Dinner
Just had a great meal with my Autny jilly and 2nd cousin Jean Phillpe. We went to a place called "Masala Zone". I had a Thali with a "Butter Chicken" (actually a tikka variant) and it was most welcomed after so little variation whilst in the flat.
I got a fantastic Gap Shirt from them which was also well received :D
Denning, my newton has been employed in preparation for the Criminal Liability Tutorial tomorrow after a time out thanks to a stint of not writing down my preparation. I can wing it but I find the Tutorials run 10 times smoother when I've prepared thoroughly as no one else seems to be capable of answering the flipping questions (Come on folks!! Its not secondary school!! You aren't supposed to sit in the corner pretending to work!!).
The reason I enjoy contract tutorials so much is (apart from the virtuosity of the tutor - Edwin Shorts) because somehow myself and a girl called faith manage to form diametrically opposed opinions on nearly everything which leads to a thorough and detailed debate from which we all learn. Nothing sucks more than being in a tutorial which becomes a second lecture on the subject, or just as bad, a conversation between you and the tutor. :D
Riiiiiise up
The popular uprising in Basra is clearly indicative of the intention of the Iraqi people to sacrifice their own safety for the removal of Saddam. An example of this must be taken from this report in the Telegraph on the Human Shield's who have returned from Iraq:
One said the trip "shocked [him] back to reality." The Rev. Kenneth Joseph, an American pastor with the Assyrian Church of the East, told the Times that some of the Iraqis he interviewed on camera told him they would commit suicide if American bombing didn't start.
"They were willing to see their homes demolished to gain their freedom from Saddam's bloody tyranny," Joseph said. "They convinced me that Saddam was a monster the likes of which the world had not seen since Stalin and Hitler. He and his sons are sick sadists. Their tales of slow torture and killing made me ill, such as people put in a huge shredder for plastic products, feet first so they could hear their screams as bodies got chewed up from foot to head."
If these people are willing to throw themselves, against heavy mortar fire and AK47's in the hope that they can remove the shackles of Saddam's regime then sure there can be no doubt (as so many of us have asserted before) that Saddam is hated by the people who he suppressed and ruled through fear for all these years.
Why then, when there is so much comprehensive evidence of the hideous human rights abuses performed by Saddam - which is never disputed by Anti-War protestors, when there are people willing to sacrifice their lives against overwhelming odds, do some still insist that this war is not in the best interests of the Iraqi people? I think that if anyone is to be the arbiter of what is in the best interests of the Iraqi people it is the iraqi people themselves and in Basra they have displayed what was always their judgment.
I don't usually like to go down the moral route but I figured I'd give it some attention since I heard some ridiculous MP launch into a huge, illy thought out although well learnt, diatribe.
Right time for bed.. Criminal liability tomorrow at 10 (ack! early :D)
Later
John
Posted by John Swaine at March 26, 2003 01:18 AM