Tony Blair: Is This The Beginning Of The End?

I saw it on T.V (so it must be true) that Chamberlain's Private Secretary didn't pass on a last telegram from the German ambassador,because the dye was cast and Chamberlain was asleep!! This was only a few years ago and the old boy was in trouble for five minutes! I'm sure that what goes on behind the scenes would chill us all to the bones - But what can you do??
 
Saddam was kept in power to hold the balance of power.
The problems start now.
 
Yes, the Iranians seem 'hell'?-bent on setting up an Islamic state. The Americans seem determined to resist it. I think it might be more sensible and less problematic to let them have it,go through it and come out the other side as Iran is doing?
 
yep its true, we're officially part of the old U S of A... when do we invade france and take control of the mineral water
 
Tony Blair is gonna survive cos of the inept opposition of the Tories and that is one of the reasons he occasionally takes big risks in his policy pronouncements. IDS can't attack him on Iraq cos he was the govt's most vocal supporter.
 
I asked on another thread - but since we're having a Tony bash - Has anyone installed Tony-gotchi on their computer. I was worried about viruses and would like to know if anybody's taken the plunge?
 
How much does 1 mi$$ile cost?
Spend all war $$$$£ on developing other forms of fuel and..........
 
We invaded Iraq to get rid of the WMD's and we can't find them. We also wanted to get Saddam Hussein and we can't find him. We invaded Afghanistan to get Bin Laden but we can't find him.

All we have found is a lot of oil. We seem to be good at finding that!
 
'Right war - wrong reason' was how I heard one Labour chap describe it. If Tony Blair had shifted his ground a bit more skillfully on the reason (the way that nimble politicians normally do) he wouldn't be in such difficulty. He would have cashed in on the glory that was available throughout much of the media when the war turned out more "successful" than anticipated.

Tacking that "available for use within 45 minutes" phrase onto whatever intelligence they did or didn't have has created what might be labelled "Blair's Belgrano". Thatcher can argue till she's blue in the face about the imminent threat the ship posed.. but nobody believes her. Blair now looks equally silly, and it's his own fault. Like Maggie before him, he insults the intelligence of the nation.

PS: I've long thought that Tony Blair has already decided to resign at some stage and spend more time in Italy - and that he will engineer a "back me or sack me" vote when it suits him to.
 
[good man Tony........will still be there in five years because the people vote him, not talking heads
 
The oil ministry was the only govt building not bombed during the war, doesn't that say something abt our actual intentions.
 
Not quite right.

We didn't bomb any in which Saddam was in.

Does that not also say something?

JonnyT
 
In the 1st Gulf War they hit Sadman's headquarters.
The night before, they told him to get out........
 
I'm glad he's gone. I'm fed up with people who would defend the rights of the Iraqi people to choose their own government (like they've ever really had that choice), when they'd NEVER want to live in Iraq themselves, and never gave a flying to.ss before, and now they are all really concerned.

And BBC journalists who had an easy ride to the Beeb from Cambridge and don't have a fricking clue what's going on. Yeah, Bush can't speak for the Iraqi people, but neither can some woolly twit like John Simpson.
 
Antiwar leftists fail to get it right
Minneapolis Star Tribune 4/19/03 Nick Busse

The Iraqi people have been caught in a crossfire -- not only between
U.S. troops and Fedayeen Saddam -- but also between the Bush
administration and a generation of disaffected youth looking to stick
it to "the Man."

Ty Moore, spokesman for the Socialist Alternative, said at a student
rally at the University of Minnesota the day after the bombing of
Baghdad began, "Our starting point has to be zero trust in the Bush
administration."

"We should have a visceral reaction to anything George Bush says,"
said University of Minnesota Prof. August Nimtz, hammering home the
depth of his contempt by adding -- without supporting evidence --
"Right now there is a special unit bringing chemical weapons into Iraq
[to frame Saddam Hussein]. I'm sure of it."

And Jess Sundin of the Anti-War Committee said, "Saddam Hussein hasn't
killed a single person! George Bush and the U.N. killed millions!"

During the Vietnam War, hawks were the apologists; now it's the doves.
The standard justification for the Vietnam War went something like, "I
know it's bad that all those people are being killed, but we have to
stop the Commies!"

Today, ask any group of antiwar activists why they protest the war and
you'll hear, "I know Saddam is murdering his people, but we have to
stop the American imperialists!"

