Last year our army invaded Iraq to seize weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) that weren't there. I don't need to tell you what this cost Iraqis and us.
It seemed unlikely WMDs would be there. The UN inspectors doubted it. It seemed less likely they threatened us, or that Iraq intended them to. But the Prime Minister assured us he knew -- and we didn't -- WMDs were there, and that they threatened us. “Trust me,” he said.
It wasn't true. It now appears either he knew that or, with our intelligence services, that he could and should have known that. It seems he either lied to us or was deliberately reckless on this very grave matter.
We could step over it. We could say by inaction Lie to us, we don't mind really. You probably had a good reason. Tell us what you like; there are no consequences.
Or we could insist the government answer for what it said. If Blair had good cause to sound the alarm over Iraq, let it be shown, and we can remove the suspicion that our leaders lie to us as they please.
Do be clear. This isn't about whether invading Iraq was a Good Idea. That is an issue; but it's another issue. The Prime Minister didn't ask us to support invasion as a Good Idea, but to remove an imminent threat to us. It looks like he was lying.
Don't tolerate being lied to, or even the appearance of it. Support the call for a full judicial inquiry to establish the facts. Use this link:
» www.ourworldoursay.org
Whole and integral: Jane Pinckard on prime number birthdays
Hats off to Hunicke for her blog Gewgaw, where Robin Hunicke writes about life and computer gaming, on which she's writing a thesis over there in the Windy City. At Gewgaw, you can find her rogues gallery of women in geek advertising. (But Robin, isn’t that what we see you doing?)
But Dhalgren is a life-changing book. I remember a friend of mine in Australia introducing me as “the man who introduced him to Dhalgren.”
Reading Delany's early work introduced me to that of his ex-wife, Marilyn Hacker, no longer obscure. In the early 70s she used to run a stall in the Chelsea Book Fair round the corner from where I was working. I still buy all her books, though it's the early work I keep by heart.
It is a privilege to learn a language
a journey into the immediate
In this novel, Hornby confronts the Good Joe Theory. We all believe ourselves to be Good Joes, even Good Joes who occasionally do Bad Things. No one more so than his heroine Katie, who works as a doctor in North London, and is sure she is a better person than her husband David, who writes a column for a local newspaper as The Angriest Man in Holloway. David and Katie think liberal, vote New Labour and worry about Blair at dinner parties. They also do Good Things like donate to a homeless charity by standing order and this, together with her work as a doctor, suffices to assure Katie of her status as a good person.
Katie's belief in herself as a good person is confronted in the opening paragraph, as she finds herself in a carpark in Leeds, on a mobile phone to her husband, asking for a divorce. She had thought that she was not the kind of person to do that. Particularly in a car park and over a mobile phone. But apparently she is. Her belief starts seriously to come apart when David's character changes after meeting a spiritual healer. I’m a liberal’s worst nightmare, he reflects, I don’t just talk the talk, I walk it. As David starts to take immediate and personal action to look after the homeless, Katie is confronted by the discrepancy between the person she is and the person she thinks she is. Brutally funny, Hornby resists an easy resolution. A difficult story to end, and equally difficult to put down before the very last page.
The War on Error In Terror’s Mask, a paper written in the winter of 2001-2002, Michael Vlahos (Joint Warfare Analysis Department, Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University) argued that the West deeply misunderstands the issues in the ‘War on Terror’.
Terror’s Mask—in contrast—sought to show that what is called terrorism is deeply religious, even theological, in motivation. Instead of moving to Western notions about “sources of conflict”, Muslim radicals move to uniquely Islamic rhythms of History.
Vlahos has now written a commentary reviewing the original paper in the light of the subsequent invasion and occupation of Iraq.
»Terror’s Mask PDF 5Mb
» Commentary MS Word 50Kb
Down here in Shoreham-by-Sea this weekend with my lovely sister Jo Taylor. She and her man
My predictions for 2004 Begin the year with washing up, then coffee, lots of it. A dozen of us saw the new year in, including Diana & Ed Young, whom I hadn't seen for 3 years. To bed at 5am, with six for breakfast.
Diana stills trains occasionally at the Chun Do Sun Bup London training centre I helped establish five years ago; now, I hear, rebranded as Ki International. She tells me it has 150 students training regularly, which would make it one of the largest centres, and is moving to larger premises. Moreover, I hear Masters Oh and Jo are both back in town; I must drop in to say hello.
Last night at the Royal Festival Hall with Miki to see the Moscow Stanislavsky Ballet perform The Nutcracker. Perfect seasonal confectionery; Miki asleep on my shoulder on the big red 24 bus home.