Aaronovitch: The Good War

It's as if his incapacity to concede that the Iraq war was a spectacular error of judgement was due to a subconsciously macho approach to humility.

Human nature is amazing. And one of our most amazing features is, in many cases, our absolute incapacity of admitting our wrong.

On Iraq, I can see why Tony Blair would sooner chuck an egg at Prescott's face than admit he fucked up. It's quite obvious why it's in his own interest not to concede an inch on what led to the war and its aftermath. And the same applies to his former subordinates in the Labour Cabinet.

What's puzzling, however, is the way "commentators" a-la David Aaronovitch or Nick Cohen are perversely keeping their blinkers on. Like kids sitting at the back of the classroom sulkingly announcing that, no, they didn't snatch their classmates' packed lunch, even if they were caught red handed.

It's almost as if their incapacity to concede that they made a huge error of judgement was due to a subconsciously macho approach to humility. Like a blow to their male ego. Which in turn, is transforming their pro-war devotion into a possessed hosepipe spraying bullshit at random.

Aaronovitch is no longer just advocating that the war was a good idea. His piece in yesterday's Times marked a shift in his pig-headedness: "We're seven years after Saddam" , he wrote and the debate has not "shifted a millimetre".

His target? The continuing boring criticism of the way Blair went about it, the dubious legality, the botched preparations, the bad planning, the non-WMDs, the lies. The £5bn (and counting) cost, the international instability, the 4.5 million orphans. In his view, it's just "the same stock phrases, the same conventional wisdoms that now pass from brain to lip without encountering thought along the way".

Not only that. Aaronovitch thinks we're actively enjoying all that. Each time the evening news announces another car bomb going off in Baghdad we're popping champagne bottles and grin with delight.

In his view, those who dare question The Good War do so because "they want [the war scars] to stay wounded — they enjoy their wounds".

And then, the icing on the cake, he laments the fact that no-one talks about the Iraqis anymore. "They have become ghosts", he grieves.

Funny choice of phrase, "ghosts". Because while he snipes at the pedantic "seven years of Shortism" and praises The Many Outstanding Benefits of The Good War, Aaronovitch himself fails to mention the war casualties once.

Like ghosts, exactly. Because whether the war resulted in 150,000, 600,000 or one million dead, according to Aaronovitch, we should just stop going on about them.

Aaronovitch, Israel and the "pointlessness" of war zealotry

The explosive admission that white phosphorous was used against civilians in Gaza.

Do you remember when last year war zealot and Tony Blair fan David Aaronovitch wrote of the "pointlessness" of accusing Israel of disproportionate force in Gaza?

"Pointless outrage", he called it, as he wrote in the Times that "Israel takes care with its targeting, [the Palestinians] don't".

Like he still does over Iraq, Aaronovitch was oozing confidence that yet another war was "morally just".

Around that time, Amnesty International and other observers obtained evidence that Israel had used white phosphorous -reports also substantiated by Aaronovitch's own paper, the Times. All "pointless" stuff, of course.

And yet the UN too, with the Goldstone report, accused the IDS of using "disproportionate force", a claim that was immediately rejected by the Israeli government as "flawed from A to Z", "biased" and "ludicrous", along with allegations that white phosphorous had been used.

One year later and the tune has changed. The Israeli government published its report to the UN, admitting -crucially- that "[S]everal artillery shells were fired in violation of the rules of engagement prohibiting use of such artillery near populated areas". In particular, the report refers to a UN compound sheltering 700 civilians that was set ablaze by white phosphorus shells.

Which, I guess, goes to show the "pointlessness" of overpaid commentators a-la Aaronovitch.

Fear of change

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Rejoice: EDL won't be back in Brum

An update on the Birmingham riots.

The good news is that the English Defence League finally announced that they "will not be coming back to Birmingham in the near future".

The bad news is that, for the time being, the shit-stirrers achieved what they wanted. No matter how much the national media plays it down, race relations in Brum took another blow as the city appears scarred by the second consecutive set of riots in four weeks.

In the meantime, local website The Stirrer features the two most informed pieces so far on last Saturday's riots.

