The world according to Israel

Reflections on the Israeli raid on aid ships.

If the official explanations from Benjamin Netanyahu and the IDF were to be accepted, then any of the following situations could be deemed perfectly just, reasonable and normal:

1.
A group of heavily armed men ambushed a car down the M1, killing the driver and two passengers. A spokesperson for the gunmen said: "As we descended upon the vehicle, one passenger started pushing us out of the car, putting our lives in danger. We were left with no choice".

Further justifying the attack, one of the assailants said: "A closer inspection revealed the presence of inflammable liquid inside the car. There was also a crowbar and a torch. Clearly there was nothing else we could have done. The people in that car posed a serious threat".

2.
Two gun-wielding men explained why they killed two chefs and three waiters as they stormed a restaurant kitchen last night:

"We broke in and a member of staff confronted us and asked us to leave. We clearly felt intimidated and we started shooting". One of the gunmen added: "We just did the right thing. Be in no doubt: look at all the pans, pots and knives we found in that kitchen. They were all potential weapons. These people were asking for it", he concluded.

3.
A random dog was machine-gunned to death while roaming freely yesterday. Two armed men justified the killing by saying that, even though the animal was over 600 yards away, dogs may occasionally bite people. One of the attackers noted: "We did the right thing. If in doubt, just look at the sharp gnashers we found inside the creature. That was clear evidence the dog was up to no good".

4.
A gang of ten armed youths explained why they bashed two passers-by to death yesterday. "Those two were a potential threat. Both had hands, which could have been used as fists. What else can you do? Wait until they attack you?".

Their lawyer added that the group acted in good faith: "They were defending themselves. Further evidence is in the set of keys one of the two was carrying in his pocket. Those keys were sharp. They were potential weapons. Those two were clearly thugs spoiling for a fight".

Remembering 11 March 2004

In memory: Atocha station, Madrid.

11 March 2004, morning rush hour. Al-Qaeda's murderous instincts are unleashed against four commuter trains in the Spanish capital, killing 191 people and injuring over 1,800. Those ten explosions will result in the most horrific terrorist attack in the history of Spain. Today marks its sixth anniversary.

Aaronovitch: The Good War

It's as if his incapacity to concede that the Iraq war was a spectacular error of judgement was due to a subconsciously macho approach to humility.

Human nature is amazing. And one of our most amazing features is, in many cases, our absolute incapacity of admitting our wrong.

On Iraq, I can see why Tony Blair would sooner chuck an egg at Prescott's face than admit he fucked up. It's quite obvious why it's in his own interest not to concede an inch on what led to the war and its aftermath. And the same applies to his former subordinates in the Labour Cabinet.

What's puzzling, however, is the way "commentators" a-la David Aaronovitch or Nick Cohen are perversely keeping their blinkers on. Like kids sitting at the back of the classroom sulkingly announcing that, no, they didn't snatch their classmates' packed lunch, even if they were caught red handed.

It's almost as if their incapacity to concede that they made a huge error of judgement was due to a subconsciously macho approach to humility. Like a blow to their male ego. Which in turn, is transforming their pro-war devotion into a possessed hosepipe spraying bullshit at random.

Aaronovitch is no longer just advocating that the war was a good idea. His piece in yesterday's Times marked a shift in his pig-headedness: "We're seven years after Saddam" , he wrote and the debate has not "shifted a millimetre".

His target? The continuing boring criticism of the way Blair went about it, the dubious legality, the botched preparations, the bad planning, the non-WMDs, the lies. The £5bn (and counting) cost, the international instability, the 4.5 million orphans. In his view, it's just "the same stock phrases, the same conventional wisdoms that now pass from brain to lip without encountering thought along the way".

Not only that. Aaronovitch thinks we're actively enjoying all that. Each time the evening news announces another car bomb going off in Baghdad we're popping champagne bottles and grin with delight.

In his view, those who dare question The Good War do so because "they want [the war scars] to stay wounded — they enjoy their wounds".

And then, the icing on the cake, he laments the fact that no-one talks about the Iraqis anymore. "They have become ghosts", he grieves.

Funny choice of phrase, "ghosts". Because while he snipes at the pedantic "seven years of Shortism" and praises The Many Outstanding Benefits of The Good War, Aaronovitch himself fails to mention the war casualties once.

Like ghosts, exactly. Because whether the war resulted in 150,000, 600,000 or one million dead, according to Aaronovitch, we should just stop going on about them.

May God Help You

A very small selection of grassroots Christian initiatives, inspired by this Killing Joke sleeve.

Archbishop Pio Laghi with Argentinian dictator Jorge Rafael Videla in the 1970s.

Pope John Paul II with Gen. Augusto Pinochet, 1987.

Luteran Bishop Ludwig Müller at the National Synod in Wittenburg, 1933.

Spanish dictator Gen.Francisco Franco with Cardinal Tedeschini in 1952.

Benito Mussolini with the Vatican's top hierarchy signing the Lateran Treaty, 1929.

Archbishop Cesare Orsenigo celebrates Adolf Hitler's birthday, 1939.

The Hurt Locker

A review of the Oscar winning film.

It's this morning's news that Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker dominated this year's Oscars. This is officially the first time ever a woman won the Best Director Award, beating names such as Quentin Tarantino and James Cameron (who also happens to be Bigelow's ex-husband).

The Hurt Locker is certainly gripping. Right from the opening scenes you're hit by a sense of suspense. The protagonists are soldiers from the US Army's Explosive Ordinance Disposal team in Iraq.

James, the main character (Jeremy Renner), is brought in to replace Sergeant Thompson, killed by a car bomb. The new arrival's ways are not particularly team friendly. He is a bit of a maverick and he likes doing things his own way which leads to several tense moments.

The year is 2004 and pressure is beyond belief. Everytime there is a suspicious object on a road and the wire cutters are out and a bombsuit is worn, the build-up rendered by the film can only give you a faint idea of the tension that really went on.

Similar to 2006's Jarhead, The Hurt Locker is also very good at conveying that draining sense of monotony and the feeling, amongst troops, that the clock is ticking backwards.

To the director's credit, there is no background music and the filming style appears very immediate and realistic.

It's incredibly effective in portraying the soldiers' extreme suspicion that every object, even a kid holding a mobile phone or a pile of bricks can turn into a lethal explosive device anytime. A specific type of fear, stress and mistrust that would drive any human being berserk over a period of time.

However, The Hurt Locker is also extremely overrated.

Not because, like some veterans suggested it was "inaccurate". Films are films and Hollywood's entire history is punctuated with works of fiction clumsily attempting to recreate reality, even when it comes to sensitive and tragic events like war.

The problem is the several moments in which the film slips into those war/action cliches: the up-middle-finger rambo bits when the heroes ignore precautions and official guidelines to "do their own thing" or, even, the geezers-under-stress moments conjured up in that cliched, trademark American way.

More importantly, the narration stalls. We said earlier that The Hurt Locker grips you right from the start, but it's also true that the development is very limited. Sure, it may be be a way of conveying monotony, but it also turns a bit fuzzy after a while. And for all the attempts at character depth, it just doesn't work. By the end it feels quite empty and monodimensional.

Finally, there's the tiny issue of what The Hurt Locker is trying to say. Is it subtly pro-war, like some reviewers suggested?

No doubt, there are enough scenes of carnage and despair to prove that this is no "war-is-glamorous" exercise. War is rough and it's not a videogame and it can fuck you up psychologically: take note, Sun reader.

On the other side, the film seems completely acritical of the reason why those soldiers went there in the first place. I'm not saying it should have turned into a Michael Moore documentary, but there is absolutely nothing - not even a hint or a subtle lead, nothing at all whatsoever - to remind the viewer that the Americans were an unwanted, invading army and were so on the basis of...we still don't know.

If anything, the film ends with Renner telling his son that there's only "one thing" that he knows he loves. Next thing, he's back on another tour of duty in Iraq. Because "war is a drug", of course.

If this is intended to carry an anti-war message, then good old Rambo was a CND propaganda film.

Grilling? He didn't mention WMDs once!

The reason for war? Forget real and imminent threats: it was to scare the shit out of other rogue states, says Gordon Brown at the Chilcot inquiry. And he gets away with it.

Imagine a job interview where, instead of getting sweaty palms, you get to choose the panel and pick your mum, your favourite uncle and your best mate. Or a disciplinary at work chaired by your nan and your dopiest workmates.

No doubt the results would be hilarious. Perhaps not dissimilar from yesterday's show at the Chilcot inquiry.

The "grilling" session, as the press had been dubbed it to increase the sense of anticipation, consisted in Gordon Brown sitting in front of the very same people he himself had appointed.

But if that was "grilling", I dread to think what "gentle questioning" is.

