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| Subject: Self-defence versus regime change | |
Author: Trixta (UK) | [ Next Thread |
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] Date Posted: 04:15:06 11/06/04 Sat In reply to: Paddy (Scotland) 's message, "On reflection I do not agree." on 10:41:02 11/05/04 Fri Like all sane people the world over I agree that getting rid of Saddam and his mates is a good thing. One less madman in power always is. However, even had our lying, two-faced, spin-happy assurance salesman Blair cited this as a reason I would have had to oppose the war. Not for some lofty ideal about 'who are we to say who is a madman' (hell, we've more than enough of our own I'd like to see replaced or, better still, tried) - but for the oh so simple rationale that where would we stop? Saddam is bad, therefore we should remove him militarily. Okay. But what of the others? Africa has its fair share of lunatic tyrants, so does Asia, the Americas and of course, Europe's not immune either. Australasia seems reasonable (though from what little I know of Howard I still get a skin-crawling sensation that he's not a particularly pleasant person - hey, don't shoot me. I live on the other side of the world and most of what I've heard of him is about supporting Bush blindly and setting his special forces on immigrants). We fell into this trap centuries ago - 'These people are backward/evil/savage/unchristian and so it is our moral duty to impose our progress/goodness/civilisation/morality upon them by force if necessary' and their leaders are barbarian warlords. It's called colonialism. The Neo-Con US has taken exactly the same approach with a new lexicon: for colonisation read regime change, for war read decisive action, for savage read anti-democratic and for civilisation read democracy. Some of the spiel I've heard from the 'crazies' of Dubya's team (who even his Dad kept at arms length as he thought they were mad) include a particular favourite: "The United States has never, ever waged war against a decent country." Oh, well, if they're indecent that's all right. Now what we are seeing in the US is the establishment of puritan-style Christain fundamentalism at the highest political level - exactly the sort of religious zeal we are waging war upon but, crucially, the targets are the unbelievers: whether it is democracy, globalisation, US imperialism, the west or Christ that they choose not to believe in. As for TB, inquiries and his approach to truth: Hutton said that the BBC were wrong to say the dodgy dossier had been sexed up and Tony was completely innocent. Butler said that the intelligence received at no 10 was not exactly the same as that that came out of no 10, it had had the unattractive caveats removed. Or, to put it in spin-speak, had been sexed up by Downing Street. Oh, and Tony was completely innocent. You just know that Tb's tombstone will read "He did it in good faith" - so did Hitler, I'm sure. Personally, as someone from Northern Ireland I've known all along that what TB says and what is the truth rarely even catch sight of one another, let alone cross paths. What really scares me is that, in light of the cost of TB's lies in financial, libertarian and bodycount terms, the Tories' toe-sucking, orgy-ridden scandals are starting to look positively tame and, dare I say it, more British than the US style lies and spin that have seen hundreds of our soldiers killed & maimed and untold hundreds of thousands of poor bloody Afghans and Iraqis slaughtered. In the end I ask myself: Would I buy a used car from Tony Blair? Not if I had a family, that's for damn sure. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |