Trust me…

Tony Blair faces the music

So today Tony Blair must face the Chilcot inquiry about his involvement in taking Britain to war with Iraq. It seems that Tony Blair has faced most of the questions he’s going to be asked before so I’m not sure that it’s going to as explosive as the media seem to be building it up to.

There was talk that his statement the other day on TV that he’d still have gone to war even if he’d know that there were no (I’m not sure I can bring myself to use the abbreviation…) Weapons of Mass Destruction was a bit of a mistake and that he’s not as sharp as he used to be. I’m sure that he’ll just reiterate what he’s said before - I can’t see that there is going to be any real fallout from this as it all happened over five years ago.

It seems that the more important day will be when Gordon Brown steps up and has to answer questions about his involvement - it’s going to be important for no other reason (to most people) than the fact that there is an election around the corner. With the Tories already out in front it could be bad for Labour.

Good Hunting

Go on then tell me how to judge Afghanistan

With the 100th British solider being killed this year in Afghanistan this week, those named by the media as the British Military bosses are again saying don’t judge us by the casualties alone. But what am I then to judge them on? I’m no stranger to the news, especially online - I even listen to Radio 4 occasionally but yet I don’t see many reports on how the ‘war’ is progressing?

I’m not 100% sure that I was convinced by the initial arguments for the campaign in Afghanistan but we now have troops there I think that they deserve our support and respect for what they do. I think that ultimately ensuring peaceful democracies around the world is the ‘right’ thing to do even if sending in the troops to do it does seem a little hypocritical. Gordon Brown’s argument that we are protecting Britain by bringing stability to this region does seem to hold some truth but then it doesn’t seem to cut it in Europe so why should we buy that without question in the UK? The mainstream media would have us believe that the Iraq war was based on a transatlantic whim so why should we just accept what the Government have to say this time?

We are constantly told that the campaign is progressing on one hand then that we’re not getting anywhere on the other, depending on who is talking. There are various commentators that talk about how we’re getting nowhere and that we should bring the troops home and there are those who are all for sending more. I’m not sure who we should believe.

I think that we need (deserve?) some more concrete statements about what a difference our involvement in the region is having, stories from the area where we learn about children able to go to school without risk or farmers that can now support their communities without having to grow drug crops. There is some of this around but I haven’t seen it in the mainstream media - they prefer to focus on bashing Gordon Brown it seems. I may be wrong of course and may have just missed the human story that would go a long way to showing the British public what a difference we have made to the lives of these people,  and how we should be judging the campaign.

Good Hunting