IN DEFENCE OF WHATABOUTERY
There have been three anniversaries of note
so far this year: the first of the invasion
of Ukraine by the Russian Federation;
the twentieth of the invasion of Iraq
by the US, UK, Australia
and Poland; the fifty fifth of the My Lai
Massacre, the murder of five hundred
and two Vietnamese men, women, children –
all civilians – by a company
of American GIs. Aggressors
seem always only too able and willing
to justify such sociopathic
behaviour with self-serving casuistry
both before and after the fact. Remember
Oradour-sur-Glane; Amritsar; the
Armenian Massacres; Wounded Knee;
Alexander the Great destroying Thebes;
the Ancient Romans’ sacking Carthage
and killing tens of thousands; and Elisha,
on his way into the city of Bethel,
being met by a large group of little children,
who mocked him because of his bald head,
so he cursed them in the name of the Lord,
and two she-bears, emerging from a nearby wood,
tore forty two of the children to pieces.
