11 June 1998 Edition
Television: Empire building
by Sean O Donaile
To The Ends Of The Earth (Channel 4)
Reputations (BBC2)
John Pilger in his excellent modern history book `Heroes', tells it as it really is, or was, particularly in Vietnam, where the American government invaded in the early sixties on the pretext of protecting the country from communism. In fact they had staged an ``incident'' in order to invade and bring Vietnam under their control.
The following twelve years resulted in one of the world's bloodiest wars with 1.3 million casualties, including 60,000 US troops and a further 50,000 veterans who committed suicide after their return home.
``To The Ends Of The Earth'' (Channel 4) highlighted the plight of neighbouring Laos, which still suffers the scars of that era.
Unfortunately for Laos, it bordered Vietnam's Ho-Chi-Minh trail and suffered the consequences, with more bombs being dropped on this small area than all bombs combined during World War II.
John Devine, one of two bomb defusal experts featured in the programme, states ``it makes one wonder how a so-called civilisation could cause such suffering to an innocent people''.
B-52s emptied their bellies of everything from 3,000lbers to grenades every six minutes over a nine year period and they're still picking them out.
John and Peter, two likeable chaps, devote their energies to defusing the hugh amount of unexploded bombs dotted throughout the countryside and villages.
Their mission takes them to the border town of Tai-Loi, exterminated during the war, where the land is still highly contaminated and bomb shells are used as everything from bridges to benches.
The six-acre site surrounding the local secondary school takes a full year to clear, the most common find is the tiny cluster bomb - of which 700 were scattered from each capsule, with thousands of pins exploding from each bomb at thousands of metres a second.
It's a regular occurrence for locals to find unexploded devices under their house or in their vegetable plot, which our two heroes attend to with the minimum of fuss. Their biggest find is a 2,000lb ``tile-unit'', capable of destroying everything within a five mile radius.
Unfortunately for the locals, the bomb is still in use by the Americans (over Iraq and the likes) and refuse to hand over details of how to defuse this gross overkill. The bomb is thus left on the hillside, waiting for some unfortunate to stick his spade in it.
The only fault with this documentary is the age old habit of viewing the problem through western eyes.
The only locals we meet have a fairly miserable existence, eking out a living, selling scrap metal from the shells at 10p per kilo.
One elderly woman describes how she lived in ``a hole in the ground'' for the duration of the bombing - ``it was a miracle we survived''. On her emergence she had to collect many bombs by hand, ``to stop my children from playing with them''.
By the time the countryside is cleared the Yanks will probably be back, in the name of democracy presumably!
Another ``hero'' featured on BBC2's Reputations was Kerryman Lord Kitchener, who would have fitted in well during the Vietman War.
Kitchener will always be the face on the infamous World War One recruitment poster, which increased the rate of hapless pawns marching to their deaths in rat filled trenches on the Western Front.
Born in Kerry in 1850 to a rack-renting landlord family, who had come to Ireland ``to avail of the increased opportunities following the famine'', he grew up under a harsh authoritarian father who terrorised his tenants.
Small wonder that Kitchener followed his father's example, joining the British army and making his name in Sudan, where he butchered 30,000 Dervishes with the help of modern machineguns.
He reputedly was hit in the jaw with a bullet, but ``was such a fine soldier that he swallowed the bullet''.
The wounded were left to die in the open and relatives prevented from visiting them, and Kitchener joked of how he would ``dispose of'' 300,000 women.
Sudan was again safe for the Empire and he returned to London a hero. Much is made of his alleged homosexuality and his tendency to surround himself with young men in handlebar moustaches (his regiments resembled the cover of a Frankie Goes to Hollywood album cover), which is of little importance, except to say that in Victorian society it was more acceptable to visit brothels than to ``come out''. This documentary was littered with Tories of different hues with pokers up their posteriors, all of whom seem to think that it was ``jolly good'' that cousin Herbert slaughtered thousands of Africans as ``he had no choice''.
Kitchener further etched his name on history when he invented Concentration Camps during the Boer War, which of course were later perfected in Germany, Poland and the North of Ireland.
Boer families were rounded up after Kitchener's scorched earth policy and sent to inhumane camps where ``the uncivilised locals died from their unhygienic habits''. 26,000 women and children died in the ``white'' camps and a further 30,000 blacks perished in even worse conditions.
The South Africans blamed Kitchener for helping to create racial conflict as he used blacks to fight against their fellow countrymen. The worst aspect of this savagery was that he received further awards for his savagery and still today, the poker faced Tories claim ``the Boers were to blame'' and ``what could he have done?''.
He further distinguished himself in India and Egypt before driving millions of naive Britons to the Western front, and drowning off the Orkney islands.
Kitchener is today regarded as a hero in Britain and has come ``to embody the positive side of the Empire''.
