Iraq: teachers told to rewrite history

By Richard Garner, Education Editor
Friday, 14 March 2008

Britain's biggest teachers' union has accused the Ministry of Defence of breaking the law over a lesson plan drawn up to teach pupils about the Iraq war. The National Union of Teachers claims it breaches the 1996 Education Act, which aims to ensure all political issues are treated in a balanced way.

Teachers will threaten to boycott military involvement in schools at the union's annual conference next weekend, claiming the lesson plan is a "propaganda" exercise and makes no mention of any civilian casualties as a result of the war.

They believe the instructions, designed for use during classroom discussions in general studies or personal, social and health education (PSE) lessons, are arguably an attempt to rewrite the history of the Iraq invasion just as the world prepares to mark its fifth anniversary.

Steve Sinnott, the general secretary of the NUT, said: "This isn't an attack on the military – nothing of the sort. I know they've done valuable work in establishing peace in some countries. It is an attack on practices that we cannot condone in schools. It is a question of whether you present fair and balanced views or put forward prejudice and propaganda to youngsters."

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Gus: really really... The teachers couldn't hope to teach that the French, the Russians and the Germans were getting the good oil from Iraq, paying directly in Euros... Thus could the good old teachers teach that the US was totally miffed since the oil market is a US dollar sacrosanct monopolised territory? Nor could they teach that the non-sexed-up dossiers had been sexed up with more lies than a thesaurus could give meanings to the words porkies, tall tales, fiddles and furphies. Nor could they teach that G. W. Bushit was promoting a "Mission Accomplished' in a PR landing, when the moment was actually the beginning of the major debacle that now is entering its fifth year... And who could agree with the numbers of dead on the Iraqi side when numbers vary between 150,000 from "official figures" (conservative counting) to more than a million from scientific analysis of the subject ( more accurate estimate)? Nor could they teach that the intent from the US is to stay in Iraq for another 25 years minimum (50 more likely) but cannot express this reality because it could upset our "managed" perceptions of winning the whatever we fighting for, or against... and bring the troops home...

Ark..., go on, write the Napoleonic history of Tony Blair — or tell of the glorious armies in the desert sands fighting mirages or an enemy disguised as coconut trees — if you must... but do not be upset if some people think it's a lot of twaddle...

From the Washington Post...

A Crude Case for War?

It's hard to miss the point of the "Blood for Oil" Web site. It features one poster of an American flag with "Blood for oil?" in white block letters where the stars should be and two dripping red handprints across the stripes. Another shows a photo of President Bush with a thin black line on his upper lip. "Got oil?" the headline asks wryly.

Five years after the United States invaded Iraq, plenty of people believe that the war was waged chiefly to secure U.S. petroleum supplies and to make Iraq safe -- and lucrative -- for the U.S. oil industry.

We may not know the real motivations behind the Iraq war for years, but it remains difficult to distill oil from all the possibilities. That's because our society and economy have been nursed on cheap oil, and the idea that oil security is a right as well as a necessity has become part of our foreign policy DNA, handed down from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Jimmy Carter to George H.W. Bush. And the war and its untidy aftermath have, in fact, swelled the coffers of the world's biggest oil companies.

But it hasn't happened in the way anyone might have imagined.