From yesterday's Evening Standard (but not online):
Iraq has been the greatest generator of hypocrisy of our times. It has sent the left lurching to the far-Right, pushed secularists into the arms of religious fundamentalists and spun round Liberal Democrats so violently that the real victims of the most illiberal and undemocratic regime on the planet - the Iraqi people - are faced with a wall of turned backs.The power of the conflict to make everyone the opposite of what they pretend to be was confirmed this week by the splendid spectacle of bishops preaching in favour of sin.
We must apologize to Muslims for the war [in] Iraq [they said]... Our repentance will be an "act of truth and reconciliation".
Forget for the moment that it is cheap and pointless for bishops to apologize for a war they didn't support, and consider their claims to be champions of truth.
Saddam Hussein was responsible for the deaths of more Muslims than any other modern tyrant. One million died after he launched his war against Iran. Between 100,000 and 150,000 died in his war against Kuwait. Back home his police state murdered about 300,000 Iraqis and Kurds.
Admittedly, not all the dead were Muslims. In the mass graves are the bodies of Assyrian Christians, whose memory you might have expected the C of E to honour, and Iraqis, Kurds, Iranians and Kuwaitis who didn't believe in any god. Still, we have 1,250,000 Muslim corpses.
.....
I'm an atheist. But if I'm wrong about the afterlife, the bishops may one day have to explain the moral basis of their toleration of mass murder to a higher authority than newspaper scribblers.