Blair in secret Saudi mission

[mr blur]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/armstrade/story/0,10674,1579155,00.html

"Tony Blair and John Reid, the defence secretary, have been holding secret talks with Saudi Arabia in pursuit of a huge arms deal worth up to £40bn, according to diplomatic sources."

I don't suppose there's any chance that we'll be invading them, soon, oil or no oil.

[autorank]

1. Nah, Blair is doing pre-positioning for his place with theCarlyle Group.

See, these are sales over years. He's said he leaves in a year. Pop right over to Carlyle and get the account, great recurring revenue and a guaranteed "account executive" position for the rest of his pathetic, little excuse of a life. But, hey what do I know...

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. The really outrageous bit is the "drop the previous charges" demand

BAE paid £60 million in bribes to the Saudis, including £17 million to Prince Turki, and now they want Blair to stop the fraud investigation. And he probably will, because Bush will tell him to; because he wants a job with Carlyle; because his chief of staff's brother is a consultant to BAE; because the investigation will embarrass (I hope for 'charge', but I guess that's not going to happen) Mrs. Thatcher and her son Mark; because BAE doesn't seem to have to abide by British law, because it sells arms, and we can't intefere with that, can we? (apart from bribing other countries to take our useless, outdated planes); because arms manufacturing seems to be the only manufacturing industry left in Britain, and Labour has to make it looks as though something comes out of British factories; and because Tony has a psychological defect, which makes him think that threatening people is a sign of strength, and therefore supporting tyrannies is A Good Thing.

Remember when we were going to have an ethical foreign policy? RIP, Robin Cook.