Blair promises 'relentless' war on terror

[T_i_B]

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1163038,00.html

Tony Blair defended the doctrine of pre-emptive military action this morning, promising to "wage war relentlessly on those who would exploit racial and religious division to bring catastrophe to the world".

In a speech in his Sedgefield constituency, the prime minister warned of the "mortal danger" posed by Islamist terrorists and rogue states acquiring weapons of mass destruction. Mr Blair called for the reform of international law and the UN to allow the elimination of rogue, repressive regimes which might supply terrorists with WMD.

Insisting that Britain invaded Iraq "to enforce compliance with UN resolutions" and not because it had WMD, he suggested that the war was justified even if the Iraq survey group finds no weapons.

He described the controversy over the attorney general's legal advice on the war as an "elaborate smokescreen to prevent us seeing the real issue: which is not a matter of trust but of judgement".

[T_i_B]

1. Full text of the offending speech

can be found here.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1162991,00.html

[grytpype]

2. So when is he going to declare war on Bush?

Who has done more to "exploit racial and religious division to bring catastrophe to the world" lately?

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

4. Not anytime soon. Poodles are docile creatures.

[bobbieinok]

7. that's the lilne I saw too

...

[Spentastic]

3. Fuck off tony

"to enforce compliance with UN resolutions"

I might punch Tony in the mouth and claim I did it

"To enforce compliance with U.K law"

[T_i_B]

5. Impugning Tony Blair's Honour (and a challenge to fight)

And old link, but still worth posting!

http://www.rense.com/general29/dukes.htm

I hereby give public notice that I, Michael James, a 42 year-old British subject-citizen of sound mind and judgement, resident in the Republic of Germany, invoke the gentlemanly tradition of impugning honour with an offer of redress, and do thereby formally challenge one TONY BLAIR, a prime minister, to defend his honour and test the courage of his own convictions in regard to his advocacy of violence to settle arguments with other countries by engaging me in a bare-knuckle fist fight at a time and venue to be agreed mutually, according to the rules of ancient custom.

I openly and publicly IMPUGN THE HONOUR of TONY BLAIR by charging that he is:

A COWARD who manipulates other men to do his fighting for him

A COWARD who enjoins other men to do violence yet is himself a conniving, effeminate poltroon

[saigon68]

36. Not to mention he is a Poodle on a leash

The other end of the Leash-- being held by his "master" CHIMPANZEE McSHRUB

[T_i_B]

37. Got that one covered

From the challenge...

A COWARD and a moral weakling who is susceptible to the influence of deranged and mentally retarded superiors

[Bridget Burke]

6. The speech was carried live on bbcamerica this AM....

Just the end, followed by a bit of discussion. It pre-empted the first part of the news that I generally watch. (In fact, I started a thread about it that sank like a stone.)

Of course, he referred to September 11th--"when everything changed" (TM). Don't ask questions about Iraq, the economy, or whether it is right to overthrow any government you dislike. Much better spoken than Chimpy, he was repeating the points of W's election campaign. For his own constituency--but also for the USA, since it was shown here.

September 11th--when NO WMD's were used. Iraq--where NO WMD's were found. Just trust them. Right....

[bobbieinok]

8. might????? might???????

"....the elimination of rogue, repressive regimes which MIGHT supply terrorists with WMD."

the stupidity just never ends

[leesa]

9. He's going to wage war on the US and the UK?

"those who would exploit racial and religious division..." I can't wait until this idiot is behind bars!

[AP]

10. It has been my theory that the intelligence that Blair and US Senators saw

and upon which they based their decisions regarding Iraq was based on some good information, and some bad information, and that Bush has allowed the media to play up the bad information for a few reasons, including: (1) to drive a wedge within the left on this issue, (2) to bait Democrats into running on the issue of the war (whether it's was anti-war Dean, or a candidate entirely defined by military service), and (3) to bring down Blair.

I've always thought that we'd hear about the bad intelligence for months, but that, when Bush needs it to win reelection, we'll hear all about the good intelligence.

