June 13, 2004

The voters deserved better parties

So says an Observer. leader. Readers need a free press that isn't in thrall to the war party and better commentators than the pro-war David Aaronovitch*. Don't look to The Observer. to uphold our right to these things, its a lovely day and you'd be wasting your time.

*Once more Aaronovitch has been exposed for getting his facts wrong, and in a way that supports the "logic" of his pro-war stance. Once again he has refrained from comment on the war this week. There's a pattern emerging here. Aaronovitch promotes the war by getting his facts wrong, reader exposes Aaronovitch's wrongdoing (which, of course, unlike the letter writer below, I am not suggesting is wilful dishonesty, I am sure it is the overzealousness that one associates with converts to a cause, ie. incompetence), Aaronovitch writes about the weather, the price of fish, his daughters; anything not to mention the war.

Cod history?

David Aaronovitch is, in general, right [yuk]: there is no comparison between D-Day, one of the great culminating battles of a five-year-old (for Britain at least) world war and the invasion and occupation by two large military powers of Iraq, a small sovereign country in the Middle East run by a vicious dictator (Comment, last week).

What is tiresome is when he and, more regularly, [surely more frequently - Aaronovitch is weekly]Tony Blair invent cod history. In 2001, Blair emotionally cited the US 'standing shoulder to shoulder with Britain during the Blitz'. The US did no such thing.

Aaronovitch says that, like Iraq, Germany had not threatened the USA. Wrong. Hitler declared war on the USA in 1941 and German U-boats sank US shipping and killed merchant and military personnel long before US troops took part in D-Day.

A pity Aaronovitch spoils good writing by not knowing the simplest historical facts.
David Townsend
Island Bay, Wellington, New Zealand


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