Non-English speakers will often tell you that the British meaning of "sorry" is redundant because the word is used all the time. It's like a nervous twitch, a routine formula that soon loses its value.

Yesterday may have been a case in point. Gordon Brown made sure he could be seen and heard saying how "sorry" he is for the sad loss of life in Iraq.

But then he proceeded to stand 100% by everything his and Blair's government did in Iraq. He may have implied that the focus on "reconstruction" was not as thorough as it might have been, but then he was quick to specify that it was to do with those pesky Americans and if only he could have persuaded them.

So, sorry about what exactly? It really does sound lame.

According to Gordon Brown, everything about the Iraq affair was the "right" thing to do. Everything that Mr Blair did during this period, he did "properly".

Funding was never a problem either: if 345 quazillions had been requested to be spent on Iraq, Brown would have signed the cheque pronto no questions asked (incidentally, if only the panel had quoted Geoff Hoon and his permanent secretary. They probably forgot).

Also, it isn't true that the Prime Minister dodged any questions over WMDs and the justifications for war. Simply, there weren't any. Here we have an inquiry set up over a war waged on the basis of the most notorious acronym in history and Gordon Brown is allowed to get away with not mentioning it once.

He talked of "breached UN resolutions" and that "some countries were not prepared to take action under any circumstances".

He also said that the conflict had been "right" to prevent other "rogue states" flouting international law. Forget "real and present danger" from weapons of mass destruction, as the fools were told. The whole thing was just to show the Iranians and the North Koreans what a yellow card may look like.

No wonder Gordon Brown left with a smile on his face.

The birth defects of exported democracy

More evidence of war crimes committed in Iraq comes to light.

When George W Bush, Tony Blair and their courtiers were telling us about the many effects of the Iraq war (democracy, peace, no chemical weapons, stability and prosperity), they were also probably talking about this or this.

A recent BBC investigation confirmed what had long been suspected: the city of Falluja is reporting levels of birth defects that are "13 times higher than Europe".

The US are saying that they are "not aware of any official reports" of such kind.

Which sounds completely hollow - as it also took them one year to concede they had indeed used white phosphorous in the so-called "Battle of Falluja" of 2004 (see also this report).

Also, following previous denials, the UK Ministry of Defence openly admitted that the US had used modernised type of napalm called MK-77 in Iraq in at least 30 different circumstances (see the official MoD document here).

Also on the subject:
"Incendiary weapons: The big white lie";
"Recruitment campaign for free".

The Falklands: Littlejohn's wet dream

What a pain in the arse those 'yuman rites'. If only we could just bomb the shit of another country, Littlejohn fantasises.

Look at him. Richard Littlejohn in the Daily Mail drooling over the dream of a great BRITISH war part two:

"Twenty-eight years ago, 255 British servicemen gave their lives to liberate the islands after General Galtieri's invasion. Mrs Thatcher's campaign was our last great imperial adventure. Could we do it again? Although the Falklands are far better defended than they were in 1982, all the evidence suggests not [...]

Let's imagine Argentina attempted a second invasion. The British garrison would offer fierce resistence. So would the local territorials, Port Stanley's answer to the Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard. We've also got four fighter planes, one destroyer and one patrol boat stationed in the area".

The man's licking his lips, sweating, his eyeballs popping. Cause for masturbation, surely. Or like Littlejohn himself would probably scribble: 'mas-ter-bay-shun'.

"Look, we're attacking!"

Today's papers are reporting the biggest offensive in Afghanistan since 2001.

Operation Moshtarak was announced a while back as "a crucial test of the new US strategy to roll back insurgents in Afghanistan" and it's a joint offensive inovolving American, Afghan Canadian, British, Danish and Estonian forces for a total of 15,000 troops.

What is odd, however, is that such a seemingly significant pivotal move was actually announced to the press weeks before it would even take place.

As Michael Portillo observed on BBC This Week on Thursday, "it's been billed as highly significant but the thing that makes you doubt it is the fact that it's been billed: what serious military operation is advertised weeks in advance?".

Critics suspect the move is primarily theatrical, especially as similar operations in nearly the same area of the province obtained the same result: coalition troops take over but then fail to keep hold of the area.

However, as the Independent reports, "the slogan of the new US strategy is 'Clear, Hold, Build', and it has the declared intention of not withdrawing after expelling or killing the Taliban, but of winning the support of local people by protecting them and providing services such as roads, clean water and electricity".

