I confess I do not understand why, as I write this, our RAF fighter jets are bombing Libya and our UK submarine is launching missiles. Mr Cameron is convinced that it is the right thing to do and he keeps telling us that. The aim is to destroy the tanks and weapons of war that we sold to Colonel Gadaffi just a few years ago. A pity really that we didn't just take all those armaments and put them in a field near Salisbury and blow them up saving us the bother of exporting them and the risk to civilian life. But, of course, we wanted the money for them, didn't we, Mr Tony Blair? So, forgive me, Mr Cameron if I see these doomed wars that politicians find so irresistible, as exercises in economics. But what is economics? If it were just about the bottom line then it would be accountancy. We sell you tanks, we destroy tanks, you have to buy new tanks. Works for me.
Except people are inconveniently involved. It is rarely the generals and politicians who suffer but the women, children and elderly. As well as being a questionable use of the young men who undertake these missions. Both sides claim the high moral ground but it is always at the expense of those who have no say in the decisions being made on their behalf. No-one asked me if I wanted the war in Iraq, the Afghan debacle or this present attempt to outwit Gadaffi. It isn't Eton or Harrow, politicians. I have news for you. Gadaffi isn't going to play fair. As a woman I am likely to put such war-mongery into a domestic context. As well as those innocent people who will inevitably suffer in Libya, people here, again the most vulnerable in society, will be told there is no money for vital life-saving services or even the basic facilities which enable them to live the minimum decent life that we should all expect. Because we need to bring democracy to yet another country by bombing it. And something about oil. No, it is economics. And it's economics without morality. Let us hope that there is a miracle and a swift military victory and Gadaffi is replaced by someone who is 'enlightened'. Meanwhile can someone enlighten me?
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