Ashamed to be British

After a few hours' work on our allotments my best mate Nosher and I were ready for a relaxing break sitting on our old deck chairs by Nosher's shed, enjoying some sunshine for a change. It wasn't long before a suitable topic of conversation came up.
'Did you watch the Channel 4 Dispatches documentary last night?' Nosher suddenly asked, as if there was something on his mind. 'Iraq - The Lost Generation' he added, by way of being more specific.
'Yes, and it made me feel ashamed to be British' I replied 'to think that in our name millions of Iraqis have been forced to flee their country to live like paupers in Syria and Jordan. What were these idiots Bush and Blair, and their advisers, thinking of when they started this pointless war?'
Nosher looked at me as if my question was that of an imbecile.
'It doesn't take a genius to work it out' he said 'America wanted Iraq's oil, and Blair, ever the sycophant, wanted to bask in the glow of greatness emanating from George W. Bush. Except that only the most self-deceived or deluded of individuals can detect any glow at all coming from George W., unless it's coming from his little mind working overtime trying to think up some phrase that might, in time, actually form part of a comprehensible sentence. And, in any case, none of them were too bothered by the prospect of tens of thousands of Iraqis dying and millions more being consigned to lives of misery and suffering as a result.'
'What was most shameful of all the misery and suffering portrayed in that documentary' I said 'was the situation of the men who had worked as interpreters for the British and who had then, on spurious grounds, been refused asylum here. They are afraid even of their own countrymen, in case the sectarian extremists identify them and execute them.'
Nosher nodded in agreement.
'I too feel ashamed to be British' he said ruefully 'to think that our country poses as the liberator of Iraq and then carelessly discards those Iraqis who risked their lives to help as if they were so much rubbish. How would it hurt Britain to let them have asylum here? And yet the British Government has come up with an arcane set of rules deliberately designed to reject the applications of most of the men who worked as interpreters for us. It really is the most cynical and shameful act of all in a war that has been characterised from the start by cynicism and a lack of compassion for those who are on the receiving end of our supposedly good intentions.'
Nosher sat back in his old deckchair and looked over the neat rows of plants growing on his plot.
Not too far away we could hear the bluetits singing their message of spring over in the willow trees.
'I have absolutely no doubt there are pasty-faced men and women sitting in their comfortable offices in some government building somewhere already fabricating the official 'truth' about Iraq' I said 'making it out to be a great victory on behalf of Western enlightenment, and all the inconvenient facts will be buried or quietly forgotten. Just like all the innocent victims of the stupidity of Bush and Blair and their supporters, who will be consigned to the dustbin of history'.
Nosher did a little of his sage nodding, then said:
'You know, the greatest tragedy of all is that the suffering of others at our hands is so quickly and easily overlooked and forgotten. And that's exactly how the US and UK Governments want it - so much for their high principles.'
More from http://www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com/ soon.
Find out more at http://www.paulsturdee.co.uk/ and
http://www.pgsbooks.co.uk/