Iraq and Posterity
November 17th, 2006 by Stephen
As George Bush admits his party’s drubbing at the polls was largely down to the disaster of US foreign policy in Iraq, I thought I would dig out a post I wrote just after the war had started. I do so to make a particular point: that as we are taken up in events around us, and fed a world view by the news media and the sources of information we choose to inform us, we often lose sight of the bigger picture and the long view.
Someone had written to me:
>That’s right, the protestors are now in the minority
I replied:
It is always the case that during the conflict dispassionate thought
gives way to baser motivations as we watch pictures of our mighty
forces killing Iraqis as they shop for food and clothing.
How many people being killed have *you* watched from the comfortable
safety of your living room since this conflict started? Those flashes
that light up the Baghdad skyline are people being killed for your
entertainment.
The question, of course, will be how many people think that the action
was justified in a year’s time? How many in ten years? How will
history judge this bloody episode?
(from soc.culture.welsh, 26th March 2003)
When anyone looks back at my life, I hope they will see someone who tried to take the long view, and as far as possible to discover and ignore the cultural assumptions of my time.
I will fail of course, but it is important to have tried.
