And so, inevitably, it has become nigh on impossible to hold back from writing something about British and American foreign policy. I have tried to keep away, to write stories about quaint little Welsh villages where Dafydd falls in love with Angharad but gets trapped down a mine, or how a boy turns into a fish, etc etc. But after a while it becomes beyond human reason for a person with nerve endings (let alone the writing blood in his or her veins) to feel anything other than sick and repulsed by the contempt with which we are treated by those who smuggle themselves into power whilst hidden in the grain barrels of our apathy. I can no longer contain my rants concerning my concern for Mr Blair’s mental health to the smoky mahogany courtroom of my local pub. I say Blair’s mental health, but in actual fact I think he may be suffering from an advanced form of regressive reincarnative psychosis far surpassing anything Shirley MacLaine may have endured, for I cannot understand how a British politician (and a brilliant one at that) can seriously stand in Westminster and send his country to war with little more than the backing of his own moral convictions. My point is that reasoning this flimsy and apocryphal can only find parallels in the medieval world where peoples would engage in vicious wars on the heeding of a passing comet or the omen of a bad harvest. Moral convictions? This man is nothing more than a twelfth century stargazer! And yet, there he sits – untouchable on his throne, like Attila taking advice only from wizards and soothsayers, executing any militarists, lawyers, or intelligence experts that doubt his formidable divine info-link up with their tedious and irritating facts and laws. The man is a maniac – if he were an Arab, say leading Iran, our media would be lambasting him as a medieval warmonger with a screw loose.
And then there are the incredulous postulations as he is questioned by the public. Every reply begins with a role of the eyes, a barely concealed snigger and the words, “Look, what you’ve got to understand is…” But we do understand. We really are not stupid. (Not between elections, anyway.) We all know that the wars he has sent our soldiers to have encouraged attacks on this country that would not have otherwise happened. It is as obvious a result of the conflicts as soldiers dying. But Downing Street denies this, like the embarrassed child that says the black ball is white while dipping his head and going off sheepishly to join in with a different game.
The recruitment of terrorists has witnessed a breathtaking expansion that is far more real than that of the American Bush Economy, war seems to follow war, and, a fact that would be comical were it not true, Iraq is seeing its first suicide attacks since the thirteenth century. But this is not a result of our illegal invasion. It must have something to do with the negative influence of a passing comet – perhaps one that only passes over the Middle East every nine hundred years. If Blair is not incompetent, which I don’t believe him to be, he must be a liar, which for some reason is an unutterable word when it comes to these matters. Which leaves only one conclusion: he’s fucking bonkers!!!
Our involvement in Iraq was a bad idea. Afghanistan was the right idea carried out partially by idiots and partially by experts who were rushed into it by outranking (and largely American) idiots. Iraq was so obviously a bad idea, as the invasion of innocent countries for no reason other than financial and corporate incentives often are (I know this due to a moral conviction, I admit). Iraq was a relatively successful society governed by a brute, a murderer, a monster, even. But how does that give us the right to invade the country and leave it in ruins? If you are one of those doe-eyed Independent readers who fall for his “moral conviction” that the people needed to be saved then I can start un-ravelling your bubble by mentioning Rwanda, the Belgian Congo, Somalia, Zimbabwe, The Ivory Coast, just off the top of my head. Hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of people brutally murdered in genocidal wars while Uncle Tony has been in power with his throbbing moral convictions. The major difference? When an African face hits the dirt it has no danger of landing in oil. Which means Bush doesn’t care. Which means Blair doesn’t care. And all the long Blair can only shrug and snigger and look down at us as if we just don’t understand how complicated this all is – and he really doesn’t have the time to explain. But he doesn’t need to explain. I am perfectly aware how complex kissing corporate behind can be, especially whilst trying to look like you’re just picking up a diplomatic pen that has rolled off your desk. Blair is obsessed with his legacy. It is Iraq. That is all. And the history books will have him down as a liar and a killer (the one I write will, anyway).
The whole affair is a disaster, and an illegal one at that, and Blair and his agents sit and grin and shrug about how tough it is over there, but that it is for democracy (as long it’s the guy we like), peace (the kind where people are violently murdered every day in a lawless society) and freedom (which I take to mean McDonalds, Gap, and at last a US funded puppet government that does as it’s told – my god! I take it all back – Blair does want Iraq to be like Britain). And perhaps worse, if somewhat inevitable, he has peopled his cabinet with clones – all of them political lightweights now the one with the ears, the blind one, and the bald woman have all gone. Whatever Tony says goes, and I can see them all standing in his office like an AGM at the SPECTRE headquarters. They are clearly privy to Tony’s personal star charts. I would love to see them; I take a perverse pleasure in being proved wrong.