The Disgraceful Face of Political Expediency Between the UK & Syria

Much has been said and reported on the 'deals in the desert' that were done by the previous Government to bring the unhinged Gaddafi back into the 'mainstream of the international community.' The deal was that Gaddafi and Libya would have trade sanctions lifted and a rehabilitation of their 'image' in the UK and Europe. The benefit for Blair was that he would be seen as someone who could deliver 'a safer world' after the disaster of Iraq and the illegal invasion of Iraq for which he was the chief cheerleader. This whole debacle saw our then Prime Minister shake the hand of an unhinged dictator who had no problem using torture against his people. All for the sake of cameras and political kudos - sick really!

Yet, what nobody has picked up was that the previous Government was also warming up and developing links to the Syrian regime of Assad. These took place through two departments, namely the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for Communities and Local Government and they took place through Prevent (Preventing Violent Extremism) conferences in Damascus and through meetings in Syria. Believe it or not, Assad's government was touting Syria in 2008 - 2010 as a beacon for countering extremism - within that read torturing and killing individuals who stood against the Government whether religiously or politically inclined. Yet officers from the UK were directed to attend these conferences and they were co-ordinated through a grade 6 civil servant at the time in the FCO. Through that individual, UK civil servants spent time in Damascus 'learning how to counter extremism'. Furthermore, visas were approved through the UK office of the Syrian Embassy and under the Ambassadorship of Sami Khiyami, the now embattled mouthpice of the disgraceful Assad regime. (Nonetheless as a person Sami Khiyami seemed decent enough, save for the cloack of the regime and its murderous track record.)

Nobody seems to have picked this up and it is very much an unsaid story. Yet, seeing what Assad has done to his people, there is a time for the truth to out and for these 'links' never again to be developed with such regimes. But as a realist, I know that little will change for the sake of political expediency. I just hope we learn that bringing in muderers from the cold does nothing for our morality in the long term. It just means that we are steeped in the lies and untruths that eminate from such links.

The Arab Spring into the Arab Summer

Qadafi and his disgraceful regime are finally at an end after four decades of control on the lives of every Libyan. The man who re-invented himself after Lockerbie and who survived the 1986 attempt to kill him using a joint British and US air raid, is finally dislodged. I remember the news stories on the 1986 raids that were conducted by F14, Harrier and Tomcat aircraft from carriers in the Mediterranean that left his daughter dead and which hit many military targets and with civilians killed.

After shaking Blair's hands in the tent in the desert and being re-introduced into the international community, he used his various investments (which were stolen monies of the people of Libya), to cajole and buy his way into respectability with his son leading the way as the 'liberal' face of the regime. The London School of Economics also accepted his 'donations' and were fortunately found out. Respectability, it seems clearly came at a price.

The leather faced leader is now on the run with his own people chasing him. How he must be railing against his failed attack on Benghazi which mobilized France and then our country into action. Hubris and the usual dictator's closeted mindset meant that he misjudged his actions and the global impacts that it would have. He also forgot that a government in a country with oil which makes military moves should know that there will be many other countries looking at opportunities to either ally themselves or look at whether they can oust the incumbent regime and possibly get access to mineral riches. Whilst this was not the over-riding reason for French and UK involvement, it certainly is one of the reasons why both countries now are willing to support Libya with technical, military, political and financial help and assistance. Money talks, though the military action was necessary to oust one of the more brutal dictators in Africa and to save the lives of so many in Benghazi. If the world had not stepped in, many people, their families and their wives and sisters would have suffered humiliating and painful deaths under the torturers of Qadafi.

So farewell to another dictator as the heat of the Arab Spring reaches another part of the Middle East and North Africa region. The spring may have turned to summer but the heat has certainly not cooled down.

Going to War Has Cost Everyone Dearly

Yesterday at the Chilcot enquiry (which has been set up to find out the lessons learnt from the Iraq conflict), the walls resounded to a withering and devastating testimony from the former head of MI5 – the internally (UK) focussed security service.

Eliza Manningham-Buller told the Chilcot inquiry that civil servants were frightened to speak out about their belief that the war on Iraq would raise the terrorist threat to the UK and that it had radicalised a number of ‘home grown’ young Muslims who saw the attack on Iraq as an attack on Islam. She went onto say that “(the invasion) was a highly significant factor in how ‘home-grown’ extremists justified their actions.” She disregarded the link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida and also commented that by invading Iraq, “(the US and UK) gave Osama Bin Laden the Iraqi Jihad.”

