Imperial grief

[Chris Burford]

Some of the reaction to the death of the astronauts is similar to the wave of public grief about the death of Princess Diana - a spectacular sudden public death, with a technical mystery to analysed and reanalysed endlessly over the 24/7 news media, and the public expressions of grief by ordinary people, accelerating a cascade of ceremonies, and shrines to honour the dead. My impression is that the public come out well in this.

No one would wish 7 people to die, even if it was a quick death, but Michael has already noticed an irony of newsvalues about what has been happening in Colombia. There is another: this weekend the same number of people, 7, died in British Columbia - young students on a skiing trip caught in an avalanche. The second group death in this area in two weeks. They had their lives ahead of them. They had not been prepared for great risks as perhaps the astronauts had. Their families had not been prepared.

There is also an imperial grief. I hope humane people on this list will forgive me, in speculating whether this tragedy might do anything to knock Bush's imperial arrogance. The idea that the whole nation must go into mourning because it is shocking that 7 people trained for struggle might fall foul of the risks, is not unconnected with the belief that the USA must remain inviolate from having to negotiate a collective global way of reducing risk in the world.

The particular cruelty of the recent US wars, has been partly dependent on the idea that not a single US serviceman must die - the high level bombing of Yugoslavia, and then of Afghanistan. In the latter case specialist teams were allowed to take part and be "in harm's way" to use Bush's homely phrase, to the extent that a special interrogator who was too provocative got killed. The death reflected more on US cowardice than that of the perpetrator.

Now we are on the threshold of Bush completing his father's unfinished business in Iraq, which took something over 100 US service lives if I recall correctly.

BBC commentators suggested once that the latest Columbia tragedy cannot help the mood in the USA measured by a key opinion poll question about whether the country is going in the right direction. I missed the wording but it is about the sense of well-being and security. That is going down, and that Bush needs to note.

In a scientific age, the destruction of the space shuttle almost has the quality of a portent. It could hardly have been more visible, more public, and written more prominently in the heavens. Perhaps in the end it will just tip the balance about whether the US will be slightly more likely to accept a negotiated exile for Saddam Hussein rather than a full invasion. But I hope that Bush will have shed a sincere tear this weekend about the fact that even the greatest of empires are vulnerable.

Chris Burford

London