Why is Tony Blair so unpopular?

[ATG]

ash73 said:

The war had nothing to do with humanitarian reasons, we turned a blind eye to atrocities against the Kurds for years while it suited us. I've been going back a bit further in history trying to understand it better.

In 1922 Britain unilaterally split Kuwait from Iraq and handed it to the al-Sabah family, this limited Iraq's access to the Persian Gulf to a tiny area of unfavourable coastline, and gave the West a reliable supply of cheap oil. When Iran nationalised its oil companies in 1951 the US overthrew the government and installed Shah. When Iraq started building an army with its oil wealth the US armed the Kurds to destablise Iraq and prevent it threatening Iran. Then Shah was overthrown in Iran by Shia Muslims, and suddenly the West shifted its allegiance completely to Iraq and supported their war with Iran. Kuwait gave Iraq $20 billion to support the war, because it saw the Iranian Shia revolution as a threat to itself, while at the same time slant-drilling Iraq's oil resources in Rumailah with US technology. After the war they demanded the money back. Saddam was $60 billion in debt and massed his forces on the border, demanding they drop their claim and provide $10 billion towards the war effort, as well as more favourable access to the sea. They offered $500,000 as an insult, and said they were going to bring in the Americans. At the same time the US told Saddam they would play no part in his border disputes. Three days later Saddam invaded Kuwait, and we sent him packing.

And so it goes on. The recurring theme is oil and the West's strategy to constantly destablise the region to maintain control. Saddam survived the first war with most of his army intact, and was a menace. Bye bye Saddam. Maybe Blair just wanted to "get with the programme"? The problem is people can't stomach the real reasons so it gets spun as human rights protection, and if we do the right thing and stay out of it, say goodbye to cheap oil. What should we do? Find another fuel that doesn't empower stone age nut cases in the desert; perhaps.

You seem to be looking for a consistent Western strategy. Don't bother. There isn't one. There never has been one. People are always reacting to events, desperately trying to keep up with the latest unexpected crisis, desperately trying to put a lid on the next unfolding disaster.

[Asterix]

ATG said:

Asterix said:

Without respect, you're talking bks.

The dodgy dossier was used to lie to the public and parliament to get the vote for going to war.

It's fundamental.

It helped to tip the vote in Parliament but plenty of people were already in favour. It also was only of interest in the UK. It also had nothing to do with the legal basis for the war. The war was predicated on Iraq's failure to cooperate with the UN inspection regime.

Nope. They couldn't get a vote based on the UN stuff so they made up the 45 minutes from attack bks to scare people.

[ATG]

Asterix said:

Nope. They couldn't get a vote based on the UN stuff so they made up the 45 minutes from attack bks to scare people.

If only life were that simple.

[ATG]

ash73 said:

This is simply not true. It is now well established MI6 and CIA knew before the invasion Iraq had no active WMD. Whether parliament was deliberately misled by Blair, is another question.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/18/panor...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSieUhqIR6k

Both the UK and USA modified intelligence documents to support their invasion agenda. For example Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, General Powell's former chief of staff, later admitted the US "sexed up" intelligence from al-Janabi. He said, "We edited Mr Janabi's drawings of mobile biological weapons labs to make them more presentable, I brought the White House team in to do the graphics. Intelligence was being worked to fit around the policy."

You're confusing two things. The fear was real. The intelligence was inconclusive; which is entirely understandable. Was a spin put on the evidence that was made public? Yes, of course.
Stupid and dishonest, but the people doing it thought it was acceptable or that they would get away with it, because they genuinely expected to find WMD or a programme for their development.

[RobinOakapple]

ash73 said:

ATG said:

they genuinely expected to find WMD or a programme for their development.

From everything I've read, I don't agree. The decision to invade Iraq was most probably made at Camp David immediately after 9/11, with no consideration for WMD. Blair was asked for his support at a lengthy meeting at the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002. Iraq was invaded 12 months later; it takes time to prepare an invasion. It wasn't an accident, they didn't make a mistake, they wanted Saddam out and they lied to us (and parliament).

The moral of the story is don't elect leaders if you don't want to be led.

[Asterix]

...and exactly why Blair is personally responsible for the deaths of British service personnel, other coalition forces, the Iraqi forces and civvies during the war - and that's before we get to the fall out of having zero contingency plan once we left.

