The French writer André Gide used to say that nothing destroys an individual or a group like lying does. Fooling yourself and fooling others destroys your intellect. Richard Nixon was forced to resign, not because he ordered for the Democratic Party headquarters to be spied on, but because he lied when he denied that he had done so. Now, official government committees are telling us that George W. Bush and Tony Blair lied. They are also telling us that Dick Cheney and George W. Bush’s clique orchestrated the nuclear lie in Iraq in order to justify the war that led to the destruction of the region.
The British investigative committee did not accuse Blair in a way that he would be prosecuted. It is not fair that those responsible for genocides in the third world are referred to an international court to be tried whilst western leaders who have committed similar genocides are exempt from this. In addition to this, George Bush waged the war that destroyed Iraq without UN approval. Perhaps it was not possible for Britain to renounce its partnership with its closest ally, but Jacques Chirac took a morally courageous stance when he said that the war on Iraq would “open the gates of hell”.
France has paid a heavy price for its opposition to the war, but went down in history as having refused to take part in the financial and political robbery led by the occupation clique in the White House.
The arrogant person and one who is weak lead towards historic ruin. The first because he is not aware of what he hears, and the second because he accepts everything that he hears. George W. Bush is a man who has little insight and is not particularly cultured. Americans were split in the first round, and he did not win except with the help of an ambitious judicial decision. As a candidate, he lost all public examinations. However, the events of September 11 turned everything around in his favour. Instead of looking for Al-Qaeda in Pakistan, he decided to pursue it in Baghdad.
Iraq is still paying the price for the complications, and so is America. During the war in Iraq, an Arab politician told me that there was an international plan to lure terrorists to Iraq so that they could be targeted there! I answered that terrorism is not an organised army that can be invited to a battle on a clear and specific front. I also told him that when Jacques Chirac spoke of “the gates of hell”, he was emphasising the intellectual difference between him and those insistent on opening the “gates of hell”.