NEARLY sent a copy of my last letter to the Review to Gordon Brown. This sought to enlighten readers on the main reason for sending our troops to Irag and Afghanistan. The trouble is I think Gordon knows already and he must have agreed to this when Tony Blair first told him about his deal with Bush.
Plenty of us have tried to stop these invasions. I recall the Forest of Dean District Council unanimously passing a resolution opposing this illegal attack and occupation and this was sent to Tony Blair's private office. Some members of the Labour group unearthed a dusty banner in a cupboard in the Bellevue party office and proudly marched with it through London with a couple million others.
I lobbied Diana Organ MP before the crucial two votes in the House of Commons. She told me of the "enormous pressure" put upon her by the Government whips. She tried to have it both ways voting against war in one and for it in the other and then in a private routine meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party she made the news by a passionate eulogy of Tony. This did not help her but it helped me to decide to quit the Labour Party.
Attacking other sovereign national states except in defence or with the specific support of the United Nation is a war crime. This was the main charge that faced some of the Nazi warleaders before the Nuremburg tribunal at the end of the WWII. Some of them were hanged.
To desperately try to put it right the negative reports of the UN scientists, Blair searched battered Iraq for evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Eventually the BBC reported the capture of a suspicious mobile lab. This turned out to be an ice cream van. It would be funny if it wasn't so tragic.
It is almost as funny as the latest story about two former CIA agents boasting to the Washington Post last week how they extracted information from village elders in Afghanistan by supplying them with Viagra. The most co-operative were the older ones, they said, who had several young wives. Their troops still cannot drive on the road and are still hated.
The oil companies' consultant Karzai whom they made President to oversee their control of the oil supplies (as has already happened in Iraq) has tried to fiddle a re-election which has made him a laughing stock. The only hero is a young man just released from Gaol who is being showered with gifts, offers of marriage and fame for slinging his size 10s at President Bush.
It is a shame so many have to suffer and die and the UK to suffer such feeble leadership. Trouble is how can we get rid of the crackpots?
There are only two countries which do not have a written constitution: Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom. I have lived in both and while uncomfortable with Sharia Law I find it hard to decide which is the worst off. Using the Royal Prerogative the Queen could dissolve parliament, call an election, and select a new Prime Minister. As Commander in Chief she could order our troops home and equip them for their proper role, defence. At the moment they are as MI5 have warned the Government provoking the threats to this country from some of her own subjects. In practice the Prime Minister has the constitutional delelegated power of a dictator. I have also lived in Switzerland where if you get enough signatures in your Commune (i.e. parish) or Canton (i.e. county) or federally you can challenge any government policy local or national and if you win then this has to be obeyed.
In England I cannot recall any "consultation" or petition or demonstration which checked a government decision. Sometimes this is right, like the declaration of war on Germany in September 1939. Most historians would agree that if this had been put to a referendum the majority would have voted against the war. Without Hitler's blunder we did not stand a chance and too many remember the trenches in WW1.
But I suggest we do not need some enforceable constitution that can be invoked to restrain the worst excesses of governments and their agencies. This is a dangerous world and we cannot safely leave so much power with a party leader. Democracy is by the people, with the people, for the people. I recall parking my car outside the Swiss Federal Parliament in Bern on a Sunday afternoon. I then discovered I had parked in the space reserved for the President. Worst still, my starter motor jammed and I had to send for a mechanic. "Don't worry" he said "he comes to work by tram". Here we need to scrap our feudal relics and try a democracy in which we are all citizens and not subjects. – Roger Horsfield, Pastors Hill,