We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
Egged on by their BBC interviewers, a number of pundits and Iraqi exiles have been criticising the use of the American flag as an “execution hood” over the statute of Saddam. It was “inappropriate” and it “should not have been done”. Voiceover commentary on News 24, as I type this article, added “Better judgement prevailed and the flag was removed”.
To me, there seem to be three immediately obvious polite answers to such criticism:
- The Iraqi crowd cheered when the US flag was raised. Rageh Omah, BBC reporter on the spot, could not hear the sonorous commentary in the studio, and made the possibly career-limiting mistake of answering the question “How is the crowd reacting to the American flag?” with the simple truth. This answer has obviously not been repeated in evening bulletins.
- The U.S. flag was raised by an over-exuberant marine, and removed within minutes when seen by a commanding officer. This was no indicator of imperialist policy, quite the opposite. Conquering armies rape and pillage, the Americans leant the use of their M-88 Armored Recovery Vehicle to a celebrating crowd.
- The flag was not raised over a public building or other centre of power. It was attached to a symbol of the old regime that was about to be destroyed. If you insist on reading undue symbolism into this, then the message would be not “America rules the roost now” but “America delivered you from the tyrant whose statue you are destroying”.
But the overwhelmingly obvious response is not so polite: I’m just glad the Iraqi people in the street aren’t such ungrateful SOBs!
Since I usually make a point of balancing jubilation with caution, and being somewhat cynical by nature, I cannot resist the temptation of drawing attention to the depressing synchronicity between British anti-gun phobia as it is practised at home and British anti-gun phobia as it is about to be practised in Iraq:
Residents are being urged to dump their guns in an “amnesty pit” close to one British military compounds.
“Iraq has a culture of weapons. There are a lot of them around, most held quite legally,” said Captain Cliff Dare, of 3 Commando Brigade Engineer Group.
“If we want to give the new Iraq a chance these weapons have to be taken out of circulation.”
I concede that the very real risk of people taking pot-shots at British troops does cast a different light on the situation but I do hope Iraqis don’t finish up going to prison just for defending themselves.
And, as an aside, ‘Captain Cliff Dare’! Is that a comic-book action hero name or what?
But the author, General Mirza Aslam Beg, the former Chief of Army Staff of Pakistan, did not realise it at the time. I particularly liked:
The Iraqi nation has shown its resolve and resilience, to stand up against the over-powering superiority of the aggressor, who has been forced to recoil back, for replenishment and re-enforcement. It is the coalition forces, which suffer from “shock and awe” due to the stiff resistance and the remarkable display of courage and capability, to fight according to a well thought-out war plan, which is holistic in conception, embracing all tenets of operational strategy.
Read and laugh 
Oi, Robert Fisk, John Pilger, Will Self, Clare Short, Robin Cook, Tony Benn, Margo Kingston, Michael Moore, Sean Penn, Noam Chomsky, the Dixie Chicks, Susan Sontag, Maureen Dowd, Susan Sarandon, Martin Sheen, Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schroeder, Robin Williams, Harold Pinter, Vanessa Redgrave, Clare Short, the entire BBC and all the rest of the ‘Not In My Name’ mob, would you kindly cop an eyeful of this:
Just how many messages can be gleaned from this glorious photograph? Loads I imagine but three that readily spring to mind are the fall of a murderous thug regime, the utter contempt of its victims for the moral cripples, dunderheads and sixties re-treads that tried so hard to prevent it and, strangely no less stirring to me, the hilarious and highly appropriate public appearance of the ‘W’ word.
Seems that we did not just British soldiers to Iraq, we also sent British expletives and, to their credit, the Iraqis have wasted no time whatsoever in adopting it and employing to maximum effect. The image proves that not only have the Iraqis learned the word but they also know exactly what it means.
I like to think that we Brits have now added yet another component to the rich tapestry of Middle-Eastern culture and it reinforces my belief that the pithy, seductive quality of this word will continue to fuel its steady but relentless conquest of the Anglosphere, the Middle-East, the World and, who knows, maybe even beyond.
It is at times like this that all the speculation about possible encounters with alien species from other planets comes to mind. I am not sure that such an event will ever come to pass and I am quite positive that I will no longer be around to witness it even if it does. But I am willing to bet green money in the here and now that, within weeks of that first, portentious, epoch-making encounter, said aliens will be calling each other ‘wanker’.
