may not have to answer to anyone in this earthly realm,but they will be judged,and no amount of money can make our Creator turn the other way and let things slide by in the name of petroleum for the free world.It may in fact be better this way.
Did you ever think that if God wanted Irag to be a democracy,He would have delivered George to that part of the world.