A hundred year war yet Hitchens surrendered after only ten

Just found this on the A Tiny Revolution website:

Local liar pops up again

From Daily Beast:

At last! A sensible obituary for Professor Norman Geras

When I started this blog, if I wanted to blog something but didn't have time I would put a marker on it by posting something like, "I'll return to this later" and used to do just that.  Now I rarely if ever do.  So when I posted on the absurdity of the tributes to Professor Norman Geras it was short, referenced one of his dodgy entries and I said I'd return later and then I forgot all about it.

Well now Flying Rodent (Between the Hammer and the Anvil) has done a rather good obit which he calls Requiem for a Blog, (note, not a Blogger).  I've seen some complain that this Flying Rodent chap tends to express himself very strongly whilst venting a six of one/half dozen of the other non-position on most things.  This obit exemplifies the former but not, thankfully, so much of the latter.

So at the start we see the Rodent commenting on the ludicrous tributes thus:

I'd say that the one point they all share is entirely accurate - that Normblog was one of the great pioneers of the blogging game.

Try as I might, I can't imagine blogs without the Professor, much as I can't picture modern opinion thinkery without Chris Hitchens.  More than any other I can think of, Normblog really should be seen as the archetype of the form.

The form being blogging, not pro-war, pro-Israel, "the left left me not me them" form, blogging itself.  All Geras's friends accord to him a pioneering and pivotal role in blogging which he simply didn't deserve.  At which point it's useful to point out that Geras had to ask a real founder of the form, Chris Bertram, how to get his (Geras's) blog off the ground.  Here's Bertram in his post on the tenth anniversary of Crooked Timber:

 That first email also invited two other people: Matthew Yglesias and Norman Geras. Yglesias (a Harvard undergrad) was a rising star in the blogosphere but had yet to morph into his current superstar incarnation. Geras I knew because we’d once been on the editorial committee of New Left Review together and he’d recently phoned me up for advice on starting to blog.

Actually Bertram goes on to relate the story of how Geras, mercifully, never got to be one of the Crooked Timber above the liners:

That provided us with the first crisis in the (pre)history of Crooked Timber. (Actually, I think, our only real crisis within the group.) At the time, we were either just before or at the start of the Iraq war and some of us were hesitating about which line to take. Geras used the opportunity of the shared emails to bombard everyone with pro-war articles and, after he had circulated a particularly egregious bit of warmongering concern-trolling from Johann Hari, Daniel snapped. If Geras were in, then Daniel would be out. But Geras, facing a bit more scepticism than he wanted, was already sensing that the group wasn’t for him. So we were able to keep Daniel for Crooked Timber. Geras went off to promote so-called “humanitarian intervention” at a solo-blog. He’s been doing that in his characteristic style for a decade; I think we got the better part of the bargain.

Anyway, having got his obligatory "half a dozen of the other" stuff out of the way at the outset Flying Rodent goes on to list some characteristics of the Normblog style:

I think you can split Normblog's political blogging into a few distinct categories:

- Finger-waggy, history-heavy lectures upon the virtue of the current political settlement, usually prompted by some no-mark calling for a non-specific revolution, the jailing of public figures etc.  The prime example here was the Prof's response to the financial crisis, which IIRC was to ignore the globe-spanning corruption and destruction and the resultant austerity catastrophes, in favour of ticking off the only popular protest movement that emerged from the ruins.  Marxism certainly isn't my specialist subject, but Normblog's decision to focus on hectoring of a bunch of nameless hipsters and students suggests that I know even less than I thought I did.

- Sensible-sounding calls for men of violence to do insane and wildly dangerous things.  Generally along the lines of "I read about the suffering of the oppressed people of Abroadistan today.  All decent people would agree that it's now necessary to (antiseptic-sounding euphemism for killing lots of motherfuckers) after which (Cough, cough, mumble) ...Freedom and human rights throughout the region".  Worryingly vague on the specifics, but rock solid on "first principles", which was always a bit of an obvious dodge around practical reality.

- Reminders that e.g. The Taliban are cruel and vicious, presented in tones that suggest that only the author and his mates were aware of this.

- Assertions that democracies can indulge in all manner of violent and lunatic behaviours, because the mere act of people choosing which version of the Thatcherite consensus they wish to rule confers some form of law-swerving legitimacy. Usually deployed in a stentorian lesson on how Americans shooting fuck out of people for no sane reason is an entirely different phenomenon from other foreigners shooting fuck out of people for no sane reason.

- A tiresome and annoying pretence that some minor opinion columnist must logically be saying a thing which he or she patently has not said. The best example is the Prof's ten-year habit of kidding on that he couldn't grasp the meaning of the word "understand", a word he regularly portrayed as meaning "condone and encourage (violent incident (x))", rather than, you know, "comprehend". This one was odd at first, and only became more embarrassing and annoying with repetition, much like a non-stop, decade-long rendition of The Welly Boot Song would.

- Requests for others to engage with the author's ideas, usually accompanied by implications that we hadn't given a matter as much deep thought as the Prof had, or that we were unaware of our biases.  The classic is "I can see it from here, so maybe something is blocking your view of it... Maybe if you came over here, you'd see it". Basically a series of repeated requests for vastly more intellectual charity than the author was ever willing to grant anyone else.

- Lengthy "thought experiments" of the "You hear your neighbour beating his wife and  grab  your trusty rocket-launcher" genus. I imagine that even Normblog's most avid readers would acknowledge that the sole function of these whimsical scenarios were to simplify complex matters well past the point of bathos, with the aim of justifying whatever wacky suggestions couldn't be argued for in their own terms. Of course, the answer "let's ignore that scenario because it's preposterously reductive and self-serving" was merely a symptom of the speaker's unwillingness to engage.