The disaster of the war in Iraq and the deceit that surrounded the case for war made by the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has led to a whole generation of displaced and stateless individuals. The smoke and mirrors employed by those who were pro-war to create the illusion of a dangerous Saddam, have led to over 1.8 million Iraqis seeking shelter overseas primarily in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Turkey and the Syrian Government estimates that there are 1 million refugees in the country, the vast and overwhelming majority coming from Iraq. Those Iraqis in the country are in a state of legal limbo. With savings used up and with precious jewellery and items sold on the informal markets, they have no assets and cannot integrate into local communities. Syria and Jordan though, provide access to assistance, basic education and primary health care and the Syrian Government is laying the groundwork for a national asylum law which will formalize the principles of international refugee protection. In 2007, the Syrian Government estimated that the cost of hosting Iraqi refugees amounted to about $1 billion and social services have deteriorated quickly due to immigration pressures.

In Jordan, estimates for Iraqi refugees amount to between 600,000 – 700,000 people and the influx has also led to a steep rise in prices within Amman and throughout urban areas. Many Jordanians have felt the price rises and there is increasing resentment towards refugees and the price hikes that their migration has caused. Furthermore, in Turkey there were 5,478 Iraqis living in the country as of the 31st of May 2010.

These victims of the illegal and catastrophic Iraq war have no savings, many cannot work legally and many end up being abused since they work in the informal economy. The rest have no viable prospects for income and rely on handouts, aid and charity. Furthermore, of the refugee population of 1.8 million people, 40% are children and 60% are younger than 25. The war has therefore created an underclass within Syria and Jordan who will not go away for decades to come. Bizarrely, one of the major policy drives of Tony Blair and his Labour Government in the UK was the reduction of child poverty. His actions and those who made this war possible have created hundreds of thousands of children who will live in poverty for the rest of their lives, though I am sure that the irony of this will pass him by.

In the 1970’s and 1980’s, Iraq had high levels of literacy and infant mortality levels were low and comparable with European and western nations. There was a burgeoning middle class and the infrastructure of the country was well developed. Many Syrians and Jordanians moved to Iraq since times were good and Iraq was also a place where families and their children could receive a good education. Now, the refugee youth of Iraq have no access to meaningful jobs, training or education and the consequence of Bush and Blair’s war has been a ‘lost generation’ of young people. They have been denied their basic right to a peaceful existence and the enjoyment of their childhoods and many will grow up with traumatic experiences which may mean that they will show violent tendencies and erratic behaviour patterns. Some will even be pathological in their outlook to other people and time will only tell whether Iraq will fall prey to such an individual who will have echoes of Saddam and his reign of terror.

So, let us hope that the inquiry has the courage to say what is glaringly obvious to all. That this war was a fabrication based on a decision made in 2002 and which was led in the UK by the then Prime Minister who had already made his mind up. We marched in 2003 against the war like fools, but it is increasingly the warmongers who fit this description.

Labour's Moral Compass Has Gone!

Tomorrow, millions of us go to the polls to deliver a verdict either for change or for more of the same. Yet many will try to reflect on the benefits that they have had over the last 13 years through this Labour Government; some will know that there will be tough times ahead; some will know that Labour is on the verge of being in the political wilderness and some will know that a seismic change in politics may have already taken place.

Labour cannot be blamed for all of the problems of the last 13 years. There have been some successes and Sure Start, the national minimum wage and the stabilisation of the economy during the banking disaster were all positive moves, even though it cost each one of us and endebted us for decades to come. It has to be acknowledged that the financial support to banks had to be made to provide stability.

However, Labour lost it credibility and its moral compass sometime around 2002 when Tony Blair shamelessly went along with a certain Messr Bush's plan for regime change and both effectively sold us a dud. For those of us who campaigned against Iraq and who knew that a decade of sanctions (by the US and UK) had destroyed so many civilians lives, it was the final straw and a realisation that the hollow phrase of 'social justice' so paraded by Labour Ministers and members, had a distinctly hollow ring to it. So much for social justice when the premise of the war was based on a lie and when the case for war was based on smoke and mirrors. Whilst Blair went onto become the Quartet's 'peace envoy' in Jerusalem and to top up his tan in the American Colony in Jerusalem, our young men and women were put in harms way whilst Iraqi's lost their lives in the tens of thousands.

Labour's moral compass will not be regained until there is a realisation that there needs to be some form of 'truth and reconciliation' around what it's actions led to. Supine Labour MP's lined up to support the war with their respective Tory cheerleaders in Parliament. So bent is that compass now that Labour deserves to be out of office, yet the alternative leaves a lot to be desired. The only real hope for truth and justice is to support a politician who at the very least is open and honest even when the answers may not sit well with the public. His name is Nick Clegg and his vision is not corroded unlike the Labour Party which played with and squandered the lives of people in far flung places like Iraq. Shame on them and shame on those who supported the absolute destruction of Iraq whilst purpoting to save it.