It was a spring day early last year when I joined a million other people in London alone to show my disagreement with going to war in Iraq. I’m not an actively political kind of guy, but it just seemed fundamentally wrong to be going to war over (at best) tenuous evidence. Robin Cook agreed and resigned, despite being a senior member of the UK’s government and therefore having access to a whole raft of information that the general public could not see.
The justification for war given to the British population was that Saddam Hussain was hording Weapons of Mass Destruction which he could readily deploy against our green and pleasant land with a mere flick of the wrist.
As a new report today shows, we were lied to.
The american people were told that they were going to war to stop Al-Qaeda launching any more attacks on their country. But now Donald Rumsfeld says he knew of no “strong, hard evidence” linking Iraq with the terrorist organisation.
But does all this really matter? The war is over and there is nothing we can do? I would argue that more than 10,000 civilian deaths and 1,000 military deaths (and let alone the economic cost) shout for justice.
I voted Labour, and so for Tony Blair, at the previous 2 British General Elections. I will not vote for someone who treats war so casually again and so will not vote Labour until Tony Blair resigns. I challenge anyone who believes in justice and truth to think similarly at the upcoming US and UK elections.
Mike Roberts