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ORIGINAL: thishereboi

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ORIGINAL: evesgrden

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ORIGINAL: Phydeaux

As for Blair being a war criminal - thats just leftist wet dreams.

Wrong.

I don't think Blair is a war criminal.
I'm on the left.

I don't think he is either and I am on the right. (or in the middle depending on who you ask)

But to some of the posters on here anyone who disagrees with them automatically falls on the other side. This is why we have some idiots who run around and call Heritic and K rightists while other idiots call PS a leftist. They aren't going to let facts get in the way of their rants.

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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

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ORIGINAL: HappyServings

If it's exclusively inward, then it's not true self-determination. It has to include the ability to act on the world stage. We live in an age of realpolitik where it's sometimes necessary to disregard morality and take actions that benefit our nation even at the expense of another. Invading a sovereign nation on shady pretenses might be unethical, but it's not grounds for war crimes. British and American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are not under any definition committing war crimes.

Invading another country without the express permission of the UN Security Council is a lot more than 'unethical; it is a war crime in itself and a flagrant contravention of international law. Actions undertaken by countries on 'the world stage' are subject to international law and UN Security Council authorisation. Unilateral aggression outside these boundaries is not permitted, so your claim fails.

As the 'coalition of the willing' invaded Iraq without the express authorisation of the UN Security Council, it was an illegal war. Actions taken in pursuance of an illegal invasion are of course war crimes too.

That aside, there were plenty of individual war crimes committed by foreign troops in Iraq. Abu Ghraib is perhaps the most well known, but the kind of wholesale butchery carried out by US and UK troops at Fallujah would qualify as war crimes whatever the other circumstances.

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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

In a major speech ex-UK PM Blair, widely believed to be a war criminal for his part in the Iraq fiasco, call for more Western intervention in the MIddle East to counter "religious extremism". The Guardian reports:
"Western military intervention in the Middle East has so far failed due to the distorting impact of an Islamic extremism so opposed to modernity that it could yet engender global catastrophe, Tony Blair warned on Wednesday in a keynote speech on the state of politics in the Middle East.

With support for intervention ebbing fast, especially in Britain, Blair urged a wilfully blind west to realise it must take sides and if necessary make common cause with Russia and China in the G20 to counter the Islamic extremism that lies at the root of all failures of western intervention.

He admitted there was now a desire across the west to steer clear at all costs following the bloody outcomes in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan, but said the extremism still represents the biggest threat to global security in the 21st century, saying it is holding back development across Africa and the Far East.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/apr/23/tony-blair-west-take-sides-growing-threat-radical-islam

Blair blamed the failure of current and past interventions by the West on the religious extremists the West had sought to defeat without offering any reason why more intervention would succeed in the future. In essence he argued for more of the same failed policies, increased interventions and escalation of current conflicts.

If Blair's speech tells us anything, it is that US neo conservatives and the Israeli Right do not possess a monopoly on insanity in the area of ME policy, He appears to have learnt nothing from past failures, nor show any remorse for his role in the deaths of tens of thousands of Arabs and others. He is at a total loss to explain why religious radicalism has a growing appeal to Arabs/Muslims.

With respect to Blair's future, here are two options we might consider :
1. We follow his advice and increase Western military intervention in the ME; and
2. We arrest Blair for war crimes and dispatch him to The Hague for trial at the World Court (along with his buddies Bush, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Firth, Howard, Perle et al)

I strongly recommend option 2. What say you?

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ORIGINAL: LookieNoNookie

quote:

ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

In a major speech ex-UK PM Blair, widely believed to be a war criminal for his part in the Iraq fiasco, call for more Western intervention in the MIddle East to counter "religious extremism". The Guardian reports:
"Western military intervention in the Middle East has so far failed due to the distorting impact of an Islamic extremism so opposed to modernity that it could yet engender global catastrophe, Tony Blair warned on Wednesday in a keynote speech on the state of politics in the Middle East.

With support for intervention ebbing fast, especially in Britain, Blair urged a wilfully blind west to realise it must take sides and if necessary make common cause with Russia and China in the G20 to counter the Islamic extremism that lies at the root of all failures of western intervention.

He admitted there was now a desire across the west to steer clear at all costs following the bloody outcomes in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan, but said the extremism still represents the biggest threat to global security in the 21st century, saying it is holding back development across Africa and the Far East.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/apr/23/tony-blair-west-take-sides-growing-threat-radical-islam

Blair blamed the failure of current and past interventions by the West on the religious extremists the West had sought to defeat without offering any reason why more intervention would succeed in the future. In essence he argued for more of the same failed policies, increased interventions and escalation of current conflicts.

