Tony Blair is Pretty Freaking Cool

I watched Blair's "Foreign Policy Speech" for the second time tonight, a speech the PM makes annually at the election of the "Financial" Mayor -- it's all legacy, so just flow...

As much as Blair has been called the "US Poodle" and knocked about for his decisions to hang with the Electorally elected president (dry heave) Bush, Mr. Blair not only defended his position, but made a lot of sense.

Keep in mind, Blair is NOT a Conservative. he essentially put his arse on the line to send troops into Iraq along with our guys. With Parlimentary Procedure, they can turn on a blink and turn out any group who rubs the majority the wrong way and vote him out; unemployed.

What Mr. Blair essentially said was that it was important for the UK to stand allied to the US, yet also remain a working part of the EU. He said, paraphrasing, that if the UK ran the terrorism threat alone, who would kick up as a leader? China? India? Russia? His take was that the US would take our lumps as we always have done, to protect democracy. And Britain, as a long-time partner, should see global terrorists as a similar threat. He did lay out differences in many areas, which was refreshing to hear -- EU finances, Turkey joining the EU, etc...

After my second viewing, I don't feel Mr. Blair is Dubya's "Poodle." I think he's a brilliant, working man, who has done the best thing for his country, including the military losses to his own.

May God, the Queen, et. al. bless us all... We can use the help.

who destroyed what could've been a brilliant political career.

Any respect I used to have for him is gone.

but his speech touched me in the same way. taking our lumps and all, protecting democracy. i think he knows what we know

The Queen Mum shared my birthday. Yeah, that's like being blessed by the Mayor of Topeka. Who gives a shit.

It was a collective "help us all" that I was going for.

by high-flown oratory.

Politicians count on voters not noticing the bodies they're standing on to make the nice-sounding speechs.

He does exactly what Bush orders. How has he stood up to us? He sent troops into Baghdad against his country's wishes. :shrug:

'betrayal' is another word for it. He played the key role in enabling Bush's illegal war. He betrayed his people, the people of Iraq and the peace loving people of this planet. Shame!

I don't care how nice his speeches are, he is one of the major reasons we are in this disastrous meaningless war for profit, and I hope he rots in hell. He deserves no respect, just as he has not granted thousands of Iraqis and young Americans any, by helping to send them into this quagmire.

"Pretty Freaking Cool"?

NEVER.

Even the Tories are, in some ways, more progressive than the main American political parties.

Although there is an interesting post in the DU UK forum from a former Labour local councillor about some Lib Dems being former Tories which caught my attention. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=191x975

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That was a retarded reply. Think of this. You're the head of a country the size of Iowa. Do you support the US, or go it alone? You saw what happened in Spain, what happened in Bali, et. al.

The UK, given WWI and II, and the Cold War overall, they have to really triple-think an effort to NOT support what we do globally. I don't think Iraq was a good decision. I DO think Tony Blair made a good decision to support what we, as a Country, did in Iraq.

I HATE WAR. I am VERY liberal. I find many things very interesting in the Social Democrat / Socialist plan; medical plans, education plans, etc.

So anyway, I think Tony Blair did what was best for the UK, not for him, in supporting Resident Bush. Britain has been around many centuries longer than we have.. There may be some insight in that alone.

"Britain has been around many centuries longer than we have.. There may be some insight in that alone."

What you are missing is that Blair is not a historian. In fact he has no historical sense at all. He is making stupid mistakes that any one with any knowledge of history would see were mistakes.

How do you create a terrorist? Lock them up without a hope of due process and bomb their granny's house. We did it all over the world and it led to the fall of the British Empire.

1. I'm not impressed by who you worked for skippy
2. I'm not impressed that you lumped us in with socialists either, kinda makes me suspicious of your, um..... sincerity.
3. Your argument MIGHT make some sense if we had been attacked by Iraq, which we were not. The UK had no reason or self interest in participating in the unjustified invasion and rape of a country except GREED.

