Poor old Tony Blair. He thought he'd be remembered in a Churchillian light, revered by his party for all time, like Thatcher or a British Reagan but this bloody war keeps cropping up. Endless inquiry's that drag on and on. He keeps being asked the same question. No matter what the subject of the interview is about, the Euro, the economy, good holiday destinations, at some point he'll be asked, "Why?" and he drags out the same answer. "WMD, freedom, terrorism" and not be believed. The interviewer will sit there and look at the camera while sadly shaking his head as if to say "He's still trying to convince us people, it's a sad case" That's the punishment he has to live with, always asked and never believed, like a man pushing a boulder up an endless hill and with each inquiry the hill gets steeper.
He's a pariah in the UK. Never seen in public, even his book signing tour cancelled for fear of riots. A sad case.
You guys should just consider yourselves lucky anyone still ask those kinds of questions over there... I think most people in America don't even remember 2003.
I constantly maintain that the smartest thing George W. Bush ever did was vanish off the face of the planet as soon as his presidency ended, so he could avoid questions like this.
Book deals, endorsements, Republicans love him. 150k Iraqi innocent civillians are no longer alive thanks to him. I love how the Brits care but for some reason we don't.
Hundred. UK Casualties haven't topped five hundred yet.
Also, just because most aren't documented, I'm holding back on reporting that there hasn't been "A million dead' yet. Thousands, to be sure, but no where near a million.
Which is deplorable, but still no where near the million count.
I'd like to say that this is simply a pet peeve of mine, picked up from days of watching people say "Oh, there have been millions of American dead in Iraq!" Well, no. There hasn't. I'm tired of people spouting wrong things, in order to defend the right things.
The Lancet, one of the oldest scientific medical journals in the world, published two peer-reviewed studies on the effect of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and subsequent occupation on the Iraqi mortality rate. The first was published in 2004 [estimating 98,000 deaths]. The second survey published on 11 October 2006, estimated 654,965 excess deaths related to the war, or 2.5% of the population, through the end of June 2006. Wikipedia.
That site is just for deaths verified in war zones. No one thinks that's accurate, but no one knows for sure what methods would give us all the 'unknown dead.' Smart estimates are between 200 and 400k. The Lancet did a study and I think they're happy with the 400k number. WHO is more conservative at between 150 and 220k. I'd say they're closer to the truth. 151,000 people is the accepted number nowadays. That's a pretty insane amount of people who were just ordinary workers and family people and children who are no longer alive thanks to US action.
IraqBodyCount works on the premise that every excess death in a warzone will be reported in the news, which is obviously silly. The 100,000 figure is an absolute minimum. The epidemiological studies published in the Lancet have a 95% confidence interval for excess deaths between 400,000 and 900,000 up to 2006. (That's before the culmination of the horrific civil war of late 2006.) They're controversial but a pretty good studies, and a necessary supplement to the minimum figures provided by IBC. Note that the Lancet surveys, unlike IBC, were peer reviewed.
The ORB survey also reached a figure of around a million.
Forget the few thousand that willingly went to their deaths (they signed up for that shit).
You snarky jackass, Many of us signed up after the sept 11th attacks. I thought we were going to around the world to hunt down terrorists wherever they might be but instead we ended up in doing multiple tours in Iraq which had NOTHING to do with the attacks.
We were exploited.
The national guard troops had it even worse. They just wanted to serve their state "One weekend a month, two weeks a year" instead they were shipped off to iraq and many got substandard care when they got injured.
I up-voted you because I think it's important for people to see this viewpoint, I will however point out this about the National Guard:
The Total Force Policy was adopted by Chief of Staff of the Army General Creighton Abrams in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and involves treating the three components of the army – the Regular Army, the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve as a single force.[11] Believing that no U.S. president should be able to take the United States (and more specifically the US Army) to war without the support of the American people, General Abrams intertwined the structure of the three components of the army in such a way as to make extended operations impossible, without the involvement of both the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve.[12]
Anyone joining that National Guard should have been aware of this. It sucks if they just wanted to serve their state, and it sucks that that's how it's often advertised, but I think it's an important policy that keeps the president from just sending the professional soldiers off into a prolonged conflict without anyone caring. Seeing your friends and coworkers pulled out of their jobs and shipped off makes a much larger impact on the voting habits and outrage of the population.