Small wonder the Empire collapsed.
To The Ends Of The Earth (Channel 4)
Reputations (BBC2)
John Pilger in his excellent modern history book `Heroes', tells it as it really is, or was, particularly in Vietnam, where the American government invaded in the early sixties on the pretext of protecting the country from communism. In fact they had staged an ``incident'' in order to invade and bring Vietnam under their control.
The following twelve years resulted in one of the world's bloodiest wars with 1.3 million casualties, including 60,000 US troops and a further 50,000 veterans who committed suicide after their return home.
``To The Ends Of The Earth'' (Channel 4) highlighted the plight of neighbouring Laos, which still suffers the scars of that era.
Unfortunately for Laos, it bordered Vietnam's Ho-Chi-Minh trail and suffered the consequences, with more bombs being dropped on this small area than all bombs combined during World War II.
John Devine, one of two bomb defusal experts featured in the programme, states ``it makes one wonder how a so-called civilisation could cause such suffering to an innocent people''.
B-52s emptied their bellies of everything from 3,000lbers to grenades every six minutes over a nine year period and they're still picking them out.
John and Peter, two likeable chaps, devote their energies to defusing the hugh amount of unexploded bombs dotted throughout the countryside and villages.
Their mission takes them to the border town of Tai-Loi, exterminated during the war, where the land is still highly contaminated and bomb shells are used as everything from bridges to benches.
The six-acre site surrounding the local secondary school takes a full year to clear, the most common find is the tiny cluster bomb - of which 700 were scattered from each capsule, with thousands of pins exploding from each bomb at thousands of metres a second.
It's a regular occurrence for locals to find unexploded devices under their house or in their vegetable plot, which our two heroes attend to with the minimum of fuss. Their biggest find is a 2,000lb ``tile-unit'', capable of destroying everything within a five mile radius.
Unfortunately for the locals, the bomb is still in use by the Americans (over Iraq and the likes) and refuse to hand over details of how to defuse this gross overkill. The bomb is thus left on the hillside, waiting for some unfortunate to stick his spade in it.
The only fault with this documentary is the age old habit of viewing the problem through western eyes.
The only locals we meet have a fairly miserable existence, eking out a living, selling scrap metal from the shells at 10p per kilo.
One elderly woman describes how she lived in ``a hole in the ground'' for the duration of the bombing - ``it was a miracle we survived''. On her emergence she had to collect many bombs by hand, ``to stop my children from playing with them''.
By the time the countryside is cleared the Yanks will probably be back, in the name of democracy presumably!
Another ``hero'' featured on BBC2's Reputations was Kerryman Lord Kitchener, who would have fitted in well during the Vietman War.
Kitchener will always be the face on the infamous World War One recruitment poster, which increased the rate of hapless pawns marching to their deaths in rat filled trenches on the Western Front.
Born in Kerry in 1850 to a rack-renting landlord family, who had come to Ireland ``to avail of the increased opportunities following the famine'', he grew up under a harsh authoritarian father who terrorised his tenants.
Small wonder that Kitchener followed his father's example, joining the British army and making his name in Sudan, where he butchered 30,000 Dervishes with the help of modern machineguns.
He reputedly was hit in the jaw with a bullet, but ``was such a fine soldier that he swallowed the bullet''.
The wounded were left to die in the open and relatives prevented from visiting them, and Kitchener joked of how he would ``dispose of'' 300,000 women.
Sudan was again safe for the Empire and he returned to London a hero. Much is made of his alleged homosexuality and his tendency to surround himself with young men in handlebar moustaches (his regiments resembled the cover of a Frankie Goes to Hollywood album cover), which is of little importance, except to say that in Victorian society it was more acceptable to visit brothels than to ``come out''. This documentary was littered with Tories of different hues with pokers up their posteriors, all of whom seem to think that it was ``jolly good'' that cousin Herbert slaughtered thousands of Africans as ``he had no choice''.
Kitchener further etched his name on history when he invented Concentration Camps during the Boer War, which of course were later perfected in Germany, Poland and the North of Ireland.
Boer families were rounded up after Kitchener's scorched earth policy and sent to inhumane camps where ``the uncivilised locals died from their unhygienic habits''. 26,000 women and children died in the ``white'' camps and a further 30,000 blacks perished in even worse conditions.
The South Africans blamed Kitchener for helping to create racial conflict as he used blacks to fight against their fellow countrymen. The worst aspect of this savagery was that he received further awards for his savagery and still today, the poker faced Tories claim ``the Boers were to blame'' and ``what could he have done?''.
He further distinguished himself in India and Egypt before driving millions of naive Britons to the Western front, and drowning off the Orkney islands.
Kitchener is today regarded as a hero in Britain and has come ``to embody the positive side of the Empire''.
Small wonder the Empire collapsed.