Womanist

Rants from a Jamaican British Woman

Saturday, March 29, 2003

It is almost impossible to believe a word that the US & British Governments come out with these days. Frankly the only reason I am even able to believe their demonisation of Mr Saddam Hussein, is because many of the Iraqi people who have lived under his regime has testifed to his brutality. I was talking to a friend today who suggested that when Bush was put into office, it was known by the American hierarchy exactly how he would react if provoked. So he was provoked, by whom we may never really know. But the response was exactly as expected. At the end of the day this war is about world domination. Why else would the West believe it has a moral right to invade a sovereign nation and dictate to its people who should be their leader and how they should live? In all the mention of the New Iraq, I have heard not one single mention from Blair, Bush or the rest of their cronies about the part the people of Iraq will or should play in the reconstruction of their country. As I am sure I have said before, this is imperialism and racism at its most blatant.

I was chatting today about people like Jack Straw, Peter Hain, Claire Short, alll radicals in their time. Who can forget Peter Hain's anti-apatheid stand? Jack Straw, student rebel? What has happened to these people, their principles?
Did they really ever have any principles? And their children, how the hell do these politicians sleep at night? How are they justifying their warmongering to their still relatively young children? I say shame on all of them. I can only think as my friend suggested that Blair must have been offered something big by Bush. Something extremely big....

.: posted by womanist 3:14 AM

Thursday, March 27, 2003

No Gordon Brown, I don't want to pay for the war against Iraq. I don't want my hard earned money to go towards the cost of Britain's 3billion share of this war. Please use my taxes to pay our firemen a living wage, or our nurses, social workers, teachers. Or just inject my little bit of taxes into our fastly disappearing health service. I don't want to pay for the war Mr Brown.

.: posted by womanist 10:51 AM

British and American troops were told by their respective Government from the onset of the war against Iraq, that the war would be a pushover. They were told that similarly to the 1991 Gulf war, Iraqi soldiers when faced with the fire power of America and Britain would simply drop their weapons and surrender to the alies. If the British and American's truly believed that the Iraqi's are such cowards, that none of them would stand up and fight for their country, why have a war? Why not just send in a few members of the SAS to do the job?. Now we are being told by Mr Bush that the war will go on as long as it takes.

We keep hearing about ancient guns, old tanks. The Iraqi's seemed to have little in way of weapons to defend themselves.

Why are the American's and British getting so upset about the Iraqi's fighting back?. If we were under attack from a foreign might, would we not fight back? Would we just expect all our soldiers to lay down their arms and surrender themselves and their country to the enemy? No we would not. We would fight, win or loose, we would fight ,and the people of this country would expect their soldiers to fight for them. That is all the Iraqi people are trying to do, defend their people and their country. And please the media, when you talk about Iraqi losses in this war, can you not simply talk about 'the destruction of tanks' or the destruction of buildings. Surely the 14 tanks destroyed by the allies today were being driven by human beings, Iraqi human beings. Lets here it then, 14, or 28 of however many Iraqi men were killed by Ally fire today. The allies are bombing the hell out of Iraq, but don't even want to take responsibilty for killing anyone, so constantly come up with all kinds of riddiculous explanations for Iraqi deaths. Blair and Bush the public are not stupid..........

.: posted by womanist 10:48 AM

Wednesday, March 26, 2003

Help me someone. I know many, many Americans. I have visited the USA many times travelling to a variety of States. I have always found the American people to be socialable, humurous, intelligent, and caring. So can someone please explain to me how is it that they are allowing themselves to represented by a President who is in the White House by total default, having cheated his way through the system? How is it that an intelligent nation of people continue to allow themselves to be governed by a man who is quite unable to string a whole sentence together and who on a daily basis comes out with inarticulate trivia? How is it that they are allowing themselves to be governed by a man who is clearly a complete warmongerer, who with his cronies are willing to ignore international law and then spin and lie and spin and lie and generally throw their collective weight around the world? Choosing who is a dictator and who isn't a dictator. Deciding when it is right to uphold the UN Convention and when it isn't, e.g. when they are the ones who are ignoring the rule of law, then of course UN matters not.

For months now we have been told by Mr Bush that America is fighting a war against terrorism. That is why those men are locked up in Cuba. Remember 'WAR AGAINST TERRORISM' THAT IS WHY HE TOLD US MR HUSSEIN AND HIS REGIME NEEDED TO BE DISARMED. Yet today when it was pointed out to one of his Congressmen, that America was being hypocritical about Iraq's parading of POW'S as America had done exactly the same with the POW'S in Cuba.
What do you know, the man said 'it's a different situation, the Cuban situation is a 'WAR ON TERRORISM' and the Iraq situation is and I quote 'A MORE CONVENTIONAL WAR'. Well excuse me, am I simply heading for senility, or did the world public not had it drummed/rammed down our collective throats everyday that going after Mr Hussein was 'A WAR AGAINST TERRORISM?

