For many years John Pilger has been the pinup polemicist of
the far-left, he takes evidence and facts of actual situations, and uses them
to justify his inevitable conclusion that some atrocities, suffering or
disaster is the fault of Western governments and businesses. Of course, like any decent polemicist he
takes quite a bit of accuracy, points that are difficult to refute, and then
uses it to hitch onto his predetermined line.
The enemy of humanity is capitalism and Western liberal
democracy, and humanity’s friends are those who accept governance by
socialists, nationalists, theocrats and other leaders who epitomise opposition
to those enemies. By contrast, he
depicts Putin’s Russia as a proud sovereign state, ignoring blithely its
suppression of dissent, and the vast corporatist gangster run corrupt economy
it represents. I can only guess it is
because it reminds Pilger of his beloved USSR.
Now he has let out a vituperative narrative about the globalsituation that is long, but starts with treating the United States as morally
equivalent to Nazi Germany, which should be enough to tell you what he is, a
raving charlatan:
Had the Nazis not
invaded Europe, Auschwitz and the Holocaust would not have happened. Had the
United States and its satellites not initiated their war of aggression in Iraq
in 2003, almost a million people would be alive today; and Islamic State, or
ISIS, would not have us in thrall to its savagery.
It’s history for simpletons, and is almost laughably
childish. Yes, Auschwitz would not have
happened as such as it was in Poland,
but to claim that the Nazis would not have committed genocide in Germany before
then is ludicrous. To claim “almost a
million” people would be alive today had Iraq not been invaded, is equally
ludicrous. Even the controversial Iraq
Body Count website counts a total of one-third of that figure. To claim even that presumes the Hussein
demagogues would have not executed opponents, not invaded neighbours and not
spawned proxy attacks in the Middle East.
Pilger, you see, treats the Hussein regime as having moral legitimacy
and a right to exist. It also ignores
the inconvenient truth that most of the deaths were due to insurgents Pilger
and his ilk supported.
You can’t
have it both ways, supporting terrorists resisting the invasion, and then
blaming the other side for the people they massacre.
Furthermore, to blame ISIS on this is even more
ludicrous. ISIS was spawned in Syria, as
resistance against the Assad regime (which Pilger implicitly supports, and
which has always been aligned with the USSR/Russia historically), it spread to
Iraq due to sectarian bigotry of the Iraqi government supported by Iran
(another regime Pilger implicitly supports).
I could go on, as pulling apart Pilger is like the proverbial shooting fish in a barrel, it’s too easy. However, given it’s too easy, I’d thought I’d summarise his turgid piece into a series of bullet points, you’ll get the picture rather quickly:
