Political Crossfire Forums

[Bonobo]

May seem like a rhetorical question however given the vast majority of people seem to accept we were lied to by him and all the other statistis I can' be bothered to quote now....

..How can we have re-elected him into office?
While we may wish to appear like a caring nation full of rational minded people, surely if the majority of people thought we were lied to by him and taken into an illegal war, then he should have lost the next election?

The only conclusion that I can come to is people accept he has commited evil, however due to his running the country (relatively) well it is something we are willing to put up with.

Does this make us any better than the average American?

Are you willing to elect someone you consider to have acted evily if it means the UK doing better?

[Lord Hargreaves]

Blair has not committed a "war crime", nor is he running the country "relatively well". Further to that I would never vote Labour anyway

However on the issue of whether I would vote for someone else for doing a good job generally even if he made one huge error, the answer would probably be yes, although it would obviously depend largely on circumstance

[Bonobo]

Given our standing in the world relative to global circumstances and our being in no real position to be growing as fast as we are - I hardly think he's doing a bad job.

Care to tell me how much better the conservatives would be at setting the interest rate than the Bank of England?


As for the War Crimes I won't go into it - will simply state that in the majority of people's minds he lied to his people in order to take us into a war we wouldn't have wanted if we had known the truth (didn't want even when we only knew his truth) - and he is still re-elected.

[antonio62]

I don't think Blair can really be accused of war crimes. For that he would need to directly order civilians to be killed which he hasn't done and not that many civilians have died at the hands of the British in Iraq and none have been deliberate.

Tony Blair however is utterly shocking as a PM. He has brought a huge amount of fascist legislation in. If he could keep being elected then Britain would be totally fascist before he left.

[Shuya Nanahara]

antonio62 wrote: I don't think Blair can really be accused of war crimes. For that he would need to directly order civilians to be killed which he hasn't done and not that many civilians have died at the hands of the British in Iraq and none have been deliberate.

Tony Blair however is utterly shocking as a PM. He has brought a huge amount of fascist legislation in. If he could keep being elected then Britain would be totally fascist before he left.

you do realise that invading a country without UN second resolution was a war crime right ? ....AGGRESSION

check it out, it's one of the crimes the nazi leadership were charged with (not the UN bit obviously)

[Bonobo]

Shuya Nanahara wrote: antonio62 wrote: I don't think Blair can really be accused of war crimes. For that he would need to directly order civilians to be killed which he hasn't done and not that many civilians have died at the hands of the British in Iraq and none have been deliberate.

Tony Blair however is utterly shocking as a PM. He has brought a huge amount of fascist legislation in. If he could keep being elected then Britain would be totally fascist before he left.

you do realise that invading a country without UN second resolution was a war crime right ? ....AGGRESSION

check it out, it's one of the crimes the nazi leadership were charged with (not the UN bit obviously)

As fun as discussing the technicalities of the war crimes are (I believe the attorney general deemed it was indeed technically a war crime however the report could have been by someone else - memory is hazy), the question was of a different nature.

My point is that even though the public opinion seems to be vastly in favour of him lying to us in order to take us to war, does our re-electing him make us as evil as his actions?

[Shuya Nanahara]

Bonobo wrote: Shuya Nanahara wrote: antonio62 wrote: I don't think Blair can really be accused of war crimes. For that he would need to directly order civilians to be killed which he hasn't done and not that many civilians have died at the hands of the British in Iraq and none have been deliberate.

Tony Blair however is utterly shocking as a PM. He has brought a huge amount of fascist legislation in. If he could keep being elected then Britain would be totally fascist before he left.

you do realise that invading a country without UN second resolution was a war crime right ? ....AGGRESSION

check it out, it's one of the crimes the nazi leadership were charged with (not the UN bit obviously)

As fun as discussing the technicalities of the war crimes are (I believe the attorney general deemed it was indeed technically a war crime however the report could have been by someone else - memory is hazy), the question was of a different nature.

