Guardian Plugs War Criminal's Book
by Kit
This insane liar just wrote his sixth book, all about how great he is. Wanna buy it for £20? Yeah, me neither.
Nobody should be surprised to learn that Alistair Campbell, the former Blair PR guru, suffers from psychological problems. Obviously, lacking empathy to the extent that you can start an illegal war with a peaceful country, for the lone purpose of enriching corporate interests, would be a red flag to any psychiatrist worth his salt. Even supposing you weren’t entirely psychopathic beforehand, the associated guilt-rotting of the soul, after the fact, would surely be enough to drive one mad.
Just look at Blair. Look at his mummified, rictus grin and tell me that’s not a man whose evil has stained his face.
No, no one is surprised that Alistair Campbell has mental problems. And, sadly, no one is surprised that the Guardian gives him column inches – not just to whine about the stress involved in coordinating (among other things) mass-murder – but also to plug his book. I will not name it or link to it here, it doesn’t deserve the clicks.
In any right-thinking society, this man would be in prison for war crimes, or at least banished from the public eye in disgrace. That he is not shows us that the ruling class of this country have no moral center, and that the press – for all their faux outrage on certain topics – no longer possess a facility for judging right from wrong.
Instead of rotting away in a dank cell, or testifying in chains from the Hague, he as allowed to air his (very predictable and rather dull) views on Brexit, Blair, Brown, Trump and Corbyn (against, for, for, against, against…just in case you were wondering).
We hear all about how his marriage nearly broke apart in 2006, and how his post-politics career is not as exciting as it sounds. They also go into the apparent “homoerotic love triangle” of Blair-Brown-Campbell, and how that is reflected in Campbell’s psychiatrist and GP fighting over his attention. If you can read it without gagging, or at least curling a lip in disgust, you are made of sterner stuff than I.
The article mentions Campbell’s “preference for madness over mediocrity”, without seeming to realise that it’s perfectly possible to be both. Or indeed that “The Mad Mediocrity” would be a smashing title for Campbell’s next book.
The words “Iraq” and “war” do not appear anywhere within the story. Though they do make several spirited and emotional cameos in the comment section. Which was closed after only three hours.
Our comments never close, if you have thoughts on Alistair Campbell, feel free to air them below.
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Iraq under Hussein a ‘peaceful country’?
Ah, Riviera Gigolo otherwise known as the Keighley Knut. One time busker, as well as a roulette dealer.
This soft porn stenographer has had a rather chequered careen as a preening journo and press secretary.
Problems with alcohol and depression led to his increasing erratic behaviour in public life. Friend of Capt’n Bob Maxwell. All of this paved his way to become Blair’s speech writer and chief strategist..!?
Worth noting that Campbell commenting on WMD’s in Iraq said, “Come on, you don’t seriously think we won’t find anything?”.
He later resigned in August 2003 during the Hutton Inquiry into the death of David Kelly.
A thoroughly tawdry piece of sh*t .
@TTIC: good comment. The Hutton Whitewash proved that Cambell does have a form of consciousness and conscience: of the guilty kind. It was beyond question he, and his buddy TB, that exposed Dr Kelly. And he shat himself to death that his diaries would reveal him, so he resigned. Apart from the fact that Dr Kelly was obviously suicided – for his knowledge of the “Winnebagos of Death” mobile anthrax labs, Saddam’s spurious 45 min strike ability, and other WMD lies – as a world leading microbiologist and anthrax expert – he almost certainly had insider knowledge of the AMERITHRAX case against Dr Bruce Ivins that he could expose. [I believe he also had knowledge of apartheid South Africa’s genotype specific bioweapons programme]. I wonder, what did Cambell know… and was it only the fact that he outed Kelly that caused him a mini-mental-breakdown???
Corparasites.
All of them.
Their comeuppance is coming.
What do Guardian journos care about? Networking with people that have influence. Don;t expect anything less from these narcissists.
Campbell is a total fraud who knows how to manipulate. He has everyone tied around his finger. I still remember the interview with Andrew Marr where he pretended to become tearful to avoid answering questions. The rest of the time he uses mental health issues to defend the actions of his arrogance. Bullshitter extraordinaire.
Yet again the Guardian shows itself to be the twisted corporate piece of shit it has become in recent years.
There are few words for Alistair Campbell, the one that comes to mind is thug, like his mate Tony.
I liked this piece, but I wish you would remember to put the authors name on your work. I would like to know whose work I am enjoying.
Guardian bourgeois society is about as fascist as it has ever been.
I award you the gold medal for ability to hold your nose and not vomit for reading this review. I don’t care what such people as Campbell have to say and no longer read outlets that publish or promote their other world ramblings. Thanks for the update on continued decline of standards at the Guardian though. Never missed reading a word of what it publishes.
Time to rename it the gWARdian.
Amazon are going to be busy again deleting all the one star reviews.
I couldn’t believe it when I read that – accessory to war crimes and probably the world’s second greatest spin doctor after Goebbels given a free ride by the Graun! My thoughts were that, given her own personal tragedies, Decca Aitkenhead might have gone completely bonkers herself, in which case she should consider a rest from journalism perhaps.
What I can’t believe is the number of suckers who think bullshit about Libya and Syria is any different than was being spun about Iraq or that being heated up about Venezuela.
AhhA – the good-old Iraqi war propagandist Alistair Campbell whom Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan called LYING BASTARD in his July 14, 2007 blog entry, saying: “I presume Alasdair Campbell’s Diaries are as truthful and unspun as his Dossier on Iraqi WMD.”
In July 2013, America’s celebrated journalist Carl Bernstein, told Joe Scarbrough at MSNBC that Jewish neocons pushed president Bush into the 2003 war on Iraq.