If Blair's speech tells us anything, it is that US neo conservatives and the Israeli Right do not possess a monopoly on insanity in the area of ME policy, He appears to have learnt nothing from past failures, nor show any remorse for his role in the deaths of tens of thousands of Arabs and others. He is at a total loss to explain why religious radicalism has a growing appeal to Arabs/Muslims.

With respect to Blair's future, here are two options we might consider :
1. We follow his advice and increase Western military intervention in the ME; and
2. We arrest Blair for war crimes and dispatch him to The Hague for trial at the World Court (along with his buddies Bush, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Firth, Howard, Perle et al)

I strongly recommend option 2. What say you?

"He admitted there was now a desire across the west to steer clear at all costs following the bloody outcomes in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan, but said the extremism still represents the biggest threat to global security in the 21st century, saying it is holding back development across Africa and the Far East."

That's known.

What is so odd or difficult to grasp about realizing that extremism in any country, based on any religion or belief system (Christianity 1,000 years ago, Muslim today), is a threat to normalization of human interaction globally?

Blair didn't call for more wars, indeed, he specifically (via your own quote) called for Western govts. to stay away from that previously proven useless effort.

That's hardly a call for war...it's most absolutely a call to stay the hell out of their shit.

(It's amazing how someone can read "Here's $100.00, get some food....eat" and what they actually hear is...."you think you can BUY me you capitalist fuck?")

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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

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ORIGINAL: LookieNoNookie

quote:

ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

In a major speech ex-UK PM Blair, widely believed to be a war criminal for his part in the Iraq fiasco, call for more Western intervention in the MIddle East to counter "religious extremism". The Guardian reports:
"Western military intervention in the Middle East has so far failed due to the distorting impact of an Islamic extremism so opposed to modernity that it could yet engender global catastrophe, Tony Blair warned on Wednesday in a keynote speech on the state of politics in the Middle East.

With support for intervention ebbing fast, especially in Britain, Blair urged a wilfully blind west to realise it must take sides and if necessary make common cause with Russia and China in the G20 to counter the Islamic extremism that lies at the root of all failures of western intervention.

He admitted there was now a desire across the west to steer clear at all costs following the bloody outcomes in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan, but said the extremism still represents the biggest threat to global security in the 21st century, saying it is holding back development across Africa and the Far East.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/apr/23/tony-blair-west-take-sides-growing-threat-radical-islam

Blair blamed the failure of current and past interventions by the West on the religious extremists the West had sought to defeat without offering any reason why more intervention would succeed in the future. In essence he argued for more of the same failed policies, increased interventions and escalation of current conflicts.

If Blair's speech tells us anything, it is that US neo conservatives and the Israeli Right do not possess a monopoly on insanity in the area of ME policy, He appears to have learnt nothing from past failures, nor show any remorse for his role in the deaths of tens of thousands of Arabs and others. He is at a total loss to explain why religious radicalism has a growing appeal to Arabs/Muslims.

With respect to Blair's future, here are two options we might consider :
1. We follow his advice and increase Western military intervention in the ME; and
2. We arrest Blair for war crimes and dispatch him to The Hague for trial at the World Court (along with his buddies Bush, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Firth, Howard, Perle et al)

I strongly recommend option 2. What say you?

"He admitted there was now a desire across the west to steer clear at all costs following the bloody outcomes in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan, but said the extremism still represents the biggest threat to global security in the 21st century, saying it is holding back development across Africa and the Far East."

That's known.

What is so odd or difficult to grasp about realizing that extremism in any country, based on any religion or belief system (Christianity 1,000 years ago, Muslim today), is a threat to normalization of human interaction globally?

Blair didn't call for more wars, indeed, he specifically (via your own quote) called for Western govts. to stay away from that previously proven useless effort.

That's hardly a call for war...it's most absolutely a call to stay the hell out of their shit.

(It's amazing how someone can read "Here's $100.00, get some food....eat" and what they actually hear is...."you think you can BUY me you capitalist fuck?")

Blair made it perfectly clear that, in his view, the West had vital stategic interests and had to commit and engage in the region to promote local sympathisers and defend those interests:
"So when we look at the Middle East and beyond it to Pakistan or Iran and elsewhere, it isn't just a vast unfathomable mess with no end in sight and no one worthy of our support. It is in fact a struggle in which our own strategic interests are intimately involved; where there are indeed people we should support and who, ironically, are probably in the majority if only that majority were mobilised, organised and helped.

