Blair has lost his grip

Article by Charles Kennedy, leader of the UK Liberal Democrat Party

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1194274,00.html

The Prime Minister seems genuinely frustrated that we don't share his analysis and complains that it is 'not easy to persuade people of all this'. Perhaps the message is wrong? In the year since the invasion of Iraq we have seen public opinion in the UK and the rest of the world swept aside, the UN sidelined, allies spurned. The US President has ignored advice from the CIA, the State Department and even the Pentagon. When respected former UN ambassadors and Foreign Secretaries such as Sir Crispin Tickell and Douglas Hurd have joined the ranks of the critics, the criticism should not be taken lightly.

The gravest error is the continuing insistence that Iraq is the front line in an uncompromising 'war' against terrorism. The Prime Minister lumps together all the elements of resistance and calls them 'fanatics and terrorists', while praising moderate members of the Iraqi Governing Council. But if members of the IGC are resigning in protest at the way the occupation is being handled they must be sensing a shift in the public mood.

Not everyone who opposes the coalition is a terrorist. If Iraq is a haven for Islamic terrorists it is because of the invasion; there was no proven link with al-Qaeda before. We cannot expect Iraqi society to quietly wait for democracy to be delivered according to the coalition's timetable. We should not confuse nationalism with Islamic terrorism. The perpetrators of the Madrid bombs are not the same as nationalists in Iraq, as the Prime Minister seems to believe.

There can be no negotiation with al-Qaeda, and bin Laden's truce offer was repellent. But the principal battle in Iraq is about winning hearts and minds not eliminating fanatics. The 600 dead in Falluja, including women and children, cannot all be fanatics but such carnage will breed fanaticism. Britain's reluctance to criticise US strategy in Iraq will be seen as complicity and will reduce our credibility in the Arab world and our opportunities for acting as a restraining influence.

Perhaps the message is wrong?

That would never occur to this crowd.



Cher

to shoring each other as tiny fish school.

Bush is tasting the bitterness of criticism, perhaps for the first time?, as he is usually sheilded from bad news. He is finding the taste quite unpleasing.

Still he showed persistence by coming to the Press Con last Tues night only to reveal confirming evidence of a flawed/confused mind.

Tony too has shown signs of lock jaw while asked questions. Flustered and shocked, the man seemed like the deer near the highway.

He should stick to hospitals. He knows dick about long term
elimination of terrorism, and that surely doesn't come from
more state terrorism and mass murders; nor does it come from
the pathetic results of the israeli IDF assholes who use terrorism
with impunity against people.

Blair is a clueless fuckup. He is voting for bush, and undermining
the entire block of voters who support him, by furthering the
destructive ends of Mr. Bush and his army of evil state terrorists.

Sadly, one day when he's long retired in Brighton, i might meet him
on a beach walking my dog. We might chat about the ocean, but i
could not disguise my sense of his apalling failure to support his
own party, and the needs of the disenfranchised peoples of britain
and the world over.

He has come forward with new bush-doublespeak. We are ending
terrorism by mass murder and support of terrorists. We are ending
poverty and disenfranchisement by prison and costing people thier
jobs and homes. He's a fucking asshole pretending to be a smiling
bush voter. Fuck him for supporting bush. He is singularly the
most destructive person in world politics for the interests of
liberty, liberalism and justice. What a dick.

Get out of US politics Blair, with your sad attempts to give bush
the next election. There are no words for how disappointed i am
in the blair who has wound up stupider than bush, and all the while
he knows better. This is the real crime.

Rt.Hon.Mr.Blair, your sin is against justice and god... you'll pay
for that, person with no touch with morality... slimeball.

grrr...