At the risk of getting all political on you...
I heard Tony Blair being interviewed on the radio this morning (it's the Labour Party Conference this week, and he delivered his keynote speech yesterday - presumably only to be upstaged when guest speaker Bono takes to the stage this afternoon). I'm categorically not a supporter of the war in Iraq, and I have been appalled at the way that we were led into the conflict behind the figleaf of weapons of mass destruction and the alleged link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. Tony Blair of course has an absolutely critical role in this, and has been a prime mover in making sure that Britain backed up George W. Bush in what would otherwise have been a unilateral action by the USA.
Anyway - there are millions of bloggers out there talking about just these things. What I wanted to mention was that in spite of all this, when I heard Blair on the radio this morning, I was reminded that he is essentially a decent man in a really difficult job. He spoke of how dreadful he feels about the whole Kenneth Bigley affair, and how sorry he feels for the family - and yet he can't (and shouldn't) give in to the demands of the terrorists. Of course he does! In all the press hysteria it is easy to lose sight of this guy's basic decency. For all the political capital they have made at his expense over the war, I do not believe that the Conservative party could have steered this line. For all that he is Bush's lapdog over Iraq, he seems to be trying as hard as he can to get the Arab-Israeli peace talks reopened because he recognises (apparently unlike Bush) that this is one of the major causes and recruiting grounds for extremists.
Don't get me wrong. I think we were led into war under false pretences, and that now we are stuck in Iraq without any clear exit strategy. I believe that the government has made a lot of mistakes in this area (some of which they now seem prepared to admit). In a healthy democracy, we are right to ask questions of our leaders and to hold them to account for their actions.
Taking all of that into account, I think I'm actually grudgingly admiring of Tony Blair - I like the fact that we are led by someone who is making some difficult, perhaps even impossible decisions, but at least he looks like he is agonising over them and striving to select the best option. George Bush just seems to swan around dealing with black and white issues - you are with us or against us. I like to think that Blair sees that there are some shades of grey.
Bit political and heavy, but there you go.
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In other news, I see that scientists have discovered that extracts from pine cones hold the key to battling the so-called "superbugs" that have antibiotic resistance. I take it this means that squirrels are going to take over the world?
ST (via email - let's hope this works, eh?)
Anyway - there are millions of bloggers out there talking about just these things. What I wanted to mention was that in spite of all this, when I heard Blair on the radio this morning, I was reminded that he is essentially a decent man in a really difficult job. He spoke of how dreadful he feels about the whole Kenneth Bigley affair, and how sorry he feels for the family - and yet he can't (and shouldn't) give in to the demands of the terrorists. Of course he does! In all the press hysteria it is easy to lose sight of this guy's basic decency. For all the political capital they have made at his expense over the war, I do not believe that the Conservative party could have steered this line. For all that he is Bush's lapdog over Iraq, he seems to be trying as hard as he can to get the Arab-Israeli peace talks reopened because he recognises (apparently unlike Bush) that this is one of the major causes and recruiting grounds for extremists.
Don't get me wrong. I think we were led into war under false pretences, and that now we are stuck in Iraq without any clear exit strategy. I believe that the government has made a lot of mistakes in this area (some of which they now seem prepared to admit). In a healthy democracy, we are right to ask questions of our leaders and to hold them to account for their actions.
Taking all of that into account, I think I'm actually grudgingly admiring of Tony Blair - I like the fact that we are led by someone who is making some difficult, perhaps even impossible decisions, but at least he looks like he is agonising over them and striving to select the best option. George Bush just seems to swan around dealing with black and white issues - you are with us or against us. I like to think that Blair sees that there are some shades of grey.
Bit political and heavy, but there you go.
---
In other news, I see that scientists have discovered that extracts from pine cones hold the key to battling the so-called "superbugs" that have antibiotic resistance. I take it this means that squirrels are going to take over the world?
ST (via email - let's hope this works, eh?)
posted by swisslet @ 09:33
4 Comments:
At 5:39 pm,
Damo said…
Hmmmmmmmm. Difficult. I'm sure that being a Prime Minister is an impossible job. Having said that, I still feel uncomfortable when I hear the word 'terrorist'. Let me categorically state this first (if I do it at the end people may already have disappeared in a huff)... flying planes into buildings is wrong. Beheading people is wrong. Suicide bombing is wrong. But I strongly urge people to read the chapter in Michael Moore's "Dude, Where's My Country?" entitled "How to stop terrorism? Stop being terrorists!"
I don't condone any violence from one to another, but if anyone wants to see how we breed this violence, they should read this chapter which drops much of Moore's usual rhetoric and concentrates squarely on the evil that Western countries perpetrate elsewhere. Any time anybody (Blair included) aligns our moral scales on the basis of 'Us: good. Them: evil' I feel my hackles rise.
Ahem.
At 5:40 pm,
Damo said…
Can I just stress that this was a pop at Tony Blair, not you!
At 6:59 pm,
swisslet said…
No offence taken - I think you are quite right. It always makes me wince when I see the news coverage of the "war on terrorism". We think we have a free and unbiased press, but things are often portrayed as us vs them.
It really frustrates me how few positive muslim role models we see on the tv. As I understand it, any act of killing is considered under Islam to be an offence against God. How often do we get to see a non-radical muslim telling us about this? Vast swathes of the population must think that extremist muslims are the only kind of muslims around. There are extremist christians too, you know.
I actually think we can give Tony Blair some credit here - he at least seems to partially acknowledge this. He is resolutely standing by his statement that the people of Iraq and the people of the world are a lot better off for the removal of Saddam - this is clearly a comfort to him amongst the maelstrom of debate around the use of WMD's and dodgy dossiers to justify the war. He believes with all his heart that we have done a good thing (and in case you think I'm endorsing this, I see his point, but for it isn't as simple as that - it's something of an arrogant and simplistic point of view, but there you go)
I consider myself a relatively liberal and well-educated chap. I went to Morrocco (a nice calm, moderate muslim state) a couple of years ago and was somehow surprised by how normal and friendly everyone was. They were appalled by the Taliban blowing up those giant buddhas in Afghanistan and were lamenting how this damaged the image of Islam worldwide.
Why would I be surprised by that? For me that says it all about how the religion is portrayed in the western world.
Blimey - how much politics am I writing about today?
At 4:19 pm,
John McClure said…
Two possibilities - Blair didn't know there were no weapons of mass destruction (and is therefore inept), or he did know (and is therefore a liar).
I suppose there's a third possibility - he could be an inept liar.
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