Friday, 29 January 2010
Shameless
It seems fitting to be launching this blog today, as Tony Blair makes his appearance before the Chilcot Enquiry. It was Blair’s lies over Iraq, his contempt for British public opinion, and his indifference to the suffering war would bring, that spurred me, and lots more other like me, into political activism.
The Chilcot enquiry is shining the faintest light on what we all knew already – the complicity of politicians in lying to justify war. And no single individual is more culpable than Tony Blair. He should be facing criminal charges for all the pain and suffering he has caused whether to the families of Iraqis, Afghans or British service men and women. For a man so obsessed with his own legacy, it is fitting that he will only be ultimately remembered for his deceit, vanity and deference to a particularly dim witted and cruel US president.
The lesson for me from all the events post 9/11 is that our political establishment cannot be trusted. The only hope for peace lies with ordinary people organising to ensure it is the drive for peace that shapes our political agenda, not the drive for war.
I cannot be there physically with the anti-war campaigners today. But I am there in spirit.
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