I agree with Tony Blair

According to the Times, Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, has said:

“I happen to think that there is a major struggle going on all over the world, really, which is about Islam and what is happening within Islam.” He said that this struggle had a “long way to go”. 

Well Tony, FWIW I agree with you. Granted, it is probably the only thing I agree with you about.  I wonder if you were careful enough when you said this. There are certain political appointees, including the public prosecutor, who likes to arrest people who say this sort of thing. Next, you'll be quoting the Bible, and for somebody who until recently didn't "Do God", it's quite a turnaround.

According to the report, Blair also says that the WMD issue was irrelevant - he would have found another reason to go to war anyway.

Asked if he would still have gone on had he known there were no weapons of mass destruction, he said: “I would still have thought it right to remove him.” 

So it was regime change after all. Quelle Surprise.

Sir William Patey, who was Head of the Middle East section of the Foreign Office warned against the Regime Change option as being illegal:

Speaking to the Chilcot Enquiry he said: 'We had at the end the regime change option - which was dismissed at the time as having no basis in law.

Lord Goldsmith, Blair's legal advisor and Attorney General, warned Blair that the war was illegal on the basis of regime change and without UN approval.

The Times again:

Mr Blair was reported yesterday to have concealed the advice from his Cabinet — fearing it would spark an anti-war revolt.


There is much, much more. The Deputy legal advisor to the FO resigned over the policy change and the Attorney General's apparent u-turn over his own advice, Jeremy Greenstock threatened resignation, and as we know, Robin Cook, a lone voice of integrity in the Cabinet, and a former Foreign Secretary, did resign from the Government over Iraq. A lot of information is still to come out, and we will not know most of it for years, and perhaps never. All I know on a personal level, is the the evidence is damning: we were mislead on the reasons for going to war, it was essentially an illegal war, and Blair should be in the dock as a War Criminal, for waging aggressive warfare.

Now some of you may be bored with this issue. Sorry. About 100,000 people died as a result of this, most of them would be alive today had it not been for Blair and Bush. 4587 coalition troops have died, to date, as a result of this international atrocity.

I have not forgotten.

So Blair, to you I say, there is a problem with Islam, on this I agree with you, but you have not addressed it and neither has your successor. You have merely fanned the flames of extremism and turned lying into the default option for the ruling class.

4 comments:

subrosa said...

Why is Blair going down this track now? Can't quite see where he's going here. He never wanted to include discussion of Islam previously and caused it to be one of those 'sensitive' issues which nobody speaks about as they are usually labeled racist.

Jon Lishman said...

Yes well, much as I have indulged with you in this post, I still regard you, sir, as one of our 'legislators', in the poetic sense. You know, in the sense of Blake - but more really of Keats - and even Shelley, possibly.

Sorry, but that's a fact.

Wrinkled Weasel said...

Subrosa - a very good question. I just wonder if he is actually going crazy? If I had to live with that amount of blood on my hands, I would.

It's not that long ago he was seen visiting the bones of dead saints in Westminster Cathedral.

Denverthen, I am not sure I follow you on this one.

Jon Lishman said...

Well, Weasel: you, in your way, are a wild man of the moors. Emily would know you.

Here, in Wales, you could hope to be something of a bard. I'm pretty thick with some bards, here, even though I am more than technically an 'Englishman'.

I am convinced you have a place here, in terms of your original expression. That's what I've been told in the past.

All the best,
Jono