In the absence of any meaningful dissent from the public, the two key figures of the British war establishment turned their “evidence” before the “Iraq Inquiry” into an opportunity to pave the ground for the next genocide.
UK Foreign Minister David Miliband before the Iraq Inquiry, 8 March 2010
Miliband: People in the Middle East respect us for having fulfilled our warning that it was Iraq’s last chance to avoid war
[propaganda alert]
Editorial note: In the absence of any meaningful dissent from the public, the two key figures of the British war establishment turned their “evidence” before the “Iraq Inquiry” into an opportunity to pave the ground for the next genocide.
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1) David Miliband: People in the Middle East respect us for having fulfilled our warning that it was Iraq’s last chance to avoid war (8 March 2010)
relevant document:
2) Tony Blair: Iraq is better, our own security is better with Saddam out of power (28 January 2010)
from the archives:
3) David Miliband: Discussion about the Iraq war has clouded the debate about promoting democracy around the world (February 2008)
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“[W]e are seen to have played a part in freeing the country [i.e. Iraq] from a tyranny that is bitterly remembered.” […]
“I do think people in the [Middle East] region do respect those who are willing to see through what they say [...]. Even those who disagree with it [i.e. the war on Iraq] would say to me, ‘You have sent a message that, when you say something, you actually mean it, and if you say something is the last chance, it is a last chance’. ”
[…]
“I do not sit here today calling Iran a rogue state, but it is a state which is seeking to defy the rules of the international system […] That is clearly happening in respect of the Non-proliferation Treaty and Iran’s nuclear weapons programme..”
[UK Foreign Minister David Miliband, evidence before the Iraq Inquiry, 8 March 2010] [1]
“I’m asked whether I believe we are safer, more secure, that Iraq is better, our own security is better with Saddam and his two sons out of power and out of office than in office, I indeed believe that we are, and I think in time to come, if Iraq becomes, as I hope and believe that it will, the country that its people want to see, then we can look back, and particularly our armed forces can look back, with an immense sense of pride and achievement in what they did.”
[…]
“[T]he reason why I take, and still take, a very hard line on Iran and nuclear weapons is not just because of nuclear proliferation, it is because the nature of the Iranian regime makes me even more worried about the prospect of them with a nuclear device.”
[former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, evidence before the Iraq Inquiry, 28 January 2010] [2]
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from the archives:
“I believe discussion about the Iraq war has clouded the debate about promoting democracy around the world. I understand the doubts about Iraq and Afghanistan, and the deep concerns at the mistakes made. But my plea is that we do not let divisions over those conflicts obscure our national interest, never mind our moral impulse, in supporting movements for democracy […]
In the 1990’s […] the left seemed conflicted between the desirability of the goal and its qualms about the use of military means. In fact, the goal of spreading democracy should be a great progressive project; the means need to combine soft and hard power.”
[UK Foreign Minister David Miliband, “Democratic Imperative” speech, Oxford University, 12 February 2008] [3]
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notes:
[1] Rt Hon David Miliband MP transcript
The Iraq Inquiry website, 8 March 2010
http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/45497/100308-miliband.pdf [2] Rt Hon Tony Blair transcript
The Iraq Inquiry website, 29 January 2010
http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/45139/20100129-blair-final.pdf [3] The democratic imperative
David Miliband website, 12 February 2008
http://www.davidmiliband.info/speeches/speeches_08_02.htm _____________________
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Comments
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The fauxgressive DemoRats
12.03.2010 23:22
This is what the Left gets for electing and RELENTLESSLY supporting pro-war, pro-fascism demorats on the intensely dubious notion that they are ‘better’. Those annointed-by-the-fauxgressive DemoRats simply shut down criticism of the wars, etc., with the result that shockingly shameless revisionist history now has center stage. Now the Iraq war has been rehabilitated, which means that the next war (Iran) is automatically a go. I mean, a few eggs got broken, but look at all the Wonderland wonders we brought to the people on a silver (DU) platter…
Phil
No dissent INDEED
14.03.2010 07:22
Nu'man Abd al-Wahid
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numanwahid@hotmail.com
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der truth mein furer!
15.03.2010 10:53
Absolutely agree.
Labour have always struggled to maintain control over the STWC through the SWP. Fighting war with your right hand while marshalling the inevitable dissent with your left hand. Horrible bedfellows to be sure.
And yes, we do now have a black revisionist habit parading as history instead of the truth but only in government circles. The 'war' for public opinion over Iraq was lost a long time ago. The government don't have things on their side. The Iraq enquiry is an attempt to fabricate their own account. This does not in any way match what the people are and have been thinking.
The photograph in this article is ever so sad. Here be a foreign secretary trying to go along with the side show and behind him sits a bored and distracted man. Where the audience? Not here thats for sure.
Mr Milliband has presided over some truly awful miscaculations. His 'watch' as these people like to say, has been one in which the full disease of war has been allowed to fester abroad and many more people have died as a result. He is a man who has been far from effective.
And it is an awful shame that this fabrication they are trying to stitch together is so poor of humanity. Was it worth killing hundreds of thousands of people to remove Saddam? No, of course not. Just as it was not worth killing tens of thousands to rid the world of the Tamil Tigers. The truth is that those claiming to be fighting terrorism have done far more damage than the terrorists themselves could ever have done.
Not just difficult to support, absolutely impossible to support.
Give me a democrat or give me a terrorist, I need to think hard about who is better!
And that, in the end, proved a fatal blow to their credibility. The Iraq enquiry is simply proof of how far they have fallen that they must openly attempt to fabricate their own innocence, with such an appalling stage show.
I few days ago, Karl Rove appeared on the BBC Newsnight program and he folowed the same mantra. He said that he felt comfortable with using torture and believed it was all worth it such was his hatred of Saddam. No mention of the dead, nor numbers of dead. Just bile and filth wrapped up in sham indifference and TV makeup.
This business is the business of the warmongers and their tools of the trade. The fact that we take any notice of it at all is the real tragedy of it.
They have a saying in this world of the insane "Love me or hate me, just please don't ignore me".
Is there a lesson here?
KipperBang