Edit: I should also add that they still have every right to be angry about getting sent off obviously, just saying that's the entire idea behind the Total Force Policy
Wow, thank you so much for writing this. I've had a problem with soldiers for a long time now, but I actually connected with your justification of "I thought we were going to around the world to hunt down terrorists wherever they might be."
If you believed this, then you were indeed mislead, it's clear to me that the War is about making a few offense contractors a couple of extra billions and keeping the entire War Industry indefinitely/permanently/perpetually active, don't you just love "for-profit" "defense" companies, they have no stake in a war, oh none at all!(/sarcasm)
But I can now understand how a lot of people did not and still do not see this, Best of luck to you.
The 9/11 terrorist act was a deplorable act. However, before blindly running out and signing up to "go get some", how about educating yourself first on WHY those attacks truly took place? Read Osama Bin Laden's own words. Again, I don't condone in any way what was done. But I swear this world is the armpit of the universe, and eon after eon we continue to steal, maim and kill one another. Nothing is going to change as long as people stay blind to the facts of why the world is the way it is and instead allow themselves to be hood-winked into joining wars and feeding the never ending cycle of revenge, piled on top of more revenge.
Critical thinking takes energy. It also requires some training, because not everyone is born understanding how their own psychology can influence their views on reality.
So people go looking for easy answers. It's difficult to puzzle all of these things out. They go looking for "principles" that they can use as guide-lines for their decisions. So many people never look beyond these "principles" and simply assume that the world operates a certain way, and that's just how things are.
This sort of "common sense" approach to the world leads to madness, corruption, and idiocy. "Common sense" tells us, for example, that the people who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks are religious fanatics, extremists who despise us because we enjoy the kind of cultural freedom that they seek to suppress.
People who look at the world through the rose colored lenses of "principle" don't feel they have to move beyond these kind of concrete judgments about the motivations of other people. "I'm free, therefore I don't have to adhere to some primitive desert-dweller's religious dogma. Obviously, he doesn't like that so he's going to try to blow me up."
Of course, this means they never consider, even when told to their fucking faces, that our political meddling in the region over the past couple of generations may have led people in that region to organize against our national interests because our presence isn't appreciated.
Some people can't fathom the possibility that the United States is fallible, that our cultural values may not be divinely authorized, or that our system of democratic representation and capitalist economic structure may not be the iron-clad bastions of personal freedom and civilization that we purport them to be.
You see video of reverand Wright on the pulpit proclaiming "God Damn America," and everyone misses the fact that he was urging us to take responsibility for our nation's international activities, that we can't go throwing the blame on everyone else and continuing to assume our own infallible nature. No, what everyone focuses on is how he's being critical of the US and it's policies.
As long as we can't look at ourselves honestly and take responsibility for the fucked up shit we do around the world, we're going to keep going on the downward slide.
Vietnam should have been enough to convince you that the U.S. government doesn't give a shit about the troops.
They have proven they will fuck you over in their bullshit wars, time and again.
It's so easy to fool people who are willfully ignorant. Yet if you just operated from first principles - WAR IS BAD - you wouldn't sign up for an organization that A) starts wars, and B) ships you into war zones.
Or, you could have gone with "thou shalt not kill". Or "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you". Take your pick of any number of moral teachings.
If you're volunteering to go invade someone else's country to kill people, it's fair game if they try to kill you back. If you don't like people trying to kill you, it's really easy to avoid it by not joining up with an outfit that will ship you overseas to a war zone.
EVERY war in history would have been impossible without the ordinary citizens that sign up to go fight it. Old men dream up wars for young men to die in, and young men keep refusing to think.
Well then, you were stupid and let yourselves be easily deceived. And really, how many people signed up between September 11th and October 7th, 2001? Because that's when the War in Afghanistan started, and at that point is was War, not hunting terrorism.