'Business as usual' points out the idiocy of those EDL claims that "they're not a racist group", while at the same time frothing at the mouth as they chant against Islam as a whole.

The 'Riotous Brothers', instead, substantiates what we already mentioned as regards the August 8 clashes: the fact that a seemingly spontaneous group of Asian youths (with no affiliation to any anti-fascist group) turned up and was very aggressive towards a lot of people who had nothing to do whatsoever with the EDL oiks.

For the record, one of the most useless pieces on the whole affair bears the signature of Times columnist David Aaronovitch. In an article titled 'Birmingham riots: young men looking for the excitement of a fight', Aaronovitch puts it down to a load of kids up for a ruck. 650 words of nothingness.

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Permanent Revolution has an interesting report on last Saturday's events.

Open verdict? My arse

De Menezes: clearly the jury didn't believe the police. But, nevermind the lies, most of the press keep telling us not to forget how tense the atmosphere was on that day.

As the inquest over the killing (sorry, the open verdict) of Jean Charles de Menezes came to an end, someone pointed out that a similar incident in Brazil wouldn't have been granted a similar degree of discussion, let alone a legal enquiry. It's almost as if the de Menezes family should be grateful for the privilege of dealing with that wonderful sanctuary of legal rights that is Britain.

That may be the case. And in fact, Britain most certainly allowed reports, debates and inquests, all quite thorough and all quite costly (£8 million). Except that it takes one little detail to turn it into a surreal farce. And, a Brazilian may be quite right to point out, the kind only a Brit can tolerate with such a passive shrug. Because just before the final verdict, the jury was effectively gagged from expressing their full findings. The coroner in charge of the proceedings, Sir Michael Wright, ordered that the one verdict the police were dreading, 'unlawful killing', be struck out.

Excuse the light-hearted comparison, but it's like being 3-0 up with five minutes to go and the referee tells you that, forget the three goals, the only possible score to be allowed at the end of the match is either a 0-0 draw or victory for the opponents.

Hence the Kafkaesque 'open verdict' expression. Good Lord, you can even picture it: "Jury, have you reached a verdict?" "Yes, Your Honour". "What is your verdict?" "Open verdict your honour". "We found the accused guilty of everything, therefore it's an… open verdict".

And in fact the inquest did reveal a spectacular display of incompetence and foul play on the part of the police. And the jury took note. There were disturbing accounts of how, in the words of Gareth Peirce, the solicitor representing the de Menezes family, "officers ostensibly trained to operate a military policy in effectively a war situation […] didn't even know the basic terminology to use [and] seemed incapable of setting up a central command system that obtained information and gave it". Not to mention that the evidence given by the police as regards the few seconds leading up to the shooting was contradicted by each and every single witness. The jury didn’t believe a single one of the officers. Which is why the de Menezes family lawyer is currently considering perjury action against the Met.

Yet wide sections of the country's press seemed disturbingly unconcerned. At best, they hold on to a couple of routine formulas that sidestep the whole de Menezes affair. 'Don't forget the tension on that day' and 'the police had to decide within seconds'. In the Times, David Aaronovitch goes for the strawman tactic. He writes: "Sometimes it seems to need restatement that the police did not set out that morning looking to kill an innocent young man". Then, as he reminds us of the "confused circumstances" surrounding the killing, he quotes press reports from 22 July 2005 about "'an Asian guy' in a heavy coat […] running on to the train", as well as "bomb belt and wires".

Except that Aaronovitch doesn't tell you that those press statements were based on the information passed on by Scotland Yard. The day after de Menezes' death, a Met's official statement was still portraying a false version of the facts. "His clothing and behaviour added to [the surveillance officers'] suspicions". Scotland Yard initially claimed he wore a bulky jacket and jumped the barrier when police identified themselves and ordered him to stop. Still the day after the shooting Ian Blair was spreading the fable that de Menezes "challenged police and refused to obey orders before he was shot"
They knew they were talking rubbish, but they had no problem telling the press. This is what should be at the centre of the de Menezes' case. Because nobody doubts the pressure the police were under, nobody forgets the charged atmosphere of those days. But what's it got to do with lying?