In Blair's speech he makes the following statement, which supports my theory:

We have seen one element - intelligence about some WMD being ready for use in 45 minutes -  elevated into virtually the one fact that persuaded the nation into war.  This intelligence was mentioned by me once in my statement to the House of Commons on 24 September and not mentioned by me again in any debate.  It was mentioned by no-one in the crucial debate on 18 March 2003.  In the period from 24 September to 29 May, the date of the BBC broadcast on it, it was raised twice in almost 40,000 written Parliamentary Questions in the House of Commons; and not once in almost 5,000 oral questions.  Neither was it remotely the basis for the claim that Saddam had strategic as well as battlefield WMD.  That was dealt with in a different part of the dossier; and though the Iraq Survey Group have indeed not found stockpiles of weapons, they have uncovered much evidence about Saddam's programme to develop long-range strategic missiles in breach of UN rules. 

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. It was Blair and his office who emphasised the 45 minutes

In both the Executive Summary and Blair's own foreword, the "45 minutes" is mentioned. By contrast, no attempt is made to actually say what the chemical or biological weapons that Iraq supposedly posessed actually were, or what their effects would be.
The origin of the Kelly Affair was when Kelly pointed out that 10 Downing Street had blown up the importance of the 45 minute claim out of all proportion. It was the accusation that they said this knowing it was wrong that Campbell objected to, and on which he launched the long-running attack on the BBC. The prominence of the 45 minute claim is all due to Blair and his staff.

[AP]

17. The media picked the 45 minute claim out of everything else to focus on.

And I know you read the Democracy Now interview in which the CIA told the agent responsible for approving the use of the Niger uranium line in the SOTU not to worry, and that they'd blame it on the British.

The 45 minute thing and the uranium line were a set-up from the start.

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. Tony wasn't talking about the uranium; why are you?

Your idea that the uranium claim was designed to discredit Blair is pure speculation on your part. No one else has suggested it, and you have no evidence. The interviewee just said he was told there was no need to worry about the uranium claim's accuracy, because the CIA wouldn't get blamed if it was wrong, but the British. Nothing about that being on purpose.

Similarly, you've given no reason to think the 45 minute claim was a setup. It was the only 'hard fact' that Blair chose to put into his foreword; it's not surprising that it made the headlines the next day.

[AP]

20. The CIA said they'd blame it on the British, and I think it's perfectly

obvious that Tony Blair is being made to pay the price of the invasion, whereas Bush isn't, and you can thank the media on both counts.

I don't think it's a big leap to say that it was a CIA plan from the start, and not just something that popped out of the CIA agents head when he said "don't worry."

Do you have a link for Blair's introduction so I can judge the weight it was meant to have (especially relative to this fairly compelling speech to his constituency)?

[muriel_volestrangler]

22. The whole September 2002 Iraq dossier

http://www.number-10.gov.uk/files/pdf/iraqdossier.pdf

[AP]

23. 8th paragraph of foreward and paragraph 6 of executive summary.

[AP]

11. Another good quote:

Let me attempt an explanation of how my own thinking, as a political leader, has evolved during these past few years.  Already, before September 11th the world's view of the justification of military action had been changing.  The only clear case in international relations for armed intervention had been self-defence, response to aggression.  But the notion of intervening on humanitarian grounds had been gaining currency.  I set this out, following the Kosovo war, in a speech in Chicago in 1999, where I called for a doctrine of international community, where in certain clear circumstances, we do intervene, even though we are not directly threatened.  I said this was not just to correct injustice, but also because in an increasingly inter-dependent world, our self-interest was allied to the interests of others; and seldom did conflict in one region of the world not contaminate another.  We acted in Sierra Leone for similar reasons, though frankly even if that country had become run by gangsters and murderers and its democracy crushed, it would have been a long time before it impacted on us.  But we were able to act to help them and we did.

So, for me, before September 11th, I was already reaching for a different philosophy in international relations from a traditional one that has held sway since the treaty of Westphalia in 1648; namely that a country's internal affairs are for it and you don't interfere unless it threatens you, or breaches a treaty, or triggers an obligation of alliance.  I did not consider Iraq fitted into this philosophy, though I could see the horrible injustice done to its people by Saddam.

However, I had started to become concerned about two other phenomena. 

The first was the increasing amount of information about Islamic extremism and terrorism that was crossing my desk.  Chechnya was blighted by it.  So was Kashmir.  Afghanistan was its training ground.  Some 300 people had been killed in the attacks on the USS Cole and US embassies in East Africa.  The extremism seemed remarkably well financed.  It was very active.  And it was driven not by a set of negotiable political demands, but by religious fanaticism.

