I haven’t finished the Chilcot Report yet. I’ve read 386 words, just 2,672,481 left then I’ll know everything there is to know about the Iraq war and Britain’s part in it. Oh, except what really was going through Tony Blair’s mind at the time which no-one but TB will ever really know. And as its the only question worth asking, I think my time would be better spent reading 2 million oddd words learning all the goalscorers from all the FA Cup finals since the competition began. Or the complete works of Shakespeare. I don’t even know 2 million words. Unless you can include swear words. I know loads’a them.

I feel for the 179 families who lost soldiers in that war. I really do. Every night on the news when they showed pictures of lovely young men (usually), holding babies, who’ll never now know them, with brides, who are now widows, it was awful. Just awful. Waste of life. Tragedy.

And yet…

You’re a soldier. You carry a gun and you fight others who do likewise. You face an enemy. You take yourself to very dangerous places. Because you’re told to. And if nothing else, you obey orders. Its not like being an accountant. Its not really like anything. Its the armed forces. And thus death is something that is both consciously and unconsciously there at all times. It is a high risk job. That, for many, is the very appeal that made them sign up in the first place.

And if you’re soldier you go to war. And if you go to war you may get killed.

I don’t think the moral arguments against starting any particular war are relevant to the deaths, however horrible they may be, that result from it.The army says ‘go in’, then in ya go. Wars are always stupid. Always due to someone’s perception of ‘the greater good’, however ill-thought or misguided that may be. And its safe to say that no war has been either as ill-thought or misguided as that one. You can’t just topple governments because you don’t like them. And if you do, having an exit strategy is normally a good thing. Assuming that everyone in the world wants, craves and will be greatly improved by the addition of democratic values is as stupid as it is narrow-minded. Arguably the most undemocratic thing you can do is thrust democracy on people who don’t want it.

The war was wrong, for a million reasons. It left total disaster in the middle-east, that we now call ‘ISIS’, a far worse evil than Sadam could ever be and much much greater threat to the rest of the world. And Tony Blair was wrong, either for the right reasons or the wrong reasons, he was just fucking wrong to start it. And still I can’t find it to hold him personally responsible for the deaths of those lovely young soldiers who could have died anywhere.

Happy reading

A xxxx