Interesting "stuff" from William Rees-Mogg:
We have been told by Sir John Chilcot himself that the Chilcot inquiry is not a trial, and that nobody will be either acquitted or found guilty; we all know that is not true. A public judgment is being made as each section of evidence is given. In particular a quiet judgment has been made of Tony Blair’s conduct. It may never lead to his being tried in any court, but there is nevertheless a public verdict of his responsibility for the British action in Iraq.
It was Mr Blair who was responsible; his evidence shows it. He was the Prime Minister who had won two landslide elections. He could cajole, coax, threaten, anger and flatter to get his own way, a war leader who was the nearest thing to a parliamentary dictator since the wartime Winston Churchill.
These assertions raise the essential point of accountability in a democracy. The electorate by electing/choosing its leaders should bear a lot of the blame for their mistake in judgment. It is too easy not to say what was not heard them or what didn't convince enough politics and media analysts to force a change of actions. The argument isn't that illegalities are justifiable in a democracy because political leaders get elected, but to make the point emphatically that when an act falls in that dangerous and frustrating gray zone, the people must turn the guillotine away from the elected and question their own judgment and the way their elective process and system of government work in those situation. I have the strong suspicion that in both Britain and America, the problem was that there stopped to be any counter powers when it was pompously declared that we were in the age of terror. At that moment, fear ruled and the populace and the elites who wanted to be protected at all costs stopped caring about the morality of the means to achieve what was considered to be the most just of end: their survival.
Thus although it must feel good to hit on Blair, it is more instructive to realize and accept that there is a Blair inside of most of us, that is someone who becomes blinded by the necessity to fight just wars everywhere when they are potential dangers to avoid domestic catastrophes.
Comments