S2M-2132 Iraq

Scottish Parliament

Thursday 9 December 2004

[THE PRESIDING OFFICER opened the meeting at 09:30]

Iraq

The Presiding Officer (Mr George Reid): Good morning. The first item of business is a debate on motion S2M-2132, in the name of Carolyn Leckie, on Iraq, and five amendments to the motion.

.. ... ...

10:28

Stewart Stevenson (Banff and Buchan) (SNP): It is a truism to say that those who know nothing of history are condemned to repeat it. In his book, "A Mad World, My Masters", John Simpson tells of going to downtown Belgrade on 12 April 1999 to interview locals about the NATO-led action against the dictator, Milosevic. An angry crowd gathers, shouting their views at the BBC man. Spit lands on Simpson's face. The crowd said:

"We used to like everything from West. Now we hate you ... We are all for Milošević now, even if we didn't like him before ... You British are"—excuse me, Presiding Officer—

"the 'eff-ing' slaves of 'eff-ing' America."

Simpson talks to the crowd and finds that they do not really hate us at all, but that they are frightened and resentful of the bombing. When people are bombed by those who they think are their friends, it is hard for them to love them. Democracy does not come from the barrel of a gun.

In Iraq, the actions of the US-UK coalition are teaching us that lesson again. We have increased the number of friends of Saddam Hussein, and we have increased the ferocity of the animus that is felt for us by the friends of Saddam Hussein. We have drawn into an already unstable middle east the dangerous and deranged zealots of extremist religious beliefs from around the world, and we have made extremists and enemies of those who could have been our friends.

When ordinary people are imprisoned in the grip of a ferocious dictator, there is a practical necessity and moral imperative for us to do all we can to help them. My father worked for a period in the late 1930s out of a bookshop in Brussels. He was there as part of a Christian mission to help the Jews, who we knew even then were being oppressed by the Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler. The Gestapo came to arrest my father and his companion on the steps of Cologne cathedral. He escaped and I am here; his companion did not and the sons he might have had are not here. Throughout Iraq, Saddam Hussein removed the future generation of mothers' sons who might have opposed him, but it hardly helps those who are left that we now, in substantially smaller but still significant measure, cull the remainder through carelessness or indifference. The course of action that is being pursued in Iraq mirrors that in Afghanistan.

Helen Eadie: What is the SNP's view on genocide and on Kofi Annan's report, which states:

"in cases of major breaches of humanitarian law, such as genocide in Rwanda or ethnic cleansing in Kosovo"—

nation states

"have the responsibility"—

The Deputy Presiding Officer: Mr Stevenson has got the point, Ms Eadie.

Stewart Stevenson: I have got the point. I would be astonished if there were a single person in the chamber who supports genocide. I do not; I am implacably imposed to it and members should not rise to suggest that things are otherwise on the SNP benches.

What is happening in Iraq shows again that elections alone do not a democracy make. In Afghanistan, the Taliban's mascaraed, nail-polished and golden-sandaled soldiers have gone from Afghani power but not from Afghani life. Post the election we have a dangerous and increasingly unstable centre for the production of opium, the battle on which is being fought on our streets.

I want to say something good about George Bush and I wish I could say the same about the Prime Minister. The student politics of attacking George Bush for being

"not one of the world's great linguists"

must not hide the fact that he has at least been big enough to admit some of his personal errors in making his case for war.

In September 2003 that radical left-wing magazine, The Economist, carried a photo of the PM on its cover with the words "In the dock" as its banner. Today the Prime Minister remains in the dock, because he cannot do what Bush has done in part and admit his errors. Errors denied means remedy denied.

Where are we now? If we simply withdraw our troops, as the motion demands, we will succumb to a selfish desire to protect our own. From a party that trudges dank left-wing extremist meetings around the world, supposedly in the cause of international working-class solidarity, that is an act of breathtaking hypocrisy. That party would cast off ordinary Iraqis, but we dare not do so.

I support the amendment in Alex Neil's name.

10:33