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He's got away with it again.

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Tony Blair. More lives than a cat?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/frontpage/4492439.stm

It's like something from "The Omen" or something. He's lying. Everyone knows he's lying, everyone knows that at best he obeyed the chilly letter of the law. Is it just me that finds the whole thing weird?

The fact that he keeps getting away with it amazes me. What options are there? Impeach him? He isn't getting voted out, that's almost certain.

13 pages of "I don't know" have been presented as definite proof by TB to further his cause for war and now it's proven that he lied. Blechhh :banghead:
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Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Isnt it wasnt it.

    I cant say this proves it one way or the other totally definately for me. Probably he was lent on, and probably the war wasnt legal, but who makes the law and who enforces it.

    On the balance of things I'm not sure many people will care.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    bongbudda wrote:
    and probably the war wasnt legal.

    I think the truth of the matter is that the UN failed to word their resolutions in a fashion that allows for any meaningful conclusions to be made on their legality.

    They should have specified what the repercussions would be for failing to meet resolutions applying to Iraq. I think that is the reason why the Attorney General wasn't sure which side of the fence to come down on.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Like Tony says though, 'its in the past' are enough people going to really care about it to vote differently, the polls suggest not.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    On the balance of things I'm not sure many people will care.

    True enough - "politician lies!" isn't news to most folks.
    I think the truth of the matter is that the UN failed to word their resolutions in a fashion that allows for any meaningful conclusions to be made on their legality.

    Which is why the advice was that without a second resolution the law would be illegal.
    I cant say this proves it one way or the other totally definately for me. Probably he was lent on, and probably the war wasnt legal, but who makes the law and who enforces it.

    Well, the advice given was that the war may or may not be illegal. TB said that he had been told it was legal 100%.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The UN Charter is clear enough on the guidelines for the applications of military force. That charter, having been ratified by the mamber nation governments is thus binding and supercedes the politically contrived attempts to manipulate justifications for use of force by ideologues such as those who have hijacked the US political system.

    Iraq did not attack the US, nor the UK, neither could it have done so. It was no threat, had nothing whatsoever to do with 911 (just as Afghanistan had no part in it as well) and thus the attacks on these nations, regardless of the subsequent revisionist interpretations and blurring of the issues (with the ready help of a compliant mainstream media) does not negate the clear illegality of these latest examples of War of Aggression against sovereign nations. That fact is compounded further by the essential conquest of those nations for purposes of reordering their internal political composition to suit US/Western corporate interests.

    The longer this sort of behaviour is ignored and allowed to establish itself as the status quo, the longer any claims to notions of "the rule of law" and of "state sovereignty" will remain absolutely meaningless.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Reading between the lines, the initial advice was more like, "it's probably a bit dodgy but there are so many vagueries involved, no one will ever prosecute you over it".
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Exactly, and from my reading he didnt say it would be illegal without a second resolution, just that it might be.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The UN Charter is clear enough on the guidelines for the applications of military force. That charter, having been ratified by the mamber nation governments is thus binding and supercedes the politically contrived attempts to manipulate justifications for use of force by ideologues such as those who have hijacked the US political system.

    Which is why NATO had to intervene in Kosovo.

    And also why the UN has had far more failures than successes. We learned nothing from the League of Nations.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    More rightly it was along the lines of "as long as you stay in W's shadow youll be protected by US "might makes right" principle and its ability to bully its ideological agenda down the world's throat".

    If the neocons should tumble though, be prepared for the joyous day of recompense upon all those who acquiesced to support their criminality.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    It seems to me that those around him (and GWB) have no problem with him having this sort of devil may care attitude to the law because they want to be in his position, imposing their will instead.
    Reading between the lines, the initial advice was more like, "it's probably a bit dodgy but there are so many vagueries involved, no one will ever prosecute you over it".

    Undoubtedly, but that doesn't make the whole thing legal does it. Hell they could do anything and say "Well, we are presumed innocent so we haven't broken the law until it's proven."
    Exactly, and from my reading he didnt say it would be illegal without a second resolution, just that it might be

    Exactly. But Blair said it was "unequivocal". At this point it doesn't matter wheteher he says legal or illegal, because he lied about the advice he got.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    bongbudda wrote:
    Like Tony says though, 'its in the past' are enough people going to really care about it to vote differently, the polls suggest not.

    Indeed. Indication of the general stupidity and short-term memory of the public (present company excepted of course ... ;) )

    Ian.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The public cannot complain then when tyranny resurfaces and entrenches itself if it chooses to surrender its obligations to due vigilance in maintaining the accountability of its leaders for their lies and abuses of power.

    The League of Nation's isnt the only thing that the majority have failed to learn from, they've also clearly forgotten the suffering of WWII and the Nuremberg Principles which our grandfathers fought and died to help establish.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    "Its in the past, eh?" hmmm... seems I recall a certain 20 year old alleged genocide being repeatedly raised to the fore as the final justification for our warmongering against Iraq.