[rich888]

RobinOakapple said:

ash73 said:

ATG said:

they genuinely expected to find WMD or a programme for their development.

From everything I've read, I don't agree. The decision to invade Iraq was most probably made at Camp David immediately after 9/11, with no consideration for WMD. Blair was asked for his support at a lengthy meeting at the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002. Iraq was invaded 12 months later; it takes time to prepare an invasion. It wasn't an accident, they didn't make a mistake, they wanted Saddam out and they lied to us (and parliament).

The moral of the story is don't elect leaders if you don't want to be led.

The moral of the story is don't elect leaders if you don't want to be led lied to.

If Bush and Blair were innocent of any wrongdoing, then why is it taking so long to publish the Chilcot report?

Can't some hackers just go in and publish the Chilcot report in advance and let us judge for ourselves whether our grand leaders have once again fked up big style.

Regarding the 7/7 bombings, I find it somewhat sinister that the CCTV cameras near to the bombing in London went off on that day, all smells very dodgy to me, then I looked at Blair and Bush and that said it all.

[RobinOakapple]

rich888 said:

RobinOakapple said:

ash73 said:

ATG said:

they genuinely expected to find WMD or a programme for their development.

From everything I've read, I don't agree. The decision to invade Iraq was most probably made at Camp David immediately after 9/11, with no consideration for WMD. Blair was asked for his support at a lengthy meeting at the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002. Iraq was invaded 12 months later; it takes time to prepare an invasion. It wasn't an accident, they didn't make a mistake, they wanted Saddam out and they lied to us (and parliament).

The moral of the story is don't elect leaders if you don't want to be led.

The moral of the story is don't elect leaders if you don't want to be led lied to.

If Bush and Blair were innocent of any wrongdoing, then why is it taking so long to publish the Chilcot report?

Can't some hackers just go in and publish the Chilcot report in advance and let us judge for ourselves whether our grand leaders have once again fked up big style.

Regarding the 7/7 bombings, I find it somewhat sinister that the CCTV cameras near to the bombing in London went off on that day, all smells very dodgy to me, then I looked at Blair and Bush and that said it all.

So why did you vote for them then?

Presuming you didn't, it's evident that enough people did, so it amounts to the same thing.

It's an inevitable consequence of having leaders that some of their decisions are going to be unpopular with some of the led.

For instance, Winston Churchill and Coventry. What would you have done?

[nightflight]

I've not read the whole thread, but to answer the question of the thread, it's because he's a twunt!

[MGJohn]

He's a politician. They all become unpopular with the passing of time. Even Thatcher who was awarded the Big E by her own party.

[jmorgan]

MGJohn said:

He's a politician. They all become unpopular with the passing of time. Even Thatcher who was awarded the Big E by her own party.

In general, but this excuse for an oxygen thief took it to a new low.


Just wait until he takes his seat in the upper house.

[rich888]

RobinOakapple said:

rich888 said:

So aside from killing thousands of innocent civilians with an illegal war in Iraq...

For the sake of fairness, it has to be pointed out that the vast majority of the civilians killed in Iraq have been killed by other civilians, not by Blair on any other westerners.

Nobody knew before the event just how nasty some of the people in that area are, how much they hate each other and the horrifying lengths they are prepared to go to.

Whether the war was illegal or not, that will depend on who is deciding on that question.

Rubbish, most older folks I speak to knew just how volatile the Middle East tensions were in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, and even I knew about the Iran/Iraq/Saudi Arabia skirmishes before the likes of the 9/11 and 7/7 atrocities.

So you're telling me that the US military firing tens of thousands of bullets and shells coated in depleted uranium didn't actually kill any civilians? what about US military soldiers ending up in hospital suffering from radiation poisoning from sitting on the boxes of bullets and shells, what about all that depleted uranium now left in Iraq, what is that doing to the civilian population now, how many are being deformed through exposure to the radiation, all nicely forgotten about unless you happen to live in the hell hole, and we caused it, we went to war with Iraq because by military standards we knew they didn't stand a chance. The US wanted Saddam deposed because he was selling oil in other currencies and not doing what he was being told.

