Syria. Same story different place and time.

Wednesday September 11, 2002 On this day I feel a need to say something or make a statement. It was about this time, in fact the day after the 30 September 1899, which was the day my father was born, that my grandfather left his family and Ixopo on horseback, and took up arms to fight the Boers.He had to ride some 50 kms to Richmond where the Border Mounted Rifles entrained for Ladysmith only to be besieged by the Boers.It's funny how history looks at events so differently a hundred years on. Milner and Chamberlain had for a long time wanted to spill Boer's blood. In fact Milner was determined to war with the Transvaal Boers no matter what, and so stirred up British sentiments that he was able to get the British Government to send troops from all over the world and to get volunteers from Canada, Australia and New Zealand to fight a war the Boers did not want and did their best to avoid. But Milner had his way. Thirty thousand Boer lives later and thousands of British troops dead, the scorched earth policy left farms, crops and cattle destroyed and the two Republics devastated before that Great Boer War ended. Early commentators including Churchill of course blamed the Boers entirely, but a hundred years on all writer/historians with better research and documents available, put the full blame for the war on Milner, Chamberlain and Britain.Now Bush and Blair are spoiling for war and are determined to have their war no matter what, I wonder in one hundred years where historians will put the blame for the war against Iraq that seems sure to come.