In message <009c01c2ed8b$61582980$0200a8c0@ELMER>, joe andress
<[log in to unmask]> writes

>But Mr Prouerfoot, you never answered the questions and they have nothing to
>do with implying that is Mr Cook is not a human being.

>Is Mr Cook the first minister to have resigned due to a difference in
>policy?

Indeed not. But perhaps the first so high up, and over a matter so
widely debated by, and of so much immediate concern to, the ordinary
(wo)man in the street.

Robin Cook was Foreign Secretary before the present incumbent, Jack
Straw, and was Leader of the House of Commons when he resigned.

That makes him, if not our Donald Rumsfeld, then our William Cohen at
least.

Can you imagine if the dissent against this manufactured war was being
expressed at that level within the US Government?

>If NOT, them what makes his resignation of so importance over other
>resignations.

Because it's not some arcane matter of party politics. It's a highly
intelligent, well-informed, thoroughly briefed, man at the heart of the
party who thinks, like many of us, that we shouldn't do this.

A movement that saw a million people on the streets of London protesting
about it, a matter that is on everybody's lips all the time, a matter so
pressing there is hardly space to get your TurboImage database question
answered in what is supposed to be a technical computer forum.

And here is a man who thinks it not just so passionately that he is
prepared to sacrifice his career over it, but also so dispassionately
that you know he will have had access to just about every piece of
information Tony Blair has had access to - immeasurably better informed
than any of us - and *still* is so far from convinced that he isn't just
wavering, or going along quietly, or even speaking out as far as he dare
- but who has *quit* over it, because of what he believes in.

Not that Blair hasn't had the cojones to back what *he* believes in - he
has just put his career on the line over all this - 'Back me, or I'll
go'.

(Not that he could back away from the fine mess he has got himself into
by following Bush, any other way of course - but I don't think he sees
it *that* way. He's not looking for a get-out).

<http://www.dailytelegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/03/19/nirq19.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/03/19/ixnewstop.html>

The 'Whips', in case you are wondering, are those officers of the
political parties whose job it is to know what the rank-and-file members
are thinking, especially when dissent is in the air, and with a
combination of stick and carrot, to ensure they toe the party line as
far as is possible. They can be quite persuasive....

He has just (in both senses of the word) secured the backing of
Parliament to send British troops into a war with Iraq. An anti-war
motion was defeated in the Commons by 396 votes to 217, a majority of
179, despite a substantial Labour rebellion.

As many as 139 Labour MPs voted for the rebel amendment, according to
its sponsors.

With a vote of 396 for, 217 against, he was 'backed', technically. But
when you look at the majority that Labour can normally count on, and
when you consider that the Conservatives normally vote against Labour
when there is dissension on policy matters, and yet here many voted
*for* the war, this was the largest parliamentary dissent since the 19th
Century.

A couple of more minor politicians have also resigned, and a couple more
given up office so they could vote against....


I may say, FWIW, that I am not a pacifist of any sort; I was for the war
in the Falklands, for the Gulf War,  and I was for the US action in
Afghanistan after 9/11.

But I am not in favour of this war. It's noteworthy perhaps that Alan
Jackson, in his post-9/11 'Where were you when the world stopped
turning?', the multi-award winning song that seemed to encapsulate the
nation's feelings, could write:

'I'm just a singer of country songs, I'm not a real political man
I watch CNN, but I'm not sure I could tell you
The difference in Iraq and Iran'

a line that didn't seem out of place at the time, but would seem
incongruous now. And yet what has changed? Nothing, it seems to me.

Saddam was a tyrant then, someone the world might be a better place
without, as he is today.

But for that to mean that the US, with or without UN backing, should
march in *right now* (rather than some other time, if any time at all)
and destroy *him* (rather than any other tyrant in the world, like that
perhaps more demonstrable threat to world stability, Kim Jong-Il of
North Korea, or the evil Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe) needs rather more
than a hopped-up student dissertation from the mid-90s.

That they have nothing better than this to show us, I find a tremendous
weakness of the Bush/Blair position. And if they had anything better,
I'm sure wed' get at least a sniff of it; there's no 'secret truth about
Saddam' they have but won't share.

And I'd like to be happy about the aftermath. Even if it's a five-minute
war, because the Iraqi troops can't get their hands up fast enough, and
even help us take out the Palace Guard and Saddam himself without too
much collateral damage, what then? Who or what fills the power vacuum,
and will it be (like Mugabe) a cure worse than the disease?

Will it be good ole US democracy? (I've nothing against democracy - OK,
it's counting heads irrespective of their contents, yet the alternatives
are worse - but there are other models besides the US one). Will it
stabilise or destabilise the Middle East?

Even if we go - and it looks like we will, ho hum - I wish I could be
sure it won't be a turn for the worse....


PLEASE NOTE: The views expressed are mine and mine alone, and all the
better for it, I think. No words were cut and pasted in the construction
of this article, unless I wrote them first, and then moved them to a
better place. One URL was copied and pasted, to facilitate accuracy, and
provide some sources and backgrounds for some of what I say. All facts
and numbers were checked against web sources. Which is not to say those
sources were right, but at least I tried. You guys deserve no less,
though you don't always get it.

--
Roy Brown        'Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be
Kelmscott Ltd     useful, or believe to be beautiful'  Wm Morris

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