Our Pal Tony: Part 2
Published February 16, 2003
I sincerely hope that George Bush thanks God for Tony Blair every night in his prayers. Blair is a great leader, thinker and speaker. After the Security Council debacle Friday, this speech couldn't have come at a more important time:
- We will come through it by holding firm to what we believe in. One such belief is in the United Nations. I continue to want to solve the issue of Iraq and weapons of mass destruction through the UN. That is why last November we insisted on putting UN inspectors back into Iraq to disarm it.
Dr Blix reported to the UN yesterday and there will be more time given to inspections. He will report again on 28 February. But let no one forget two things. To anyone familiar with Saddam's tactics of deception and evasion, there is a weary sense of déjà vu. As ever, at the last minute, concessions are made. And as ever, it is the long finger that is directing them. The concessions are suspect. Unfortunately the weapons are real.
....The time needed is not the time it takes the inspectors to discover the weapons. They are not a detective agency. We played that game for years in the 1990s. The time is the time necessary to make a judgment: is Saddam prepared to co-operate fully or not. If he is, the inspectors can take as much time as they want. If he is not, if this is a repeat of the 1990s - and I believe it is - then let us be under no doubt what is at stake.
....Remember: the UN inspectors would not be within a thousand miles of Baghdad without the threat of force. Saddam would not be making a single concession without the knowledge that forces were gathering against him. I hope, even now, Iraq can be disarmed peacefully, with or without Saddam. But if we show weakness now, if we allow the plea for more time to become just an excuse for prevarication until the moment for action passes, then it will not only be Saddam who is repeating history. The menace, and not just from Saddam, will grow; the authority of the UN will be lost; and the conflict when it comes will be more bloody. Yes, let the United Nations be the way to deal with Saddam. But let the United Nations mean what it says; and do what it means.
What is the menace we speak of? It is not just Saddam. We are living through insecure times. Wars; terrorist threats; suddenly things that seem alien to us are on our doorstep, threatening our way of life.
- Our Pal Tony: Part 2
- Published: February 16, 2003
- Type:
- Section: Politics
- Writer: Eric Olsen
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Jim, you live in a mirror world: what is important to me, you utterly discount, what seems important to you is beside the point to me. "Social democracy"? horseshit in need of being sold out. Blair is a great and moral wartime leader, that's what is important.
Yep, driveway sealant, obviously crack is too upscale for you.
Blair has sold out every principle his party stands for. If he wanted to be Thatcher in drag, he should have run for the Tories. We need fewer "wartime leaders" and more people committed to solving problems instead of causing them. I care about employment, health care, housing and social equity. So this means you promote pestilance, disease, war and famine?
Hey, let me scare you with an egg salad sandwich and some Red Green videos.
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Eric, are you high on crack or driveway sealant? Tony Blair is an opportunistic little weasel who has corrupted the Labour Party, selling out social democracy at every turn.
Americans seem to love Blair because they have no idea of how parliamentary democracy works. It isn't about a leader and dicates, it is about consensus and managing the odds. Blair is riding his party into oblivion just as Brian Mulroney did with the Tories in Canada.