cosy fireside chat with a war criminal
Submitted by antarchi on April 12, 2009 - 02:02
see her reply below
Dear Joan Bakewell
I could not bring myself to listen to your interview, although I had intended to. So I am limited to writing to you about the fact that you thought it appropriate in any way to run it - plus the fact that I clearly did not miss anything 'new' (as I had suspected), or this would have been reported in the 'news'.
I have little to say, except that my disgust at the BBC has plumbed new depths. As has my shame in front of those whose lives we have wrecked and whose country we have blown to pieces, and whose children, and no doubt children of children, we have traumatised and orphaned and forced to flee from their homes. That 'we' should have committed a war of aggression - the 'supreme international crime' should make us hang our heads in front of the Iraqis for ever. But we did more, even, than this: we attacked although we knew we were not under threat, we did so by means of deliberate deception, deliberate falsification of what the security services and weapons inspectors were saying, and we then went on to plunder the country and award the supreme prize to our own oil companies rather than allowing the Iraqis to use it themselves - to repair the damage that we had done. That you can feel no shame for this, but are happy to interview one of the chief architects of this crime (and even Kofi Annan has called it an illegal war), to send a message to the Iraqis that we revere this man, this former Prime Minister, and we believe that his beliefs are worth listening to and publicising - that beggars my belief. I do not begin to understand what it must take to be able to do so.
So I cannot hope that my sentiments will be understood by you. But I would like them to be recorded.
antarchi
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You obviously don't know that the remit of the Belief series - which has been running for 5 years now - is to allow people the space to expound their religious beliefs. Tony Blair's religious beliefs underpinned the invasion of Iraq. I think that alone makes it worth paying attention to what he has to say.
Yours
Joan Bakewell
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Dear Joan
Yes, I am familiar with the remit of the Belief series. I am a regular Radio 3 listener. You obviously did not read - or more likely wish to understand - my criticism, which was to do with the suitability of interviewing someone who has been responsible for (at least) the crime of starting a war of aggression. I personally believe that this outweighs the importance of the remit of a series which has been running for 5 years. Unfortunately for Tony Blair, that his religious beliefs underpinned the crime of aggression will not exonerate him in a court of law.
I wonder whether you would feel it appropriate to interview Bin Laden for your series. His beliefs have also underpinned his crimes.
Yours
Ellie
no-one else seems bothered
Almost every comment on the BBC's 'Religion and Ethics' message board (and there are few enough who even bother to respond) thinks he is an interesting guy and what a good idea it is to talk to war criminals about their faith. My last message is probably what I wanted to say to JB - except that I had already said it somewhere else.
So 'Smittims' asks:
And my reply is that...
It's not just that I don't agree with it personally, it is that I do not think it appropriate, right, ethically acceptable - and as a licence payer and a citizen of the country which elected this man as leader, I regard it as important to register that disapproval. I feel deeply ashamed in front of the Iraqis whose lives and families have been destroyed as a result of this country's actions, that we continue to treat those most directly responsible for the war as people we respect, whose views are worth listening to. I regard it as one more smack in the face for the victims of the war. And I have to admit to being very surprised that on an 'ethics and religion' message board, so few appear to be concerned with the ethics of this man's actions, or with their consistency with the religion about which he is due to speak.
I wonder how those on this message board evaluate the following.
1. A war of aggression was waged. We, and the US, were not under imminent threat, as some of the quotes from specialists which I have included below (message ) indicate. There are numerous other statements which I could provide.
2. The Nuremberg Charter, UN Charter, and other international treaties to which we are parties declare a war of aggression to be a crime. It is illegal to wage a war of aggression.
3. Those campaigning to take us into war - foremost among them, TB himself - made false statements about the threat that we were facing, despite recommendations from the security services (and others) that this did not represent the situation properly. Those false statements allowed the media (which accepted them almost unquestioningly) to propagate a state of fear among citizens; and they allowed the vote in the House of Commons to pass (many MPs have since said that they would not have voted for the invasion had they had the correct information).
4. The results of the war have been more terrible than any of us on this comfortable isle could ever imagine. Iraq has lost not the 179 (military) casualties which we have lost in this war, not ten times that, nor 100, but closer to 10,000 times that figure. That is more, probably, than were killed in the Rwanda genocide. It is about 1,000 times the number that were killed in Kosovo in the year leading up to Nato's invasion. And there are 4-5 million more civilians - innocent people, women, children, elderly citizens, invalids - who have been forced to leave their homes and everything they owned, and who are now living as refugees.
This is a huge number of deaths, a huge number of civilian deaths, a huge number of destroyed lives, families, livelihoods, and decades of trauma to follow. Is this not an ethical question? A religious question?
What would we have made of the Serbian media who continued to 'interview' Milosevic about his faith, or beliefs? What did we make of interviewers in Iraq who continued to provide a platform for Saddam to broadcast his ideals or ideology? Those interviewers were even to be excused - because to refuse to do so might have been to put their own lives in danger. I am astonished that more people in this country do not feel deep shame and anguish for what we have brought upon the Iraq people, already collectively punished by the preceding decade of sanctions. I am astonished that we see nothing wrong in offering opportunities for those most responsible for what was almost certainly an illegal act of war to parade their spirituality and put themselves forward as respectable, thinking, ethical leaders.