06/04/2004: "Tell us how you really feel"

I have no problem with opposition to the war in Iraq, which has had all kinds of problems in its execution. But this from Peter Oborne of Britain's Spectator magazine is so over the top that one begins to think that a degree of madness has crept into some of the opposition:

All my life, till this month, I have felt more proud than I could say to be British. I felt there were special and irreducible things that we stood for and would, if necessary, fight for: freedom, decency, fairness, humanity, the rule of law. Of course there have been blots�the Amritsar massacre, Bloody Sunday. But on the whole the conduct of British troops during the 30 years of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, or our record during the second world war, has been outstanding. We have been a force for good in the world.

Today there is no pleasure in being British. We are almost a pariah nation. Ordinary British citizens are now starting to learn about the terrible things that have been done in our name. We have been collaborators with the Americans in something so gross, murderous, barbaric and obscene that it defies belief. It is no excuse that US troops have been responsible for the most bestial of the atrocities. We are part of a joint command in Iraq, and thus share the joint shame. Tony Blair went to great lengths to share the credit with President Bush during their triumphalist, flag-draped victory summit 12 months ago. Now he must stomach the disgrace....

This power worship has led the government, again and again, to betray British values and traditions. Take the routine hooding of prisoners, one of the breaches of the Geneva Convention set out in the Red Cross report which ministers claim not to have seen. Hooding of prisoners was banned by Edward Heath in the early 1970s when it came to light in Northern Ireland. So why has it been reintroduced? Did government ministers insist on it? Or is the grim truth that the Americans were doing it, so we felt duty-bound to follow suit?

For those too young to remember, Amritsar is the city in India where, in April of 1919, British troops opened fire on unarmed Sikhs protesting British rule. Over 1200 were wounded, and 379 killed. In the bizarre morality of Oborne, that constitutes a "blot" on the record of the British military, whereas the hooding and other mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib is "something so gross, murderous, barbaric and obscene that it defies belief." It in no way justifies what Americans have done in the Iraqi prison to point out that Oborne, and the many who think as he does, needs to get a grip on his anti-Americanism.