The church of Saint John's on Princes Street often features some thought-provoking and satirical paintings commenting on current events. Since recent weeks have seen ministerial resignations from both the Edinburgh and London parliaments over the controversial plans by Blair to start work on a successor to the Trident nuclear missile submarines it seemed and appropriate time to post this. I find it bitterly humorous the way Blair pushes this through parliament - only with the help of Tory votes since so many of his own party refused to back it, my how proud he must be - to plan for a new force of nuclear missile submarines while at the same time attacking Iran and Korea for their attempts to build atomic weapons and after dragging us into an illegal war which was supposedly to destroy Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction. Just who the hell are we supposed to 'deter' with this force? With British soldiers being injured or killed due to shortages of helicopters and personal armour shouldn't we spend some money there instead of billions on new nukes which do nothing? Has anyone explained to the Prime Minister that the Cold War ended some time ago and the world situation is a bit different today?
I remember from political discussions in the early 1990s the point being made that the nuclear situation had become more dangerous, not less, with the end of the stabilising - if terrifying - influence of the Cold War. How you quantify that is another matter, but it certainly seems plausible.
ReplyDeleteWhich doesn't undermine the argument for unilateralism. As someone said, the terrible notion is not that the Bomb should be dropped on us, but that we should think of dropping it on anyone else.
I was pleased to see Nigel Griffiths resigning his post - I met him a while back, and while I thought he was clever and able, I didn't get the impression he was particularly principled. I didn't think he'd do something like this, and I'm glad to be proved wrong.
Also glad to see Iran criticising Britain's decision to retain and upgrade Trident as being a threat to world security. As a piece of inspired cheekiness, it doesn't quite rate up there with Castro's offer to send 300 impartial observers to monitor elections in Florida.
The older I get the harder it gets to trust any form of government. It's all so fucking senseless and stinks of hypocrisy.
ReplyDeleteIt is so sad hear to see the covers of newspapers showing tearful goodbyes - soldiers leaving for their 3rd tour of duty in Iraq. I do respect that Americans have gone out of their way to show support for our troops, but not the war. It's such an awful mess and unfortunately it is making us all look like assholes.
Thanks for the last comment - very much appreciated!
xoxox