I’ve commented on this book before, and the moral compass of its author, whom I regard as a humbug.
Nurse Edith Cavell, was written into the Church of England Calendar of Saints shortly after her death at the hands of a German firing squad in Belgium in 1915.
It was reckoned that the exploitation by British propagandists of her execution was worth two Army Corps to them, as scores of of thousands of chivalrous young men flocked to their colours.
She was undoubtedly brave and patriotic but the fact that the Germans had her “bang to rights” was concealed for a hundred years.
In 2015 a former head of MI5, Dame Stella Rimington, revealed that in helping hundreds of British servicemen escape the mild privations of German prisoner of war camps, Cavell forfeited her right to to be spared.
War is a nasty business however gallant those waging it.
But war propaganda is perhaps the dirtiest game of all.
Tricking scores of thousands of chivalrous youth to fight and kill equally chivalrous strangers must be the most despicable profession of all.
And it is most often done in comfortable offices by those who have never put themselves in a danger zone.
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Nelson Mandela is rightly cited as a hero by Gordon Brown. Nowhere does Brown acknowledge Mandela’s classification of Israel of an apartheid state, equal in its depravity to South Africa’s recent past. Even in captivity, Mandela and his comrades maintained an intelligent interest in the outside world. They appreciated the heroism of Bobby Sands and his fellow hunger-strikers and celebrated their electoral successes. The ANC were given technical help by the IRA which resulted in explosions causing great damage but no deaths, praised by David Milliband when he was British Foreign Secretary, not knowing about the Irish connection. Gerry Adams was given an honoured role in Mandela’s funeral, beyond that of Britain’s Prince Philip.
Gordon Brown belongs to a party which in office has never been pacifist. Clement Attlee and Harold Wilson were as ruthless imperialists as Churchill and Asquith, Arthur Balfour and David Lloyd George and Bonar Law. He served with Tony Blair who took Britain to war with Iraq for a lie and perhaps drove David Kelly to suicide.Perhaps not. For there was no inquest.
But Brown praises Martin Luther King for refusing to support “young firebrands.” King was brave, but he actually placed children in places where they would be brutalised by police. A clever strategy and great for propaganda. More effective than returning blow for blow. But it is ironic that a leading politician in Britain – a warfare state where you cannot walk five miles without bumping into an arms factory or other war-related concern – should wax lyrical on pacifism.
Interisting too that he picked Aung San Suu Kyi for her fight for human rights in Burma- before her falling into unfavourable publicity in the West. She had been given the Freedom of Dublin, as had Bob Geldof. Geldof returned the honour but was unable to regain it. Geldof was miffed when Mandela refused to condemn the IRA.
Incidentally, I understand that Aung Sang Suu Kyi’ss father was the first elected head of state and that he was murdered by somebody whose rifle came from a British government source,
Most interesting and perhaps most significant of Brown’s heroes was Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who was instrumental in saving many Jews in Hungary from the Holocaust.
Wallenberg disappeared at the end of the war, perhaps perished at the hands of Soviet forces.The forces
which suffered most at the hand of the Nazis and liberated most of Europe from them.
Wallenberg is rightly remembered by many nations and institutions, artists, singers and also charlatans such as Douglas Murray.
Another Swede did similar work – Count Folke Bernadotte. The United Nations appointed Bernadotte to mediate between Jews and Arabs and provided him with a French Army Colonel as his aide de camp. The men were friends and neither carried firearms nor did they have armed escorts.
In broad daylight in Jerusalem in September 1948 their car was stopped at a roadblock by men in Israeli uniform who shot them to death
Their bodies were flown to Orly Aerodrome in Paris where
UN Secretary General Trygve Lie
French Prime Minster Robert Schuman
British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin
US Secretary of State George Marshal
were there to pay their respects. The UN Security Council condemned the crime which had been committed on the orders of Yitzhak Shamir who became Israel’s Prime Minister in 1983.
Today the UN and its agencies are under attack by the United States and its clients, Israel, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Japan.
None of them can bring themselves to remember Bernadotte a champion for all mankind.
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