Dear
Prime Minister Blair,
I read with great interest your
speech to the World Affairs Council in
Los Angeles. It is an amazing speech. One can instantly see that it was meant to be a memorably eloquent outpouring of sincerity and high-minded rhetoric. It is unfortunate, however, that for all the effort put in by yourself and your speech-writers, the impression actually conveyed was somewhat different. One would never mistake you, Mr.
Blair, for Mr.
Schweitzer after this and one would have some trouble indeed separating you from your partner in the war enterprise, Mr.
George Bush.
The lack of judgment and the lack of
intelligence shown here are remarkable enough, but even more profoundly notable is the sheer degree of obfuscation and evasion and, yes, outright falsehoods. A man so totally out of touch with reality, either by his own
mental deficiencies or, worse, deliberate effort, has no business giving
public speeches as representative of absolutely any
nation in the
world.
I was baffled enough to pore over your speech word for word and I'm going to address the, shall we say, inconsistencies here.
At the very start of your speech, Mr. Blair, you pay a what has now become routine homage to the
Armed Forces. You praise the
'extraordinary courage and commitment of our armed forces who risk their lives and in some cases tragically lose them, defending our country's security and that of the wider world', and declare that
'We should never forget how much we owe these people, how great their bravery and their sacrifice.' In brief, you echo the stickers from
China - 'Support Our Troops'.
I'm tired of hearing such sentiments from people who are personally never likely to be in the firing line themselves. Perhaps, Mr. Blair, you should dust off the poetry volumes from the
Library at
10 Downing Street and read
Siegfried Sassoon's take on the
subject. He was a man who knew what he was talking about.
No, Mr. Blair, your
troops are
not out there defending your
country's security and that of the wider world.
They are out there committing acts of
aggression, acts of outright murders, on
your behalf.
For that, they are getting themselves shot and butchered.
Your fine words of support amount to nothing for those who, owing to your incompetence and foolhardiness, will have to live the rest of their lives, day after day, with mental
trauma,
knowledge of
crime, and the adjusted
reality of
life as a disabled veteran. Because, eventually, medals tarnish, the fickle
media finds a new tragedy, the jingoistic crowd switches to soap-operas, and Prime Ministers and Presidents leave office - but one still has to figure out how one is going to make it to the bathroom alone, with both legs shot off and eyesight gone.
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Then, Mr. Blair, you predictably bring up
Lebanon. The cause of the conflict, you claim, is apparent -
Israel was provoked. Yes, one can see that. Three Israeli soldiers were kidnapped and, of course, one can agree that it wasn't the kosher thing to do. But, if you step back a little, the picture tilts slightly. One hears about the
two Palestinian Civilians - a doctor and his brother - who were kidnapped by Israel exactly a day before Captain
Gilad Shalit was taken and who too have not been heard of since. One hears of thousands of Palestinian
prisoners who have been detained in Israeli jails since the last war, quite in violation of the
Geneva Conventions. One hears about illegal
Israeli air excursions into Lebanese territory and of Israeli Secret Service Cells which are in the business of assassinating Lebanese citizens in their own country. And then the role of Israel as the wronged party, the perpetually harassed party that was
finally provoked into aggression, gets skewered.
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You say,
"We will continue to do all we can to halt the hostilities".
Giving the Israelis more time to destroy Lebanon doesn't sound like it, Mr. Blair. Especially when you surely must be aware that your partner in the
peace coalition, Mr. George Bush, is sending over more
bombs and supplies to Israel? That is a very curious effort to halt the hostilities.
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You say,
"We will not win the battle against the global extremism unless we win it at the level of values as much as force, unless we show we are even-handed, fair and just in our application of these values to the world."Of course, you won't. But the problem here is that, given the destruction and deaths that have already occurred and continue to occur, it is going to be an uphill struggle - if not an outright impossibility - of convincing the concerned people in this regard. I mean, try telling it to the survivors of
Qana or
Falluja or the mistreated prisoners of
Abu Graib and
Guantanamo. They know first-hand how even-handed, fair, and just you are in the application of your stronger, better, and more fair values, Mr. Blair. They have already realized that your values have nothing to do with those of 'tolerance, freedom, respect for differences, and diversity'. And you show your 'ideology of reaction, division and hatred' when you offer your simplistic view-point of a struggle between reactionary
Islam and moderate Islam. Why is it that you fail to mention your fundamentalist
Christian values and the hard-line
Jewish values as yet other reactionary branches of this struggle?
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Then Mr. Blair, showing a remarkable or perhaps convenient gap in your
history education, you inform us that it was only after
11 September 2001 that the
USA - and by proxy
Great Britain - embarked on the policy of intervention.
