They say history is written by the winners. We've hardly "won" the war in Iraq, but the government is already trying to get their own version of it down in the history books. According to a lesson plan commissioned by the Ministry of Defence, Iraq was invaded because it had not curtailed its WMD programme. The invasion was also, apparently, "necessary to allow the opportunity to remove Saddam, an oppressive dictator, from power, and bring democracy to Iraq."
Let's see... the WMD claim was flimsy before the invasion, and subsequently proven unsurprisingly bogus. And regime change as a justification for invasion is illegal under international law, so it was never used. Bush and Blair have both claimed that history will show they acted for the best. Could this be the first step in their plan to ensure that this will be the case?
There are enough lies and distortions in the history books already. What do a few more matter? We live in a fictional world anyway - the future exists only in sf; the present is increasingly becoming the product of propaganda and spin, and so might as well be invented; and the past has always been open to interpretation, distortion and fabrication. At the very least, it adds an interesting dimension to consensus reality.
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2 comments:
Agree with your thesis. I'd just point out that every single recorded historical event accumulated some spin on the way. I guess what makes these history books insipid, is that it's usually history that is out of living memory that gets shamefully revised, spinning history that remains within the headlines, now thats something else. Journalism actually...
You only have to go back to the archetype - that well-known book about a prince of Judaea who failed to oust his country's invaders...
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