BLAIR: Non-Apology for War is Slap in Face for Democracy

Despite 68 British Soldiers and over 10,000 Iraqis killed, with countless others injured or ruined in one form or another, government spin appears to dictate that an apology from the Prime Minister would be a sign of weakness. To say sorry would perhaps be handing a victory to the burgeon of global terror as well as one’s political downfall. Thus, when one comes to be scrutinised for their behaviour, the most effective method of swaying criticism would be to remind those conducting the scrutiny that their efforts are misdirected viz. The real enemy is out there, not here.

The lesson maybe that, never again should a government that is accountable to it’s people (the essence of democracy) force it’s people to trust so-called pre-emptive action against other countries on the basis of intelligence that isn’t available for the people who provide that power to assess. Demanding the public to merely trust the government is not suffice, indeed a mockery of their intelligence (pardon the pun). Justification for sending troops into conflict requires an imminent as well as a capable threat, Iraq was neither.

Although, some argue Mr. Blair played an obedient character role to Bush’s hero of ‘Iraqi Liberation’ he cannot be pardoned for being impetuous. On the contrary, he still believes he done the right thing and would have made the same decision now, despite admitting the intelligence on Saddam’s WMD had been wrong. His apology was for dividing the country, not going to war.

It is this stance, which makes the Muslim World anxious about the West, that despite the mayhem that has ensued, somehow something positive has developed and the Iraqis can look forward to democracy. Where life and limb is expendable as long as people discover what rules they should govern by. Their confusion exacerbates when they compare examples of Abu Bakr and Umar (RA), who beseeched their public to correct them where they went wrong to Tony Blair’s insistence that he has been right all along.