Viewing 23 posts - 121 through 143 (of 143 total)
  • Chilcot Report, July 6th
  • binners
    Full Member

    Did anyone hear Tony interviewed on the Today programme this morning?

    Worth catching on iplayer. To summarise:

    Will everybody stop picking on me and being horrid?! Its just, like, soooooo not fair! I didn’t lie. I’m as honest as the day is long, and trustworthy and did what I did with the best of intentions. Yes, a couple of million people died or were displaced. And, yes, the region descended into bloody chaos, but how was I to know thats what would happen? Its not like anyone warned me, is it? Now can we just all move on, and everyone start being a lot nicer to me, and give me the respect I deserve!

    The bloke is unhinged!!!

    ernie_lynch
    Free Member

    jambalaya – Member

    Court of Law. Ernie there really isn’t a case to answer. He will never go to court as there is no case. That’s my view.

    It might well be your view however a former Director of Public Prosecutions has a different view to yours on the matter.

    The former Director of Public Prosecutions, Lord MacDonald QC, believes Tony Blair’s conduct in the build-up to the Iraq war could amount to misconduct in public office.

    Speaking to The Times, he highlighted an example of “particularly egregious misconduct” set out in the Chilcot report. [/b]

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36738086

    I suspect your view might be heavily influenced by that huge feeling of admiration which you have for Tony Blair.

    In contrast I think the man was/is an arsehole and live in hope that one day he’ll end up in court.

    EDIT : Btw I didn’t have a clue what “egregious” means so I looked it up. It turns out that the former Director of Public Prosecutions has identified an example of outstandingly bad/shocking misconduct by Blair from the Chilcot report. Excellent.

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    jambalaya
    Free Member

    I certainly don’t have a huge admiration for Blair. I voted for him once and only once. I think he and Brown did their bit to create the conditions for the credit crises of 2007/8. Brown then screwed up the responce. I think the invasion of Iraq was an error (which would have been made by pretty much any PM). Don’t see too much basis for admiration there.

    ernie_lynch
    Free Member

    I know of no one on here who does more to defend and praise Tony Blair than you jambalaya.

    Can you think of anyone who defends and praises Tony Blair more than you ?

    So it turns out that Blair’s number one cheerleader on STW doesn’t even admire him. Well that says a lot.

    Junkyard
    Free Member

    Did anyone hear Tony interviewed on the Today programme this morning?

    Yes it was illuminating.

    He is nuts isnt he.

    phiiiiil
    Full Member

    Kimbers, that is awesome! I used to really like that film, but then I found out that Alcatraz doesn’t even *have* a lower lighthouse, and now I find it started the Iraq war! Gutted.

    epicyclo
    Full Member

    jambalaya – Member
    …I think the invasion of Iraq was an error (which would have been made by pretty much any PM)…

    I reckon Thatcher wouldn’t have made his mistakes even though she would have been slavering over the prospect of a war.

    outofbreath
    Free Member

    “I reckon Thatcher wouldn’t have made his mistakes even though she would have been slavering over the prospect of a war.”

    I think Thatcher would have explained why destabilising the Middle East was a bad idea far more convincingly than Blair did, and then the neo-cons wouldn’t have done it. Quite seriously.

    MSP
    Full Member

    The coalition countries were US, UK spain, poland and aus. The leaders of all other countries realised what an idiotic folly it was, and lets be honest 4 of those countries were there just to suck up to the US, only 3 of them couldn’t match the incredible blowjob skill of Blair.

    ninfan
    Free Member

    Can you think of anyone who defends and praises Tony Blair more than you ?

    Me for one

    I remain strongly of the opinion that most of the people so loudly criticising him over Iraq fully supported his governments interventionist and unlawful interventions in Kosovo and Sierra Leone, and we’re happy enough to vote Labour in 2005 to reelect him.

    reckon Thatcher wouldn’t have made his mistakes even though she would have been slavering over the prospect of a war.

    “This is no time to go wobbly, George”

    outofbreath
    Free Member

    “supported his governments interventionist and unlawful interventions in Kosovo and Sierra Leone, and we’re happy enough to vote Labour in 2005 to reelect him.”

    I supported Sierra Leone but not Kosovo.

    jivehoneyjive
    Free Member

    I think Thatcher would have explained why destabilising the Middle East was a bad idea

    Apart from arming Saddam in the 1st place…

    igm
    Full Member

    Didn’t Thatcher’s immediate family do rather well out of Conservative government backed arms deals?

    cheekyboy
    Free Member

    Who exactly are you quoting, cheekyboy? It’s from the Mail, but no reference to who’s being quoted.
    As far as plausibility is concerned, Blair managed to convince the rest of the government, and the country, that there was a legitimate case to go in and take out Saddam.

    Hi There Count ! Im quoting your good friend the sociopath Peter Hitchens !

