Stepping over the corpses

There's a dead body on your doorstep. There's a small hole in the back of her head, and her face is a mushy crater. Two days ago, this was a young woman.

Tomorrow, the corpse will be that of a man in his early thirties, a father of two. The eyes will be bloody pits. Splinters of bone will protrude from the pulpy flesh of the shattered elbows. The face will be locked in a spasm of final agony. He will have been tortured to death. The day after that, a middle aged man, though it will be hard to tell, because he'll have been dragged to his death behind a truck.

Just step over the bodies. Pretend they're not there. Pretend this has nothing to do with you. It's easy: just keep your eyes fixed on something across the road that has caught your interest as you open your door. That way, you don't have to look down.

You're not avoiding anything, quite the opposite. If anyone mentions the bodies, you'll say "Yes, terrible, terrible," with an expression that shows your compassion. Not avoiding anything at all. It's just that every time you open your door, there's something fascinating across the road.

330 people from the UK have loaded pages from this blog so far today. Now I know the conventional, and polite thing to do on the internet is "suggest people might consider" things, but fuck it. I'm going to be blunt. If you haven't contacted your MP yet about the dangers faced by the Iraqis who helped the British Army - our army, your army - in Iraq yet, then you're stepping over their corpses.

It's a measure of these times that there seems to be almost a daily appeal on behalf of people our country is betraying, Iranian lesbians, Sudanese refugees, Ghurka veterans... the list seems endless and the eyes glaze over. But it is possible sometimes to make a difference. Possible, if people pull their thumbs out of their arses and actually do something about it.

Dan Hardie has been running a campaign on behalf of the Iraqis, and has posted information about how people can contact their MPs and try to get them to attend a meeting he has arranged in Parliament in a week's time. Barely a handful have agreed to attend so far.

As Dan put it in an email earlier today:

... MPs are trying hard to pretend they had nothing to do with this war and the Home Office is just sitting tight in the knowledge that no-one gives a damn about a few Arabs caught up in that war we've all forgotten about.

The American Senate has voted unanimously to ease the applications of Iraqis who want to go to the USA after helping American troops. Now I do know there is a more complete understanding of honour in the USA than in Britain. We are a reduced, crawling, pathetic people compared to what we were, should be and could be again. The Home Office can run down the clock on this issue, and that's what they're planning to do. Stall long enough, and there'll be nobody left alive to give asylum to.

Contact your MP and he or she will have to respond. We will put those responses on the record and if they don't agree to help we'll dump the corpses of dead Iraqis on their fucking doorsteps for the remainder of their sorry, ignoble, self-serving careers. But they only have to respond to their constituents. I have contacted my MP. He will be at the meeting on the 9th. He has sent me two on-the-record letters expressing his support for the Iraqis. I can't contact your MP. They don't have to talk to me.

You're the only person who can do this. If you haven't so far, please consider doing so.

Or, to put it another way, pull your thumb out of your fucking ass, stop stepping over the corpses of people who risked their lives to help us and do something to help!



Dan's information post for people willing to contact their MP can be found here.