Heartland

So, what do we think?

Initial reactions? "About bl@@dy time" and "what we long suspected".

Yup. Takes 7 years to find out that the Pope is indeed a Catholic.

Anyway, here's the link to it for those who want to read it (or the executive summary, at least) ...

http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/the-report/

...in other news...water is wet.

Seven years for this.
& you know what the worst part is? Nothing will change at all.

Did anyone exppect that such reports, in such cases, are going to change a thing?

While it says what we all knew to be true, at least it's saying it, and saying it publicly and officially. That, surely, is a good thing.

Although how it manages to be two and a half million pages beggars belief.

stufarq wrote:Although how it manages to be two and a half million pages beggars belief.

Yeah, but after 7 years it would be a bit naff to have handed the Speaker a post-it with the words, "Wow, we fucked up big-time," wouldn't it? I read as far as page 1,216,497, and last sentence just trails off - the remaining pages are just word-searches, doodles, and pictures of kittens*.

*shamelessly stolen from Bill Bailey's analysis of A Brief History of Time.

Yeah, I think after seven years some people might have had a problem with a thirty minute keynote presentation.
It had better have pictures though!

I suppose we ought to be grateful that he didn't put it on Powerpoint and then read.through.each.slide. There is a special circle of hell reserved for these people.

EvilBastard wrote:I suppose we ought to be grateful that he didn't put it on Powerpoint and then read.through.each.slide. There is a special circle of hell reserved for these people.

Turns out the news report I saw earlier got a bit over-excited. Two and a half million words, not pages.

nothing we didn't know already, but as Stu says the fact that the truth is now official is something; especially for the families of the servicemen and women killed or injured in iraq. at least it didnt take as long as the hillsborough report. calls for blair to face charges for war-crimes will of course come to nothing but he did squirm quite nicely for 2 hours in his speech regarding the findings. you aint going to get much more than that i'm afraid.

I had half expected a whitewash, so there is that

Bartek wrote:Did anyone exppect that such reports, in such cases, are going to change a thing?

Not yet, apparently, as currently mainly African perpetrators are really held responsible for their acts and orders.

But further determined support of the ICC might change that one day, so that leaders worldwide think twice before starting any military action.

@Being645:


And let not forget that victirous one never paid a price. I would like to see that politicians doing such things, starting wars that caused such terrrible consequences not only to soldiers and their families, relatives and close to them, but for society; i mean, afterall Iraq started what we now see as Daesh, in Paris, Brussels and so, it's all have source there. Of course not that Saddam Hussey (intended!) was nice guy, but for fuck sacke, World tolerates/tolerated and will be tolerate many other countries rulled in almost the same way. It's just a matter of economy and business.

Tis all reminds my a bit of Polanski's "Ghost writer".

This
War
Is
Wrong

saddam did a damned sight better job of maintaining order than anyone since, and probably killed or caused killed less people. regime change (by outside agencies) is not the way for these situations to be sorted.

That's true, US of A foreign policy was (is?) based of phantasmagoria or parallax that if you thrown dictators and install pro-western puppets everyging will sort out. Same was in Libya, Egypt and Syria. That's just fine way to start culture war on grand scale.

On which note: hands up to invade Syria.

Now they "learned" their lesson. Besides, now so~called ISIS is a problem, not Syria.

Bartek wrote:That's true, US of A foreign policy was (is?) based of phantasmagoria or parallax that if you thrown dictators and install pro-western puppets everyging will sort out. Same was in Libya, Egypt and Syria. That's just fine way to start culture war on grand scale.

See also: The Shah in Iran, Pinochet in Chile, the Contras in Nicaragua, just to name three off the top of my head

Yes, I'm aware of that, not just Nicaragua, but Central America as whole.
But i was reffering to something more recent.