Tony Blair and his Iraq notions!

So Tony Blair only had a "notion" that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the Middle East region and to the rest of the world. Well I have a "notion" that Blair is a dissembler, a deceiving spinner and a man whose politics were mainly built on the "notion" that all the people he met whilst gallivanting around the world would help him become a multi-millionaire. The bonused bankers achieve wealth through making money out of thin air. He has made money out of hot air.

These are "notions" but what the hell. We all have them these days. Nobody has much to say for politicians mainly because they have too many "notions". I'm glad Blair's gone. He was always on the make with his "well, yeah, so" type of approach to it all.

The fact that he sleeps at night is because he believes his own bullshit. I doubt if he ever will get round to thinking in any other way. What a life, eh?

Iraq War nonsense - today's ramblings!

Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the UK's ambassador to the UN in 2003, said the invasion of Iraq did not have the backing of most UN members or even the UK public. It was of "questionable legitimacy" even though it is unlikely to be ever proved illegal. He said he believed the US and UK had "established" its legality in that it had never been challenged in court.

So that's alright, then?

It's a bit like saying an inveterate thief, one who habitually steals things willy-nilly, is doing nothing illegal because his activities have never been challenged in court. Lots of people do some very bad things. Some MPs have been up to no good. What about the banks selling each other dodgy "financial instruments"? It's OK folks, none of it is illegal because it has never been challenged in court.

It's all very legally-challenged, of that there's no doubt!

Peter Cook, or should I say E.L.Wisty, had something to say about judges in this sketch about whether to be a miner or a judge.

Blair, the bloody-handed one!

When a young Tony Blair knocked on his housemaster's study door and enquired - "Anything I can do for you, sir?" - it's a crying shame that the teacher couldn't show him the future. But maybe if he had been able to it would have made no difference. Blair has a stubborn streak of arrogant self-certainty about him. He was certain that Gordon Brown was not the face of New Labour for the general election of 1997.

He was also certain he had to twist and spin in order to come up with a reason for the Iraq War. Yesterday he got a verbal smacking in the face from an angry father of a deceased soldier. The father told Blair he had blood on his hands. 59 year-old Peter Brierly said, "As far as I am concerned that man is a war criminal. I can’t bear to be in the same room as him. I cannot believe he’s been allowed to come to this reception. I sat through that service listening to people preaching to me about tolerance but I don’t think anyone should be forced to tolerate being in the same room as him. He has made £14million on the back of taking us to war and they are now talking about making him president of the EU. But I believe I believe he’s got the blood of my son – and all of the other men and women who died in that war – on his hands."

That's three diabolical things in one remark. Blair fiddled the war, he's making dosh by the bucketload now, and he's cheesily knocking on the EU door asking "Anything I can do for you?" I know the answer to that one, but I don't run a rude-worded blog!

Blair is some character. Any vestige of socialism went with the pixies. Now it's hard to fathom out how much he's absorbed of catholicism. He's basically keen to milk the system which is a red flag to me that the man is driven by a desire not to be a failure and to be liked. The problem is that he has driven himself into exactly the opposite camp - distrusted and despised, dare I say.

However, the cheesiest thing Blair did was signing autographs on the programmes of yesterday's event. What a man!

Iraqi shoe-tosser to get hero's welcome!

So much for George Bush's abilities in the Middle East as a bringer of peace and democracy. The Iraqi people seem to be far more taken with the political stance taken by Muntazer al-Zaidi, shoe tosser extraordinaire. His day job is being a journalist. He's going to be hailed from Baghdad to the rest of the world. Offerings of a new house, a herd of goats, even a new wife are coming his way.

The Americans still have their work cut out. This episode just about sums up how wrong Bush was and how little he knew about Arabs!

Tony Blair fears being exposed in Iraq "show trial"!

So, the scheming still goes on. Tony Blair is conniving behind the scenes to make sure his plots and furtive planning do not come out. As I say, before he meets his Maker the truth will out. He will find that there is a whole phalanx of people, from high to low, demanding that this enquiry is in public as far as it can be.

