Last Friday the US Embassy in Baghdad issued a directive forbidding their employees use of the road from Baghdad to the
airport. This 10 mile section, known to the US Army as "Route Irish", has never been under the full control of the coalition
forces.
There had been some discussion of creating a specially protected centre lane for official use only - a la the Soviet
Union. This has not been carried out.
All Embassy employee travel to and from the airport is now to be by helicopter.
ANTONY: O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
Thou
art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.
Woe to the hand that shed this costly
blood!
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy,--
Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips,
To
beg the voice and utterance of my tongue--
A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;
Domestic fury and
fierce civil strife
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;
Blood and destruction shall be so in use
And
dreadful objects so familiar
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter'd with
the hands of war;
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:
And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge,
With
Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice
Cry 'Havoc,' and
let slip the dogs of war;
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for
burial.
Julius Caesar III,i Shakespeare
A friend asked me whether it would be acceptable to refer to inhabitants of the United Kingdom pre-WW1 as "British" and
only to distinguish British from Irish in the period following Irish independence.
I responded like this:
It's never been simply a question of semantics - rather it has revolved
around the politics of identity.
Today the official name of the larger state is "The United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Northern Ireland" - from 1801
to 1922 it was "The United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland". Therefore, both islands' identities
were (and are)
recognized - in name at least.
It follows that an individual from the island of Ireland would have been
referred to as Irish, an Irishman, of Ireland,
etc.
If the same individual hailed from Scotland, Wales or England, he could be
described as British, a Briton, of Britain.
In terms of usage, the government and most other national institutions,
are always referred to as the British Government,
etc. without any reference
to the other identity.
(Another common usage is to mistakenly consider "English" as a synonym for
"British". This is often seen when claiming
credit for something - the
opposite is also true when the English wish to distance themselves from
something then they
suddenly remember the other national identities and
are happy to label things as Welsh or Scots or Irish!)
I could go on all day!