FREEP INDEED.

their way and of course you believe the cries of "Muslim terror". You are just unbelieveable! You have swallowed ALL the propaganda!

Sure Tony tried to steal the oil...many would say that is best for their country...many "christian" Americans think it's swell to steal other nations resources.

fascists.

the poodle's excellent adventure in Iraq as a fight against Terror in the London Underground! This betrays abysmal ignorance on top of the arrogance it takes to applaud a War Criminal on DU. I am disgusted!

He can give a good sounding speech though -- thoroughly slippery and slimy and hard to pin down.

It must be nice to live in a country where your leaders have to explain their actions

less a war-mongering bastard. He has to face questions in Parliament because that is the British system, my bet is, if he could, he would crown himself king like bush is trying to.

By Bush. Regularly.

I find it absolutely repugnant.

Ever crossed your mind that there's a REASON he's getting his ass kicked weekly???????

The suck part is here in the US is that after a MISTAKE, we have to wait 2 - 6 years for payback. A solid argument for the merit of the Parlimentary system. When something smells fishy, you can suss out the stink and get it out of the office.

Oh, Canada.

Great leader? No

This war is immoral and he should have seen that in the beginning. Instead of doing what was best for his country, he got involved in an unnecessary war. As far as I've heard, he's not that popular in the UK and the opposition is trying to impeach him. Pretty words can entrance but they cannot hide the truth for very long.

As a leader, though, do you not want to do what is best for your country?

As the UK, a slew of suicide bombers in the London Underground or out on the Motorway would paralize a small country like that. Look at the Northern Ireland problem over the last 30 years, and that was mainly kids with zip guns and knives... (slight padding, but to make a point)

To back up the US in whatever RETARDED decision our commander in chimp made, was in the UK best interest. You can bet we won't be going to bat for France anytime soon.

I was saying Tony Blair is well-spoken, had a good explaination, and executed it so that even I, here in Michigan, said "wow, yeah that makes sense."

I don't want to marry the guy, but I respect him again.

I can respect that. I don't agree but I can see your point of view.

That's the result of the war on Iraq, you know?

Do you think terrorists would have bombed Madrid if Aznar hadn't sent troops to Iraq?

Helping to invade Iraq was NOT in the best interest of the UK... it only puts more British people on harm's way and gives terrorists a bigger motivation to strike.

"wow, yeah that makes sense" :eyes:

and I'm amazed that you think it is.

To stop suicide bombers in the UK, or anywhere, requires police work, international cooperation, and action against countries supporting them.

What Bush did, with Blair following him obediently (quote from the British Foreign Secretary: "The heart of the argument in March 2003 was whether we could allow Dr. Blix and his colleagues more time to complete their inspections. The problem was that, although we wanted to allow Dr. Blix more time, there was not an effective international consensus for doing so" - in other words, the UK went to war because the Americans told them to, because they were the only country who didn't want to give Blix more time), was to invade a country that had nothing to do with the terrorism that has affected the USA, Europe, or Asia (you can make a case for its involvement with the anti-Israel terror - the same case that can be made for Saudi Arabia).

You appear to be advocating appeasement - that the USA threatened to work against any country that refused to take part in its illegal invasion, and that Blair was correct to give in to this blackmail. You appear to be glorying in the tag of 'poodle'.

He speaks well. His intent was to go along with the US because it would have been worse not to... sometimes a great notion, but NOT THIS TIME. He should have been a BETTER friend to the US... the kind of friend who says "NO."

Iraq has nothing to do with the 9/11 style terrorism. Maybe that fact hasn't reached Motown yet?

Blair is smart enough to know that war generally helps the incumbent in elections. He's an ass.

Another a-hole selling the Iraq War=criminal. What a shame he'll be just another Irritable Colin Powell Movement.

Iraq has nothing to do with the 9/11 style terrorism. Maybe that fact hasn't reached Motown yet?

Blair is smart enough to know that war generally helps the incumbent in elections. He's an ass.

Yeah... Like we don't get news here. I watch the Daily Show every weeknight.

