So, I made a commitment to the blogswarm that I would post about the war in Iraq today. The war that was supposedly over almost five years ago, having started five years ago tomorrow... And I'm finding it hard, mainly because I don't have any solutions to offer.

- Over a million Iraqi people have died
- countless more have been maimed and scarred and lost family members
- Thousands of British and American soldiers, and soldiers of other nationalities have died, been wounded, lost their livelihoods.
- politicians on all sides have been exposed as venal, self-serving hypocrites.
- Many members of the armed forces have turned out to find torture entertaining.
- Our oldest, strongest ally has turned out to be in favour of kidnap, torture, imprisonment without trial, kangaroo courts and the execution of men convicted on flimsy evidence. We have no room on the moral high ground.
- the political system of the country I love has been irrevocably damaged by the bare-faced lies told by our politicians, the contempt with which they ignored public opinion, and the consequent utter disenfranchisement of the anti-war majority. The breezy paternalism with which we were all ignored still rankles with me.
- all of this has resulted in a bonanza of recruitment for the extremists and people who hate everyone who does not share their religious convictions on both sides.

There's no point in handwringing and bemoaning the fact that nobody listened to Winston Churchill, but what else can we do? It's all a big horrible mess. And, at this point, whatever we do can only make things worse. For some time now we have been part of the problem in Iraq, not part of the solution. But if we withdraw, the place will further descend into civil war and more people will die. If we stay, we continue to be the focus of the ire of the Iraqi people and all of us, Western and Iraqi, continue to die.

The point of this blogswarm is supposed to be to show the mainstream media and the political elite that anti-war feeling still exists and is not going to go away. I suspect that is also why Mitch Benn has chosen tomorrow to release his new single. But they didn't listen to us then, and I can't see them listening to us now. If we could offer a solution, then maybe they would. But we can't, because there isn't one.

It's times like this when I feel glad for my disbelief in deity. Because if I did believe in God(dess)(es) I'd be rather worried about what their judgment would be on me, because I could have done more to prevent this. I wonder how the people in decision-making positions feel?