Deferential

 Given that Prime Minister Keir Starmer has made no secret of his distaste for Trump's illegal Iran war—many Britons are rightly wondering why U.S. bombers are nonetheless still taking off from U.K. airfields, heading for the Middle East. 

"For many Britons, the air traffic has brought back memories of the ill-fated invasion of Iraq in 2003, when R.A.F. Fairford was also used for U.S. operations and became the site of long-running antiwar protests," the New York Times reported yesterday. 

Why is Starmer's government abetting yet again what all must agree is an illegal war of aggression?

"There is no appetite for this," said one 29-year-old British man quoted in the article. "My generation, we are disillusioned with America. And the question is, why are we, as the U.K., so deferential?"

It's the same question so many people asked circa 2003-4, when Tony Blair's government chose to be complicit in George Bush's no less unlawful war of aggression in Iraq. 

One is reminded of Harold Pinter's indelible portrayal of this "Special Relationship" between the two countries (as it has been called) in a 2004 poem:

The bombs go off

The legs go off

The heads go off

[...]

A man bows down before another man

And sucks his lust

Why "so deferential" indeed? 

The same question could be asked of the current leadership of the UK's neighbor and historical antagonist, Ireland. 

There too, the populace has made perfectly clear that they oppose the U.S.-Israeli war of aggression. But the government has been reluctant to side with them in public and thereby break with Trump openly. 

During his meeting with Trump yesterday in Washington, the Irish Prime Minister "walked a fine line," as the New York Times puts it—expressing tacit aversion to the war without condemning it openly. 

He appears to have "denounced Iranian aggression"—but did not spare a word for the even more flagrant aggression of the unprovoked U.S. bombing campaign (which has killed more than 160 children). 

And when Trump said (falsely) that the people of Ireland are "very happy" about his war—the Irish PM reportedly looked "pained," but did not directly contradict him. 

And here one can only be reminded of another poetic portrayal of an unduly "deferential" relationship—Lord Byron's "Irish Avatar," in which he denounced the disgraceful Irish flattery of the despotic King George. 

[...] Oh! Erin, how low

Wert thou sunk by misfortune and tyranny, till

Thy welcome of tyrants hath plunged thee below

The depth of thy deep in a deeper gulf still!