Red paint hypocracy
David Aaronovitch in the Guardian:
"There is, I think, a widely shared fantasy which you might call the No-America Dream. In this happy place we have somehow done away with the economic and military superpower. We watch sophisticated French films or Ealing studio reruns, our thin citizens dine out on organic Brie, there is no Israel to over-excite the populations of the Middle East, and everyone signs up to stop climate change. If only the Yanks would go home. If only we could stop Bush.
"The degree to which America is held uniquely responsible for the sins of the world is remarkable.
"...During the week anti-Bush protesters will, we're told, be splashing red paint to symbolise the spilled blood of the people of Iraq. No such red paint was splashed around London after Halabja, after the 1991 Shia and Kurdish uprisings or during the Iran-Iraq war, almost as if that were not real Iraqi blood. Blood, after all, is only blood if Americans spill it.
"No crimson splotches were created during the state visit of Romanian tyrant Nicolae Ceausescu in 1978, a visit which - because of Romania's semi-dissident position in the Soviet bloc - suited both cold warriors and sections of the Left. Earlier this year the Chechnya-enmired President Putin escaped almost any kind of demonstration.
"...But the 1990s didn't start as the decade of humanitarian intervention. They started as the decade of failed intervention, and progressed as the decade of non-intervention. The retreat after Somalia in 1993 showed us that the dream of no-America was a nightmare: Bosnia, Rwanda, the failure of Oslo, Milosevic rampant, bin Laden gathering strength.
"This argument might be 'Wilsonian', but the alternative is to shred our Amnesty reports, disband our human rights commissions, and cut off our support for democrats, on the basis that it is better to leave it alone; better to stay out. Who are we, after all, to conclude that the Iraqis don't quite like being tortured by their own leaders? As the anti-Bush writer Gore Vidal said on Australian radio recently when asked about their plight under Saddam: 'Don't you think that's their problem? That's not your problem and that's not my problem. There are many bad regimes on Earth, we can list several hundred... at the moment I would put the Bush regime as one of them.'
"...A senior ex-military man said to me that, in his opinion, the Iraqi invasion had been unnecessary because 'containment was working. Sanctions were working. No-fly was working'. Only the Iraqi people were suffering, almost extravagantly, from the combination of sanctions plus Saddam. But at least no bodies were returning in RAF transports.
"I don't want the Americans to go home. In fact I am terrified of what would happen if they did. Their going home in the past has often meant suffering for others.
"...our enemy is not America. It isn't America that gives the most effective support to Sharonic intransigence - it's Israeli insecurity that does that. It isn't America that sends ambulances to blow up aid workers or Istanbul synagogues. It is America, above all, that is bearing the cost of helping to create a new Iraq - a new Iraq which, despite the violence, is being born in towns such as Hilla and cities such as Basra. And yet some of our writers and protesters - betraying their own professed ideals - identify with bombers and not teachers, administrators and policemen who are building the country.
"Where is the red paint to protest against the blasts at Najaf, of the UN in Baghdad, of the Red Cross, of the synagogues, of the Bali night-club, of the Arab-Jewish restaurant in Haifa? Where are the 'No Suicide Bombings' posters in the Muswell Hill windows? Or do you really believe we can save ourselves by constructing a huge wall around these islands, or around America, and painting it with smileys? That maybe then the ills of the world will leave us alone?"
David Aaronovitch in the Guardian:
"There is, I think, a widely shared fantasy which you might call the No-America Dream. In this happy place we have somehow done away with the economic and military superpower. We watch sophisticated French films or Ealing studio reruns, our thin citizens dine out on organic Brie, there is no Israel to over-excite the populations of the Middle East, and everyone signs up to stop climate change. If only the Yanks would go home. If only we could stop Bush.
"The degree to which America is held uniquely responsible for the sins of the world is remarkable.
"...During the week anti-Bush protesters will, we're told, be splashing red paint to symbolise the spilled blood of the people of Iraq. No such red paint was splashed around London after Halabja, after the 1991 Shia and Kurdish uprisings or during the Iran-Iraq war, almost as if that were not real Iraqi blood. Blood, after all, is only blood if Americans spill it.
"No crimson splotches were created during the state visit of Romanian tyrant Nicolae Ceausescu in 1978, a visit which - because of Romania's semi-dissident position in the Soviet bloc - suited both cold warriors and sections of the Left. Earlier this year the Chechnya-enmired President Putin escaped almost any kind of demonstration.
"...But the 1990s didn't start as the decade of humanitarian intervention. They started as the decade of failed intervention, and progressed as the decade of non-intervention. The retreat after Somalia in 1993 showed us that the dream of no-America was a nightmare: Bosnia, Rwanda, the failure of Oslo, Milosevic rampant, bin Laden gathering strength.
"This argument might be 'Wilsonian', but the alternative is to shred our Amnesty reports, disband our human rights commissions, and cut off our support for democrats, on the basis that it is better to leave it alone; better to stay out. Who are we, after all, to conclude that the Iraqis don't quite like being tortured by their own leaders? As the anti-Bush writer Gore Vidal said on Australian radio recently when asked about their plight under Saddam: 'Don't you think that's their problem? That's not your problem and that's not my problem. There are many bad regimes on Earth, we can list several hundred... at the moment I would put the Bush regime as one of them.'
"...A senior ex-military man said to me that, in his opinion, the Iraqi invasion had been unnecessary because 'containment was working. Sanctions were working. No-fly was working'. Only the Iraqi people were suffering, almost extravagantly, from the combination of sanctions plus Saddam. But at least no bodies were returning in RAF transports.
"I don't want the Americans to go home. In fact I am terrified of what would happen if they did. Their going home in the past has often meant suffering for others.
"...our enemy is not America. It isn't America that gives the most effective support to Sharonic intransigence - it's Israeli insecurity that does that. It isn't America that sends ambulances to blow up aid workers or Istanbul synagogues. It is America, above all, that is bearing the cost of helping to create a new Iraq - a new Iraq which, despite the violence, is being born in towns such as Hilla and cities such as Basra. And yet some of our writers and protesters - betraying their own professed ideals - identify with bombers and not teachers, administrators and policemen who are building the country.
"Where is the red paint to protest against the blasts at Najaf, of the UN in Baghdad, of the Red Cross, of the synagogues, of the Bali night-club, of the Arab-Jewish restaurant in Haifa? Where are the 'No Suicide Bombings' posters in the Muswell Hill windows? Or do you really believe we can save ourselves by constructing a huge wall around these islands, or around America, and painting it with smileys? That maybe then the ills of the world will leave us alone?"
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