    Guess "past" criminality is only excusable when its recently past and happens to be that of our own leaders. How convenient!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    In the past? - have a nice comparative article -

    http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0222-22.htm

    Enjoy!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Though as has been argued on the drugs thread illegality and immorality are two different things...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Who cares if he lied or not? All politicians lie. The war is something that happened, and pondering over who lied and who didn't wont change the fact that it has happened. It cannot be undone. Frankly, it's time to move on.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    klintock wrote:
    In the past? - have a nice comparative article -

    http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0222-22.htm

    Enjoy!
    A good comparison was let down at the very end when the author states today`s choice is like an offering of choice between Hitler and Roosevelt.Two sides of the same coin for me.Nothing to fear but another Roosevelt :nervous:


    J wrote:
    They have prevented more deaths than were lost during all the fighting

    Could you give the facts that will verify that statement? You state later that...........
    No man can see the future


    J wrote:
    If the Iraq people can be allowed to return Iraq to it's former dignity as a nation then I'll be pleased.

    Notwithstanding the notion of a "nation" having dignity,what time period are you refering to when the "nation" had dignity?


    Mist wrote:
    Who cares if he lied or not? All politicians lie. The war is something that happened, and pondering over who lied and who didn't wont change the fact that it has happened. It cannot be undone. Frankly, it's time to move on.


    Move on to where ? "Iran" , "Syria", "Venezuela", "Cuba" ? It`s a small world,isn`t it?


    seeker
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    J wrote:
    When she was run for the prosperity and benefit of her citizens, when she had an honourable goal and culturaly beneficial ethos. before we went in and said 'your no longer fit to take care of yourself' like an old person being ushered into an old peoples home. Iraq has deep roots in everyones past - a dignity of sustaining life, of nurturing her citizens as a mother would a child.

    you'd be going back a long while since it was like that
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    i find the world political situation quite scary.
    you young 'uns think it was always like this!

    well guess what ...same as it ever was.

    the only difference now is ...for the first time ever ...world leaders are being watched by us ...more than we are being watched by them.
    they are finding it increasingly difficult to get away with anything and even worse ...from actualy achieving anything.
    the days of media politics is the end of the illusion of democracy ...or any other ocracy.
    for that matter ...all the ism's as well.
    it is becoming impossible to rule cos of the technology of the big eye ...it is getting increasingly difficult to govern as well.
    i find it all rather scary.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Actually J, you have just clearly demonstrated that you've bought the media spun PR lock, stock and barrell. The claims you have regurgitated well are by and large derived from long exposed falsehoods concocted by those, like Chalabi and Allawi, whose families enjoyed powerful oligarchical status under the British installed and backed monarchy of Kings Faisal I and II up until the same inevitable indigenous backlash against that longrunning corruption gave rise to the baathist coup.

    And where did these pampered, conniving userers and extortionists flee to? The US and UK of course, where they were able to maintain their lavish pedigrees and cowtow with successive administrations always pressing for our western cooperation to sweep them back into power whatever the cost in blood both of our own young men and their own Iraqi countrymen (for whom they had no end of crocodile tears and claims of solidarity in suffering).

    Nevermind that these "exiles" never came close to the suffering their machinations finally managed to impose, under the diversionary banner of "multilateral sanctions" ala the UN (but in reality politically maintained with an iron fist from Washington). That alone caused the death of countless times more than Saddam could ever be proven directly responsible for.

    In addition to that add in the over 3000 bombs dropped on Iraqi civilian population centers in Gulf War I alone and the countless rounds of DU munitions left littering and poisoning the country from one end to the other, which to this day continues to cause horrific mutations and severly shoretened life expectancies.

    Go back further to the period of the alleged genocidal heydey of Saddam and youll find in truth that though he was despotic - as was expected of him by his US/UK handlers to maintain control over potential religious uprising akin to that which had occurred the decade previously in Iran (remember how upset Washington was over the loss of its brutal Iranian despot, The Shah) - the numbers of those killed has been duly blurred with the many many more who were, by our repeatedly claimed western standards, "casualties of war". A war, I would remind you, which was insisted upon, facilitated and financed to serve Washington's and London's political agenda in the region.

    But the present criminal cabal in Washington and its active collusionists in mainstream press and media dont expect the sheeple, by and large, to remember that far back or bother researching any further than the handy headline or minute long televised soundbite that passes for "objective in-depth reporting".

    The essence of the matter is that Saddam's accountability was noone elses obligation but that of his own citizenry, just as our own publics would (and regularly do) insist no foreign power tell us who we may or may not have as our leaders.

