There are a number of things that are common to our two countries. The first is that difficult-to-define element of human nature that we know when we see it and that we know when it is ignored. That element is
human decency.
The second thing that we have in common is that there are certain functions that serve as instruments of state that do not directly enter into partisan politics. The police is one. The military is another.
I cannot help but believe that today we saw the attempt by George Bush to politicise our military and to commandeer for partisan purposes those that have fallen in defence of your country.It lacked any understanding of whom our soldiers serve. It is not ultimately the Commander-in-Chief but their country for whom they fought and for whom they fight and for whom they died and for whom they are dying. The lack of understanding of this fact shows a failure to comprehend the Constitution. Yet it is not an understanding of constitutional history that is absent; it is a lack of human decency.
During the week, a debate took place in the House of Commons to decide if the period of detention before suspected terrorists are charged or released should be extended to ninety days.
In trying to seek this enactment, Tony Blair was acting on the advice of the police, who are the experts in knowing what is needed in terms of time to prepare charges that will subsequently hold up in court. What Blair forgot, and to their credit the majority of Members of Parliament did not, is that it is for the elected representatives to hear this advice and then to balance it against the need to maintain the freedom and liberties of all citizens.
What emerged during the debate was that individual Chief Constables had contacted MPs in their area to urge them to vote for these new measures. Further, it appeared that the Home Secretary had contacted the head of the police federation a few days before suggesting that the police take an active role, although it was the federation which appears to have turned this into the sort of direct lobbying that was seen.
There was an outcry. The police do not enter politics in this way, any more than politicians should politicise the police. Once this happens, the required independence of those whom we seek to protect our country and our citizens is undermined. The outcry was a proper reaction when the truth came out.
Today George Bush used Veterans Day to politicise not just our military but also, and it is with disgust that I write this, the fallen.
Hear his words that politicised this solemn day:
Some Democrats and antiwar critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war. These critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs. They also know that intelligence agencies from around the world agreed with our assessment of Saddam Hussein. They know the United Nations passed more than a dozen resolutions citing his development and possession of weapons of mass destruction.
Many of these critics supported my opponent during the last election, who explained his position to support the resolution in the Congress this way: "When I vote to give the president of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein, it is because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hand is a threat and a grave threat to our security."
That's why more then a hundred Democrats in the House and the Senate, who had access to the same intelligence, voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power.
The stakes in the global war on terror are too high, and the national interest is too important for politicians to throw out false charges. These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will. As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send to them to war continue to stand behind them. Our troops deserve to know that this support will remain firm when the going gets tough. And our troops deserve to know that when -- whatever our differences in Washington, our will is strong, our nation is united, and we will settle for nothing less then victory.
In a long speech, Bush chose to turn on his political opponents in a way that I have not heard in the past in front of those who serve you all, irrespective of your politics, your religion, your race or your beliefs. He did it in a speech that was in remembrance of the fallen, whose sacrifice was in those wars in which they chose to serve, not in a war in which their sacrifice plays no part.
As the representative head of his nation, the President chose not to remember the freedoms for which men and women, Democrats as well as Republicans, had died but to sully the debt we owe them by trawling today in the gutter of partisan politics.
Well, it is perfectly proper that the police in the UK have particular views. It is perfectly proper that the President of the United States has views that are no longer shared by the majority of his people. It is perfectly proper that they all have the right to express them. The police were sharply reminded in the UK that there is a form and manner, a time and a place in which they can do this.
The President should receive the same sharp reminder. A reminder that tells him that it is not just the wrong form and manner, it is not just the wrong place and time. It should remind him that it showed a lack of human decency.