Like Blair, this inquiry is imperialist. Dusky natives have no voice or representation
By Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
The Independent
".....They should also have had in some of those exiled Kurds and Iraqis who backed Blair and Bush (some for personal gain) and questioned them on the backroom advice they were giving and why. We needed to know just who has benefited in material terms from this "freedom" mission. Who wantonly looted historical treasures? Who got oil and reconstruction contracts? What do we know of the Iraqis now in power who thank Blair for his generous intervention? As ever, brown sahibs are always on hand to serve the interests of Empire makers and they too, like their masters, get away with it because they must.
There will be no truth or justice for Iraq. The book is done. Perhaps, as a small gesture of contrition, the Chilcot panel should put this verse from Dante Gabriel Rossetti's "The One Hope", on the front page of their report:
'When vain desire at last and vain regret
Go hand in hand to death, and all is vain,
What shall assuage the unforgotten pain
And teach the unforgetful to forget?' "
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