My point is that even though the public opinion seems to be vastly in favour of him lying to us in order to take us to war, does our re-electing him make us as evil as his actions?

while it would appear that those who voted for tony third time around gave him a mandate for continued aggression in Iraq, that assumes that they were all fully aware that it is a war crime, that the reasons for invasion were fabricated and so on. certainly a lot of those people were aware and so are guilty. our media is nowhere near as skewed as the US so they cannot use that as an excuse. however, a lot of people have been "sedated" by crap TV such as big brother and X factor, or are engrossed in obsession with z list celebrities or other activities that relieve them of the burden of thinking. Do we blame them for this ? i don't know, while i think many are guilty of not contributing a single independent thought or idea to this country, the onslaught of wit dulling **** entertainment is enormous and may explain why so many have been "relieved" of their intellects.

[antonio62]

Shuya Nanahara wrote: antonio62 wrote: I don't think Blair can really be accused of war crimes. For that he would need to directly order civilians to be killed which he hasn't done and not that many civilians have died at the hands of the British in Iraq and none have been deliberate.

Tony Blair however is utterly shocking as a PM. He has brought a huge amount of fascist legislation in. If he could keep being elected then Britain would be totally fascist before he left.

you do realise that invading a country without UN second resolution was a war crime right ? ....AGGRESSION

check it out, it's one of the crimes the nazi leadership were charged with (not the UN bit obviously)

I don't think that definition is right though.

[mendosan]

antonio62 wrote: Shuya Nanahara wrote: antonio62 wrote: I don't think Blair can really be accused of war crimes. For that he would need to directly order civilians to be killed which he hasn't done and not that many civilians have died at the hands of the British in Iraq and none have been deliberate.

Tony Blair however is utterly shocking as a PM. He has brought a huge amount of fascist legislation in. If he could keep being elected then Britain would be totally fascist before he left.

you do realise that invading a country without UN second resolution was a war crime right ? ....AGGRESSION

check it out, it's one of the crimes the nazi leadership were charged with (not the UN bit obviously)

I don't think that definition is right though.

That defanition is pretty weak, and I think the UN resolution they passed after the invasion legalised the occupation, I think that the invasion was done under the disarmament banner so techniqaly it wasn't an aggressive war, but then again its very complex I think you can wage an aggresive war under certain circumstances.

[slitedeviance]

mendosan wrote: That defanition is pretty weak, and I think the UN resolution they passed after the invasion legalised the occupation

Does not legalise the invasion itself, and that's the issue. Blair completely deliberatly mislead and misguided the public about the true nature of the invasion.

Whether or not from his position he believed the invasion was morally right, he was perfectly happy to choose to use selective information out of context to try and guide the public opinion towards approval of the war. That is the ethical issue. He lied, and for some reason people were still happy to vote him back into office.

[DSwain]

The 2003 invasion was legal and was authorised by existing UNSC resolutions so, IMO, the point about war crimes is moot.

[ubikk]

The UK economy seems to be doing pretty well at the moment. The pound hasn't been this strong in decades.

[Bonobo]

ubikk wrote: The UK economy seems to be doing pretty well at the moment. The pound hasn't been this strong in decades.


While this is of course no measure of economic well being - our record low inflation + employment is.

[desert penguin]

I think Tony Blair is an impressionable fella, even more so on the international scene,

war crime or not i'm not voting as i never have done. It's a two horse race like always and i refuse to budge from the fence, as ever.

[Bonobo]

slitedeviance wrote: mendosan wrote: That defanition is pretty weak, and I think the UN resolution they passed after the invasion legalised the occupation

Does not legalise the invasion itself, and that's the issue. Blair completely deliberatly mislead and misguided the public about the true nature of the invasion.

Whether or not from his position he believed the invasion was morally right, he was perfectly happy to choose to use selective information out of context to try and guide the public opinion towards approval of the war. That is the ethical issue. He lied, and for some reason people were still happy to vote him back into office.

Thx for summing up my point better than I could.

[MoscowMatt]

Shuya Nanahara wrote: .

you do realise that invading a country without UN second resolution was a war crime right ? ....AGGRESSION

check it out, it's one of the crimes the nazi leadership were charged with (not the UN bit obviously)

Interesting. Do you realise there was no UN resolution to attack Serbia? Funny how nobody mentions or complains about that!! Still they weren't Muslims with oil so who cares eh?!! :roll:

[Shuya Nanahara]

mendosan wrote: antonio62 wrote: Shuya Nanahara wrote: antonio62 wrote: I don't think Blair can really be accused of war crimes. For that he would need to directly order civilians to be killed which he hasn't done and not that many civilians have died at the hands of the British in Iraq and none have been deliberate.

