There was no prospect of Moore seeking a hidden agenda behind Cheney's allegations. We cannot conceive of ITN or the BBC mentioning that Vice President Cheney has intimate ties with Lockheed Martin, the largest US defence contractor, and that his wife Lynne Cheney served on the Lockheed Martin board from 1994 through January 2001, accumulating more than $500,000 in deferred director's fees in the process. Hidden agendas are fine for official 'enemies', but the good guys can be taken at their word, no matter how absurd and compromised their word might be, no matter how awful their actions.
We have to go to war with Iraq, we are told, because Saddam Hussein is a monster - no right thinking person could stand by while he lives to threaten the world. Hiding in the shadow of the media's 'big question' - should we or shouldn't we attack Iraq? - lies a second, forbidden question consigned to the margins of debate. The question is this: What actually is the moral track record of the Western powers claiming that they intend to use mass violence to make the world a better place? Let's consider some of the evidence.
We have to attack Iraq, we are told, because Saddam Hussein is a man who gassed his own people at Halabja. William Shawcross writes in The Guardian:
"The last time Iraq was open to the outside world in the 1980s opposition to Saddam was brutally repressed - who can forget Halabja?" ('Let's take him out - The threat to the world posed by Saddam Hussein's rule of terror is too great to ignore any longer. There is only one solution, argues William Shawcross - military action', August 1, 2002)
We have to go to war with Iraq, we are told, because Saddam Hussein is a monster - no right thinking person could stand by while he lives to threaten the world. Hiding in the shadow of the media's 'big question' - should we or shouldn't we attack Iraq? - lies a second, forbidden question consigned to the margins of debate. The question is this: What actually is the moral track record of the Western powers claiming that they intend to use mass violence to make the world a better place? Let's consider some of the evidence.
We have to attack Iraq, we are told, because Saddam Hussein is a man who gassed his own people at Halabja. William Shawcross writes in The Guardian:
"The last time Iraq was open to the outside world in the 1980s opposition to Saddam was brutally repressed - who can forget Halabja?" ('Let's take him out - The threat to the world posed by Saddam Hussein's rule of terror is too great to ignore any longer. There is only one solution, argues William Shawcross - military action', August 1, 2002)