We had barely heard of the
Taliban, you claim.
It amazes you, you say, that a growing number of people hold you and Mr. Bush responsible for the increased terrorism brought about by your joint invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. Have they forgotten, you inquire, that 11 September 2001 predated either?
We were attacked, you insist.
After hearing this, Mr. Blair, I have to say I'm pretty amazed myself. You don't require a
University Degree in American
Foreign Policy - a
Google Search can prove as efficient and informative - to find out the details about American Intervention Policies prior to 11 September 2001.
Shall we discuss the
CIA policies in
Nicaragua or the killing fields of
Vietnam, or the reasons behind the ignominious retreat from
Somalia?
Shall we talk about the past follies in
Iran and
Syria and Iraq and Lebanon and the
Philippines and
Cuba and
Liberia and
Korea and
Panama and Afghanistan, to name a few?
Afghanistan is, of course, the home country of the Taliban, the group that you call a
terrorist organization these days and which, in the good old days of the
Soviet Occupation, enjoyed American Patronage.
Rather curious, wouldn't you say, for a group that until recently hadn't even been heard of?
And as for denying your own country's track-record of intervention, Mr. Blair, please don't be
that cretinous. There is hardly any
continent on
earth - including that of your US partner - that doesn't bear the stamp of your visits. And, besides, we here in
India struggled for far too long to be rid of you to overlook that part too easily.
As for the growing terrorism against you in Iraq and Afghanistan - two countries that had nothing to do with the attack on 11 September 2001 - try for a moment to put yourself in their stead, Mr. Blair. Suppose that it had been the other way around. Suppose that it were these two countries that in a coalition similar to yours and again like you, without reason, invaded and practically destroyed Great Britain. What would be your reaction, Mr. Blair? Would you acquiesce? And if you didn't, could you bring yourself to appreciate and applaud
Muqtada al-Sadr's worldwide speech about
your terrorist activities'?
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Given these distortions, it is understandable how you manage to equate the regional conflicts in
Chechnya, in
Algeria, in India, and in
Pakistan, with 'the worldwide struggle', Mr. Blair - that statement is far easily given than an explanation about the complicity with which the West has for so long, at one point or another, favoring either one side or both, supplied 'the growing movements' with arms and ammunition through back-door deals. Because, of course, you thought - when you happened to hear of them, that is - that their emergence was 'partly the fault of the governments of the countries concerned', right?
Now, Mr. Blair, you assert that these 'growing movements' have a grudge against the
West. Well, perhaps that might be the case. It might perhaps be either the case of 'No honor amongst thieves' or 'Watch your back around your buddies'.
Either way, the basis for these people's grievances is
political, not
religious, like you would have us believe - they don't want to convert you, Mr. Blair -“ they want you to stop interfering in their internal matters.
And if they do spout verses from the
Koran, it is really much the same thing as when you spout off from the
Bible. It is only a way of trying to prove that the higher authority is sanctioning your political goals - and so any means adopted by you to reach them are okay.
As you so succinctly put it, it
is a political
strategy of the instinct, one that has deep convictions, and the determination of the
fanatic.
Why else, one wonders, would you presume to think that you have the right to be changing anybody's value systems to match with yours?
And given, as I mentioned before, the mayhem brought about by your values, do you seriously want others, particularly these people, to adopt them and use them in your direction?
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Now we come to
Palestine. It would be good, for once, if the root of the problem wasn't ignored, and that is that originally the Palestinians were evicted from their own lands to make way for the
Zionists.
This, after the Zionists refused the offers of
Uganda and
Madagascar - don't miss this, Mr. Blair, the British
government and
Nazi Germany were offering lands that did not belong to them - other people's lands - to other people who had no claim over them. Nowhere have I heard of a referendum being taken to find out the
native people's opinions on this matter of your magnanimity.
But the Zionists refused the offers - because the Bible did not mention
Uganda and
Madagascar.
Now these Jews were European - people from your own continent - they were not of Middle-Eastern stock. Their claiming land in the
Middle-East, because the 'Bible says so' really has as much logic as
French people claiming proprietary rights over English Lands, because 'our Gallic ancestors used to live here and we can prove it by archaeological evidence'.
So, yes, the Palestinians do have a legitimate grievance and they are the ones that were originally provoked.
Let us acknowledge that and move on.
Time, after all, cannot be turned back and if one tried to empty the population of Israel now, one would, for the sake of fairness, have to empty the entire illegal
immigrant bloc of the Americas as well.
So, the
State of Israel is now a fact and, while the Palestinians needn't like it, they need to learn to live with it. As long as Palestine as a separate nation receives equal cognizance from Israel.