LOL. What a moronic response to a genuine post.

It's a genuine question - if you know that 9/11 and Iraq were unconnected, why did you try to use the threat of suicide bombs on the London Underground to justify the invasion of Iraq?

Or are you actually admitting your first line was moronic?

they need to scrape that piece of shit off and keep on going

Always has been a lying asshole; always will be. Now he's a war criminal lying asshole.

for what Tony is.

I do think it's pretty freaking cool, the way he bends over, vaselines up, and spreads 'em for the shrub. Too bad people have to die for it though.

Britain's troops are! He does have a way with speaking that is sorely absent in the colonies, though, doesn't he? ;-)

And he would still be a lying, evil war whore.

and has, mistakenly, thought that kissing bush's ass would help him. I have NO, repeat NO, respect for that man. He is equally responsible for the slaughter in Iraq as bush is, imo.

Blair could turn his back on the US, as France and Germany did, but they sent troops.

GRANTED, troops which should NEVER have been sent.

We can't fight this one alone, folks. Yes, Iraq should have waited (for many years) but now we're in the shit. It's good to know someone has you back, other that Poland.

I'm SO anti-war, but I AM pro-alliance. I have three little ones whom I would like to see graduate HS.

They refused to get involved in an immoral war. They did the right thing. Blair hitched his star to Bush, trumped up a bunch of fake evidence about the WMD capabilities of Iraq, created that bizarre situation with Dr. David Kelly and helped get a lot of people killed in Iraq. He deserves a vote of no confidence and to be replaced by Gordon Brown.

the invasion, occupation and now slaughter of Iraq is illegal and immoral. bush desperately needed at least one country to give his invasion some cover of credibility, blair did that, it was despicable. The citizens of Britain did not want to invade Iraq, they protested in the streets against it.

You might not be in this shit if blair didn't give bush cover, think about that!

Oh and, btw, Blair is a fundie, so much for God not speaking to him, don't be so sure.

Germany participating in an illegal aggressive war with combat troops? Have you ever read the German Constitution? Do you have an idea why said constitution might forbid such a thing? And do you know that the German Army is not a volunteer's army, but that a draft is going on in Germany ?

Did you know that Germany and France are active in Operation Enduring Freedom, even have the command in Afghanistan?

That Germany sent several thousand soldiers in countries around Iraq, just in case that Saddam turned out to be the threat he was made out to be?
In fact there were more German soldiers deployed than Australian; by numbers Germany was the third strongest "Ally" for the Iraq war.

But no, it was "Axis of Weasels", "As helpful as north-Korea", "turning the back"...

Chirac has a point when he said something about the Administration having problems with rewarding favors. (although I did not agree with much else)

And people have a very good point when calling Blair a "poodle". I believe you can judge a man by his allies. Blair's closest friends (sic!) are Berlusconi and Bush; he is siding with the Christian Conservatives in the EU.

So either he's a criminal or an idiot, possibly both.

You're SO anti-war.......... right.......:eyes:

And...... BTW.......... "We can't fight this one alone" is PRECISELY what MAKES Blair an evil little war whore and guilty of the deaths of THOUSANDS.

Maybe you should have thought about your kids before you voted for....... *

.....when he was hanging out with Bill Clinton. When he suddenly decided he needed to suck up to someone intellectually inferior to him simply because he was the President of their biggest ally, he lost it..........

that is to say, the effects of their policies, rather then by how much of a drinking buddy we think they are?

All Blair has done while Prime Minister of a shitty country is lick Bush's balls and then call it a night. The only thing I like about the British is their form of questioning their leaders. Every Sunday night @ 9pm EST on C-Span you can watch parliament grill the fuck out of Tony Blair. Awesome.

The British Labour Party's rules are such that Blair CANNOT be made unemployed at the blink of an eye. He is assured of his party's support in the House of Commons until he is removed from the leadership at a Labour Party conference.

And if you think he's a brilliant working man, perhaps you could explain to us how he managed to produce a dossier which was effectively lifted from an American PHD student's thesis.

