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military conflict, it is getting uglier by the
minute. As Peter Preston writes in today’s
Guardian: “So, who’s winning the loathing campaign?
The lower echelons of the empire Rupert
built produced some wonderful haters. The Post
hates The New York Times. It dissected a Times
front page, story by story, and labeled the result
‘News by Saddam.’ It hates the ‘vermin’ of Iraq,
the ‘euro-weasels’ of Brussels, and the failed,
‘irrelevant’ UN. It even quite despises Murdoch’s
London Times for printing damp little pieces
about British public opinion based on one interview
with a ‘market gardener.’
“Some of the vituperation, though, reaches
pitches of bitterness, which can only betoken sincerity.
See Matthew Parris in the Times diagnosing
‘the Madness of King Tony’ in grim clinical
detail. See Nick Cohen (of this parish) taking a
New Statesman cleaver to Andrew Murray of the
Stop the War Alliance: ‘A living fossil from the
age of European dictators is heading the biggest
protest of the new century.’ See our great
farceur, Tom Sharpe, writing an incensed open
letter to Tony Blair, which ends ‘yours in despair,
and disillusionment.’ ”
The word “Coalition:” how true?
WRITING from Baghdad, The Independent’s
Robert Fisk blasts the BBC for speaking of
“coalition” troops: “Why do we aid and abet the
lies and propaganda of this filthy war? How
come, for example, it’s now BBC ‘style’ to
describe the Anglo-American invaders as the
‘coalition.’ This is a lie. The ‘coalition’ that we’re
obviously supposed to remember is the one
forged to drive Iraqi occupation troops from
Kuwait in 1991, an alliance involving dozens of
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countries almost all of whom now condemn President
George Bush Junior’s adventure in Iraq.
There are a few Australian special forces swanning
about in the desert, courtesy of the country’s
eccentric prime minister, John Howard; but
that’s it. So who at the BBC decreed this dishonest
word ‘coalition?’ True, there’s a ‘coalition of
the willing,” to use Bush’s weird phrase but this
is a reference to those nations which have given
over flying rights to the United States or have
given political but not military support. So the
phrase ‘coalition forces” remains a lie.” ●
APRIL 8: COMICS MAKE
FUN OF THE CONFLICT
WHAT was billed as the war of liberation began
with an attempted decapitation and remained
focused on execution in all realms. This time,
thanks to an intelligence intercept and a tip on
the ground, a B-1 bomber was dispatched to finish
the real job – the annihilation of Saddam and
company, one of the most expensive assassinations
in history – that is, if it was as successful as
the gleeful TV anchors and their “high-level”
sources were hoping. Three “bunker buster”
bombs were used this time to leave an enormous
crater in a residential Neighborhood. Reportedly
it happened at 6 a.m. our time yesterday but the
news was withheld for over twelve hours.
Throughout it all, the demonization continues;
“Butcher and evil sons may have died plotting
escape,” reads one headline in today’s New York
Post, a facsimile of a newspaper published in
New York. As I tuned in for the latest this morning,
before the briefers showed up to tell us what