How screwed is Blair?

boogieman

JezWynd;1143157" said:

It must be odd for a man whose religious faith runs so deep, to even consider that he might be responsible for thousands of deaths. But then religion has caused more grief and suffering than practically anything else since time began, so nothing new there. He wears his belief in his righteousness as a shield to hold at bay all the grief of the families of victims.



I think it's possible he may face some private prosecutions, either from families of service personnel or maybe a kind of 'class action' suit bought by victims in Iraq. There seem to be some senior army people who are willing to stand up and say he ignored best advice and facts that he chose to reject.

If it only serves to tangle him up in the legal system for the next ten years it will be some consolation to victims and be a constant reminder to him of what misery he has wrought.

Don't forget that the Blairs have a legal background and Cherie was a QC. They'll also have the best possible legal advice going, it's not like he can't afford it. Even if Blair does face a private prosecution (which is entirely possible and there'll be some top barristers champing at the bit to take him down) I doubt he'll face any real consequences for his actions. Ultimately a failed legal action, even if does serve to tie him up for 10 years as you'd like, doesn't give any real satisfaction to the accuser either: just ask Stephen Lawrence's parents.

JezWynd

boogieman said:

JezWynd;1143157" said:

It must be odd for a man whose religious faith runs so deep, to even consider that he might be responsible for thousands of deaths. But then religion has caused more grief and suffering than practically anything else since time began, so nothing new there. He wears his belief in his righteousness as a shield to hold at bay all the grief of the families of victims.



I think it's possible he may face some private prosecutions, either from families of service personnel or maybe a kind of 'class action' suit bought by victims in Iraq. There seem to be some senior army people who are willing to stand up and say he ignored best advice and facts that he chose to reject.

If it only serves to tangle him up in the legal system for the next ten years it will be some consolation to victims and be a constant reminder to him of what misery he has wrought.

Don't forget that the Blairs have a legal background and Cherie was a QC. They'll also have the best possible legal advice going, it's not like he can't afford it. Even if Blair does face a private prosecution (which is entirely possible and there'll be some top barristers champing at the bit to take him down) I doubt he'll face any real consequences for his actions. Ultimately a failed legal action, even if does serve to tie him up for 10 years as you'd like, doesn't give any real satisfaction to the accuser either: just ask Stephen Lawrence's parents.

True. Plus tangling him up in the legal system leaves the victims in that place too.

Chalky

Charging national leaders with crimes has historically been driven as a political matter rather than legal. So I doubt he will be charged with anything at all.

Snap

menamestom said:

Snap said:

I remember both Iraq wars, very well. What seems to be being overlooked in this race to burn Bush & Blair at the stake, is how Saddam continually blocked inspectors, moved things around and generally stoked the fires of belief that he did in fact have WMD. 

But seriously, you don't go from old soviet scud missiles and not being able to hit targets a few hundred miles away to having the sophistication for nuclear weaponry.  Saddam stoked nothing but Blair and Bushes ego's. His mistake was not realising they would be stupid enough to mount an invasion.

 

Snap said:

What is clear with hindisght is that a lot of Saddam's behaviour was macho posturing, and also lunatic posturing. He was playing a game of blink with world leading militaries, and we took the bait.

I think if parliament were in the same circumstances again, they would vote to war.

They are, North Korea.  Kim jong-un is a certified lunatic.  Macho posturing is his hobby.  The only difference is it wouldn't be an easy fight, so the west will leave well alone.  Iraq, they knew the march to Bagdad would be largely routine, being that Saddam was no match for their military might.

The West knew North Korea were developing nuclear weapons but didn't do anything about it because they were too interested in a fight they knew they could win against Saddam, because Bush Snr didn't finish the job and Jr had a score to settle. 

Saddam played a dangerous game with a US president who was itching to finish what Daddy started. He was already using gas on his own citizens, verging on genocide with the Kurds. He was continually not complying with weapons inspectors, and the conditions on which the peace terms from the first war were agreed.

