“You may pronounce us guilty a thousand times, but the Goddess who presides over the Eternal Court of History will, with a smile, tear in pieces the charge of the Public Prosecutor and the verdict of this court. For she acquits us.” 

In the wake of the Chilcot Report, which made it clear that the decision to go to war in Iraq was made on the basis of “faulty” (which is a polite way of saying manufactured) information and that war was not the last option but pretty much the first from the get go comes as a damning indictment of Tony Blair and the then government’s decision to go to war.

Blair himself has been unrepentant but I have never expected Poodle Blair to ever admit fault but I was surprised by the harsh tones of the report as I had expected it to be a whitewash of history. So once in a while I am pleasantly surprised and I don’t think the issue is going to go away in the UK any time soon, if anything the report’s findings will be fuel for the fire of not just the relatives of the dead but the soldiers who came back scarred both mentally and physically.

Blair of course has stuck with the tired and spineless line that issues with the intel or otherwise removing Saddam (and all the other blunders that Iraq turned into) was the right course of action, history will judge him.

Even at the time the intel was saying the case was bad, even before the war it was turning into a snow job of biblical proportions as the war drums were being beat. I clearly remember the Christchurch Press screaming headlines about Saddam and the need for his removal while my co-workers at the time regurgitated the same blather the media was feeding them right on cue. If I had ever needed a functional example of manufactured consent here it was alive and in my face (telling me Saddam had nukes and it could happen in NZ). It was the same gibberish as the first Gulf War but now with 50% more neo-con BS.

Forgetting that Saddam had previously had been a friend of the West, had been given arms and intel by them when he was fighting Iran (who could possibly forget the photo of Saddam and Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands at a meeting some time in the mid 1980’s) it was still a dud argument but when ever has the truth ever gotten in the way of a good war.

Meanwhile in New Zealand, John Key comes out in support of Blair and the war (here) and has refused to accept that he is on the “wrong side of history” under the similar argument of “well we made the decision on the basis of the information we had at the time so hindsight is a wonderful thing but you gotta make omelets”.

Really? O’rilly? Exsqueeze me? Baking soda? What is this BS? Aheenaheenaheena!*

John Key, the son of an Austrian Jewish refugee mother and an English father who fought in the Spanish Civil War (I can only assume on the republican side given his nationality) and World War II. If anyone should have been raised with a sound and emphatic understanding of the horrors of fascism and war it should have been him.

So I can only assume that this hollow man has forgotten his background and where he has come from and what his parents went through in making such a shameful statement. In fact the more I think about it the more the hideous levels of irony shines through like vomit on a stained glass window.

It’s very easy for a man, a leader of a nation, to send men off to war when it’s done from the comfort of his office, thousands of miles away from the fighting. It’s even easier for a man sitting in an office a thousand miles away, to support such a grotesque decision when there is no consequence for him in slavish obedience to foolish rhetoric and evil lies.

My Great Grandfather fought in the First World War, my Grandfather in the Second, my father in middle east in the 60s, I have friends from my military days who did time in Iraq as contractors and I have attended more Anzac day parades and the functions after at RSAs than I can remember (possibly due to the hefty quantities of Navy Rum on offer at the time) and at no point can I recall hearing any of those individuals expressing support for any decision to go to war.

War may have been necessary as a final action (as many in the case of WW2 have made), but it was the final resort of those who would fight if they had to but wished to avoid it if at all possible; not the first choice of greedy little men who will never actually face the guns or have to worry about a loved one dying in some bloody conflict.

To be fair I have heard many stories about the adventures had during war time (especially my Grandfathers escapades in Egypt and Libya as a dispatch rider in WW2 and my fathers time dodging bullets as a UN Peacekeeper) but these were always in context that the war itself was a monstrous affair from which the horrors of the conflict was never far away from the Boys Own adventure moments which they recalled.

More pertinently of those I know who went and made some “easy money” in Iraq (as one of my mates describes his $100,000 plus a year, US, tax free contract doing security on convoys from Basra to Baghdad) one refused to re-up for a second tour, despite the increased pay and bonuses on offer and the second bailed less than six months into the second citing scenes that made my hair stand on end (he decided to get out after he got covered in the brains of the driver on the truck he was riding on due to some high caliber round punching though the trucks windshield, and the drivers head). None of them described Iraq in less than horrific terms.***

So I have issues when John Key boldly asserts that he will be on the right side of history in regards to the Iraq War, big issues.

It does explain why things like the housing crisis, homelessness and the general misery that successive National Governments have inflicted on New Zealand do not even register on his compassionate radar. If sending people off to die for no real purpose is not going to faze him then being the man responsible for maintaining the current and ongoing misery of the neo-liberal market state probably has absolutely no emotional or emphatic resonance in the cold depth of his reptilian brain.

Perhaps he would feel different if his wannabe DJ, playboy son, decided to enlist and get sent off on some dodgy neo-colonial war for no real reason but $$$ or his faux artist daughter was the victim of some terrorist attack in a European capital as a flow on effect of the disruption caused by that war, I hope he would feel different but I cannot say for sure.

And while I was never a fan of Helen Clark I respected her decision to keep NZ out of the conflict, I even understood her decision to scrap the combat air arm of the Air Force. As someone with a strong military background (and a lifelong interest in all things military) I can still be pragmatic enough to see the logic for her decisions and the reasons for staying out of what has been fairly labelled an unjust war.

No Iraq War, probably no ISIS/Daesh, possibly no Syrian War, possibly a lot less bloodshed in the Middle East, definitely no Imperial AmeriKa running amok, possibly even no Donald Trump/Hilary Clinton monster on our political horizon. The possibilities are endless.

Oh and for those wondering about the quote at the start of this post. Its from Hitlers trial in 1924 after he tried to take over Bavaria in the Beer Hall Putsch.

*-title courtesy of Fidel castro

**- Statements of disbelief courtesy of The Internet,Waynes World , Generation Ecch and De La Soul

***- For those interested try googling for videos of US convoys doing the run from Basra to Baghdad and back and see how much you would like that job despite the salary