Saying that, Paxman did let Blair off the hook a few times. He seemed to stop just as it was getting interesting. Even at its most critical, the capitalist media still plays by the rules -- some questions, some perspectives, are simply not within its remit. Perhaps it is not coincidence that the media did not take the opportunity to analysis the exchange in any depth, particularly as Blair came across so badly.
So what should have Paxman asked? Well, here are a few possibilities...
When Blair asserted that it "would not be correct to say there is no evidence linking al-Qa'ida and Iraq" Paxman could have at least noted that CIA and FBI officials still believe the Bush administration is "exaggerating" information to make their political case for war. Regarding the alleged Iraqi link with al Qaeda, U.S. intelligence officials told the New York Times, "we just don't think it's there." Which is, of course, what their British equivalents have also said.
Blair insisted Britain and the US would attack Iraq without UN backing only if one of the five permanent Security Council members used a veto. Paxman should have asked why previous vetoes by the USA (by far the most prolific user of it) and the UK of UN resolutions had not denied the "will of the UN." Why did Paxman not ask the poodle why Israel is allowed to blatantly ignore UN resolutions (many more than Iraqi) and why US vetoes in its support do not undermine the UN. And what of Bush ignoring or blocking many international treaties (such as on biological weapons, small weapons, nuclear proliferation)? Paxman could have suggested that when Blair argues that the U.N. Security Council places itself in danger of irrelevance if it fails to endorse a U.S.-led war on Iraq, he really means that the United Nations is "relevant" only to the extent that it does what the U.S. government wants.
On the US "evidence," Paxman was correct to use the US attack on the Sudan pharmaceutical factory against Blair. He should have also mentioned the systematic state lying which has been used to justify support for the Contra's, the first Gulf War, the Vietnam war (i.e. the fabricated Gulf of Tonkin incident in which US claimed that North Vietnam had attacked their ships) and so on. Simply put, states lie. Politicians lie. Given the systematic way that the US and UK state has lied in the past, can we be expected to trust them now? Apparently so. The double standard is clear: If we apply Blair's logic that Iraq's lying in the past means it cannot be believed today, it is clear that not a single word spoken by him or his allies can be trusted.
Blair stated that "If [Saddam] was to use chemical, biological or nuclear weapons in the rest of his region there is no way Britain could stand aside from that." He further justified war by asserting that Saddam has used "external aggression against other people and the fact is, he is the one power in this world that has actually used chemical weapons against his own people." It is a shame that Paxman failed to note that in the 1980s that neither Britain nor America "stood aside" but rather they actually supported and armed Saddam. Thatcher sent her ministers to shake hands with the tyrant and sell his regimes arms, even after he had gassed the Kurds As did the US (with Donald Rumsfeld at the fore in both).
Similarly, Paxman should have noted that when Blair asserted that "Hussein is in a different category from virtually any other regime in the world in terms of his use of appalling repression against his own people," he should have reminded Blair that this did not bother his or Bush's predecessors when they supported Saddam's regime in the past. Or, for that matter, the US/UK support for the death-squad "democracies" of Latin America or other brutal, mass-murdering regimes across the globe. But, apparently, "appalling repression" is only an issue when it is by a regime opposed by the imperialist powers.
For all Blair's whining that "we're not coming to this without any history," Paxman failed to actually remind him (and the viewers!) of the relevant history. From the moment the CIA aided the coup which created the current dictatorship in Iraq to the invasion of Kuwait, the US and UK had went out their way to aid Saddam's "appalling repression against his own people" (not to mention British Imperialism between the world wars and its "appalling repression" against the Iraqi people!). Paxman could have asked if Blair and Bush were serious about Saddam's crimes, would the US, UK and other western businessmen and government officials who supported him at the height of his atrocities be charged as accomplices. Would the likes of Powell and Rumsfeld be joining Saddam in the war crimes court?
In summary, when Blair stated that "the people that have suffered most from Saddam are the Iraqi people themselves" and the regimes "appalling human rights abuses," Paxman should have reminded him of the West's role in it.
Which, of course, should have prompted Paxman to raise the question of why, if Saddam's regime was so evil, the US and UK stood by and let it destroy the uprisings that occurred after the first Gulf War. It cannot be claimed they did not know his record then (particularly as both states had aided and abetted it!). Paxman could have pointed out that the US/UK preferred Saddam in power to a popular uprising. The last thing the ruling class wants is a popular revolt. That cannot be controlled. If they dislike Saddam's control over the oil, they would hate popular control. Any uprising would have the danger of creating a regime that was more interested in meeting the needs and desires of the Iraqi people than those of the US and its corporations. Much safer, therefore, to "liberate" Iraq by mass bombing and impose a US approved "caretaker" regime...
So much for the insulting, and sick, idea that this is a war of libertarian for the Iraqi people.
