Richard Littlejohn of the Daily Mail takes no prisoners:
... I don't hold the hostages responsible for what happened to them, or how they responded while in captivity. They and thousands more like them do a brave, thankless job on our behalf.But I despair at what their ordeal and the response to it tells us about the kind of country we have become.
After ten years of Tony Blair, Britain is now a neutered, international laughing stock. The United Nations and our EU 'partners' hold us in contempt.
The feminisation of our entire society has utterly destroyed whatever credibility and moral fibre we ever had. The emotional incontinence which flooded the country at the time Lady Di popped her Jimmy Choos is now our stock in trade.
I wanted to retch when I saw the father of one of the captured marines cuddling his wife and sobbing on live television in front of a tree festooned with yellow ribbons.
Of course he's got every right to be upset, but he shouldn't be sharing it with Sky News. His other son looked deeply embarrassed, as if a dog had just peed up against his leg. It was the most skin-crawling moment I have seen since The Mellorphant Man paraded his family in front of a five-bar gate.
And What about the outside broadcasts from assorted pubs around the country, as various friends and relatives showed their solidarity by drinking themselves senseless?
... The broadcast media covered the whole affair as if it were an episode of Big Brother. Gormless women cackled away about the hostages in the same silly psychobabble as they discuss 'relationship ishoos'.
I'd add that the British were right to surrender to overwhelming and unstable forces. The mock execution by the Iranians was a nice touch. Thanks. We'll remember.
And this in case you think Littlejohn's exaggerating:
As for Britain's government, perhaps the harshest comments issued during the entire fiasco came from British Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt. The object of her ire? Prisoner Turney's smoking. "It was deplorable," Hewitt tut-tutted. "This sends completely the wrong message to our young people."
..
But the fatuousness of Hewitt's comment perfectly echoed that of new U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon, who also "thanked" Ahmadinejad.
Posted by Mark Adams on April 6, 2007 3:33 PM
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Comments (2)
My mother was a little girl living outside London during WWII. She told me all about hiding in the Underground during air raids, and taking stock of the dead afterwards. She showed great courage for a 7 year old. And she is appalled at this latest episode in Britain's long slide from world power to laughingstock.
The old saying was that 'the sun never set' on the British Empire'.
I submit, it HAS.
Posted by barry in co | April 7, 2007 1:44 AM
Posted on April 7, 2007 01:44
There is a chilling asymmetry between the Islamic radical's willingness to die and to kill and the modern western attitude that nothing is worth dying or killing for.
When they knifed Van Gogh in the street, the Dutch responded not by rising up and kicking Muslim butt, but by hoping against all reason that more appeasement would do the trick. The result is that a lot of the Dutch are voting with their feet--abandoning their own homeland for safer climes in Canada and the U.S.
Unfortunately, looking at this phenomenon at its logical limits, its only a matter of time before they face the same problems in their new homes--you can't run from your own cowardice.
Posted by Mick Stockinger | April 7, 2007 10:09 PM
Posted on April 7, 2007 22:09