Blatently ctrl+c'd (and cropped a bit) from the Telegraph.co.uk - Cheers Boris for saying it better than I could.
The Telegraph is centre-right UK broadsheet. It is the highest circulation non-tabloid paper. I don't always agree with it, but I like Boris Johnson.
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How could I have been such a mug?
By Boris Johnson
(Filed: 06/05/2004)
I was sitting in the Commons tea room last week, munching a mournful rock cake and studying the accounts of the American bombing of Fallujah. I looked at the charred Humvees, the mutilated corpses, the unnumbered dead, the wailing women and the expressions of immortal hate on the faces of the Iraqis; and perhaps unsurprisingly I found myself cast into a terrible gloom.
Just remind me, I said, turning to a colleague and friend, what is the case for this war in Iraq? You voted for it. I voted for it. We both spoke in favour of it. We both saw the merits of sticking with the Americans. We both believed that it was a good idea to get rid of Saddam.
But is there not a time when we have to admit, in all intellectual honesty, that our positions have been overwhelmed by countervailing data? How on Earth can we now defend what seems - admittedly at some distance - to be a total bloody shambles?
"Oh come off it, mate," he said, because he is not only a hawk, but has a keen and impatient mind, "don't be so wet. You want a single big argument for the war? The key point is that people are no longer being tortured in jails in Baghdad. That's what we have achieved."
It was as if the clouds had rolled back. I felt a sudden burst of optimism. "You're right!" I said, and thought how silly I had been to ignore that gigantic fact, that we had introduced new values to Iraq, of civilisation and decency.
The following day I saw the pictures from the Abu Ghraib jail.
The whole planet has been seething with anger and disgust at these photos: the murdered Iraqi prisoners, the man wearing a hood and a set of electrodes, the naked Iraqi soldiers being tormented by American servicewomen - an image that could have been devised by Osama bin Laden himself for its capacity to inflame Arab feeling.
But I have felt the extra rage of one who has been a mug. Up and down the country, I have given the same defence of the operation. "Of course Saddam never had anything to do with September 11, and of course he never had any weapons of mass destruction. But there is one powerful reason for supporting the liberation of Iraq," I say, "and that is that we rid the world of an odious tyrant, and we have made life better for the Iraqi people."
Well, look at what is happening now. As Julian Manyon reports from Baghdad in this week's Spectator, many main highways are no longer under American control, because the Iraqi police have melted away. Reconstruction has come to a halt, and half of all foreign workers have fled the country. As the siege of Fallujah has gone on, it has become more and more obvious that poor Tony Blair is engaged in yet another hopeless exercise in mendacity. These are not just "foreigners and terrorists" who are putting up resistance to the coalition forces; they are Iraqis, who believe that their country is itself under occupation by foreigners who sometimes do little to distinguish themselves from terrorists.
If it were just the Daily Mirror, with its dodgy photos, the impact would not be so disastrous. But these American photos are manifestly not stunted up, and this is the Abu Ghraib jail. This is the jail that was at the centre of the pro-war propaganda. This is the place where - or so we were told - Saddam's torturers fed people into industrial shredders and then chucked the remains in the fish ponds.
How could the American army have been so crass, so arrogant, so brutal as to behave in this way? The trailer-trash troops said they had no idea what they were doing. They weren't even aware of the existence of the Geneva Conventions. They didn't have any orders to obey, only vague instructions.
Was this really the operation I had voted for? Did I really think, when the House of Commons voted to support the American action on March 18, 2003, that it would be carried out with such boneheaded stupidity?
These people seem not only to lack the faintest idea of how to bring peace to Iraq; they also seem not to understand the values - such as basic human rights - which we hoped to bring to that country.
Boris Johnson is MP for Henley and editor of The Spectator
---
And some quotes to finish with:
G.W.Bush October 18, 2003
"We don't torture people in America. And people who make that claim just don't know anything about our country."
Donald Rumsfield Dec 14th 2003
"You know, to even raise the word torture in terms of how the US Military would treat a person seems to me is unfortunate. We don't torture people..."
Seriously, is it not time for America as a whole to finally wise up to the liar-in-chief? How can anyone defend this? Standing for freedom and democracy - being the 'good-guys' - that's gone now. We're left with the truth that Bush's most aggresive critics were 100% justified. The man is a liability to the planet. I cannot believe people still find his actions justified. Whatever you thought about Iraq and the reasons for going there, America has now shot itself not simply in the foot, but square between the eyes. The Arab media and a good deal of Arab street HATE us. HATE. The hypocracy, whilst perhalps not unprecidented, is this time on plain view for the world. For all the pretention of truth, justice and the American way, there is now reality to behold for the masses. We are no better. The sad thing is I'm not in the least suprised.