Aaronovitch, Israel and the "pointlessness" of war zealotry

The explosive admission that white phosphorous was used against civilians in Gaza.

Do you remember when last year war zealot and Tony Blair fan David Aaronovitch wrote of the "pointlessness" of accusing Israel of disproportionate force in Gaza?

"Pointless outrage", he called it, as he wrote in the Times that "Israel takes care with its targeting, [the Palestinians] don't".

Like he still does over Iraq, Aaronovitch was oozing confidence that yet another war was "morally just".

Around that time, Amnesty International and other observers obtained evidence that Israel had used white phosphorous -reports also substantiated by Aaronovitch's own paper, the Times. All "pointless" stuff, of course.

And yet the UN too, with the Goldstone report, accused the IDS of using "disproportionate force", a claim that was immediately rejected by the Israeli government as "flawed from A to Z", "biased" and "ludicrous", along with allegations that white phosphorous had been used.

One year later and the tune has changed. The Israeli government published its report to the UN, admitting -crucially- that "[S]everal artillery shells were fired in violation of the rules of engagement prohibiting use of such artillery near populated areas". In particular, the report refers to a UN compound sheltering 700 civilians that was set ablaze by white phosphorus shells.

Which, I guess, goes to show the "pointlessness" of overpaid commentators a-la Aaronovitch.

Tony Blair: Man of God.

The man is the master of evasion techniques, wriggling out of questions like a maggot on speed.

Tony Blair's appearance at the Chilcot inquiry reminded us of the guy's exceptionally slippery eel-like qualities.

Also, like Andrew Rawnsley remarked in yesterday's Observer, the former PM's job was made a lot easier by the "feeble" nature of the panel:

"Time and again, they approached an interesting subject area, stumbled around like people in the dark trying to find the light switch and then abandoned the quest without leaving themselves or anyone watching much the wiser about the most divisive war in the last century of our history".

I don't normally agree with Peter Hitchens, but he nailed it right on the head when he wrote:

"Mr Blair, questioned in a feeble and disorganised way, talked himself out of trouble by answering questions he hadn’t been asked and not answering the ones he was asked. His interrogators mostly didn’t notice this simple trick, which dishonest people instinctively use".

All we learnt is that, after years of reasons for going to war mutating faster than the Sars virus (in succession, WMDs, violation of UN resolutions, Al Quaeda, human rights and 'regime change'), we are now told that 9/11 was what really did it. In the words of Andrew Gilligan in the Telegraph:

"In a significant moment, Blair admitted that the danger from Iraq had not in fact changed at all in 2001 and 2002 - merely that his "perception" of it altered in the wake of 9/11".

The former PM said: "The crucial thing after 9/11 is that the calculus of risk changed... After September 11, if you were a regime engaged in WMD (weapons of mass destruction), you had to stop."

Yet, even if you agreed with this line of thought, it would only make sense if they'd held accountable each and every regime that was suspected of engaging in WMDs. You do it only with one and it's like trying to contain a bursting dam with a brolly.

And, in any case, hadn't the slippery christian said in the infamous Fern Britton interview that he'd have gone to war anyway regardless of WMDs?

Not to mention that no-one raised the simple straightforward objection that Iraq had jack to do with 9/11. If anything, a number of countries were far higher in the list of potential involvement. The hijiackers, for instance, were from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. No evidence whatsoever existed of any link between Iraq and Al Quaeda.

The panel also failed when Blair was asked why he had insisted on a second UN resolution if he now thinks that the first one was enough to legally justify the war. They allowed him to slip out of that contradiction without further prodding.

Fair enough suspicion. Fair enough emotions running high. Fair enough the desire to appear tough before so-called rogue states. But can you raise an entire country to the ground purely on that basis - in the 21st century? Can you be so geo-politically inept and blind to the extra oil you're going to pour on the flames? Can you play with so many people's lives just like that, when the motivations are so hit and miss?

It has been years now that Tony Blair has been getting away with lame justifications such as "God will be my judge on Iraq", "I did what I thought was right for the country", or " I believed in it. I believed in it then, I believe in it now".

But you ask any prime minister, president, führer or member of a junta and they'd probably say, through history, that they too believed in what they thought was right. And that is just shit.

Why banning Islam4UK is a very good thing

Democracy does not mean that you can call for the stoning of all homosexuals or the massacre of those who insult Islam.

