VIDEO: Queen unveils monument celebrating half a million Iraqi deaths
from UKColumn News
On March 9 The Queen and Prince Philip unveiled a new monument to “honour the duty and service of both UK armed forces and civilians” in Iraq and Afghanistan. So, it’s official. The UK celebrates its illegal wars, the subsequent murder of tens of thousands of innocent people, the destruction of a society and the fostering of terrorism.
The artist who created the monument described it as “twin monoliths” in a nod towards 9/11.
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All war memorials are part of the show to make the culprits look good, and to convince the people the acts of war are to be proud of. False idols.
Funny thing about royals: the longer they’ve been dead, the better they look.
I’m sitting here now thinking what a wonderful king Mr. A. T. Great was.
By the time we get to Mr. W. T. Conqueror I’ve lost all affection for them.
There is another purely political aspect to this.
I predicted 5 years ago that there would an absolute flurry of these kinds of activities.
The reason: the onset of the beginning of World War One in 1914, i.e. 2014.
Since then, there has been an increase in the numbers of events of this nature.
Starting with the Arboretum and events like the mass poppies at the Tower of London – and now this.
Recently, I walked down Whitehall, where I saw another new monument to the Women of World War Two.
Later, I walked along the Embankment, where I saw yet another new monument to WW2 Fighter Command.
The Tories are using public funds and a frail elderly women with her even older husband to wrap themselves in the national flag at a time when the Leader of the Opposition is widely perceived as being a pacifist.
All these developments are just part and parcel of the very ordinary, and very grubby, way of political life.
That is what is really objectionable in all of this.
The unfortunate victims of their policies simply do not get a look in.
Their pièce de résistance was to invite Blair along, just to remind everyone that he was responsible for Iraq.
This latest monument and the deaths of half a million Iraqis have no connection with one another whatsoever.
2018-2019 will almost certainly be marked by an absolutely hysterical outburst of similar activities, conveniently designed to mark the end of WW1, and coinciding with the start of the next UK general election campaign.
How about that…….??
That could just provide the Tories with the tipping point they may need to win again – who knows?
That the British monarchy(the richest spongers in Britain) should glorify any part of what was an illegal war which caused the death of half a million Iraqi children, perpetrated with the Royal Assent is gross by any standards.
Hang on there, the religious man in the dress is on site to bless this testament to mass murder and infantaside so all is well with the world.
Religion has long been a close ally and enabler of ‘ruling class’ exploitation of the masses.
There was no Royal Assent to what happened.
That only ever gets affixed to Bills of Parliament to turn them into Acts of Parliament.
British Prime Ministers continue to exercise untramelled powers through the Royal Prerogative.
This formerly belonged to the Monarch but is now exclusively exercised by the Prime Minister.
However, the recent votes for wars in the House of Commons and the ruling in the Millar case with regard to Brexit may just mean that this final vestige of monarchical rule is also – finally – on its way out.
@John: I recommend a visit to the UK Columns sister site – The British Constitution Group – if that is your view. Not that I in any way criticize your view, or your right to hold it, it is just that is what we have been deliberately misled to believe.
By virtue of her Coronation Oath, the Queen is more than the mere titular head of state – she has the power of the people vested in her. Not that you would know it, she acts unconstitutionally as a figurehead and functionary of the Establishment ownership class.
Nevertheless, as a point of Constitution, she could (should) withhold the Royal Assent (“this final vestige of monarchical rule”) from all unconstitutional statute law – that is basically everything our lying politicians put through Parliament. In theory, she could (should) be deposed for not representing us or protecting our rights and civil liberties. In theory.
Go back and dip your unkempt beard in your warm real ale is the usual response I get to this. Before I do, consider the alternative – the supremacy of the elitist politicians in Parliament, to which you allude – which is a major part of the hidden Treason May agenda.
A vote for the dissolution of the Monarchy, is a vote for the unfettered supremacy of Parliament, which, inter alia, is a vote for authoritarianism, de facto one party rule, illegal ‘humanitarian’ interventionist wars, the extension of the surveillance/police state, usury, debt enslavement, a tiered criminal justice system, a privatized health care system, and continued integration into the EU superstate (what’s that, we’re leaving – someone better tell our unchecked, unbalanced guvmint.)
At least consider a vote for the (return) to the Rule of Law instead?
https://www.britishconstitutiongroup.com/
I am sorry but you do not know what you are talking about.
We cut off the head of a king to bring about parliamentary sovereignty.
Parliament – specifically the House of Commons – is the democratic heart of the UK political system.
MPs are the elected representatives of the people (demos).