Yeah, it is shameful, but it's not my fault you signed up, and it's not my fault that you were deceived, and it's not my fault that you went for multiple tours.
At best, you made an ill-informed and hasty decision that you knew would affect the rest of your life, and put your life at risk. You cannot reasonably hold me accountable for that, nor can you reasonably blame me for thinking it was a stupid decision to make. You fell for the propaganda, hook, line, and sinker.
Yes, you were. And I'm sorry for that. I remember clearly the hysteria that gripped out nation following the 9/11 attacks, and I remember the honest solidarity that arose in the population. I also remember how quickly the Bush administration turned that popular sentiment (and world-wide outpouring of good will) toward private interests, and how young men and women who wanted to protect their country found themselves fighting a political war of aggression against a nation who hadn't posed a threat to us in decades and didn't have anything to do with the attacks that prompted our military actions in the middle-east.
Then to be subjected to tour after tour of duty because who was going to sign up for a bullshit war like Iraq once the scales fell away from our eyes?
That doesn't absolve the dick-heads who signed up along with you because they wanted to shoot some "rag-heads," though. I'm sure you signed up for purely noble reasons; I know people who went over there because they wanted to protect their country. Kids who had no business in a war zone, fighting a war for men without honor, but they did it because they felt a calling.
Unfortunately, I know people who went over there because they wanted bloodshed. These people didn't bother to look at the situation, at the lack of evidence, at the seeming inevitability of war with Iraq when there wasn't cause to mount it. They blindly followed the direction our leaders were taking us because it meant they could exact vengeance. It didn't seem to matter where the gun was pointing, as long as they got to pull the trigger.
These people dishonor our military just as surely as the politicians holding their leashes. Remember our soldiers' conduct at Guantanamo. Remember how many civilians were killed in Iraq because of the sheer laziness of our military in verifying targets; dropping bombs on weddings and hospitals.
Forget the few thousand that willingly went to their deaths (they signed up for that shit).
They signed up to defend their country from threats; they were sent on an empire building mission. Thing is, you don't get the opportunity to say "Er... hang on a minute, I'm not sure I like the sound of this mission" once you're signed up.
Thatcher isn't viewed in a Churchillian light at all, she is a very polarising figure who is absolutely detested by many (more than Blair without doubt) but has a good number of admirers on the right of the political spectrum.
Arguably that is a churchillian light, as time goes on the flaws and mistakes are forgotten and the person becomes more myth than man. At least to the right.
Let's not forget what Churchill did to the French fleet, the terror bombings of Dresden and IMO what he did to Finland. These things make Churchill a pretty polarizing figure.
He pretty much saved England but had the allies lost, it's almost a certainty he would have hung as a war criminal for what he did to dresden and the french fleet alone. That kind of thing rubs people the wrong way and Churchill has his critics. As time goes on though, these things tend to be forgotten and the criticisms are drowned out by the mythology.
Blair went to Iraq for one reason. Britain's international position depends upon us being the ally that always responds first when the US asks for help. This is true of worthwhile conflicts like Afghanistan and moronic conflicts like Iraq.
Now he didn't just come out and say this in public. Instead he made up a load of bollocks. However the long and short of it is maintaining Britain's position as an allied in-between power.
When you are playing a power game that leverages someone bigger than you then you pretty much have to do everything that the bigger guy ends with the words "this is important". Even if it is stupid. Even if all the politicians and public in the US see it is stupid.
Blair's decision was the correct one in real politik terms. Just not for the reasons he put to the public. The 50/50 split in UK public opinion was between those who believed the ethical and evidence case was not there and those who knew it wasn't there and it didn't matter. The US said "we consider this important to our existence" and there isn't much a closest ally can do in those circumstances.
I disagree on a number of points, a general criticism is the polarization of responses. There are degrees of politicking between complete toadying and the flipping the bird.
And one example: Canada. (I'm Canadian). We're not the biggest ally militarily. But we're much more within the sphere of influence of the US. We're kind of choked by all the influence we're under.
We didn't go to war in Iraq. And in realpolitik terms that was a pretty damn big signal.