The second was the attempts by states - some of them highly unstable and repressive - to develop nuclear weapons programmes, CW and BW materiel, and long-range missiles.  What is more, it was obvious that there was a considerable network of individuals and companies with expertise in this area, prepared to sell it. 


http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page5470.asp (this version has embedded links to the speeches to which Blair refers, so it's a very useful research tool).

[AP]

12. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Blair felt that...

... some of the financing for terrorism comes from right wing sources in the US which benefit from a frightening world and have connections to, I don't know, organizations to which Gorver Nordquist has connections, or Haider in Austria, or oil men in the middle east.

[AP]

15. More useful quotes (going beyond misleading headline "relentless war")

But do we want to take the risk?  That is the judgement. And my judgement then and now is that the risk of this new global terrorism and its interaction with states or organisations or individuals proliferating WMD, is one I simply am not prepared to run. 
 
This is not a time to err on the side of caution; not a time to weigh the risks to an infinite balance; not a time for the cynicism of the worldly wise who favour playing it long.  Their worldly wise cynicism is actually at best naivete and at worst dereliction.  When they talk, as they do now, of diplomacy coming back into fashion in respect of Iran or North Korea or Libya, do they seriously think that diplomacy alone has brought about this change?  Since the war in Iraq, Libya has taken the courageous step of owning up not just to a nuclear weapons programme but to having chemical weapons, which are now being destroyed. {a course of events Tony Blair was instrumental in ensuring would come to pass, and not exactly "relentless war"}  Iran is back in the reach of the IAEA.  North Korea in talks with China over its WMD.  The A Q Khan network is being shut down, its trade slowly but surely being eliminated.

Yet it is monstrously premature to think the threat has passed.  The risk remains in the balance here and abroad.

These days decisions about it come thick and fast, and while they are not always of the same magnitude they are hardly trivial. Let me give you an example.  A short while ago, during the war, we received specific intelligence warning of a major attack on Heathrow.  To this day, we don't know if it was correct and we foiled it or if it was wrong.  But we received the intelligence.  We immediately heightened the police presence.  At the time it was much criticised as political hype or an attempt to frighten the public.  Actually at each stage we followed rigidly the advice of the police and Security Service.  But sit in my seat.  Here is the intelligence.  Here is the advice.  Do you ignore it?  But, of course intelligence is precisely that: intelligence.  It is not hard fact.  It has its limitations.  On each occasion the most careful judgement has to be made taking account of everything we know and the best assessment and advice available.  But in making that judgement, would you prefer us to act, even if it turns out to be wrong?  Or not to act and hope it's OK?  And suppose we don't act and the intelligence turns out to be right, how forgiving will people be?

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. What's misleading about the headline?

It means getting the UN to understand that faced with the threats we have, we should do all we can to spread the values of freedom, democracy, the rule of law, religious tolerance and justice for the oppressed, however painful for some nations that may be; but that at the same time, we wage war relentlessly on those who would exploit racial and religious division to bring catastrophe to the world.

His argument boils down to: "trust me, we can't risk anything". But he lost our trust by selectively presenting dubious intelligence as hard fact, ignoring the objections of his own weapons experts; by releasing a plagiarised and out of date thesis as current intelligence; by ignoring the wishes of the UN inspectors who wanted more time to continue their inspections. Now, like Bush, he is invoking a mythical alliance between Muslim fundamentalists and a country that was opposed to them. He tries to justify the invasion of a country than had no dealings with A Q Khan at all. He invokes the spectres of "mortal danger" and "Armageddon".

This passage is telling:
Inspectors would have stayed but only the utterly naïve would believe that following such a public climbdown by the US and its partners, Saddam would have cooperated more.
What climbdown? The inspectors were inspecting. Did we need more cooperation? It was only that Bush was sabre-rattling, and had threatened Saddam so much, that he thought he'd look weak if he didn't attack. Don't blame us for your support of an incompetent President, Tony. It doesn't give you the justification to launch an agressive war. Save your rhetoric for the ICC.

[AP]

21. The tone of the entire speech is to explain Blair's thought process, and

waging relentless war isn't what he's promising. In fact, what he did with Libya is more like what he's promissing.

