Another Bloody War

Our rulers last night voted to kill more innocent people in the name of fighting 'terrorists'. Corbyn's interventions were reasoned and correct, but the vote was never about what is right or what is reasonable. Today, two things come to mind:

How badly the British ruling class were beaten last time around.


And this.


Admittedly this time the ruling class are attacking people who live a long way away, not Manchester, but the same sense of untrammelled power from an unaccountable group who have decided that they embody God and King and Law pervades this decision. I have seen some praise for Hilary Benn's speech. I am reminded of the line about Fraud's millstone tears and the brains of little children.

I am also reminded that whatever the Tories and their milquetoast PLP supporters might say, they have not convinced the public that this lunacy is in fact sound policy.

The Unconcealed Millionaire*

Yesterday a war criminal tried to buy his way into heaven. I'm sure you know this already, and the whole incident is covered in some depth here. The whole thing is deeply disgusting on a number of levels, and it's interesting that no one seems to be buying it, (apart from the RBL, who I can't say I really blame for their 'delighted' quote - although if I worked for them I'd probably be privately comparing it to a customer in a fireworks shop offering to pay for the damage in the branch they just burned down).

The Guardian's sub-heading on their piece about the response to the donation is slightly odd:

Armed forces charity delighted to accept book proceeds but opponents of war say it will not change their views on former PM

I love the 'but' there. I assume the Graun weren't actually expecting Stop the War to pack up on receipt of this announcement, with a collective 'Oh, that's alright then' and a shrug of shoulders. The consensus building is that this is 'guilt money', which is a politer word than 'blood money' I suppose, but in the context of Blair almost certainly inappropriate. As one of the anti-war protesters interviewed by Sky says: Blair couldn't even say sorry at Chilcott, in fact he insists he has nothing to feel guilty about.

This may or may not be how Blair actually feels of course, but let's assume that it is for the moment. If it's not guilt then what is it?

To me it's a symbol of one of the uglier successes of Thatcherism: the return of philanthropy. In the nineteenth century, capitalists who'd grown fat on the suffering, poverty and dangers they exposed their workers to would build a park or a meeting hall with some small portion of the wealth they'd expropriated, and in return for the generosity of foisting their opinion of what the working masses needed on them, the amenity would have their name on it somewhere and an official expression of gratitude would be made.

This kind of patrician attitude began to wither after the second World War as a more egalitarian consensus was gradually formed. This phenomenon has come to be known as the 'end of deference' and it was brought about in an era where workers gained huge increases in standards of living, unions were strong and the modestly redistributive economic model of Keynesianism was in vogue.

Thatcher of course changed all that. Capitalists were now, in an Orwellian turn of phrase that operates in stark contrast to the way economics actually works, 'wealth creators', and over the next two decades ideas like 'society', 'public service' and 'equality' were chipped away at, undermined, until shows like Dragon's Den and Secret Millionaire could appear on our screens without shame.

Blair shows the brazen apotheosis of the return to philanthropy. With one gesture he seems to believe that his calumny can be mitigated, that people will remember that he's a 'pretty straight guy'. The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the squandered lives and resources on misbegotten imperialist adventures, the antagonism, hostility and nationalistic fallout, these are as nothing, because he has the thing that makes everything go away, that makes it all better. 'Here's some money.'

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*I wanted to call this piece The Book, The Thief, His Life and Their Millions, but he's only a thief in the sense of having stolen hundreds of thousands of people's lives, which of course makes him a murderer. And 'murder' doesn't scan.

Labour's Last Minute Election Push

Hmm. They're right - Labour hasn't been perfect. I choose to interpret this admission as a sign of strength. You know, similar to this.

But wait, there's something else on the mat. What's this?

Click to enlargerate.

Hmm, good points. As Chief Whip, Nick has had a lot of influence over which bills get through, so maybe I should give this seasoned statesman a chance after all.

Oh.

Linguistic Brilliance

Some people say that Chilcot has been pointless. "These people aren't in the dock", they say, "they aren't being required to legally answer for what they did. The supreme crime was supposed to be waging a war of aggression - can't these fucks even remember their own made-up laws?"

Well to these naysayers, I say this: you have missed the comedy value inherent in party hacks squirming to avoid responsibility for hundreds of thousands of deaths that they are directly responsible for.

First up:
Jack Straw.
Jack Straw's secret plan to keep Britain out of Iraq war

Straw, the first serving cabinet minister to give evidence to the inquiry, revealed that he had agonised over the morality of backing the war, saying he could have vetoed British involvement in 2003 and had subsequently "gone over again and again" whether he made the right judgment.

He also conceded that the decision to go to war and the failure to find weapons of mass destruction had undermined trust and led to "a grave loss of life" that he "deeply regrets". But he said that although his support for the war was the most difficult decision he had ever made, he never considered resigning – although he accepted that by resigning he could have stopped Britain joining the war.

Nice.

Let's not bother with Malcolm Tucker's experience, beyond noting, Muntz style: Ha-ha!

Now we get to the war-criminal-in-chief*. First off, let's see if you can parse the following statements:

Blair suggests he did not impose conditions. The US/UK relationship is "an alliance", not a "contract".

Blair says he did not trade one policy for another. "I would not have done Iraq if I had not thought it was right."

Blair says after 9/11 he was not prepared to take any risks.

In the end, it's a matter of judgement.

This is not about a lie, or a deceipt, or a conspiracy or a deception. It's a decision .... I believed, and in the end so did the cabinet and so did parliament, incidentally, that it wasn't right to run that risk.

Of course, in no set of circumstances would he have run that risk. He had people for that. Soldiers and Iraqis, mainly. He had holidays with Berlusconi to do, after all. A tour of Basra could've seriously damaged that road map to tequila sunrise.

P.S. is anyone else confused by the idea that 'decisions' and 'lies' are now mutually exclusive?

UPDATE: sorry, should have mentioned some FCO legal advice

The lawyer, who told her superiors that an invasion without UN sanction would be a "crime of aggression" when she quit a few days before the invasion, said today that the way ministers handled the legal arguments over the war was "lamentable".

Oh Elizabeth Wilmhurst, if Willow Rosenburg and Aleks Krotoski weren't so high on my list, you'd be the one I'd run away with to Catalonia tomorrow.**

*Look, if you can hang Nazis not for the holocaust but for 'planning and waging a war of aggression' I fail to see why we can't subject former MP for Sedgefield at least to community service for the same.

**Yeah, they'd jump at the chance. Even the one who's real. This is completely a justifiable set of realistic priorities.