The Telegraph is centre-right UK broadsheet. It is the highest circulation non-tabloid paper. I don't always agree with it, but I like Boris Johnson.
---
How could I have been such a mug?
By Boris Johnson
(Filed: 06/05/2004)
I was sitting in the Commons tea room last week, munching a mournful rock cake and studying the accounts of the American bombing of Fallujah. I looked at the charred Humvees, the mutilated corpses, the unnumbered dead, the wailing women and the expressions of immortal hate on the faces of the Iraqis; and perhaps unsurprisingly I found myself cast into a terrible gloom.
Just remind me, I said, turning to a colleague and friend, what is the case for this war in Iraq? You voted for it. I voted for it. We both spoke in favour of it. We both saw the merits of sticking with the Americans. We both believed that it was a good idea to get rid of Saddam.
But is there not a time when we have to admit, in all intellectual honesty, that our positions have been overwhelmed by countervailing data? How on Earth can we now defend what seems - admittedly at some distance - to be a total bloody shambles?
"Oh come off it, mate," he said, because he is not only a hawk, but has a keen and impatient mind, "don't be so wet. You want a single big argument for the war? The key point is that people are no longer being tortured in jails in Baghdad. That's what we have achieved."
It was as if the clouds had rolled back. I felt a sudden burst of optimism. "You're right!" I said, and thought how silly I had been to ignore that gigantic fact, that we had introduced new values to Iraq, of civilisation and decency.
The following day I saw the pictures from the Abu Ghraib jail.
The whole planet has been seething with anger and disgust at these photos: the murdered Iraqi prisoners, the man wearing a hood and a set of electrodes, the naked Iraqi soldiers being tormented by American servicewomen - an image that could have been devised by Osama bin Laden himself for its capacity to inflame Arab feeling.
But I have felt the extra rage of one who has been a mug. Up and down the country, I have given the same defence of the operation. "Of course Saddam never had anything to do with September 11, and of course he never had any weapons of mass destruction. But there is one powerful reason for supporting the liberation of Iraq," I say, "and that is that we rid the world of an odious tyrant, and we have made life better for the Iraqi people."
Well, look at what is happening now. As Julian Manyon reports from Baghdad in this week's Spectator, many main highways are no longer under American control, because the Iraqi police have melted away. Reconstruction has come to a halt, and half of all foreign workers have fled the country. As the siege of Fallujah has gone on, it has become more and more obvious that poor Tony Blair is engaged in yet another hopeless exercise in mendacity. These are not just "foreigners and terrorists" who are putting up resistance to the coalition forces; they are Iraqis, who believe that their country is itself under occupation by foreigners who sometimes do little to distinguish themselves from terrorists.
If it were just the Daily Mirror, with its dodgy photos, the impact would not be so disastrous. But these American photos are manifestly not stunted up, and this is the Abu Ghraib jail. This is the jail that was at the centre of the pro-war propaganda. This is the place where - or so we were told - Saddam's torturers fed people into industrial shredders and then chucked the remains in the fish ponds.
How could the American army have been so crass, so arrogant, so brutal as to behave in this way? The trailer-trash troops said they had no idea what they were doing. They weren't even aware of the existence of the Geneva Conventions. They didn't have any orders to obey, only vague instructions.
Was this really the operation I had voted for? Did I really think, when the House of Commons voted to support the American action on March 18, 2003, that it would be carried out with such boneheaded stupidity?
These people seem not only to lack the faintest idea of how to bring peace to Iraq; they also seem not to understand the values - such as basic human rights - which we hoped to bring to that country.
Boris Johnson is MP for Henley and editor of The Spectator
---
And some quotes to finish with:
G.W.Bush October 18, 2003
"We don't torture people in America. And people who make that claim just don't know anything about our country."
Donald Rumsfield Dec 14th 2003
"You know, to even raise the word torture in terms of how the US Military would treat a person seems to me is unfortunate. We don't torture people..."
Seriously, is it not time for America as a whole to finally wise up to the liar-in-chief? How can anyone defend this? Standing for freedom and democracy - being the 'good-guys' - that's gone now. We're left with the truth that Bush's most aggresive critics were 100% justified. The man is a liability to the planet. I cannot believe people still find his actions justified. Whatever you thought about Iraq and the reasons for going there, America has now shot itself not simply in the foot, but square between the eyes. The Arab media and a good deal of Arab street HATE us. HATE. The hypocracy, whilst perhalps not unprecidented, is this time on plain view for the world. For all the pretention of truth, justice and the American way, there is now reality to behold for the masses. We are no better. The sad thing is I'm not in the least suprised.
Do say it to MMike every chance you get!