Iraq, Not In My Name

On 12th anniversary of toppling Saddam

In February 2003, one of the most hypocritical gatherings in humankind’s history took place in London. Millions took advantage of Britain’s freedom and democracy, marching through the streets to ask that the government deprive Iraqi people of those very values, that themselves enjoy.  They marched under the most narcissistic, self centred and revealing of slogans: ‘Not in My Name.’

The 2003 march brought all sorts to the capital: from seasoned lefty’s protestors to Daily Mail readers and everyone in between.

Indicative of this mentality was the fact that alongside the Not in My Name placards was another which read ‘No War – Freedom for Palestine’.

In joining the antiwar bandwagon, they managed to contradict many of their own supposedly deeply held values.  As they sat around their dinner tables during the previous six years, many of these people had railed against Tony Blair for his obsession with spin.  They accused him of having no backbone or principles.  They sniggered at his use of focus groups, when they wondered would he stop seeking approval for everything he did.

In an amusing moment of getting totally the wrong end of the stick, a Guardian columnist described the war as ‘a crushing blow to democracy’.

Yes, he had, and he wanted to make sure Iraqi children have to hear of it too.  With Iraq, Blair threw out of the window his obsession with spin, approval and short-term gains.  In doing so, Britain’s youngest-ever prime minister truly came of age as a leader and a man.  Blair knew that his stance on Iraq was never going to reap electoral dividends.  He demonstrated all manner of qualities that he had previously only shown in spasms: he was steadfast, courageous and self-sacrificing.  None of these qualities is one that the modern hypocrites possess to any significant degree at all; no wonder they were so puzzled by Blair’s action.

These people demanded more democracy at home in order to prevent the Iraqis getting any democracy at all.  They took advantage of their right to march in protest against a government policy in order to prevent Iraqis from ever being able to express any protest whatsoever against their dictator’s policies.  Because, make no mistake about it that was the natural conclusion of their wishes.

We were told that you could not force democracy and freedom on people, especially on Arab countries; taking such a hideous, racist argument to its conclusion.  It could be argued, that not since the far right marched through the streets of East London had the capital seen such a public demonstration of whites-first sentiment.  However, at least the far right had the honesty and self-awareness to admit to themselves and others where their racist priority lay.  Hell will freeze over before any of the antiwar bunches are as honest about their own wicked manifesto.  How ironic too that the antiwar drum was beaten so loudly by ‘groovy’ comedians.  How long did these clowns think they would survive as comedians and filmmakers in Saddam’s Iraq before the dictator tortured them to death?

Iraq was a colossally huge and important issue.  The natural consequences of both sides of the argument came with a horrendous price to pay. The pro-war side had to accept that, there would be loss of civilian life if they had their way; while the antiwar side had to accept that Saddam Hussein, leader of the Baath party, whose Syrian founder, ‘originally Greek’ was heavily influenced by Nazism, would remain in power if they had theirs.

The consequences of the antiwar movement’s demands would also mean that Taliban would still be in charge in Afghanistan, flogging to death any woman caught without a burka and executing any woman who tried to get an education after the age of eight.  Saddam Hussein would still be terrorising and torturing 80% of the Iraqis and would be several steps closer to acquiring those nukes he was negotiating with North Korea.

Hypocrites worldwide have had a field day with the Iraq war.  Hollywood is full of play-acting opponents of the heroic Anglo-American unseating of Saddam who seem to have difficulty relating personal behaviour to political posturing. These ceaseless celebrity critics, of the West’s intervention against tyranny, did sum up well.  The ill-sorted mindset of those self-proclaimed freedom lovers who paradoxically believe that fascist dictators should be allowed to murder as many of their people as they wish, while the rest of the world looks the other way as it happened in 1980s & 1990s to Kurds & Shiit Arabs in Saddam’s Iraq

It was during this first intervention against the Baathist Nazis that the West stupidly held back from going all the way and unseating Saddam, for fear of offending ‘Muslim Pride’.  What a strange pride it is, that can better stand thousands of Muslims being murdered by a Muslim dictator than see them live, liberated from him by the Infidel!.  Nevertheless, of course, Islamic pride is not alone here; the Hollywood antiwar hypocrites would prefer it if their golden boy was still there today – unmolested by the heavy hand of democracy – raping, torturing, and murdering as the fancy took them.

Saddam and his chums would cut the clits off the female Hollywood hypocrites soon as looked at them.

These people talked, in such stark selfish terms – ‘What did Iraq do to us?’  Well, if you say, what did Saddam’s Iraq do to rich white American film stars, not an awful lot but to thousands upon thousands of innocent Iraqis, torture, murder, and genocide, for start.  In addition, every one of the innocent victims of the Baathist terror was someone’s child, someone’s sister or brother, someone’s mother or father.  Someone’s worth fighting for, the Iraqi Civilians.

Civilians are, of course, what actors call non –actors.  They were the real people who suffered.

 Extracts from Julie Burchill & Chas Newkey-Burden’s book, ‘Not in My Name.’  Page 42 – 53 published in Great Briton by Virgin Books 2008.

In the view of Antiwar Movement, what happened after toppling Saddam and civil war all caused by Bush & Blair supposedly illegal war?  Saddam’s regime owed Russia, China & France billions of dollars, that was why they did not back any UN resolution to topple him.  As if these anti-war people were ignorant of thirty-five years of the Baathist regime’s inhuman policies of corrupting, marginalising and dehumanising over 80% of Iraqi people.  A despotic regime that considered anyone who did not support them was their enemy.  A mad dictator who would kill anyone even from his own clan and family suspected to be his foe, or even for a slightest criticism of his regime.

We all know that putting together different peoples, nations, sects and religions was not going to work if not with an iron fist.  As from the founding of Iraq and many other newly created regimes in the Middle East and many others. The intentionality of the colonial powers was behind these wars and chaos.

Besides whatever the West have done in the past, or in the twenties century,  the West held the anchor of respecting human rights, freedom at least to a degree, where their interest lied that no other superpower would have been able to do, or ever wanted to achieve.  For example, demolishing of the Ottoman Empire, defeating the Nazi Hitler, bringing down the Soviet Empire, and communism, that was fooling half of the world as the saviour of the oppressed.   Without the West, the world would remain in the stone age of kill & plunder, as Arabs who conquered and plundered half of the world in the name of Islam, and the Spaniards’ Christians wiped civilisations off the surface of South American continent.

Because of these dictators, any parts of Middle East had no space to breathe any fresh air of freedom, human rights and democracy.  The regime was brutalising most of the Iraqi people, and caused two wars and was a threat to many others. Therefore, the car bombs, the militia groups created by ex Saddam’s people and the neighbouring regimes, either had fear of; and were not familiar with the concept of democracy and respecting human rights.  It was a stark fact of life, that during the Baathist’ reign, there was a continuous suffering and a hidden war in Iraq that so-called marchers of antiwar thought had legitimacy to ignore.