It has been liberated.
I have just watched live on TV via SkyNews as US soldiers used an armoured recovery vehicle to pull down the huge statue of Saddam Hussain in the very heart of Baghdad, surrounded by a crowd of Iraqis quite literally leaping about with joy
Thousands of jubilant Iraqis danced in the square and when the statue fell, they rushed forward, ignoring desperate attempts by the US soldiers to keep them back for fear the still unstable structure would crush them… but this was a moment they would not be denied and they quite literally danced on the huge fallen monument to one man’s insane monomania.
The cost in blood and misery must never been forgotten and there will be hardships, disappointments and trying times ahead but now is the time to celebrate what has been achieved. These moments do not come often in life, so savour them whilst they last. Enjoy.
Update: The people at SkyNews’ website are fast! They already have an article up only minutes after I watched it live on television (the article took them 12 minutes to put up (almost as fast as me!)… Way to go, guys!).
The following entry was put in our comment section by G. Cooper in response to Natalie Solent’s post The Floodgates of Anarchy. I thought it was sufficiently interesting to warrant a post of its own (as it saves me from writing one myself as I was thinking much the same thing):
Watching the scenes of jubilation this morning and the way the liberating troops are being greeted, I find myself experiencing strangely mixed emotions. I am deeply, unashamedly, proud of the coalition’s forces and the restrained and civilised way they have behaved in all this and I am also delighted for the Iraqis. But still there’s a troubling sensation nagging away at the back of my mind. It’s that the greater fight has yet to come. Not with bin Laden, Iran or Syria – the one against a far deadlier enemy, our own corrosive, mendacious Left and its fellow travellers: the Lib-Dems, anti-globalisation clowns, pacifists, religious ‘leaders’, self-styled ecologists and the rest.
Yesterday, even as the British were securing Basra and the Americans preparing to liberate Baghdad, I heard a radio phone-in during which an Iraqi in exile was pouring scorn on the liberation, saying that the people would never welcome our forces. He was, of course, wrong but will he would admit that today? He will not. Nor will the intellectually bankrupt army of Left-liberal academics, ‘experts’, ‘analysts’, broadcasters, politicians and journalists which has done nothing but undermine our efforts to rid Iraq and the world of Saddam’s wickedness.
Nothing will make these people admit they were wrong about almost every single aspect of this war. They will simply move on to criticise something else, not even pausing to reflect on their streams of negativity, lies and hopelessly inaccurate predictions (“millions of dead” “armageddon unleashed in the Middle East”, “ecological catastrophe” “it’s all about oil”).
It wasn’t easy to defeat Saddam. How much more difficult will it be to rout those working from within to tear down the very systems which allowed us to defeat this evil?
Stop Press: Even as I write, a BBC reporter in Baghdad is “sounding a note of caution” as he opens the next phase of the war, predicting a tide of anti-US feeling from Iraqis, weeks more fighting, more civilian casualties. This relentless spew continues, even as Uday’s palace burns and the reporter’s voice-over is broadcast to pictures of Iraqis rejoicing, celebrating and proving him a fool.
– Posted by G Cooper at April 9, 2003 10:27 AM
Well Mr. G. Cooper, I suspect very few of the people who found themselves on the wrong side of history, or to be more accurate, on the wrong side of objective reality, will acknowledge that they were wrong not just publicly but even to themselves.
Some who opposed the war on grounds which had nothing to do with Iraq (but rather domestic issues of cost, encroachment on civil liberties at home, etc.) will be unmoved in their views by the success of the war, and that is entirely logical. That ‘the good guys won’ is frankly an irrelevance if the basis of their opposition was an antipathy to the growth of the state at home (a concern which I share in spite of my support for this war of liberation).
However those whose opposition was based on the ‘welfare of the Iraqi people’ or the ‘doomsayers’ (“impregable defences of Baghdad” anyone?)… these people are the willful blind and deaf, walled off from seeing anything which does not fit their distorted subjective world views.
So it falls to you, and us, and everyone else who values the truth, to keep blowing on the trumpets until the walls come crashing down… and then keep blowing a little longer anyway just to be sure!
British troops in Basra are still struggling to impose a degree of law and order and have been in the odd position of rescuing a Saddam loyalist from being beaten to death by a mob of enraged locals.