- And of course, the huffy complaints that people the Prof had spent years barracking and denouncing refused to credit his good intentions - roughly, "Why oh why oh why won't these godawful bastards admit that there were good reasons for supporting the disastrous invasion and occupation of Iraq?".  A reader who got their news from Normblog alone would swiftly conclude that this shameful reluctance to afford charity to the madcap ideas of Professors Emeritii of Politics was one of the major injustices of the era.

There's also some good detailed stuff on Norm (and co's) mo like the shrill denunciations of this or that obscure academic before this corrective appears:

It's for this reason that I say that Normblog was the apex of the form - an era of violent right-wing monsters rampaging like beasts across the planet, while a bunch of  white academics argued in fiery tones that the biggest issue of the age was some conveniently abstract demon like "relativism", or some similar nonsense.

Hmm, so the earlier undue compliment was actually a put-down.  Good for Rodent.  And spot on identifying the use of "relativism" as a "conveniently abstract demon".

My title suggests there has only been one decent honest obituary for Geras and that that was from this Flying Rodent chap.  Re-reading Chris Bertram's post above, I now think that Bertram's was a worthy if premature obituary, premature because Geras was still alive when it was written.

Baghdad still burning ten years later

This is a straight copy and paste from the blog of a woman who recorded her thoughts about the invasion of Iraq in the blog, Baghdad Burning, from August 2003 to January 2007.  Then she seemed to simply disappear after relocating to Syria.  The cliché, out of the frying pan into the fire sprang to mind.  I remember googling, whatever happened to Riverbend? and coming upon the Graduate Grumblings blog with a growing list of comments asking the same question.  Well, Riverbend popped back into the blogosphere just the other day with what she says is probably her last post.

Here it is but the whole blog is worth a look at:

Tuesday, April 09, 2013

Ten Years On...

April 9, 2013 marks ten years since the fall of Baghdad. Ten years since the invasion. Since the lives of millions of Iraqis changed forever. It’s difficult to believe. It feels like only yesterday I was sharing day to day activities with the world. I feel obliged today to put my thoughts down on the blog once again, probably for the last time.

In 2003, we were counting our lives in days and weeks. Would we make it to next month? Would we make it through the summer? Some of us did and many of us didn't. 

Back in 2003, one year seemed like a lifetime ahead. The idiots said, “Things will improve immediately.” The optimists were giving our occupiers a year, or two… The realists said, “Things won’t improve for at least five years.” And the pessimists? The pessimists said, “It will take ten years. It will take a decade.”

Looking back at the last ten years, what have our occupiers and their Iraqi governments given us in ten years? What have our puppets achieved in this last decade? What have we learned?

We learned a lot.

We learned that while life is not fair, death is even less fair- it takes the good people. Even in death you can be unlucky. Lucky ones die a ‘normal’ death… A familiar death of cancer, or a heart-attack, or stroke. Unlucky ones have to be collected in bits and pieces. Their families trying to bury what can be salvaged and scraped off of streets that have seen so much blood, it is a wonder they are not red. 

We learned that you can be floating on a sea of oil, but your people can be destitute. Your city can be an open sewer; your women and children can be eating out of trash dumps and begging for money in foreign lands. 

We learned that justice does not prevail in this day and age. Innocent people are persecuted and executed daily. Some of them in courts, some of them in streets, and some of them in the private torture chambers.

We are learning that corruption is the way to go. You want a passport issued? Pay someone. You want a document ratified? Pay someone. You want someone dead? Pay someone. 

We learned that it’s not that difficult to make billions disappear. 

We are learning that those amenities we took for granted before 2003, you know- the luxuries – electricity, clean water from faucets, walkable streets, safe schools – those are for deserving populations. Those are for people who don’t allow occupiers into their country. 

We’re learning that the biggest fans of the occupation (you know who you are, you traitors) eventually leave abroad. And where do they go? The USA, most likely, with the UK a close second. If I were an American, I’d be outraged. After spending so much money and so many lives, I’d expect the minor Chalabis and Malikis and Hashimis of Iraq to, well, stay in Iraq. Invest in their country. I’d stand in passport control and ask them, “Weren’t you happy when we invaded your country? Weren’t you happy we liberated you? Go back. Go back to the country you’re so happy with because now, you’re free!” 

We’re learning that militias aren’t particular about who they kill. The easiest thing in the world would be to say that Shia militias kill Sunnis and Sunni militias kill Shia, but that’s not the way it works. That’s too simple. 

We’re learning that the leaders don’t make history. Populations don’t make history. Historians don’t write history. News networks do. The Foxes, and CNNs, and BBCs, and Jazeeras of the world make history. They twist and turn things to fit their own private agendas. 

We’re learning that the masks are off. No one is ashamed of the hypocrisy anymore. You can be against one country (like Iran), but empowering them somewhere else (like in Iraq). You can claim to be against religious extremism (like in Afghanistan), but promoting religious extremism somewhere else (like in Iraq and Egypt and Syria). 

Those who didn’t know it in 2003 are learning (much too late) that an occupation is not the portal to freedom and democracy. The occupiers do not have your best interests at heart. 

We are learning that ignorance is the death of civilized societies and that everyone thinks their particular form of fanaticism is acceptable. 

We are learning how easy it is to manipulate populations with their own prejudices and that politics and religion never mix, even if a super-power says they should mix. 

