I Love the Smell of Ingram in the Morning
Every romance has its storms. The Independent has a report on a minor glitch in the Special Relationship between the United States and its little helper. According to Adam "Straight Talk" Ingram of the Ministry of Peace, American assurances about napalm-related activities have turned out to be - gasp - not altogether veracitous.
Of course, this raises serious questions. The Liberal Democrat defence spokesman was clear about where the priorities lay: "It is very serious that this type of weapon was used in Iraq, but this shows the US has not been completely open with the UK. We are supposed to have a special relationship." Darling, darling, of course we know about all those civilians you fried; it's the lying we find so hurtful.
The weapon - which has a codename to make it more fun to use and more exciting to write about - is "an evolution of the napalm used in Vietnam and Korea, carry kerosene-based jet fuel and polystyrene so that, like napalm, the gel sticks to structures and to its victims. The bombs lack stabilising fins, making them far from precise." It seems evident, then, that the people who design, pay for and use such weapons have no very great concern about who they incinerate. Nevertheless, assurances are now being sought from the Government that the weapons were not used against civilians. Optimism can be so charming when it drools.
Straight Talk claims that the US claims that thirty of the bombs were used over three days in 2003 "away from civilian targets". This, says the Independent, "avoids breaching the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), which permits their use only against military targets." I am not sure why this is relevant, given the United States' well-known refusal to concern itself with such petty matters as legality; especially as it turns out in the very next sentence that the US did not even ratify the Convention for the pleasure of breaching it later.
Indeed, the Independent's whole report has an unpleasantly harsh and condemnatory tone to it, as though it were something out of the ordinary for ministers to lie to parliament, or for powerful imperial states to be less than totally candid with clapped-out post-imperial ones. It may not even be the case that the US officials lied to ministers; they may simply have been giving the British government that political pearl beyond price, deniability. It's cheaply cultured and badly mounted, but it's still a pearl; and it didn't fall out of its setting until after the election. What greater consideration could any humble servant ask for?
Of course, this raises serious questions. The Liberal Democrat defence spokesman was clear about where the priorities lay: "It is very serious that this type of weapon was used in Iraq, but this shows the US has not been completely open with the UK. We are supposed to have a special relationship." Darling, darling, of course we know about all those civilians you fried; it's the lying we find so hurtful.
The weapon - which has a codename to make it more fun to use and more exciting to write about - is "an evolution of the napalm used in Vietnam and Korea, carry kerosene-based jet fuel and polystyrene so that, like napalm, the gel sticks to structures and to its victims. The bombs lack stabilising fins, making them far from precise." It seems evident, then, that the people who design, pay for and use such weapons have no very great concern about who they incinerate. Nevertheless, assurances are now being sought from the Government that the weapons were not used against civilians. Optimism can be so charming when it drools.
Straight Talk claims that the US claims that thirty of the bombs were used over three days in 2003 "away from civilian targets". This, says the Independent, "avoids breaching the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), which permits their use only against military targets." I am not sure why this is relevant, given the United States' well-known refusal to concern itself with such petty matters as legality; especially as it turns out in the very next sentence that the US did not even ratify the Convention for the pleasure of breaching it later.
Indeed, the Independent's whole report has an unpleasantly harsh and condemnatory tone to it, as though it were something out of the ordinary for ministers to lie to parliament, or for powerful imperial states to be less than totally candid with clapped-out post-imperial ones. It may not even be the case that the US officials lied to ministers; they may simply have been giving the British government that political pearl beyond price, deniability. It's cheaply cultured and badly mounted, but it's still a pearl; and it didn't fall out of its setting until after the election. What greater consideration could any humble servant ask for?
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home