Be honest, some countries cannot be ruled by democracy and need a ruthless dictator to provide some kind of order in all the madness and keep all the warring factions in line. For all his liabilities, Saddam kept order in the chaos, stopped the factions from running riot, and Iraq actually had a pretty decent infrastructure for its people till we went in all guns blazing, and now look what an almighty great big mess it is in.

And now all the lunatic factions have weapons to kill, and a very real reason to hate the USA and the UK, and all for the sake of oil.

Yes politicians will say whatever it takes to get elected, and that is the nature of the political beast, and we know that they lie and cheat, but never before has one single politician been so damn arrogant and totally milked his position of authority for his own benefit, and in the process totally ruined this country for generations to come by racking up billions if not trillions of pounds of debt if you count off balance sheet debts like PFI projects used to fund schools and hospitals, etc. whilst he rakes in millions in commissions from his multitude of companies since leaving office. He's a total embarrassment to the country, as for Middle East Peace Envoy, you just couldn't make this stuff up!

So no more delays, publish the Chilcot enquiry and let us make up our own minds as to whether Blair should be vindicated of all war crimes, or hung by the neck for illegal warmongering.

Tony Blair, aka Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, born 6 May 1953, will be remembered in history for all the wrong reasons... have you been Blaired?

[AJS-]

A better question might be why was Tony Blair ever so popular in the first place? I really never got it.

I was 18 at the time of the election. I wasn't really political at all but took a passing interest, my parents both being liberals and living in the north east where I'd grown up I was probably leaning a little to the left if anything. We'd had Conservative governments for practically my whole life, and my introduction to politics was the sorry spectacle of the Major government falling to bits and blowing what seemed to be a golden opportunity for world peace as the various bits of the eastern bloc rebuilt. I could see the appeal of optimism and confidence. I could see the appeal of boosting employment, and since I was working for an absolute pittance I could see the appeal of things like the minimum wage.

But I hated the man from the moment I laid eyes on him. He never looked like anything but a sleazy, dishonest wordsmith who would make all kinds of empty promises to get what he wanted. I was baffled and somewhat alarmed by the way some of my contemporaries appeared to be positive about him, and more baffled still by the way the media seemed to hang on his every word and report that the public were besotted with him and excited about his agenda. It was noticeable even then that there was far greater relief about getting rid of the Conservatives than actual excitement about Blair.

I imagined then, with the sort of naive hyperbole of an 18 year old, that it was something like watching the Russian revolution when you'd already seen the horrors of the gulags.

In spite of everything though, he still seems to be the sort of benchmark of a Labour PM. Apparently he's "credible" - which I can only take to mean that the media like him but can't or won't say why. He won 3 elections, something that I still find strange even knowing what a weak and discredited opposition he was up against. By most measures his premiership was a total disaster with spiralling debt, massive immigration and the disastrous Iraq war, yet I feel history will still record him as a successful leader.

Edited by AJS- on Thursday 20th August 05:47

[RobinOakapple]

rich888 said:

Rubbish...

There's something quite ironical about your calling my post rubbish, then going on to include virtually everything including PFI in your attempt to justify your earlier claim that Blair killed thousands of Iraqi civilians.

By all means dislike or even hate Blair, there's plenty of valid reasons to do so, but let's keep it real, shall we?

[rich888]

RobinOakapple said:

rich888 said:

Rubbish...

There's something quite ironical about your calling my post rubbish, then going on to include virtually everything including PFI in your attempt to justify your earlier claim that Blair killed thousands of Iraqi civilians.

By all means dislike or even hate Blair, there's plenty of valid reasons to do so, but let's keep it real, shall we?

What is so ironic, the thread title asks 'why is Tony Blair so unpopular?' which is why I posted the above comments, which part isn't real in what I stated?

As for 'rubbish', you stated that most civilians in Iraq war were killed by other civilians and that clearly isn't the case.

Yes there are other politicians who have made some pretty poor decisions over the years, but this thread is directed specifically at why Blair is so unpopular.

[Walford]

what was blairs motive for going to war??????????????????????

[oakdale]

Walford said:

what was blairs motive for going to war??????????????????????

To keep in with his mate with matching bomber jacket.

