evil-doers

The drums are starting to roll again, louder and louder. The drummers are familiar with the beat, which is easy to pick up. It goes as follows (with room for a little variation and much embellishment):

1. X is mad, bad and very dangerous (the 'evil-doer' theme).

This theme can be backed up with 'x lies', or 'x did this before' refrains.

2. X has or will have very soon weapons of mass destruction (the 'wmd' theme).

These drum rolls can be given backing by 'intelligence agencies' - though why on earth their backing should be taken seriously any more is past a mystery.

3. X hates us and will kill us soon (the 'HELP' theme).

Be careful with this theme: it is the second part which is important in terms of drumming up support, but actually it should be very rarely heard above the general din. If it is played explicitly, it can lead people to wonder how very mad, bad and sick of life you need to be to go out and deliberately pick a fight with bullies 20,000 times your size. For example: 'I'll just throw my only undeveloped nuclear bomb at Israel, I think. Or maybe at America. It will blow some of them up. We can dodge their 20,000 weapon, high-tech nuclear arsenal, should they be so mad and bad and sick-of-life to throw this back at us'.

You don't want people to be thinking that that is what Iran would need to think, in order to pose a threat. You just want the people to think HELP.

4. We can save you from x by killing him (the 'saddam' theme) The only way the tune can be resolved, once you have set out on 1, 2 and 3, is to destroy. No negotiation. No backing down. Be strong, be resolute, ignore the UN Charter. We can take him out with surgical precision, and make the world a safer place. We did it before, didn't we?

La la la la
La la.

Is Ahmedinejad anti-semitic, is he holocaust denying - and does it matter? Should we bother to defend him if we think that he is not?

I think we should. Partly because he deserves, as any human being does, to be considered innocent until he has been found guilty, but mostly because this story about Ahmedinejad is being used to sell another war. Whatever he is, he is not deserving of a war, nor are the people in his country who will suffer it.