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Tony Blair Admits: I Would Have Invaded Iraq Anyway
Tony Blair has said he would have invaded Iraq even without evidence of weapons of mass destruction and would have found a way to justify the war to parliament and the public.
Tony Blair told Fern Britton, in an interview to be broadcast on BBC1, that he would have found a way to justify the Iraq invasion. (Photograph: BBC) The former prime minister made the confession during an interview with Fern Britton, to be broadcast on Sunday on BBC1, in which he said he would still have thought it right to remove Saddam Hussein from power.
"If you had known then that there were no WMDs, would you still have gone on?" Blair was asked. He replied: "I would still have thought it right to remove him [Saddam Hussein]".
Significantly, Blair added: "I mean obviously you would have had to use and deploy different arguments about the nature of the threat." He continued: "I can't really think we'd be better with him and his two sons in charge, but it's incredibly difficult. That's why I sympathise with the people who were against it [the war] for perfectly good reasons and are against it now, but for me, in the end I had to take the decision."
He explained it was "the notion of him as a threat to the region" because Saddam Hussein had used chemical weapons against his own people.
"This was obviously the thing that was uppermost in my mind. The threat to the region. Also the fact of how that region was going to change and how in the end it was going to evolve as a region and whilst he was there, I thought and actually still think, it would have been very difficult to have changed it in the right way."
Though Blair has always argued that Iraq would be better off without Saddam Hussein, to parliament and the public, he always justified military action on the grounds that the Iraqi dictator was in breach of UN-backed demands that he abandon his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programme.
It is possible that Blair has shifted his ground in anticipation of his appearance early next year before the Chilcot inquiry. The inquiry has heard that Blair made clear to President George Bush at a meeting in Texas 11 months before the Iraq invasion that he would be prepared to join the US in toppling Saddam.
Blair was "absolutely prepared to say he was willing to contemplate regime change if [UN-backed measures] did not work", Sir David Manning, Blair's former foreign policy adviser, told the inquiry. If it proved impossible to pursue the UN route, then Blair would be "willing to use force", Manning emphasised.
The Chilcot inquiry has seen a number of previously leaked Whitehall documents which suggest Blair was in favour of regime change although he was warned by Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, in July 2002, eight months before the invasion, that "the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action".
Manning told Blair in March that year that he had underlined Britain's position to Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser.
"I said you [Blair] would not budge in your support for regime change, but you had to manage a press, a parliament, and a public opinion which is very different than anything in the States," Manning wrote, according to a leaked Whitehall document. A Cabinet Office document also seen by the Chilcot inquiry, dated July 2002, stated: "When the prime minister discussed Iraq with President Bush at Crawford [his Texas ranch] in April, he said that the UK would support military action to bring about regime change provided that certain conditions were met: efforts had been made to construct a coalition/shape public opinion ..."
Now Blair appears to be openly admitting that evidence of WMD - the purpose behind the now discredited weapons dossier he ordered to be published with the help of MI6 and Whitehall's joint intelligence committee - was not needed to invade Iraq, and he could have found other arguments to justify it.
Blair did say in a speech to Labour party conference in 2004, over a year after the invasion: "I can apologise for the information [about WMDs] that turned out to be wrong, but I can't, sincerely at least, apologise for removing Saddam.
"The world is a better place with Saddam in prison not in power."
Blair told the former This Morning presenter how his religious beliefs helped him in the invasion's immediate aftermath.
"When it comes to a decision like that, I think it is important that you take that decision as it were on the basis of what is right, because that is the only way to do it," he said.
"I think sometimes people think my religious faith played a direct part in some of these decisions. It really didn't. It gives you strength if you come to a decision, to hold to that decision. That's how it supports your character in a situation of difficulty."
Most "really hard" decisions involved a "downside and an upside either way", he added.
Sir John Sawers, Blair's former chief foreign policy adviser and now head of MI6, told the Chilcot inquiry on Thursday that Iraq was one of several countries where Britain would have liked regime change. Discussions took place on "political" actions to undermine Saddam, including indicting him for war crimes, Sawers said. There was no talk in 2001 in Whitehall of military action, he added.
"There are a lot of countries ... where we would like to see a change of regime. That doesn't mean one pursues active policies in that direction."
- Posted in
84 Comments so far
Show AllDo they come any rottener than Bushpoodle, Tony the Phony?