“This was an insane war that brought us low economically, morally. We went to war against a guy who had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. It was a total pretext! It’s explicable and there you go to Cheney, there you go to Bush, there you go to Jewish neocons who wanted to remake the world (for Israel). Maybe I can say that because I’m Jewish,” said Bernstein. Watch the video below.
https://rehmat1.com/2013/07/07/carl-bernstein-jewish-neocons-started-us-iraq-war/
Self righteousness is never very appealing- whether it comes from Alistair Campbell or from the ranks of his critics. Since I imagine that few readers of Off Guardian would wish to buy Campbell’s book, why even bother to publicise it?
Well said Kit. Well said.
Blair started his war campaigns beside Clinton and before many of us had even heard of Bush junior so he is the biggest killer alive. I don’t know Campbell’s involvement before that dossier of lies but after the illegal invasion of Iraq his death tally is the same.
Yes, Blair’s first war with Clinton often gets forgotten. Wasn’t it the first time R2P was (slightly belatedly) enacted? A defining horrific moment in history that paved the way for future atrocities and ‘supreme’ war crimes..
R2P was originally known as the Blair Doctrine of ethical intervention (outside International Law). Kosovo was the first time it was used by the Clinton-Blair unethical alliance. It was developed with Robin Cook – who somehow gets a pass for his humanitarian foreign policy. He should not. He died with the blood of thousands on his hands – yet somehow Corbyn wants to emulate him? Just because he finally grew a pair over Iraq. Not sure what Cambell’s input was, though it’s unlikely that would have caused a tiff in his erstaz homoerotic bromance with Tony?
Thanks for the reminder.
An excellent article and one I wholeheartedly agree with.
I haven’t forgotten the dark days of ‘New Labour’ PR political spin, elevated to a new level by Campbell and that other freak Peter Mandelson. Nor do I forget the arrogant face of Campbell staring straight at the camera (trying to look menacing) ahead of his 2003 interview with Channel 4 News re WMD.
It turns my stomach whenever I see him being given airtime like he’s some sort of celebrity. As pointed out, he and Blair are war-mongering criminals and should be behind bars. The fact that they aren’t shows the mainstream media to be as corrupt as they are.
People will buy his book – he will make money – but in the fullness of time he will be judged for what he is – it may be of no immediate consolation for those who wish to see him, and his ilk, face justice, but at the present time we are living in an age of impunity where our laws have been twisted and perverted to the point where the innocent are made to look guilty, and vice versa – however, whilst the laws of this world may have been enfeebled by the ‘selfish powerful’ , they shall not escape karmic retribution for the evil they have visited upon the innocent. The fates will eventually deliver him his due and he will know not what it means to live a carefree and happy existence.
As a philosophical aside: the Law of Karma is not a Law of Retribution; it is a law of action – specifically volitional action. It describes how thinking and acting in a certain way leads to habituation, and an ever more extreme version of the Self – a state of being which Buddhists call Dukkha (usually mistranslated as ‘suffering’). It teaches the self-observation of one’s habituated patterns of behaviour and assumptive attitude of mind: and the patience to begin modifying triggered behaviour by acting differently – what in the West we might call the exercising of the Free Won’t (as opposed to the ‘Free’ Will). It does not mean that there is no “getting away with it” – there is no divine justice. You ‘judge’ yourself by the quality of your own deeds or misdeeds. You are right that “he will know not what it means to live a carefree and happy existence” – somehow I don’t think that will bother pond slime like Cambell overly – there is a self-righteous smugness to the man. He, no doubt, feels vindicated in who he deludes himself to be. The greater the fool is he.
Marvellous post, you have put into words a concept of the developed/undeveloped self that I have been grappling, feebly, with.
I have come across other descriptions of the Law of Karma, especially those which speak of the “Higher Self” of mankind being independent enough of what Buddhists call “Attachment” – the root of all suffering – to be able to judge themselves and want to reincarnate in order to be able to right the wrongs and perfect the imperfections.
Not all “successful” people possess a developed self, although many of them consider their material property to be something their illusory developed self actually deserves… but that’s another story.
I must add that one description I encountered DID speak of a kind of retribution, in the sense that after death, one goes back over one’s life in reverse order, seeing everything painfully clearly, and making note of the dreadful mistakes and flaws to be seen from this relatively detached perspective.
However, for example, any pain which we have caused others by wickedness or selfishness is, during this time, experienced by us as if it were being done to us.
We experience all of the pain we have caused, but as the victims of it.
Out of that suffering, and the compulsion to identify with the original wrong we have done – this time on the receiving end – comes the burning desire to make good and get our personal karma back into balance.
Even if that were nothing more than a beautiful fantasy – which I believe it is not – it makes a lot of sense to me.
Included in this philosophy is also the notion that we are not all at the same level and have not all experienced the same number of lives. It is also possible to take backward steps, which will also take their own good time to be reversed.
As I understand it, reaching “Nirvana”, or whatever the relevant philosophy calls it, means being aware of all that has gone before, and having freed oneself from “Attachment”. Until one reaches that point, one is in constant danger from illusions of perfection or progress.
In that sense, genuine compassion for all our fellow men and women ought to flow from the knowledge that we are all struggling towards some sort of enlightenment, and the journey is infinitely long and difficult.
Being bothered to take that journey willingly and consciously is the biggest challenge.
But enough preaching.
I’m convinced, and I hope some of you out there can see something ultimately positive and optimistic in my comments.
Habituation involves muscle memory. There is no mental activity without muscle activity and vice versa. See F.M. Alexander for details.
Reblogged this on Worldtruth and commented:
Repugnant – and that’s just The Guardian, Alistair Campbell is beyond words of condemnation- they would be too many to list.