Aaronovitch doesn't tell you that, as it emerged from the inquest, "one surveillance team member had altered his log to say that he had not positively identified the subject as the bomber, though his original entry indicated the opposite". Quibbles. The people in charge of defending the nation at the height of a security alert feel free to release false information and alter evidence and that's ok, isn't it?

"Don't treat the police as criminal", says Maria Dejevsky in the Independent. Not criminals, but the unexplained "failure (of anyone) to apprehend the suspect before he reached the station" is surely a magnificent display of ineptitude. As she concedes herself, "Challenging a suspected terrorist in a relatively quiet street is one thing; risking a bomb blast inside a Tube station at rush hour is quite another".

Aaronovitch and his poor opinion column

The Olympics are many things but not an indicator of national prosperity. Otherwise Kenya and Cuba would have replaced Canada in the G8 a long time ago

Every government has its own guard dogs and The Times' David Aaronovitch is one of those doing the job for New Labour. One of the last living examples of Cold-war politicking, he's more factional than an Evertonian getting all worked up as he hears talks of Liverpool's success. He may no longer have anything in common with his own communist past, but he'd bend over backwards to stand by the word 'Labour', even when the only difference with the word 'Tory' is merely the word himself.

Recently Aaronovitch was at pains to deny quibbles such as the knife-crime surge, Labour's infighting or the dumbing down of society. Now, as he wallows in delight at Britain's superb Olympic performance, he's surpassed himself with a new pro-Labour argument. For Aaronovitch, a good Olympic result is "an indicator of national health". Britain under Labour is doing better than we think and all those medals are simply direct evidence. "If things are so bad - he writes- why are they so good?", adding that "if Gordon Brown is to get it in the neck for every ill, real and imagined, why should he not get some credit for this?"

Which begs the question: is it possible that such clever, celebrated columnists can display such a disarming level of one-dimensional thinking and self-denial? How much wool over your eyes have you got if you fail to detect what is, essentially, a dishonest argument? Not to mention that is based on absolute bollocks. One that, by comparison, would make Dr Pangloss pale into insignificance. Stand by New Labour, do a Titanic orchestra and deny that the ship is sinking, but just don't feed your readers bullshit.

Because otherwise, if we follow the Aaronovitch-pensiero, we'll have to conclude that Cuba (who outdid Britain in the medal tally charts for several consecutive Olympics until Sydney 2000) at the height of Castro's grip on power was a much healthier nation than the UK?

Or that Switzerland, Sweden and Canada are much poorer and inefficient than not only Russia, but also Jamaica, Kenya and Ethiopia?

But then I remember the height of the Cold War and the pro-Soviet regimes brandishing their outstanding Olympic achievements as an indicator of political, social and economic superiority. The USSR, East Germany, Bulgaria and Hungary were all falling apart but they were still routinely humiliating Britain, France and others Western nations at the Olympics.
It makes sense. It's Aaronovitch's own past coming back to haunt him and old habits die hard.

"It was impossible for Dr Kelly to have died like that"

Hagley Road interviews Norman Baker MP, author of "The Strange Death of David Kelly"

According to the stereotype, MPs are a collection of spineless, boring and samey individuals. After the squalid 10-year-long display offered by most Labour Party MPs under Messiah Tony, it's now quite difficult to argue against that. Whether it was the Iraq war, tuition fees or foundation hospitals, one of the few certainties of life became that the House of the Unrepresentatives would vote against people's wishes. Yet, it must be said that not all MPs are the same and laudable exceptions do exist. And when they do, they come in the guise of one Norman Baker, MP for Lewes, Sussex, since 1997, a man with an enviable record of tireless investigations into the privileges and expenses of Westminster. One who would probably be called "a pain in the arse" by fellow parliamentarians reluctant to scrutiny and transparency. Most recently, Norman Baker embarked upon an almost solitary battle to shed light on one of the most disgraceful moments of recent British history, the death of weapons inspector David Kelly. You can read this blog's review of Norman Baker's book The Strange Death of David Kelly here. The topic was too interesting to pass over the chance of asking Mr Baker some questions and the Lewis MP kindly decided to spare a pleasant fifteen minutes.