[KurtNilsen]

13. Tony Blair is a great man.

The US Democratic party would be lucky if a man of Blair's calibre ever joins its ranks.

[MisterP]

25. say what?

[Spazito]

14. Blair is a Bush lackey, plain and simple...

he lies, lies and lies again. I can only hope his party wises up and turfs him early enough to get a new leader for the next election. He is a danger to his party and to the world as long as he tows the Bush cabal line.

[fedsron2us]

24. Blair may be a liar, a lackey and a dupe but

I have a suspicion that he may still be British Prime Minister long after George W Bush has left the White House. Those who think that the Labour Party are going to ditch a leader who has led them to two landslide election victories do not understand how this organisation operates. They also underestimate Blair's cunning as a politician. He knows that he is going to face criticism and even open opposition from within his party over the failure of his Iraq policy. He also is aware that his opponents are never going to muster more than a fraction of the support necessary to oust him. Only the British Tories would be ruthless enough to remove a leader who had been so successful at the ballot box.

[Trillo]

26. A or B?

Blair seems to be arguing that the greatest threat to the world's security is globalization of the world's economy, therefore, the greatest threat to the world's security is the concentration of intelligence in the hands of a few. Perhaps some of you journalistic types can help me out.

from the article:
Everything about our world is changing: its economy, its technology, its culture, its way of living. If the 20th century scripted our conventional way of thinking, the 21st century is unconventional in almost every respect.
This is true also of our security.
The threat we face is not conventional. It is a challenge of a different nature from anything the world has faced before. It is to the world's security, what globalisation is to the world's economy.

His last two paragraphs and closing sentence could be rewritten: The unconventional threat we face is to the world's security what globalization is to the world's economy.

An obscene concentration of wealth in the hands of a few is dangerous to us. Durant claims, "a pathological concentration of wealth, leading to class wars, disruptive revolutions, and financial exhaustion" as well as "a change in trade routes" are some of the reasons civilizations historically fail.

The concentration of capital in the hands of fewer and fewer international corporations and individuals is a phenomenon of globalization, and perhaps the interjecting of global corporations' profit skimming into the cashflow of local economies is analogous to a change in trade routes, so . . .

A) Is Blair saying that the unconventional threat we are faced with today is the concentration of intelligence and weapons in the hands of too few as opposed to the many?
B) Or is he instead saying that communities of nations and states must stop the obscene concentration of capital in the hands of too few, preemptively, if necessary?


If it is the former, it both contradicts and agrees with some of his later statements, if it is the latter, it is a point upon which he makes no further mention.

[Briar]

31. Oh, nice thinking, SimpleTrend

If only the "modernising", messianic, friend of Bush, foe of ordinary working people meant either!

(edit for sp.)

[daleo]

27. Seems ominous - maybe they are they up to something.

Bush and Blair I mean.

[T_i_B]

28. What a crap speech.

No decision I have ever made in politics has been as divisive as the decision to go to war to in Iraq. It remains deeply divisive today. I know a large part of the public want to move on. Rightly they say the Government should concentrate on the issues that elected us in 1997: the economy, jobs, living standards, health, education, crime. I share that view, and we are.

Divisive only in the sence that it has divided the rulers in Britain from those whom Blair lords it over. Blair's imperialism has divided him from the people of Britain who marched in millions last year to protest againast Blair's policy on Iraq.

And no Blair, some of us want answers.

Where are the WMD's?

Did "new" labour lie us into war?

How is Hutton anything other than a whitewash?

In truth, the fundamental source of division over Iraq is not over issues of trust or integrity, though some insist on trying to translate it into that.

This is a lie pure and simple. There are very real questions about whther or not you lied us into an unjust war Tony, and as long as you are PM these questions of trust and integrity will remain for you and your paid-up apologists to answer. There are many who did support the war who now feel betrayed and angry about the lies that the Blairites spun in order to plunge us into this quagmire.

We have seen one element - intelligence about some WMD being ready for use in 45 minutes - elevated into virtually the one fact that persuaded the nation into war.

That has been done by your mate Alistair Campbell more than anyone else in his campaign against the BBC which culiminatued in the death of Dr Kelly and the Hutton whitewash. If you are angry about that Tony then be angry at yourself, not those of us who simply want to know the truth.

