The Naivety Of Tony Blair

"I think amongst the leaders in Europe I think it is clear. Amongst the people in Europe and Western opinion there is a big battle to be won. I mean, I'm being just honest about this. And I think there is a desire not to face the fact that we are fighting a global struggle."

Tony Blair, Ha'aretz, 10th September 2006

Link

So there we have it. As a parting gift to his beloved electorate, the soon to be ex-British prime minister says they are naive, that they don't realise the nature of the threat they are facing. For have no doubt, it is they, not he, who will feel the wrath of Islamic extremism. Blair will be safely cosseted by the security services for the rest of his life. Those of us who pay British taxes - we naive people - will bankroll his protection just as we bankroll his wars and we, not him, will pay the price in blood.

To be accused of naivety by Blair is like being labeled a liar by Joseph Goebbels. It was Blair, not his people, who thought invading Iraq would make the country safer when it was plainly obvious that the opposite was true. The vast majority of British people know only too well that there are those who wish to kill them regardless of foreign policy. But unfortunately for Blair, they also understand perfectly well that invading Iraq has increased, not decreased the level of anti-British animosity.

I seem to remember he played the naive card during the run-up to the war in Iraq, chiding a sceptical population like an all-knowing father. If only they could see the intelligence that passes over his desk, he assured the British people, they too would realise the threat from Saddam's WMDs was so terrible as to warrant regime change.

Of course, the very reason the British people didn't see this intelligence, or at least an accurate summary of it, was because it said no such thing. Where Blair insisted there was clarity, there was none.

And it is this deception, which led Britain into the greatest foreign policy catastrophe since Suez, that will be his legacy, whether he lasts another year, another month or another week.

international

Locked Post

Advanced Search

Watch this post

Do not email me updates for this post Email me updates for this post

Successfully updated karma reason!

I could not agree more. I've watched Britain, via online editions of the British press (mostly the Guardian and the Independent) since I arrived in the USA. You couldn't pay me enough to make want to live there again.

While I lived in Britain (I lived there for 43 of my 46 years) I voted Labour from the moment I gained the franchise. I voted Labour throughout the years of Thatcher's misrule; I voted Labour while I was forced to watch the economy of my hometown utterly destroyed during the years of cuts in steel production. I voted Labour throughout the debacle of the poll-tax. I voted Labour in the election that brought Blair to power: and then watched him eviscerate the Labour Party through his appointment of placemen, through his encouragement of 'spin' at every turn, through his preference for sycophancy over democratic debate; through the abrogation of Clause 4 of the Labour Party Constitution and his betrayal of every principle upon which Labour was founded and for which generations fought and died. And I never voted in another General Election after the one that saw Labour's 'triumph'.

Watching Britain through its press I've seen a country that I remember as united sink ever deeper into division; seen unheard of regulation (the detestable 'ASBOs' and their rise to prominence) put into place; watched as Blair's contempt for due process and the rule of law, for the supremacy of Parliament, even for his own party and its membership, become ever more apparent and unbridled. Watched the country I once thought of as 'home' become a caricature of itself.

Blair's 'legacy' is not merely Iraq and the increasing bloodshed in Afghanistan - it's the ruination of the Labour Party, which is now as unelectable as it was before he became its leader, and the contemptuous trampling underfoot of the liberties of the British in favor of his endless nannying and hectoring.

I despise the man. Absolutely despise him.

Successfully updated karma reason!