There are five things of note in Oliver Kamm's deranged rant against the late John Pilger. The first is Kamm's apparently serious attack on "obscure far-left websites" in a piece published on an obscure far-right website. The second is his commendation of Pilger's "balanced and reliable" Times obituary as if it had been written by someone other than Kamm; "noted by the Times obituarist," indeed.
The third is Kamm's insinuation that the SAS never did train the Khmer Rouge, for which alone he ought never again to be published by anyone who would not publish David Irving. The fourth is when he writes "[sic!]"; if you know, you know, and he hilariously does not know. And the fifth is the absence of any mention of the wars in Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, or indeed of the ongoing war in Gaza, with the only reference to Iraq being to say that it was "nothing like" something that it was very, very, very much like.
Then again, who cares? Kamm is 61, and how does his life story compare to Pilger's at 61, in the year 2000? That is also worth bearing in mind for when Noam Chomsky dies. Pilger must have had cause to have blocked hundreds or even thousands of people on Twitter, as one might swat a fly. But he had no idea who they were. Unless he had been told by Neil Clark or George Galloway, then he had the good fortune never to have heard of Kamm to his dying day. That Kamm's effusion has been reprinted in the Daily Telegraph is yet another of that organ's morbid symptoms. It will soon be in Arab, BRICS ownership, and not a moment too soon. Then there will be no more of this.
Who'll write Kamm's obituary? To use one of my favourite Lindsayisms, "I'd be surprised if the undertaker turned up."
ReplyDeleteHe will certainly get one in my magazine, the preparation for which is why things are a bit quiet on here. I'll write it myself.
DeleteThe preparation for your magazine or the preparation for Kamm's obituary?
DeleteBy definition, both.
DeletePilger lied that Milosovic was cleared of war crimes by the ICTY (haha) and muddied the truth that the Khmer Rouge leaders were all ex members of the French Communist Party (and it had been backed by Left-wing pundits in the West) by slyly comparing them to the Nazis and lied that it was the West (rather than Vietnam) that was denying aid to Cambodia. It was actually the regime in Phnom Penh actually required every UN agency or NGO in Cambodia to pledge not to provide aid to Cambodians on the Thai border.
ReplyDeleteYes, luv, I also read it. That doesn't make it any good.
DeleteWhy do you dislike Kamm?
ReplyDeleteOh, you are very new to this site. But even if you were not, what is there not to dislike about him?
DeleteI’m not sure. I suppose the few articles of his I’ve read aren’t things I’ve found terribly offensive. He doesn’t strike me as egregious as Rod Liddle, Charles Moore, Dan Wooton et al
DeleteLiddle was spectacularly right about Iraq.
DeleteI've only ever heard of Kamm from your blog and a lot of people say the same.
ReplyDeleteI know. They say it to me.
Delete“That doesn’t make it any good.”
ReplyDeleteYou can’t refute any of it including what I posted because it’s true. Pilger just frequently made stuff up and overlooked mass human rights abuses by his side to support his anti American worldview. He emerges as just another leftist in the mould of Pinter, Hermann and Galloway et.al willing to support any action and regime, however vile, as long as it’s against America. Ideologically-blind atheist leftists always believe the ends justify the means (including journalists telling any amount of lies to further their cause).
Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah.
DeleteOh, and Kamm is the most militant atheist on Earth.
I know he is. But my point is Christianity is a safeguard against earthly utopianism and the amoral belief that the ends justify the means that define people like Pilger. Pilger and the rest are all the same-happy to breach journalistic standards and do lie about or downplay the worst crimes of their own side from Cuba to China in the service of the great cause.
ReplyDeletePeter Hitchens, (who lived in and reported from the Soviet Union) had to patiently sit and explain the facts to George Galloway on the BBC when he tried hilariously telling us all the good that the Soviet Union used to do.
Pinter, Pilger, Hermann, Galloway-these people are all the same. Apologists for every tyranny as long as it’s left wing or at least anti American.
Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah.
DeleteSince before you were born, dear boy. Since before you were born.
“He doesn’t strike me as egregious as Rod Liddle, Charles Moore, Dan Wooton et al“
ReplyDeleteIf you’re on the Left, yes. Kamm is fanatically pro immigration, pro multiculturalism, pro PC in general, while the others you’ve named are all rightwing.
I agree with Kamm only on free speech and his condemnation of those on his own side who overlook or deny the crimes of leftwing and anti-American regimes.
Rod would certainly not tell you that he was right-wing.
DeleteIt will soon be in Arab, BRICS ownership, and not a moment too soon
ReplyDeleteNo the government has and will block that-it would be an assault on British freedom of the press if our newspapers were taken over by foreign autocracies.