The fear was he had the ability to launch long range missiles with gas and biologics (can't remember nukes, don't think so though) at other countries. The notion of being able to hit us though seems (now) far fetched, but that is what the intelligence presented to parliament said. that being the case, the fault is not with parliament or Blair, but with the intelligence collation.

THe differences between Iraq & N Korea are many. History has told us (IRaq included) that dictators have big mouths and like to make empty threats. IRaq didn't have nukes, didn't have a massive military, is relatively nearby and of course has links to the satbility of the oil industry, with its impacts on the middle east.

Add all these together, and action in N Korea starts to become more difficult, and more risky.

Morally, not saying that this is right or acceptable, but practically , pretty easy to see why nothing is being done.

When I said parliament would do the same again, I meant if it was Iraq, or similar. They nearly did it in Syria, but I think today, 2016, the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan are being learned, and if there is one upside to this sad affair, it seems we are all less eager to go to war.

The downside is that hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people suffer under the most brutal regimes with little hope of relief.

Would the world be a better place with Saddam still in postion? Honestly, I think it would. I think even Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Libya would also be better places too. What we have now is utter chaos. Perhaps in 50 years it will have levelled out, but at the moment, IMO, we the West have waded in and made the whole middle east a lot worse to be in, and made the world less safe.

ICBM

Snap said:

The fear was he had the ability to launch long range missiles with gas and biologics (can't remember nukes, don't think so though) at other countries. The notion of being able to hit us though seems (now) far fetched, but that is what the intelligence presented to parliament said.

That was never the case - the intelligence claim was that he could potentially hit UK bases in Cyprus. OK that would mean British personnel - but it's a very different thing from being able to hit the UK, even if it had been true. Another clever twist of the evidence to imply something that it didn't mean, but I'm sure a lot of people here thought it meant that Saddam could use chemical weapons on London.

I agree that brutal as they were, it would have been better to leave all the Middle Eastern dictators in place - removing them has caused even more suffering to an even larger number of people, and still with no end in sight.

I wouldn't worry about North Korea - they have the country with the world's third (second, if you rate manpower as important) most powerful military literally on their doorstep, and who will not take kindly to their semi-trained pitbull starting a war. The West should simply ignore Kim, he's just barking to show how big and important he is.

Snap

@ICBM,

you know, I really didn't know that it was Cyprus, not UK land, wow, and there you go. The power of the word eh?

N Korea doesn't worry me at all, all mouth and no trousers, or as they say in my home town, "the lad's full of piss and wind"

Clarky

Bucket said:

Snap said:

Lets not forget, Saddam was keeping a lot of extremist and radical factions in check, in amongst his brutality and tyranny. Historically the west had been quite happy to encourage him in his grip on the region. Nothing was planned to deal with the aftermath.

This is something I find difficult to wrestle with.

On the one hand, yes, he was a brutal and awful dictator and it must have been shit living under his rule.

But on the other hand, one can't help but wonder whether the wider world would actually currently be in a better state if he was left in power. Or at the very least, if they had some kind of actual successor in place.

I read in the BBC news I think that the Iraqi fella putting the hammer to the Saddam statue now wishes he was back..

sure when he was in power things were bad and dangerous, but they're considerably worse now..

Saddam certainly did manage to keep the lid on some very difficult groups within Iraq.. I can imagine that keeping himself in power in a region like that could only be done with a very heavy hand.. note though that I'm not trying to justify anything he did.. he was proper nasty.. and his successors would have been his sons - which I believe were even worse..

I'll guess that the key to the regions problems in general were down to the WWI victors and the way that they drew out the borders when Ottoman Turkey was dismantled. The Kurds for example were never given a nation of their own to live in, and in other cases, various tribes / peoples were grouped together that would have been better off if they hadn't been.. That may go some way to explaining why such harsh leaders came to the fore, because it'd most likely take people like that to be able to hold it all together.