Paxman could also have questioned Blair's comment that by 2001 "we were trying to negotiate a new sanctions regime" as "those sanctions were no longer working properly." Paxman could have reminded Blair that before the current party line, both the US and UK governments stressed that sanctions had been working. Indeed, they had been working so well that in May 1996 the U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stated on "60 Minutes" that a half a million dead Iraqi children was a "price" that was "worth it." Yet, somehow, this sacrifice by Imperialism has been in vain. Somehow Saddam hoodwinked the west and its intelligence agencies, developing to an amazing scale its weapons of mass destruction (which implies that both the bombing during the first Gulf War and the subsequent sanctions had no effect at all). Now, apparently, the sanctions have failed (thank god for coincidence!). How, exactly, had Saddam managed to do this is not explained. Nor why we should today believe that these same incompetent "intelligence" services have managed to get their act together just in time to provide an accurate account of the Iraqi's regime military plans. Nor should we wonder why, if the US and UK governments have the "facts" on Saddam they do not make the UN weapons inspectors lives easier and just tell them where to look!
Blair at one point moaned that "it depends whether you want to deal with this on the level of humour and satire or try to make sense of what are difficult issues." Given the insulting nature of his responses and the laughable "evidence" presented by the US and UK to justify its desire for war, it is clear that "humour and satire" are appropriate responses to regimes who simply do not take their own subjects concerns, viewpoints and intelligence seriously.
But in a sense Blair is right. When he states that he did thought Powell's performance at the UN was anything other than "laughable"; when he pontificates that "if we do take military action, we have to do everything we possibly can to minimise the civilian casualties" after the US "shock & awe" plan was announced (a plan which US planners hope will have "a kind of Hiroshima effect, lasting minutes and hours, not days"); when he dismisses the obvious oil corporation interests behind this war as an "absurd" "conspiracy theory"; he has gone beyond satire.
The overriding issue any consideration surely must be simply that tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis will be killed when the US and its poodle attack. For one moment, let us forget the causes, forget oil, forget power and influence, forget the imperialist necessity underpinning the crisis, the main issue is surely that Blair was not asked how he could justify this with the pitiful evidence he and Bush has cobbled together. That, in itself, was a missed opportunity. That Paxman failed to present the necessary background and analysis to understanding this crisis makes it worse.
Blair attempted to justify his position by arguing that "even if I am the only person left saying it, I am going to go on saying it - it is a threat and a danger we have to confront." What does that tell us? If he were simply a man in the street, it would not be an issue. But given he is the (nominal) head of state, with a track record of sidelining Parliament and (more importantly) the population, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that he will attack Iraq even if the rest of the population said no. Like the others in the "new Europe" praised by the US, he is a leader who is willing to defy his population. His comments expose the mentality of a dictator, not a democrat.
The big question is why. Why is Blair (and Bush) going through the motions of getting support? Why doesn't the US simply attack? The answer is simple -- the anti-war movement. As Noam Chomsky has pointed out, the level of protest is much higher now than it was years into the Vietnam War. Due to the mass protest and radicalisation caused by the war, the US state had to go "underground" in the 1970s and 1980s and fight its wars by proxies (such as the Contras or Pinochet). It is been testing the ground with limited interventions since (Granada, Panama, the first Gulf War, etc.).
If this war goes ahead and is quickly won, then US imperialism will be strengthened and will be less likely to go through the motions again. Moreover, nations around the world will be aware of what could happen to them if they pursue an independent line.
It is clear that both Blair and Bush are using "Weapons of Mass Destruction" as, in fact, "Weapons of Mass Distraction." It is an attempt to hide the fact that good old fashioned imperialism is being dusted off for the new century.
Hence the importance of stopping this war. Hence the importance of exposing the lies. We need to show that this war is no accident, that the lying serves a pursue, that we are being used as cannon fodder to inflict pain and suffering on working class people in Iraq. That resources that could be used to make our lives better off are being wasted in pursuing interests of state and of capital. That there is only one conflict worth fighting, that to abolish hierarchy, class and oppression once and for all. That the struggle against imperialism abroad is part and parcel of the struggle against capitalism at home. As Emma Goldman put it:
"Nor is it enough to join the bourgeois pacifists, who proclaim peace among the nations, while helping to perpetuate the war among the classes, a war which in reality is at the bottom of all other wars.
"It is this war of classes that we must concentrate upon, and in that connection the war against false values, against evil institutions, against all social atrocities. Those who appreciate the urgent need of co-operating in great struggles . . . must organise the preparedness of the masses for the overthrow of both capitalism and the state. Industrial and economic preparedness is what the workers need. That alone leads to revolution at the bottom . . . That alone will give the people the means to take their children out of the slums, out of the sweat shops and the cotton mills . . . That alone leads to economic and social freedom, and does away with all wars, all crimes, and all injustice."
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Visit Znet (www.zmag.org/weluser.htm) for excellent articles debunking the "evidence" Powell presented at the UN. Also of note is the articles by David Edwards called "Blair's Betrayal: The Newsnight Debate: Dismantling The Case For War." Edwards is from "Media Lens" (www.medialens.org) which aims to correct for the distorted vision of the corporate media. |