rainy day

I am never wrong! Of course nobody ever really believes that, they fool themselves into thinking that they really do know best.The doubt creeps in when you tell your boss about the terrible food that you must have eaten last night, that has made work absolutely impossible today.At the same time your partner tuts as you put down the phone, you tell yourself you needed a day off and today wasn't really important anyway.When your other half reminds you that it may have been the fact that you got home at 4am, which may be behind your sudden illness, you know in your heart that you are wrong.This is a kind of 'white lie wrong' though, or so you convince yourself.

They say you mellow as you age, a fact that most of us can attest to, the reasons are too numerous to go into here, my own favourite is simply not wanting to get the shit kicked out of me!
Another typhoon is skirting around Hong Kong today, the result being a bit of a washout today-Sunday. We did manage to get out for a bike ride through the villages, along the beach, and up into the hills-as far as you can with a 3 year old, a 6 year old, and Teosdee with stabilizers! We hung out in the rain on the beach for a while, all very pleasant. I measured 36c on my thermometer yesterday, and I took Joseph down to the beach for a swimming lesson, so I was happy to come back home and lie down on the couch with my book and chill out this afternoon.This was the first time since I've been back here that we have had bugger all to do-bliss!
That brings me back to my book. I am still ploughing through this behemoth(page 798 now) as I have already mentioned below.
http://letstryeurope.blogspot.com/2007/09/great-war-for-civilisation.html

As I lay on the couch this afternoon I could no longer deny the fact that I had been trying to ignore for quite a while;

I was one of the few people who agreed with the undertaking of the Iraq war, and I have stated my reasons many times before. I honestly believe that we should use military action to depose rulers who treat their own and other people inhumanely, and I would be quite willing for our armies( those of the international community)to do just that. If a soldier has voluntarily become a soldier, then he must be willing to fulfill the reasoning behind the existence of his profession- to fight. In the world wars soldiers were not given a choice, but that is different now, at least in the west. I digress, as ever;


I was wrong.
Back in 1990. Saddam invaded Kuwait and we sent half a million soldiers to get him out, but a few years before, when he invaded Iran, we did nothing.In fact we provided him with weapons, aircraft and chemical weapons to fight the Iranian regime-who had never made a preemptive, or provocative act against anyone, except it's own people.
The Saudi's at that time made a fatal mistake and allowed the Allied forces to converge, and fight their Iraqi brothers-from Islams holiest land. The Saudis had only ever agreed to the liberating of Kuwait, not the bombing of Baghdad, and there was a large percentage of them that thought the annexation would have been better than the war that followed(including Osama).
A lot is simply Middle Eastern Politics, Saddam said that he would free Kuwait if the Israelis freed the Palestinians.To us in the West that seemed ridiculous, but throughout the Muslim World it seemed perfectly logical-The UN recognizes that Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian land in contravention of international law-as Saddam was doing in Kuwait.To Arabs the question arose-the first question- Why were the international community not upholding the law in Israel?
Jump ahead to 2003.
We were told that there was indisputable evidence that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, we are now learning that this was completely fabricated. Did Tony Blair have an agenda? or was he hoodwinked as I was? It is not possible to believe that the American government were misled, and the president is ultimately responsible.To have given the order he surely should have seen this concrete evidence of wmd's. If he did, what evidence? Who is ultimately responsible for this, the biggest fuck up since, actually ever. At least in Vietnam they were fighting against the threat of Stalinist Communism bankrolled by the Soviets and Chinese.

I was wrong.

It is time to leave, and let the Arab peoples sort out the fucked up mess we have left them with, not for the first time in the last 100 years or so either.And we wonder why they hate us!
The only good thing to come out of this is the death of Saddam, who was a mad despotic crackpot.

I did not see the evidence, I can only believe what my government tells me.At times of war, and regarding the main reason for war you expect to be told the truth. This truth got lost somewhere, and I for one feel angry now.My instinct tells me that the lies came from stateside.Tony Blair, the idiot, before sending our country to war should have demanded to see whatever was needed. I cannot make excuses for George Bush or for that matter for his father, who really does have more to answer for than many believe.

I was wrong, but I am not the one with people's lives in my hands.