Oh, wait . . .
Wait... Ask this question again after the end of Obama's presidency. I think that there is much worse to come.
Blair sez: "Also the fact of how that region was going to change and how in the end it was going to evolve as a region and whilst he was there, I thought and actually still think, it would have been very difficult to have changed it in the right way."
***
Ah, there's just no end to the poor, trod-upon White Man's Burden.
-or-
Hubris-R-Us
Some of the Brits must be so proud of the rebellious bastard child of Empire, the US, carrying on the noble pursuit of Anglo-Saxon domination.
Basically he is admitting to the war crime that hanged Nazis at Nuremburg. To back it up with religious sanction will probably place Tony in one of the lowest levels of hell that he believes in so unreservedly. Imagine his surprise when Saddam is his bunkmate.
Exactly. He just argued that Hitler had the right to invade Poland and launch WWII, that Hitler's breach of the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact was not a war crime. He's admitted that the uk is nothing more than a colony of the usa. What a lame and pathetic man he is.
Gosh Mister Blair, what are you going to do with those million and a half Iraqi corpuses, mostly women and children, that you left behind?
His justification seems to be that Saddam had used chemical weapons against his own people. Were these the same chemical weapons supplied by Reagan?
http://www.counterpunch.org/dixon06172004.html
And did the US and the UK not continue to be friendly with Iraq for many years after that?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTYB8JLajdM
All I can say Mr Blair is "bullshit!"
HaHaHaHaHa! LIsten to the little poodle yap now that he is safely out any responsibiity for the results of his decisions. I almost think that Saddam's Iraq, on their own soil, could have out-fought just Britain (with no help or support from the US, of course) to a draw, if not to defeated them.
Hey, "bring it on", Tony, you are a true brother of Bush!
Poet
Reading this essay and Tony Blair's statements was a chilling experience. He is a mad man. To invoke religious confirmation and affirmation of his decision is an abomination.
Unfortunately, currently we are led by the greatest collection of mad men and several mad women that I have ever experienced or known about in my 70-plus years.
The horrible part is that these fellow humans are so blind and so limited that they don't have a clue about genuine human decency and compassion toward those millions who have been affected so terribly by their decisions to "take out" Saddam Hussein or continue a "necessary war" in Afghanistan or even now ignore climate change and manipulate a conference so they can continue to make money profits, at the cost of the destruction of other "third-world" people's lives and lifestyles, many of whom are already poor and many of whom inhabit endangered coastal areas and islands, and over-all at the lethal cost of the furthering destruction and deterioration of our earthly environment.
These misguided, shallow and emotionally twisted people are playing Russian roulette with all of our lives and all life on earth.
These hollow people who lead us are so empty and so genuinely out of touch with their own souls that their egocentric hubris makes them monsters.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Socrates' most important advice was to "Know Thyself" and his statement "The unexamined life is not worth living" says it all because that kind of life is too often self-centered, selfish and destructive to others.
Unless everyone of us examines our own knee-jerk belief systems, conditioned into us by tribe/family, culture, religions, governments, media, early traumatic experiences, we can never become fully human and our own true selves. It's an ongoing life-time's work.
On the larger scene, those of us from the Western World are stuck with leadership still ruled by Colonial mentalities that project their superiority and their right to destroy others, to sneer at others' life-styles and belief systems, to take what others have. Those we attack and kill are considered no more than vermin, and thus it is impossible to hear the screams of children in the night or feel the sufferings of others as we so callously drop our bombs, bulldoze homes down and shoot and bury the residents within them.
In the strivings for material gain and dominating positions over others, we lose our souls because we cease to care about what we do and then, worst of all, we defile the Creator, by labeling the reasons for our actions "in the name of God."
The alleged statement of Jesus of Nazareth on the cross of "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," applies to the Tony Blairs, the George W. Bushes, the Barack Obamas, the Generals of the Pentagon -- The Predator Class of History, but unfortunately also, 90 to 95-plus per cent of the rest of us who apathetically or dutifully go along with "the program" also do not know what they/we do.
The greatest souls who have incarnated on this planet all have taught the same message. Perhaps Gandhi's simple DO NO HARM message sums all the other messages up. If one consciously tries to DO NO HARM in both the smallest and the broadest sense, one then truly experiences an acute awareness ... mindfulness ... of The Other, whatever that Other is.
