The Curmudgeon

YOU'LL COME FOR THE CURSES. YOU'LL STAY FOR THE MUDGEONRY.

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Goodies and Baddies: Clarification

That renowned ethical philosopher, the Secretary of State for Invasive Humanitarianism, is scheduled to issue a dramatic plea for people to be slower to condemn foreign fighters in Iraq, just as long as said fighters are British. This is described by the Observer as "a dramatic fightback following allegations of abuse of Iraqi prisoners". Apparently allegation and condemnation are now one and the same and of course, whatever the evidence, equally unjustified. Reid will "make clear he is not condoning" the abuses which have caused the Coalition of the Illegal such embarassment and irritation.

Reid, who read history at university and has a doctorate in economic history, has worked as a Labour party research officer, as a political adviser to Neil Kinnock, as a trade union organiser, as an opposition spokesman for children and for defence, as minister of transport, minister without portfolio, party chair, Leader of the House of Commons, President of the Council, and minister of health. In his spare time he enjoys reading history and doing crossword puzzles. Obviously, this career has given him an intense and vivid insight into the Fronterlebnis of the humble squaddie: "Soldiers know, the hard way, the lengths they go to to conduct themselves within the law in exceptionally difficult and dangerous circumstances - circumstances which their critics will never experience or even begin to understand." About critics of those who, for no very good reason, send soldiers into those exceptionally difficult and dangerous circumstances, it appears Dr Reid has rather less to say.

Soldiers, you see, are "under an onslaught not just from the insurgency but from 24-hour media scrutiny, new human rights legislation and lawyers seeking out complaints of civilian mistreatment". The risk of being blown up is bad enough, but our boys in uniform are also in peril from embedded journalists and human rights lawyers sniffing about for malcontents. And then there's the new human rights legislation - a deathly and unnatural hazard, no doubt. Nevertheless, unlike our ministers of state, "our forces are subject to military law and, therefore, English criminal law. And they respect the Geneva Conventions." This is because "treating people fairly - even the enemy - is the bedrock of our society", whereas the Iraqis have languished for years under Saddam Hussein. That is why we know what's fair for Iraqis and they don't.

It follows that the insurgents, and presumably that majority of the Iraqi people who support them, are "an enemy who is completely unconstrained by any morality, any legal conventions, any human-rights standards and any scrutiny". Oh, they're a bad lot, all right. The British government is hampered on all sides - by the United Nations charter, by whatever human rights standards Condi Rice can live with and by the laser-eyed public scrutiny facilitated by the D notice, the Official Secrets Act and the Great British Journalist.

Accordingly, we must "be very slow to condemn, and very quick to defend and praise our soldiers", no matter what they do, "because they work in the most extremely difficult circumstances", quite unlike those Iraqi malcontents who bask in several hours' electricity a day while their oil is being privatised; and, of course, because doing what you're told and never volunteering is a "moral and deeply ethical profession".

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