I was reading Glenn Greenwald's post today (*groan* i know) and came across this George Orwell quote from "Notes on Nationalism":

All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage -- torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians -- which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by 'our' side . . . The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.

It made me think of that interview with Alan Clark, the British Minister of Trade in the 80s:

John Pilger (JP): "Did it bother you personally that you were causing such mayhem and human suffering (by supplying arms for Indonesia's war in East Timor)?"
AC: "No, not in the slightest, it never entered my head."
JP: "I ask the question because I read you are a vegetarian and you are quite seriously concerned about the way animals are killed."
AC: "Yeah..?"
JP: "Doesn't that concern extend to the way humans, albeit foreigners, are killed?"
AC: "Curiously not. No."

Curious, indeed.