Faux Geste

My two cents on the possibility of Peter Hain laying a wreath at Croke Park:

• Cent 1: It’s a silly piece of peace process choreography, like the meeting between the DUP and the Roman Catholic Church. This time, however, it is designed to burnish the legacy of Tony Blair as he prepares to leave power.
• Cent 2: Apologising for an atrocity in the distant past is meaningless when the current government is complicit in far greater crimes in Iraq.  Unless Irish lives are worth more than Iraqi lives, it seems hypocrisy to accept any such apology. The request to lay a wreath should be refused.

Water Wet, Heat Hot and Other Pressing Concerns

Anyone, anywhere who falls for this endless barrage of lies to even the most infinitesimal degree is, as they say, too stupid to live. That is doubly true since all this propaganda swamps us less than five years after the last, almost identical episode. On every point that mattered, it was all lies then, and it’s all lies now.

Arthur Silber, as usual, says it better than anyone.