Isn't it touching to see the chiefs of Islam4UK , the same people who once famously held placards that read "FREEDOM GO TO HELL", whingeing and moaning that "freedom is turning into a dictatorship" on the day the government finally decided to ban them?

Isn't it stunning to savour the contradictions of a man, Anjem Choudary, who calls for a fundamentalist Muslim regime in Britain where every single citizen should convert to his particular brand of Islam, while at the same time crying for his "freedom of expression"?

Isn't it pathetic to read that "Muslims merely stand up and say that we are being oppressed, that our brothers and sisters are being murdered", while not a word is ever said about the thousands of Muslim brothers and sisters who are butchered every month in the name of Islam in Pakistan, Afghanistan and other countries (see this)?

True, in theory the ban on Islam4UK and its sister organisations al-Muhajiroun and al-Ghurabaa may be a bad day for freedom of speech.

But their track record is just intolerable. Democracy does not mean that you can demonstrate in central London waving banners such as "Massacre those who insult Islam", "Be prepared for the real holocaust" and "the Fantastic 4 are on their way". You can't call a press conference and call for the "stoning of all homosexuals" without facing the consequences.

Anjem Choudary, current leader of Islam4UK, is the same man who went on BBC Hardtalk (and shame on those who invited him) and said that the victims of the 7/7 atrocity were fair game because "only the Muslims are innocent" and if you don't accept Islam "that is a crime against God". He refused to condemn the London bombings, called the 9/11 attack "magnificent", publicly remarked that "Islam is not a religion of peace" and said that "the Pope should face capital punishment".

A year ago, his mentor Omar Bakri, now in Lebanon, said at a public meeting "Do not obey the British law" and "we must fight and die for Islam".

If all of the above (and that's just a brief summary) isn't incitement to hatred, violence and terrorism, than what is? How can normally commendable bloggers such as A Very Public Sociologist write that "[Islam4UK] do not intimidate their opponents" and that the ban is "indefensible"?

Even the idea that the ban may "force some people underground" is ill-informed. To start with, you have to balance it out with the effect that Islam4UK's ultra-inflammatory activities can have on community cohesion and the stirring up of tension and violence.

Second, one assumes that security forces would be keeping an eye on those groups anyway, the only notable change being that their odious public glorification of terrorism and abuse against sexual minorities and other religions (which is illegal) will have to stop.

The fact that Islam4UK isn't a "white" or "christian" brand of nazism does not make it any less dangerous. To quote journalist Johann Hari, "the real racism would be to hold non-white people to lower standards, as if their bigotries were less real or less deadly".

Suicide bombers and the value of life

1,037 innocent people were blown up by fellow Muslims in Pakistan in 2009. Where are the cries of "butchers"?

Last week's Lakki Marwat suicide bombing in north-west Pakistan claimed the lives of 105 people who had gathered to watch a volleyball game.

2009 had already ended with a total of 1,037 innocent civilians murdered by Islamist suicide bombers in Pakistan alone. In December, nine civilian lives every day were lost on average to explosions carried out in the name of jihad- remember we are only taking into account civilian victims.

The bloody trend is obviously on the rise. Hardly a single day goes by without news of a crowded event where dozens of innocent people are blown up by a fellow Muslim. In 2008 the total number had stopped at 889.

We already knew that, to certain people like Anjem Choudary or the axeman who the other day tried to murder Danish cartoonist Kurt Westegaard, a kuffar's life is infinitely less important than that of a Muslim.

But when thousands of "believers" are so casually butchered by someone sharing the same religion, then why don't the zealots take notice? Do those lives suddenly lose their value if mangled by a fellow Muslim? How exactly does it work?

John Major criticises Blair over Iraq

Another nail in the coffin for Tony's "good faith" argument.

Spot on John Major. Normally renowned for his discreet and measured tone, the former Tory PM was quite scathing when asked to remark on Tony Blair's handling of the Iraq affair.

Major made two points that are difficult to disagree with.

1) Especially when war is at stake, a PM has to be "utterly certain" before publicly saying something.

2) Regime change and toppling Saddam were not the arguments used to convince the country and, in any case, that would amount to an "inadequate argument" for war.

"There are many bad men around the world who run countries and we don't topple them, and indeed in earlier years we had actually supported Saddam Hussein when he was fighting against Iran", Major said.

Still on the subject of Iraq, widespread public anger is mounting over the Iraqi administration's decision to allow back in controversial US private security contractors Blackwater following pressure from Washington. The role of private firms in war zones has long been seen as one of the most disgraceful aspects of the whole Iraq 'affair'.

