Deep Black - Andy McNab [55]
I scratched my head. ‘Well, I’ve only been here a day, mate. I haven’t taken much notice.’
He pointed at the media crew the other side of the pool with Jerry. ‘The French used to report stuff exactly the way those wankers over there are reporting this. Telling the world things are improving. Are they fuck. Demonstrators killed in Fallujah – so what? Not worth reporting. An American goes apeshit with a full mag and drops some kids in Mosul – who cares? Iraqis slaughter each other by night, but come first light, everyone’s blind.’ He lifted the bottle to his mouth.
I suddenly felt as tired as he was. ‘You’re right, mate, but that’s how it’s always been. We know it’s all bullshit. We’re never going to be told the truth.’
Rob finished the bottle and placed it alongside a collection of empties on a low wall. Randy was arguing over the Apple with a guy in a hat with Mickey Mouse ears. He didn’t want Bob and the Wailers any more and, after all, it was his birthday. I didn’t think Mickey had a problem with switching the music: he’d just had enough of Randy slobbering over his keyboard.
Rob was still grappling with the big picture. ‘It’s not as if I’m all bitter and twisted. I understand what’s going on, and the reason why. I just can’t help feeling there’s got to be a better way. Back home my man listens to Al Alam radio. It broadcasts out of Tehran, but it’s the only station with up-to-date news of what’s really going on in Iraq. Isn’t that bizarre? The closest we get to the truth, and it’s coming from the latest axis of evil.
‘The Western news agencies are just reporting whatever the CPA tells them to: “There’s a little local difficulty here, nothing that can’t be sorted.” But the boys on the ground know different. Two Americans get blown up here. Six Brits get shot there. You know the US isn’t even covering the funerals now? The White House doesn’t want sobbing families and coffins draped in the Stars and Stripes on TV.’
He glanced again at the partygoers around him. ‘Know what, Nick? They’ve got to pull back, start telling it like it is, otherwise everyone at home will think things are great. They won’t demand action, we’ll lose this war, then we’re fucked. Because it won’t end here, mate. It’ll spread.’
38
Randy was really starting to piss Mickey off, especially since he was now pouring beer over the keyboard because he wasn’t getting his own way.
‘If other countries get it into their heads the Americans can be humbled by strategic resistance, why should they give up their own struggle?’
‘You talking about Uzbekistan?’
‘It’s a fucking nightmare there, mate. Our esteemed president, Karimov, has made himself Dubya’s new best friend.’
I knew courtesy of the Discovery Channel that Uzbekistan had one of the best tables in the Washington Good Lads Club: it had let itself be used as a base for US forces during Operation Fuck Off Taleban, and they’d stayed on as part of the war on terror. Of course, the guardians of freedom and liberty hadn’t jumped up and down too much about their host’s misdemeanours: he’d handed them a strategic position at the heart of Central Asia, the reward for which was a full-dress White House reception and a couple of hundred million dollars in aid.
It was just another load of bollocks. Fuck it, who cared? Well, Rob did, by the sound of it. ‘We’ve got Shi’ites bombing and shooting their way around the fucking country, trying to replace Karimov with an Islamic caliphate. Karimov doesn’t want that. The White House doesn’t want it. Nor do most Uzbekis. But it’s that fucker Karimov who’s causing the drama. He’s crushing religious freedom – creating the very fundamentalism that he and Bush think they’re fighting.’
Rob was having one of his famous intense moments. I generally tried to avoid them: they used up far too many brain cells. ‘He’s closed down nearly all the mosques. Clever move in a country that’s eighty per cent Muslim. There’s just a handful still open in each city for state-sanctioned Friday prayers,