Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-03-26-Speech-3-052"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20030326.5.3-052"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I vigorously contest what Mr Oostlander has said. I did not think much of the placards behind me either, but – particularly as their group has fewer placards on display – he should have a word with his colleague Mr Helmer, who held up a placard bearing the word ‘Blitzkrieg’. Now, anyone can use placards to express his intellectual stance, and Mr Helmer has done so today, seeming to be the intellectual heir of the people who once held such placards aloft.
Mr Oostlander, if you quote Max van der Stoel and say that the basis may not be convincing, but that, in moral terms, the action is justified, you can also try putting it the other way round and saying that an action is justified only if it is taken on a truly convincing basis. If there is even a whisper of doubt, you are assuming responsibility for endangering human lives. War must always be the last resort of politics, but it cannot be the last resort as long as the policy is a matter of doubt.
If ever there were an avoidable war, this one is it. A few days ago, ladies and gentlemen, we were presented with the option of coming to a decision on the basis of reports from two respectable diplomats, Mr Blix and Mr ElBaradei. They said, or rather Mr ElBaradei said, that there were no nuclear weapons, and that they had found none, and Mr Blix said that his mission had been successful and that we could, given a couple more months, disarm Iraq peacefully. The two gentlemen who made these proposals were not radical socialists, nor were they anti-American agitators; on the contrary, they are thoroughly respectable diplomats from the United Nations, and were showing us a peaceful way ahead, for which there was a majority in the Security Council. There was, though, also a minority, to which the Pope could have given his apostolic blessing, had they nonetheless voted for this war because they had forged a coalition – not of the willing, but of the wilful – which wanted this war to happen come what may.
I am not impugning the many Members here in this House who believe, on the basis of profound inner conviction, that this tinpot dictator can be got rid of only by the use of armed force. That is one way of looking at things, but not in the least does it alter the fact that these two gentlemen I have quoted showed us a peaceful way forward, and I have heard all those in this House – including those in your group, Mr Poettering – who have said that this was the right way to go. If this was the right way to go, why do you not summon up the courage to say that the war is the wrong way? That, after all, would be the logical conclusion to come to.
Let me say again that those who defy all reason by going down this road also bear the responsibility for the bloody consequences along the way – consequences about which we will all be talking for a long time yet, because we will all be suffering from them."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples