Well, the thought crossed my mind when I read John Simpson’s apologia for Saddam, in which he maintained that the British in Iraq during the 1920’s and the reign of Saddam were comparable.
To quote Simpson:
‘Saddam Hussein’s notion of governing a restless, difficult country like Iraq was that it could only be done with ferocity.
In that he was no different from the presidents and kings before him; no different either from the British, who had the mandate from the League of Nations to run Iraq after 1920, and who used some ferocious tactics to try to protect their rule.’
There are a number of sleights of hand in this article, but I want to concentrate on a matter of fact. Simpson avers of the British that:
‘They took over, full of the conviction that as the most powerful military nation on earth, with the best political system in human history, the Iraqis would be delighted to be ruled by them.
Within six months the British were negotiating a way out, and after twelve years (imperial powers hate to seem to be cutting and running) they gave up the mandate and left.’
Of course there is the obvious attempt to humorously parallel the US notion of not cutting and running from Iraq, but notice that Simpson said ‘they left’ (in 1932).
Because I happened to know that the British did not in fact leave in 1932. They gave up the Mandate offered them by the League of Nations then. In fact throughout the 30’s they maintained a military presence, and my Grandfather was part of it, being a navigator in the RAF. I have photos of 1930’s Mosul that I’m longing to get online and will one day.
So Simpson is simply wrong to say the British left. In fact, as was their wont, they signed a treaty:
‘It provided for the establishment of a “close alliance” between Britain and Iraq with “full and frank consultation between them in all matters of foreign policy which may affect their common interests.” Iraq would maintain internal order and defend itself against foreign aggression, supported by Britain. Any dispute between Iraq and a third state involving the risk of war was to be discussed with Britain in the hope of a settlement in accordance with the Covenant of the League of Nations. In the event of an imminent threat of war, the two parties would take a common defense position. Iraq recognized that the maintenance and protection of essential British communications was in the interest of both parties. Air-base sites for British troops were therefore granted near Basra and west of the Euphrates (where my Grandfather was), but these forces “shall not constitute in any manner an occupation, and will in no way prejudice the sovereign rights of Iraq.” This treaty, valid for 25 years, was to come into effect after Iraq joined the League of Nations. On Oct. 3, 1932, Iraq was admitted to the League of Nations as an independent state.’
As for the British being as bad as Saddam, I don’t see the Iraqi government offering Saddam’s henchmen any airbases just now, do you?
The BBC’s 6 o’clock news reported a series of bombs intended for western reporters in their hotel bunkers had exploded with considerable ferocity. Reporting was that whiny defeatist, Caroline Hawley. And then a dark thought crossed my mind: surely no-one here would have pointed the bombers in that direction?
The terrorists sure know how to play to a (very receptive) crowd.
Deepdiver
What concerns me is that the alleged Rape of a 14 year old girl by 19 asian men has not been reported.
Hence why you have a riot in Birmingham.
BBC, the truth please.
NS adds – probably because there is reasonable doubt that any rape, let alone one by 19 men, actually happened. I have a post on this below. It was started before Ed’s but finished after his, hence it appeared later than his but comes below on the blog.
they cant cover the truth forever.
Re Baghdad:
There do seem to have been a lot of cameras running at the time of the explosion and all pointing in the right direction. Apparently there were no deaths in the hotels themselves either.
I’m not given to conspiracy theories, but this does stink rather doesn’t it?
It does stink –
lucky that a camera was pointing in the correct direction to film it…….again.
After the first explosion, cameras would have been turned on.
The question is – was the first explosion filmed?
re ed on simpson’s piece:
why do i so often get the feeling that many at the BBC never studied history,have no sense of it and “know” only what they “know” from someone’s “talking points”, as some in america say?
i still want to know why so many brits who know better continue to pay for this (word of reader’s choice). Why not simply refuse to pay on the grounds that as such blatant bias, misinformation and disinformation violates the charter, you consider it null and void?
not even worth a try?
I pity the poor devils of the security men.
Just imagine – being blown up to protect this wretched crowd of vultures.
deepdiver
Re : the Birmingham race riots – while ITV and Channel 4 both led with the story, the BBc lunchtime news placed the riots at about five or six in their story list. How galling for the multicult champions at the beeb to have to report a race riot between Asian muslims and the black community but typical of their gutlessness to only devote a bare minimum of time to the story.
The BBC’s bias is perceptible in virtually every current affairs program which it broadcasts, even when these programs are, at first sight, of high quality. Tonight on BBC2’s Israel and the Arabs: Elusive Peace, the last section described the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza strip and how the “Israelis destroyed everything except a few synagogues”. Surely the producers must know that to be incorrect, and hence they’re lying. It is established fact that viable, hi-tech greenhouse systems were left completely intact and ready to run, yet the ‘palestinians’ looted them to destruction (and also destroyed the synagogues). So this wasn’t just bias; it was pure mendacity.
And now, on the 10 o’clock news (at 22.00) with reporting on the PM’s plans for education, the reporter states that the PM is imitating the private sector “used by those who can afford to pay for it”. Utterly wrong. Many people cannot actually afford to send their children to the private sector but either choose to do so by sacrificing pleasures like holidays and newer cars etc, or are obliged to because the quality of the state sector is so poor. This is the BBC’s bias against the private sector because they, the BBC, are part of the bloated and inefficient state sector.
Simpson’s phrase “Hundreds of millions of people around the world, including plenty who live in nasty dictatorships, will agree” [that outsiders have no right to overthrow dictatorships] was meaningless. What gives him the right to rope in hundreds of millions so confidently to his side of the argument – has he done a very big survey? It would be equally valid to say “hundreds of millions of people, including plenty who live in nasty dictatorships, will disagree.” Only he never would.
Oh no! Ed misremembers the dates of his grandpa’s Mosul photo album and so the BBC must be biased!
As biased as biased Capt David Willard “Biased” Parsons of the far-left USAF, who writes in his study of the RAF: BRITISH AIR CONTROL:
A Model for the Application of Air Power in Low-Intensity Conflict?
“By 1932, the last imperial police forces were removed from Iraq. During its tenure, the RAF had administered the Iraqi mandate at a fraction of the cost of maintaining control with ground forces. In 10 full years of air control operations, the RAF suffered only 14 killed in action and 84 wounded.”
They came back again during WW2. Maybe that’s where your confusion lies?
You just make yourselves sound like wackos with drivel like this.
Steiner, WTF are you raving about? Do you have a contribution, a rebuttal of any of the points made by previous contributors, or are you just a useless lefty twat who’s got lost?
It’s always the same story isn’t it Alan?
They always show up and rant about how stupid and lame this blog is, but the very fact that they comment here shows how much they are afraid of it!
If this blog were as stupid and lame as they say it is, then they wouldn’t be so afraid of it now would they?
And, despite their constant protestations that the BBC is not biased to the left, they are all flaming far-leftwingers to the person!
No one’s ever answered this simple question satisfactorily:
If the Beeb is not left-biased why is that the only people who ever show up here to defend it are flaming Guardian-worshipping left-wingers?
Steiner, the Air Vice Marshalls in command of British forces in Iraq for the period 1932-39 were Charles Stuart Burnett – 1932, Witham Gore Sutherland Mitchell – 1934, Christopher Lloyd Courtney – 1937 and Harry George Smart – 1939.
See this list.
Steiner,
You should look at this page – you will find this particularly interesting….Yes, the RAF was in Iraq….Yes, Simpson is wrong.
http://www.habbaniya.org/History.html
“Construction began in 1934 …..”
“The first operational use of the airfield was in October 1938
when 30 Squadron moved in and then all the various units at
Hinaidi transferred to Habbaniya with the station fully open
from March 1937”
Satisfied?
Way to go Natalie!
Natalie – John Simpson liberated Kabul (or somewhere anyway). How dare you mistrust his judgement. He is a living God.
Surely no face on earth has looked so smug and self-satisfied as his mugshot which accompanies his articles on the BBC website.
I do so agree with Natalie’s remarks about the fatuity of Simpson’s : “Hundreds of millions of people around the world, including plenty who live in nasty dictatorships, will agree.” Thankfully it’s not as bad as all the b******s we had to put up with through the 70s and 80s. As Bernard Levin once memorably put it “now you can scarcely buy a helping of fish and chips without finding it wrapped in a glowing account of the widespread popularity of Herr Honecker in East Germany, the liberal outlook of Mr Ceaucescu in Rumania, or the delightful smartness of the girls’ clothes in Poland.” But I’ve always felt that there’s something particularly offensive about progressive Westerners putting their own opinions into the mouths of people who are not able to express their own views. It’s bad enough having an oppressor preventing you from speaking, but it must be even more galling hearing from the useful idiots that you agree with them.
well you wont like this then…………….
