Britain reserves the right to bomb niggers
"Britain reserves the right to bomb niggers." It isn't a well known policy of the British government, it rarely makes it into party manifestos before elections. Not even in the small print, only in the deceptions. Only in the decisions.
When the BBC were making their dramatised version of the life of Lloyd George, former British Prime Minister from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries they decided, like the political parties, to omit that particular phrase. In 1902 Lloyd George was giving his point of view to Parliament around the possibility of the UK government signing a treaty that prohibited the killing of civilians in any future wars. It didn't get very far. The young parliamentarian Winston Churchill, noted Hanson (the documenters of parliamentary life and debate) gave Lloyd George a standing ovation.
Winston Churchill was also fully aware of the need for Britain to control the "uncivilised tribes" that threatened British control over major economic sources, shipping, minerals and so on. "Recalcitrant Arabs" he called them. Churchill who had become Colonial Secretary after the First World War decided that an impoverished Britain could fight by different, cheaper means. So he gassed the Kurds. He despised the "squeamishness" of those who "objected to poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes." He used airpower that was just emerging to drop mustard gas on the Kurds, as he extolled, "spreading a lively terror." Perhaps the most damning statement by Churchill was that in fact the gassing of the Kurds was "as experiment."
Now, 100 years later Tony Blair and his cabinet couch their wars in post-hippie language. Funky phrases like `open government` and `collateral damage.` When New Labour claimed it was opening up government to the people it simultaneously destroyed all documentation surrounding Churchill's gassing of the Kurds. Did we say post-hippie? We meant post-Orwellian.
Because before the attacks on Kosovo, the ones that made the Serbian paramilitary "genocide" (current UN count 2018 dead) "entirely predictable" (Gen. Wesley Clark) Tony Blair was already graciously, nobly in a statesmanlike way, accepting of `collateral damage`. He stood before parliament pointing out that there would indeed be `collateral damage` but that he was prepared to take that on the chin. War is always very ennobling if you don't happen to be a child in a train hit by laser guided weaponry.
But it continues. The Iraq dossier revealed by Tony Blair is simply him repeating his previous claims. Just in this case it has "intelligence says" before any said claim. Basically just euphemisms for âtrust me I'm Prime Ministerâ. Blair claims the attacks "will be in self-defence." It sounds like an oxymoron. Self defence usually happens after an attack, hence the bundling with the phrase "will be" sounds a little odd. But it has international recognition.
Because do you remember when Saddam Hussein tried to murder George Bush snr? No? Surely you must do. It was the excuse two months later, June 1993, for the USA to launch cruise missiles into Baghdad and other cities, killing civilians. Although no evidence was ever put forward for the Iraqi assassination attempt the commentators and top rate broadsheet journalists took it at face value. It was also just on the cusp of the takeover of the Presidency by Bill Clinton. It became Clinton's chance to make his mark it was said to "have cheered the President." In the UK Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd said it was right and proper that the USA had failed to even glance at the UN or the Security Council or else there would be a "dangerous state of paralysis" in world politics. Not as dangerous as being an Iraqi under a cruise missile, but his supporters understood what he meant.
Indeed the Conservative Government under Mrs Thatcher were in fact open supporters of both Churchill's legacy and of state violence to suppress "recalcitrant Arabs." Much has been noted of the gassing of the Kurds by Saddam in Halabja. The chemicals used to kill the 5000 or so Kurds were supplied by Germany. Three months after that attack deputy foreign secretary Norman Fowler went to Baghdad, not to chastise Saddam but to praise him and to offer up British arms sales. Saddam took him up on it. He took $1bn of weapons and never paid for them, we did, you and me.
But never mind eh? It was all legitimate, it was a policy espoused by that genial and charming man Geoffrey Howe. That limp Tory whose attacks on Mrs Thatcher she liked to being "savaged by a wet sheep." Indeed Howe had fully foreseen the problems of supplying arms to someone who killed kids with European gas. He drafted a document that set out the way forward for selling arms to this major killer. But he made sure it was hidden from view.
There were "major opportunities for British industry" he pointed out. During the Scott Enquiry he said he hid the document from the public, MPs, anyone in fact, because he wanted to avoid "emotional misunderstandings" presumably by mere mortals like ourselves who do get all hot under the collar after a civilian gassing. He also wanted to avoid people like me, "malicious commentators." He also wanted to avoid other Tories and make sure they didn't know about the administration and its desire to sell weapons to the Thatcher administration's favourite (as far as we know) major mass murderer. As Geoffrey explained, it was a "perfectly legitimate management of news." Not like the Iraq dossier of course.
So now, with hardly any evidence, with no political support around the world, with the backing of the global neo-media and partnering an administration that says even if it loses a UN vote it will act anyway, Tony Blair moves towards war and presents his dossier as a pretext for more `collateral damage`. After all, why not? Britain's politicians have always `reserved the right`.
Adam Porter
http://www.sheffieldagainstwar.org.uk/articles/britain-reserves-the-right-to-bomb-niggers/
http://www.sheffieldagainstwar.org.uk/
Winston Churchill on Terrorism
by Ken Meyercord
30 January 2003 06:52 UTC
As the U.S. Administration speaks of pre-emptive nuclear strikes while
demonizing Saddam Hussein for "gassing his own people" and bemoaning
Palestinian suicide... er, homicide bombers, it might be instructive to
reflect on Sir Winston Churchill's views about such activities.
As Secretary of State at the War Office (1919), W Churchill authorised the
RAF Middle East Command to use chemical weapons "against recalcitrant Arabs
as an experiment", dismissing objections by the India Office as
"unreasonable".
"I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly
in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes.(to) spread a
lively terror." (The tribes were the Kurds of Iraq and the Afghans.)
"We cannot acquiesce in the non-utilisation of any available weapons to
procure a speedy termination of the disorder which prevails on the frontier"
, adding that chemical weapons are merely "the application of Western
science to modern warfare".
http://csf.colorado.edu/forums/isafp/2003/msg00007.html