Having allowed all and sundry to buy up this country's infrastructure.
DeleteAnyone can just set up a newspaper. What makes this one so special? I'll give you a clue, I already know the answer. Peter Oborne is in favour of this purchase, so that will do me.
Infrastructure is one thing-freedom of the press is another thing altogether. Allowing our newspapers to fall into the hands of Arab autocracies (that have no free newspapers at home) is not on. Our government has rightly stepped in.
ReplyDeletePeter Oborne’s a Remainer who lost it years ago.
Who owns a newspaper, which anyone can just set up, matters more than who owns our water, or energy, or railways, or airports, or a great deal more besides? We can all see who has lost it.
DeleteThe Telegraph is one of our greatest and oldest broadsheets dating back to 1855-and it was first to expose many scandals from the Profumo Affair to the MP’s expenses scandal. Freedom of the press is the one on which all other freedoms depend. If you think ownership of “utilities” matters more than liberty itself you really are a mad leftist.
ReplyDeleteIf the press falls into the hands of autocracies than we are not free at all.
Anyone can just set up another newspaper.
DeleteOf course, that is not what this is really about at all. If you know, you know.
“Anyone” cannot set up a newspaper with the long standing reputation, loyal readership and resources needed to do great journalism. As I say, free newspapers are the basis of a free society.
ReplyDelete"Great journalism"? But we all know what "resources" are in this case. Don't we?
DeleteHaving never been a journalist (rather like Mr Pilger) you clearly don’t know what newspapers are. It’s like saying “anyone can set up” the New York Times. I note that today Conservative MPs and Ministers have said the Telegraph is too important and vowed to block this. What next, the takeover of our free press by the Chinese Communist Party?
ReplyDeleteIt is as free as anyone else to found or acquire one, and it already owns plenty of things that matter a lot more than one newspaper (circulation last declared in December 2019 as 317,817) and its inhouse magazine (circulation of 102,212 in 2021).
DeleteKamm notes that despite the ferocious reaction to his article from Pilger fanboys online, nobody has been able to refute any of his damning charges of fraud against Pilger .
ReplyDelete@oliverkamm Just pushing this again as I immodestly think the facts it relates about Pilger’s unabashed fakery do matter & are indisputable. I’ve had much feedback, including many disobliging & some scatological messages, but no one has been able to point out a factual error, so I’m content.”
Oh, I know, his lack of self-awareness is side-splitting. May he never change.
DeleteI’m also yet to see an error or misrepresentation pointed out in his charge-sheet-and those charges are damning. For example, that Pilger lied about Milosovic being exonerated of war crimes and about the death toll in Kosovo.
ReplyDeleteNo one cares what you say, Ollie Boy. He was John Pilger, and you never will be.
DeleteIncidentally, I’m not a fan of the Kosovo War, as I take the position of the late great Alan Clark and the Republican Party at the time that we had no strategic interest in intervening there.
ReplyDeleteHe never voted against it. While anti-war Conservatives are like leprechauns, believe in them when you see them, Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell are the last of the 11 MPs and four tellers (the Government Whip was to abstain), all 15 of them Labour, who voted against the war in Kosovo, on 19 April 1999. Thus began the long, hard slog against neoconservatism, with Corbyn's name uniquely appearing in the right column of every Division List.
Delete“While anti-war Conservatives are like leprechauns, believe in them when you see them”
ReplyDeleteAnti-war conservatives were the only opposition to the Kosovo war in the United States, where the Republican Party voted against it. Kamm is of course right-the anti war conservatives position is at least logical (Milosovic and the anti-Muslim Serbian government were hardly leftwing!) but that of the anti war leftists was inexplicable.
Clark mounted the only coherent critique of the war in our Parliament. And the patriotic conservative antiwar case was more respectable than that of the likes of Corbyn who unlike Clark had disgraced themselves through support for the IRA during the Troubles and for Argentina during the Falklands War.
You've done this one. I don't think you were born in 1999.
DeleteIt was Tony Benn who led the opposition to the Kosovo War, he was brilliant, so was Tam Dalyell. Lord Skidelsky had to resign from the Tory front bench to oppose the war. The GOP would have supported it if a Republican President had done it.
ReplyDeleteSkidelsky's was the only such resignation in either House. Like hundreds of proper economists, he endorsed Corbyn at the last two General Elections. None, so far as I am aware, publicly endorsed the other side, just as none will publicly endorse either main party this year. Meanwhile, Skidelsky is still fighting the anti-war fight on Ukraine. And paying the price for it.
DeleteLike the Tories and the Labour Right, the Democrats support all wars reflexively. But the Republicans support only their own. When the Administration changes mid-war, then so does their line.