Mike Westbrook Feature

It's all a bit depressing recently. If you are in need of Love and Songs, here's Mike Westbrook's Love Song No.1.

Just Another Day In Iraq

He says he can pinpoint the root of his problems back to an incident in Basra in the first month of the Iraq invasion, seven years ago. "We were told to hit and clear an enemy building," says Dale. "The tanks opened up on the building and we went in, firing, throwing grenades in every room. We thought there was no one firing back because of the weight of fire. But when we got in there, it wasn't an enemy building, it was just a normal family. There were about seven of them in total. Dead children lying all over the floor." It was 27 March, 2003, his 33rd birthday.

As platoon sergeant he had to clear the casualties: "I really struggled hard with it. We were always told that we had to go in gently, not to injure any civilians. Me and the corporal got together afterwards and we knew what we'd done was wrong. But you tried not to talk about it."

My conclusion is that this victim of the Iraq debacle still doesn't understand his own part in it. Full story here.

Blair 'Legacy' Crumbling By The Day

Poor old Tone. He is even execrated for winning awards as per my previous post and the chorus of derision in just about every Sunday newspaper in the UK yesterday. Now it emerges he is costing us taxpayers £250K a year for his personal security. I'll tell you what - he won't be very secure, 250K or not, if he ever comes along my street.

Blair Cleans Up At Awards - Satire, RIP

Soon after masterminding the U.S. bombing of Cambodia Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973. At the time the American satirist Tom Lehrer announced there was no further point in his job. 'It was at that moment that satire died,' he declared. 'There was nothing more to say after that.' If there was any breath left in satire's frail old lungs after Kissinger's peace prize, it was finally snuffed out yesterday when the National Constitution Center of the United States awarded its coveted annual Liberty Medal to Tony Blair for his 'steadfast commitment to conflict resolution'. The centre chose to add our former Prime Minister to its roll of honour - which includes Nelson Mandela and the scientists who cracked the DNA code - on the day after the declassification of the official advice he received on the legality of invading Iraq. The documents show that less than two months before the 2003 invasion, Attorney General Lord Goldsmith wrote to him about the relevant UN Security Council resolution, saying: 'I remain of the view that the correct legal interpretation of resolution 1441 is that it does not authorise the use of military force without a further determination by the Security Council.' Blair underlined the bit about not authorising action, and wrote in the margin: 'I just don't understand this.' Of course, Blair understood perfectly well that his government's chief law officer was telling him it would be illegal to invade Iraq without a new UN resolution. A few other Blair contributions to 'liberty' :

Eroding the independence of the Civil Service with 'Specialist Advisers' with the job of spinning facts and figures to suit the Government's purposes.

The stangulation of Cabinet government to be replaced with sofa government and leaks to the media.90-day detention.

Championing ID cards and the ContactPoint database, which holds information on all our children.

His government introduced section 44 of the Terrorism Act, under which 5,000 people a week are being stopped and searched, with not a single terrorist caught.

And the U.S. National Constitutional Center really thinks Blair worthy of its Liberty Medal?

Satire, R.I.P.