Why is he so concerned? Because he fears that he would be subjected to a "show trial" if it were opened to the public. Show trial? Does that tell us something? I think it does. Blair has a reputation for mangling the truth and behaving like a three-card trickster. No wonder Gordon Brown had shouting fits with him. But this will be no show trial. It will be a simple case of telling the truth. Blair may be able to gild the lily in private, but a public spectacle of shiftiness will be noted by the people.

It is said in the Guardian that Blair is believed to have been alarmed by the prospect of giving evidence in public and under oath about the use of intelligence and about his numerous private discussions with US President George Bush over plans for war. Again, that only reflects the number of red flags shooting up the pole.

The clamour for a public enquiry has started. Gordon Brown, in his usual gulping way, failed to offer any sincerity in the House of Commons over the need for secrecy. Nick Clegg puts it rather well. "If this is true about Blair demanding secrecy, it is outrageous that an inquiry into the biggest foreign policy disaster since Suez is being muzzled to suit the individual needs of the man who took us to war." If the public mood has anything to do with it, Blair will be giving evidence in public. Then he will have to decide once and for all whether he is a truthful man or an inveterate dissembler.

Shoe-shine goes mad in Baghdad!

George Bush got a parting shot in Baghdad. Some reporter thre his shoes at the outgoing president. I have to say he was pretty nifty with the shoulder dodge. "So what if the guy threw a shoe at me?"

However, this democratic expression of free speech (or free shoe throwing) should not be taken as a right to clamp down on people. At most the journalist should get no more than a similar punishment meted out in London or Washington.

Now the Iraqi regime has the prospect of thousands of people out on the streets. Maybe they can swap notes with the Greeks?

Sarah Palin takes the Scottish Nationalist line!

So living in Alaska gives you some form of political independence? Sarah Palin is sounding ever so much like Alex Salmond used to do. He's now First Minister in a devolved Scottish Parliament making sure he's not far from Scotland's oil. Palin thinks the oil under the ground and the seas around Alaska is for her to control. "It's Alaskan oil!", she purrs. She would like to "sell" Alaskan oil to the US. She claims that Alaska struck a deal 50 years ago (on entry into the Union) with the Federal Government to exploit the resources of Alaska. If Alaska can't do that, will she think it best to go it alone?

She now has a stark choice. It's either going to be Alaskan oil or American oil. It can't be both. As VP will she have to eat her words? This little offering is on the Glenn Beck show (before she got the VP ticket place) and she seems to be on good form (she comes in at 4.18 on the clock!). On Iraq, she says "We're fighting, in some sense, over energy supplies". Well, she said it!

Watch this space, I say!

Ron Paul Republicans on the rise in NC

An interesting post from Conservative Heritage Times. If you thought that Ron Paul's campaign had bitten the dust think again. All over the USA little pockets of Pauline political power are stirring the loins of Americans who want change. The CHT says "Kudos last night to North Carolina voters for nominating B.J. Lawson, a bonified Ron Paul Republican to the nomination for the 4th Congressional District and re-electing Walter Jones Jr. to the sixth CD. Jones was the only GOP member of Congress to endorse Paul for President".

Jones’ election is important as it shows Republicans that oppose the war in Iraq, even in a district filled with military bases, do not have to face a political death sentence. Something that John McCain could well reflect on.

Lawson says "Big government inevitably becomes a tool for corporate and special interests instead of a guardian of individual liberty. Today, big government has given us significant problems: rising food prices, jobs going overseas, illegal immigration, porous borders, failing education, war and occupation, foreign oil addiction, unsustainable entitlement spending, and a crushing debt burden. It's time for us to come together as free Americans and restore prosperity and liberty." Isn't it funny that when Americans here this message they vote for it. How come the media and powers-that-be try to stop it? Simple! Because they are the problem and have a vested interest in stifling the message.

Good on you B J! As you put it so well "Freedom isn't free — it requires a lot of hard work. But liberty is priceless." I bet the people of Burma would wish they could vote for such freedom!