Ask those same protesters to explain American imperialism and you'll
get a laundry list of grievances -- from Nike's exploitation of
sweatshop labor in Central America and Asia to the Clinton
administration's bombing of a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan to
George W. Bush's "stealing" the 2000 presidential election -- the list
is endless.

Oh, they'll bring up the U.N. sanctions, of course. Every war protest
has served up at least one heart-rending speech about the economic
sanctions and the plight of the Iraqi people. But ask a group of
protesters who [Deputy Defense Secretary] Paul Wolfowitz or [Cheney
Chief of Staff] Lewis Libby are and watch their eyes glaze over.

Today's activists are ignorant of neoconservative policies and their
origins because they are too busy bashing America, capitalism and
President Bush to engage in any kind of intelligent dialogue about
what's going on in this country. Have they ever stopped to consider
that the liberation of Iraq also means an end to the sanctions?

Today's demonstrators endlessly compare themselves to the '60s
antiwar/civil rights activists. That movement was driven by a core of
intellectuals who were well-read and knowledgeable in the causes they
pursued. The hippies merely swelled their numbers at demonstrations.

Today it's the other way around: The hippies themselves run the show
now, having decided that reading half of an Alexander Berkman essay
off some anarcho-syndicalist Web site makes them experts.

For me, the defining moment came when a group of Iraqi dissidents
showed up at the March 24 antiwar rally at the Northrop Mall to share
stories of repression under Saddam's regime. The protesters were so
intoxicated by their own rebelliousness that they actually had the
nerve to tell the Iraqis that their opinions didn't matter.

At that same rally, I got into an argument with a teenager who stopped
halfway through our conversation to pull a bandana over his face so
that any FBI agents who might be in the crowd couldn't photograph him.

"Are these people nuts?" I wondered?

I suspect that in the near future, some graduate student somewhere
will write a brilliant doctoral dissertation on the
antiglobalization/antiwar movement as a mass social phenomenon. It is
clear from the images of Iraqis celebrating their liberation that
whatever this movement was about, it was not about helping the Iraqi
people.

I have no illusions that my government's primary motivation in
invading Iraq was the liberation of its people. But that liberation
will indeed be the first and clearest consequence of the war -- a fact
that radicals of the 1960s would've recognized, but today's activists
blatantly choose to ignore.

In pursuit of its own vendetta against the world, my generation sold
out the Iraqi people. Now, when we go to protest the moronic
escalation of the drug war in Colombia, why should anyone listen to
us? The reputation of protest as a vehicle for social change has been
seriously damaged, as we will see in the years to come. The radical
left has just had its Vietnam.

Nick Busse, Prior Lake, is a student at the University of Minnesota.
 
Joeski,

I'm all for a French invasion, but lets go for the wine, not the water !
 
WMD

we went to war because according to bliar, sorry blair, saddams WMD's were a threat to us.....why didnt he use them in the war?

all this tripe about liberating iraqis from a tyrant is naive...to all who believe that i ask when are we going to liberate zimbabweans from mugabe.....answer....never...he will die first or step down (he's80)...

what about all the other countries run by oppressive regimes....blair would be doing nothing else if he wanted to be consistent.....as it is he's lost interest in domestic politics and spends his time collecting air miles on pointless photo opportunity trips to see his master bush....

this war was all about unfinished family business between the bush family and saddam......bush is a redneck illiterate (yes its TRUE) buffoon imho.....and oil......look who's got all the rebuilding contracts....yanks!!!.....they are so brazen......if anything the attitude of ordinary americans and us tv stations leading up to and through the war has probably polarized world opinion against the us further....

ive always thought the americans had a pretty blinkered view of the world and this past 9 months has confirmed it......25,000 gun deaths each year in the usa.....2,000 less than south africa.....don't the yanks get it?......

watch "bowling for columbine".....you could go to a bank in one state, open an account and get a free rifle!!!!....over here you'd get a voucher for HMV!!!

yes.....blair is finished.....

bertie
 
I don't think Blair is finished despite his problems with the situation in Iraq simply cos of the opposition and the alternatives to him in the labour party. My heart really goes out to the innocent people (soldiers and civillians) on both sides who lost their lives due to some egotistical political decisions made by Bush and his donkey, Blair..........I wish their families could sue our political leaders 4 compensation.
 
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