The west backed Iraq heavily financially and militarily to provide a counter balance to an increasingly powerful Iran, especially when the Shah came to power.. that all went tits though in 1980 when Iraq invaded Iran and they entered into that decade long slugging contest.. after that was all over, Saddam started to fall out of favour with the west..

had the west verified Saddam had little or no WDM capability and kept him down via sanctions [which were I believe working], the world may have been a better place, Iraq would still be under his boot [or worse, under his sons]. but even that has to be better that what they have now..

maybe it would have taken a few 'Arab Spring' like events to bring him down, bring down the power vacuum fillers etc until true stability could emerge.. 

the whole region is a complete fk up.. largely of the west's making early in the 20th C

exocet

Chalky said:

Like Thatcher in her latter days, Blair questioned whether he was right, and used his antagonists as his guide - the more of them there were and the more vehement their antagonism, the greater his self-assurance that he was right and they were wrong.

Very true and I suspect that if Thatcher had been in Blairs position (keen to preserve Special Relationship with U.S along with (flawed) Intelligence that backed up the situation) she'd have made the same call.

Like many, I really grew to despise Blair and his lack of contrition doesn't do him any favours but he acted in the way that many "strong" leaders act. Sometimes those decisions are right and sometimes they are wrong - the consequences in  this instance were grave and far reaching.

StanleyAccrington

I wouldn't worry about Mr Blair. I'm sure he'll be fine.

Clarky

TheBlueWolf said:

At best Tony Blair was grossly naive. I'm not an expert on law ( or the conditions under which a war is legally allowed ) but it does seem that the reasons for the Iraq war and it's justification were tenuous.

I'm in the camp that thinks not much will happen to Blair in a legal sense. He really does live up to his 'Teflon' moniker

I cannot believe him to be naive…

as previously pointed out.. he was a master politician and very switched on..

this is why I think he needs to stand up in court and put to the test..

was he railroaded by the US? 

did he really think "we are doing the right thing. we will do this thing no matter what, everything will work out in the end and we'll be the heroes"

it seems to me that there is something deeply untrustworthy about him…and he'll try to wriggle and squirm his way out of being the cause what is undoubtedly the saddest episode in human history since WWII… and it's still not over..

Clarky

menamestom said:

Snap said:

I remember both Iraq wars, very well. What seems to be being overlooked in this race to burn Bush & Blair at the stake, is how Saddam continually blocked inspectors, moved things around and generally stoked the fires of belief that he did in fact have WMD. 

But seriously, you don't go from old soviet scud missiles and not being able to hit targets a few hundred miles away to having the sophistication for nuclear weaponry.  Saddam stoked nothing but Blair and Bushes ego's. His mistake was not realising they would be stupid enough to mount an invasion.

 

Snap said:

What is clear with hindisght is that a lot of Saddam's behaviour was macho posturing, and also lunatic posturing. He was playing a game of blink with world leading militaries, and we took the bait.

I think if parliament were in the same circumstances again, they would vote to war.

They are, North Korea.  Kim jong-un is a certified lunatic.  Macho posturing is his hobby.  The only difference is it wouldn't be an easy fight, so the west will leave well alone.  Iraq, they knew the march to Bagdad would be largely routine, being that Saddam was no match for their military might.

The West knew North Korea were developing nuclear weapons but didn't do anything about it because they were too interested in a fight they knew they could win against Saddam, because Bush Snr didn't finish the job and Jr had a score to settle. 

and to add to that;

that N Korea is not floating on a solid % of the world's oil so there's less to gain

and that they've fought N Korea before in the 50's and it proved to be very difficult.. once bitten and all that..

big kids only pick on lil' kids if there's something in it for them, and if they don't hit back too hard..

notice how quick the allies were to liberate Kuwait

notice how not noticing the allies were when China wandered into Tibet

notice how 'shouty but without doing actually anything' the allies were when Russia strolled into Crimea and eastern Ukraine

Clarky

ICBM said:

Snap said:

The fear was he had the ability to launch long range missiles with gas and biologics (can't remember nukes, don't think so though) at other countries. The notion of being able to hit us though seems (now) far fetched, but that is what the intelligence presented to parliament said.

