Ten Years Later

Ten years later after the Iraq War began, I wake to hear Radio 4’s Today programme commemorate the event. I am shocked and appalled by the level of Orwellian newspeak inflicted on me. As if to disavow British involvement in the atrocity, they refer to an offensive started ‘by the United States and its allies‘. John Simpson’s reporting makes things a little better, with his human touch, but I can’t help but hear in his report an effort give us an upbeat image of what the prospects are for Iraqis ten years on: ‘The glass here is actually half full… time now to turn the page…’ Easy to say. I don’t share such disregard for the longevity of trauma and violence. Nor can I excuse the propagandistic attempts to distance ourselves from British involvement in this brutal war.