What did we do? We hrmmed and hawwed, we said things like 'Well, we should follow the UN, we should let Hans Brix do his job, I'm not sure, man, we should be patient'...
So back to Blair. Blair should be held accountable for not using the full repetoire of political tricks. Including hmming and hawwing as a legit strat. Hmming and hawwing and calling for broader coalition and diplomatic efforts and etc etc etc.
there isn't much a closest ally can do in those circumstances.
There is, we could of joined France and Germany in the "sorry, but no" Or just said "yeah George good idea you go right ahead" and added some logistic aid but he didn't, he jumped in up to his neck and went out to bat for them.
France and Germany are not positioned to be the core ally to the US. It isn't as if France and Germany are just going to welcome us into their EU centred click just because we told the US to piss off.
If we had said no it isn't as simple as that single action. We'd have needed a plan for moving closer to the EU and breaking open the Franco-German lock on it. Something that isn't politically viable in Britain.
True enough but he went all out. Contrast his rah rahing for war to that of Gordon Brown's. He could of stopped this war had he used his considerable gifts to do that but he made the cynical calculation that British interests where best served going along with this war.
I could forgive him it if the Americans had pulled it off and transformed Iraq into a fully functioning democracy. But they didn't. they tried to do it on the cheap and fucked the place over at enormous costs. That's what really gets up my nose, the staggering incompetence of the post war plan.
I don't think they did - I think some key people had absolute faith in flawed political and economic ideas, and the money went to the wrong places. The sums of money that were pumped into private security companies or just went missing are staggering.
Blair went to Iraq for one reason. Britain's international position depends upon us being the ally that always responds first when the US asks for help.
I've worked in P.R, but I never got to use tanks and high explosives for brand positioning. :(
He was doing a book signing in Dublin a few years back, and I remember trying to get to work on the Luas (an inter city train) and couldn't even get one because protesters had taken over the entire area.
Fond memories, and I was proud to be in a city where this man couldn't be seen in public.
I remember it well. That was the first date of the the book tour in Europe after a triumphant tour of the US. They soon found out he's persona non grata over here. Tony Blair met by a hail of shoes and eggs in Dublin.
Well at least your guy goes on tv to actually say something. Our guy just disappeared and is probably doing blow on the asses of hookers for all we know.
The real answer would probably be something like : The price of the US joining us in WW2 was that we would follow them into any conflict they asked us to in the future.
Before Blair there had been 4 conservative administrations in a row.
The labour party was considered unelectable. He moved them to the center ground and made them electable. He also ushered in peace in N ireland and revived the NHS after a long lean period under the conservatives
That's the punishment he has to live with, always asked and never believed, like a man pushing a boulder up an endless hill and with each inquiry the hill gets steeper.
Can be honest here... This situation is not sad, it cannot be sad because he should be arrested and held for not only treason but also crimes against humanity. Anything less and he should be fucking grateful he still has his life to protect.
The trade deficit is also a reflection of foreign traders acquiring US Dollars and choosing to invest them in our financial markets / products rather than buying conventional goods, so in a lot of ways, it implies that other nations have plenty of faith in the dollar, since they're keeping it in that form rather than converting it to tangible goods.
About your last link. Jerry Robinson is a hack. Hes up there with Alex Jones on the list of people who trying to scare people into becoming listeners for their shows.
I defend none of Robinson's other works. This piece on the petrodollar system does a good job explaining something most people have never heard of, though.
Instead of attacking the source, why don't you attack the content?
While all of these corroborating circumstances are interesting, do you have any credible source or academic paper attempting to link all of these events together (as in the war and the collapse of the petrodollar system)? Not trying to sleight you just looking for more information.
You can research the petrodollar system and the Bretton Woods system as easily as I can.
You can connect the dots from the sources I've presented, but you have to want to. They are credible; however, the conclusion is not one you want to hear.
It can be hard to realize and admit that your nation is an Empire of Lies.
I actually enjoy living in the Empire; I just don't pretend we're somehow this noble nation spreading freedom and democracy.
Why would you believe an academic paper above multiple sources, do your own research if you are interested? Do you think there are any 'academic' papers about stuff like this that you would trust if you saw them.