And our very own Mr Blair. What is wrong with the man? He followed Mr Bush in his insistence that the war against Iraq be started without the go ahead from the UN. Mr Bush started the war without telling him and he and his government had to pretend they knew Bush had gone to war. Our troops are getting killed on an almost daily basis by trigger happy American soldiers and Blair pretends that he doesn't mind. These are just accidents of war. The American lies about the war has practically spun completely out of control, but Blair and his cronies come on our T.V. to validate the spinning rubbish. America has grabbed all the contracts for rebuilding the country that they are busily destroying, and a Congressman after being pushed by a British reporter, suggested that Britain might pick up a few subcontracts. When asked three times today by a persistent British interviewer whether America could have gone to war without the British, the American Congressman, simply refused to answer the question. One could not help but have a pretty good inkling what he was thinking and feeling. Of course they could have bombed the shite out of Iraq with absolutely no help from us their so-called allies. The only reason that America even bothered to seek the support of anyone in Europe is because they had do. If they didn't they would have lost all credibility with the international community. Let's face it, Mr Bush and his Senatators and Congressmen are just a bunch of bully boys. Anyone or any nation who disagrees with their way of doing war, gets lambasted for being Anti-peace, anti-American, anti-this and anti-that or of course of being Pro-Saddam. What absolute tosh! People object to war and tyranny because they want peace. This blogger wants to live in a more peaceful world. A world where Whites don't believe themselves superior to Blacks or other people of colour. A world where Europeans and American stop referring to their countries and regimes as civilised, thereby implying that everyone else is uncivilised. A world where Muslims and Christians live side by side without supicion. A world where religious belief systems take no precedent over non-religious believe system. A world where difference is celebrated as long as such difference is not creating harm. I want to live in a world where everyone has enough to eat, a roof over their heads, and are able to live their lives with the dignity that should be accorded all human beings. I want to live in a world where it isn't money that talks, but humanity.

.: posted by womanist 11:27 AM

Tuesday, March 25, 2003

I went on the March on Saturday against the war and was reasurred to see once again a huge representation of peoples who continue to disagree that this war is either right, moral, just, or the more spurious chantings about protecting the Iraqi people. I was particularly heartened to see three generations of a family I know whose young son is in the marines and is currently in Iraq. They were there with everyone else marching against this immoral war. This family can by no accounts be described as 'looney' lefties or anti British. They are very White, very British, very Middleclass, very moral, altogether very well placed in society. The whole family were on the march including a grandmother who has been through one world war, so know what it is to be a civilian in a country at war. She knows what it was like to have bombs dropped on your city/village etc.

I honestly don't know what weapons Mr Hussein has got. I don't know whether or not he still has nuclear capabilities or biological weapons. I do agree that if he has them, he will probably use them. But I don't know how bombing a country that is presumed to have biological weapons can be a sensible thing to do. Isn't the bombing of such weapons likely to release them directly into the atmosphere, creating a dangerous situation for all? What I do know is that Mr Bush has and his cronies has lied and lied in their effort to get the public on their side. Mr Blair I think is a far bigger man than Bush could ever hope to be, but has nonetheless dug himself into a hole by his seemingly unquestioned support for a man who to me who has no principles ,whatsoever, so has himself become part of Bush's war machine. His country is in recession and going to war against weak country and its mouthy leader is nothing but a cynical move to get himself back into the white house.

Mr Hussein may still retain all kinds of horrible weapons, but for UK and USA to go to war without a UN mandate is wrong, wrong, wrong. And all this riddiculous critisism of what arms the Iraqi's have?. For christsake we are at war. Do we really want to be raining bombs down on a nation that has no ability to defend itself? Do we want our soldiers to be murderers or do we want them to behave like an army fighting legitimately another army? We know for example that Iraq has no means for waging war from the skies. I seem to recall that during the last Gulf war, the Iraqi's sent all their planes to one of their neighbours to avoid them all being blown up. The neighbour then refused to return the planes, leaving Iraqi with no air millitary might. America of course knows this. America knows jolly well what Iraq has and hasn't got, and that knowledge is not always what is put accross in the increasingly war-biased media.

I am deeply saddened at all lives lost so far in this illegal war. I am saddened at the loss of British soliders by so-called friendly fire. I am saddened at the loss of Iraqi and American lives. What does it mean when we hear that the war is going well? The coverage of this war is like a sanitised video game. And Mr Bush, I agree with you. Prisoners of war should be treated ethically according to the UN rules which govern these matters. So why Mr Bush do you have POW's locked up in Cuba without trial? Why were they paraded to the world in leg irons? Why have you defied the UN? Is everything in this world a case of don't do as I do? Is this the behaviour of the so-called civilized world? Why should madmen like Mr Hussein behave differently with examples like yours? And finally why should any Government but USA'S and Britain pay for the rebuilding of Iraq? These are the two countries have without the UN and without the say so of their people made the decision to go to war and spend billions of pounds and dollars.
My god think what that money could do for our joint public services. ? I say both men and their cronies should be made to pay for the rebuilding of Iraq out of their own pockets. Bush alone probably have accumulated that manny billions with all his spurious dealings.