Lame Duck Visits Dead Duck Walking

Dec 19, 2006

By Felicity Arbuthnot


Fresh from a visit by Scotland Yard officers to No 10 Downing Street, to question the Prime Minister, Anthony Blair, Q.C., pitches up in Iraq to assure quisling 'Prime Minister' Maliki, of Britain's continued support for the slaughter and carnage of every day Iraq, as "democracy takes hold".

For those unfamiliar with the Scotland Yard saga, it centers on the outrageous suggestion that our dear leader, a qualified barrister, sworn to uphold the law, might, broadly, have asked for loans from the very, very rich, for the Labour Party, in exchange for recommending them for a peerage.

Unthinkable. But then if he could swear blind about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and go to war on a plethora of lies, little should surprise any more. There is also a bit of an uproar that he might have had a hand in calling off an eighteen month investigation into whether British Aerospace paid substantial commissions to Saudia Arabian officials, in exchange for a whopping great contract for "planes which drop bombs".

As a result of these two local difficulties, it seems he is off the Christmas card list of two of his greatest former supporters, his powerful tennis partner Lord Levy and his Attorney General Lord Goldsmith. No wonder even Baghdad seems more inviting that the "Westminster village".

The invasion - oops, sorry, "war" - Prime Minister, so quick to commit the young lives of others, refusing, like George W. Bush, to meet with bereaved soldiers families, snuck into Baghdad, helicoptered the twenty minute drive from the airport to the Green Zone (his arrival only announced one he was safely inside, for fear of some angry, bereaved, liberated Iraqis, taking revenge) to stand "four square" with the puppet Prime Minister.

Lame duck meets dead duck walking, comes to mind.

The previous day, the dead duck held a conference of "national reconciliation", asking even former Ba'ath Party officials to get him out of the mess in which he is mired. The affair was reminiscent of those embarrassing parties when only the host and a couple of flunkies turn up.

As Blair arrived, officials from the Red Crescent office in Baghdad, who brave bombs, disasters, gunfire and assaults by U.S. forces, to save humanity, were being kidnapped by people in uniforms representing the Iraqi 'government' - in broad daylight, unapprehended by either the might of the US Army or local "U.S. trained" security forces. Three days ago, U.S. forces were reported as breaking in to the Red Crescent offices in Falluja, trashing them, then setting them alight and burning one of their vehicles.

The Red Cross/Red Crescent is protected by the 1949 Geneva Convention (Article 38) and the Additional Protocols of 1977. If this scum, as the torturers, rapists of Abu Ghraib and across Iraq, represent America's finest, forget "God Bless America" . God help it!

Did Blair comment, say a word? Did he even know, as he trespassed the corridors of Saddam Hussein's illegally squatted palace - a state building, also protected under international law? The 1954 Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property also specifically prohibits the use of such property "in support of military effort" or as a command centre. Scotland Yard would have their work cut out in the Green Zone.

After a photo opportunity with Maliki, the partners in crime, clutching hands as tightly as drowning men at straws, Blair had the cheek to plead with neighbouring countries, which he had long joined his Master in Washington in threatening, to help them out of the mess (you broke it, you fix it.) He then skulked on to another helicopter and flew to Basra.

In another fortified, illegally occupied palace, he shook hands with young British soldiers, killing Iraqis legitimately living in the former "Venice of the Middle East" and "insurgents", many of whom had been let in by the "coalition", utterly clueless as to how to control Iraq's borders. Others had been brought in by Nuri Maliki, Ahmed Chalabi, Ayad Allawi, and the rest of the motley crew Washington and Whitehall courted in their blind ignorance, oil-greed, duplicity and stupidity.

Baghdad and Basra done and dusted, Blair fled in to the arms of another man with a fair amount of blood and destruction on his hands, the Prime Minister of Israel. The tip swopping on home demolitions, town sieges, poisoned weapons, ethnic cleansing, school razings, check-point births, child and baby killings, must have been fascinating dinner table dialogue. Better than the headlines back home: 'Cash for honours donors say Blair "mislead police" ' (Independent on Sunday.) 'Captain Blair is cast aside on a sea of shame' (Editorial, Mail on Sunday) continuing: 'As the hold fills with water and every one with any sense queues for the lifeboats ... (on ) SS New Labour', Blair is derided as '.. an increasingly absurd figure.'The same paper's front page header read : ' No 10 Secret Memo : We are seen as a Shambles.' Understatement, is a word which comes to mind, of the 'crusader', who scuttled out of the country, announcing he was leaving, prepared to enter dialogue: "with moderate Muslims". He is a skin crawling embarrassment to the United Kingdom. Hope he asked the �moderate� Mr Olmert, over dinner, whether the graffiti, reading: "Arabs to the gas chamber", has been removed from a Hebron wall (Haroon Siddiqui, Toronto Star, 17th December 2006 and http://www.breakthesilence.org )

Watching the frantic desperation on the sinking U.S. and U.K. Titanics, the lack of dignity and courage, the frantic pleas, the lies, it is impossible not to compare Iraq's illegally ousted government. And currently no western country has any right to even mention their human rights violations - they do not hold a candle to ours, at every level.

On the 18th of March 2003, George W. Bush (CNN) gave Saddam Hussein forty eight hours to leave the country, of which he was legitimate President, "sovereignty and territorial integrity" guaranteed by the spineless United Nations. He stayed, not deluded as to his country, sanctioned and all but disarmed, with only a third world armed force. He could have fled as other leaders, threatened by Western might, have, across the globe. He stayed. His entire leadership stayed - and on the eve of war (literally) he went to downtown Baghdad and talked to the people. Mr Bush and Blair could not, arguably, find downtown Baghdad (or indeed, probably Iraq) on a map.

Saddam Hussein has reportedly been offered his life back from the coalition kangaroo court, if he calls off the resistance fighters. He has reportedly refused and will probably hang, with those of his legitimate government. And I am reminded again, of Tareq Aziz, Iraq's Christian Foreign Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, who said to me in an interview for Middle East International during the rumblings of war, back in 1999: "Madam Felicity, when I was ten years old, I was handing out leaflets on the streets of Baghdad and putting them through peoples' doors, to stop Britain getting their hands on Iraq's oil. I am not about to give up on Iraq now." He never did.

Whatever their failings, Iraq's leaders have shown us courage. Ours, just ignorance, folly, countless deaths of "other mothers"' sons and daughters - and cowardice.