Tony Blair however is utterly shocking as a PM. He has brought a huge amount of fascist legislation in. If he could keep being elected then Britain would be totally fascist before he left.

you do realise that invading a country without UN second resolution was a war crime right ? ....AGGRESSION

check it out, it's one of the crimes the nazi leadership were charged with (not the UN bit obviously)

I don't think that definition is right though.

That defanition is pretty weak, and I think the UN resolution they passed after the invasion legalised the occupation, I think that the invasion was done under the disarmament banner so techniqaly it wasn't an aggressive war, but then again its very complex I think you can wage an aggresive war under certain circumstances.

nope........aggression is definitely the charge applied to nazis at nuremberg and would apply here as the invasion was not internationally sanctioned. the occupation is legal so long as the conditions stipulated in the fourth GENEVA CONVENTION are adhered to....if they are not, the occupation becomes illegal.

the "motivation" of disarmament is irrelevent, preemptive invasions do not fit in with interntional protocol, this is why the UN would not pas a second resolution. that and as we now know, the intel on WMDs was either wrong or fabricated...either way justifying the UN's refusal to sanction this invasion.

you are right to think you can wage a war under certain circumstances.......those agreed upon by the UN security council.

[Shuya Nanahara]

MoscowMatt wrote: Shuya Nanahara wrote: .

you do realise that invading a country without UN second resolution was a war crime right ? ....AGGRESSION

check it out, it's one of the crimes the nazi leadership were charged with (not the UN bit obviously)

Interesting. Do you realise there was no UN resolution to attack Serbia? Funny how nobody mentions or complains about that!! Still they weren't Muslims with oil so who cares eh?!! :roll:

don't judge me so fast .... i actually believe many of our actions in the Balkans were very wrong. UN resolutions or not. but this thread is about Iraq so i responded accordingly. If you wish to air your views on the Balkans, start a thread about it and i will gladly come and post because it is a subject iwould like to discuss and learn more about. but i think it's a bit unfair to accuse us of only caring about oil and islam when we are posting on a thread about blair's actions regarding Iraq.

[Shuya Nanahara]

Bonobo wrote: slitedeviance wrote: mendosan wrote: That defanition is pretty weak, and I think the UN resolution they passed after the invasion legalised the occupation

Does not legalise the invasion itself, and that's the issue. Blair completely deliberatly mislead and misguided the public about the true nature of the invasion.

Whether or not from his position he believed the invasion was morally right, he was perfectly happy to choose to use selective information out of context to try and guide the public opinion towards approval of the war. That is the ethical issue. He lied, and for some reason people were still happy to vote him back into office.

Thx for summing up my point better than I could.

the legality of invasion and occupation are separate issues. see my above post.

[MoscowMatt]

Shuya Nanahara wrote: MoscowMatt wrote: Shuya Nanahara wrote: .

you do realise that invading a country without UN second resolution was a war crime right ? ....AGGRESSION

check it out, it's one of the crimes the nazi leadership were charged with (not the UN bit obviously)

Interesting. Do you realise there was no UN resolution to attack Serbia? Funny how nobody mentions or complains about that!! Still they weren't Muslims with oil so who cares eh?!! :roll:

don't judge me so fast .... i actually believe many of our actions in the Balkans were very wrong. UN resolutions or not. but this thread is about Iraq so i responded accordingly. If you wish to air your views on the Balkans, start a thread about it and i will gladly come and post because it is a subject iwould like to discuss and learn more about. but i think it's a bit unfair to accuse us of only caring about oil and islam when we are posting on a thread about blair's actions regarding Iraq.

Interesting how you feel you need to learn about the Balkans but not Iraq!! I'm sure you are not alone here and I'm equally sure that the reasons for this are as I mentioned above!!

People only really noticed the Balkans once all the mayhem kicked off over Kosovo. Bet you can't guess the main religion of the Kosovans!!!