{"id":29362,"date":"2024-02-12T09:14:21","date_gmt":"2024-02-12T09:14:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/?p=29362"},"modified":"2024-02-15T10:21:03","modified_gmt":"2024-02-15T10:21:03","slug":"who-the-hell-rehabilitated-alistair-campbell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2024\/02\/12\/who-the-hell-rehabilitated-alistair-campbell\/","title":{"rendered":"Who the hell rehabilitated Alistair Campbell?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following article was written and posted by Ricky from Council Estate Media <\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

WHO THE HELL REHABILITATED ALISTAIR CAMPBELL?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Are we celebrating our war criminals now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It may have escaped your attention but prior to Alistair Campbell \u00a0cosying up \u00a0to Rory Stewart and becoming every centrist\u2019s favourite remoaner podcaster, he was the war criminal behind the dodgy dossier on Iraq WMDs which was used to justify the murder of about a million people in the middle-east.<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019re not just talking about collateral damage here (although that would be horrific enough), we\u2019re talking about US-sponsored\u00a0death squads<\/a>, brutal\u00a0torture methods<\/a>, the illegal\u00a0use of chemical weapons<\/a>, and carpet-bombing Fallujah with depleted uranium, causing\u00a0horrific birth defects<\/a>\u00a0in babies years later. We\u2019re talking about war crimes every bit as horrific as what we\u2019re witnessing in Gaza and on a much larger scale.<\/p>\n

Blair\u2019s government privately acknowledged there was no legal justification for their war – and Campbell was their propagandist in the same way as Chemical Ali was Iraq\u2019s propagandist. Under international law, propagandists are just as guilty as the leaders.<\/p>\n

Campbell\u2019s punishment when he was caught lying (committing fraud that resulted in mass murder) was not to be hauled before the International Criminal Court, it was simply to be allowed to resign and crawl away from the spotlight until the people whose understanding of politics is puddle-deep had an excuse to forgive him. That excuse came with Brexit. Campbell only had to say \u201cI hate Brexit too\u201d and these super-principled centrists were willing to overlook war crimes so they could focus on the only political issue that matters, that has ever mattered, and that will fix all our problems the day it is reversed. God, it must be comforting being so sheltered from reality.<\/p>\n

One of the biggest issues with this dumb country is how people who think they are left-wing, just in a more sensible way to the people who actually are, are willing to look the other way from the worst of atrocities and continue to support the guilty parties. This is how we end up with governments and oppositions that do things like support genocide in Gaza and starve school kids at home. The people who call themselves moderates are the establishment\u2019s enablers. They\u2019ve been convinced that \u201csensible\u201d means agreeing with the establishment on big issues and marginalising or censoring those who disagree, and they have no idea how dangerous they are.<\/p>\n

We are now in the perverse situation where Alistair Campbell has a popular podcast and is treated as someone with respectable political views, which just means he says whatever the establishment wants him to say. This is one of the most infuriating things about centrists: the establishment can drag out the most morally repugnant spokesperson and they will still see them as respectable while they see someone like Jeremy Corbyn as beyond the pale because although he also opposed Brexit, he didn\u2019t oppose it strongly enough for their liking. The fact Corbyn strongly opposed something much more important – the Iraq War – is neither here nor there. Alistair Campbell might have the blood of Iraqis dripping from his hands, but he is still the sensible one in their eyes because the establishment says so and the establishment is always right. This must mean Campbell is always right too, as long as we compartmentalise his horrific lies and never mention them again.<\/p>\n

And that is literally what\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n

Today, we have Campbell smugly telling people to get off their \u201chigh horse\u201d and vote Labour because it\u2019s back to what it was so good at during the Blair years: agreeing to be America\u2019s poodle and letting bodies pile up in the middle-east.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve had to put up with Campbell on a ton of TV shows over the years, including Top Gear, Richard and Judy, and Have I Got news For You, but I\u2019m guessing Corbyn never got many invites because the media is much more comfortable cosying up to war criminals than it is to people who oppose war crimes. Damn those do-gooders who are always on the right side of history, they\u2019re no fun!<\/p>\n