It seems likely that what the British are encountering in Basra a few days after largely crushing overt resistance will be fairly similar to the situation US forces will find in Baghdad over the next few days as the last vestiges of Ba’athist Socialism collapse. A CNN reporter on the spot was recounting how he saw one man shoot another dead over looting spoils and obviously the US forces will have to get a grip fairly quickly to prevent things getting completely out of control.
It will be interesting to see how the scenes of celebrating Iraqis in the area of Baghdad called ‘Saddam City’ will be reported on local television across the Islamic world. Who knows, maybe a few meta-contexts will actually be shaken loose from their moorings.
…as the last vestiges of Ba’athist Socialism collapse. Sorry, I just have to write that again… as the last vestiges of Ba’athist Socialism collapse. Ahhhh. That feels good.
Turn on your TV now. If you are in Britain ITV is the right station to watch – never mind missing Bob The Builder on BBC2 – just do it, OK? You have just missed the sight of a Baghdad citizen in traditional Arab dress hitching up his robe to make a universally comprehensible pelvic gesture towards a picture of Saddam Hussein, said picture held up by another guy who has just finished whacking it with his shoe – oops, no, he hasn’t finished, more whacking left to do. They don’t think he’s coming back.
I gather the minders didn’t turn up at the press hotel today; like the rest of the Iraqi state apparatus they have melted away. Now the whole of Baghdad looks like the world’s worst organised car boot sale. Horns honking, people smiling, waving, jumping, shouting and looting every official building in the city. I just saw a lady carrying off a vase almost bigger than she is. Chairs seem to be popular, as do tyres. One practical-minded lad has gone for a large bottle of olive oil. Heavens, is nothing sacred? One reporter said that the mob had nicked all the UN vehicles and were driving them around.
I tell you, it’s anarchy out there!
Only – ahem- not our sort of anarchy. I am a minarchist most of the time, but on Tuesdays and Thursdays I am an anarchist, and I am a little bit worried about our good name. I can certainly cheer on the guys who have doused a mural of Saddam with petrol and set it alight; deconstructive art, I call it. Nor do I begrudge most of the looters their spontaneous redistribution of the ruling kleptocracy’s wealth back to the people. But it’s not all innocent fun: reports speak of shops being cleaned out as well as palaces, and that will be hard for those whose wealth and lives were tied up in those shops. Expect also to see the pent-up anger of the people bursting out into mob violence which will harm the innocent as well as the guilty.
When a drug addict undergoes the “cold turkey” cure, he will sometimes go into convulsions. This is the anarchy of cold turkey.
Yesterday was Ba’ath party anniversary. The Iraq Press, opposition press agency, notes that for the first time in 35 years it was ignored as there were no authorities to force Iraqis to mark the founding anniversary of the ruling party in the traditional manner.
Streets were festooned with ribbons and Saddam Hussein’s monuments, statues and murals, found almost at every corner in Iraq, were decorated and hundreds of thousands of copies of his glossy and color pictures distributed.
Radio and television glared with anthems and songs in praise of the great leader. The festivities were only a harbinger of the nation-wide gala celebrations that took place in Iraq on April 28 to mark Saddam’s birthday.
This year, for the first time in 35 years, Iraqis will be not be “forcibly bussed to his hometown of Tikrit for an orchestrated demonstration to show the world how the Iraqi people loved their great leader.”
I do like the sound of these words:
The whole of April was a period in which the authorities were busy unveiling one statue of Saddam after another, one mural after another and one monument after another.
But now no new statues or murals are erected. Instead they are being pulled down and smashed across the country.
The western public will never understand the full horrific impact of a personality cult. They may see the prisons, torture chambers and hear the disturbing discriptions of individual tragedies. But they will not be able to comprehend just how pervasive propaganda of a regime built around an individual can become. My impression is that people imagine it is more of a public affair and if you do not read the newspaper or watch TV, you can more or less ignore it. A sort of celebrity craze that you can laugh off in the privacy of your home. Or filter it out, like the bias of western media.
