Murda da paper bwoi

Indeed. The Bush government apparently laid plans to bomb Al-Jazeera during the Iraq conflict. The government is now brandishing the axe that is the Official Secrets Act if the Daily Mirror continues with the story. If it proves to be true (of which all indications are that it is), it would be the most damning indictment of the neo-con doctrine of spreading democracy via pre-emptive and interventionist measures. Freedom of speech is one of the tenets of democracy, as is the importance of a public having access to information. These are the two things that news stations like Al-Jazeera do. Since 1977, under Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions, journalists have been considered civilians and are as such accorded the same level of protection. Targeting journalist amounts to cold-blooded state sponsored murder, the type that the neo-cons apparently went into Iraq to get rid off.

Of course Tony Blair comes out of this smelling of roses, as he was the one who talked George the Younger out of his idiocy. That's the card the government has been playing since the conflict began. It's been drummed into the British public's head that our squaddies are better behaved, that it's the Americans that had no plan for post-conflict Iraq, that Southern Iraq is better governed than Central Iraq because of Her Majesty's forces stationed in Basra. Big hairy bollocks to that. Britain is as guilty as America in its Iraqi adventure, and history will not judge the Brits to be the benevolent half of the invading force. An invader is an invader is an invader is an invader, for emphasis.