I wish somebody would tell me what the hell we’re doing occupying
1) We know that Tony Blair lied to Parliament over the reason for the invasion.
2) We know that the weapons inspector who blew the whistle on Blair subsequently died in circumstances which a panel of leading doctors regards as suspicious.
3) We know that the journalist who permitted the whistle blowing, along with the Director General of the BBC, were sacked for overstepping the line beyond which truth-telling is not permitted.
4) We know that the cost of the occupation exceeds £20bn so far, and we continue to pay out despite that fact that the government says we can’t afford to extend free school meals to poor children, and is now talking about cutting back on free bus travel for the elderly.
5) The ex-chief of MI5 told the Iraq war enquiry this morning that there was never an adequate reason for invading Iraq, and that in doing so we ‘substantially increased’ the terrorist threat to Britain.
6) Several hundred servicemen have been killed or seriously injured in action. Yes, I know they volunteered to be in the firing line when they joined up, but it’s still pretty awful for their families.
7) Nobody knows how many innocent Iraqi civilians have died as a result of our actions. Numbers vary widely according to the agendas behind individual estimates, but it’s almost certainly in the hundreds of thousands. This might not matter to some people because Iraqi civilians are mere foreigners, but it matters to me.
8) I’ve heard it said that the family of a prominent American politician made an awful lot of money out of business deals over
9) I can’t help wondering whether the Saudi oil sheiks were involved in some way.
10) There seems to be common consent that
So will somebody please tell me what is the reason for this strange state of affairs. The invasion clearly wasn’t about protecting
2 comments:
I agree with you on #7, and I've seen estamates from 30,000 too 120,000. (I wrote a paper on the War on Terror for my government class.)
Number 8 is a fact, and the company was Haliburton (who had close ties with
Cheney, who controled Bush).
10. We took down their government because they nationalized oil fields, meaning Haliburton and BP would have to pay for to drill.
It is interesting to learn about a different perspective on the war. I've only read anti war facts from an American standpoint.
Well, thank you Snark. Actually, The Guardian reported in 2006 that the British Government accepted a figure of 151,000 Iraqi dead.
It's widely believed in Britain that we went in just because it was deemed 'proper' to tag along with America. Blair has often been called 'Bush's poodle,' but I don't buy that one. Blair might have been a bastard in many ways, but I think he was a lot brighter than GW. (Let's face it, who isn't?) There must have been a British interest involved. Maybe it was BP. Somehow doesn't seem enough, though...
And one thing I omitted from the post: the anti-war protesters in Parliament Square in London have finally been evicted by a large force of police. This is the same police who say they're losing control of the streets because they don't have sufficient manpower. Maybe the protesters looked untidy and were worrying the tourist industry or something.
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