    If our might gives us the right to presume ourselves justified in killing upwards of an additional 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians (above the approximately 500,000 via our decade long sanctions, which Madeleine Albright called an "acceptable price to pay") in order to "liberate" them - without any invitation from indigenous Iraqis to do so in the first place - then expect one day to find our own example to the world visited upon our societies when this present age of empire falls to the next. Quite a sad legacy we leave to our children and grandchildren for seeking to justify the actions of our current War Criminals to any degree.

    Im sure the people of Fallujah don't share your presumptions of "foresight" when counting the cost they never volunteered to pay to our expansionist war machine.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Actually J, you have just clearly demonstrated that you've bought the media spun PR lock, stock and barrell. The claims you have regurgitated well are by and large derived from long exposed falsehoods concocted by those, like Chalabi and Allawi, whose families enjoyed powerful oligarchical status under the British installed and backed monarchy of Kings Faisal I and II up until the same inevitable indigenous backlash against that longrunning corruption gave rise to the baathist coup.

    And where did these pampered, conniving userers and extortionists flee to? The US and UK of course, where they were able to maintain their lavish pedigrees and cowtow with successive administrations always pressing for our western cooperation to sweep them back into power whatever the cost in blood both of our own young men and their own Iraqi countrymen (for whom they had no end of crocodile tears and claims of solidarity in suffering).

    Nevermind that these "exiles" never came close to the suffering their machinations finally managed to impose, under the diversionary banner of "multilateral sanctions" ala the UN (but in reality politically maintained with an iron fist from Washington). That alone caused the death of countless times more than Saddam could ever be proven directly responsible for.

    In addition to that add in the over 3000 bombs dropped on Iraqi civilian population centers in Gulf War I alone and the countless rounds of DU munitions left littering and poisoning the country from one end to the other, which to this day continues to cause horrific mutations and severly shoretened life expectancies.

    Go back further to the period of the alleged genocidal heydey of Saddam and youll find in truth that though he was despotic - as was expected of him by his US/UK handlers to maintain control over potential religious uprising akin to that which had occurred the decade previously in Iran (remember how upset Washington was over the loss of its brutal Iranian despot, The Shah) - the numbers of those killed has been duly blurred with the many many more who were, by our repeatedly claimed western standards, "casualties of war". A war, I would remind you, which was insisted upon, facilitated and financed to serve Washington's and London's political agenda in the region.

    But the present criminal cabal in Washington and its active collusionists in mainstream press and media dont expect the sheeple, by and large, to remember that far back or bother researching any further than the handy headline or minute long televised soundbite that passes for "objective in-depth reporting".

    The essence of the matter is that Saddam's accountability was noone elses obligation but that of his own citizenry, just as our own publics would (and regularly do) insist no foreign power tell us who we may or may not have as our leaders.

    If our might gives us the right to presume ourselves justified in killing upwards of an additional 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians (above the approximately 500,000 via our decade long sanctions, which Madeleine Albright called an "acceptable price to pay") in order to "liberate" them - without any invitation from indigenous Iraqis to do so in the first place - then expect one day to find our own example to the world visited upon our societies when this present age of empire falls to the next. Quite a sad legacy we leave to our children and grandchildren for seeking to justify the actions of our current War Criminals to any degree.

    Im sure the people of Fallujah don't share your presumptions of "foresight" when counting the cost they never volunteered to pay to our expansionist war machine.
    that was one hell of a rant clan!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    i've basically blocked the whole war thing out of my head because i used to wind myself so much up because of it but when i do let my mind think about it it scares the shite out of me and angers me at the whole political situation there is in the world in general...who are we and why are we here? to kill innocents and instill global fear!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    *yawns*

    Old Ground.

    Seriously, has anyone opinion on the war changed this week?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    that was one hell of a rant clan!

    clan always speaks the truth

    *waits for klintock to start a debate of what makes something true*
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    turlough wrote:
    i've basically blocked the whole war thing out of my head because i used to wind myself so much up because of it but when i do let my mind think !
    and theres the rub ...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Seriously, has anyone opinion on the war changed this week?

    me mate...i'm just signing the forms now to join the navy...can't wait to shoot me some Eeraqi's...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Seriously, has anyone opinion on the war changed this week?

    This is a thread about the war?
    *waits for klintock to start a debate of what makes something true*

    You wouldn't believe me if I told you. :D

    Good point Mr. Roll. they might be getting more authoritarian as a reaction to having what they do investigated all the time. Hadn't even thought of it that way.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    *yawns*

    Old Ground.

    Seriously, has anyone opinion on the war changed this week?
    MOK ...this is how they get away with ...anything and everything.
    welcome to the greatest age of instant information and possibly knowledge.
    with a side effect of apathy to a clinical degree in large numbers of the planets occupants.
    we have devolved from the armchair critic to digital desk chair desktop opinated idiots!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    klintock wrote:
    You wouldn't believe me if I told you. :D
    .

    go i'm very open minded...

    eta: just got it there now...anyway have you got a theory?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    klintock wrote:
    This is a thread about the war?

    That or cuttlefish.
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