Blair has just made a speech to his Sedgefield (NE England) constituency. These are my initial thoughts
Well Tony Blair does it again.
Up he walks to the empty podium. Was he going to say "I did my best, I made a big mistake I'm sorry I quit goodbye"?
Was he hell as like
Using some big words "the threat was real and existential"
and ranging from the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) to N Korea's dialogue with China
he put together a very thoughtful and powerful speech.
"you may disagree with me but at least you now understand my thinking"
"The real threat to the world is from religious (and surprisingly he was not coy about calling it Islamic on several occasions) extremism.
We must not hold back from confronting it. But its a battle that can't be won. We have to win the fight in the minds of men".
He went on about the Pakistan AQ Khan network selling nuclear technology around the world. Blair pulled together a good argument that rogue states, wmd, Islamic terrorism were all factors creating a new and dangerous world.
9 out of 10 for content, effort and delivery Tony.
Just one small point, Iraq was a secular state which should have been on our side against Islamic terrorism. The real reasons for invading Iraq had nothing to do with suppressing terrorism. It has made the threat worse not decreased it. 911 had nothing to do with invading Iraq (as Bush said) except that Paul O'Neal has said Bush was looking for a reason for invasion from the moment he took office.
So in the space of 40 minutes I have gone from hoping Blair would step down, to thinking Britain is lucky to have a world leader of such stature, and yet and yet and yet...you lied to us Tony about the reasons for war. I don't trust you any more. Time to go.
It's sad to see Blair trying to explain why he assisted the US in the Iraq war. He's only digging the hole deeper, and he'll not be able to dig himself out.
It's also sad that we not only have a liar, a confidence man, and a idiot but also have a world divider that not only lacks stature but is creating great harm for years to come when, hopefully, future leaders begin to repair the great harm done - starting in January, 2005
ican711nm:
Quote:What will Kerry do when he becomes President?
'
WHEN he becomes president?' ican711nm?
Oh I hope so, I hope so, I hope so!
If he does, he will be fair..., I just know he will.
Steve (as 41oo) wrote:Just one small point, Iraq was a secular state which should have been on our side against Islamic terrorism.
Poor Saddam didn't realize that he should have been "on our side" when he was openly and repeatedly rewarding the families of Islamic extremist suicide bombers in Palestine. He was obviously oblivious of the fact that those suicide bombers were convinced that by
virtue of their actions they were winning a ticket to a Q'uran style heavenly paradise. Surely had Saddam known that, and how strictly secular he was supposed to be, he never would have so agressively advertised his Palestinian Muslim family aid program.
But of course this doesn't mean he aided and abetted any Islamic extremists outside of Palestine. Surely he realized, being secular and all, that he was not supposed to do that. Right?
Verbal lee wrote: 'WHEN he becomes president?' ican711nm?
Oh I hope so, I hope so, I hope so! If he does, he will be fair..., I just know he will.
The George Washington Bridge in New York City is alleged to be for sale cheap.
There may be a real opportunity there for some folks.
Your quote ican, possibly reality overcame all else for one brief moment
ican711nm wrote:Steve (as 41oo) wrote:Just one small point, Iraq was a secular state which should have been on our side against Islamic terrorism.
Poor Saddam didn't realize that he should have been "on our side" when he was openly and repeatedly rewarding the families of Islamic extremist suicide bombers in Palestine. He was obviously oblivious of the fact that those suicide bombers were convinced that by
virtue of their actions they were winning a ticket to a Q'uran style heavenly paradise. Surely had Saddam known that, and how strictly secular he was supposed to be, he never would have so agressively advertised his Palestinian Muslim family aid program.
But of course this doesn't mean he aided and abetted any Islamic extremists outside of Palestine. Surely he realized, being secular and all, that he was not supposed to do that. Right?
Hussein's support of the suicide bombers is quite easily understood in terms of Palestinian nationalism. It requires quite the stretch of imagination to imagine his support on grounds of religious solidarity.
hobitbob wrote:
Hussein's support of the suicide bombers is quite easily understood in terms of Palestinian nationalism. It requires quite the stretch of imagination to imagine his support on grounds of religious solidarity.
I agree!
But that, of course, is exactly my point. Saddam helped anyone, anyone at all, when he thought it would serve his objective of expanding his power over middle eastern peoples. Saddam did in fact aid and abet terrorists regardless of their religious or irreligious proclivities. Saddam did in fact aid and abet the training of secular and religious terrorists. Many of those so-called religious terrorists like bin Laden adopted that guise as a recruiting technique. It worked and is still working very effectively.
How could this even handed approach to terrorists regardlous of their religious or irreligous affiliations help Saddam achieve his objectives? It seemed obvious to him after the 1st gulf war that to succeed he had to drive the Americans out of the middle east. It seemed to him the Americans would be easy to persuade to pull out if the terrorists struck America and Americans directly. So he helped! Common thirsts for power makes ready comrads among those who otherwise hate each other. Each such comrad is quick to perceive himself as an exploiter and manipulator of the others.