Thus, with that mindful awareness, we connect to life and all life forms with awe and growing appreciation, and then eventually perhaps, with Love and Gratitude for the privilege of being given a Life to live. And we will no longer be able to accept, permit or participate in, either directly or from the sidelines, hurting, destroying and taking the lives of our fellow beings.
This is heavy stuff I write in the a.m. hours, but my awareness tells me that if we do not make some kind of breakthrough soon in our collective human evolvement, we will mindlessly continue on this suicidal course until we meet up with The Full Catastrophe. [Zorba the Greek's definition of marriage, but I'm borrowing it anyway. ; - )]
Tony Blair, George W. Bush, and now Barack Obama and all their instigating or go-along cohorts must be brought to trial for Crimes Against Humanity ... against LIFE.
The chances of any of them making an appearance at The Hague or other Courts anytime soon are slim to none. But We are The People and We are the Court of Public Opinion ... the Vox Populi.
If each one of us becomes clear that what has been done in our name is unacceptable, then our words and our choice of actions will speak to that, ... and just that awareness and aware action can be part of the mindful transformation that has to happen in order for our species and all other species to survive and thrive.
Think about it. LIFE can be wonderful. For too many, it is not. Let us help make it so for not just ourselves, but for all of us on this planet.
To borrow a slogan: WE CAN DO THIS ... and, at this point, WE CAN DO THIS BECAUSE WE MUST!
peace/cm
If you are seventy then you were born in the year when the madness really began.
73, and planning to live to 125 or maybe 126. I want to see how it all turns out by then. If there still is a then.
The Depression was still depressed when I was born, and then WWII, but that is not when the madness began. It began when humans -- generally males -- chose weapons to attack and conquer other people because they could ... or there was fighting over territory, religion, tribal differences, women, riches ... And then we got into class hierarchies and major authority figures -- monarchs, high priests, the rich vs. the poor ...
So really, what else is new? Such slow learners we are, and so unimaginative ...
This Madness now is the ultimate in Madness because it seems all the stops are out and our own Constitutional Law is being broken all the time. Additionally, we are walking a tightrope regarding environmental degradation and climate change. But even now there is total resistance and chicanery from those leaders who need to be intelligent leaders for the common good instead of for profit, for the elite, for power.
It's possible that many of our leaders are full-blown psychopaths. Because of the different or compromised brain configuration genetically, they cannot feel other than a rush if they subjugate, hurt or have power over another. They look human, they usually have charm, intelligence, they talk normally, but some have trouble with language expression -- getting words mixed up or pronounced wrong, sentences mangled [GW]; they are strictly into their own egotistical visions and its THEIR WAY or else; they lie, cheat, distort, control, b.s.; they have no conscience, no remorse, no shame; they have a difficult time sensibly projecting and evaluating future results from actions they decide on, do or cause; they do not make logical connections easily or well; many of them are very ambitious and love the limelight, and more.
Seems like quite a few people who've been around, both a fairly long time and a fairly short time, that we have come to know by their faces, words and actions have many of the qualities as above. They fit the clinical description of psychopaths.
Obviously, these are very dangerous people because they can fool most of the people most of the time, including psychiatrists, psychologists, licensed social workers, and other professionals who usually are pretty bright and astute. However, it seems not to matter how much training or experience these professionals have. They still get gulled, and some even marry them to their decided regret later. Interesting reading about this on the Net.
Having said this, however, what I stated in my previous post is that it's really up to us. Most of us do know what is right, what is fair, what is humane.
The real danger, however, is that it's our own ignorance from media brain-washing, our own conditioned material value systems, and our foggy apathy that may do us in.
We have been tamed and our instincts are blunted.
Let us hope that we don't have to wait until dire emergencies scare the hell out of us before we wake up to what is happening. It could be too late.
peace, cm
P.S. I do intend to be around until at least my 125th birthday ... maybe 126. I really want to be around to see how this all turns out. ; - ) Optimistically then I'm giving this human family and this earth about 52.8 years more. That should be enough time to get it right.
Great post. Insightful. Would love to meet you 40 years from now for coffee and to talk about how it all turned out. Not kidding :)
You're on, Alcyon.
At 125 or 126, I'll make sure I make the NEWS ... IF we still have newspapers or television stations still working.
That way you'll be able to find me, and we can hang out over coffee.
