By Felicity Arbuthnot
(source: UrukNet)
"Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall." (Psalms 16:18.)
I note you will be signing your book, "A Journey", at Waterstone’s flagship book shop, on London’s Piccadilly, on 8th September. As this will seemingly be a day when democracy is suspended, security near unprecedented, bags, cameras, briefcases, mobile ‘phones checked in before being allowed to ask for your signature, I may not be able to get to near to you with these suggestions, so some ideas from afar for your dedications.
For your years as enthusiastic partner in the silent slaughter of Iraq’s children under the embargo, a dedication to the seventeen infants in the neo-natal unit of Basra’s formerly fine maternity hospital, all who died on the very threshold of life due to your representative at the UN, with his US counterpart, vetoing importation of oxygen. You were jointly responsible for denying even the air that we breathe to Iraq’s newborn.
Please sign a volume for the premature baby, born at little over seven months, as my own, now strapping, over six foot son was. Unlike his miraculous medical embrace by the paediatric team, Basra’s tiny infant, was, in the looking glass world Iraq had become, placed in an incubator, swaddled in all the staff could find, to keep him warm. Neither the incubator, nor the electricity worked. In your name, incubators too had been vetoed, along with the wherewithal to repair the power grid, in your war against the new born.
This tiny being needed a blood transfusion of a relatively unusual blood group. In desparation the doctor asked me my blood type and from my memory I thought it was the same. I would have course donated, but asked he checked to make sure. There was no laboratory equipment. Giving the wrong blood would be a death sentence. Not giving blood would also be.
Read More »Mr blair about your book signing dedication suggestions