But it wasn’t all a bad education… 

We learned that you sometimes receive kindness  when you least expect it. We learned that people often step outside of the stereotypes we build for them and surprise us. We learned and continue to learn that there is strength in numbers and that Iraqis are not easy to oppress. It is a matter of time… 

And then there are things we'd like to learn...

Ahmed Chalabi, Iyad Allawi, Ibrahim Jaafari, Tarek Al Hashemi and the rest of the vultures, where are they now? Have they crawled back under their rocks in countries like the USA, the UK, etc.? Where will Maliki be in a year or two? Will he return to Iran or take the millions he made off of killing Iraqis and then seek asylum in some European country? Far away from the angry Iraqi masses… 

What about George Bush, Condi, Wolfowitz, and Powell? Will they ever be held accountable for the devastation and the death they wrought in Iraq? Saddam was held accountable for 300,000 Iraqis... Surely someone should be held accountable for the million or so?

Finally, after all is said and done, we shouldn't forget what this was about - making America safer... And are you safer Americans? If you are, why is it that we hear more and more about attacks on your embassies and diplomats? Why is it that you are constantly warned to not go to this country or that one? Is it better now, ten years down the line? Do you feel safer, with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis out of the way (granted half of them were women and children, but children grow up, right?)?

And what happened to Riverbend and my family? I eventually moved from Syria. I moved before the heavy fighting, before it got ugly. That’s how fortunate I was. I moved to another country nearby, stayed almost a year, and then made another move to a third Arab country with the hope that, this time, it’ll stick until… Until when? Even the pessimists aren’t sure anymore. When will things improve? When will be able to live normally? How long will it take?  

For those of you who are disappointed reality has reared its ugly head again, go to Fox News, I'm sure they have a reportage that will soothe your conscience. 

For those of you who have been asking about me and wondering how I have been doing, I thank you. "Lo khuliyet, qulibet..." Which means "If the world were empty of good people, it would end." I only need to check my emails to know it won't be ending any time soon. 

The first posts are here.

Tutu boycotts Blair

According to The Observer Archbishop Desmond Tutu has refused to attend a conference in South Africa on leadership because Tony Blair was going to be there and, because of the war in Iraq, Tutu didn't want to be anywhere near the lying toad:

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has called for Tony Blair and George Bush to be hauled before the international criminal court in The Hague and delivered a damning critique of the physical and moral devastation caused by the Iraq war.

Tutu, a Nobel peace prizewinner and hero of the anti-apartheid movement, accuses the former British and US leaders of lying about weapons of mass destruction and says the invasion left the world more destabilised and divided "than any other conflict in history". 

Writing in the Observer, Tutu also suggests the controversial US and UK-led action to oust Saddam Hussein in 2003 created the backdrop for the civil war in Syria and a possible wider Middle East conflict involving Iran..

Look how much Blair got for attending the conference:

A longtime critic of the Iraq war, the archbishop pulled out of a South African conference on leadership last week because Blair, who was paid 2m rand (£150,000) for his time, was attending. It is understood that Tutu had agreed to speak without a fee.

It would have killed Blair to agree to speak without a fee.

Let's see how Blair responds to Tutu's criticism:

In a statement, Blair strongly contested Tutu's views and said Iraq was now a more prosperous country than it had been under Saddam Hussein. "I have a great respect for Archbishop Tutu's fight against apartheid – where we were on the same side of the argument – but to repeat the old canard that we lied about the intelligence is completely wrong as every single independent analysis of the evidence has shown.

"And to say that the fact that Saddam massacred hundreds of thousands of his citizens is irrelevant to the morality of removing him is bizarre. We have just had the memorials both of the Halabja massacre, where thousands of people were murdered in one day by Saddam's use of chemical weapons, and that of the Iran-Iraq war where casualties numbered up to a million including many killed by chemical weapons.

"In addition, his slaughter of his political opponents, the treatment of the Marsh Arabs and the systematic torture of his people make the case for removing him morally strong. But the basis of action was as stated at the time.

"In short, this is the same argument we have had many times with nothing new to say. But surely in a healthy democracy people can agree to disagree.

"I would also point out that despite the problems, Iraq today has an economy three times or more in size, with the child mortality rate cut by a third of what it was. And with investment hugely increased in places like Basra."

Priceless! The poor state of the economy and the numbers of children that died had nothing to do with "genocide by sanctions" then. And didn't the west side with Iraq in the war against Iran? And who supplied those chemical weapons together with the delivery capabilities? It would be wonderful to believe that the ICC will one day be able to put these questions to Tony Blair but I don't think that day will come.

Where was I when Hitchens died?

Nope, I don't remember where I was or what I was doing when I heard that Christopher Hitchens died but I did remember him on the telly once, back in the 1990s, saying something like, "I shall never forget where I was standing and what I was doing on the day [Kennedy] nearly killed me." I was worried that, as with so much pre-internet stuff, I wouldn't be able to find the quote, but he obviously liked the point so much he dusted it off for his 2010 memoir, Hitch-22. The New York Post liked it too. And so did I.

I remember seeing him at a London Review of Books discussion with Tariq Ali et al after the former had nailed his flag to the mast of the neo-con "war of terror" and managed to show himself to be quite a nasty racist in response to one member of the audience.