By then I should have my house cleaned up again and my 90 acres spruced up so maybe I'll throw myself a Woodstock-type birthday party. Ya' never know, because I never know what I'm going to do either, but I'm inclined to do such things.
I'm writing most of the time again, and hell, if you can write and read and be part of this incredible ride, who the hell wants to be cleaning like Suzy housekeeper? I think I've vacuumed the length of the Sahara Desert in my time, and cooked more dinners, and changed more diapers (including in a job, which I loved, working with non-ambulatory, profoundly retarded [I.Q's 4-18] adult females. I taught 'em to dance. Wheelchairs on marble floors and the right music ... couldn't ask for anything more. They loved it and their laughter and joyful sounds were music too.)
So now I have a vision ... a Woodstock birthday bash that makes the news, and Alcyon and others will trek to the old homestead and we'll all celebrate over coffee and whatever else and, of course, a huge birthday cake. How 'bout that?
God, I love living and this earth of ours. What a bunch of baddies we're up against. Holy Bovine!
looking forward, Alcyon ... Yes!
/cm
Hmph, "hollow people" indeed! To this I only can offer the following:
T.S. Eliot - The Hollow Men
Mistah Kurtz -- he dead.
A penny for the Old Guy
I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer --
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom
III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.
V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Cee Miracles, no, it's not heavy stuff that you wrote. The magnitude of the crisis is so great that nothing short of a fundamental transformation in a large number of humans will help us move to safer grounds. Thank you for reminding.
I agree.
"... my awareness tells me that if we do not make some kind of breakthrough soon in our collective human evolvement, we will mindlessly continue on this suicidal course..."
–(Cee Miracles)
You are being impatient. Though unexpected historical fractures may provide opportunities for transformations and rebellion– there is no evidence there exists a concomitant, specific political agenda even remotely sophisticated or serious enough– to programatically address the intensification of the crisis we are now living through. Consider the following:
As Chou En-Lai, President of the Chinese Communist Party famously said in 1953, when he was asked about the French Revolution. He remarked in all seriousness:
"It is still too early to tell."
"This is heavy stuff I write in the a.m. hours..." –(Cee Miracles)
–Unfortunately it is not not quite "heavy" enough. Now onto some 'real' heaviness– which like all weighty and serious remonstrances– are not to everyone's 'tastes' or for the faint of heart. They are provided here simply to exacerbate the contradictions and hopefully clear the room of 'dead wood.' To wit:
"Six Little Antidotes for the Malaise of Wishful Thinking."
(Which allows for Tony Blair to live).
"Father," he asked, "are the rich people stronger than anyone else on earth?" 'Yes, Illusha," I said. "There are no people on Earth stronger than the rich." "Father he said, "I will get rich, I will become an officer and conquer everybody, the Tsar will reward me, I will come back here then no one will dare..." Then he was silent and his lips still kept trembling. "Father, he said, "what a horrid town this is."
–(Dostoyevsky, "The Brothers Karamazov")
"If the spring of popular government in time of peace is virtue, the springs of popular government in revolution are at once virtue and terror; virtue, without which terror is fatal; terror, without which virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing but prompt, severe inflexible justice; it is therefore an emanation of virtue..."
–(Maximilien Robespierre)
"The dictatorship is necessary because it is a case, not of partial changes, but of the very EXISTENCE of the bourgeoisie. No agreement is possible on this ground. Only force can be the deciding factor" –(Leon Trotsky)
"People do not judge in the same way as courts of law; they do not hand down sentences, they throw thunderbolts; they do not condemn kings, they drop them back into the void."
–(Maximilien Robespierre)
"Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which, we use to crush the enemy." –(Mao Tse-Tung)
As always, it is the 'thought' that counts not whether or not these thoughts are 'practical,' fashionable or imminent; or whether one chooses to call it 'Communism' or something else. The rest will follow if one thinks into what must be done and proceeds accordingly.
The dialectic of the individual visionary consciousness holds true for the utopian collective political eschatology as well. To wit:
"A thousand accidents may and well interpose a veil between our present consciousness and the secret inscriptions of the mind; accidents of the same sort will also rend away this veil; but whether veiled or unveiled, the inscription remains forever; just as the stars seem to withdraw before the common light of day; whereas in fact we all know that it is the light which is drawn over them as a veil, and that they are waiting to be revealed when the obscuring daylight shall have withdrawn."
