Collateral damage

Is there any connection between Bloody Sunday and George Bush’s so-called War On Terrorism? You wouldn’t think so, on the face of it. But there are parallels which are worth observing – and which give us pause for thought in relation to what we believe about the means by which governments of different countries, and in different eras, pursue any endgame which they believe to be in their specific interest.

During the past fortnight, the Saville Inquiry into the events which took place on Bloody Sunday in Derry in January of 1972 began to hear crucial new evidence. Soldier 027, himself a member of the Parachute Regiment at the time, gave evidence that was utterly damning of the paratroopers who opened fire on, and killed and injured, marchers on the streets of Derry on that tragic and bloody day. He recalled, of his colleagues, that they were ready for a kill – and that, when the time came, they seemed to be taking pleasure in shooting at people who were, as far as he could see, entirely defenceless.

He recalled a feeling of inadequacy at the time, because he was unable to locate what he considered to be a legitimate target – someone among the marchers who was carrying a gun or who was shooting. He couldn’t locate them because they weren’t there. The people who were shot had no guns.

In giving this evidence, Soldier 027 confirmed what most people in Ireland, at least, have believed for a long time: that the British Army knowingly shot down and killed innocent civilians, who were engaged in a peaceful Civil Rights protest, on the streets of Derry. In all, 14 people died as a result, and the foundation had been laid for the rise and rise of the IRA as a political and military force.

But at what level was the decision to kill taken? That too has become clearer in recent times.

Not much can be deduced directly from what has been said by General Sir Robert Ford, who was the Commander of Land Forces in Northern Ireland at the time. General Ford has been giving evidence to the Inquiry, but he seems to have decided that he can’t remember what actually happened.

What he cannot deny, however, is a memo which he wrote and signed just a few weeks before Bloody Sunday. In it, he advocated that the minimum force necessary to achieve a restoration of law and order “is to shoot selected ringleaders among the DYH, after clear warnings have been given.” By DYH, Ford meant Derry Young Hooligans.

It may be that the presence of one honest man among the Paras will make it impossible for the Inquiry to come to any conclusion, other than the one which has been obvious from the start. We will see. But from this vantage point, the evidence is utterly compelling. The British Army – and probably the British Government – was willing to murder innocent people in numbers to preserve the status quo. The blame could be put on the local IRA. The impression could be created and maintained that they were active on the day, and that the army were merely firing back.

They thought it would wash but it hasn’t. Those responsible are unlikely ever to come before a court to answer charges. But at least there is reasonable grounds for expecting that we will know – that the murder of innocents will finally be identified officially as such.

If what happened on Bloody Sunday was a conspiracy, it was not a particularly sophisticated one. In The Observer a couple of weeks back, Gore Vidal contributed a superb polemic on the Bush administration and the War Against Terror. It would do an injustice to what was a detailed and complex argument to simplify it too grievously here. What we can say is that the entire Bush project – from the way in which he stole victory in the Presidential election onwards – was called so effectively into question, that even those who strongly advocated support for his actions in the wake of September 11 must now rethink their position.

Vidal rolled out the case to be made concerning possible US government complicity in the events of September 11 with powerful logic and conviction. He detailed the links between the Bush family and the Bin Laden family. He described the way in which some of the key players in the Bush administration – including George Bush himself; his father, the former President George Bush senior; Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice – have links with oil companies which have profited directly from the war in Afghanistan.

And he asked the most important questions regarding the conduct of the President, and of the security forces, on the day of the attack on the Twin Towers. In particular, he asked why no fighter plane had taken to the sky, as is required by law, when the first of the hijacked planes veered off its flight path. No answer has been forthcoming because there is none.

A full 45 minutes passed between this moment of red alert and when the third plane crashed into the Pentagon. It would have been eminently possible to prevent at least this latter attack – and possibly those that levelled the Twin Towers also.

As the Commander-In-Chief of the entire security apparatus, where was the President, at this the nation’s greatest hour of need? He was talking to schoolchildren in Florida, in what was nothing more than a PR opportunity – which was where he stayed while the carnage took place.

It might seem like the ravings of a crazy man to suggest that George Bush may have known exactly what was going to happen on September 11 – but the same could have been said of General Ford and whoever else knew what was planned in Derry on Bloody Sunday, over 30 years ago. It might seem like the ravings of a crazy man to point out that the ones who have benefited from the attack on the Twin Towers are those same people who have been most vociferous and bloody-minded in their response.

We know that the security forces in the US had been alerted to the fact that an attack was being planned. We know that Bush and his advisers did nothing to prevent it. We know that they went to war and secured the installation of what will be a compliant government in Afghanistan. We know that they want to do the same in Iraq.

It may never be possible to make the accusation of collusion stick. But it is possible to prevent an attack on Iraq.

That is the very least that the civilised world can do. After that: who knows? Maybe we’ll find a way of nailing the swine.

There’s some digging to do – but there may be gold to be found at the end of it.