I was punished for saying "Politicians Lie while Soldiers Die"‬ says MP

লিখেছেন লিখেছেন ইনতিফাদাহ ০৯ মার্চ, ২০১৪, ০৭:০৫:৪০ সন্ধ্যা

A brave British MP forced out of the Parliament and got his salary blocked for objecting the death of British soldiers for the benefit of politicians. "The punishment is a price well worth paying." The world found that Britain soldiers "died because of politician's stupidity."



BarackObama.ir- On the 18th of September 2012 Labour MP Paul Flynn was suspended from the House of Commons for five days and docked a month’s wages, after he accused the Defence Secretary Phillip Hammond of lying to Parliament.

Yet MP Flynn is not the only person who is tired of lies about the Afghanistan war, actually many serving British soldiers have sent support messages to him.

Only three days after his suspension, in an article for the Stop the War Coalition, Flynn wrote: The punishment (expulsion from Parliament for five days and loss of a month's wages) is a price well worth paying. My charge was broadcast widely throughout the world. It struck a chord that continues to reverberate.

"For how long can the Government ignore the truth? There is no reason why we cannot follow Canada and Holland's example. Bring the soldiers home by Christmas.” Flynn wrote.

Following is the transcript of an exclusive interview with Paul Flynn for BarackObama.ir and we started by asking him; "What lies has the British government been telling about the Afghanistan war"?

Flynn: The major lie repeated again and again and again is that there is a terrorist threat to Britain from the Taliban and if we were not in Afghanistan, the Taliban would be over in Britain blowing up our streets!

I mean this is a major lie, and is being used as a justification for sending 432 British soldiers to their death.

Q/: But the Taliban is killing our soldiers, isn't it a good reason to call them terrorists and a danger for our national security?

If we ask the Taliban why they are killing British soldiers, they would not say: "When we have killed them all, we are going over to London or Newport and blow up your buildings!"

What they would say is: "That we are killing your soldiers because they are foreigners in our country who have occupied us by using force of arms - and it is our duty as Afghans and our religious duty to expel them from the country"

That is the big major lie that is being told and it has been repeated,many times in Parliament.

Q/: So what would you say the real purpose of the Afghanistan war was?

We stumbled into a war in order to capture Osama Bin Laden. But I believe what we and what America should have done was to recognize the Taliban regime and I believe a deal could have been struck, which would have made the war unnecessary.

The beginning of the war, but having gone in there Al Qaeda were rapidly expelled from the country, and [ended up] in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

But the great major error in the War was in 2006, where because of a political bungle - we went into Helmand province, and I made a speech in Parliament at the time opposing this, at that time only twoBritish soldiers had been killed, we went in there in the foolish belief, that we would be there for only three years, and the hope was that not a shot would be fired, and from two British combat casualties we now have 432.

And I compared it at the time to the "Charge of the Light Brigade" - of which there is a famous poem, and i made a version which is a parody saying:

"Bush to the right of them,

Blair to the left of them,

Hollered and thundered,

Someone has blundered,

Their's not to reason why,

Their's but to do and die,

Into the valley of death,

Into the mouth of Helmand,

Drove the five thousand.”

Never in my wildest dreams did I believe when I said that in 2006, That there would be as many as three times as many British soldiers killed in Helmand as there were in the "Charge of the Light Brigade"

[see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_of_the_Light_Brigade]

Q/: Why the government won't simply withdraw from Middle East and put an end to the killing of British soldiers?

It is one of the major blunders in our history - having got in there now - we are trapped - and the reason we are continuing is to protect politician's reputations.

What they are hoping to do is to have a withdrawal that will make politicians look good and that is why I make the point that the purpose of British Soldiers there now is to act as human shields for politician's reputations.

Q/: There seems to be a movement at this time for an immediate withdrawal, there are increasing voices for this. why do you think there are increasing calls at this time for an immediate withdrawal?

Because there is public revulsion at the futility of the war. Very few people believe there will be a happy ending, most people, and most sensible people believe that the Taliban is likely to take over by 2015 or thereabouts. And they can see no reason for people losing their lives.

My view of recent events in British history is that we lost 179 British soldiers in pursuit of non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq; we sacrificed the lives of 432 British soldiers to protect ourselves against a non-existent terrorist threat to the UK from the Taliban. The drums are beating now to persuade Britain to go to war to protect us from non-existent Iranian long range missiles carrying non-existent Iranian nuclear bombs. I believe it is time [to stop] the lies that have sent more than 600 [British to their deaths]

......

Q/: You were suspended from the Parliament because of a critical speech; I wonder what the status of Free Speech in Britain is?

I am allowed to say anything I like in the House of Commons, I have been there for 25 years I have written a standard book on Common's behavior, called "How to be an MP" which means I am very familiar with Common's rules. And after being asked by the Speaker ... I asked a question which was designed to have a strong response by evoking the failures of the First World War, and quoting statements like the soldier lines: " my political donkeys" and I also used the expression that "Politicians Lie while Soldiers Die" , It was not a direct accusation [so] that would have been within the rules of the commons. I was then asked by the speaker if I was lying.

It is an extraordinary situation when you ask for something, a statement of the simple truth , I mean I could go to statements by Ministers, on the Thursday, Monday and Tuesday where they repeated the massive lie that the Taliban were a threat to us, and they have given this maniacally view of success in Afghanistan, which has never been true, they always report on the progress being made on reducing drugs, on Human Rights, on Women's education, on reductions in corruption, and in the eleven years we have been there, there has been hardly any improvement whatsoever, and what improvements there have been are fragile and will disappear when we leave, but we are repeating all the [mistakes] the Russians made when they were there, and as happened then, when we leave the terror that the British military have, within two years the Taliban will be riding around Kabul in British vehicles.

There is a great call secretly that there is going to be a great disappointment ahead. And those loved ones of those who have fallen do console themselves with the knowledge that they died for a noble cause with a worthwhile objective. And they are going to have the sickening experience of realizing their loved ones died in vain. There was not a worthwhile noble cause behind it; they died because of politician's stupidity, ...

Q/: Many believe that the Britain is following America's wrong policies and this is one the main reasons for the failures of the British policy in middle east, Israeli – Palestinian conflict and Iran. What's your opinion?

My view on this is that I wrote a letter to Tony Blair saying our conduct is such that we have incited hatred unnecessarily throughout the world by appearing to be one-sided on the Palestine situation, the Palestine Israeli situation, in our conduct in Iraq and in Afghanistan, and the way that we are proceeding in the crisis that is building up against Iran, I have spoken on this as well, we are an Independent country, we spend billions to make sure we have independent Nuclear Weapons, but we don't behave independently in the way that Canada and the Netherlands have done as far Afghanistan is concerned, if we were behaving independently we would bring our troops home as a safety valve and not allow them to be exposed to other risks, if we keep them there until 2015 another 100 or more soldiers will die, and nothing will be achieved.

I believe we have made the world a tinderbox by following slavishly America's policy on Iraq and Afghanistan for the reasons I gave you

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