h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

And one which so far has had little coverage here in the US.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/truth/

If you haven't already seen this programme (or aren't able to because it was shown on American tv), I urge you to do so online. It'll probably be difficult if you have a slower pc and a dial-up connection, particularly since it's 90 minutes in length but please make the effort.

If I wasn't already as against the war as I possibly could be, this would have convinced me how wrong it was, how appallingly the American government has behaved, and how badly American soldiers are dealing with it. I almost wish that I was either still in the UK or was a US citizen, because this programme has motivated me to get out there and make my voice heard, express my disgust. Since my green card is still pending however, I think it would be best if I confine my protests to spreading the word in this manner for now.

If any of you in the UK have seen something similar on British tv I'd be very keen to know if it can be watched online, or to be told details of its content.

Darnit, I'm on a steam-driven computer with a dial-up. Suspect I would agree with you wholeheartedly - and suspect I don't need to see the programme to do so actually.

I went to a public lecture recently, given by John Simpson - BBC Overseas correspondent - who was a victim of 'Friendly Fire' in N. Iraq in April. He still has American shrapnel in his body. One lump in his right buttock, he calls George W Bush, because it's a pain in the arse. Seriously though; he had a few choice comments about how unprepared the US was a) for war b) for the need to govern post-war Iraq and c) for re-construction of the entire society. No wonder so many US servicemen are being targetted out there.

Will they abandon Iraq as a bad job, like they have abandoned Afghanistan? Or is there too much oil in Iraq to risk that? I feel so cynical and rather depressed about the whole situation. Oh, and horrified that the UK government seems to have no independent foreign policy whatsoever.

I fancy setting up an independent state of people who just want to make the best and the most of life...no weapons and no megalomaniacs allowed.


F/b

If you read through the text associated with the programme you'll not only be able to get a feel for what the programme was about, but you'll also find links to short clips from it

Oh, and when I said this: "If any of you in the UK have seen something similar on British tv I'd be very keen to know if it can be watched online, or to be told details of its content", I meant programmes about the British government and its involvement in the Iraq war.

I doubt that there would be any surprises in the
show if I watched it. Except for the first few
months of George W. Bush's administration, when
his advisors seemed to be picking pretty good people,
I have had rock-bottom expectations for his agenda.

*America* might have made a success of Middle East
policy, but remember that we're in George W. Bush's
America now. A lot of the soldiers in Iraq signed
up originally for the National Guard, then got co-opted
for the Iraq invasion.

Sure, we have super-sophisticated weapons to hasten
victory in war. It's what we do *after* the war that
matters most. What blows my mind the most is invading
a country, then telling them to develop a democracy,
after which we'll go away. Most invasions historically
have been about expanding a country's territory. Not this
one, though. The tricky bit is that the Bush people don't
just want a democratic Iraq; what they *really* want
is a friendly democratic Iraq. So, they're lying to the
Iraqi people about their intentions. Ultimately, we're
talking about having a colony in everything except name.

I have to stick my neck out here and say I was behind the war in Iraq. From my viewpoint, it was unfinished business from over ten years ago. Saddam was a brutal and sadistic tyrant who oppressed, starved, imprisoned, tortured, poisoned and killed his own people with no regard for age or sex: a friend of mine from Basra had his house destroyed and his brother killed as a result of this maniac's adventurism.

I know feelings against war generally run a lot more strongly than pro-war sentiments, but in this case I can't help questioning the nature of the existing 'peace' and wonder if the alternative of war, in comparison, was really as abhorrent as in other cases. Also, the only other weapon we had against this regime was the very much more blunt-edged one of sanctions. Saddam delighted in these because (a) he was able to use them as a weapon against his own people and (b) he was able to use the resultant suffering of the Iraqi people as in much the same way as a parent with Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy profits from the deliberately induced sickness of their own child.

As much as I despise Dubya, and what he stands for, I believe a man can do the right thing for the wrong reasons. The best we can now do by the Iraqis is to rebuild their country and then clear off out of it so they can at last control their own destiny. That much of this argument I do support.

You're right in terms of the overall picture and what's been covered in other documentaries and news analysis programmes Paul, but what struck me about this one was that it showed what happens when soldiers try to do the job of the police. There were a few instances shown of what I can only describe as summary justice and the spirit of the wild west - you killed my brother so I'm going to kill you - on the part of US soldiers, and a despicable lack of care, remorse, or culpability shown when they shot dead utterly innocent bystanders and people going about their business who evidenced no threat whatsoever to the soldiers. It brought home to me the reality of day to day life for many Iraqis since the war - I wouldn't wish it upon anyone and it would scare the living out of me if I had to live through it, every bit as much as if I was a Frenchman in Nazi-occupied France during the second WW.

As far as whether the war should have been instigated FM, it's a difficult one in many respects. The reasons for which it was begun - supposed connections by Saddam to the 9/11 attacks, and his so-called 'imminent threat' to US safety and security - have been shown to be utterly bogus and were simply an excuse for going to war for other, even more despicable reasons - largely, personal greed and revenge. The Iraqi people were suffering at the hands of a brutal man, of that there's no doubt. But that kind of thing happens all over the world, yet the US has never intervened in places like Burma or Zimbabwe. How come?

I've heard it siad more than once that Dubya can expect a landslide at the next election because he's a 'war president', the way that FDR was, and the way that Thatcher was a 'war PM' during the Falklands conflict. The difference between those and Dubya however is that he was the aggressor in this war - the others were responding to an aggressor. That makes an enormous difference.

And then there's the simple and fundamental premise that you don't hit first! It's what my parents taught me, it's what my teachers at school taught me, it's what my karate Sensei taught me, it underlies just about every major world religion. As soon as you instigate violence, you've lost any moral high ground or justification for your actions.

' As soon as you instigate violence, you've lost any moral high ground or justification for your actions.'

I can't agree with this statement (which may surprise you, given that I agree with a lot of what you say generally). Sometimes, violence is the only adequate response to certain situations: I can think of one or two incidents in my own life where the path of violence would have been a good deal less protracted and productive than the path I chose. Take for example World War II and the complete pointlessness of Chamberlain's response to Hitler's aggression. The piece of paper he had might as well have had 'Now wash your hands' written on it. Moral high ground again has its limitations: perhaps the reason why it is lost in times of war is really because it has been jettisoned, having outlived its usefulness as diplomatic leverage. And, as I hinted previously, Saddam's Iraq was a nation built on violence. We exchanged one kind of violence for another, except that our kind will probably come to an end a great deal sooner than Saddam's ever would have.

sorry, that should have read 'a good deal less protracted and *more* productive'

<>

I hope so, FM.

I am glad you posted this Gosho. I wanted too but was offline last week. It was a Good program bringing it all together. I am sure it will be shown again in a few months.

"Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy"-- good analogy Felonious Monk!