Let There Be Light

Josh Marshall has a link to this Martin Walker UPI story which indicates that the UK might be about to get the kind of investigation into the decision to go to war in Iraq that our gutless Congress has refused to supply us.
This will not be a happy Thanksgiving for President George Bush, but he need just look across the Atlantic to know it could be worse. His only reliable ally, Britain's Tony Blair, now seems to be facing the full-scale parliamentary inquiry into the Iraq war -- its justification, conduct and aftermath -- that Bush has been able to avoid.

Leading opposition figures from the Conservative, Liberal-Democratic, Scottish National and Plaid Cymru (Welsh) parties have banded together to back the cross-party motion titled "Conduct of Government policy in relation to the war against Iraq" to demand that the case for an inquiry be debated in the House of Commons. They seem assured of the 200 signatures required to get such a debate -- and then the loyalty of Blair's dismayed and disillusioned Labor members of Parliament will be sorely tested.

About time. If this happens and casts some revealing light on GW's war, maybe our congress will follow - especially if a few of the more extreme Republican criminals are on the way to the slammer by then.

Comments

  1. nige5:07 AM

    Hi Pig,

    Here is some media debate on Blair's war:

    You get held under the 'Prevention of Terrorism Act' by the state police in the U.K. if you say 'nonsense' at a Labour Party conference:

    Extracts from Daily Express article by Allison Little, 29 September 2005, p8:

    "... Mr Wolfgang [a pacifist and for half a century a member of the Labour Party] was detained by police under the Prevention of Terrorism Act [for shouting 'nonsense' once during in the Labour Party Conference when Jack Straw lectured about the policy on Iraq]...

    " ... it flew in the face of Tony Blair's defence of the Iraq war two years ago when he said: 'The great thing about living in a democracy is that people are free to express their view.' "

    The article quotes Frank Dobson saying: "It is particularly poignant as he was a refugee from Nazi Germany where expressing dissent was not exactly encouraged."

    The paper's editorial on p10 of the same issue says:

    "Control freaks have taken over...

    "Mr Wolfgang's yell of 'nonsense' seemed a very sane response, but in less time than it takes to say 'negative image', he was thrown out. ... These days they sit meekly in the hall, listening dutifully to the word from the ruling presidium. The whole event is controlled with an iron fist Stalin would have admired. ... In Tony Blair's unbrave new world, nobody can be seen to demur, let alone disrupt. It was a moment of truth. Control freakery rules ... Mr Wolfgang was like the little boy pointing out the emperor was naked. He'll be lucky not to get an Asbo."

    An 'Asbo' in Britain is an anti-social behaviour order, keeping anti-social people from annoying others by law enforcement. However, remember that in the 'police states' of dictatorships, the law enforcement propaganda sounds very similar. Thin end of the wedge?

    How far can the government go after election? If you cursed Hitler in 1935, you would probably have been reminded he was democratically elected in 1933.

    See Frederick Forsyth's essay in the Daily Express (7 Oct 05, p11):

    'Fascism is not a doctrinal creed; it is a way of behaving towards your fellow man. What, then, are the tell-tale hallmarks of this horrible attitude?

    'Paranoid control-freakery; an obsessional hatred of any criticism or contradiction; the lust to character-assassinate anyone even suspected of it; a compulsion to control or at least manipulate the media...

    '... the majority of the rank and file prefer to face the wall while the jack-booted gentlemen ride by. ...

    'An interesting man, John Reid. A socialist (actually he started out as a communist) all his life, he too has sold the pass. Now he is happy to send British troops to die in a faraway place in a war he knows perfectly well was started on a tissue of deliberate lies.

    'It's a pity. I never flagged John Reid as a second-rater. The other apostates, Prescott, Straw, Blunkett, yes; and of course the founding Blairites, who never had a faith at all, yes; and the stark-naked power lusters, yes. But to see Reid unfazed by what happened to the old Jewish refugee and pacifist [Walter Wolfgang] and making limp excuses... that was sad. ...

    'But I do not believe the innate dececency of the British people has gone. Asleep, sedated, conned, duped, gulled, deceived, but not abandoned.'

    Best wishes,
    Nigel

    ReplyDelete
  2. CapitalistImperialistPig12:51 PM

    Nigel,

    Hope the last is right.

    ReplyDelete

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