Tuesday 29 April 2003

Did our leaders lie to us? Do we even care?

Two stories of interest today are, of course, that once again a suicide bomber strikes Tel Aviv killing loads of innocent people. It's outrageous but also more than a little convenient for Sharon, and just when the "road map" is due to be published as well. Colour me cynical but I'm not so sure these bombings are all they appear to be: by way of deception thou shalt do war. The other story is Peter "The Prince of Darkness" Mandelson moaning to the Mirror that Phony Tony is "ruthless" for sacking him. What a load of cobblers! Sorry, but if Mandelson told me it was raining I'd have to look outside to check, this guy is up to his eyeballs in it and should not be trusted without the expediency of a lie detector! There's a reason for him making these comments though, especially in a forum like the Mirror; what that reason is I can only guess but if you combine it with the odd press conference in Russia yesterday it makes interesting reading.

Ever wondered who is on the Board of the parent company of the Daily Mirror? Ok, maybe you haven't I know I don't get out much... Anyway, if you do have a look you'll realise that the Mirror is proof of the argument that the beast has many different heads. They use diametrically opposite arguments but still encourage you to constrain your thinking to the particularly narrow framework they have in mind. You can question, but only so far. It's good to save the world from Bush but nobody mention the name Bilderberg! The supreme truth of this is that you will not find a mention of Bilderberg anywhere in the Mirror, nor will you when the meeting convenes in May. The list of Trinity Mirror board members is here notice that at least one of the names on the list is also a non-executive director of NM Rothschild & Sons Ltd. If you ask me the Mirror is not as crusading as they'd like us all to think, they produce a lot of good material but you have to remember that it's all part of the Plan. Read some Hegel and you'll understand what I mean; thesis, antithesis, synthesis.


Now that wasn't so bad, was it?''

One of my pro-war acquaintances said this in a reassuring, not gloating, manner. His tone was a congenial gesture in the wake of our heated arguments over the Iraq War in recent weeks; we had remained tensely civil.

I shrugged. Indeed, the shooting war in Iraq had -- from an American vantage point -- gone well. Relatively few casualties on our side; surviving Iraqis clearly pleased to be rid of Saddam Hussein, if wary of our presence.

This summation, of course, ignores many unanswered questions. So I asked him one.

''Would it bother you if we were to discover that George Bush lied about the case for going to war?'' I asked.

He knew what I was referring to. His blunt answer left my jaw hanging.

``Everyone knows he lied about weapons of mass destruction being the point of the war.''

Just a few weeks ago, any statement from me that Bush's case for war was riddled with inconsistencies and illogic would have brought swift and fierce condemnation from this fellow.

Now, basking in the glow of military conquest -- and confronted by a thus-far futile search for chemical and biological weapons -- this hawk breezily conceded the point while also waving it away as inconsequential.

Have we become a country that wears its hypocrisy openly and proudly?

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