Q[uestioner]. Tariq Ali was the only one I think who mentioned that the United States is the sole global power that we have now and what we are seeing is the dawn of a new imperialism. So why is it that we are so – we, meaning the global community – why are we so content at letting America have its say regardless of what the rest of the world thinks of it. It has committed a whole host of crimes on a vast scale in international law. It is suspending civil rights as far as the al-Qaida prisoners are concerned. It is actually riding roughshod over all norms of international law and why – where is Russia, where is Japan, where are all these countries?
........
C[hristopher] H[itchens]. ....I will not reject the challenge from the comrade, who I would say was from the Subcontinent. I would ask him this. He wanted to know why a country that – I think I have you right, sir – was indifferent to the norms of international law, was not more opposed by Russia and China, was that how you had it? Where was Russia, you said, where is China, why do they lie down under this lawlessness? I think your question answers itself: I think you had a real nerve asking it actually, or shall I say Chechnya or Cambodia or North Korea or Tibet or Kurdistan? It wouldn’t make any difference to you – would it? – any more than if I asked you how many people are currently flooding to the borders and ports of your country to immigrate to it – or to Russia or to China. Ask yourself that. One of the greatest problems that the United States has at the present moment is that everyone wants to come and live there: they’re wondering now how generous they can be. We should all have such problems; you will never have a problem like that, and nor will your ideology

Another time, I remember him saying that the war on Afghanistan should continue unabated through Ramadan and that "I always crank up my anti-zionism at Yom Kippur", though I don't remember hearing or reading his anti-zionism, cranked up or otherwise. I can't find that one on the net. Nor can find any evidence of his anti-zionism on the net now.

What else do I remember? Yes, I remember thinking he was quite a good egg when he was on the telly with Shere Hite but also I remember wincing when he referred to her as Mademoiselle Hite, as if the Mademoiselle bit might detract from her credibility. This too was pre-net, and he can't have been as proud of that one as he was of the Kennedy remark because I can't find the Hite stuff anywhere.

So, there's a lot on the net now about "Hitch", most of which is flipping ludicrous. I suppose that's quite fitting. He was obviously quite proud of his flipping but he didn't seem to be aware of his ludicrousness. The fact that there were at least three obituaries for Hitchens in the Daily Mail show both the extent to which he had flipped and how ludicrous he had become by the time he died, though, to be fair, one of the tributes was from his brother, Peter.  Many of the obits mention George Galloway's put down of Hitchens as a "a drink-soaked former Trotskyist popinjay". Hitchens had turned up to support some House UnAmerican Activities Committee or other against Galloway.  The Mail didn't mention that Galloway dispatched Hitchens with even greater ease than he did the committee itself and I haven't seen any of the obits mentioning the "grapple in the Apple" debate between Hitchens and Galloway courtesy of Democracy Now. Woops, that's not true. There was one which I can't place right now. It said something about the debate generating more heat than light but I am fairly sure Galloway said that himself at the end of the debate.

But there have been some very entertaining posts on the passing of Hitchens my personal fave is from Flying Rodent of the Between the Hammer and the Anvil blog. See this:

Evasion, retrenchment, misdirection, ad hominem assaults.  These were his weapons in his Great Intellectual Struggle, a cause in which he clearly regarded himself as an intellectual Field Marshall, sending his fellow word-warriors into combat.  

Pick your Iraq-related controversy, and Hitchens had a highly-conditional, deeply duplicitous argument ready for deployment.  When a survey revealed a massive death toll resulting from the war, Hitchens invoked a nebulous "some percentage" of the bodycount who were maybe, probably murderous baddies.  

What percentage?  Hitchens neither knew nor cared.  All that mattered was reducing the damage to the war effort, to allow it to continue unimpeded in all it's righteous violence.
On the torture, rape and murder of prisoners at Abu Ghraib: Bad, but not Guernica and anyway, not as bad as Saddam.  

Cindy Sheehan, a woman with some wacky opinions who also happened to be the mother of a dead US soldier?  Not so much an exploited, grieving woman as a moral blackmailer, said his angry hatchet job.  

When he was embarrassingly suckered by the obvious fraudster Ahmad Chalabi - Other candidates would be worse.  

On Iraq's horrifying civil war, a situation resulting entirely from the decision to invade in the first place - your problem, you fucking deal with it if you want to end the war so much...  Or, in one of his favourite gambits - Al Qaeda ate my homework. 

Louis Proyect's immediate obituary was more about Alex Cockburn's obituary and more about Cockburn himself than about Hitchens but his subsequent pointer to Reading the maps was welcome, though I don't agree that it was "the best Hitchens obit". It does provide some useful links including Proyect's own obit and Finkestein's Hitchens obituary which appeared about 9 years before Hitchens actually died:

In the early years of the Iraq war Hitchens was regularly excoriated by left-wing commentators, but few of his old opponents have felt the need to renew their fury in the aftermath of his death. The blogger Louis Proyect was one of Hitchens' most ferocious and persistent critics, but his obituary for his old enemy is surprisingly measured. Alex Callinicos, whose Socialist Workers Party was often condemned as an ally of 'Islamofascism' by Hitchens, has also refrained from denunciations............

Hitchens' advertisements for Bush's war were written in haste, and without great regard for either facts or logic. Reviewing The Long Short War, a collection of twenty-two pro-war articles penned in late 2002 and early 2003, Norman Finkelstein noted how often Hitchens contradicted himself, even within the confines of a single article. Finkelstein found Hitchens claiming that the war had nothing to do with oil, then stating on his very next page that 'of course it's about oil'. He saw Hitchens arguing that Saddam's regime was on the brink of 'implosion', then asserting a page later than 'only the force of American arms' could bring regime change in Iraq. 

