YOU CAN RUN BUT YOU CAN'T HIDE

[Stanley]

Here's something I wrote in 2005 which has a bearing on modern Kurdistan.

YOU CAN RUN BUT YOU CAN’T HIDE.

Politics is a fascinating spectator sport. It provides a constant stream of examples of the pitfalls and traps which await the unwary in real life. We are watching such an example now in UK politics and it is, at the same time, frustrating and instructive to witness.
It’s the resurgence of the massive disagreement about whether it was right to attack Iraq ‘riding pillion with the US’ as the Chatham House report put it in a statement issued today. [formerly The Royal Institute of International Affairs] They have given as their opinion that the incursion into Iraq undoubtedly made the UK more likely to be attacked by fanatics. I use the single word ‘fanatics’ because I fear it is far too easy to qualify any description of the suicide bombers using the adjective ‘Muslim’.
The big problem for the Blair government is that they have invested so much time and effort into burying criticism of their actions in backing the US. Faced with the proposition that actions in Iraq have made the world more dangerous and rendered us more likely to attack as allies of the US they are forced to attempt to refute it. If they don’t, they are tacitly admitting that forecasts that this would happen before the attack, and informed opinion that this is exactly what has happened, were right. Ergo, the incursion was wrong.
In the past few days the human shields have been rolled out, all of them singing from the same hymn sheet. The refrain is, and here’s a typical politician’s rhetorical trick, ‘it is wrong to put forward excuses for the bombers’. Seeking the truth is not making excuses. Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary is the latest big gun to be wheeled out of the bunker and sang his chorus this dinnertime on R4. John Reid, the Minister of Defence even had the gall this morning on Today on R4 to claim the support of history in his assertion that because 9/11 and other bombings happened before the latest attack on Iraq it was obvious that any connection with that attack was wrong.
I’m afraid that once more it was Reid’s spurious arguments that pushed me over the edge. If he is going to use history he should read it first, it might save him from digging the hole they are in any deeper. The problem is of course that many people hearing him would believe him and say ‘well, that’s all right then’.
I would recommend that they go back slightly further and start by reading David Omissi’s article, ‘Baghdad and British Bombers’ published in the Guardian on January the 19th 1991. This was based on the research David had done on his book Air Power 1919-1938 in which he traced the history of the RAF in what was then Mesopotamia and the punitive bombing of the Kurds to force them to pay taxes. He also mentions the shelling of the tribesmen of the Euphrates when they rose in rebellion against British military rule in the summer of 1920, when the British army used gas shells - "with excellent moral effect" - in the fighting which followed.
This evidence blows a small hole in Dr Reid’s interpretation of ‘history’. It has evidently escaped his notice that there are tribal elders and younger people taught by them, in what is essentially an oral tradition, who have been bombed three times by the RAF in their lifetime. It seems to me that to assert that such experiences have no bearing on attitudes towards Britain is not only foolish but a gross distortion of the historical record. At the very least, the government is on very shaky ground if this is their only defence.
They are wriggling on a hook of logic that is entirely of their own making and just as all the efforts to discount criticism of the attack on Iraq have failed, this latest attempt to deflect blame will fail as well. They rely on a failure of memory on the part of the electorate and I’m afraid that in most cases this succeeds. It is the duty of those of us with slightly more retention to raise these matters even though we will be accused of acting as ‘excusers for the bombers’.
I hold no brief for George Galloway but do recognise that when a man speaks the truth he should be recognised and not vilified. In a recent speech he said that until the nations of the West renounced armed force as a tool of foreign policy they would continue to attract opposition and terrorist attacks. I can’t understand how anyone can argue that this isn’t the case. We aren’t talking here of armed force used in genuine defence against clear and present danger. We are talking about what we used to call ‘gunboat diplomacy’ and the concomitant damage it causes. It is generally agreed that 800 men, women and children are being killed in Iraq every month due to suicide bombings. This does not include ‘normal casualties’ caused by the activities of the security forces. These deaths are a direct result of the destruction of the Iraqi army, police and security forces by our troops because it opened the window to fanaticism.
In an article in the Guardian of February 19th 2003; ‘Blast from the Past’ by Matt Seaton, Simon Schama, when asked for his view on the proposed attack on Iraq as compared to WW2 refuted any comparison and ended his piece by saying; ‘As a consequence, if you were Bin Laden, you would be thrilled about the prospect of war: either there will be a great fat target of a western presence in Iraq for several years or there will be a broken and chaotic state: either way it will be a teddy bears' picnic for terrorism.’ Dr Reid and the rest of the Blair government should have been listening, at the very least they should note this and add it to their reading list. Here we have a historian applying the lessons of history and coming to a clear conclusion which has turned out to be exactly right.
To ignore the role of past actions in Iraq when seeking reasons for the recent terrible scenes in London is worse than simple ignorance, it is wilful distortion of the truth. This is of course not a complete answer to why young men with everything to live for were persuaded to take such violent action but it is a good place to start. What is even more important is the fact that until unpleasant facts are faced, until the truth not only of history but of recent acts is admitted, there is no chance of any successful strategy emerging in the fight against such acts because whatever action is taken will be based on ignorance and short term manipulation of the truth. This is not a sure foundation for policy.

SCG/18 July 2005

[Stanley]

I thought it might be a good time to bump this article..... Note that I wrote it in 2005......

[Stanley]

Again, it could be a good time to bump this and have a read. Putin is using very dodgy history to justify his actions against Ukraine. We should be ready to correct him......

[Stanley]

Bumped again. It's a serious attempt to describe the failings of government and is as true today as it was then.

[Stanley]

Reading that article again I noted how prescient Simon Schama was. He predicted what would happen and with hindsight we can see he was right.
We could, with profit, apply these lessons to Ukraine but we all know that history will be ignored.....