That was never the case - the intelligence claim was that he could potentially hit UK bases in Cyprus. OK that would mean British personnel - but it's a very different thing from being able to hit the UK, even if it had been true. Another clever twist of the evidence to imply something that it didn't mean, but I'm sure a lot of people here thought it meant that Saddam could use chemical weapons on London.

I agree that brutal as they were, it would have been better to leave all the Middle Eastern dictators in place - removing them has caused even more suffering to an even larger number of people, and still with no end in sight.

I wouldn't worry about North Korea - they have the country with the world's third (second, if you rate manpower as important) most powerful military literally on their doorstep, and who will not take kindly to their semi-trained pitbull starting a war. The West should simply ignore Kim, he's just barking to show how big and important he is.

I think one of the perceived threats [bearing in mind that 2011 was still pretty fresh] was Saddam passing on some nasty weapon to a terrorist bunch to hit a target in the US or Europe..

seems to me like the manner in which the intelligence [both true and false] was interpreted and re-spun was a game of top trumps..

ICBM

Clarky said:

had the west verified Saddam had little or no WDM capability and kept him down via sanctions [which were I believe working], the world may have been a better place, Iraq would still be under his boot [or worse, under his sons]. but even that has to be better that what they have now..

maybe it would have taken a few 'Arab Spring' like events to bring him down, bring down the power vacuum fillers etc until true stability could emerge..

I would guess that if Saddam had been left alone and eventually died a natural death, the Iraqi military would quickly have got rid of his sons - who were as psychotic as he was, but without the same ability to command respect. So at worst Iraq would be back where it started when he first took power, before whoever emerges as the new dictator cements control, and at best Iraq may have the sort of semi-benign military rule that Egypt has been allowed to revert to after the West got its fingers burned there too... by having the temerity to democratically elect an Islamist.

Either way we would not now have Daesh.

Clarky

ICBM said:

Clarky said:

had the west verified Saddam had little or no WDM capability and kept him down via sanctions [which were I believe working], the world may have been a better place, Iraq would still be under his boot [or worse, under his sons]. but even that has to be better that what they have now..

maybe it would have taken a few 'Arab Spring' like events to bring him down, bring down the power vacuum fillers etc until true stability could emerge..

I would guess that if Saddam had been left alone and eventually died a natural death, the Iraqi military would quickly have got rid of his sons - who were as psychotic as he was, but without the same ability to command respect. So at worst Iraq would be back where it started when he first took power, before whoever emerges as the new dictator cements control, and at best Iraq may have the sort of semi-benign military rule that Egypt has been allowed to revert to after the West got its fingers burned there too... by having the temerity to democratically elect an Islamist.

Either way we would not now have Daesh.

yeah that makes sense to me…

and of course without Gulf War II, the Iraqi military would at least be intact enough and strong enough to support and enforce the new military dictatorship..

not exactly utopia, but certainly a shit lot better than the mess that exists now..

and if the new boss turns out to be a nasty fkr, the UN etc can do all the things within their power to try to make things a little better..

I guess the prob with this sort of thing [as has been seen many times in the past all over the world] is US intervention to favour and groom one guy specifically to be a US sympathetic / dependent dictator.. cos the oil and various of military and civil contracts..

which is exactly what Saddam was in the first place..

I suspect that what the US didn't realise is that the regime change that they had in mind to replace Saddam with was simply not capable of running the place and holding the fort..

sometimes it makes me think that the Chinese non-interference policy ain't so bad..

basically, they couldn't give a crap what you do so long as it has nothing to do with them…

ok so they don't make the world a better place, but they don't make it worse either.. lol..

Bucket

God I fucking hate Tony Blair.

I thought the street parties when Thatcher died were in bad taste, but I'll be hard pushed not to crack a beer open when he pops his clogs.