As I was researching for this I found out you used to work as a teacher.

I did! Mainly in Eastbourne, but sometimes in Brighton too. I used to teach groups of Swedes. Any advice? Well, teaching Swedish girls…it was a good job, I did it in between other things when I was waiting for my politics to take off.

What triggered your interest in the Dr Kelly controversy to the point of writing a book?

I think it was obviously a sensational death. Newspapers and tabloids were on about it all the time and it grabbed my attention like everyone else's. So I waited for Lord Hutton's inquiry to be completed. Rather naïvely of me, because when the report came out it became apparent it had completely failed to investigate his death, as it spent most of its time analysing the row between the BBC and the government. Then what happened was that letters from medical experts started appearing in the press saying it was impossible for Dr Kelly to have died like that. In July 2006 I published an article on The Mail on Sunday. I had the largest response to anything I've done since becoming an MP. Literally, hundreds of letters of support. In fact, all bar two were supportive. Some people sent me statements or pieces of evidence that Lord Hutton hadn’t used. So I thought that writing a book would be the most sensible way to go about it.

Was relevant evidence actually being sent to you?

Some stuff they sent seemed to be. Yes.

Last year The Independent called you "the most hated man in Westminster". Surely you can wear that as a badge of honour…

Well, it was interesting because, in spite of the title, the article was actually positive. On the other hand you had the Daily Mail headlining "Britain's greatest MP". But neither are true. It's not a question of black or white. In a sense how you describe me is not relevant to things I campaign on. I don’t do it to improve my public image.

How sympathetic - or hostile- was the climate at Westminster throughout the time you spent gathering evidence for your book?

People were instinctively uncomfortable about it. Maybe sceptical, but what I showed them for many years was objective statements. As Matthew Parris said I'm usually right in what I'm doing and people recognise that. I was right on the Millennium Dome, I was right on Mandelson, I was right on Campbell and then climate change. Earlier on people disagreed but I was then vindicated by the way events turned out.

You mentioned quite a few disturbing episodes that occurred while you were writing. For instance, when the hard drive on your PC was completely erased. Did you ever feel you were treading on murky territory? Did you fear for your own safety?

Well, what I tried to do in the book was to make sure I didn’t overegg the pudding. If you overegg the pudding, that's easiest way to be rubbished. I haven’t written anything to exactly say that there was a direct connection. I just described what happened. But, you know, it may be entirely innocuous and coincidental and I have no evidence to the contrary. That's what I wrote in the book. Did I fear for my safety? Well, you do what you think is right. You can cross the road and get runover and you can't live like that. The best defence in any such situation is to keep a high profile in the papers, therefore if anything happens then at least it's in the public view.

So you don’t have any protection as an MP? A police escort or something?

A Ford Escort, more like.

It's quite puzzling that Dr Kelly's wife, Janice, has kept such a low profile since the start of the whole controversy. Why do you think that is…and did you try to contact her?

I don’t want to hurt anybody's sensitivity therefore I don’t think it's appropriate to go into what I did or I didn’t in relation with Janice Kelly. As I wrote in my book, there are members of the family who were unhappy with the verdict and you may be aware of that. As with Mrs Kelly and her actions, it's all in the book.

Similarly, Ruth Absalom, the last person who allegedly spoke to David Kelly before his disappearance, gave a fairly muddled statement to the Hutton inquiry. Did you manage to track her down?

Yes and no. I found out where she's living but she's got Alzheimers or similar debilitating illness which means she was unable to contribute. I suppose in retrospect it may have started at that point already. I spoke to relatives, but no, they couldn’t shed any light.

Britain seems to have remarkable ability to sweep most relevant questions under the carpet - perhaps I dare say in a way other countries haven’t. The endless post 7/7 spirit-of-the-blitz rhetoric was a typical example of weapons of mass distraction. In the light of Lord Hutton's whitewash, what's your view?

I would say this. Any society which functions properly as a democratic society needs certain safeguards. To begin with, in this country there is too much centralised power. Also, you need a system of freedom of information. Thirdly, a system of accountability for the government of the day so that if they cover something up it should be found out. We haven’t got that. A lot of info in my book came from the US. Though faulty they have congress hearing and you can get to bottom of some issues. I mean, Nixon was subject to impeachment and we that simply wouldn’t happen here. It was quite clear that many people thought Blair lied but nothing happened.

