Subtitled: Great Britain’s Great Hypocrisy
An item on CNN this morning about how Tony Blair was “outraged” over the idea that the British military folks held prisoner by Iran were being “paraded” on Iranian TV caught my eye - does he not know that the BBC is available outside of Britain?
I watch the BBC news quite regularly, and I’ve seen hundreds of stories over the last 4 years that depicted Afghani and Iraqi prisoners being marched in chains and shackles to/from one place or another with hoods over their heads by coalition and British soldiers.
What is the difference?
Is Blair a complete hypocrite? Does he really believe that it is OK for his military to march prisoners in chains and hoods around on British TV but that it is somehow “outrageous” for British prisoners to be shown eating a meal on Iranian TV?
One of our favorite upper-right-quadrant wingnuts (Glenn Beck) is adding to the hypocrisy this morning by going on about how it is against the Geneva Conventions to parade prisoners around on TV.
Where was his outrage when his government was splashing the images of the dead bodies of Uday and Qusay Hussein across the worlds TV screens?
Where was his outrage when his government was releasing images of hooded prisoners in orange coveralls and chains being paraded across America’s TV screens.
Then again, maybe they’re not a hypocrites, maybe they’re simply garden variety common racists. Maybe they truly believe that it is OK to march dark skinned, non-Christian, Arab prisoners in chains across western TV screens, or flash images of dark skinned, on-Christian, Arabs in chicken wire cages to the civilized masses, but that sort of thing should never happen to good Christian white folk?
Could they be a hypocrites and a racists? The chances are pretty good IMO.
– give your head a shake Tony, it’s too late for the poodle to grow teeth, you’re just sounding more and more like Bush, IOW, stupid.
The other part of the story discussed the statement by one British military member that the group had been in Iranian waters, the expert the news desk host was talking to told the world that her statement had been “coerced”, that she was probably isolated from her group, and fed false or misleading information, and, because she “did what she had to do” as a result of all that, the confession held no credence?
WTF?
When the coalition people torture confessions out of their prisoners those confessions are hailed as important intelligence breakthroughs that justify the use of torture.
– but when “the other guys”<sup>tm</sup> coerce a confession out of one of “their guys”<sup>tm</sup> it’s a case of the prisoner doing what needed to be done’ and should not be believed.
Glenn has his thoughts on this this morning as well, he says, and I quote, [begin low, thoughtful, compassionate, voice] “I can only imagine what they are going through right now” [end low, thoughtful, compassionate, voice].
This is the very same guy who made fun of people calling stripping prisoners naked and stacking them up in pyramids for fun and stress relief, abuse. You may recall he is one of the people who likened this to cheerleader pyramids at high school football games — a bit of harmless fun.
Unfortunately for people like Tony Blair and Glenn Beck, and all the good little parrots who hang on their words, the “outrage” and the “compassion” gigs ring hollow, and only serve to show them for what they really are.
Update: Not to be left out of the game Rush Limbaugh has announced that it is against the Geneva Convention for the Iranians to put the female British soldier they hold prisoner into a burka - did they do that?
Although Comrade Google News has a lot of news articles about the British prisoners he can’t seem to find anything about any of them being forced into a burka.
Since we’re talking about wearing things though, I wonder which would be worse… a burka?
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the get up this guy was forced to wear? |
| or the shit this guy was forced to wear? |  |
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Apples and oranges.
I have never seen American or British captives forced to make statements on TV. And a free press taking pictures through a fence doesn’t count either.
The Geneva conventions state that soldiers aren’t to be used for propaganda purposes. If The Brit’s, US or Canada use captives for that purpose it’s deplorable. And you’re right to be critical of it.
Oddly enough I don’t here any condemnation of Iran for mistreating their prisoners.
As for Uday and Qusay? Fuck em’. They weren’t soldiers. If they could show them being analy raped with pitch forks in Hell, they should have it on tv 24/7.