Catchy Title

What is the point of an Inquiry?   Surely, it is to inquire of people, to gather pieces of information that you don’t already possess.  To collate together all pieces of evidence in order to produce a well-informed, educated, commentary or judgement relating to a specific set of questions?

Apparently not.  It seems that the BBC, ITV, Sky, The Guardian, The Mail, The Sun, The Mirror, The Star, The Times, all of the protesters, columnists, bloggers, and stay-at-home Blair-haters have all received the MI5/MI6/CIA/FBI/FSB files, all of the Cabinet Minister’s reports, the Civil Service files, the Military dossiers, not to mention the satellite imagery and witness statements from on the ground in Iraq.

I wish I had signed up to receive these too.  I’m guessing that Mr John Chilcott is also feeling a little foolish, as he appears to have missed out on that mailshot also.  He, just like me, is having to wait until people give evidence to find out what happened.  He like me is having to read through published documents to establish the timeline and decision making process that led to the invasion of Iraq.  What fools we are.

But I suspect that I may be wrong.  That there has been no release of information.  My suspicion is that 95% of the media are using nothing more than the court of uninformed public opinion obtained from what I only hope is a very small percentage of ignorant dullards, on which to base their reports of the facts; rather than using the freely available facts themselves.

The Times report of Tony Blair’s appearance in front the Inquiry today was headlined ‘Unrepentant Blair says ‘I’d do it again‘ , followed by the tagline ‘Tony Blair branded a murderer and liar after ending his appearance before Iraq inquiry with a refusal to voice any regrets‘.   What they failed to do was report any of the factual answers to questions.  They did however report about how he ‘felt’ about it all.  It turns out that one person in the audience of the Inquiry was responsible for the ‘murderer and liar’ comment.  Yet reading the headline, my first assumption was that the Inquiry had made that determination.

What they failed to do, and what all media outlets have failed to do is ask us: ‘If you were in Tony Blair’s position, with same facts at your fingertips that Mr Blair had in 2003; would you have made the same decisions?’, and ‘if nothing had been done, and Saddam had refused for the umpteenth time to abide by UN resolutions and inspections, would the world, and would the region be a safer place now’.   The unfortunate reality is that 95% of the population absolutely would have done the same thing, if in the exact same position, and the even more unfortunate reality is that 94% of the population are too ignorant and uninformed to admit it.

The security situation of the entire world dramatically declined on September 11th 2001.  It has got no worse since 2003.  In fact less people have died per year in terrorist attacks around the world since 2004 than in the years 2001-2003.  I for one am happy to see that Iraq is holding it’s own trials and tribunals against those who committed mass atrocities against it’s own citizens and it’s neighbours in the country’s recent history.   These trials are being held in open court, with findings and evidence being published frequently.  This would never have happened under Saddam, and these people would have never seen justice.  They would have continued their life living in palaces, living off the income from the oil fields whilst the workers suffered, and those that were of a different religious order would be raped, tortured and murdered at the whim of a power-hungry fascist elite.

When the ‘war’ first started a majority of the commentators to this post-war world were not standing on the rooftop crying ‘shame! foul!’.  Most of them were with public opinion, which was a sense of ‘something needs to be done, but we’re not entirely convinced that war is the way to go, however Saddam is making a mockery of the UN, and if this works as it should the actual ‘war’ should be over very soon’.  The silent majority were happy to support our troops and see where it went, as were the commentators.   But since the war, the slow and bloody rebuilding effort has caused a sway of ‘I-told-you-so’s’ from the people who in reality told us nothing of the sort.  They created a very hefty bandwagon on which there appeared to be enough room for everyone to jump.

Opinions are useless in all walks of life unless they are informed ones.  Informed by either a collection of accurate facts, or in the absence of facts, a healthy dose of experience in the field, and history of the situation at hand.  The British public and the media have neither.  They were not subject to the briefings, the reports, the intelligence gathering, and back-room talks; let alone the ‘tipped-winks, unnaturally prolonged hand-shakes coupled with a brief stare, and quiet maneuvering’ that has been a part of international diplomacy for thousands of years.  They were not, never will be, and most definitely shouldn’t be aware of all of the information gathered and where that information came from.

So the people that stand outside the QE2 Conference centre holding up the ‘Bliar’ banners, need to sit back for a moment.  They need to think about what information they have that the Chilcot Inquiry don’t. They should come forward and say what meetings they are aware of that contradict Tony Blair’s testimony.  They need to explain to the people that have yet to make up their mind, why they think that Tony Blair is a murderer, why they feel the coalition that went to Iraq had no business being there.   Why only a minority of Iraqi citizens feel the need to move around blowing things up yet the rest seem happy to create life, jobs and government, whilst the protesters share the same sentiment to the ‘war’ as the minority.  They need to explain why they say the only reason we went to war was money and oil,  yet the amount of oil being imported to the UK and the US in 2003-2008 is on average 44% lower than it was in the years up to 2003.  The oil price is not set by the UK or the US, and the income for the oil being extracted in Iraq is shared between the companies extracting it, and the Iraqi government.   The military operation has cost billions, and will continue to cost billions more.   There has been no financial incentive.   The US military is currently using thousands of troops, and many more engineers to upgrade the oil infrastructure in Iraq, and to ensure the security of it’s workers.  They are not getting paid for this task, and the only benefits are to the Iraqi Government, the people of Iraq, and the companies that work there.