As it happens, all these years down the line, it is worth revisiting Finkelstein's piece:

an apostate is usually astute enough to understand that, in order to catch the public eye and reap the attendant benefits, merely registering this or that doubt about one's prior convictions, or nuanced disagreements with former comrades (which, after all, is how a reasoned change of heart would normally evolve), won't suffice.  For, incremental change, or fundamental change by accretion, doesn't get the buzz going: there must be a dramatic rupture with one's past.  Conversion and zealotry, just like revelation and apostasy, are flip sides of the same coin, the currency of a political culture having more in common with religion than rational discourse.  A rite of passage for apostates peculiar to U.S. political culture is bashing Noam Chomsky.  It's the political equivalent of a bar mitzvah, a ritual signaling that one has "grown up" - i.e., grown out of one's "childish" past.  It's hard to pick up an article or book by ex-radicals - Gitlin's Letters to a Young Activist, Paul Berman's Terror and Liberalism… - that doesn't include a hysterical attack on him.  Behind this venom there's also a transparent psychological factor at play.  Chomsky mirrors their idealistic past as well as sordid present, an obstinate reminder that they once had principles but no longer do, that they sold out but he didn't.  Hating to be reminded, they keep trying to shatter the glass.  He's the demon from the past that, after recantation, no amount of incantation can exorcise.  

And as recently as May this year Hitchens was still attacking his former comrade, Chomsky, conveniently forgetting that his journey to the neo-con right didn't begin quite as immediately after 9/11 as he would have liked people to believe.

Loveable failures?

Here's an amusing letter in The Independent today:

Aggression? No, just an error

Your have referred to the Israeli raid on the Gaza aid convoy last year which killed nine men as "bungled", and I've lost count of the times commentators describe the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in terms such as "an error of judgement".

If, as the terms imply, these people have evidence that the aggressors in these cases had benevolent intentions that went awry through want of skill or foresight, would they please reveal it? Otherwise some of us cynics might continue to see in the smirks of Blair and Netenyahu something other than the philosophical resignation of loveable failures.

Mark Kesteven, York

So it was about oil..or was it?

The Independent is reporting an exposé of the discussions regarding the sharing of the spoils of the war on Iraq.  Here's the main article:

Not about oil? what they said before the invasion

* Foreign Office memorandum, 13 November 2002, following meeting with BP: "Iraq is the big oil prospect. BP are desperate to get in there and anxious that political deals should not deny them the opportunity to compete. The long-term potential is enormous..."

* Tony Blair, 6 February 2003: "Let me just deal with the oil thing because... the oil conspiracy theory is honestly one of the most absurd when you analyse it. The fact is that, if the oil that Iraq has were our concern, I mean we could probably cut a deal with Saddam tomorrow in relation to the oil. It's not the oil that is the issue, it is the weapons..."

* BP, 12 March 2003: "We have no strategic interest in Iraq. If whoever comes to power wants Western involvement post the war, if there is a war, all we have ever said is that it should be on a level playing field. We are certainly not pushing for involvement."

* Lord Browne, the then-BP chief executive, 12 March 2003: "It is not in my or BP's opinion, a war about oil. Iraq is an important producer, but it must decide what to do with its patrimony and oil."

* Shell, 12 March 2003, said reports that it had discussed oil opportunities with Downing Street were 'highly inaccurate', adding: "We have neither sought nor attended meetings with officials in the UK Government on the subject of Iraq. The subject has only come up during conversations during normal meetings we attend from time to time with officials... We have never asked for 'contracts'."

So what was happening before these statements were made?

Five months before the March 2003 invasion, Baroness Symons, then the Trade Minister, told BP that the Government believed British energy firms should be given a share of Iraq's enormous oil and gas reserves as a reward for Tony Blair's military commitment to US plans for regime change.

The papers show that Lady Symons agreed to lobby the Bush administration on BP's behalf because the oil giant feared it was being "locked out" of deals that Washington was quietly striking with US, French and Russian governments and their energy firms.

Minutes of a meeting with BP, Shell and BG (formerly British Gas) on 31 October 2002 read: "Baroness Symons agreed that it would be difficult to justify British companies losing out in Iraq in that way if the UK had itself been a conspicuous supporter of the US government throughout the crisis."

The minister then promised to "report back to the companies before Christmas" on her lobbying efforts.

The Foreign Office invited BP in on 6 November 2002 to talk about opportunities in Iraq "post regime change". Its minutes state: "Iraq is the big oil prospect. BP is desperate to get in there and anxious that political deals should not deny them the opportunity."

After another meeting, this one in October 2002, the Foreign Office's Middle East director at the time, Edward Chaplin, noted: "Shell and BP could not afford not to have a stake in [Iraq] for the sake of their long-term future... We were determined to get a fair slice of the action for UK companies in a post-Saddam Iraq."

Whereas BP was insisting in public that it had "no strategic interest" in Iraq, in private it told the Foreign Office that Iraq was "more important than anything we've seen for a long time".

BP was concerned that if Washington allowed TotalFinaElf's existing contact with Saddam Hussein to stand after the invasion it would make the French conglomerate the world's leading oil company. BP told the Government it was willing to take "big risks" to get a share of the Iraqi reserves, the second largest in the world.

Over 1,000 documents were obtained under Freedom of Information over five years by the oil campaigner Greg Muttitt. They reveal that at least five meetings were held between civil servants, ministers and BP and Shell in late 2002.

The 20-year contracts signed in the wake of the invasion were the largest in the history of the oil industry. They covered half of Iraq's reserves – 60 billion barrels of oil, bought up by companies such as BP and CNPC (China National Petroleum Company), whose joint consortium alone stands to make £403m ($658m) profit per year from the Rumaila field in southern Iraq.

