A Period Of Silence From Pakistan’s Man In London Would Be Welcome

Tony Blair – Be Thankful For His Action On Iraq

“An ambassador is an honest man sent abroad to lie for his country,” said Henry Wotton. Someone should tell Pakistan High Commissioner Wajid Shamsul Hasan that there is an implied “sensibly” in that quote, and then maybe he will desist from insulting our intelligence with his utterances on the Pakistan cricket bribery scandal. He sounds like a professional victim when he tries to claim that the three cricketers alleged to have taken money to bowl wides have been set up. At a time when his country is desperately seeking charity donations to bail out its unfortunate people struck by the floods, his hubris will likely cost lives, as his downright silly thoughts on this subject alienate would-be donators to Pakistan’s cause.

Treat Flood Victims With Respect
    There is another disturbing feature arising from news coverage of the floods in Pakistan. Why is it necessary to drive up in a truck full of relief supplies, then just throw the contents at the poor, starving unfortunates? Surely it wouldn’t take too much effort to treat them with respect and dignity, and ensure that the weakest get their fair share?

Tony Blair’s Pre-Emptive Strike
    Tony Blair has taken a lot of flak from his memoirs, and I would challenge anyone who said they loathed him more than I do. But there is one aspect of his policy that needs defending – Iraq. There is no doubt that without action from the U.S., Britain and NATO, Saddam Hussein would still be in power, causing mayhem in the area, rewarding suicide bombers in Israel, and killing and oppressing his people. By now he would be further down the road in acquiring weapons of mass destruction. It’s not our fault that when freed from Saddam’s rule, the people of Iraq showed themselves to be uncivilized and stupid in the extreme, with the burst of inter-religious killing and maiming that went on. Now, things have settled down a bit, and there is a chance that something resembling an open, liberal society will emerge. Where Blair went wrong is when he dissembled to Parliament that the mission led by the U.S. wasn’t about regime change, but weapons of mass destruction removal.

That’s the trouble with a justified act of pre-emption. What would you rather have; politicians that waited for the act of aggression which might cost thousands of innocents their lives? Or brave ones which take early action to nip that in the bud? If Hitler had been stopped in the mid-1930s, it would have been impossible to predict the awfulness of the outcome of leaving him in power.