I mean, I find it incredible that a war can be unleashed on what soon turn out to be a pack of lies and no political consequences take place. I mean, look at what happened to Aznar in Spain in 2004…would that take place in Britain? I don’t think so…

I think… sometimes if you wanna tell a lie just tell a big one.

I thought your book was incredibly analytical in the way cases were put forward. Only, in the last chapter, you seem to give some credit to the Iraqi element theory, yet quite without a great deal of evidence. Did you find out more than you were allowed to publish?

Yes [chuckles]. There were two constraining facts. There's the issue of libel and my publishers advised me to drop a few things from my book. Secondly, in the last chapter I refer to one particular source, and a great deal of what he told me had to be removed in order to protect his identity and safety.

Amongst the many reviews of your book I've looked at, The Times' David Aaronovitch was dishearteningly dismissive. Personally I don’t even think he read your book. For one, he glossed over the fact that under one tablet of Copraxamol was found inside Kelly's body, whereas the official version spoke of 29 tablets. Now, I know in ten years he's never written a critical word, not a single one, about the Blair government, but whatever happened to investigative journalism?

Investigative journalism is alive and kicking. Well, ok, not alive and kicking, perhaps more on a life support machine in fact. There's a book, 'Flat Earth News', written by one of my constituents, Nick Davies, analysing the weaknesses of the press. There are indeed plenty of good journalists out there, Anthony Barnett from The Observer, for example, and one or two papers who have the time or money to do it. The Sunday Times does it, the Mail on Sunday does it…they have got time and money. But the worst journalists are those who betray their profession by simply acting as promoters for those in power. What [Aaronovitch] wrote was a pre-emptive strike. At the time of his article, the book hadn’t even been published.

But perhaps he got hold of sample copies, you know…made available to the press prior to publishing dates?

No, no, there was no such thing! He just read one or two extracts from the Daily Mail and that was it!

Has the LibDems' policy on Iraq changed in any way since the election of Nick Clegg as leader?

No, it hasn’t. We want to get out. We’re doing no good in Iraq and we need to extract ourselves as soon as possible. That's what the public as large has said to me. The picture coming out from those days is one of a totally discredited government who behaved disgracefully and with no control from within the [Labour] party. Then we had a Tory party who at the time was totally out of touch and unable to form any coherent policy. So the only people against the war were us. In fact, every single Liberal Democrat MP voted against the war in the Commons.

In the book you also hint at the possibility that Tony Blair was left with no choice with regard to Iraq. He appeared disconcertingly eager to please the Bush administration. Apart from losing political capital what else could he have been scared of?

He put himself into a corner where he thought he could be very clever. He thought he could do what Bush wanted by agreeing to the war in 2002, so long before the war actually started. Secondly, he was still of the opinion he could get the UN Security Council to authorise it. That way he could get cover and still please Bush. But things went down a different route, so Blair ended up tied to Bush's wagon and unable to separate himself. He played his cards rather badly and things went different from what he wanted. Again, one section of the book had to be edited out but the question you can still read is basically: "If the US had info which, if released, would have caused Blair to resign, in what way would he have behaved differently from how he did."

Some people are pointing out that they were right all along as the number of casualties in Iraq is now decreasing. But what pisses me off is that if you show a bit of realism you're deemed a Cassandra who's going against the grain. This from the people who declared victory 5 years ago and are still bogged down.

I mean, fatalities are decreasing only because they were at such a horrendously high figure but they are still a high figure. The whole Iraq escapade has been a total disaster for UK policies across the world, for the UK's image in the world, as we are now seen as an adjunct to the US. Secondly, it's damaged Iraq, it's in such a mess, and it may as well splinter into two. Saddam was a ghastly grotesque maniac but he held the country together. Now it's falling apart, especially into the two Sunni and Shia entities. It's also damaging US interests because if you want to pour petrol on the flame then that's exactly what's been happening. Radical Islamism has been escalating to a point we didn’t have before.