Sir, - As a British citizen I am terrified and enraged at the thought of a new Gulf war and I am glad to see most Irish commentators agree with me. Let's just hope the Irish Government will not be seduced (perhaps by the prospect of something attractive north of the Border?) into offering support to the military plans of Clinton and Blair.
There is an aspect of such plans which I have not yet seen mentioned. When Mr Blair threatens violent action against Saddam, he is of course threatening the lives and well-being of almost everybody in Iraq except Saddam (to say nothing of the lives of the British service personnel whom he'll call upon to carry out his threat). But also he is threatening violent action against responsible democracy, accountability and truth within the UK, which inevitably will affect the UK's relations with Ireland. A rake of lies was told about what was really going on seven years ago in the first Gulf War. Britain endured a thoroughly nasty few months of mendacity, censorship, silences and distortions within the news-media, together with associated racism; it's all still in place, held ready by government for instant redeployment.
Calculated falsehood and manipulation of public understanding are inseparable from military purposes. May I give one example, which had scarcely any media coverage? Four Greenham Common women went on trial last September at Reading Crown Court, charged with criminal damage at the Aldermaston atomic establishment. Their defence was that they had committed a crime in order to prevent a greater crime - the production of weapons of mass destruction, the very same offence of which Saddam stands accused.
They intended to call an array of expert witnesses, including a doctor who would testify to radiation sickness among Iraqi women and children resulting from uranium-tipped bombs. But the witnesses were never heard, for the Ministry of Defence at the last minute refused to proceed with the case (on foot of a specious claim that it had just been discovered that it was after all possible that someone other than the defendants might have committed the criminal damage). A very similar trial is scheduled, also at Reading, on March 16th, for another group of Greenham women who will present an identical defence. How many editors will report it? If the MoD presents an identical cover-up, how many editors will choose to report that? Any chance we might hear about it in Ireland? - Yours, etc.,
From John Arden
St Bridget's Place Lower, Galway.