As Christmas approaches, we reflect on a bumper year in the world of social discourse. Here’s a little run down of the movers and shakers in this year’s Social Acceptability List, which is compiled by the Fallen in Public and its patchy memory and is about what politicians, newspapers and netizens went on about and how. What’s in? What’s out? What’s OK? What’s not? Read on to find out...
In today's edition... IT'S IN! - War!
War never really goes away, but it’s back in a fresh new
suit and on the rampage. Bush’s self-prophesising War on Terror is reaching its
golden era, and the entire UN have come together to wage it. Everyone is
against Deash – even other jihadi groups. That much is agreed on. After that it
gets hazy. The USA, Turkey and France hate Assad, who hates them back. But both
of them hate Daesh more. Assad’s friends, Russia and Iran, hate Turkey and the
West, probably more than Daesh, but they’re trying to play nice. The Saudis
want to destroy Assad because he’s the wrong type of Muslim. They’re ambiguous
on Daesh and possibly have income streams going to them. But America really
likes the Saudis, who can do no wrong in their eyes. The stateless Kurds are
hated by Turkey for being separatists and by Assad for being effective
fighters, and hence also Russia; but they are friends of the West, even though
they occasionally kill them in friendly fire. Israel, that lightning rod of
regional tension, is quietly hating everyone, and hoping they destroy each
other.
It's like a Christmas dinner where that recently released paedo uncle has shown up unexpectedly, and everyone has different ideas about how to get him to leave.
Into this maelstrom the UK have proudly plodded, promising
rather vacantly to play its part. When your justification for going to war
becomes little more than an analogy of helping your friend when he falls in a
puddle, you can pretty much guess that no one’s got a clue what’s going on.
Cameron might see it has a part of his legacy – war worked for Thatcher, after
all; but those isolated wars of the past are no more. Daesh have instilled such
fear, and it’s been duly disseminated by a loyal media, so war is back, and
don’t expect it to go anywhere.
