Careful Consideration
As I got numb (or as my Mom put it ‘warred out’) watching all the TV coverage of the ‘Disarmement of Iraq’, last night I turned off the TV and got caught up on my email. While doing that I decided to listen to Tony Blair’s speech in full to the British Parliament (on Tuesday). I blogged about it yesterday [here], but hadn’t listened to the whole thing.
Todd Dominey (who’s link pointed me there) is right. It is a remarkable speech. I cannot imagine our own leadership articulating in such a constructive fashion the case for or against war in parliament. It makes me sad that we can’t debate like this. I think Canada has sanitized the best of the pariliamentary process we were supposed to inherit. We have to fix this.
Particularly compelling is the back and forth debate regarding why the U.N. could not come to a second resolution and how the process unravelled, both because of Iraq’s actions and in particular those of the French government. Tony Blair’s mastery of the facts and ability to clearly answer the oppositions questions; to debate them, is true leadership.
…I’m blogging as I listen to this debate (it’s over an hour) and I love how Mr. Blair gives way to other MP’s, including his own backbenchers (who ask very critical questions - try that in Canada). It’s great….
Anyways, I really think that anyone who wants to debate this war we are now in should listen to this debate from the other leader of this war (45,000 British troops is not a small contribution).
“But, of course, in a sense, any fair observer does not really dispute that Iraq is in breach and that 1441 implies action in such circumstances. The real problem is that, underneath, people dispute that Iraq is a threat; dispute the link between terrorism and WMD; dispute the whole basis of our assertion that the two together constitute a fundamental assault on our way of life.
There are glib and sometimes foolish comparisons with the 1930s. No one here is an appeaser. But the only relevant point of analogy is that with history, we know what happened. We can look back and say: there’s the time; that was the moment; for example, when Czechoslovakia was swallowed up by the Nazis - that’s when we should have acted.
But it wasn’t clear at the time. In fact at the time, many people thought such a fear fanciful. Worse, put forward in bad faith by warmongers. Listen to this editorial - from a paper I’m pleased to say with a different position today - but written in late 1938 after Munich when by now, you would have thought the world was tumultuous in its desire to act.
“Be glad in your hearts. Give thanks to your God. People of Britain, your children are safe. Your husbands and your sons will not march to war. Peace is a victory for all mankind. And now let us go back to our own affairs. We have had enough of those menaces, conjured up from the continent to confuse us.”
Naturally should Hitler appear again in the same form, we would know what to do. But the point is that history doesn’t declare the future to us so plainly. Each time is different and the present must be judged without the benefit of hindsight.
So let me explain the nature of this threat as I see it.
The threat today is not that of the 1930s. It’s not big powers going to war with each other. The ravages which fundamentalist political ideology inflicted on the 20th century are memories. The Cold war is over. Europe is at peace, if not always diplomatically.
But the world is ever more interdependent. Stock markets and economies rise and fall together. Confidence is the key to prosperity. Insecurity spreads like contagion. So people crave stability and order.
The threat is chaos. And there are two begetters of chaos. Tyrannical regimes with WMD and extreme terrorist groups who profess a perverted and false view of Islam.
Let me tell the house what I know. I know that there are some countries or groups within countries that are proliferating and trading in WMD, especially nuclear weapons technology….
…At the moment, I accept that association between them is loose. But it is hardening.
And the possibility of the two coming together - of terrorist groups in possession of WMD, even of a so-called dirty radiological bomb is now, in my judgement, a real and present danger.
And let us recall: what was shocking about September 11 was not just the slaughter of the innocent; but the knowledge that had the terrorists been able to, there would have been not 3,000 innocent dead, but 30,000 or 300,000 and the more the suffering, the greater the terrorists’ rejoicing.
Three kilograms of VX from a rocket launcher would contaminate a quarter of a square kilometre of a city.
Millions of lethal doses are contained in one litre of Anthrax. 10,000 litres are unaccounted for. 11 September has changed the psychology of America. It should have changed the psychology of the world. Of course Iraq is not the only part of this threat. But it is the test of whether we treat the threat seriously.
Faced with it, the world should unite. The UN should be the focus, both of diplomacy and of action. That is what 1441 said. That was the deal. And I say to you to break it now, to will the ends but not the means that would do more damage in the long term to the UN than any other course.
To fall back into the lassitude of the last 12 years, to talk, to discuss, to debate but never act; to declare our will but not enforce it; to combine strong language with weak intentions, a worse outcome than never speaking at all….
…I do not believe there is any other issue with the same power to re-unite the world community than progress on the issues of Israel and Palestine. Of course there is cynicism about recent announcements. But the US is now committed, and, I believe genuinely, to the roadmap for peace, designed in consultation with the UN. It will now be presented to the parties as Abu Mazen is confirmed in office, hopefully today.
All of us are now signed up to its vision: a state of Israel, recognised and accepted by all the world, and a viable Palestinian state. And that should be part of a larger global agenda. On poverty and sustainable development. On democracy and human rights. On the good governance of nations….
…I accept fully that those opposed to this course of action share my detestation of Saddam. Who could not? Iraq is a wealthy country that in 1978, the year before Saddam seized power, was richer than Portugal or Malaysia.
Today it is impoverished, 60% of its population dependent on food aid.
Thousands of children die needlessly every year from lack of food and medicine.
Four million people out of a population of just over 20 million are in exile.
The brutality of the repression - the death and torture camps, the barbaric prisons for political opponents, the routine beatings for anyone or their families suspected of disloyalty are well documented.
Just last week, someone slandering Saddam was tied to a lamp post in a street in Baghdad, his tongue cut out, mutilated and left to bleed to death, as a warning to others.
I recall a few weeks ago talking to an Iraqi exile and saying to her that I understood how grim it must be under the lash of Saddam.
“But you don’t”, she replied. “You cannot. You do not know what it is like to live in perpetual fear.”
And she is right. We take our freedom for granted. But imagine not to be able to speak or discuss or debate or even question the society you live in. To see friends and family taken away and never daring to complain. To suffer the humility of failing courage in face of pitiless terror. That is how the Iraqi people live. Leave Saddam in place and that is how they will continue to live.
We must face the consequences of the actions we advocate. For me, that means all the dangers of war. But for others, opposed to this course, it means - let us be clear - that the Iraqi people, whose only true hope of liberation lies in the removal of Saddam, for them, the darkness will close back over them again; and he will be free to take his revenge upon those he must know wish him gone.
And if this house now demands that at this moment, faced with this threat from this regime, that British troops are pulled back, that we turn away at the point of reckoning, and that is what it means - what then?
What will Saddam feel? Strengthened beyond measure. What will the other states who tyrannise their people, the terrorists who threaten our existence, what will they take from that? That the will confronting them is decaying and feeble.
Who will celebrate and who will weep?”
Listen to the whole speech. You can read the whole speech here..