Where's Robin Cook? (Where's Noam Chomsky?)

Some random thoughts:
After last week's (thankfully failed) London bombing attempts, followed by Friday's Police shooting of an innocent Brazilian, it seems that the much-lauded "spirit of the blitz" frame we talked about in previous posts is coming under severe pressure as Londoners start to consider that suicide bombings might become part of the fabric of their lives (Here's The New York Times' perspective, courtesy of Sarah Lyall).

And what of that old chestnut, the war in Iraq: What impact is that having on the Dunkirk spirit? Well, it's not helping. The New York Times last Tuesday quoted "a new opinion survey published in The Guardian" on July 19 that showed that "two-thirds of Britons believed there was a direct link between the bombings on July 7 that claimed 56 lives and Mr. Blair's decision to go to war in Iraq as the main ally of the United States."

And Juan Cole reminded me of someone you never hear much about in the US media coverage of the Iraq War (and Britain's role in it): Robin Cook (above right). Cook used to be the Tony Blair's Foreign Secretary but in a cabinet reshuffle in 2001 he was moved over to Leader of the Commons. He resigned this position in opposition to the impending Iraq invasion in early 2003. Since then Cook (a diminutive yet engaging Scot and a "ginger," i.e. a redhead and redbeard) has consistently, loudly, yet coherently and respectfully eviscerated the British government over its Iraq War policy. (Here's a recent example of his writing from The Guardian). He has gained a good deal of respect in the British media and public sphere for his principled stand.

Juan Cole notes that Cook's successor, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, had by the weekend "backed off his categorical denial that the Iraq war had increased the likelihood of terrorist action against the UK. The assertion was not plausible and cost Straw and PM Tony Blair credibility with the British public." (Although it seems like as of today, Tony Blair is still vigorously holding the line on the "no-linkage" position, according to the BBC.) Cole quotes Cook's "scathing" response to Straw on Sunday, broadcast on the BBC's News 24:

'Yesterday [Cook] claimed that the invasion of Iraq had "undoubtedly" boosted terrorism around the world. The former foreign secretary also warned that the government would have to acknowledge that link if ministers wanted to bring young British Muslims on side. Intelligence agencies had warned the Prime Minister ahead of the war that the invasion would increase the threat to Britain, Mr Cook said. "The problem is that we have handed al-Qaeda an immense propaganda gift, one that they exploit ruthlessly," he told the BBC News 24 Sunday programme. "There have been more suicide bombings in the two years since we invaded Iraq than in the 20 years before it. Yes, it has happened around the world. "I don't think you can make a simple link between any one event and Iraq, but undoubtedly it has boosted terrorism." While Mr Cook refused to say that the bombings would not have happened if Britain had stayed out of the war, he stressed that the problem of terrorism had worsened.'

But here's the saddest part, as Cole ruefully acknowledges:

You will never, ever, hear Robin Cook's statements at any length on American television, even though he has been among the more perspicacious observers of the Iraq guerrilla war. He predicted, for instance, that the Fallujah campaign would have no effect in ending it. His invisibility in the US is easily explained: he disrupts the manufactured consensus that Noam Chomsky warns us about.

Now I have my problems with Noam Chomsky, like many people. But he's a very important contributor to remember (or should be) when we consider the climate of selective suppression and systematic de-emphasis that seems to infuse US media coverage of the Iraq War and the "War on Terrorism." And I need hardly point out that Chomsky himself, a distinguished scholar with a truly international reputation, has been all-but absent (probably completely absent) from US TV news discussions of the war and the "war."