Tony Blair dislikes dictators...

...But not all of them.

This week Tony Blair went on record as saying that regime change alone would have justified the war in Iraq.

Basically, Hans Blix and his fellow weapon inspectors may have rummaged around as frantically as they could. They were wasting their time.

Because, bottom line, Blair's undying love for democracy and freedom of speech as well as his deep dislike for tyrants like Saddam Hussein "and his two sons" meant "regime change" was the real justification for war. He would have invaded Iraq anyway. In fact, it was "a price worth paying" (by others, of course).

Blair's sincere love for democracy is also probably behind his trip to oil-rich Azerbaijan last week. He's so much against dictators and in favour of "regime change" that he pocketed £90,000 from the local masters in exchange for a 20-minute speech (working out as £75 a second).

And of course, Tony didn't say a single word about human right abuses in Azerbaijan, a country that -since gaining independence- has only been ruled with an iron fist and by two presidents only: in succession, Heydar Aliyev and Ilham Aliyev. Father and son.

The first time the dynasty conceded some elections, bowing down to international pressure, it turned into a shoo in with ridiculous percentages like 80%, against a backdrop of intimidation, and abuse, especially against journalists and bloggers. This report by Human Rights Watch called Crushing Dissent will give you an idea.

According to a 2009 report by Amnesty International, in Azerbaijan "freedom of expression continued to be heavily restricted. Opposition and independent journalists continued to face harassment, physical assault and intimidation on account of their journalistic activity". Also, "religious groups or confessions outside officially endorsed structures continued to be harassed".

But if questioned about it, Tony Blair will probably answer that "faith gave him strength" and that his 20-min speech in Azerbaijan was dictated by the importance of not leaving the local regime isolated from the international community.

And anyway, why should we care when there's the X-Factor final coming up?

Tony Blair admits Iraq war lies: what happens at Chilcot?

For people like Blair, it's no longer about serving your country — it's how can your country serve you and devil take the hindmost.

A guest post by Madam Miaow.

What sort of madness is it that makes a person insist in the face of facts, principles and public opposition, that they alone are right in taking an action that results in over a million civilian deaths, impoverishes us as a nation and rips up our moral fabric?

What sort of moral bankruptcy allows that person to take money from the very companies that made a fortune from the war they started?

What sort of society allows this to happen with no constraints or consequences?

Tony Blair has now admitted in the softest of interviews with BBC's Fern Britton — not Jeremy Paxman or any of the other heavyweights, note —that his decision to go to war in Iraq was nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), and everything to do with regime change.

Isn't this illegal under international law? How many service men and women died because of his faked-up reasons? I'm far from being alone in believing that Blair should now be tried as a war criminal. Blair did what he wanted like he was some third world potentate with divine right to rule with hardly any opposition from his own party to their eternal shame. (Honours, of course, to those few lone voices within the party who did put up a fight and deserve better company than the sheep.)

I never believed him for one moment about WMDs. To me and millions of others who opposed the war, it was a far-fetched cold-war paranoia about moustache-twirling, cat-stroking villains that served the neo-con agenda to grab oil and open up the nation's finance to foreign banks; banks such as JP Morgan charged with co-ordinating the plundering of Iraq and now paying Blair $2 million a year for services rendered.

He said in his typically self-pitying way: "There is no point in going in to a situation of conflict and not understanding there is going to be a price paid."

The trouble is, it's not you paying the price, is it, Tony? It's Iraqi civilians, British soldiers and our national finances. You, Tony, are very far from paying any price, having pocketed your loot.

His change of tack would indicate that the revelations heard so far in the Chilcot inquiry have had an effect on his morale and he's desperately slipping and sliding around to avoid being exposed as a lying, self-serving war criminal bereft of any moral compass save some cartoon Ivanhoe self-image in which he saves the world (TM Gordon Brown) and earns the undying gratitude of powerful men.

What happened to democracy? To British fair play? To the rule of law? For people like Blair, it's no longer about serving your country — it's how can your country serve you and devil take the hindmost.

UPDATE: A FEW FACTS
The Iraq war has cost the UK £6.5 billion.
"Secret MoD documents leaked to the Press now confirm that preparations for the war began as early as February 2002." Paul Routlege in The Mirror.
179 British service men and women have died in the conflict.
Over a million Iraqis have been killed.
Tony Blair is paid $2 million a year by JP Morgan, the bank at the centre of Iraq "restructuring".