Which means no more taking over houses and
olive orchards and farms that don't belong to you. Which means cutting down on the number of
UN Resolution Violations. Which means accepting the fact of
Hamas.
Hamas has been democratically elected by the people of Palestine. If you claim to espouse
democracy, you must espouse it under all circumstances, not just the ones of your liking.
And then again you're once more simplifying things with your focus on 'reactionary Islam' - one wonders how come you didn't just blame these troubles on 'the birth pangs of the Middle-East', as
Condoleeza Rice did - and your refusal to inquire too deeply into Israel's role in interference and aggravation.
Yes, the
kidnapping of the soldiers is not to be condoned, but then neither is the kidnapping of Palestinian civilians and it certainly doesn't justify the murders of over 900
Lebanese civilians who were in no way connected with the matter.
It is because of this 'massive retaliation', Mr. Blair, that people are flocking under the banner of what you call 'reactionary Islam'. When one has the continued misfortune of seeing, as you put it, 'only the bombs and the brutality of war and sent from Israel', it becomes kind of easy to choose between the terrorists factions - I mean, wouldn't you rather side with the
Hezbollah who have only killed in thousands and who are willing to protect you, rather than side with the USA, UK, and Israel, who have killed in hundreds of thousands and are about to drop a 500-pound bomb on your loved ones?
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You rubbish the notion that
poverty has any relation with 'global terrorism'. I wonder how you came to that conclusion, Mr. Blair.
Social Workers, who actually work in the
field seem to differ with you. Their findings point to poverty - and the possibility of never escaping from its relentless vice, due to lack of resources for
education and lack of opportunities for
work - as having a significant bearing in the success that extremist organizations have in finding recruits for their various causes. They offer
hope and hope - regardless of the giver's true intentions - always holds an attraction for us
human beings.
Of course, Mr. Blair, you are perhaps right in saying that the extremists are hardly the champions of
economic development - it
is a trifle hard to accomplish that when you're constantly at war, although I hear that the Hezbollah have been doing their positive bit for their people - but then again, extremists are not champions of scientific
development either. Look at the sheer unintelligent way in which they hold up
Intelligent Design and clamp down on
Stem Cell Research. These too are facts worth mentioning, Mr. Blair.
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Then Mr. Blair, you make the following astounding and really quite preposterous claim -
"What it (extremism) is doing in Iraq and Afghanistan is not about those countries' liberation from US Occupation. It is actually the only reason for the continuing presence of our troops. And it is they not us who are doing the slaughter of the innocent and doing it deliberately." After Qana, a
tragedy which had you so chosen you could have
prevented, Mr. Blair, after the thousands of Iraqis and Afghans that have died as a result of your indiscriminate and totally unnecessary war-mongering, not to mention your sanctions, you really have the most astoundingly bloody nerve.
And your reason for remaining in these countries is the exact same one that the British government once gave to us Indians in the 1940s for not leaving our country. Fortunately we had Mr.
Gandhi and he told you to, "Leave India to God or anarchy". And so you left us to
anarchy and we managed to survive.
If Mr. Gandhi's past advise is not palatable to you in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, perhaps you can consider heeding the one that Senator
George Aiken of Vermont gave to his colleagues in 1966 when the question of how to withdraw from Vietnam arose.
Just declare it a victory, he said, and fly the troops home. You could do the same, Mr. Blair. Declare it a victory - after all what's one more lie? - and bring your troops home. They don't deserve to die for your delusions.
No, the blood-shed probably will not 'all stop' immediately after you exit - as neither did it in Vietnam after your US ally scooted - but it will
never 'all stop' as long as your forces remain in the region.
You
must withdraw.
And then, aside from taxing your nationals double to pay for all the destruction you've caused, you must open up your borders for the millions of refugees from these places who will be flocking to the USA and the UK - not for your grand values - but because, thanks to you, a decent life is no longer possible on home shores - and I'm not talking just of the massive and
irreparable environmental damage, Mr. Blair.
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Then you suggest that Israel's predicament is 'absent' from the media coverage. That is not at all the case. What is absent is the coverage of the views of the Israeli
Moderates. They are the ones that are not getting heard enough; in the cacophony of the war-mongers, it is their voices that are getting drowned. If you were serious about peace, Mr. Blair, you would have asked Mr.
Olmert to listen to their voices of reason and push for negotiations, instead of embarking on this insane adventure that is only going to spew more
violence now and in the future.
Now to the question of
UN Resolutions. You are not the person to denounce the violations of any UN Resolutions, Mr. Blair, considering that you and Mr. Bush have very blatantly undermined the UN's authority when you attacked Iraq and Afghanistan.