Iraq in March 2003 was an immensely difficult judgement. It was divisive because it was difficult. I have never disrespected those who disagreed with the decision.

This folks is a REALLY BLATANT LIE. "new" labour has been lying, smearing and spinning against anyone who disagrees with their imperialism for as long as the Iraq war has been an issue.

But the key point is that it is the threat that is the issue.

The threat was none existant. End of story.

It was defined not by Iraq but by September 11th. September 11th did not create the threat Saddam posed. But it altered crucially the balance of risk as to whether to deal with it or simply carry on, however imperfectly, trying to contain it.

Saddam Hussein had no links to Al-Quaida, and was not involved with 9/11. Iraq was, and remains a diversion that is increasing the threat to our national security and thanks to Blair's Iraq war it is serving to to end terrorism but to act as a breeding ground for it.

I could go on for ages here. The whole speech is nothing more than spin, half truth and lies.

[Briar]

30. "spin, half truth and lies"

One need only add, "as usual", TiB. What's more, we have heard a lot of this rubbish before, both from poodle Bliar and from his political master, Bush. This isn't the "Blair Doctrine" as some of his knee-jerk apologists are claiming, this is just another statement of the poisonous "Bush Doctrine". According to this, anyone can break into anyone's house, property, country, whatever, claiming that the deed was justified by dire if unconfirmed suspicions, and that the fault lay with the victim for having aroused the suspicions.

[T_i_B]

32. You mean like this?

I love a bit of Terry Jones!

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,882459,00.html

For some time now I've been really pissed off with Mr Johnson, who lives a couple of doors down the street. Well, him and Mr Patel, who runs the health food shop. They both give me queer looks, and I'm sure Mr Johnson is planning something nasty for me, but so far I haven't been able to discover what. I've been round to his place a few times to see what he's up to, but he's got everything well hidden. That's how devious he is.

As for Mr Patel, don't ask me how I know, I just know - from very good sources - that he is, in reality, a Mass Murderer. I have leafleted the street telling them that if we don't act first, he'll pick us off one by one.

Some of my neighbours say, if I've got proof, why don't I go to the police? But that's simply ridiculous. The police will say that they need evidence of a crime with which to charge my neighbours.

They'll come up with endless red tape and quibbling about the rights and wrongs of a pre-emptive strike and all the while Mr Johnson will be finalising his plans to do terrible things to me, while Mr Patel will be secretly murdering people. Since I'm the only one in the street with a decent range of automatic firearms, I reckon it's up to me to keep the peace. But until recently that's been a little difficult. Now, however, George W. Bush has made it clear that all I need to do is run out of patience, and then I can wade in and do whatever I want!

[Briar]

33. Exactly like that!

Thanks goodness for Terry Jones - and Rory Bremner and John Wells and John Fortune and all the other brave people prepared to go on saying that the emperor has no clothes. One of these days, surely everyone must see it.

I hope so anyway.

[thebigidea]

34. ah, what a genius. Do you know if he has a book coming out?

[T_i_B]

35. He has one out at present

Terry Jones Medeival Lives which is also a TV series on BBC2 with the programme on Knights and Chivalry tonight at 20:00 GMT. It's a damm good TV programme too!

[T_i_B]

29. Blair lacked critical thinking, says Blix

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1163487,00.html

Hans Blix, the UN's former chief weapons inspector, last night delivered a robust critique of Tony Blair's defence of the invasion of Iraq, questioning the prime minister's judgment, especially his response to claims made by the intelligence agencies.

Asked about Mr Blair's admission yesterday that intelligence was not "hard fact", Mr Blix told the Guardian that was precisely how it was presented to the UN in the run-up to war. Britain and the US "were selling it as such", he said.

In Mr Blix's accounts of meetings with him, a different Mr Blair emerges: a man convinced to the point of credulity by intelligence reports, and fuelled by a religious enthusiasm of his own, to do battle with evil. "Blair clearly relied on the intelligence and was convinced," he said.

Speaking from his home in Stockholm, Mr Blix last night insisted he was not accusing the prime minister of bad faith: "What I am saying is there was a lack of critical thinking." He highlighted the notorious 45-minute claim, played down yesterday by the prime minister in his speech. The claim, said Mr Blix, was clearly meant to convey something "ominous".