Kuwait Diary

Seven Years On

Seven years after the Second Gulf war in Iraq, the suicide bombers are still in action. 61 people were killed yesterday at an army recruitment center. The Al Qaida seems to be making a comeback and Iraq is suffering from an indecisive election which has put pressure on the fault lines between the Shia - Sunni sectarian divide, which the Coalition had little clue of, before the invasion of Iraq despite high profile think tanks advising the Bush-Blair administration.

Tony Blair’s heart is currently bleeding but not enough to melt and Blair’s about to be released book gesture has sparked jeers in Britain. The former Prime Minister’s memoirs, A Journey, are due to be published by Random House on September 1.2010. Tony Blair has announced that he will donate the proceeds from his memoirs to an army charity.

Blair has been bluntly told by his critics that “no proportion of his massive and ill-gotten fortune can buy him innocence or forgiveness”. For Blair, who won three successive general elections, he is finding it virtually impossible to convince the majority of the British people of his good faith in taking the country to war against Iraq. His spokesman announced yesterday that he was donating all the profits from his forthcoming memoirs to a new sports center for injured troops. He was handing over his reported £4.6-million advance, as well as any royalties. A statement on the ex-Prime Minister’s website disclosed: “Tony Blair decided on leaving office that he would donate the proceeds of his memoirs to a charity for the Armed Forces as a way of marking the enormous sacrifice they make for the security of our people and the world.”

The statement added: “We have been consulting with a number of people and organizations to decide the best support he can give. There is one project consistently highlighted — the British Royal Legion’s Battle Back Challenge Center.” The director-general of the Royal British Legion, Chris Simpkins, said the organization was obviously “delighted to accept this very generous donation”.

But the Stop the War Coalition is far from pacified: “The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have resulted in the pointless death of hundreds of British soldiers and hundreds and thousands of innocent civilians. No amount of money will wash their blood from his hands.” Relatives of Iraq war casualties branded the donation “too little too late”.

Rose Gentle, whose son Gordon was killed in 2004, commented: “I don’t think the man has a conscience because he has never apologized. He’s never come out and actually apologized to the families and kids who have lost loved ones. I think he is doing this just now to make people think he has changed his opinion on the forces.”

And thus, Iraq continues as a putrid wound in the collective consciousness, whatever reason might have been given justifying the war. A combination of arrogance and ignorance is indeed deadly, despite feeling of intense remorse years down the line. Or, are they simply crocodile tears? The consequences of death and destruction can never be reversed. Except in fiction, there are no convenient time machines.


Bhaskar
THE QUIET CAT