I don't post much these days , just read, get depressed & log off!
However, recent events and comments on this thread have moved me from my naturally reticent condition.
I wish to make/ask the following points/questions:
1. How many Iraqi refugees/dissidents joined our wonderfully altruistic and spectacularly naive peace marchers on Saturday....if less than 1% maybe they know something we don't or care to ignore.
2. Why do our, obviously well informed, chattering classes insist upon using terms such as 'carpet bombing' and 'tens of thousands of innocent victims'. They need to check up on their own military's capabilities and ethics ( sorry, me being naif here, I forgot that I was born a baby killer!).
3. Bit of a mathematical teaser this one: if the solution to this situation is to allow Saddam to remain in power, and said glorious and benificent leader only tops 4,000 of his population per month, (using EU santioned methods, with no obvious distress permitted to the victim, just a little bit of Sarin/VX/chlorine), how long a period of internal murderous carnage will our cheese/sausage/ cheesysausage sucking Euro opportunist panty-waist, dead in the water, massive-unemployment-let's-deflect-the-issue, Heads of State allow before they give up their own repugnant and discrdedited Federalist agenda and start thinking of real people that really do starve to death. Or maybe 'Jack' I'm alright ChIraq thinks that Iraqis have cake to eat - you Pompous French dinosaurtwat!
4. Why do so few people bother themselves with the detail. In my country (apparently- BBC) only 9% of the population (more likely, a straw poll of 30-40 lunchees in the BBC canteen - you know how meticulous journos are) are willing to sanction an immediate attack on Iraq; yet the figure rockets by420% with a 2nd UN resolution! Why? Because (the majority of) Joe Public is too lazy and ignorant to assimilate the available information and formulate their own decision. They delegate that decision to the (almost) toothless UN, thereby circumventuing an awkward situation in which they may have to think about morals, albeit briefly. Morals make Joe uncomfortable. Easier to pay some inept and corrupt chief UN lawyer (Coffie anyone?) from a 3rd world country to discuss the issue whilst pocketing enough cash to pay off the old country's national debt.
5. Time to get some faith in politicians. I have never been an advocate of Tone before, but his stock is rising (so to speak). For a PM whose entire existence is dominated by the desire to be popular, he's making himself very unpopular. Maybe he knows something we don't. Got to be a very good reason for him to expose his jugular to Gordon..... If there is ever a reason for this country to go to war with Iraq, it's keeping that fat, Jock stump-muncher out of No 10! You think you're highly taxed now? (PS to all the pedants out there....this last point is inflammatory and domestic...but relevant).
6. No matter how fluffy you think kittens are, or how awful you imagine war can be, there can never, ever be sufficient reason to offer implicit approval of and provide propoganda for, a diabolical and murderous dictatorship such as the Saddamites subjugating the innocent people of Iraq. Now. As you read this text. Geddit? Civvy-boy?
Lastly.... for all those doubters: look up cynicism in the big book, then try a bit of loyalty; thank your lucky stars that you live in a country where many people died for your right to bitch ( quite a few Yanks methinks) and hope that you never meet an Iraqi who knows that you marched and demonstrated to extend the terror of his existence.
Peace
SP