Wednesday, December 16, 2009

A Threat to Stability in the Middle East

Apparently we shouldn't care that Tony Blair made up evidence about Saddam Hussein possessing WMDs, since in the absence of that excuse he would have presented the public with some other reason for invading Iraq. Hussein posed "a threat to the region". Left in power, he might have invaded Middle-Eastern countries, toppled their governments, destroyed their infrastructure and shattered their civil comity.

In the face of such dire possibilities, Blair prefers regime change and the execution of the rogue leader.

21 comments:

Hamish Mack said...

As Billy Bragg said "He's got the bonhomie of a game show host". It's starting to get to the animated skull stage

Unknown said...

Dr Kelly R.I.P.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS37ZSYOwTA

Smut Clyde said...

Blair is clearly dashing around giving interviews while he still has the option of speaking while not under oath, in an attempt to protect his proper place in history. I am all in favour of that, although my preference for his place in history is of the "end-of-a-rope" variety.

So now Blair is claiming that he had a range of interchangeably spurious "different arguments about the nature of the threat" to be "used and deployed" in a Shock-&-Awe assault against popular and legal opposition to waging aggressive war, and also a real reason ("the notion of [Saddam] as a threat to the region"), which he couldn't give to the public because... umm... I suppose telling the truth would set a bad precedent.

I know it's facile to go on about Blair lying as a matter of general policy, even when he doesn't have to, but at this stage I can't see any other explanation.

Unknown said...

Yo Blair!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yo,_Blair
Useful idiots greet, share food.

fish said...

He explained it was "the notion of him as a threat to the region" because Saddam Hussein had used chemical weapons against his own people.

"This was obviously the thing that was uppermost in my mind. The threat to the region. Also the fact of how that region was going to change and how in the end it was going to evolve as a region and whilst he was there, I thought and actually still think, it would have been very difficult to have changed it in the right way."


Apparently said without irony.

ckc (not kc) said...

...I'm glad I don't live in a "region" (you don't often hear about evil dictators threatening neighborhoods)

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

Was Saddam using those weapons back when we were providing him Bell helicopters to do exactly that?
~

Smut Clyde said...

That might be one of the questions that an unsympathetic interviewer might ask.
Another one might be why, if Blair was so committed to the moral imperative of ousting Saddam from power, he did nothing about it (like trying to assemble a military coalition) until GWBush got onto the case. The moral case did not seem so compelling during his first term as Prime Minister. But Blair seems quite happy to dig himself a hole even with a softball interviewer, so more rigorous questions are nugatory.

mikey said...

What?

Are you saying that the political leadership chose an unnecessary war and lied to the population in order to achieve it?

Say it ain't so, motherfucker!

ckc (not kc) said...

...sucks to be us, don't it!

Smut Clyde said...

Are you saying that the political leadership chose an unnecessary war and lied to the population in order to achieve it?

Not only that, but now they're appearing on TV shows to tell the population what a tough decision it was to destroy another country and turn its educated elite into refugees and cause the premature deaths of 100 000 or so people, and how much they therefore deserve our sympathy.
Not too much sympathy, however, because Blair had switched to the specifically Catholic form of sky fairy in time to bolster his sense of martyred ethical rightness when he made these tough decisions.

Seems to me that when politicians start a war and actually win it then they don't sound so much like Nurenburg defendants in their TV interviews -- defiant like Goering or slyly exculpatory like Speer -- but YMMV.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

now normally I have tried to be a better zombie, but Smut brings out the spelling Noms....

Nuremberg. Or Nurnberg, if you like umlauts. And who doesn't like umlauts?

Smut Clyde said...

No thank you, I couldn't. Three umlauts is my limit.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

you'll eat your umlauts and LIKE them, dammit.

so what the hey, no new post today? posting like meth addled ferrets and now Riddled is Spent?

tigris said...

And finally, monsieur, a wafer-thin diaeresis...

Substance McGravitas said...

the "end-of-a-rope" variety.

I am not sure why this Blair fellow doesn't hang himself and save everybody else the worry.

Smut Clyde said...

so what the hey, no new post today? posting like meth addled ferrets and now Riddled is Spent?

At times we would cringe, but would then hear wails of "But Riddled!!! You're the only persons who can do this! NO ONE ELSE CAN! Pleeeeeeze!" And we'd make a post...

mikey said...

Heed me, Herr Smut.

It is but the cries of wounded nurses, seeking solace from their stultifying lives by sucking the very lifeblood from your paltry existence.

To respond is a trap, to ignore is death. To drink tequila and touch yourself may be an answer...

Smut Clyde said...

The meth ran out, and then the akvavit kicked in, and 12 hours later I woke up with another dreadful hangover.

I hope that certain NEEDY LEECHES out there will accept this excuse.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

do not allow them your essence, Colonel Smut.

M. Bouffant said...

You were so hungover you still believed yourself to be J. C.?