    I would be more in favour of gullibility*, incompetence and seeking favour in lieu of competence/ability/intellect (any careerist will tell you this is the easiest option) than owt else ! then again we probably havent had a plausible cabinet of any hue for a very long time.

    * rather than belief in plausibility

    ernie_lynch
    Free Member

    ninfan – Member

    “Can you think of anyone who defends and praises Tony Blair more than you ?”

    Me for one

    I would strongly dispute that.

    Yes like jambalaya you obviously hold Tony Blair in very high esteem but you rarely defend him in any meaningful way.

    In the same way that although you are clearly a huge supporter of the Tory Right unlike jambalaya you rarely actually defend the Tories and their policies.

    What you do instead is attempt to deflect criticism through taunting and a massive overuse of the laughing emoticon.

    Defending the Tories, and Tony Blair, isn’t easy, in fact jambalaya has a helluva job doing so on here – but give him his credit he tries. So you don’t bother and choose to taunt “lefties” instead.

    An absolutely perfect example of this is in your last post when you say :

    “I remain strongly of the opinion that most of the people so loudly criticising him over Iraq fully supported his governments interventionist and unlawful interventions in Kosovo and Sierra Leone, and we’re happy enough to vote Labour in 2005 to reelect him.”

    You are not actually defending Blair over his decision to go to war in Iraq, that would too difficult to do, so instead you are taunting his critics.

    It is an absolutely classic ninfan tactic.

    But it is not a tactit used by jambalaya.

    ninfan
    Free Member

    You are not actually defending Blair over his decision to go to war in Iraq,

    I can’t, because I disagreed with the decision to do it at that time (they should have waited for the weapons inspectors)… However

    What I can defend him for is that his approach was not only entirely consistent with his outlook and his openly discussed and established belief in interventionist military action, but also that he was 100% convinced that he was right to do so. You can’t accuse Blair of inconsistency in any of this, interventionism and internationalism have been consistently accepted as Labour party beliefs for many yeas – notable exceptions such as Vietnam have to be balanced against Korea and Suez, and Blairs belief in this were clearly laid out by Kosovo and SL. Of course, the exercise of moralistic beliefs and that ‘the ends justify the means’ were also on display by Blair and those who came to power with him from day one. You can disagree with his decisions and processes all you like, but to pretend that you didn’t know what you were getting with him would be ridiculous.

    ernie_lynch
    Free Member

    As I said, jambalaya shows a greater commitment to defend Blair than you do. And Anthony Eden was a Tory PM btw.

    epicyclo
    Full Member

    ninfan – Member
    …interventionism and internationalism have been consistently accepted as Labour party beliefs for many yeas – notable exceptions such as Vietnam have to be balanced against Korea and Suez…

    …but to pretend that you didn’t know what you were getting with him would be ridiculous.

    I’m pretty sure the reason Harold Wilson didn’t take us into Vietnam was the party had learned from the experience of Korea and Suez. Too many families in the country had already given blood in the UKs imperial wars. When you think about it the Boer War generation was still alive, so that’s a lot of major wars, one for each generation up to the Korean, and not forgetting the distaste for conscripts getting killed in the non-wars like Cyprus and the Yemen.

    No one knew what they were getting with Blair. I was living in Oz at the time but I remember seeing some of his speeches and interviews and being impressed by his apparent willingness to accept mistakes and make things right. From that distance he seemed a decent guy who would try to avoid doing the wrong thing. People were conned.

    jivehoneyjive
    Free Member

    I read somewhere recently that the NSA and GCHQ had monitored members of the UN in the run up to the invasion of Iraq, in order to gain leverage.

    Struggling to find the link at the mo… wonder if it’s mentioned in the Chilcot report

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    Like Angela Merkel ? Old news.

    jivehoneyjive
    Free Member

    Ah, here we go:

    seems the story first broke in 2003, shortly before the Invasion began…

    The United States is conducting a secret ‘dirty tricks’ campaign against UN Security Council delegations in New York as part of its battle to win votes in favour of war against Iraq.

    Details of the aggressive surveillance operation, which involves interception of the home and office telephones and the emails of UN delegates in New York, are revealed in a document leaked to The Observer.

    The disclosures were made in a memorandum written by a top official at the National Security Agency – the US body which intercepts communications around the world – and circulated to both senior agents in his organisation and to a friendly foreign intelligence agency asking for its input.

    The memo describes orders to staff at the agency, whose work is clouded in secrecy, to step up its surveillance operations ‘particularly directed at… UN Security Council Members (minus US and GBR, of course)’ to provide up-to-the-minute intelligence for Bush officials on the voting intentions of UN members regarding the issue of Iraq.

    Of course, that was long before Edward Snowden began to reveal the full extent of the surveillance program.

    Remains to be seen if there will there be any mention of it in the Chilcot Report…

    ernie_lynch
    Free Member
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