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A Christian response to Iraq
By Christopher King*
13 November 2007
Christopher King argues that, given the failure of civil political institutions in Britain, former Prime Minister Tony Blair should be tried before an ecclesiastical court and, if his actions in colluding to unleash war on Iraq, were found to be gravely unchristian, he ought to be ex-communicated.
I regret that I can claim merely a passing acquaintanceship with Bishop Trevor Huddleston. I met him twice, when among other things, we spoke of South Africa, where I had lived for a time. More than anyone, he internationalized the struggle against South African apartheid. In 1956 he had been arrested and charged with high treason in the good company of others, including Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo. He was recalled by the Church, evidently for political reasons and the treason trials eventually collapsed.
Bishop Trevor is my kind of priest, in the tradition of Thomas Becket. If there were another like him in my vicinity I would give church attendance another try. Attendance is now mostly by elderly ladies, for whom the mention of sin elicits a frisson from recollections of youthful indiscretions. There is little in it to engender enthusiasm on other grounds. Indeed, my impression is that the Church is principally preoccupied with issues of gay and women clergy. Watching the Remembrance Day ceremony, it occurred to me that, surely, the Church’s duty, even constitutional obligation, is to guard the ethics and values of this country. Parliament has failed our democratic values and our heritage in approving the war of aggression on Iraq and the continuation of the Afghan invasion. It is on course to support the bombing and invasion of Iran, with potentially disastrous consequences. Now is surely the time to draw on the basic values of our culture that the government urges us to embrace. What are these if not Christian values? The problems are not far away in South Africa, Iraq or Iran. They are right here.
Certainly the Church of England has made clear its disapproval of the Iraq war. It has supplied a prayer for the Iraqi people; some bishops want to apologise for the war, although since they are not responsible for it, it is not clear that they are able to apologise for it. None of this has had any detectable effect whatsoever on our government’s attitude, nor on the welfare of the Iraqi people. As prayer, verbal deprecation and street demonstrations have been tried and failed, something more is needed.
This country’s participation in the Iraq war was the work of one man. Anthony Charles Lynton Blair energetically promoted the war here and internationally. Mr Blair is a lawyer and makes a lawyer’s argument that he is not to blame. He claims to have acted on the information supplied to him by John Scarlett, the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee. If that were correct, Mr Scarlett was grossly incompetent and deserved to be fired. Instead, he was promoted and given a knighthood. Mr Scarlett’s signature intelligence coup was the “dodgy dossier”, which was comprised largely of plagiarised material from a 10-year-old postgraduate paper together with claims based on forged documents that Saddam Hussein was purchasing uranium and false assertions that biological and chemical weapons could be readied in 45 minutes. With this in mind, Mr Blair’s claim of technical innocence is absolutely unbelievable. One can only conclude that Mr Scarlett was paid off for taking the blame and preserving “deniability” for Mr Blair.
Because Parliament supported the Iraq war it refuses to comprehensively investigate the truth of how it occurred. I would therefore suggest that an ecclesiastical court might examine Mr Blair’s specific role. He is a member of the Church of England. But should he be? There is good reason to believe that Mr Blair knowingly promoted an aggressive war behind various pretences. At the very least, he sought only evidence that would support his prior decision for such a war. The sheer scale of the disaster that Mr Blair enthusiastically colluded in unleashing demands examination of his motives. If an ecclesiastical court should be satisfied that his actions were gravely unchristian, he ought to be ex-communicated.
I am not suggesting that Mr Blair should be shot, blown to pieces, dismembered, immolated, starved, made a refugee, that his front door should be kicked in, his family raped or shot, his house blown up or any of the other injuries that he visited on the Iraqi people and on our own soldiers. I am suggesting that he might be refused the bread and wine of the Eucharist.
We know the quick test of Christianity to apply: would Jesus think that Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a Christian? Mr Blair was always concerned that the right message should be sent to our troops, to terrorists, to the world, and in principle he was correct. A purely Christian message that is independent of party politics, Zionist money, foreign governments and indeed the British government needs to be sent. Iran will very likely be bombed for its oil as Iraq was and, should that occur, it will be too late. Invocation of the values of Christianity has an effect on the minds of men. The message needs to be sent. I do not think that Bishop Trevor would hesitate.
*Christopher King is a retired consultant and lecturer in management and marketing. He lives in London, UK.
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