Sunday reading
Back to politics after a brief break. Big article and discussion in the Sunday Times about whether it is time to take God out of the State. I read Henry Porter: Now we know what we know, why is Blair still in office? ( Observer, today) Then found this poem left under the Observer article, by a poster styling themself as ''sbsmith'', October 22, 2006 04:41 AM. Thought it was good, so am reproducing it here.
Liars
you lied in word, in deed, & by omission:
you blamed Saddam for things that you had done
& failed to do - the Shia insurrection,
incited, left to founder – ‘sorry son!’
with VX, sarin, stuff for nuclear fission -
you armed him, supplied anthrax by the ton,
you egged him on to fight Iran, then ditched him...
& now you cannot find the smoking gun?
too long past their use-by-date. ‘oh? fine!’
(don’t bother to say sorry: just resign.)
you lied about ‘eviction’ of inspectors
whom the UN ‘withdrew’ - you wanna bet?
phials, anti-poison-gas injectors,
antidotes to dangers to be met,
& posters: how to cope with radiation
were hailed as ‘proof of clear & present threat.’
duty-bound to free a captive nation?
(ever think of rescuing Tibet?)
oh. it’s unfair to hold you to that line...
don’t bother to say sorry: just resign.
there’s some bad bastards, but it’s no use fretting -
ex-Soviets Belarus & Kazakhstan.
our ‘hatred of dictators’ could not threaten
Suharto, Burma, Saudi, Pakistan.
adjust the odds, it makes for safer betting;
where standards are too high, let down the bar.
for Chile we strained the rules, left Pinochet in;
Somoza, Marcos, Franco, Salazar,
we backed; who claimed their right to rule divine,
& never did say sorry, nor resign.
Afghanistan: ‘we’ll never walk away!’
you left them unexploded cluster bombs
like food parcels - they go off every day! -
to add to 20 million Russian mines.
& all the billions that you said you’d pay
keeps war lords ruling as in former times.
the bulk of it is mis-spent, gone astray,
they don’t add up, the economic sums.
‘damage limitation?’ not this time.
don’t bother to say sorry: just resign.
you lied about the poison factories;
lied about their nuclear capacity;
on links to Al Qaida came a freeze -
‘Bush yes, Blair no (gulp gulp)’; it took audacity...
‘45 minute standby’ - there’s a wheeze -
‘imminent threat!’ in coping with this facet we
might have bypassed other forgeries -
‘uranium from Niger?’ sheer mendacity!
you’ve been found out, you’ve overstayed your time,
so do what Denis Healy said: resign
you lied. you said it wasn’t about oil.
you bellowed this until your face turned blue.
& yet, available to any literate child:
what Goldstein said to Bush’s cronies (whom,
cringe-making, blatant, we will not imbroil)
‘after the war the inverse will be true.’
I quote the Wall Street Journal - your blood boil?
mine does. we all could read it! so could you.
maybe you did; it chanced to slip your mind?
don’t even promise. do it now. resign.
Liars
you lied in word, in deed, & by omission:
you blamed Saddam for things that you had done
& failed to do - the Shia insurrection,
incited, left to founder – ‘sorry son!’
with VX, sarin, stuff for nuclear fission -
you armed him, supplied anthrax by the ton,
you egged him on to fight Iran, then ditched him...
& now you cannot find the smoking gun?
too long past their use-by-date. ‘oh? fine!’
(don’t bother to say sorry: just resign.)
you lied about ‘eviction’ of inspectors
whom the UN ‘withdrew’ - you wanna bet?
phials, anti-poison-gas injectors,
antidotes to dangers to be met,
& posters: how to cope with radiation
were hailed as ‘proof of clear & present threat.’
duty-bound to free a captive nation?
(ever think of rescuing Tibet?)
oh. it’s unfair to hold you to that line...
don’t bother to say sorry: just resign.
there’s some bad bastards, but it’s no use fretting -
ex-Soviets Belarus & Kazakhstan.
our ‘hatred of dictators’ could not threaten
Suharto, Burma, Saudi, Pakistan.
adjust the odds, it makes for safer betting;
where standards are too high, let down the bar.
for Chile we strained the rules, left Pinochet in;
Somoza, Marcos, Franco, Salazar,
we backed; who claimed their right to rule divine,
& never did say sorry, nor resign.
Afghanistan: ‘we’ll never walk away!’
you left them unexploded cluster bombs
like food parcels - they go off every day! -
to add to 20 million Russian mines.
& all the billions that you said you’d pay
keeps war lords ruling as in former times.
the bulk of it is mis-spent, gone astray,
they don’t add up, the economic sums.
‘damage limitation?’ not this time.
don’t bother to say sorry: just resign.
you lied about the poison factories;
lied about their nuclear capacity;
on links to Al Qaida came a freeze -
‘Bush yes, Blair no (gulp gulp)’; it took audacity...
‘45 minute standby’ - there’s a wheeze -
‘imminent threat!’ in coping with this facet we
might have bypassed other forgeries -
‘uranium from Niger?’ sheer mendacity!
you’ve been found out, you’ve overstayed your time,
so do what Denis Healy said: resign
you lied. you said it wasn’t about oil.
you bellowed this until your face turned blue.
& yet, available to any literate child:
what Goldstein said to Bush’s cronies (whom,
cringe-making, blatant, we will not imbroil)
‘after the war the inverse will be true.’
I quote the Wall Street Journal - your blood boil?
mine does. we all could read it! so could you.
maybe you did; it chanced to slip your mind?
don’t even promise. do it now. resign.
posted by Rachel at 1:51 pm
There is a good case to be made for Tony Blair being implicated in actions that lead to genocide now that the number of Iraqi dead is over 500,000. Do we need to reach the magic number of one million before the political establishment recognizes this tragedy for what it is? A war crime on a massive scale. Does anyone remember the potato famine in Ireland or the famines of the British Raj, Imperialism always leaves a trail of blood. England is not immune to crimes against humanity. Yet we liberated the slaves. We can also learn to live in accordance with the best values of our culture again.
Henry Porter is clearly right-Blair should have been impeached long ago. But he won't go quietly- oh no, his vast ego won't allow it. The man is obsessed with his 'legacy' and 'his place in history'- and some legacy it will be. Iraq is now close to anarchy. The war against terror is being lost. History will remember Blair for little else.
Keep on fighting the good fight, Rachel.