I don't know about the Ides of March, but if you're a country that doesn't kow-tow sufficiently to the demands of Uncle Sam and global capital, you've certainly got to beware being bombed back to the Stone Age in the month of March. In March 1999 it was Yugoslavia which got the B52 treatment, exactly four years later it was Iraq.
Both wars were illegal, both were fought on a fraudulent prospectus. And that's why those who engineered and propagandised for them repeatedly call for us to 'move on'. But 'move on' is what we must never do, certainly not until those responsible for those conflicts are held accountable for their actions in a court of law.
To mark both the 10th anniversary of the aggression against Yugoslavia and the 6th anniversary of the aggression against Iraq, I thought it would be appropriate to remind us of the things that the great and the good said about Yugoslavia and Iraq in the lead up to those conflicts.
To start, here's the letter which eight European leaders penned to several newspapers, stressing their support for the US stance on Iraq.
It's a classic propaganda piece which Dr Goebbels would have been proud of.
Here are some extracts:
"The transatlantic relationship must not become a casualty of the current Iraqi regimes's persistent attempts to threaten world security"
"The Iraqi regime and its weapons of mass destruction represent a clear threat to world security".
"We Europeans have reiterated our backing for Resolution 1441...In doing so, we sent a clear, firm and unequivocal message that we would rid the world of the danger posed by Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction".
"Our goal is to safeguard world peaceby ensuring that this regime gives up its weapons of mass destruction".
It would be funny wouldn't it, if the results of this propaganda (up to 1m dead), were not so tragic.
And what happened, I hear you ask, to the writers of this letter?
Well, Tony Blair is now Middle East envoy, receiving $1m prizes for his "exceptional leadership and steadfast determination in helping to engineer agreements and forge lasting solutions to areas in conflict".
Jose Barroso became EU President. While Vaclav Havel, the neocons favourite playwright, is still feted as a man of great 'wisdom'.
By rights none of the men who penned this letter should play any further part in public life. Either they genuinely believed that sanctions-devastated Iraq posed a 'clear threat to world security'(in which case they are too stupid to hold public office), or, they knew that the Iraqi 'threat' was bogus. In which case they are too dishonest to hold public office.
Which is it, chaps?
7 comments:
You're absolutely right, Neil. These heinous individuals should really not play any role in public life (and that would be letting them off lightly).
The most tragic aspect of the current economic crisis is the fact that the same arseholes who have gotten everything wrong are now the loudest idiots telling us what to do next.
As we can see, a new disgusting culture has developed whereby those at fault are rewarded with more power and clout.
Still, where there's time, there's hope. With this deepening crisis people will hopefully be so sick and tired of the neoliberal elite spinning the same old lies. Enough already.
Neil, your homepage isn't displaying properly. The heading and sidebar are there, but the blogs are missing. I had to go to the archive for 2009 to get to this content. I doubt if it's just me.
The recent convictions of the top Serbian Military and MUP leaders at the ICTY will for those who followed the trial, or who at least read the closing summaries of the case to be shown to be outrageous convictions in due course, especially those relating to Pavkovic, Sainovic, Odjanic and Lazraevic.
Its surprising how such an atrocity like 1999 NATO attack can be easily "swept under the carpet", so to speak...
Ive been living in London since 1992, and Ive paid 1st proper visit back home in December 2008. (by proper I mean longer than 10 days hols; I've been back 1st time in June 2007, and few times since... byt mainly for a short break) So, Ive been here last 3 months , making some personal observations...
Aggressive, but subtly served pro-EU politics in Serbia have somehow influenced majority of the public to "move-on", same as their new Western allies are doing.. that is - same peeps that bombed the fuck out of Serbia only few years back... James (one that rhymes with the c##t) had a sell-out gig in Belgrade last week. No mention of the fact that he was serving in Kosovo in 1999, as a part of NATO troops... I'd expect at least a minor protest, in the memory of 3,000+ tonnes of bombs that NATO planes dropped. (few actually exploded very near by The Belgrade Arena, where he played)
Sad thing is that pro-EU politics so far have hardly brought up any real changes, apart from pushing the disastrous privatisation of public property at a bargain price. My main worry is that by the time we make all the compromises and pay the heavy price of entering he infamous EU, EU itself will have absolutely nothing to offer any more - at the moment most of the development budgets promised to new members are cut down to next to nothing; is there also a danger of EU possibly falling apart itself (economically)?... and then, what? Back to mother Russia to beg for forgiveness? Or maybe have another war?
Good article, Neil. How come msm wont touch these facts!
Tina
I was impressed with andy Wilconson's dissection of the recent "court" decision.
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/smorg030509.html
In essence the "convicted" Serbs were found guilty of no crimes prior to NATO's bombing & in fact only of being responsible for the refugees actually caused, either overwhelmingly & totally, by that NATO bombing. This was under the theory of joint criminal conspiracy rather than any personal action.
By that decision every single MP who supported it is guilty of the effects actually caused by the bombing & indeed of the genocide, child rape & dissections our government had cammand authority over.
Thanks Neil in pointedly not moving on from the truth, as they wish us all to do.
Vitamin from CiF.
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