From memory, the last time a monarch withheld assent was in the 1700s.
There is no way a present-day monarch would dare to withhold assent.
When the Queen reads our “her” speech each year, she has not written one word of it.
It is written for her to read out by the Prime Minister.
The role of the monarch is to caution, advise and warn the Prime Minister at their weekly meetings.
Where the monarch has a real role is in the fact that she has real experience dating back to 1953.
Her memories may well be useful, particularly to relatively new Prime Ministers.
That’s it, really.
Nonsense. Neither parliament nor royals give a shit about the constitution or anything else. The royals constantly meddle in political and economic affairs. We the peasants only get to hear about it when the meddling becomes so outrageously egregious that even the zombie mass media can’t ignore it. Black spider memos are, to torture a defenceless metaphor, just the tip of the iceberg.
@John: Not so, you kinda missed the Restoration of the Monarchy; the execution for high treason or regicide of all (including Cromwell) who overthrew Charles 1; the Petition of Right and the Declaration of Right. These were the conditions imposed on William and Mary before they could assume the Crown.
Restoring the Monarchy restored the power to the people (demos.)
Those who usurped that power in the name of Parliamentary Sovereignty died – horribly.
The significance of this is lost for sure, the monarch is the rubberstamp of the corporatist agenda. If we get rid of her though, we suffer the untrammeled power of a Sovereign Parliament forever. That’s not something I’d vote for.
Reblogged this on Worldtruth and commented:
Half a million Iraqi children are dead in what was, according to Kofi Annan “an illegal war” and the British Monarchy sees this as an opportunity to celebrate. Only the richest spongers in the UK could think this one up.
In my very cynical opinion, these monuments and awards given by Queen and others such as Nobel Peace Prize are monuments to the glories of the ‘ruling classes’ successful plundering and neo colonial geo-strategic operations and awards for special services to their Empire. The commemoration of ‘our’ forces that gave their lives is what we the public and services are fed in part to retain support for the class (colonial) structure in society by glorifying war as for the good of all of us not the privileged few.
I believe there are two narratives that run parallel, one aimed at the public and one for the ‘ruling classes’.
What I find more interesting is how the media is deciding to parcel up this story into their own rhetoric. Today I read that the true disgrace that Tony Blair visited the memorial. The problem is that sidelines people into an opinion of Tony Blair.
If we agree or disagree that it is a disgrace for Tony Blair to visit the memorial then we are accepting that the memorial in and of itself is not disgraceful. I think anything that celebrates death is disgraceful, whether or not Tony Blair visits it.
thaks you for posting this;it is truly perverse
I don’t think you should be featuring items like this.
The twin monolith – I suggest – represents Iraq and Afghanistan, not 9/11 or the twin towers.
The “black sun”? Is this not literary fiction of the worst kind?
I am not saying that untold numbers of civilians did not die in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
However, the memorial is for military personnel and those civilian personnel who supported them.
It has nothing whatsoever to do with the Iraqi and Afghani civilians who died, unless they worked with UK forces.
There is more than enough fake news in the world today without adding this rubbish to it, particularly at offGuardian.
This site should be way better than that.
I agree with you and Off Guardian. I agree with you that maybe the monument doesn’t represent exactly what Off Guardian think it does (I don’t know anything about it to offer an additional opinion here).
Where I agree with OG is that recognising the deaths of personal in these Middle Eastern countries can be seen to celebrate their actions, because it glorifies those actions without considering that they resulted in other deaths. It would be akin to Germans making a memorial for all the Nazis killed in WW2. We’d find that offensive and difficult to understand because we only see the negative actions of those soldiers. (I’m not saying all Germans only see Nazis in a positive way. I’d assume most don’t. But please see my example as an attempt to demonstrate what I’m saying. It’s an analogy and analogies are not meant to be real).
@John – What are you talking about? The monument celebrates the “service” of people who died promoting an illegal war. It glorifies that war by glorifying them.
Or would you be ok seeing a monument to the gallant Waffen SS being erected in Poland, without mention of the Jews and Slavs and partisans they slaughtered?
You still don’t get – do you?
No one really cares about the squaddies who threw their lives away in dreary places like Afghanistan or Iraq.
It is just another photo-opportunity for the Monarch and her consort to be seen in public apparently doing something to earn their pay and palatial way of life.
For the Tories, it helps to burnish their nationalist UK credentials.
They are all just wrapping themselves in the flag for their own squalid reasons.
No one cares about the soldiers, civilian support staff or innocent civilians who died elsewhere in the world.
It is all wrong, of course, but when has it ever been different?