As long as you don't pull out and show yourself compliant to
International Laws, and as long as Israel is allowed, with US
Veto backing, to get away with its various infractions, please don't expect any modicum of
legal respect from the Hezbollah.
You say the Hezbollah and the Hamas get their guns from Iran. Well, Israel gets its from the USA. Please explain why you think that one is a case of ignominy and the other not?
You mention the Iranian
President's call for Israel to be 'wiped off the map'. Do you happen to also recall the US President's 'Dead and Alive' and 'Shock and Awe' calls? Both fall in the same rabble-rousing category of entertaining the media. But the latter's calls, unlike the Iranian President's posturing, have been actually carried out and have been responsible for the deaths of millions of people.
You say the Iranian President is trying to acquire a nuclear weapon. Are you aware that your US ally possesses nearly six thousand of them and that a former US President, unlike any of President
Ahmadinejad's predecessors, actually used two? On
two Japanese cities called
Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, Mr. Blair. And now they are prepared to
use them yet again. Why does that not bother you, Mr. Blair? Is it a form of
racism that, despite contrary evidence, makes you still insist that you are more capable of responsible and rational judgment than the Iranians, the North Koreans, and just about everyone else?
No, this kind of attitude is certainly
not conducive to a feeling of
security.
--------------------------
You say you will never under any circumstances put Israel's security at risk. That is very good to hear.
And it is very horrendous to know that you obviously cannot spare more than meaningless platitudes for the security of the people of Lebanon.
Your concern for the Palestinian people seems as tepid if not more, Mr. Blair. And, given that, there will be no Roadmap to Peace ever - not until all the participants get treated equally and fairly, and you are clearly not prepared to do that.
As I mentioned before, getting out of Iraq is the only best bet - staying there to install 'a non-sectarian democratic state', Mr. Blair, is a pipe-dream at the best. That will never work. You are the enemy and, so by its association with you, will be any government that you install.
Think back to the
Second World War and its aftermath, Mr. Blair. After the
Nazis were defeated, did the Norwegians promote
Vidkun Quisling or did they shoot him?
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As for Syria and Iran, Mr. Blair, your threats are rank hypocrisy - they
are playing by the same rules as you and your US ally.
And, as you see, supporting terrorism, deliberately exporting instability, and wrecking the democratic prospects of other countries
is utterly and truly unjustifiable, dangerous, and wrong.
And, yes, as we see by your fine example, such people usually do find that they have miscalculated.
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Then Mr. Blair, you return to your now predictable refrain. You refute the capacity of reactionary Islam to accommodate different faiths and cultures. Perhaps there may be some truth to this.
But there is
no truth to your trying to make it sound as if intolerance is the hegemony of only the
Islamists, Mr. Blair.
Take a look at your own
Christian brethren, Mr. Blair, particularly the ones that reside in the United States. Ask them about the
Dobrich Family who were harassed and finally forced by Christian
fundamentalists to flee their home in
Delaware for insisting on their Jewish Identity. Ask the Christians about the
intolerance and hatred they show towards gays and lesbians. Ask them about their concentrated efforts in trying to undo all the progress made in
women's rights. These are the Christians of your liberated, emancipated Western world, who'd like nothing more than to drag every one of us back to the
Dark Ages of ignorance and repression.
How do you exonerate them, Mr. Blair, and blame their exact counterparts in the Middle-East?
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Then you add two new phrases to the
English Language.
Arc of Extremism is very fine term, Mr. Blair, and I'm sure it will make a valuable addition to war vocabulary. However - due to your deficiency in Geography too, perhaps? - you seemed to have misplaced it in the Middle-East instead of in its correct Trans-Atlantic location.
Arc of moderation and reconciliation is another good phrase - but totally meaningless if, as it seems, moderation and reconciliation are the qualities only to be expected from the people you wrong.
Yes, each part is linked and yes, as you say, each part requires equal and continuous commitment.
But, surely, Mr. Blair, not the equal and continuous commitment to
your selfish
national interests in controlling other people's
OIL?
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Then, lastly, you inform us that you're on the open side of the argument when it comes to
globalization,
immigration (though your US partner is hell-bent on erecting a designer fence along the Mexican border), tackling climate change (though your US partner refuses to abide by the
Kyoto Agreement), and aid to
Africa (though you don't seem to be taking any significant action about
Darfur and the
Congo).
You say,
"the world is interdependent. To be engaged is only modern real politik."That is the only honest, creditable thing you have said in your entire speech.
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P.S. - I've been told you've totally lost radio contact with earth and I'm wasting my time pondering over your now-ancient speech, but I thought what better way to waste time than over a writing and thinking exercise.