Rumsfeld in the frame

I always had a feeling that Donald Rumsfeld was a dodgy character. To men like Rumsfeld, the political skullduggery comes easily. Ken Livingstone, the defeated Labour candidate for London mayor, said that he preferred political intrigue and committee "work" to the actual managerial activity his post required. Rumsfeld's certainly no Livingstone, but in this they have a certain kinship.

Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of U.S. Forces in Iraq in 2003-2004, has written a new memoir, Wiser in Battle - A Soldier's Story, an account of his life and his service in Iraq. Sanchez basically blows the lid off Rumsfeld's rotten barrel of political poison. Remember, Rumsfeld was the man who gladhanded it with Saddam Hussein. That was before Saddam fell out with the Americans and started selling Iraqi oil in euros.

Sanchez had a run-in with the devious Rumsfeld. Interestingly, in this excerpt from Time Magazine, it is Sanchez's wife who gets the point, commenting on the "offer" Sanchez was given by Rumsfeld. "Ricardo, they are just trying to buy you off and keep you silent," said Maria Elena. "I don't think we should mess with them anymore."

But for me the telling piece is this. From that, my belief was that Rumsfeld's intent appeared to be to minimize and control further exposure within the Pentagon and to specifically keep this information from the American public. The very things I detest most in political hierarchies - spin and deception. Rumsfeld had both in bucketloads.

The Time extract ends with this -

That decision set up the United States for a failed first year in Iraq. There is no question about it. And I was supposed to believe that neither the Secretary of Defense nor anybody above him knew anything about it? Impossible! Rumsfeld knew about it. Everybody on the NSC knew about it, including Condoleezza Rice, George Tenet, and Colin Powell. Vice President Cheney knew about it. And President Bush knew about it.

There's not a doubt in my mind that they all embraced this decision to some degree. And if it had not been for the moral courage of Gen. John Abizaid to stand up to them all and reverse Franks's troop drawdown order, there's no telling how much more damage would have been done.

In the meantime, hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars were unnecessarily spent, and worse yet, too many of our most precious military resource, our American soldiers, were unnecessarily wounded, maimed, and killed as a result. In my mind, this action by the Bush administration amounts to gross incompetence and dereliction of duty.

Those that blindly follow the Bush administration and praise "our boys out there" should sit back and think that it is American soldiers being unnecessarily wounded, maimed, and killed as a result of lies and deception. Such action as described by Sanchez that the Bush administration was involved in does amount to gross incompetence and dereliction of duty. It borders on the unforgiveable!

Porkies from Petraeus? No! Revelations on Iraq!

When General Petraeus leaves the US Army and gets a job in civvy street, he'll do well to keep away from selling sub-prime loans or second-hand cars! Any savvy buyer will spot him a mile off.

His Capitol Hill showing displayed all the body language of a man trying to please his masters, whilst desperately keeping his intellect in check. John McCain and his 100 Years War pysche were well satisfied. Others were less sure. I'm very much a conservative opposed to this pantomime of trying to suggest that al-Queda is the enemy in Iraq. Thankfully, one senator, Joe Biden, got Ryan Crocker, the US Ambassador to admit that Afghanistan and Pakistan, not Iraq, was the central front in the battle against al-Qaeda. Is Mr.Crocker spending too much time in a fantasy world?

Then General Petraeus stated that the US had not "turned any corners" nor "seen any lights at the end of the tunnel," in contrast to statements last summer in which he claimed corners had been turned. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for the surge. Here again, John McCain is talking up stuff without a scintilla of common sense attached to it. Petraeus will be out to grass come the New Year!

Petraeus also confirmed that the Iraqi government is failing to take the necessary steps to ensure sufficient progress in the areas of politics and security responsibility. All very makeshift and tenuous. And to add insult to injury, he said that the United States, whilst accusing Iran of destructive and destabilising machinations in the country, is favouring with the very Shiite faction most closely linked to Iran! What on earth is the man thinking of? I thought George Bush was apopletic about Iran. How come his generals are cosying up to the enemy within?

Americans (and the British) should be asking more questions. This whole Iraq invasion is fuelled by spin, deceit, and subterfuge. People are dying. If Mr.Bush wants to hold back the tears, let him do it AFTER he has come clean about this war. Otherwise it all looks a bit false.