Saturday, May 08, 2004
While we wait to see whether the Daily Mirror and Piers Moron* get away with saying that British servicemen and women indulged in a bit of the old ultraviolence with Iraqi plennies, John Pilger rightly points out that torture is nothing new, for either the US or the UK. The 'few bad apples' that Bush, Blair and Rumsfeld want us to believe are responsible for this outrage against decency are not just the few troops that thought it was okay to torture people, they are just the small proportion of the troops that had the opportunity to do what a larger proportion of the troops wouldn't have had any problem doing if they were given the chance. And can we be sure that there's another prison somewhere where there aren't any cameras where other Lynndie Englands are even now torturing** and humiliating Iraqi prisoners?
* Let's make no mistake here. Just because the Mirror has taken a stand against New Labour, the War in Iraq and the Bush/Blair love-in, let's not make the mistake of thinking Morgan is a nice bloke. He's simply an opportunistic tosser who thinks it's the best thing for his paper and circulation to take a vaguely left-wing stance. If Rupert Murdoch phoned him tomorrow he'd happily change his stance in a second.
** And the careful use of 'abuse' not 'torture'? If Bush and Rumsfeld are going to apologise for what they have done (and it was fun to see Richard Perle on Newsnight last night trying really hard to bite back the urge to say "but they were only fucking Arabs, it's not like they were real people!") shouldn't they at least have the decency to call it what it is, and move on from there?
* Let's make no mistake here. Just because the Mirror has taken a stand against New Labour, the War in Iraq and the Bush/Blair love-in, let's not make the mistake of thinking Morgan is a nice bloke. He's simply an opportunistic tosser who thinks it's the best thing for his paper and circulation to take a vaguely left-wing stance. If Rupert Murdoch phoned him tomorrow he'd happily change his stance in a second.
** And the careful use of 'abuse' not 'torture'? If Bush and Rumsfeld are going to apologise for what they have done (and it was fun to see Richard Perle on Newsnight last night trying really hard to bite back the urge to say "but they were only fucking Arabs, it's not like they were real people!") shouldn't they at least have the decency to call it what it is, and move on from there?