But it is not like that, regime propaganda is everywhere, at work, in public and communal life. It follows you home, interferes with all aspects of your life – making sense of the world, relating to your family, bringing up your children. It employs personal and innocuous images, hijacks most wholesome and normal features of your life – celebrating birthdays, dating, having fun, making friends with your neighbours…
The coalition forces and western journalists ought to have in mind, when they encounter the locals, the regime’s ‘mind control’ techniques used on the population and habitually backed by force. They should remember that these people have been subjected to Saddam’s propaganda machine for the last three decades. Their way of thinking is not going to change in 20 days although the reality around them will have done. It will take a long time for them to learn to appreciate the kind of freedom we take for granted. I do not wish to insult Iraqis by suggesting that they will not rejoice at the absence of oppression and appreciate their new found freedom. It is their understanding of individual rights as applied to everyone, not only those who can enforce them for themselves by violence or connections, that may take a generation or two to sink in.
But for me that is the whole point of liberating Iraq.
A Reuters journalist Taras Protsyuk from Ukraine, has been killed and three Reuters colleagues injured after a shell from a U.S. tank hit the media hotel where they were working. A Spanish journalist for a seperate news organisation was also hurt, Reuters reports.
The rollcall of good and experienced reporters for organisations like ITN, Channel Four, Reuters, the Atlantic Monthly and others is long and depressing. Yes, I know these folk had a choice to work in dangerous places, but it doesn’t make their deaths any less sad. May these fine news gatherers rest in peace.
Allied claims of the fall of Basra and reports of American tanks in the centre of Baghdad were robustly denied this evening by Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed al-Sahhaf.
Attending a press conference before by a rapidly dwindling troupe of Western journalists, Minister al-Sahhaf took the podium to address his audience beneath a solitary, naked lightbulb. In the distance, the crump of tanks shells could be heard.
Despite the gloom, the Minister could be seen standing in front of a map of the world carefully arranging a sheaf of papers that he claimed were messages being relayed from the front lines by Iraq soldiers.
“The so-called Coalition forces have been completely routed by the Iraqi Armed Forces. There is not a single British or American soldier on Iraqi soil”
Pausing only to wipe away the plasterdust that was settling on his head from the cracked ceiling above, the Minister continued:
“In accordance with the brilliant strategy devised by our beloved leader Saddam Hussein, our glorious soldiers have launched their successful counterattack which is destined to end in a great victory for our side. Already the cities of London and Sydney have been laid waste by the bold actions of our heroic and fearless fedayeen”.
Just at that moment, the building was shaken by a heavy rumble coming from outside.
“It is nothing, it is nothing”.said the Minister “Just a thunderstorm”.
Unphased by the interruption, the Minister continued with his address:
“Advance units of our elite Republican Guard have also surrounded the American capital city of Washington and, in the next few hours, they will begin their final push to capture the Whitehouse.”
As he finished his final sentence, a nearby explosion shattered the windows and blew out the single overhead lightbulb, plunging the room into darkness. There was a pregnant silence suddenly broken by the clatter of a chair as the BBC Correspondent leapt to his feet to applaud enthusiastically and shout “Bravo, bravo. More. Bravo!!”.
Nigel Meek has been doing some digging around in the archives.
Having flicked through a digest of British politician’s speeches about the war, and looking at just the contributions from some members of the Labour Party, four themes seem to stand out.
- Devotion to the United Nations as the only real legitimising agency before, during, and after the war.
- That because of the various dealings that we may indeed have had with the regime in the past, it is therefore unacceptably hypocritical of us to tackle them now.
- Pessimism about the eventual outcome.
- Irrespective of the outcome, a belief that it will be extremely costly not least to our own side.
Iraq in 2003? No, the Falkland Islands in 1982.
For reasons that I won’t bore anyone with, earlier today I was puttering around the Latin American section of the University of London’s library at Senate House. My eyes fell on a dusty tome entitled “The Falkland’s Campaign: A Digest of Debates in the House of Commons, 2 April to 15 June 1982” published by HMSO, London.
By a remarkable coincidence, the book fell open at a speech by none other than that master of decisiveness, Robin Cook. Randomly dipping further into the book, it was eerie to read the ‘usual suspects’ such as Cook and Tony Benn making the same speeches then as they’ve been doing two decades later. It’s as if they’ve had their secretaries scan in their old speeches from Hansard, convert them into Microsoft Word documents, and then use Word’s find and replace facility to swap ‘Argentina’ and ‘Iraq’.
There was even dear old Tam Dalyell using the words ‘South Atlantic’, ‘mire’, and ‘Vietnam’ in one speech!
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
