- With every passing day it becomes clear that the muddled
thinking behind this illegal assault on Iraq is based on lies, greed and
ignorance.
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- That the argument for the invasion is so morally weak
and the objectives so vague, that the only justification left is that it
has to be right because Our Boys are there.
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- How patronising and incalculably dangerous that logic
seems, especially if your loved one is now scrambling through the desert.
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- What an admission that the war is being packaged in myth
and sold by deceit. And nowhere has that become more clear than in the
language used to flog it.
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- Washington claimed Iraq would be crushed by a new doctrine
called Minimum Lethal Force. Or MLF. Attempt to de-construct that phrase
in your head without laughing, or crying. Try to work out how, when it
comes to war, you can use the word minimum to soften the word lethal. Then
realise they are actually saying Not Quite Hiroshima.
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- Think of those other euphemisms that insult both the
English language and human dignity. Collateral Damage and Friendly Fire.
Then remember how much of it we have seen in so few days.
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- Coalition fire and accidents has claimed 16 British servicemen
and an ITV camera crew. America has lost five. A US missile has hit a bus
full of Syrian workers as they tried to flee Iraq, killing five and injuring
10. Thirty-three Kurds were murdered as a stray bomb hit a village in Kurdistan.
Two Tomahawk cruise missiles have landed in Turkey and American rockets
have landed in Iran.
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- It's shocking all right. But not very awesome.
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- That is before we count the hundreds of Iraqi civilians
maimed and killed by that wonderfully benign doctrine MLF. And we are still
only softening Baghdad up for the real horrors.
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- Donald Rumsfeld said his heart breaks when he hears of
friendly fire and collateral damage. We all share the heartbreak but some
of us also dredge up the facts.
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- During the first Gulf War, 24 per cent of American deaths
(35 servicemen) were caused by their own friendly fire.
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- As for collateral damage who can forget last year's slaughter
at the wedding party in Afghanistan? Or the 64 Albanian refugees who were
killed on tractors as they fled Kosovo?
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- And after every one of these incidents the same excuse
is trotted out. That there has never been a "eath-free war".
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- Well why then did Bush and Blair sell this as one while
they tried to arm-twist authorisation for it through the United ations?
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- The ambiguous language and the unsure notion of where
America's WMDs another beauty) should be landing, fits in perfectly with
the ill-defined nature of the conflict. Even the American convoy which
was captured ended up in Iraqi hands because the driver thought the area
he was turning into was under Allied control. Well when you control only
areas of sand it is an easy enough mistake to make.
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- The Allies are telling us they have taken towns and cities,
then having to go back and re-take them. And you wonder how well this bodes
for any peace. How easy it will be for guerrillas to wage a constant war
for many years to come, with our soldiers having to take these bombs and
bullets. And for what?
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- In the south of Iraq the coalition says it is suffering
major setbacks due to the unforeseen level of resistance among soldiers
and civilians. Why didn't their intelligence predict this?
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- Meanwhile in the north, the nightmare scenario of Turkey
invading Kurdistan is unfolding, and with it a legality that Washington
cannot question. According to the Turks they are simply carrying out a
pre-emptive strike on a hostile people. Now where have we heard before?
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- This is the mess you end up in when your cause is neither
just nor legal. When contemptuous arrogance and blind stupidity makes a
superpower believe that because it has the technology, the fire-power and
the dollars to buy off the little guys, its might will prevail.
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- That simply turning up on Third World soil with promises
to re-build the country in your image after you have destroyed it, guarantees
you the moral high ground and the spoils of victory.
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- It was exactly what America thought in Vietnam -
that is before the body-bags kept being sent home in their thousands.
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- Suddenly having Their Boys over there seemed the worst
justification of all.
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