–(Thomas De Quincey-"Confessions Of An English Opium Eater."
–(Submitted by Jill Bains)
So his Christian faith gave him the strength to make and/or justify a decision that resulted in the killing of 1.5 million Iraqi civilians (not to mention the death and injury to thousands of British soldiers). Please explain to me how this is any better or different from those so-called Muslim extremists he's so fond of demonizing. He, his war cabinet and Bush should all be at the Hague.
"religion is not the opiate of the masses... it is the crack cocaine of the masses" - Lydia Lunch
Poppy Bush will be so sorry to hear this.
Don't believe all this stuff Blair is saying -- he's just talking tough about this invasion and supporting illegal war stuff trying to look good so he can get the next Nobel Peace Prize.
Or get a great profit from a book he's going to write.
Bush/Chenney and Blair did not go to war to eleiminate Terrorists, they went to war to create a stazi police state terrorists and usher in the new world order.
Those three are scum bags, and I believe 9/11 was an inside job to push us in a new world order direction through financial colapse, and global war.
Terrorists are every where, just look at the Christian right lunatics in America.
I have been stalked and harrassed by right wing christian lunatics for three years.
They are easy to spot, they follow me the second I leave the house till I get home, I am never alone,ever, its been three years. if this is happening to you, you have been selected for domestic terorist destruction.
They tail gate and constantly surrond your car, its called mobbing.There are all kinds of harraessment, vandilisim, home intrusion, listening bugs, they will drug your food , convince your nieghbors you are a threat , slander you, discredit you.
You name it , these dirty scum bags will do it to you, and they are well funded, thats the sickest part.Large corporations, wealthy individuals have thier own private aemys of scum bags.
The Department of Justice knows all about it, they wont eeven investigate, they just tell you your crazy.... STAZI POLICE TACTICS.
There headlights on their cars are missalingned , one much brighter than the other,
one park light is not working,
both head lights are super bright,,
fog lamps and headlight are always on and super bright,,
fish symbols on their cars
They tail gate and follow thier targets every where,
they are gang stalking domestic terrorists that were empowerd by Bush/Cheny, the patriot acts and immunity from law suits.
Bush/Chenney , the supreme court , and congress has made vigilante gang stalking torture legal and immune from prosecution.
STAZI POLICE STATE,,,, DOMESTIC TERRORISTS, COMMINTING ACTS OF Physiological TORTURE.
COWARDLY UNPATRIOTIC SCUM BAGS WHO DO NOT RESPECT THE CONSTITUTION OR THE LAW.
And now the Obama Dicktrain provides the Great Enabelor's cover for more Toady Blare!
If Blair really could have used other arguments or reasons for invading and destroying Iraq, then why did he use such a shoddy one as the weapons of mass destruction?
Obviously, he not only had no another argument, but, more importantly, that cynic clearly did not care about giving a proper justification for his decision to wage war against Iraq. Christian soldier Blair obviously holds that might is right.
When it comes to might and war, and the energy interests of England, Blair does not let the teachings of Jesus get in the way of things. He sets them aside ("It [his faith] really didn't").
As for the use of lethal gas by Saddam Hussein, note that when Blair cites that as a possible alternative ground for his decision, he only mentions the use of gas against the Kurds, not against the Iranians, as far as I have been able to see.
Furthermore, where did Saddam get the gas from, if not from Western companies? Moreover, the gasing episode occurred years before 2003, and, as far as I know, Blair never gave it two thoughts until this time, when an investigation regarding the process that led to the invasion of Iraq is under way. He certainly raised no objections against the use of gas in the Iraq-Iran conflict.
The man is an utterly repulsive representative of our species.
Check the links at
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=-4&bh=2
What happened in Kurdish Halabja?
DR. Ibrahim Aloush - www.albasrah.net, Did Iraq attack Halabja with chemical weapons in 1988?
Stephen C. Pelletiere - NYTimes, A Glimpse of The Past: A War Crime or an Act of War?
Jude Wanniski, Saddam Hussein Did Not Commit Genocide
Carlton Meyer, Saddam never gassed his own people
Jude Wanniski, In Defense of Saddam Hussein:
Jude Wanniski, Defending Saddam, Not President Bush
Jude Wanninski, What Happened at Halabja?
