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Hutton Inguiry!

Started by mh, February 08, 2004, 04:00:09 AM

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mh

Peace you all,

I find this interesting and good reading for free minders so i wanted to share.

Peace
----------------------

The Guardian, London

ANCIENT & MODERN

Peter Jones

How would the ancient Athenians have handled the Hutton inquiry? They
would not have needed one. Real democracies get to the nub with
indecent haste.

In the first place, the decision to go to war had to be agreed by the
people’s Assembly (all male citizens over 18). It would have been
ferociously debated. That decision made, the Assembly voted on the
leaders they wished to put in charge. The Council, the Assembly’s
steering committee (500 citizens over 30, selected by lot to serve for
a year), then took on the job of ensuring that all the necessary
resources, human and inanimate, were in place and functioning properly
— especially the cavalry and navy. But the Council’s job was for the
most part a matter of checking that everything was in order; the
Assembly took all the major decisions about, e.g., how many ships
should be built a year and who should build them. The same applied to
finance. The Assembly made the decisions about how much money was to be
disbursed to whom and for what purposes — from public works to
festivals to war — and the Council saw that it was done.

But not only did the Assembly make all the crucial decisions; they also
kept an iron grip on those who put them into effect. Once every five
weeks, officials reported to the Assembly, which then voted on their
continuation in office. At the end of their one-year term, officials
were submitted to a review of conduct (euthunai, ‘audit’): financial
records were checked against documents in the archives and charges of
misconduct considered, with punishments ranging from fines through
exile to execution. Further, any citizen could at any stage approach
the Assembly with a complaint or bring an eisangelia (‘impeachment’)
against anyone for offences like treason and deception.

In other words, there would have been no need for a Hutton inquiry.
When the war was over, had Athenians felt they had been deceived, they
would have identified the culprits — in the case of WMD, the
intelligence services — and executed both them and possibly those who
persuaded the Assembly to believe them. Dr Kelly would have been a
hero. Further, the idea of appointing one man to investigate matters
arising would have struck them as an outrageous breach of democratic
responsibility, even more to argue that his report be simply
‘accepted’. So let the impeachments rain down — starting with Lord
Hutton.
mh

Layth

Dear Mirghani,

Can you provide the link for this article?

It is excellent and I would like to pass it on to others :)

Layth
`And when God Alone is mentioned, the hearts of those who do not believe in the Hereafter are filled with aversion; and when others are mentioned beside Him, they rejoice!` (The Quran 39:45)

mh

peace Layth,

it was sent (frwd) to the amongbelievers few days ago with no link. but i think that it is from the London Guardian as the it says. I copy-pasted the whole text here.

Can one check previous issues of those daily papers and search within them? You may try that. Or you can foreward this very text.

Peace
mh