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/da3f681e-44c1-11da-a5f0-00000e2511c8.html
Al Beeb aint gonna be nice about blighty.
OT
Since the BBC is so keen to report racism in the US, can anyone tell me if they’ve reported this?
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/003754.htm
Here’s another link
http://www.theconservativevoice.com/articles/article.html?id=9150
But I’m sure the BBC will sympathize with this guy if they did.
Denise,
Yes, I saw that on C-span. Dr. Kamau Kambon is a hate-flled lunatic. Here’s one of his justifications for wanting white people ‘exterminated’.
“When you see a black woman advertising on TV with her children and her man is not there, that means white people have just killed 350 black men.”
I kid you not. He actually said that.
There was a lot of underlying anger at the event at the lack of help given to blacks in New Orleans, but there were hardly any people there. The panel was practically as big as the audience.
When he made his ‘extermination’ call, one or two people in the audience clapped but the moderator of the event, himself a black radical, was shocked enough to comment that he didn’t know how any other speakers would be able to better that.
The event had all the ingredients that, in combination, are regarded as highly newsworthy by the BBC:
Blacks
New Orleans
Racism
So it’s weird that they didn’t rush to cover the story. I certainly didn’t hear it on the World Service.
And it seems to be impossible to search their site for news stories. Anyway, “Dr. Kambau Kambon” yields no results.
Greater minds than mine may be able to offer a tip or two here.
When I was in Calcutta 25 years ago, I met many Indians who remembered The Raj. I expected to hear stories of colonial cruelty etc. Instead they remembered it as a lost golden age when there was no corruption, the streets were clean, and law and order prevailed. Since then India has progressed, while these true memories have been replaced by a politicised myth of wicked colonials in the minds of the young who didn’t see it first hand.
When I was in Calcutta 25 years ago, I met many Indians who remembered The Raj. I expected to hear stories of colonial cruelty etc. Instead they remembered it as a lost golden age when there was no corruption, the streets were clean, and law and order prevailed. Since then India has progressed, while these true memories have been replaced by a politicised myth of wicked colonials in the minds of the young who didn’t see it first hand.
I shared a flat at university with a guy from Pakistan. He said that the older people “missed the British”. He claimed that people missed the “British System” because it wasn’t corrupt. He was absolutely amazed by the 1997 General Election. Nobody was killed, nobody let off any bombs, everybody in our flat argued about the different parties and then went out and voted. The next day there was a new government. He loved our system.
I’m not doubting that the British did some horrendous things, but ultimately the British ruled by consent. We simply didn’t have enough men to maintain order over the whole of India. Once we were asked to leave, we did. Maybe not as quickly as Ghandi would have liked, but on reflection, possibly too quickly for a stable transition.
Bishop Hill@8:29pm…..
“I’m not given to conspiracy theories, but this does stink rather doesn’t it?”
Google “Pallywood” and see some interesting “authentic” footage from Gaza in much the same vein. Not quite Oscar material, but most illuminating.
Link: http://seconddraft.org/movies.php
Not the John Simpson who just before leaving Baghdad in 1991 stated that Iraq was a “not altogether unpleasant society”. Presumably liek Hitler’s Germany or Stalin’s Russia?
It is not widely known that during WW2 the British occupied Iraq & Iran (the latter together with the Russians) to prevent their independent governments acting independently.
I also think that the fact that the UK/Iraq treaty specified that the presence of UK troops was in no way an occuption may be taken to prove that it wasn’t or that treaties don’t always say what they mean.
I wonder if the BBC mentioned this uprising in 1941 withb a coup allied to the Nazis and the need to send British troops to Iraq to protect Mosul and the North against a possible drive south by the Wehrmacht through the Caucasus – Ribbentrop’s Plan had Stalingrad not gone badly wrong ?
Or maybe the BBC could discuss the wonderfully civilised behaviour of Iraqi gangs in 1958.