Last week, Iraq raised its oil output to the highest level for almost decade, 2.7 million barrels a day – seen as especially important at the moment given the regional volatility and loss of Libyan output. Many opponents of the war suspected that one of Washington's main ambitions in invading Iraq was to secure a cheap and plentiful source of oil.

Mr Muttitt, whose book Fuel on Fire is published next week, said: "Before the war, the Government went to great lengths to insist it had no interest in Iraq's oil. These documents provide the evidence that give the lie to those claims.

"We see that oil was in fact one of the Government's most important strategic considerations, and it secretly colluded with oil companies to give them access to that huge prize."

Lady Symons, 59, later took up an advisory post with a UK merchant bank that cashed in on post-war Iraq reconstruction contracts. Last month she severed links as an unpaid adviser to Libya's National Economic Development Board after Colonel Gaddafi started firing on protesters. Last night, BP and Shell declined to comment.

The Independent's Patrick Cockburn doesn't think it was all about oil:

It has never seemed likely that the US and Britain invaded Iraq primarily for its oil. Reasserting US self-confidence as a super-power after 9/11 was surely a greater motive. The UK went along with this in order to remain America's chief ally. Both President Bush and Tony Blair thought the war would be easy.

But would they have gone to war if Iraq had been producing cabbages? Probably not.

Is any of this disturbing any more? It's certainly not surprising. Anyone who thought the Chilcot Inquiry was going to be a genuine attempt at getting to the truth about why the US and UK invaded Iraq will certainly be disappointed to know that the above mentioned "documents were not offered as evidence in the ongoing Chilcot Inquiry into the UK's involvement in the Iraq war". But did anyone believe that anyway?

I just checked the Chilcot Inquiry website to see if when they are going to report and if there would be an opportunity to include the new information and "On 02 February 2011, Sir John Chilcot said:

“We will provide a reliable account of almost nine years of the United Kingdom’s involvement in Iraq. It is a significant task. We believe it's important that we do justice to all the oral and the huge amount of written evidence we have received. My colleagues and I are also aware but completely unsurprised that different people have different perspectives of the same event. We shall also want to reflect on the many submissions we have received. We will reach our conclusions and recommendations on the basis of our analysis of all the evidence, and in the interests of transparency and public understanding, we will, where necessary, seek the de-classification of additional documentary evidence to support and explain our report.
“It is going to take some months deliver the report itself. I don't want to set an artificial deadline on our work at this stage. What I can say is that my colleagues and I want to finish our report as quickly as possible.”

The Inquiry will deliver its report to the Prime Minister. Publication will be a matter for the government but the Inquiry expects that the report will be published as a Parliamentary paper and debated in both Houses of Parliament.

So what are the chances of the oil business being included? I'm guessing they are about as likely as the oil business being excluded from the spoils of the war.

UPDATE: Following a comment from Gabriel, I'm adding the comment to the post and I've added "or was it?" to the original title, which was "So it was about oil". Now please read on:

"Many opponents of the war suspected that one of Washington's main ambitions in invading Iraq was to secure a cheap and plentiful source of oil."

That is false. The US has no interest in cheap oil. Cheap oil mean low profits for oil companies and lower accumulation for the capitalist class. The essence of capitalism is accumulation, and the cartelisation of oil that produces profits in the thousand percents (from a cost of $3 a barrel to a "market price" of $150!) is one of most potent drivers of capitalist accumulation in the world. This is both true of the US, see the stock market capitalization of Exxon-Mobile, and in the world. See Dubai, a city constructed out of oil profits.

Note that BP didn't push for the war. It pushed for a share of the spoils after the war. That is very different. Of course, oil companies are "national". Each oil company has its own little government. BP has the UK as XOM has the US and Total has France. So once there is war, there is a "national" competition over spoils. But that wasn't the driver of the war.

"Reasserting US self-confidence as a super-power after 9/11" is a very stupid "motive" for war in Iraq. It is totally circular. The US must fight a war so that it has the confidence to fight wars. But why should it fight wars?

The War in Iraq is not an isolated event. The war of Iraq was the latest stage in the DESTRUCTION of Iraq by imperialism. This started by the CIA helping Saddam Hussein take power. It followed with the US helping both Iraq and Iran to destroy each other. It then continued with the trap of Kuwait and the first Gulf War (fought with Saudi money), followed by the genocidal sanctions regime. And then there was the second Iraq war and occupation.

Iraq has been systematically destroyed from the late fifties by US interventions, and the destruction of Iraq has been US policy for over 50 years now. Talking about the causes of the war on Iraq outside this long history is nonsense.

Now why was there a policy of destroying Iraq for over 50 years? The best hypothesis is that this was done to prevent competition with Saudi Arabia, and in particular to concentrate capital accumulation through oil in the friendly and retrograde regimes of the Gulf, primarily Saudi Arabia. That meant primarily preventing Iraq from producing oil, and then preventing it from profiting from oil. In relation to this policy, BP, shell and Total were not competing. There were all on the same side as they all benefitted from a friendly and US dominated regime of accumulation through oil that centered on Saudi Arabia.

Kicking off in "democratic" Iraq

I'm hearing (but only just) about demonstrations and repression in occupied Iraq. The Morning Star had a report yesterday:

Police fired on thousands of demonstrators in Kut today, killing at least three people as protests over decrepit public services and government corruption intensified across occupied Iraq.

Enraged protesters responded by storming the governor's headquarters and his home, setting both ablaze.

Authorities said that at least 27 people were injured in the chaos, including one police officer.

On Tuesday thousands rallied in Fallujah, Kirkuk and Baghdad to demand job creation programmes and better electricity supplies.

