Paxman Vs Rice

Well, objectively speaking Condeleeza Rice holds her own when confronted by BBC's resident pitbull. Less objectively speaking, it doesn't seem that her arguments hold up that well. We consistently heard and still hear that the 'War on Terror' is an effective war protecting us from 'evil' men who want to harm us. The war in Iraq and it seems the war in Afghanistan are clearly both unwinnable and unending.

The illegal war in Iraq, the subsequent illegal imprisonment and torture of people yet to be deemed guilty in a court of law, the shedding of so much innocent life in foreign lands as well as the blood shed by US and UK soldiers in the unwinnable 'War on Terror' will haunt us all for years and as such these tragedies do not lend themselves to her argument.

Pope John Paul the Great urged both the US and UK administrations to heed his advice against an unjust war in Iraq. He clearly was not convinced by their arguments. Our former UK Prime Minister, clearly still pondering his conversion to the Catholic Faith at the time, listened to the wise words of the heroic and saintly Pontiff and swiftly ignored them and cast them aside in favour of the US President, who it seems, had also already made up his own mind on the matter.

It does seem that the US/UK alliance are very good at pointing out the sins of "terrorists" and "evil men" and "bad" regimes yet so often resort to their methods of fear-mongering, terror and brutal aggression in order to defeat the threat. According to Rice's view, the policies of her administration have saved many of us "innocents" from havoc and terror. That really is impossible to discern. We'll never know whether Guantanamo Bay stopped another terrorist atrocity from hitting London. But are the lives of UK residents and the American people more valuable and "innocent" than the lives of Iraqi men, women and children, still suffering unto this very day from the havoc unleashed at the start of the fatal invasion?

After the debacle of Abu Grahib and the torture methods of waterboarding in Guantanamo Bay, I find it nothing less than miraculous that the majority of the Islamic population of Great Britain have not risen up in arms against the Government.