Fox interviews Tony Blair

Poor misunderstood Tony Blair, how terrible it must be when others cannot see things in the same twisted way that you do. To get a soft ride in an interview, especially after the grilling at the Iraq War Enquiry, Blair appeared on Fox News. Hardly surprising that he would be treated with kid gloves at Fox, given the neocon bias of the station and the fact that Tony is well and truly part of that camp. Blair ticks all their boxes: religious zealot, misguided, warmonger, intellectual lightweight.

In Part I, Blair is poor, poor pitiful me. In Part II, he has a go at Iran. And this man is an envoy to the Middle East!

Unfortunately, despite continually professing to do the right thing when he was Prime Minister, justice and the rule of law do not seem to rank highly in Blair’s hierachy of personal values. Remember how in 2006, Blair quashed a criminal investigation in the arms manufacturer BAE Systems before it could be brought to a conclusion:

In December 2006 the SFO – amid much consternation – dropped its corruption investigations into BAE’s arms sales to Saudi Arabia after direct intervention from Tony Blair, who was prime minister. He defended the decision on the grounds that the Saudis would stop co-operating on security issues.

Yes, good old national security used as an excuse yet again. But looked what happened a couple of weeks ago after the Americans and Europeans became involved in investigating BAE:

The British arms firm BAE Systems has accepted guilt and agreed to pay penalties in the US and the UK totalling several hundred million pounds to settle all the long-running corruption allegations against it.

In the US, the company will plead guilty to offences of false accounting to settle bribery allegations made over the enormous al-Yamamah arms deals with Saudi Arabia stretching back more than 20 years, as well as corruption allegations over arms deals in central Europe.

Interesting, isn’t it.  If there truly was a significant national security component to all this, I’m sure the Americans would have pulled their horns in rather than chase this prosecution. In retrospect, it seems  it was not so much about national security as it was about protecting vast amounts of income for the UK armaments industry.

So fuck justice, it was all about the money. Tony Blair, you were and are a disgrace.

Tony Blair and the culture of fear: a video essay

Last week, we looked at the Iraq War Inquiry and the way in which Tony Blair was motivated more by fear than by rational thought.  This video essay takes up that same argument.

This is a worthwhile watch as it demonstrates the way in which individuals can use the tools of new media to create and distribute their own political rhetorics. Commendably professional construction with only a couple of minor lapses. Grade: 9/10.

Religious Rifles: Flashback to 1857

The news that Western military forces have been using rifle sights inscribed with references to biblical verses has garnered column inches and news coverage around the world this week. The lucrative contract with the Pentagon has seen Trijicon provide more than 300,000 rifle sights to the

When Fundamentalists Go Wild

G. W. Bush and the Invasion of Iraq

Extraordinary story from the Charleston Gazette  about the evangelical mood influencing foreign policy under the Bush administration, particularly leading up to the invasion of Iraq:  

Incredibly, President George W. Bush told French President Jacques Chirac in early 2003 that Iraq must be invaded to thwart Gog and Magog, the Bible’s satanic agents of the Apocalypse.