Pardon doctor who refused to fight Blair’s war
IT ISN’T just politicians and civil servants who are potentially in the firing line in the Chilcot Report — the Armed Forces top brass, who failed to stand up to politicians over the rush to war in Iraq (Mail), should also worry.
The majority of folk in the UK were against the illegal invasion of Iraq, and many marched against it — but all were ignored by Tony Blair, who is now spinning it as having been a plan to remove Saddam when at the time the casus belli was the ‘threat’ of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
Dr David Kelly, who said there were no WMD, conveniently ‘died’.
One military man did refuse to take part in the Iraq war: RAF Flight Lieutenant and doctor Malcolm Kendall-Smith said his conscience prevented him from participating in this illegal act.
He was tried and sentenced to eight months in jail, fined and kicked out of the RAF, in 2006, for disobeying orders.
His trial was in direct contravention of precedents set at the Nuremberg war criminal trials, where German defendants were told that a defence of ‘I was only obeying orders’ was not allowed.
This means, quite clearly, that if they thought they had been told to commit illegal acts, they should have refused to obey them, as Dr Kendall-Smith did. He should be pardoned and his name exonerated — and Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell arrested.
WILLIAM NEIL, Reading. VOTERS might go to the polls in May without knowing the official Chilcot verdict on one of Britain’s most disastrous military ventures (Mail), but the British public are neither naive nor stupid.
The mere fact that this report has been delayed for so long tells us there’s chicanery afoot.
With the revelation that the most important details — the correspondence between Tony Blair and George Bush — are being rigorously edited so that only ‘quotes’ or ‘gists’ from Blair will be included and none of Bush’s comments at all, we automatically assume that the purpose of this is to hide the truth when, eventually, the report is published.
This makes a mockery of the whole time-consuming and costly process: there’s no point in an inquiry unless it’s allowed to publish the whole truth in full.
The British public can read between the lines. I suspect many people, like me, feel that Messrs Bush and Blair should be facing the International Criminal Court.
No wonder we’ve lost faith in politicians of all colours, their civil servants and spin-doctors.
GINA WATSON, Orgiva, Spain.
The loan arrangers
IT’S not true that there is no alternative to PFI for building new hospitals (Letters). The Public Works Loans Board provides an alternative source of finance which — on a straightforward comparison of figures — is always significantly cheaper than PFI.
However, the resultant increase in public sector borrowing would embarrass politicians who have promised the opposite — and that would never do, would it?
CHRIS HAGGETT, Warrington.
Party pressures
SNOWBOARDING? Tobogganing? Snow tubing at a ski centre (Mail)? This confirms for me what I sadly concluded years ago: children’s parties have gone off the scale in terms of competition.
I’m in my 50s and can remember every childhood party I was given or attended. I raced home in anticipation, ran into my mum and dad’s front room, to see — oh joy! — a lovely spread with sandwiches, jellies, squash and a cake with candles. Balloons, too! We all played blind man’s buff, ticky-it, hide and seek and pass the parcel. And these beautiful parties were all held in our front rooms.
We had little money, but these parties were among the happiest of our childhood days — just a bunch of children having a smashing and safe afternoon.
I fear it’s too late to bring back such times, and parents will now feel pressured into spending huge sums on silly, competitive extravaganzas which have become status symbols rather than simple, happy occasions. BERNADETTE BIRCHALL,
Manchester.
Picnic in Paris
THE high security in Paris these days is in marked contrast to when we went on holiday to France in our Dormobile with our daughters aged five and seven, in 1975.
It was easter, and we toured around Normandy, Le Touquet, Deauville and Honfleur, sleeping in the van wherever we found a convenient verge.
At one point we decided to visit Paris and arrived early in the morning. Parking under the eiffel Tower, we had a look around, but it was too expensive to go up the tower, so we put the van roof up and had breakfast.
Our food supplies were low: all we had were some baguettes, butter and a tin of John West kippers, but we made tea with our whistling kettle, boiled the kippers and enjoyed our breakfast. Forty years ago, we had the freedom to do this: can anyone imagine doing it today?
I doubt if you are allowed to park anywhere near the eiffel Tower — and certainly not picnic under it! JEAN MARIANNE ANDREWS,
Shrewley, Warwickshire.
Checkout protest
APPALLED by the immoral, bullying, unscrupulous tactics employed by Tesco against their suppliers got me thinking: what if its customers loaded up their trolleys, went through the checkout, bagged their purchases and then, when asked to pay, demanded a 20 or 30 per cent discount off the bill?
Then, if it’s not given, they just walked away, leaving Tesco with the inconvenience of having to sort it all out. I’m sure there’s a shoppers’ group somewhere who could organise it so their members all reached the front of the queues in the same shop at the same time and employed this tactic.
E. JONES, Watford.
All you need is love
WHY do pundits, priests and politicians, when condemning Islamist fundamentalism, invariably condemn Christian fundamentalism at the same time?
Islamic fundamentalists can refer, quite rightly, to both the teachings and life of Muhammad to justify their actions.
On the other hand, no one could possibly read the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapters 5, 6 and 7 or look at the life of Jesus and draw any comparison with the inhuman actions of today’s extremists. Jesus gave a new commandment: that we love one another as He has loved us, and that included giving His life for us all, even when we were enemies and alienated from God.
I recall reading about missionaries to North Africa who showed these particular words of Jesus to the local religious leaders. They responded: ‘These are the words of God, they cannot be the words of man, but tell us, where are the people who live by these words?’
Unfortunately, there are too few Christian fundamentalists to show a true comparison. Pastor MERVYN DOUGLAS, Clevedon Family Church,
North Somerset.
Question of religion
I WONDER how many Ofsted inspectors have been to Muslim schools to ask pupils what a Christian or a Roman Catholic is and what their religion teaches.
I would imagine they would get pretty much the same answers as the pupil at Durham free school replied about Muslims.
Of course the child mentioned terrorism: it’s splashed all over the newspapers and TV.
B. LAW, Freshwater, Isle of Wight.
Fun with The Sun
THe late Brian Redhead and I wrote those 1973 jokes about newspaper readers which yes, Prime Minister featured (Mail).
Our original satire on The Sun was more biting than the version by some later hand which was popularised and which Sarah Vine quotes.
We wrote: ‘Mr Murdoch has found a gap in the market. It’s the oldest gap in the world.’
Later, when the Daily Star began, Brian rang me and asked: ‘What shall we say about the readers of this one?’
I told him: ‘They defy scripture. They have found something new under The Sun.’ KEVIN GRANT, Swindon, Wilts.