I do watch House of Commons as often as I find it in my program guide. I have seen Blair railed many, many times by Conservatives and Socialists.

I was basing my No Confidence comment on the Canadian rules, as I work with many Canadian nationals.

Thank you for the correction, and I will study your comments to add to my personal knowledge-base.

British disease of Imperialism.When he saw an opportunity to kick some Wog Ass along with his buddy in crime from Texas he could not resist the temptation. After all, it has been a long time in the Twilight Zone of the Empire.White Man's Burden and all that old chap,toodly oo!

If he looses a vote of confidence in the House, he goes, and the Queen sends for whoever the Labour Party tells her can command a majority. The chances of him loosing a vote of confidence are nil, as if it was likely he would be dumped first, to avoid the shame of it. Labour Party rules are one thing but what is laughingly called the Queen's government has to go on, and the House of Commons rules take precedence. Blair will go when the majority of Labour MP's see it to be to the electoral advantage of the party that he should go. The Conservative party has ceased to matter, and although the Liberal Democrats will pick up a massive protest vote, they haven't a hope of a majority.

His alignment with Bush sucker-punched any chance of heading off this raging, galloping massacre that shows no sign of abating. The holocaust is his to share, sad to say.

fool you by the way they seem to yell and criticize and rebel---they are as ineffectual and phony as our legislators.

A large sum has been paid out, and nothing has been brought back in. The world is less safe, UK troops are killing and being killed for nothing but exposure to potential war crimes and premature death. Tell me: where and when does it pay off for Britain? You think this is a good deal for you? I have some swamp land to sell you.

I have two boys named London and Brixton, after songs from London Calling by The Clash.

Geez, I was hoping the UK wouldn't be imploded before those two could buy a Eurail Pass and backpack throught Britain after college. Maybe they can drive over to Chicago instead.

FUCK WAR. FUCK EXTREMES. Why can't we all just live together? That's the bottom line. FUCK HATE. I've got no room for it. No time for it. No future for it.

as upset by the reporter asking the "poodle" question as Bush appeared to be during their press conference. Chimpy looked like he was popping a blood vessel, which he probably was, since no American reporter would ever DARE ask such an impertinent question of Emperor George.

Made for a good laugh later, when I heard Blair himself mention "poodle."

Not a term I was familiar with.

You're either really naive or a troll. Which is it?

Bliar can't hope to make up for what he's done in this lifetime.

Please expound.

On your list of world's most admirable Bliar should be waaaaaay down there. I don't care how much he has to explain himself or get his ass kicked, he's not admirable, honorable or any such thing. Dammit, you're citing a speech!

If you're gonna do that, remember that he was one of the proponents of attacking Iraq over WMDs. Remember the "45 minutes" bogeyman? He should resign over sheer incompetence, if not for outright lying. Seriously, who's in charge here? Where does the buck stop?

And IMHO, anyone who's never publicly disagreed with bush over bush's War of Choice is little better than a trained lapdog.

Might be best if you got into a conversation with an actual Brit.

In the meantime I hope you're genuine. Cheers.

I appreciate your reminder of the WMD lies. I had forgotten, or put aside the probably facts that Mr. Blair had the same info from the White House over how poorly-based those "facts" had been.

I was cheering his effort on behalf of the UK to have a "big brother" (not in the Orwell sense) on their side. I had forgotten the lead up to this entire tragedy that cost so many young lives.

Thanks for bringing that back to the forefront of my original post. Yes, I am VERY progressive, VERY anti-war, and VERY liberal. I lost a childhood friend before the US ever got to Baghdad. He left a 5 year old son, 6 year old daughter, and beautiful wife behind. This site, the Ohio recount, any recount (!) is in all of our best interest.

Maybe it was a subliminal hope that a charming UK accent could tell us all it was just farce (a la Monty Python) or safe (a la Churchill). As I said in the original post... God (or anyone) bless us all! We can use the help.

Right?

