In a letter to The Observer Kevin Downey of Derry shows he is wise to Aaronovitch's shenanigans:
David Aaronovitch attempts to plant the seeds of exoneration for what took place in Abu Ghraib prison (Comment, last week). In Northern Ireland this twisted logic used to be called 'whataboutery' (yes, the Loyalist murders are horrific but what about the Provo bombings?).
We must dwell on the vile incidents in Iraq precisely because they were perpetuated by the 'representatives of justice'. This evil cannot be forgiven on the back of other evil. The existence of the photos is a blessing. We already know about the Saddams, Pinochets, Suhartos and Sharons of this world. Evil is evil.
Kevin Downey
Derry
Thank you Kevin Downey for introducing me to that word. I'd never heard it before and yet a Google search for it yields 217 results - only a few less than "Jews sans frontieres" gets today. Poor old Aaronovitch has had a tough 8 days though. In last week's Observer he had to tell a bit of a porky, revising his statement that "the Americans... in many ways, have acted in Iraq with extraordinary restraint" to "the restraint [he] had witnessed on the part of US troops in Baghdad". And in The Guardian he had to be corrected from falsely attributing quite serious errors of fact to Naomi Klein. He's playing it safe this week by filing an article on the American cult TV show: Friends. I wish him every success in his new career as a TV critic. Politics clearly isn't his forté.
