On this auspicious anniversary, let’s take a journey into my mind palace. Can you imagine, with me, how things could have been? Imagine if, in 2008, by which time the true cause and nature of the war was obvious, we’d fired every journalist that was part of the human centipede that shat out lie after lie about the desperate need to invade Iraq. How about if we’d defenestrated every politician and official who pushed for the war, if every pundit who shilled for it had been hurled into the Thames. Just think for a minute about how much smarter and more interesting our public discourse would be, and how much better run our country would be, if opposing the transparently fraudulent ur-disaster of the 21th century was a litmus test for credibility.
Hell, how about this? Imagine if, after the atrocity of 9/11, the Americans had rebuilt their towers, mourned their dead, and then did nothing else. How much safer, not to mention wealthier, we’d be, here and around the world. I dream of meeting all those people, more in reality than I could meet in a hundred lifetimes, who’d still be alive – I see myself sitting and drinking tea with them. Imagine the shattered bodies that would be whole, the traumatised minds that would be healthy and vibrant, the children who would have a chance to live.
If there’s no consequence to lying about a war that got a million people killed then it goes to show that we’re not even a real country, that there’s no legitimacy to any of it. All those people who should have beclowned themselves forever are still in positions of power, the ideology that gave us the war still drives them to plan ten others, the people who profited off it are still living it up in their penthouses in London. Tony Blair’s lipless mouth is still yammering away in the opinion section of the Guardian, rather than noiselessly in a padded cell beneath The Hauge.
I hope they all live to see their ill-gotten gains turn to ash, their wretched ideology rejected like our souls rejecting heresy, like our bodies rejecting tainted food. I hope their money becomes meaningless before their eyes. One day we will make this country a place of justice, and their only possessions will be the memory of their crimes, hot coals on their scalp, sins wrapping around their throat.