In Fallujah protesters massed outside the city council building and the mayor's office demanding the resignation of the mayor and the head of the city council for failing to tackle corruption and provide basic public services.

Some demonstrators shouted, "Down with al-Maliki," referring to Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki.

Others carried banners saying, "No for sectarianism, yes for unity, down with al-Maliki's government," "No restriction on freedom of expression, no to random detentions and raids, no to corrupted politicians and thieves," and "We demand better basic services - electricity, oil and food rations."

Angry Arab has pointed to what he believes is a general cover-up of a self-immolation in Iraq. Google translations aren't that reliable (or even intelligible sometimes) but this one from al Jazeera seems ok(ish):

The family of a young Iraqi Abdul Munir Abdullah, who committed suicide two days ago where burnt himself in the city of Mosul, said local authorities summoned the father and asked him to refrain from talking to the media for the suicide of his son.

The brother of a young suicide bomber in an interview to the island over the phone that the security agencies summoned his father first on Monday and Tuesday, and asked him not to talk about the suicide of his son and to say that the cause of death "of fate" and not, as reported by satellite TV and the media that he committed suicide because of despair and the pressures of life and hardship live.

A correspondent to the Arab Media Watch list has questioned the eerie silence of the BBC over all this and they have posted a link to this video which shows shots being fired into an unarmed crowd:

The BBC Arabic report does not mention the dead and injured but quotes the chief of police Hussain Jassim as saying those who fired on the protesters are private contractor guards and 'are outside the law'.

Of course, the Beeb's report could have been updated by now but don't hold your breath.

With friends like Blair's....

Blair has cancelled another self-promo, this time scheduled for the Tate Modern art gallery. Here's Bloomberg:

Tony Blair cancelled a reception scheduled for tonight at London’s Tate Modern Gallery to mark the publication of his memoirs after the threat of protests.

His decision marked the second public event the former prime minister has called off while promoting the book, “A Journey.” He cancelled a book-signing in London this week after he was pelted with shoes, eggs and plastic bottles in Dublin on Sept. 4 by people protesting the Iraq war. He wasn’t hurt.

“It is sad in a way because you should have the right to sign books or see your friends if you want to,” Blair told ITV’s This Morning program today. “But it was going to cause so much hassle. The people at the party tonight are friends -- and some of them are not political at all.”

If they're friends why doesn't he just invite them to one of his own houses rather than sully the reputation of an art gallery.

Of course, Blair being Blair, he gets even more nauseating in his self-promotion. The cancellation of the gallery do isn't for himself you understand:

“I don’t mind going through protesters; I have lived with that all my political life,” Blair said. “But for other people it can be a bit unpleasant and frightening.”

So can you, you nasty self-serving creep!

Blair boycotts Waterstones

So should we all. Showing a rare sign of humanity Blair has finally got so disgusted with himself, he is boycotting his book signing at Waterstones in London. From The Guardian report, the MD of Waterstones isn't a happy fellow traveller:

Waterstone's confirmed that the scheduled book signing had been cancelled, "according to the wishes of the author". The managing director, Dominic Myers, said: "Our job as a bookseller is to bring books to our customers, and where possible enable them to meet authors as well. It is a matter of regret that because of the likely actions of a minority, our customers are now not able to meet a three-times elected prime minister of the United Kingdom, whose book has become our fastest-selling autobiography ever."

But there are other institutions willing to be sullied by Blair's presence:

The Stop the War Coalition (StWC) said it was planning to protest at a launch party for Blair's book at the Tate Modern in London tomorrow night. Lindsey German, convenor of StWC, said: "It's a stain on the reputation of Tate Modern, to host a gathering of war criminals."

The limited number of signed copies of A Journey will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis, one copy per customer.

I hope people do boycott Waterstones for years to come and there may even be an immediate price to pay for their collusion with this low-life:

Waterstone's is also having to cope with a number of anti-Blair protesters moving his memoirs to the crime area of their stores, after thousands joined a group entitled "Subversively move Tony Blair's memoirs to the crime section in bookshops".

The Facebook page, which now has almost 8,000 members, urges them to "make bookshops think twice about where they categorise our generations [sic] greatest war criminal".

This could run and run unless they do the decent thing and apologise.

Hats off to Ireland, Shoes off to Blair

Great news from Ireland. According to The Guardian Blair thought that the Irish would love him so much for the fact that he put the finishing touches to a peace process in Ireland that was initiated by his Tory predecessor, John Major, that he wouldn't get the rough ride he can expect in the UK when he flogs his stupid book.

Violence has broken out at the first public signing for Tony Blair's memoirs, with anti-war protesters hurling shoes and eggs at the former prime minister.

The projectiles did not hit Blair as he arrived at a bookshop in Dublin, Ireland, to be greeted by scores of demonstrators chanting that he was a "war criminal" and had "blood on his hands" because of the invasion of Iraq.

Irish police blocked off streets around the Eason store on O'Connell Street following the clashes with activists who tried to push down a security barrier.

The demonstrators also shouted: "Hey hey Tony hey, how many kids have you killed today?"

The city tram service was suspended and shops in the surrounding area also closed.

Buyers at the signing had to hand over bags and mobile phones before entering the store. Undercover detectives mingled with the crowds taking names before Blair arrived at the shop at about 10.30am.

Hmm, "projectiles did not hit Blair"? I used to support the aims and objectives of the anti-war movement but maybe the aim needs a bit more work.

Many thanks to Sarah in the comments.

