British government, from war on Assad’s Syria to alliance?

This video, based on the book 1984, is called 1984 – The War among Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia.

First, a quote from the dystopian novel 1984 by George Orwell. The book is set in a fictional year 1984 (still in the future in 1948 when Orwell wrote the novel), in the dictatorial superstate Oceania (roughly, the USA plus Britain). Oceania is perpetually at war against another superstate; either Eurasia or Eastasia.

On the sixth day of Hate Week, after the processions, the speeches, the shouting, the singing, the banners, the posters, the films, the waxworks, the rolling of drums and squealing of trumpets, the tramp of marching feet, the grinding of the caterpillars of tanks, the roar of massed planes, the booming of guns — after six days of this, when the great orgasm was quivering to its climax and the general hatred of Eurasia had boiled up into such delirium that if the crowd could have got their hands on the 2,000 Eurasian war-criminals who were to be publicly hanged on the last day of the proceedings, they would unquestionably have torn them to pieces — at just this moment it had been announced that Oceania was not after all at war with Eurasia. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Eurasia was an ally.

There was, of course, no admission that any change had taken place. Merely it became known, with extreme suddenness and everywhere at once, that Eastasia and not Eurasia was the enemy. …

Oceania was at war with Eastasia: Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia. A large part of the political literature of five years was now completely obsolete. Reports and records of all kinds, newspapers, books, pamphlets, films, sound-tracks, photographs — all had to be rectified at lightning speed. Although no directive was ever issued, it was known that the chiefs of the Department intended that within one week no reference to the war with Eurasia, or the alliance with Eastasia, should remain in existence anywhere.

Today, in 2014, Oceania does not exist. NATO and its member states come closest to it.

Eurasia and Eastasia do not exist. However, Syria has at least some resemblance to it.

Last year, David Cameron’s British government almost started a war against the Assad regime in Syria; a war with Al Qaeda in Syria and Al Qarda spin-off ISIS as allies of the NATO ‘free world’. That war did not start because of overwhelming popular opposition to it.

And now, will we soon hear in the official war propaganda, similarly to Orwell’s 1984: “Assad is an ally. Assad has always beenm an ally”?

By Ben Chacko in Britain:

Chaos in Con-Dem Isis plan

Saturday 23rd August 2014

Middle East foreign policy branded shambolic after Dannatt calls for alliance with Syria’s Assad

THE government’s chaotic Middle East policy was on the ropes yesterday as Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond tried to fend off calls for an alliance with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Former army chief General Richard Dannatt said a “conversation has got to be held” with the Syrian leader because of efforts to halt the advance of the Islamic State (Isis).

Isis now dominates the Western-supported uprising against the Assad government and has recently won control of huge swathes of neighbouring Iraq.

“The Syrian dimension has got to be addressed. You cannot deal with half a problem,” the retired general declared on the Today programme.

He raised the spectre of British air strikes against Isis on Syrian territory — and added that “it’s got to be with the Assad regime’s approval,” arguing that Britain should admit it had “misread” the situation in the country.

The US is conducting air strikes against the Islamist group. Britain has so far restricted involvement to aid drops and surveillance missions.

But Mr Hammond shied away from any alliance — which would be a dramatic U-turn for a government which tried and failed to win Parliament’s backing for a military assault on Syria last year.

Britain has continued to call for Mr Assad’s removal from power while lending assistance to Kurdish Peshmerga fighters battling Isis in Iraq.

“We may very well find that we are fighting, on some occasions, the same people that he is but that doesn’t make us his ally,” the Foreign Secretary obfuscated on Radio 4’s World at One.

Labour MP Paul Flynn derided the “chaos” of Britain’s foreign policy.

“On August 29 last year the government wanted to attack Syria and remove Assad.

“Now the United States is saying he’s the least-worst option.

“This just illustrates the futility of Western interference.

“As for Gen Dannatt, he wants a bigger role and more military spending when we already have the fourth-highest military budget in the world.

“We can’t keep punching above our weight and dying beyond our responsibilities.”

Communist Party leader Robert Griffiths said the government’s role in the rise of Isis could not be ignored.

“It’s all very well for generals and politicians to be wise after the event but there was no great mystery about the revolt in Syria,” he said.

“Plenty of us were warning when the government wanted to topple the secular Assad government that helping its enemies would end up strengthening jihadist terrorists.”