Andy Munro comments ahead of the Chilcot Report, due to be published later today.
Life’s all about opinions and while I can’t deny that Tony Blair has a smug, almost punchable, face, I don’t think that he went into the Iraq war with criminal intent.
It was, of course, a misjudgement but, then again, hindsight is a wonderful thing. The armed forces are also under the spotlight but while all is not exactly fair in love and war – and our ‘boys’ aren’t all angels – it’s a harsh man who would cast a stone at ordinary soldiers under extreme duress.
A final thought, is the hidden racism of many of the intelligentsia. They say, we shouldn’t interfere if a dictator brings stability to a country and should leave well alone. The implicit suggestion here as I see it is that in some African and Arabian countries, the indigenous populations will inevitably descend into warring mayhem because of their cultures unless we in the ‘civilized’ West step in to bring the tyrants to book.
I’ve read a few things on living under the Assad regime in Syria and how, all too frequently, the mildest critics are slung into prison and tortured. This seems just the sort of fate that would face some of the ‘intelligent’ critics in this country should our own circumstances be different.
I don’t think it’s an experience that they would enjoy so before they criticise the ploy of intervention, they should put themselves in the shoes of the oppressed.