Ghali Hassan, What do Fallujah and Halabja have in Common?
Robin Miller - Media Monitors Network, Claims of Saddam's Genocide Far from Proven
Raju Thomas- Times of India, Report Suppressed: Iran Gassed Kurds, Not Iraq
Xymphora, More on Jeffrey Goldberg
Jude Wanniski, A Fair Trial for Saddam?
in italiano
Sanjay Suri, Saddam può chiamare la CIA in sua difesa:
Ghali Hassan, Che cosa hanno in comune Fallujah e Halabja?
Ibrahim 'Allush - Aljazira.it, L'Iraq ha veramente attaccato i curdi a Halabja nel 1988?
What a stinking mountain of crap!
IF he had known??!!!
He knew there were no WMD's.
Oh, and to be polite, let's pretend there was no viciously brutal slaughter of innocent people.
(Well, really, they weren't Christians, you know)
Shall we have tea or would you rather that I piss on your face?
Good one Birdbrain.
Britain was one of the countries supplying chemical weapons to Iraq (and
still does to Israel). Blair did not care one bit about the use of the
chemical weapons at the time they were used. Blair did not withdraw his
support for Saddam after Saddam used those weapons. Iraq received a
billion dollars of "aid" that year from the USA (tied to military
spending on US arms of course), and 2 billion dollars of "aid" the next
year.
But here we have Tony Blair saying he would have invaded Iraq anyway -
for noble reasons:- "... because Saddam Hussein had used chemical
weapons against his own people." So Tony now says he did it not because
Iraq was "a threat to the world", but because of his "care" for the
Iraqi people.
So... Please permit me to examine his "care" for Iraqis, who used to
have the best education and medical facilities in the middle east, and
all for free....
Take a look at this document. Note its ".mil" URL:-
http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/declassdocs/dia/19950901/950901_511rept_91.html
The Whitehouse was informed by the US military that Iraq's water was not
potable without treatment. As the document informs:-
"... Iraq depends on importing specialized equipment and some chemicals
to purify its water supply, most of which is heavily mineralized and
frequently brackish to saline. With no domestic sources of both water
treatment replacement parts and some essential chemicals, Iraq will
continue attempts to circumvent United Nations sanctions to import these
vital commodities. Failing to secure supplies will result in a shortage
of pure drinking water for much of the population. This could lead to
increased incidences, if not epidemics, of disease ..."
Britain and the US went on to bomb and destroy Iraq's water treatment
plants, and also the power plants that were necessary to power those
water treatment plants. Then they imposed sanctions which prevented the
importation of parts that could repair or replace those same water
treatment plants and power stations. Cleverly, they declared those
parts to be "dual use" and prevented their importation to Iraq long
after the inspectors declared that Saddam's WMD were non existent in
1995.
1.5 million Iraqis died as a result of those sanctions, as predicted by
the above document, mostly from dysentry, hepatitis C and other water
borne diseases, because the sanctions prevented their repair. The food
for oil scheme was neither here nor there, because that did not address
the cause of the deaths.
Such has been Tony Blair's care for Iraqis, that another 1.5 million
have died as a result of the invasion and occupation, and another 4
million have been displaced as refugees, which none of the "coalition of
the willing" took on, but most of the refugees were accepted by Syria.
If that is what Tony does to those who he "cares" for, then god help those
he hates. He is a lying sack of shit and needs to be tried for war crimes
in the world court in the Hague.
braithwa842,
Great post. I was not aware of any of that. The expansion of Empire is a nasty business, is it not?
A glimpse of what awaits all of us Under a "New World Order" single government, if it pokes up it's ugly head.
Talk about dancing with Jack-the-Ripper....
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
Excellent points and a Crime against humanity under all international treaties. The number of people killed by these sanctions vastly exceeded the number that was attributed to the "Brutal" Saddam Hussein.
Apologists for these war crimes claim that Saddam was responsible for the deaths due to poor drinking water because he refused to ensure his people had a safe supply.
They conveniently ignore the fact that the sanctions prevented him from obtaining the materials to treat the water supply.
As I have stated a number of times, the UN Security council as structured is merely a means by which todays "Great Powers" can maintain their grip on power and justify what would be labled as war crimes if committed by any other State.
The two born again idiots with the power to invade Iraq killing thousands of innocents for no good reason should be arrested and tried before the world.
