Another year, another war. You’d think by now we’d have twigged the tricks that ruin our lives, but we haven’t really. The way the ruling classes talk about war is fundamentally designed to deny the reality of what is happening. Here are a handful of simple questions I’d love someone to give me a legitimate answer to.
1: Why can’t journalists say ‘profiteering’
Apparently there are two kinds of economic activity which take place during war. One is ‘profiteering’ where specific actors take advantage of the disruption of war to increase their profits for no reason other than the fact that they can.
The other is ‘markets’, and that is completely different. That is a process where specific actors take advantage of the disruption of war to increase their profits for no reasons other than the fact that they can – except we pretend they don’t.
Oil prices are not ‘being priced upwards by the market’, oil cartels are using supply disruption to profiteer. This then follows through the whole economy. We know this and it always happens. This is how you know; if this was just the cost of doing business rising, no-one would be making bigger profits. They are. We are the victims again.
Why don’t we arrest them? Why don’t we call this war profiteering and be done with? It is. The war in Iran is creating shortages; corporate profiteering on the basis of those shortages is a separate process. And it isn’t just oil; the whole stock market it watching Iranian children burn and asking ‘right, how do we get rich out of this?’. Capitalism isn’t moral. Why can’t we use the honest words?
2: When are people not people?
Could someone remind me; did Israel have a right to defend itself? I seem to remember this being mentioned at some point. I think it was universally agreed they did. Now, how many of those people are currently saying ‘of course Iran has a right to defend itself’? Don’t think I’ve heard any.
And of course the same people were never able to summon any words on any rights they believed the Palestinians have. How long can we go on like this without our heads melting? How are we supposed to believe completely different things about different people according to what seems to me to be only the colour of their skin? How do we do that and not be racists?
Do we then accept that every war crime in this war belongs to Israel and the US?
Remember Ukraine? When it was attacked we said that in a war of aggression every act is the fault of the aggressor (which has been our line every time the Ukrainians exceeded the laws of war). Do we then accept that every war crime in this war belongs to Israel and the US?
3: When is blowing up an ambulance OK?
It definitely isn’t OK if the ambulance is empty. We know that because of the wall to wall condemnation of the attack on ambulances run by a Jewish charity. But what if there are people in the ambulance? Would that not make it worse?
Well, it depends on the skin colour of those people. If they are Palestinians then we know that it is less bad to blow up a Muslim ambulance with people in it than a Jewish ambulance with no-one in it. Am I really meant not to notice any contradiction in this? Am I supposed to go along with it?
4: Is antisemitism worse than dead children?
When people set fire to ambulances belonging to a Jewish charity, do we hold off our condemnation and say that it is for the perpetrators to demonstrate the legal basis on which they did it at some later date? That is certainly our position on the killing of school girls by Tomahawk missile.
I have opposed political violence all my life. Is that true of the people who are demanding that I cross the road to do it again for them when they will not do it themselves for their allies? The BBC is telling us via the mouth of Nick Robinson that no court has found Israel guilty of genocide. Well no court has found anyone guilty of setting fire to ambulances. Let’s hold off and see how the court case goes, eh?
Put simply, why is it a national requirement to mourn for Jewish pain but if you even attempt to listen to Muslim pain Keir Starmer calls that ‘sectarian’? Other than screaming, high-end, racism, that is.
5: Is there literally no limit to what Israel can do?
They are currently bombing what they acknowledge are private residential housing in southern Lebanon, to create a dead zone for their own security. That’s fine apparently. Soldiers raped an innocent detainee with a brush handle, got caught – and have just been let off without so much as a warning. Silence across Westminster.
Is it not time to accept that we are the bad guys?
They bomb civilian infrastructure and rain showers of burning oil down over the civilian population of one of the world’s great, historic cities. That too is fine. Yet still the Zionists claim the moral high ground. Is there no limit? None?
6: What is wrong with Europe?
Europe has emerged as the region most vulnerable to the price spikes of the Iran War, after the poorer Asian economies. It is insulted by Trump but definitely not consulted. How pathetic can Europe become? It is still, still clinging to the US. Rejoin it? I wouldn’t chuck it spare change if it was busking in the underground.
7: Are Iranians being killed with British logistical support?
Starmer is clearly not telling us the truth about British involvement in this war. We now know for sure that he is allowing the US to load 2,000 pound bombs onto B1 bombers at British military airports. But you can’t intercept a missile with a 2,000 pound bomb, so those are being used offensively.
Which is to say Starmer is either lying about Britain’s role or is defining offence as defence, which is basically still a lie. So I ask; is Britain killing Iranians in an unprovoked war? And if so, are we not legitimate targets? How is this happening without some sort of debate? Are we not the baddies here? Or are we giving it ‘WDM’ again, even though we know it’s not true?
8: How is Trident helping us out right now?
We can’t afford an army because we spent all our money on penis extensions. They’re better known as Trident nuclear missiles. Run me through their effectiveness just now? Or is this just another on a very, very long list of things we’re not meant to think about too much?
9: Has Laura Kuenssberg or Nick Robinson ever accidentally said something leftwing?
Because apparently they keep saying right wing things by mistake. I mean, it’s not like they’re football pundits where scrupulous political neutrality is key. They’re political reporters so their constant right wing, pro-israel commentary is totally fine.
9: Is this not the end of the West?
Perhaps not today, perhaps not tomorrow, but is there any mendacious liar quite as mendacious as a western political leader? We lie and lie. We support a genocide and then rush to war with the perpetrators of that genocide. We stand in silence when 70,000 Palestinians are murdered but go ballistic when a Muslim does something.
We promise we’ve learned our lesson and won’t subject the world to price shocks from our intemperate inability not to start wars, but that inability just keeps coming back. We say we aren’t going to get involved, but we all know we will. We despoil the world and demand tribute for doing so. And we write essays about ourselves and how we’re the world’s moral leaders.
Is it not time to accept that we are the bad guys? Iran never menaced the world like Trump, with Starmer on his left hand, Merz on his Right and Netanyahu riding on his back. The fall of the West, when it comes, will be well earned. I feel no pride in the western world right now. Only shame.
10: Will any of my questions get an answer on British television?
No.