There is little if any discussion of the British Empire (although I believe this is slowly changing now) nor of why generally speaking people who are not British do not speak of this Empire with any particular affection.

Moreover we live in a country saturated with colonial tropes, from the ubiquitous neo-classical architecture (generally chosen to ram home the point that the British Empire was the new Rome, which was in turn the new Athens (home of the Athenian Empire)), to the 'public' schools (saturated in imperial mythology) to the monarchy itself: an imperial and anti-democratic institution. The idea that Britain has been, (generally speaking) a force for 'good' in the world (and still is): that 'our' motivations are, generally speaking, honourable, is a pre-requisite for entering into 'civilised discourse: i.e. the sort of thing you hear on Radio Four when 'intellectuals' are brought on to discuss 'issues'.

The print media are of course divided into the 'tabloids' and the 'broadsheets'. The'tabloids' are dominated by Rupert Murdoch's The Sun, an extreme right wing paper which has specialised in homophobic, racist, sexist and (recently) war-mongering scandal-mongering, and the best-selling broadsheet is the Daily Telegraph which, despite all the rhetoric, is an upmarket version of the same (the Daily Telegraph is also the most 'friendly' of all British papers to leaks  and plants from MI5.) With the exception of the Mirror in the 'tabloid' press and the Guardian and the Independent of the 'broadsheets' most other papers follow the lead of the Sun and the Telegraph.

Then there is the broadcasting media. The broadcasting media are dominated by the BBC,which is the state broadcasting service (although it is never referred to as such). It is run by a Board of Governors appointed by the Government. Given this, one might expect it to reflect Establishment values, and it does, especially after the previous Director General, Greg Dyke, was fired over the 'Hutton' affair. (This is not a one off: Alasdair Milne and Hugh Green, of previous DGs, were sacked for being insufficiently obsequious to various governments).

This is the context in which the following story from the excellent Media Lens should be understood.

'Economist Alan Greenspan - former Chairman of the US Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve - writes in a single sentence of his new 531-page memoir:

    "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." (Leader, `Power, not oil, Mr Greenspan,' Sunday Times, September 16, 2007)

A Sunday Times (the Rupert Murdoch owned 'broadsheet') leader briefly waved away this curious outburst:

    "Many free market economists, like their Marxist opponents, fall into the fallacy of believing that everything in politics hinges on financial self-interest. True, oil has always been an important factor in Middle Eastern strategy but even countries opposed to the war believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The real reason for the war was Saddam's defiance and the projection of US power after 9/11." (Ibid)

'Greenspan's comment was too important to be completely ignored by the media, but far too dangerous to be seriously discussed (the three sentences from the Sunday Times, above, constitute the most in-depth discussion to appear in the UK press).....'

'Another aspect of reality that has no place in the corporate media's painted window was highlighted last Friday with the release (September 14) of a new report by the British polling organisation, Opinion Research Business (ORB). ORB is no dissident, anti-war outfit; it is a respected polling company that has conducted studies for customers as mainstream as the BBC and the Conservative Party.

The latest poll revealed that 1.2 million Iraqi citizens "have been murdered" since the March 2003 US-UK invasion. (www.opinion.co.uk/Newsroom_details.aspx?NewsId=78)'

'And yet, despite its obvious significance, the ORB study has been almost entirely blanked by the US-UK media. At time of writing, four days after the findings were announced, the poll has been mentioned in just one national UK newspaper - ironically, the pro-war Observer. It has been ignored by the Guardian and the Independent.'

'For the media to ignore the ORB study is an authentic scandal. Doubtless the failure is in part rooted in simple ignorance of its significance. If so, this amounts to a form of criminal negligence in the face of vast war crimes. But, as discussed above, structural realities continue to apply - the media system is an integrated component of a system that benefits from the subordination of people and truth to profit and power....'

Of course there is no mystery as to why the stories above were 'blanked'. As stated above (and in my previous articles), the 'club' that constitutes the world of 'civilised' discourse in Britain is rigorously policed. Being male is an advantage, as is being public school educated, as is having been to Oxford or Cambridge. More important than any of these factors, however, is to believe that 'we' are essentially the good guys, and that 'they' are the bad guys. While 'we' might make 'mistakes', torture, murder and genocide can only ever be actions carried out by 'them'.

In this world view, the idea that 'our' invasion of Iraq was a neo-colonialist land grab for primarily financial reasons simply does not compute. It can't be discussed, because to discuss it would be to bring into the open too many hidden presuppositions about what can and what cannot be said. So it is referred to uncomprehendingly, as if Greenspan had suddenly lapsed into Martian.

Nor can the idea that modern Iraq is worse than Rwanda be accepted. As 'everyone' knows, genocide is something that 'they' do to each other, or 'they' do to 'us'. 'We' do not do it to 'them', because 'we' are Good. Moreover, it is well known that genocide only happens in order to provide reasons for 'us' to intervene in the foreign affairs of other countries. 'Our' only crime in the past has been to not intervene quickly and decisively enough. The idea that it was as a direct result of 'our' 'intervention' that something similar to genocide is now happening in Iraq is incompatible with this 'frame' and is therefore ignored.