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If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
A decade has passed since George Bush issued an ultimatum, demanding that Saddam Hussein and his sons were to leave Iraq within 48 hours or face an invasion by the US. Bush's rhetoric made frequent mention of a 'free' Iraq, a country that would be 'liberated' from a dictator, yet the events that transpired from that ill-fated speech have devastated a country.
Throughout the war, our governments insisted that they had a genuine humanitarian interest in bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq. To put it simply, this is a lie, and needs to be exposed as such. A brief look at the West's record in the Middle East provides all the evidence we need in order to unearth the great myth of 'humanitarian intervention' in Iraq.
In Iraq everyone privately knew the WMD thing was a pretext, and this assumption underpinned all our political work. No-one was 100% certain of the real aims. Still today. So we made it up.
A grim anniversary was celebrated yesterday, and that is the passing of a decade since the invasion of Iraq. To illustrate the new and more peaceful state of the country, the eve of that anniversary was marked by a wave of bombings that left 65 people dead. The timing of the attacks was not an accident: someone wants the West to understand that they still have the capacity to carry out such atrocities.
I will never forget the feelings of grief, anger, fear, and sadness that overwhelmed me when news came that the bombs and missiles had started falling on Baghdad. I was on the set of the movie, which by now I hated, when it came.
Ten years have passed since American and British troops invaded Iraq on 19 March 2003. Much has happened during that decade, not least the downfall of an infamous dictator and the establishment of a democratic political system. A question that seems to be on everyone's mind these days is whether it was worth it?
Whether any of the officials who are now coming forward felt similar pangs of conscience at the time about the discrepancy between what they knew and what their government was saying is not known, but what is certain is that none of them were prepared to act on them if they did.
Sectarianism is there and it is still both a significant problem and a major stumbling block to moving the country forward. While this was most obviously demonstrated by the sectarian killings that dominated the local news for so long, it was also clearly evident when we analysed the key drivers for Iraqi's voting preference.
The Iraq War was the culmination of a process that started in 1994 with the rise of New Labour and reflected its heady psychological brew of arrogance and self-loathing. The arrogance came from a quasi-Leninist belief in Labour as the agent of some great historical mission on behalf of the masses - a traditional conceit of Labourism, admittedly.
This story is about young men (and yes, it is mostly men) who leave the forces early, rather than those who have undertaken multiple tours and spent a decent amount of time in the services. It's about those young men who already have a propensity for violence and who can't handle the discipline of the army. It's about how they are discharged and then booted out into society.
Since Saddam's departure Iraqi television viewers have been served up programmes with names like Terrorism in the Grip of Justice. This has shown pre-trial detainees 'fessing up to things like being a member of an armed group, abduction and murder... In some cases the 'confessees' have actually been executed in shoddy trial largely based on these highly prejudicial appearances
Tony Blair is in reflective mood as he leans over his grande cappuccino, contemplating another sip. It's been ten years since he and co-creator George W. Bush took the world by storm with their hit show The Iraq War and, as is often the case when an enduring series reaches a milestone anniversary, fans are debating the possibility of a reunion.
The principle at stake here is the future of our planet. The future of our climate, and the future of the freedom to protest and voice dissent in Britain. Once, these activists were the Suffragettes, imprisoned and force-fed for refusing to give up their fight for the right to vote because they were women.
Newsnight presented some deeply questionable narratives of the war and its aftermath as 'fact'; and systematically avoided any serious, factually-grounded criticisms of the war, despite a diverse panel which included people who opposed it.
New freight and passenger lines between, say, Basra, Baghdad, Kirkuk, Dohuk and Ceyhan in Turkey would drive new markets and knit people together wherever the borders are. And Iraq would be the transport hub of the whole region.
It isn't the size of our demonstration that those of us against the war should be proud of, it is our judgement. Our arguments and predictions turned out to be correct and those of our belligerent opponents were discredited. Every argument advanced by the hawks proved to be utterly false.