[hidetheelephants]

Given the PH demographic I'm surprised at some of the commentary about the Iraq war; there were some perfectly reasonable moral and legal arguments for the war to choose from and I'm quite glad the Hussein family no longer reigns in Iraq, murdering and terrorising its citizens and treating it as personal property. That such a transparently bks argument was deployed as justification is ultimately his fault, discrediting what should have been a straightforwardly just war in accordance with international law.

He bears a large share of the blame for the policy vacuum that existed where there should have been a post-war rehabilitation plan as happened in Germany and to a more qualified degree in South Korea and Sierra Leone. This is a far more egregious offence than the 45 minutes nonsense and has lead directly to the baleful influence of the Iranian mullahs, mass sectarian slaughter and further destruction of civil society, leading on to the rise of the vile death cult of IS.

As for Syria, that's a completely different can of middle eastern worms; there was little appetite for the proposed intervention given how vague it was, the gordian knot of who we would be fighting for and against and how pear-shaped the half-arsed intervention in Libya went. I find it difficult to believe Cameron really wanted the intervention, he just perceived political gain from appearing willing but stymied by pacifists.

The smarm, the ostentatious piety, the oxymoronic peace envoy appointment, the venal moneygrubbing plus questionable tax avoidance since he left office are enough of an indictment on their own, although I'm quite happy to lay some of the blame for the green bks at his door too; where the UK needed an energy policy there was a 13 year vacuum filled with whirligigs and american woodchips. The sucking parasites on the taxpayer that are PFI and tax credits. Uncontrolled immigration. The spinning bowtie extravaganza that was drowning the NHS in cash while simultaneously creating horrors like Stafford Hospital; I'd readily acknowledge that all governments fk up the NHS, but most restrict themselves to doing so through budget cuts. And that fking dome, don't forget the bloody millennium fking dome. The Kosovo travesty. Cool Britannia was st too. While I'm at it he can take the blame for Nimrod MRA4, FRES and the carriers fk-ups. And the fking deification of bloody Diana. He's an arse. Thank fk he never ended up as President of the EU; Von Rompuy was preferable.

[Walford]

hidetheelephants said:

Given the PH demographic I'm surprised at some of the commentary about the Iraq war; there were some perfectly reasonable moral and legal arguments for the war to choose from and I'm quite glad the Hussein family no longer reigns in Iraq, murdering and terrorising its citizens and treating it as personal property. That such a transparently bks argument was deployed as justification is ultimately his fault, discrediting what should have been a straightforwardly just war in accordance with international law.

He bears a large share of the blame for the policy vacuum that existed where there should have been a post-war rehabilitation plan as happened in Germany and to a more qualified degree in South Korea and Sierra Leone. This is a far more egregious offence than the 45 minutes nonsense and has lead directly to the baleful influence of the Iranian mullahs, mass sectarian slaughter and further destruction of civil society, leading on to the rise of the vile death cult of IS.

As for Syria, that's a completely different can of middle eastern worms; there was little appetite for the proposed intervention given how vague it was, the gordian knot of who we would be fighting for and against and how pear-shaped the half-arsed intervention in Libya went. I find it difficult to believe Cameron really wanted the intervention, he just perceived political gain from appearing willing but stymied by pacifists.

The smarm, the ostentatious piety, the oxymoronic peace envoy appointment, the venal moneygrubbing plus questionable tax avoidance since he left office are enough of an indictment on their own, although I'm quite happy to lay some of the blame for the green bks at his door too; where the UK needed an energy policy there was a 13 year vacuum filled with whirligigs and american woodchips. The sucking parasites on the taxpayer that are PFI and tax credits. Uncontrolled immigration. The spinning bowtie extravaganza that was drowning the NHS in cash while simultaneously creating horrors like Stafford Hospital; I'd readily acknowledge that all governments fk up the NHS, but most restrict themselves to doing so through budget cuts. And that fking dome, don't forget the bloody millennium fking dome. The Kosovo travesty. Cool Britannia was st too. While I'm at it he can take the blame for Nimrod MRA4, FRES and the carriers fk-ups. And the fking deification of bloody Diana. He's an arse. Thank fk he never ended up as President of the EU; Von Rompuy was preferable.

nice post, but what about his wife

[AAGR]

She's awful too ....