Tony Blair, the illegitamate son of Maggie Thatcher, reveals his complete sophistry and lack of any ethics at all with all this, He's now shown he meant to start this war with Iraq no damn matter what, and he had no concern about the truth, about the loss of British, American, Iraqi, and all others lives and blood. He is without doubt lower than rat excrement, and if either Winston Churchill or Aneuran Bevan were either the greatest Britons of all time, then Blair is easily one of the worst of all time. May he may be shamed as the low life mad dog he is.
The reference to Blair's maternity is simply based on the best evidence coming out of Scotland in the north of the UK, the invisible Britain, and in some ways its best part.
AD
Tony Blair, the illegitimate son of Maggie Thatcher and Oswald Mosley.
Let's not forget The Sperm Donor.
"illegitimate son of Maggie Thatcher and Oswald Mosley" Good one, that conjures up some imagery in my wacky imagination.
Sounds very plausible to me, the offspring of a callous, racist, neo-lib elitist, and a full-blown racist Fascist. That pretty much covers Blair. Those three ought to be voted the all time worst Britons in the last 100 years.
AD, I don't know how much you've read about Winston Churchill. He was every bit as racist, imperialist, manipulative and psychopathic. He had the gift of the gab and a great survival instinct - that's all. But he was not above usurping resources from far-away lands as if it was the most natural thing to do, nor even above using chemical weapons (though of the non-lethal variety). He had such utter contempt for Gandhi. Do a bit of googling and you'll find interesting information. Churchill has long lost my respect which I might have had from my high school days.
Rapist Admits: I Would Have Done That Chick Even If She Wasn't Asking For It With That Outfit
Barakus Obombus, et tu on this dawg, then fall "Western Civilzation, and may the Slavic and other European tribes descend upon you as the Gothic tribes descended upon Rome in ancient times.
This is what could happen if "Western Civilization" doesn't "repent" as Tony Blair would say and ought to himself do, as he's brought up the subject indirectly of his well known officially Anglican religion, which nobody with a brain should take even half seriously. The Arch Bishop of Canterbury and the head of the Church of England has nothing in common with this off the head Blair, the pagan or worst swine.
AD
Was it Benjamin Disraeli who said, "The last refuge of a scoundrel is patriotism or religion"? Tony is already using the God defence, so we'll all vomit when he starts wrapping himself in the flag. Maybe then we'll be angry enough to haul him into court in handcuffs.
Tony Blair: would you have others do unto you what you would do unto them? In other words are you suggesting a global policy justifying assassination of foreign leaders who don't attack
you first?
That loathsome tool of the zionazis is also a War Criminal of the first rank. It will not be a happy day when Tony Blair swings but it will be a day when a modicum of Justice will have been served.
Tony Blair- vile lying putrid sack of shit.
Sophie Scholl-The Final Days
Give that piece of human garbage enough rope!
Bring America Back !!!!........!!!!...The Evidence is now voluminous that Sir Tony Blair did Know there were never any WMDs in Iraq--and this is merely self serving justification for his pre-emptive war crime invasion of Iraq !!!!
****Blair wants to continue to hold hands with King George and Prince Dick, and to ride along on their coat-tails !!
****Since when was the last time England invaded anybody
for the thrill of Regime Change ???? Like, Never, without
the persuasions of Neocon America, and Zionist Israel ????
SEND BLAIR TO THE INTERNATIONAL WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL , NOW !
You ever notice all these war criminals look like Alfred E Newman? What me worry? And why should they? They get away with their war crimes. Trails for these assholes. When convicted hang the fuckers just like they engineered for Sadam.
OJ Simpson says:
Well I would have killed her anyway.....
Since it is that time of year again and I used this one way back when Tony Baloney was all over the news spewing his lies:
"and that Blair was so sly and so slick
He thought up a lie, and he thought it up quick"
Now Obama fills that role.
Self-serving solipsistic bullshit.
No wonder Mr. Blair looks more and more like a cross between Mad Magazine's Alfred E Neumann and The Joker! His grin has been stitched in time.
What would Shakespeare have had to say...?
-30-
Why is this war criminal still walking around--and why are the media and politicians treating him like a human being instead of the vermin he is???
How many here had a four-letter word or some expletive come to mind as the first response after reading the headline and the first few paragraphs of this story? Come on, admit it.