Date published: 2005/09/28
The BBC says:
Jack Straw will pledge to put "the responsibility to protect" at the heart of British foreign policy, during a speech to Labour delegates in Brighton.
The thousands murdered in Rwanda and Srebrenica would have been saved had this been the policy, he will say.
The foreign secretary will argue UK troops are in Iraq to help the elected government build a stable nation.
Earlier, Mr Straw told BBC Radio 4's Today programme military action against Iran was "inconceivable" at present.
In his keynote conference speech, Mr Straw will say Britain should be at the vanguard of a new recognition "that sovereign states and the nations of the world ... have a collective responsibility to protect all citizens from genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity".
Those sad folks (Blair, Straw, etc.) who got the UK into the mess in Iraq are getting more and more dramatic in their post-hoc justifications for their illegal war. No doubt if and when George Bush attacks Iran, we will have Mr Straw saying that he didn't ever "conceive" it would happen (he always was a bit dim) but of course it was being done because of the alleged threat of Iran to the world, and when that turns out to be a fatuous claim (as was the similar claim about Iraq) then the post-hoc justificiation will again be that it was done because of "the responsibility to protect" the people of Iran. Meanwhile, back in Stalinist Britain, the BBC says:
The Labour Party is to apologise to an 82-year-old member who was thrown out of its annual conference for heckling.
Walter Wolfgang, from London, was ejected from the hall after shouting "nonsense" as Foreign Secretary Jack Straw defended Iraq policy.
Police later used powers under the Terrorism Act to prevent Mr Wolfgang's re-entry, but he was not arrested.
Delegate Carol Hayton protested during a later debate that Mr Wolfgang had been "manhandled".
Mr Wolfgang, who escaped Nazi Germany in 1937, is a member of the Stop the War Coalition.
Erith and Thamesmead constituency party chairman Steve Forrest, who was sitting next to Mr Wolfgang, was also thrown out after complaining about his treatment.
What kind of country is it where a harmless 82-year old is prevented from entering a conference under the Terrorism Act? Welcome to Blair's Britain, where everybody who doesn't salute the leader is a terrorist.
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