Campbell was talking at something called \u201cIntelligence Squared<\/a>\u201d and I\u2019ve no idea what Intelligence Squared is, but the title alone is enough to tell me what I need to know: this is one of those things for people who think they\u2019re smarter than everyone else while they support the dumbest positions imaginable and make me want to vomit.<\/p>\n

Apparently, a young audience member told Campbell that her friends no longer want to support Labour over the minor issue of its support for genocide and the withdrawal of humanitarian aid in Gaza and this young lady asked what she should do.<\/p>\n

Campbell responded with all the tact of a patronising war criminal who thinks he knows better than those self-righteous idealistic fools who so unreasonably oppose war crimes. He said:<\/p>\n

\u201cGet off your high horse and vote Labour!\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, that\u2019s me sold! The Gaza genocide was the reddest of red lines for me, but now that the Iraq war criminal wants me to get off my high horse, I\u2019m going to vote for the guy that\u2019s suspending MPs who oppose genocide in a way that\u2019s insensitive to genocidaires. The last thing you should do during a genocide is be insensitive to genocidaires.<\/p>\n

Campbell explained: \u201cThere\u2019s no such thing as a perfect candidate. Abraham Lincoln was not a perfect human being. Nelson Mandela was not a perfect human being.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obviously, it\u2019s appropriate to compare Sir Keir Starmer, the human rights lawyer who said: \u201cI think Israel does have that right\u201d to Nelson Mandela who said: \u201cWe know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n

Literally, all we know about Sir Keir Starmer\u2019s politics is that he takes the Tory position on every major issue and he is currently embroiled in racism scandals – and we\u2019re supposed to pretend he is a political giant equivalent to Nelson Mandela now? Are you kidding me? Next, we\u2019ll be told David Lammy is Martin Luther King jr and Rachel Reeves is Rosa Parks!<\/p>\n

Campbell explained Starmer was actually doing a 4-deminsional chess move by supporting genocide and we are obviously too stupid to understand: \u201cDoes he really want to use up political capital now with the Americans in a way that would make your friends feel a bit better for a few days?\u201d<\/p>\n

Good point! That is definitely our concern here! We, who are\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0Starmer\u2019s friends, just want to be made to \u201cfeel a bit better for a few days\u201d. We definitely don\u2019t have another motive like stopping the bombing campaign that\u2019s killed 11,500 children and left the survivors drinking from puddles.<\/p>\n

We just care about our feelings. Good observation, Alistair!<\/p>\n

An interviewer asked Campbell the hard ball question of whether the Iraq dossier had led to the loss of trust in politics, which was obviously a much more significant loss than the loss of a million lives. The interviewer even let Campbell get away with saying he and Blair didn\u2019t lie and the WMD claim was an \u201chonest conviction\u201d when they literally made up the line about Saddam\u2019s rockets being able to reach our shores in 45 minutes.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re one of the people who supports this nonsense and thinks Campbell is a respectable political figure, I\u2019m going to be unable to hide my contempt for you. This man is a war criminal who is asking us to support war criminals and there is nothing sensible about getting the Tories out, only to get the other Tories in. Also, I hate to say this, but they\u2019re not going to reverse Brexit for you.<\/p>\n

7.2.24<\/strong><\/p>\n

______________<\/strong><\/p>\n

also see:<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following article was written and posted by Ricky from Council Estate Media WHO THE HELL REHABILITATED ALISTAIR CAMPBELL? Are we celebrating our war criminals now? It may have escaped your attention but prior to Alistair Campbell \u00a0cosying up \u00a0to Rory Stewart and becoming every centrist\u2019s favourite remoaner podcaster, he was the war criminal behind…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1843,1867,1873,1846,1845,1868,1847,1862,18,1863,1878],"tags":[9207],"class_list":["post-29362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-how-capitalists-organise","category-emancipation-liberation-and-self-determination","category-against-unionism","category-british-imperialism","category-us-imperialism","category-against-imperialism","category-the-eu","category-ideology-and-religion","category-political-campaigns","category-cultural-celebration","category-england-against-unionism","tag-author-ricky-council-estate-blog"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/mastodon.scot\/@rcfscotland\/111917745110377943","error":""},"views":3330,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29362"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29535,"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29362\/revisions\/29535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}