Robert Fisk, writing in The Independent, targets world leaders for trotting out the same codswallop again and again. This time it's in relation to the dire situation in Syria. He rightly asks why we have to put up with it.
"Funny how the news agenda gets tired. Like the quotes. Only a couple of months ago, we were all bracing for Israel's attack on Iran's nuclear installations. And for serious pressure on Bashar al-Assad to end his "barbaric campaign". I quote Susan Rice, La Clinton's lady at the UN. And now? Well, Bashar lingers in his palace while Iran goes off the boil. Instead, it's the underpants bomber. Or the super-underpants bomber. Or rather the super-underpants bomber who wasn't – because it was a sting operation and a CIA man (or a British agent "of Middle East origin"; choose as you wish) posed as a would-be super-underpants bomber to get hold of the super-underpants bomb so it could be taken to pieces by the lads and lasses in Langley, Virginia.
I weary a bit of this stuff. If the CIA and the Brits and the Saudis have really penetrated al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula – or AQAP, as we are now enjoined to call it, although the acronym sounds a bit like an insurance company – all well and good. But the fact that the Saudis originally supported the Taliban and that al-Qa'ida was until recently led by a Saudi and that most of the 9/11 bombers were Saudis and that an awful lot of other al-Qa'ida men are Saudis, does take the gleam offthe cup.
Yet still – with the noble, imperishable exception of Matt Frei on panjandrum Jon Snow's brilliant Channel 4 news – we take all this stuff with mind-numbing, poker-faced seriousness. We do not question the story. Or the words. Or even the expressions. Let's start with Rice at the UN, who recently informed us, in reference to Bashar's "barbaric campaign of violence against the Syrian people", that – mark these words – "in the United States, our patience is exhausted". Well, La Clinton looked a little bit exhausted (was it the hair?) when she waded in herself. "World opinion," she said of the Assad regime, "is not going to stand idly by."
I weary a bit of this stuff. If the CIA and the Brits and the Saudis have really penetrated al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula – or AQAP, as we are now enjoined to call it, although the acronym sounds a bit like an insurance company – all well and good. But the fact that the Saudis originally supported the Taliban and that al-Qa'ida was until recently led by a Saudi and that most of the 9/11 bombers were Saudis and that an awful lot of other al-Qa'ida men are Saudis, does take the gleam offthe cup.
Yet still – with the noble, imperishable exception of Matt Frei on panjandrum Jon Snow's brilliant Channel 4 news – we take all this stuff with mind-numbing, poker-faced seriousness. We do not question the story. Or the words. Or even the expressions. Let's start with Rice at the UN, who recently informed us, in reference to Bashar's "barbaric campaign of violence against the Syrian people", that – mark these words – "in the United States, our patience is exhausted". Well, La Clinton looked a little bit exhausted (was it the hair?) when she waded in herself. "World opinion," she said of the Assad regime, "is not going to stand idly by."
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