Quote:I was disappointed. Aristide evolved into a tyrant the people of Haiti were willing to risk death to remove. I had hoped Bush et al had the courage to actually force that gangster to resign. The people of Haiti would have been justifiably grateful if Bush et al had forced him into exile.
You wrote this 'way back, ican. Aristede did not live up to his earlier promises. There was an effective opposition group that would have taken him out...in time. Will we ever learn?
Steve, I read your comments about TB's appearance and his supporting statements. He is either a master actor or a sincere man. Either way, he presents himself credibly. He has done what GB will not do: state what he was given and what he accepted and acted on, without questioning the source. Did Blair add the bit about How could I have done otherwise, defending the American People? In GB's case, it is not so straightforward. The war drums were beating as soon as he took office if not before and he was drawn into that camp.
There's no way to equate T Blair with G Bush; it's the difference between night and day.
Steve said:
Quote:So in the space of 40 minutes I have gone from hoping Blair would step down, to thinking Britain is lucky to have a world leader of such stature, and yet and yet and yet...you lied to us Tony about the reasons for war. I don't trust you any more. Time to go.
Hold on there a minute, Steve. Are you 100% sure that he
knew that he was lying? I'm not.
And one can't be so idealistic in an absolutist way that other considerations aren't factored into the equation. Is there an electable politician on the scene, right now, who is already known to be as good as, or better, than TB? Both for the nation and the world? I'm not over there so I don't know the answer to that question.
sumac, I have a tendency to agree with you; I don't think Tony Blair lied knowing he was lying. Atleast, that's what I hope.
I, for one, will not be that naive.....
I'm one of those people that thought Saddam had WMD's, but my information was garnered from the media and our government.
Here's a news release from Reuters.
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Bush, Blair Misled by Intelligence on Iraq - Blix
2 hours, 28 minutes ago Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!
LONDON (Reuters) - George Bush and Tony Blair (news - web sites), perhaps fired by a religious conviction they were battling evil, were seduced by unproven intelligence reports of Iraq (news - web sites)'s illegal weapons, former chief U.N. arms inspector Hans Blix says.
In a book, excerpts of which Britain's Guardian newspaper published on Saturday, Blix says that in the run-up to war, the British prime minister and envoys of the U.S. president seemed convinced by the information from their intelligence agencies.
Blix, who said he came under intense U.S. pressure to accept such intelligence as fact and was vilified for refusing, said he personally believed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) still had hidden illegal weapons but had told Blair he needed proof.
"I added that it would prove paradoxical and absurd if 250,000 troops were to invade Iraq and find very little," he wrote about their meeting on February 20, 2003.
"Blair responded that the intelligence was clear that Saddam had reconstituted his weapons of mass destruction program. Blair clearly relied on the intelligence and was convinced."
Blix wrote that Western intelligence claims shared with his inspectors about, for example, mobile laboratories to make biological agents had proved embarrassing and added:
"I am not aware of any other intelligence 'shared' with us that has been substantiated by credible evidence."
"Perhaps Blair and Bush, both religious men, felt strengthened in their political determination by the feeling they were fighting evil, not only (arms) proliferation," he wrote.
In the new book "Disarming Iraq -- The search for weapons of mass destruction," Blix said French intelligence services had also been convinced weapons of mass destruction remained in Iraq, but that President Jacques Chirac -- as staunchly opposed to war as Bush and Blair were in favor -- was more skeptical.
"The intelligence services sometimes 'intoxicate each other'," he said, citing Chirac.
Blix described an increasingly frantic round of diplomatic activity as the troop build-up in Kuwait gathered pace and the arms inspectors scouring Iraq came up empty-handed.
Nearly a year after the invasion and Saddam's overthrow U.S.-led forces have not found any illegal weapons.
Blair and Bush have both seen their popularity plummet over the unpopular war and its bloody aftermath.
On Friday Blair raised the prospect of a rethink of international law and the United Nations (news - web sites) to legalize pre-emptive strikes by foreign forces against so-called rogue states.
There was ample time and opportunity to "bury" things, or otherwise "dispose" of things in the desert, or across the border into Syria. Syria needed the oil.
My problem with Tony Blair is that he is too intelligent (or I think he is too intelligent) to be taken in by exaggerated field operative reports. [not that we had much humint it was mostly sigint]
Especially when Blair, (who I have said many times I admire greatly) orders the "sexing up" of intelligence reports and selects the juiciest bits for presentation to the public.
There must be a difference between intelligence reported to Blair and intelligence reported to the public by Blair no? Or am I just being too cynical?
I just can't get out of my mind the image of TB ordering the best gloss put on intelligence, then believing the final product, now in technicolor, with messianic zeal.
But his speech on Friday was very interesting and well worth some study. Pity he could not have said something similar a year ago.