RL

As much as we want to believe it, we don't rule the world. I just watched (also, twice, by coincidence) the Frontline on Wal-Mart.

The US is about to be totally fucked over by terrorists, foreign corporations, and that's where the line starts. When you do everything well, you're the target, and you have to defend yourself. If the UK is on our side, we should be more than grateful.

Blair rocks. He doesn't want to be in Iraq any more than the kids fighting there, but it's the best thing for his country to back our stupid ass up. That was my original point in this feverous post.

Iraq is going well? The economy is going well? Healthcare is going well? Foreign policy is going well? Hmmm, could you explain what, exactly, is done well?

I don't agree that the US has done everything well. After four years, I cannot identify one achievement by the Bush administration - international or domestic.

That made them a target, and if there were a terrorist attack on the UK, the war in Iraq would be the most important reason for it.

That's why he's hiding a lot of shit that bubbles up to the surface from time to time.

He knows he's going down.

:hi:

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think Bush is 100% evil.

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built.

It makes it hard to like her.

because Blair thinks the war is right. He's currently taking part in an operation that kept all men between 15 and 55 in a city, bombed it, went house to house shooting anything that moved, said "there's no civilians left in the city", and refused to let humanitarian aid into it.

That was what he decided in the last couple of weeks to do. He still loves killing people.

elected to gov't all over Europe if not for the UK's involvement.

http://fallujapictures.blogspot.com/

You look at these photo's and tell me how this is helping Iraqi's.

Is it possible for the Chimp to just be kinda evil... a little evil... a partial murdering liar?

Can't understand how anyone can think that Bush isn't evil... if this war isn't enough to convince you perhaps you should research his record as Governor of Texas and pay specific attention to executions on his watch.

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over 100,000 Iraqi's are dead since the start of all of this "help"... so... let's see... we'll kill twice as many as we save... hmmm....

No one is going to argue that Sadaam was bad. I don't see us invading other countries with similarly attrocious human rights records. Now, perhaps your just trying to find the silver lining in the slaughter of innocent Iraqi people in our quest for oil and global dominance?

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Try researching a little on US involvement in Latin America during the 20th century.

they said so before they came to power:



Note how many of those signatories are now senior figures in the Bush admin. And note that they want to use the American defense budget to advance American interests, ie not just to defend the USA. Take a look at the PNAC website. You'll find that they are quite open about using the American military to get their own way anywhere in the world.

The site that praises "the best conservative radio talk show host in America", and that considers National Review Online and Little Green Football "excellent resources": http://www.logictimes.com/antiwar.htm .

Yellow Cake.

Blaire is spinning the shit the same way Chimpy did. He's trying to stay alive politically so that he can kill again another day.

fortyfive minutes


Blair claimed UK intellignece services had found Saddam could launch WMDs at the UK on 45 minute notice - turned out that was about conventional weapons (that sure can't reach the UK).
So the BBC was right when it said Blair "sexed up" that report.

Who exactly do you think you can convince that Blair is ok?

Blair is cool only if you like Bush's policies.

it's just that your opinion is exceptional as far as liberals go, no matter how genuine you are.

How can some-one claiming to be anti-war support Blair?

He supported *, and would have voted for the chimp if he could.

To "spread democracy" in Iraq.

You gotta be beyond merely ignorant and stupid to swallow that bullshit...funny how the freeping rightwingnuts do swallow that bullshit. LOL!

He'd walk a presidential election.

THANK GOD ALMIGHTY THEM IRAQI PEOPLE SURE HAVE BEEN LIBERATED

And mine too while he's at it. He's at least 30-40% responsible for this war and as far as I'm concerned equally responsible for the deaths of thousands upon thousands.

He's not cool, he's repugnant.

In contrast to our Bush.

Don't let the shock blind you to the fact that smooth talkers are even better at lying.

immoral thug. Are you always so gullible? Iraq HAD no terrorists before we invaded this disarmed nation.

We are not protecting Democracy, we are stealing oil and if you are so stupid to believe the 'free Iraq' BS then there is no hope for you!