"But what is absolutely necessary is that we first liberate ourselves from our own attitude. We have to take sides. We have to stop treating each country on the basis of whatever seems to make for the easiest life for us at any one time. We have to have an approach to the region that is coherent and sees it as a whole. And above all, we have to commit. We have to engage" (emphasis added)

Your claim that Blair argued for the West "to stay the hell out of their shit" is diametrically contradicted by his insistence that the West has to "commit ... engage". He demanded that the West "take sides", suggesting involving China and Russia is what can only be interpreted as a call for further, even more large-scale interventions. Such interventions would directly confront "political Islam". Given that Islamists will react to any Western intervention in the region with violence, it is impossible to see the nature of those interventions by the West as anything other than military.

My claims above are consistent with the manner in which Blair's speech has been widely interpreted and reported, as any google search will confirm. One Israeli observer went so far as to descibe it as a speech that sounded like Netanyahoo talking. Netanyahoo is the leader of the charge for military intervention to disrupt Iran's alleged nuclear ambitions. He has been consistently demanding the West attack Iran and threatening unilateral Israeli attacks for some years now.

So there can be no doubt that Blair, the #1 European cheerleader for the Iraq fiasco, the person who sent the British Army to invade Iraq was calling for more of the same, ie. more Western military intervention in the Middle East.

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ORIGINAL: Politesub53

Intervention is indeed warfare, even if on a limited basis or via a proxy. Dead is dead, on earth just as it is on a 747.

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ORIGINAL: kdsub

History would be a lot more complicated if there were no opinion and only facts. It really makes no difference who is right or wrong or who YOU think is a war criminal or hero...In the end the history your great grandchildren take as the truth will be written by the eventual victors of this time period.

If Hitler had won WWII history would be very different than it is today and we as children of that era would believe it the truth.

So quit your whining... damn it gets old... and start changing history by changing your government.

Butch

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Lookie No Nookie
Intervention is policy, Ambassadors, etc.

War is war.

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ORIGINAL: kdsub

History would be a lot more complicated if there were no opinion and only facts. It really makes no difference who is right or wrong or who YOU think is a war criminal or hero...In the end the history your great grandchildren take as the truth will be written by the eventual victors of this time period.

If Hitler had won WWII history would be very different than it is today and we as children of that era would believe it the truth.

So quit your whining... damn it gets old... and start changing history by changing your government.

Butch

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ORIGINAL: LookieNoNookie

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ORIGINAL: Politesub53

Intervention is indeed warfare, even if on a limited basis or via a proxy. Dead is dead, on earth just as it is on a 747.

Intervention is policy, Ambassadors, etc.

War is war.

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ORIGINAL: LookieNoNookie

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ORIGINAL: Politesub53

Intervention is indeed warfare, even if on a limited basis or via a proxy. Dead is dead, on earth just as it is on a 747.

Intervention is policy, Ambassadors, etc.

War is war.

quote:

ORIGINAL: kdsub

History would be a lot more complicated if there were no opinion and only facts. It really makes no difference who is right or wrong or who YOU think is a war criminal or hero...In the end the history your great grandchildren take as the truth will be written by the eventual victors of this time period.

If Hitler had won WWII history would be very different than it is today and we as children of that era would believe it the truth.

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ORIGINAL: kdsub

I'm not picking a winner Politesub... just saying the winner will decide what is written in history... do you agree?

Butch

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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

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Lookie No Nookie
Intervention is policy, Ambassadors, etc.

War is war.

Interventions, Blair advises us, should be directed againt "political Islam", of which the most well known variety is Al Quada. The West is not in the business of tweaking policy or appointing Amabassadors to deal with Al Quada - it is at war with AQ

Can any one suggest what intervention against Al Quada might mean in the highly improbable event that it doesn't mean war and violent confrontation? We know that it won't mean sitting down for a friendly chat with afternoon tea and cream scones. The West has ruled out negotiating with Al Quada.

So what could it possibly mean other than military intervention? Of course it means war and violent confrontation. We have Blair's track record of intervening in Iraq to guide us. He is one of the guilty ones who must shoulder the responsibility for invading Iraq under false pretences, an event that has directly led to hundreds of thousands of deaths and injuries, mainly civilians. People are still dying in Iraq by their score every week - this is the legacy Blair (and Bush et al) has left us.

Now, rather than admitting his mistakes he demands more of the same. He (and Bush et al) should be in the dock at ICC in The Hague, having to account for his belligerence and answering war crimes charges.