We Need Two Kinds of Hero

There are two kinds of hero. There are the ones who do their duty with conviction and bravery on the field of battle, and there are those other heroes who stand up for what is right, battling any who would commit evil deeds dressed up to appear as virtue and righteousness. We are in need of both kinds of hero, so that the wrongs that put our children and our future in harms way are averted, and unnecessary suffering prevented.

Recent happenings announced in the news put me in mind of that little ditty: “It's the rich what gets the pleasure, and the poor what gets the blame.”

I was listening to the BBC Radio 4 discussions about the hearings on the Iraq War and all the stuff about lessons to be learned. It reminded me of the behaviour of the Slytherins.

Gordon Brown apparently made an impressive and statesman like presentation. So honest, so proud of our soldiers, so supportive of Tony Blair and our just cause. It went something like this...

Lessons have been learned, we should have planned better for the aftermath, as if we hadn't already been advised that there would be catastrophe afterwards - in fact several British and US career diplomats resigned their posts when their advise in this matter was pointedly ignored. Diplomats work long and hard to get up the ladder and resignations are rare. In the uk resignations included Carne Ross, 40, a highly rated diplomat and Britain's key negotiator at the UN, and in the US, Ann Wright, a deputy chief of mission, a career foreign service officer and army reserve colonel.

We went in for all the right reasons, even though the actual reasons given were not the reasons Tony Blair now gives... i.e. now it is because Saddam was really naughty and needed taking down and he felt a moral obligation.

It was completely legal to go to war, though several expert legal bodies in the US and Holland have concluded that the Iraq war was a violation of international law. The Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, declared the action illegal at the time.

We gave the armed forces all the money they asked for, even though the army was grossly under funded before and right up to the last few days before the war... great planning. Tony Blair wouldn't allow the military to prepare in advance in case the word got out, and the world realised we had already definitely decided to go to war irrespective of anything. All that talk of giving the weapons inspectors more time and getting another UN resolution from the United Nations was a matter of misdirecting people's attention. Like TV magic - most of it is just slight of hand.

All MPs were in agreement - well they would be since they all thought weapons of mass destruction could land on us with only 45 minutes notice.

And while all this was going on large numbers of honest MPs, the moral judges of the world, sending young men to be shot at and blown up for all the right reasons, were filling their bank accounts with as much expenses money as they could get away with. The habitual abuse of their self-regulating system was rife.

Not all were doing this of course. Many, such as Dr Brian Iddon of Bolton South East, didn't have their hands in the till and were very disappointed in their friends' behaviour. But you can bet your life all MPs, including those like the whiter than white Dr Iddon, knew it was going on right under their noses.

It is often convenient in politics to turn a blind eye and keep on good terms with your bedfellows. Perhaps it was a case of letting sleeping dogs lie, or the fact that in politics you never know when you might need a favour, a compromise, a quiet wink and a nod.

The trouble with politicians is that they worship only at the twin altars of re-election and party loyalty. They are morally handicapped from birth, but they do not know it.

So, returning to Radio 4, after all this erudite discussion of who said what and when, there came the news that a soldier, Lance Corporal Joe Glenton, diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, who had gone AWOL to protest about the legality of another war, in Afghanistan this time, initiated for equally doubtful reasons, has just been rewarded with a 9 month jail sentence.

Technically, this is the correct punishment for refusing to go and fight, but morally it falls under the heading of 'bankruptcy'.

Just as bankrupt as the banks were a few months ago, before our wise government bailed them out to save the economy. Save the economy? I can't really see how. It seems to me that the ordinary Joe Public, going to work every day, and keeping the wheels of business and industry turning, to pay his mortgage to the bank and feed his kids, is really the one who saves the economy every day. The banks are just the greedy cats taking a cut every time we ordinary people make a move. Bailing them out is like handing a convicted thief your credit cards complete with your PIN.

The people winning rewards these days are those who quite rightly should be in jail. Voldermort would be proud of them all. The bankers who screwed up with other people's money, and the Prime Minister who misled Parliament about the 45 minute deployment of weapons of mass destruction that convinced MPs to support him.

One unfortunate scientist, another man with a conscience, Dr David Kelly, revealed as the 'mole' who leaked information to the BBC that the dossier on the 45 minute weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was “sexed up”, is now dead. Apparently committed suicide by slitting his wrists and taking some prescription painkillers. 13 doctors are challenging this conclusion in the courts. And it is significant that Lord Hutton, who presided over the enquiry about his death, has placed a 70 year ban on anyone seeing the details of the post mortem examination of his body. How very, very strange.

Now all the Slytherines are manoeuvring to get the best public relations exposure before an election, while one of the moral heroes of our generation goes to jail.

The genuinely guilty are giving lecture tours for obscene amounts of money, preparing their memoirs, reviewing their legacy, or in the case of the banks, paying themselves handsomely for continuing in much the same way as they did before, because, as they say, everyone else is doing it, so we have to pay these big bonuses, or the best people for the job will not work for us. Well I have to ask, do we really want these parasites to work for us?

As to the soldier who stood up against these mealy mouthed snakes, it takes guts to make a stand for what you believe is right, when the entire establishment is against you, including the legal minds that make good moral judgement punishable under the law. 'The law is an ass' is an understatement in this instance. The law and morality are frequently at odds with each other.

There is an old saying: “All that is needed for the forces of evil to succeed is for enough good men to remain silent”.

So I am speaking out and asking if there are any others out there in cyberspace who would like to be counted as one of the good men... let them join forces with Harry Potter and mop the floor with these arse wipes.

It just takes conviction and persistence and a wave of your magic wand, or the pen or the computer in this instance. So get your head together and do something today.

On a final note of optimism - always it has happened, that in the passage of time, in spite of the arrogance of the powerful, they fall victim to their own misdoings. The axe will eventually fall, however much these 'blind mice' skitter about, trying to hide in their maze of lies. They truly believe their disguise is complete, that we cannot see them for what they are if they say something plausible - like Radovan Karadzic, defending his acts of genocide as action in defense of the sovereignty of his nation.

The farmer's wife or someone else will cut off their tails with a carving knife. Watch and wonder as they get their comeuppance. There are powerful forces of nature at work.