Off Topic Politics Thread

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Words can't describe the relief I feel that the Chilcot report has justified the position I and millions of others took in 2003 to oppose the Iraq invasion. The decision to invade and remove Saddam, while in itself apparently a good thing, led directly to the rise of IS in that region today, not to mention the continuing misery of all the people there.
 
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Qwerty said:
I know a guy who works in the US but is paid in £, he's just had a 12% salary cut.

On the other hand, you could probably take advantage of a cheap UK holiday. (please?)
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My company are due to make a payment to me for an activity on June. (Not a big one, but a benefit I found out after the event that I am entitled too). The date of that event was June the 13th and they are going to pay me that amount based in the exchange rate of then, not today. :(
 
I don't get why the Iraq war is being viewed as solely to blame for the rise of Isis?

The terror group as risen as a result of thousands of years worth of Islamic doctrine.
 
saintgreg10 said:
I don't get why the Iraq war is being viewed as solely to blame for the rise of Isis?

The terror group as risen as a result of thousands of years worth of Islamic doctrine.
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It's not solely to blame but is a big part of the rise of ISIS.

Iraq that has been a lawless place ever since the invasion though. There's still probably no infrastructure, massive corruption and fighting going on (I believe)
 
saintgreg10 said:
I don't get why the Iraq war is being viewed as solely to blame for the rise of Isis?

The terror group as risen as a result of thousands of years worth of Islamic doctrine.
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The rise of IS stems directly from the decision in 1916 to carve the region up between Britain and France and impose puppet dictators and monarchs. The 2003 invasion removed the one person who was keeping the fundamentalists of Iraq in check. The law of unintended consequences, similar to the fall of Tito in Yugoslavia. And your last sentence is just absurd. You might just as well blame the problems in Ireland on Christianity.
 
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Blair's justification is largely based on supporting 'our closest allies' the US. That is not enough. I always thought that a try Ally, would tell you to do the right thing. That wasn't the right thing.

I, like Chilco and many others, opposed the war from the very beginning, so it is perhaps easier for us to accept the conclusions in this report. I fear that Blair's problem, is that he never, at any point, seems like he thought he was wrong.
 
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AL. said:
Blair's justification is largely based on supporting 'our closest allies' the US. That is not enough. I always thought that a try Ally, would tell you to do the right thing. That wasn't the right thing.

I, like Chilco and many others, opposed the war from the very beginning, so it is perhaps easier for us to accept the conclusions in this report. I fear that Blair's problem, is that he never, at any point, seems like he thought he was wrong.
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To some extent I don't think he can ever truly admit he knowingly did wrong because of the knock-on effects for him personally and professionally, as it were.

I'm watching him take the journalists' questions now and he's not convincing at all.

Basically:

- we had to back our closest ally
- Hussein wasn't a nice man
- imagine where we'd be now if we didn't go into Iraq
 
I still think in the end Hussein would have needed to go. He was gasing and killing millions(?) of people. But the way we went about it and the plan ( aka no plan at all) for what happened afterwards was a complete **** up.
 
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- Doing The Lambert Walk said:
To some extent I don't think he can ever truly admit he knowingly did wrong because of the knock-on effects for him personally and professionally, as it were.

I'm watching him take the journalists' questions now and he's not convincing at all.

Basically:

- we had to back our closest ally
- Hussein wasn't a nice man
- imagine where we'd be now if we didn't go into Iraq
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He doesn't need to admit he knowingly did wrong. He does though need to admit that what he did has been found to be wrong.
 
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Beefy said:
I still think in the end Hussein would have needed to(?) go. He was gasing and killing millions of people. But the way we went about it and the plan ( aka no plan at all) for what happened afterwards were a complete **** up.
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I pretty much agree with all of that. Blair could say that now: 'I think Hussein had to go, but the way we did it, and at the time we did it, for the reasons we did it, was wrong'.

He doesn't acknowledge that.
 
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Whilst I opposed the war at the time, until there was a UN mandate for it, I fully appreciated the ****ty position he was in at the time, bearing in mind that he felt the need to back the USA and the special relationship. What I always felt was that the USA had go-to-war fever. They were absolutely gung-ho for it, and it was my feeling that Blair dare not let the USA act alone, under the Bush presidency.

I think he was mistaken on that, and thought so at the time, but Bush was a dangerous president, so I understood Blair's dilemma. But he should have waited. I also absolutely accept that Saddam Hussein had to go eventually, but not quite under the circumstances. But it is typical of the Western Powers that they go into a country, remove the problem as they see it, and then inadequately make sure that the country is harmonised and stable. And in the Middle East the chances of obtaining harmonisation and stability are slim. If there isn't instability within there is an inevitable and understandable resentment towards the powers who stepped in and left them inadequate to govern and police themselves properly and fairly.

Best question just come up - Would you have been so keen if you were dealing with a President who wasn't so gung-ho to go to war.?
To me, the answer would be, No, we would have waited for the UN. Oops, he didn't say that.
 
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TheSecondStain said:
Whilst I opposed the war at the time, until there was a UN mandate for it, I fully appreciated the ****ty position he was in at the time, bearing in mind that he felt the need to back the USA and the special relationship. What I always felt was that the USA had go-to-war fever. They were absolutely gung-ho for it, and it was my feeling that Blair dare not let the USA act alone, under the Bush presidency.

I think he was mistaken on that, and thought so at the time, but Bush was a dangerous president, so I understood Blair's dilemma. But he should have waited. I also absolutely accept that Saddam Hussein had to go eventually, but not quite under the circumstances. But it is typical of the Western Powers that they go into a country, remove the problem as they see it, and then inadequately make sure that the country is harmonised and stable. And in the Middle East the chances of obtaining harmonisation and stability are slim. If there isn't instability within there is an inevitable and understandable resentment towards the powers who stepped in and left them inadequate to govern and police themselves properly and fairly.

Best question just come up - Would you have been so keen if you were dealing with a President who wasn't so gung-ho to go to war.?
To me, the answer would be, No, we would have waited for the UN. Oops, he didn't say that.
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I disagree with how you present Blair's dilemma there but I admit it is open to interpretation.

Your interpretation seem to me to be saying he went their to restrain a dangerous president. Almost to stop them from making a bigger mess.

My interpretation is that far from going there to make sure our closest ally didn't do anything silly that Blair was more worried about making sure we kept the relationship sweet in a "we must support the US" way. I don't think there was any thought about being a calming influence at all, although now in the dock so to speak I could see Blair painting it that way.

Blair's problem is that does he take the blame himself or does he take the others with him. Undoubtedly this was not him on his own and his advisors as well as Mandelson at the very least would have had a big hand in these decisions. Blair is however the man who signs the cheques and contracts no matter whose the advice was so he takes the ultimate blame. If this goes to court it will be a case of how many others go with him and I would suggest Alistair Campbell would be one who will feature heavily.

It is a pity that this didn't come to light while Robin Cook was still alive because him resigning from a senior position in that government suggests he was having none of it having seen the same "intelligence" as the others.
 
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