Open Letters ...
To: Tony Blair, Prime Minister, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
An Open Letter
[Delivered personally by hand [no charge] to the Prime Minister's Sedgefield constituency local post office, Friday, 21 November, 2003 - while he and his ‘friend’ the American President George Walker Bush were pretending to be getting a warm reception from the people of Mr Blair's 'home' constituency - but were in fact meeting very few people, while hiding behind an excessive and overly expensive security cordon. They did not look like 'strong' and 'courageous' and truly 'powerful' leaders to me. They did not look like people who felt 'secure' themselves - they looked like frightened little men hiding away from the consequences of their own actions. They certainly did not look like leaders bringing more real 'peace and security' to the world.]
Dear Tony
In your foreign policy speech delivered at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet, in London, on Monday, 10th November, 2003, you said it was time to ‘leave aside the rights and wrongs’ of the war in Iraq and concentrate on future developments.
I cannot agree with you on that.
In making such a statement, you were in my view showing contempt for, and profound ignorance of, historical processes - which I would not have expected of a British Prime Minister.
The course of past events determines the course of future events.
The past just cannot be ‘left aside’ as easily as you suggest.
The course of events can only be developed in more favourable directions on the basis of a better understanding of what has happened in the past and with past mistakes acknowledged and corrected where possible.
It seems to me that in wanting to sweep under the carpet the recent history of events leading up to the invasion of Iraq, in the apparent hope that they will be forgotten, what you were really trying to do was to evade your personal responsibility for the present situation in that country.
Let us be clear on some matters of recent historical fact:
You personally ordered British forces to attack and invade and occupy another sovereign nation without proper United Nations sanction, and against all standard conventions of international law.
You personally misled the British people over the issue of Iraq’s alleged possession of ‘weapons of mass destruction’, which you used to justify the invasion.
You personally ordered British involvement in the invasion of Iraq, so you personally are in some large part responsible for the continued violent disorder there - you were evading personal responsibility in your speech when you blamed the ongoing violence entirely on ‘Saddam’s small rump of supporters aided and abetted by foreign terrorists’.
The anti-war movement around the world, has long maintained that President Bush’s ‘war on terror’ - which you fully support - is badly misguided, and likely to increase the problem of world-wide terrorism in the future.
You have not appeared interested in listening to that alternative point of view, which was not merely opposition to your position it actually contained important warnings to you about what might happen if you followed the course that you seemed determined to follow regardless of other people’s points of view.
Understand quite clearly my message to you now:
In the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, you behaved like a gangster yourself:
you disregarded the normal conventions of international law ;
you justified your actions in devious and misleading ways;
you used violent force to deal with a problem that was in fact - albeit slowly, and in a complex and not entirely satisfactory manner - being dealt with diplomatically.
You yourself have ‘aided and abetted’ the terrorists you claim to oppose:
by making a travesty of notions of legality and restraint and democracy and truth;
by using violent methods to remove from power another sovereign leader [however obnoxious he might have been];
by failing to ensure that due processes of law and basic principles of human rights have been applied to the detainees including British Citizens being held at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere.
Past and present actions determine the future course of events. By your past actions, which were illegal, dishonest, violent and undemocratic, you devalued the concepts of ‘legality’, ‘truth’, ‘peace’ and ‘democracy’ - the very things you claim to be working for in Iraq.
In short, you played into the hands of the terrorists and the remnants of Saddam’s regime in Iraq, as well as violent extremists elsewhere, by behaving like a political thug yourself.
If you really desire to develop a more positive future course for events in Iraq and the wider world, then a starting point would be for you to acknowledge your personal responsibility for the present violent situation - and for you to admit past errors, not attempt to evade them.
Yours sincerely
Philip Talbot,
Supporter, South Tyneside Stop the War Coalition
