There is a factor of the Iraq war that somehow has faded into the background. What has happened to those brave gents and ladies who, when the United States and British forces were about to bomb Baghdad, dispatched themselves there as human shields? As they prepared themselves for their mission they got a lot of publicity, on television and in the papers. After some tear-wrenching statements about how they were putting their lives on the line as a gesture against the capitalist, Jew-friendly wickedness of George W Bush and Tony Blair, off to Baggers they flew only to come back, quite unscratched, a week or so later.
Apparently, when deciding to become a human shield on behalf of Saddam Hussein you aren’t expected to commit yourself as to how long you’re prepared to sit sipping herbal tea and sucking on a hubbly-bubbly in some four-star Baghdad flophouse while waiting for an F18, piloted by a Western infidel, to drop a laser-guided bomb on your head. The gesture is what counts. You certainly don’t have to go and slum it in some Ba’athist hellhole along with Hussein’s authorised martyrs and where there’s a high possibility of an American RPG finding its way up your fundament. And certainly no one is saying how long you have to go on putting yourself at risk. It’s dangerous enough being cannon fodder for Carte Blanche.
What seems obvious, now that the war has settled in for a longish run, is that there is still plenty of opportunity for meaningful martyrdom in Iraq. The Americans are still bombing the shit out of the place and, quite rightfully so, various enraged Iraqis are returning the compliment in the way of suicide bombers, cars that suddenly go bang and, as the newest hit on the fundamentalist charts, the taking of hostages and the cutting off of their heads.
Don’t tell me there aren’t loads of opportunities for dedicated human shields in a conflict of such ardent dimensions. Standing in for the hostages they could get themselves prime-time coverage on the Al-Jazeera television network, where they’ve taken reality shows to new dimensions. Broadcasting videos of hostages having their heads slowly hacked off by figures wearing body-length black suits and balaclavas has resulted in some fabulous viewership figures. Even the SABC tried to get in ahead of e.tv by showing one of these tasteful snuff-videos.
Today’s human-shield market fairly throbs with opportunity. It doesn’t matter which side of the fence one’s emotional and political energies live. In the human-shield business what is at stake is the amount of personal kudos that is to be gained. If this wasn’t so, then human shields wouldn’t go to such extraordinary lengths to let everyone know how courageous they are, how the sheer intensity of their political and religious ethics overpower any notions of self-preservation. Even Winnie M-M once offered herself as some Shield Under Arms protection.
When putting this to a local human shield I was amazed at the fury of his response. I was told in no uncertain terms that the real reason human shields employ public relations and press officers had nothing to do with personal glorification. When a human shield gets up on national television to announce his intentions, it is only to make sure that the likes of Bush and Blair are made aware that when they decide to bludgeon places like Fallujah and Baghdad with daisy-cutters and missiles, they will also be deciding to put the lives of some perfectly innocent people at risk. The thought that they might injure some self-appointed martyrs always makes them think twice, said the human shield, who didn’t want to be named until he set off to some appropriate future conflict.
Staying on the matter of Iraq but leaving the human shields: Have you ever seen anything quite so toe- curlingly hypocritical as Blair on the subject of one Ken Bigley? As of writing this column, Bigley was still a hostage, shown on television earlier this week, shackled and caged like a dog by his captors. In the few minutes of the video Bigley sounded off on the subject of Blair, accusing him of not caring, of not doing anything towards getting him released.
Bigley’s wrong of course. Blair cares very much about the fact that a lonely and terrified British hostage is being threatened with decapitation. The negative effect of all the attendant publicity on Blair’s political standing is what is of paramount importance to him — and there’s an election starting to loom. After all, if Tones hadn’t poodled to Bush and stayed out of the insane Iraq war, he’d be able to claim more than diplomatic immunity for Bigley — who wouldn’t have been taken hostage in the first place.
Still, such petty considerations don’t count when you occupy Number 10 Downing Street and you have the power to send whole armies and air forces off on moral pilgrimages. A few human lives here and there are small beer and serve only to distract you from your heart-rending efforts on behalf of foxes. When will the English realise what a prime charlatan they’ve put in charge?