Blair and his stupid* book

There were reports the other day that Tony Blair is donating all of the proceeds of his book, The Journey, to the British Legion, which is a charity for retired British soldiers. There has been all sorts of speculation as to what his motive in making the donation was, most of which zoom in on his ego. Here are a little crop of letters from yesterday's Independent:

Despite suggestions to the contrary, it is rather doubtful that Tony Blair has decided to donate the earnings from his book to appease his "guilty conscience". As we saw recently at the Chilcot inquiry, he has expressed no regret for joining Bush and Cheney in invading Iraq, and equally he has given no indication that he feels any remorse for the uncounted death-toll and wanton destruction of Iraq as a direct result of his participation in "removing Saddam Hussein".

Within his own pious, self-righteous world it is far more likely that he sees it as simply his duty as a "good Christian" to donate this bonus income to a charity which caters for those who have been injured in the line of duty, in particular during his watch as Prime Minister: no blame, no remorse and no regrets.

And as for those who may see his donation as a cynical way of generating book sales, the answer is quite simple. Rather than buy the book and stroke the smug ego, simply donate an equivalent amount to the Royal British Legion and bypass the middle man.

Peter Coghlan

Broadstone, Dorset

There is a precedent for Mr Blair's charitable decision.

After the Second World War, Barnes Wallis, designer of the Dam Busters' "bouncing bomb", initially declined to apply for a monetary award from the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors. According to his biographer he subsequently changed his mind after hearing a sermon based on II Samuel 23, verses 14-17:

"And David was then in an hold, and the garrison of the Philistines was then in Bethlehem.

"And David longed, and said, Oh that one would give me drink of the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate! And the three mighty men brake through the host of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well at Bethlehem, that was by the gate, and took it, and brought it to David; nevertheless he would not drink thereof, but poured it out unto the Lord.

"And he said, be it far from me, O Lord, that I should do this: is not this the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives?"

Following this, Wallis applied for, and was eventually awarded, an amount which he then used to establish a charitable foundation for the education of children of RAF personnel.

Same principle, different circumstance, different motivation?

Philip Bell

Mayfield, east sussex

On hearing of Blair's generous donation to the British Legion I was reminded of the line from Bob Dylan's "Masters of War": "All the money you've made will never buy back your soul."

Pat Sheerin

London SW18

I have never supported the British involvement in the war in Iraq, but I think that Mr Blair has by his personal donation succeeded in drawing attention to the duty we now owe to the armed forces that have paid so high a price for this war. Certainly the Royal British Legion needs the £4m that Mr Blair has donated from the royalties to be expected from his forthcoming book.

As a former prime minister he will be aware of the magnitude of our duty of care to those who will be physically and mentally impaired for the rest of their days. We shall need a great deal more than £4m to fulfil this duty. Perhaps we can all follow Mr Blair's initiative. And the House of Commons itself, having sanctioned the war, ought to be the first to do so. After all, it tamely and uncritically followed him to war.

Gerald Morgan

Lydbrook, Gloucestershire

Cynics, honestly!

*In case anyone asks, I haven't actually read the book but I like to use the word "stupid" as a substitute for the f-word which I don't like to use in blog posts - family blog and all that....

Blix can't cover his tracks

Sami Ramadani in The Guardian's Comment is free on Hans Blix's "evidence" to the Chilcott "inquiry":

Yesterday it was Hans Blix's turn to appear before the laid back and suitably emotionless inquisitors. The former chief UN weapons inspector revealed nothing we didn't know. He told Chilcot there was no justification for war, because his inspectors found no evidence of weapons of mass destruction; and he told them that he had needed a few more months to finish his task.

As an Iraqi living in Britain, and fearful for my compatriots back home, I remember waiting with bated breath for Blix to utter those undiluted words when he appeared before the UN security council in 2003, 11 days before the war of aggression was launched. Back then, he minced his words, providing enough ambiguity for Tony Blair and Jack Straw to push on with their plans to drag Britain into the US-led war.

Like a lot of politicians with guilty consciences, Blix has thrown his weight behind justice and morality only after the fact.

But of course, Blix won't be paying the price that Iraq and its people are now paying, details of which are in the main body of the article.

This was my flower for the occupier

A half-truth is worse than a lie

From yesterday's Independent

Demonstrate at the G20 in London on 1 April

Demonstrate at the G20 on 1 April

Assemble US Embassy, Grosvenor Square at 2pm
The leaders of the world’s big powers will meet at the G20 summit in London on 2 April.
It is Barack Obama’s first visit to Britain. It is our chance to demand a change from Bush’s war policies.

• Get the troops out of Iraq & Afghanistan
• End the siege of Gaza – free Palestine
• Create jobs not bombs
• Stop arming Israel
• Abolish all nukes

Details of transport to the protest

Click to download flyer

Called by Stop the War, CND, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, British Muslim Initiative

Our message will be ‘Yes We Can’. Yes we can end the siege of Gaza and free Palestine, get the troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, make jobs not bombs, abolish nukes, and stop arming Israel.

This is a time of slump but the G20 are spending more and more on war. Despite the disaster in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US and Britain are sending thousands more troops to Afghanistan.

They are spending more in Iraq. The total cost of the war will be around $6 trillion. The US spends $54 billion and Britain nearly £2 billion every year on nuclear weapons.

Most G20 leaders support Israel and refused to condemn the attack on Gaza or the siege. They sell arms to Israel. The US gives more aid to Israel than it gives to any other country. For all these reasons, join us to protest at the G20.

We will also be protesting on Thursday 2 April at the G20 summit, 11am at the Excel Centre.

Called by Stop the War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, The British Muslim Initiative and CND

• April 1 (afternoon): Protest March and rally in central London
• April 2: Protest march to G20 conference