One of the more gruesome aspects of British militarism is the impotent strutting about at the Yanks. There is a myth here that the British won the Second World War, and the Americans only joined in when we had turned Hitler back (which involves some somersaults about the Soviet Union's role, claimed in this tale as an extension of British diplomacy).
A couple of nights ago the increasingly smug Ken Livingstone was smarming on about how the Americans 'thought you could fight a war without getting hurt' whilst we Brits, on the other hand, 'we can take it' (old Churchill slogan about the Blitz). Of course that's pretty easy since the troops in the frontline will be mostly Americans. (In fact Britain's post-war military adventures are so underhand that the country has managed to avoid getting many of its own killed. In Ireland, the British Army hid behind its local Unionist militias - and then stabbed them all in the back when the fighting got tough. The only time the British ever met anyone in the field was when the odds were overwhelmingly in its favour - as with Galtieri's conscript army, stuck on the Falklands.)
But to understand the true perfidy of Livingstone's squawking you have to know that he is 'Red' Ken Livingstone, the left's champion. Livingstone wants to be allowed to run for Mayor of London by the leadership, and this exercise in loyalty will probably help him - but not enough. Though as it happens, Livingstone was pretty militaristic over Bosnia too.
One group that has come out against this war that wavered over Bosnia seems to be the New Left Review, who's next issue is advertised as an attack on Human Rights Imperialism. Let's see how the small print reads...
-- Jim heartfield