More from this author on her excellent blog Madam Miaow says...

9/11: eight years on

Whatever you make of it, September 11 2001 was the day that altered the course of history.

On Sep 11, 2001 I was two weeks away from starting a new job, so I was still enjoying student-type parasitism at its worst.

I got up semi-comatose at around 1pm, staggered downstairs, put the kettle on and robotically got BBC News 24 in the background.

I was literally in the middle of making my cup of tea when some breaking news from New York came in: a plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers. I immediately remembered that the same place had been targeted by Islamists back in 1993 so I sat down perplexed and started watching the shocking images of a burning skyscraper.

As my two housemates Dave and Antonis joined in from their bedrooms, I could not believe my senses when another plane crashed into the second tower. By then, dozens of camera crews had been placed, which meant that the impact and its aftermath were filmed practically from all angles.

And that's how the day that changed history began. We stayed glued to the telly, literally, as more news came in that several planes were unaccounted for, and -as further reports came in about the Pentagon and Pennsylvania- I still remember the shared sense of unease not knowing exactly when the attacks were going to end.

The catastrophic brand that stemmed from Hollywood in the late 1990s, Independence Day, Arlington Road and the like, was actually happening live on telly, heralding the end of one of the most stable decades in history (minus Rwanda and Yugoslavia, which aren't footnotes, so maybe not).

Then the first tower started collapsing. I vividly remember how we'd all remarked at how well the impact from both plane crashes had been withstood. Equally, it was shocking to see both towers collapsing on themselves, in very similar fashion, one 56 minutes after it was struck and the other after 75 minutes. I still remember the BBC correspondent running for his life as two of the most imposing buildings on earth were crumbling into a terrifying cloud of dust and toxic debris.

As time went, a staggering amount of unaswered questions gradually started to emerge. Conspiracy theories were being drawn aplenty, some quite factual (more of the kind of "the government knew and let it happen"), some completely loopy (and that's without counting David Icke's 'reptilian conspiracy') .

Either way, how did the towers collapse and why so quickly? More importantly, why did they collapse on themselves? Why did WTC7, not struck by any plane, collapse as well? Why did the BBC announced its collapse 26 minutes before it happened? Why are their non-explanations so lame? Why were the steel remains from WTC sold so speedily for recycling? What to make of those claims about secondary explosions heard in the wake of the crash? How could the hijackers' passports be spotted practically intact amidst the megatons of rubble?

We will never know. One thing that shouldn't be forgotten is that, for all the pondering that takes place in the aftermath, the events happened like a flash and in a random, uncontrolled and manic fashion. To expect a totally orderly and rational response as things go along is to forget the uniquely unpredictable nature of what went on.

Also, though certain governments have been involved in all kinds of murky stuff for years (from proxy wars to remote controlled coup d'etats), the main problem with the most bizarre conspiracy theories is that -to have all that artifically orchestrated- you'd have to involve thousands of people at all levels over a period of time and the chances of not a single one, not even someone's partner, letting a word slip in eight years are just impossible.

We all knew however, that the US government was going to lash out. I remember watching the scenes of Palestinians celebrating thinking that they'd just scored a PR own-goal of epic proportions.

Eight years on, and as we watch heartbreaking re-runs of the events, it's easy to forget that 9/11 meant primarily George W Bush's ratings going through the roof, allowing him to wage two wars in succession: Afghanistan and Iraq, both absolutely devastating.

In terms of our daily lives, things are no longer the same really. A creeping sense of insecurity has been with us since, further bolstered by the Islamist attacks in Madrid (2004) and London (2005). A man virtually unknown by many, a bearded jihadist called Osama bin Laden, became the 21st century bogeyman.

Flying as we'd known it is no longer with us. Controls became much stricter, at times draconian, the result of a world a hundred times more paranoid than before. Civil liberties, on both sides of the Atlantic, have been restricted on the back of the pervading sense of "us and them" and the "threat to our national security". Racists have been handed more knee-jerk material on a tray and the preconceptions and misconceptions about entire populations are thriving.

One can't help but think, however, that in curbing our freedoms and giving way to irrationality, we gave in exactly to the logic of terrorism.

War Games and scapegoats

The warped tabloid world: Labour's vanity and 'diversity' are killing our soldiers in Afghanistan.