Those people I referred to earlier who appeared to already be in possession of information that eludes the rest of us; the protesters, the media etc., they have already made up their minds.  They are baying for blood. Shouting words like ‘Justice! Murderer!’  Some feel that capital punishment should return for Blair and the like. They shout about an open trial by jury, and the ‘inevitable whitewash’ if the Inquiry was to rule ‘no foul’.  Yet how fair could the trial be, if to all of these people, ANY verdict other than ‘Blair is guilty, and the War was unfounded’ is deemed incorrect.  In reality there is already a trial occurring.  There is a panel of several learned men and women, weighing evidence and ‘judging’ the participants.   The only reason that this isn’t good enough for some, is that the panel was undecided on the outcome at the start, is looking to learn things that were unknown to them before, and wish to be fair and open-minded.  The only trial that would suit the placard holders would have to be made up of people who had their opinions of guilt/innocence registered before the commencement of the Inquiry.

The protesters need to get on with their lives, and start helping others.  If they have the time to stand outside buildings shouting outright lies on a weekday, then they have time to go out into the world, learning how it really works, and helping those that truly need help.  They are spiteful, mean-spirited, and two-faced.

As for the media.  A return to factual reporting, allowing the people to make informed decisions, and leaving the bias, the manipulation, and bare-faced hypocrisy behind would benefit society far more than the current model, yet perhaps wouldn’t be so profitable.

I welcome any comments to this blog, and I look forward to debating with those who may hold a different view.

“Fair Usage policy of 750MB applies. Usage above this amount will constitute abuse and Orange may monitor usage, apply Network protection controls which may result in reduced speed of transmission and/or withdraw the Offer from your account if the fair usage policy is abused. Not to be used for other activities (e.g. using your handset as a modem, non-Orange internet based streaming services, voice or video over the internet, instant messaging, peer to peer file sharing, non-Orange internet based video).“

Quoted from the Orange iPhone terms and conditions.

Well, there it is.  I feel like having a rant, but what would be the point.  It is all there in black and white.  The mistake they have made is obvious, the result of it is obvious, the inevitable backlash is obvious, and the stupity is of course obvious.

There are a couple of points I would like to mention though:

1)  My O2 iPhone came with YouTube pre-installed.  Was that an Apple thing or an O2 thing?  I would guess it was Apple, which would suggest the Orange one would be the same.  Hardly fair to dangle it in front of your nose. ‘Hey valued customer, look what EVERY other iPhone user in the world can do! ….What?  No, silly!  Of course you can’t!!  You have to use OrangeTube, there are only a few vids at the moment, but I’m sure you’ll love it!’

2) Will they put a restriction on the App Store?  This is only a guess, but I’d think approx 70% of the App Store applications would fall into the “streaming services, voice or video over the internet, instant messaging, peer to peer file sharing, non-Orange internet based video” categories.

3) Finally, these fair usage policies only apply when on BT Openzone and 3G.  So stay at home and use your new Orange iPhone….or you could just….you know….use your computer.  Orange haven’t grasped the full meaning of ‘mobile’ yet it seems.

I can’t speak for anyone else but I can sometimes be found guilty of acting like a spoiled child.  If I see something shiny (like a whizzy new iPhone app), I want it, and if I can’t have it when others can, then the people around me suffer (imagine a ‘toys out of the pram’ scenario).

I’m guessing that the powers-that-be at Orange copy and pasted that text from a previous Terms & Conditions file and forgot to edit it, and that we’ll find that after a few days of media attention they’ll skulk away and have a re-jigg of the rules.

Until then, the likes of FB, Twitter and YouTube will find a small increase in their traffic as Orange is lambasted, further tarnishing its reputation.

I am also an Orange customer, I have been for 12 years (or there abouts).  I went to O2 just for the iPhone.  I was originally irritated when Orange announced that they were buying the iPhone.  Now I’m pleased I took the plunge.  Ever since France Telecom bought Orange I have suffered a loss in Service reliability and Customer Service.  I am also paying more, for less features.   This is a shame, because before the company was bought, Orange was by far the best customer oriented company I had ever experienced.   Leave it to the French to balls things up for me again….

Aurevoir.

Related Articles:

Orange iPhone Terms & Conditions: http://www1.orange.co.uk/mobileterms/pay-monthly-iPhone-terms.html
BBC Article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/11/oranges_unlimited_iphone.html

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