Mark Steel is a UK comedian and a committed socialist. In “What’s Going On?” he describes his world falling apart. His marriage is collapsing, and at the same time he’s coming to believe that the Socialist Worker’s Party will never be an effective political organization. (Yeah, I know.) All that, and mid-life crises too:

I’ve had similar experiences. With the Iraq War now finally over (again, for the time being), it was interesting to read Mark Steel’s recollection of the anti-war protests in the UK. The whole nightmare still seems vaguely surreal to me. There were anti-war protests so huge that you couldn’t see the edges of the crowd, and yet the next day you’d read in the media that everyone supported the war. Now if you look back at poll numbers, even in the US support for invading Iraq without UN approval barely rose above 50% at its peak. And that was after the majority had been confused into believing that Iraq had something to do with 9/11. Within a few months of the war starting, the majority said it had been started under false assumptions and was a mistake. And yet here we are, a trillion dollars down, having caused somewhere between 100,000 and 1,000,000 civilian deaths—we’ll probably never have an accurate figure.

Meanwhile, the super-rich trashed the world economy, and are now trying to squeeze the poor to bail themselves out. People are so angry they’re sleeping in protest camps in cities around the world. But Mark Steel takes a step back to ask the even bigger question: How did we get to the point where it seems universally accepted that profit is the only reason you can possibly having for doing anything? Could we not have proper TV news, not in order to make money (it won’t) but just because we need to have an informed population? Rather than encouraging people to take out student loans to get a college degree so that they can get a better job to pay back the student loans with, couldn’t we go back to encouraging people to go to college because education and knowledge are generally good things, even enjoyable?

I’ve been a bit bemused by the anger over Obama picking Biden. It’s pretty obvious why he was the pick. Obama had been heavily criticized for (a) lack of experience, (b) being a secret Muslim, (c) being a drug user, and (d) shamelessly flip-flopping on the FISA vote.

Biden is (a) one of the longest-serving Democrats, (b) a devout Christian, (c) the guy who brought us the Drug Czar of the War On Drugs, and (d) one of the few Democrats to vote against FISA.

Yes, he voted for the Iraq war, but so did most of the Democrats. And in fairness, he tried to push through a motion saying that war was authorized only if all diplomatic channels failed, but it was shot down.

Of course, now the criticism has smoothly switched from "He has no experience" to "His VP choice has too much insider experience and doesn’t show a commitment to change".

So, 5 undersea cables have now mysteriously been severed. Iran’s telecommunications connectivity is almost destroyed. Why on earth is this happening?

Meanwhile, Iran was due to start an international oil trading organization by February 11th, which would allow oil to be traded in currencies other than US dollars.

You know who else started selling oil in currencies other than the US dollar? Iraq, in 2000.

Hmm, what a coincidence.

In case anyone’s missing the significance: the only thing propping up the value of the dollar is that everyone needs oil, and you need dollars to buy oil. If countries could buy all their oil in (say) Euros, they’d stop dealing in dollars, stop lending the US money to run the deficit, and make it impossible to run the US economy as it’s currently being run. Or as the Economist puts it:

i.e. a very real chance of the US economy entering another Great Depression.

Text from a memo found in terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s hide-out:

Sometimes you have to wonder whose side the US government is on.

Now that we’ve all accepted torture as a legitimate tool of the US government, the question is simply when it’s appropriate. The answer seems to be: pretty much any time the government doesn’t like what you’re doing.

Navy Veteran Donald Vance became aware of illegal arms sales in Iraq—land mines, rocket launchers, that sort of thing. He reported it to the FBI. In return, he was imprisoned as a “combatant” for 97 days and tortured.

The America-hating left-wing rumor sheet publishing this news?

Forbes.

 Tony Lagouranis, US army interrogator at Abu Ghraib, quoted in the Washington Post:

He has written a book describing his experiences in detail.

A couple of months ago, 15 UK troops were taken hostage in Iraq. They were eventually freed. Then I started seeing news stories about how everyone was furious because the troops were selling their personal stories to the highest bidder.

Maybe I’ve been in the US too long, but I didn’t understand what people were upset about. I still don’t.

Those troops went through a hideous ordeal. Why shouldn’t they be allowed to get money in return for telling people what it was like? If everyone can agree to give JK Rowling ten million quid for writing a bunch of guff about kids learning to be wizards, what’s the moral argument for not allowing troops to sell true stories for a sackful of cash? (I note that they even had explicit permission from the MOD to do so!)

Or maybe it was all faux outrage manufactured by the newspapers who lost out in the bidding war?

DEAR GEORGE

WE’VE GOT YOUR OIL. IF YOU EVER WANT TO SEE IT AGAIN, SEND $12 BILLION IN UNMARKED $100 BILLS. CASH ONLY AND DON’T TRY ANY FUNNY STUFF.

YOURS, HALLIBURTON AND FRIENDS

First we had an election landslide against the Republicans, in which the Iraq war was the #1 concern of voters.

Then we had an Iraq Study Group. It was described by the mainstream media as “bipartisan”. Here’s what “bipartisan” actually means:

So, not exactly a bunch of pinko French-speaking peaceniks. Everyone seemed to expect that their report would recommend deeper engagement. Bush said that the report would give the country an “opportunity to find common ground”. But when the actual report was read, it said that the Iraq war is an ongoing disaster and that we should try to pull out:

And the result? The neocons turn on Baker and denounce him, and Bush opts for more troops for the long term fight. Allegedly sane Republican John McCain calls for more troops as well, in Afghanistan too.

Senior military staff are skeptical. There’s also the problem of where to get the actual troops, since the army is described as being at breaking point and in need of additional assistance from the National Guard and Reserves (who, remember, were supposed to be a strategic reserve to deal with crises within the USA).

But the big question I’m left wondering is: what would it take to get Bush and crew to listen? I can understand them ignoring intelligence reports, ignoring testimony from Iraqi defectors, ignoring millions of protesters marching in the streets, and so on. It’s harder to imagine how they can widen their ignorance until they’re even prepared to ignore and denounce their own people.

Today’s news:

—Guardian

Update: I note with interest that the State Department has quietly resumed publishing statistics on US civilians killed by terrorism, so I’ve updated my RedvsBlue postcard from 2004.