With the recent surge in casualties (8 British troops killed in one single day) in Afghanistan, you may have noticed a spike in right-wing commentators blaming Gordon Brown.

As you know, this blog is not fond of this New Labour government. However, we also think that, far too often, the same papers who are happy to beat the drums of war, any war, think of it as a game of Playstation 3. The only scenario they can envisage from their settee is: our Boys fly over, bomb the crap out of the bearded ones, raid a few villages and bob's your uncle, off they go and mission accomplished.

But our friends from the tabloids are simply incapable to fathom that war is war. Quite simply because, lucky them, they've never been in one. As they scramble for scapegoats, one comes in cheap and convenient: Punchbag Gordon.

And so you get Sun Defence editor Tom Newton Dunn writing that "Boys pay for mean Brown", while Richard Littlejohn in the Daily Mail states that "They're paying the blood price of putting welfare before warfare", with the added attack on "a Prime Minister who puts 'diversity' before defence and gives a higher priority to a Gay Pride march than to the mortal sacrifices being made by young men in Afghanistan in the name of Queen and Country". Highly relevant, you see.

Leo McKinstry in the Daily Express joins in, saying that "Labour's vanity" is what's killing British troops in Afghanistan. "Hundreds more brave young men are being sacrificed on the altar of Gordon Brown’s socialist arrogance", he writes, adding that British troops are there because Brown is "desperate to curry favour" with President Obama.

Is it possible that no-one was available at the Express to remind McKinstry that neither Brown nor Obama started the war? It happened to be a man called George W Bush who, the same McKinstry wrote in the Telegraph back in 2004, "through his toughness [was] successful[ly] demilitarising the most dangerous regimes on the planet".

New calls for Dr Kelly inquest

The only people satisfied with the Hutton Report were Tony Blair and Alistair Campbell.

Six years after the alleged suicide of Dr David Kelly, a group of doctors is preparing to legally challenge the findings of the Hutton Inquiry, which was set up by the government to clear the government of any wrongdoing.

According to today's Independent, the doctors' report rejects the theory that Dr Kelly died as a result of cutting his own wrist. The case came under renewed publicity at the end of 2007 when LibDem MP Norman Baker wrote the book The Strange Death of David Kelly, which pointed out a staggering number of contradictions and unanswered questions. "It was impossible for Dr Kelly to have died like that", Baker told us at Hagley Road to Ladywood.

More on the Hutton Report here.

A curious case of double standards

Is the life of Afghani teenagers disfigured by the Taliban worth less than the life of Afghani teenagers disfigured by US missiles?

There was always a fundamental difference between Iraq and Afghanistan. In the former, the unprovoked attack waged by Bush's government opened the mother of all cans of worms. The sectarian violence and hostility towards Western troops that followed is well documented, the inevitable consequence of dodgy dossiers, doctored evidence and deceitful statements. However bad Saddam's grip on power may have been, the level of violence pre-dating the invasion cannot be compared to what followed in the years 2003-2008.

Prior to 2001, instead, Afghanistan was a country already being torn to pieces by the Taliban. If genocide is defined as the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group, then the Taliban regime was obsessively aiming their ethnic cleansing towards more than 50% of the country's population -women, that is. And let's not even get started on ethnic minorities and the "infidels".

We all know that the US and the CIA have loads to answer for regarding their active fostering of the Taliban and a certain bloke called Bin Laden. Significant sections of the Left will be quite happy to remind you of that at every turn - and rightly so. Similarly, Muslim commentators and associations will waste no time in condemning the US-led invasion, shouting "GENOCIDE!" each time a US missile hits the wrong target.

All that is fair enough. What isn't, however, is that each time the Taliban slaughter civilians as if they were ants you don't hear a single word in condemnation - unless we have a tendency to blink, that is. Today's reports of the Taliban's umpteenth attack on a girls' school, with 90 (ninety) of them gassed in one go, quite clearly failed to tickle the fancy of UK commentators and blogs alike of every political allegiance. Similar levels of apathy as last November, when Taliban attackers on motorbikes used water pistols to squirt acid in girls' faces as they walked to school on the outskirts of Kandahar.

And yet, if a bomb from an US airplane inflicted similar injuries on similarly helpless victims, doubtless Stop the War coalition and other friends would be demonstrating against such evil. Muslim associations too. Where is their outrage? Why don't they stand up to it? Is the life of Afghani teenagers disfigured by the Taliban worth less than the life of Afghani teenagers disfigured by US missiles?