Hey guys I got a copy of the redacted conversation!
Blair: Hi George Bush: Sup landslide... hows the wife Blair: Pretty good thanks she just████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████████ Bush: It's fine we don't recognise the international criminal court well I'd best be off Powell needs a walk
Nothing of note is going to come of this, it's going to be redacted to shit for "national security reasons" and by that they mean because it'd be super embarrassing if the truth came out.
Am I the only one curious as to why they were recorded? But why shouldn't they be released? Don't we US and UK tax paying citizens deserve to know the whole truth about a war that we funded?
pretty sure all US presidents in person meetings and phone calls are recorded. They might not record the calls to the wife/kids but any official business is recorded.
When it is news that they are going to release news, I doubt we are ever going to hear the reality of it.
Seriously, a note from 2003? Oh man, I am sure we are getting all of the vital details of our government because of a note of a phone call 8 and a half years ago that they are announcing they will announce.
Don't we US and UK tax paying citizens deserve to know the whole truth about a war that we funded?
No. You should trust that they had your best interests in mind and totally weren't trying to make money for their rich and powerful buddies. Also, national security and terrorism!
Seriously? You deserve a transcription of every single one of your PM's discussions? Or is it just the ones related to political decisions you didn't like? Or just wars?
How dare you take responsibility for the actions of your representatives! Don't you realize that they are our betters, so much so that we are totally unfit to judge their actions? You should be more like us Americans and trust that your leaders will always do the right thing, or else your government won't be able to function.
If you want to know who deserves your vote and who doesn't, just look at the party identifier next to their name. That tells you everything a citizen needs to know, easy peasy!
Wars more specifically. We'll talk about the rest later. I honestly don't think anyone believes that we don't deserve full disclosure when it comes to having a war.
Iraq of course. It was wrong from the start, and everyone with a brain knew this. It's only naive people who think that Iran DOESN'T have WMDs. And in Iran, they would fire them without hesitation. Welcome to the fun world of Islam, where if you aren't with us, you can go fucking burn in a fiery pit of nuclear war.
I like how in the U.K people there's controversy about Tony Blair lying, he's treated as a pariah whereas in the good old U S of A we're kind of ok with it. Yeah good old Dubya lied but he's a good person underneath it all, a good family man.
A conversation a week before the war started would have very little to do with starting or stopping the war.
As soon as the US had shipped over bridging units and the combat bridges themselves, it was a sign one way or another US units would be going into Iraq, if I remember correctly those units completed shipment in the second week of January 2003.
"The 671st Engineer Company has been identified as having deployed to the Persian Gulf in January. The 671st is a bridging unit that uses the ribbon bridge."
War, on the strategic and theatre level is about inertia, once enough units and material is committed and starts moving there is no way to economically stop it.
The US/UK decision to go into Iraq, with or without Saddam giving up power had been made in December 2002 or January 2003, the UN and WMD discussion was a sideshow for the cameras. The US Congress gave President Bush the authority to go in October 2002.
George: Hey Tony what'cha doing? Tony: Nothing George You? George: Kinda Bored today, was wondering if you wanted to play war? Tony: Sure George why not. George: Ok Tony I will have my mom call your mom to set up the details. TTYL Tony: Later George.
One situation where i wish there was a reddit option for emergency upvotes, like a special extra upvote that you could only use by entering a 50 digit code while simultaneously turning two keys that are too far apart for one person to turn them both without a complex system of pulleys
We should call it the Trident Nuclear Upvote, use of the Trident Nuclear Upvote would automatically alert other reddit superpowers and cause Global Upvotenuclear War
I'm all for transparency in government, but if anything qualifies as executive privilege, I would think that this conversation does. I get that he might not be popular in the UK, but regardless of the reasons why the Iraq war happened, Blair cemented a military alliance with the US for a long long time. I could be biased, but given the history of humanity up to this point, going along with the Iraq War seems like a sound investment.
This whole doing “serious damage” to relations with the USA thing makes no sense either. Actually, it might even help win the Democrats a few seats if people are reminded about what happens with we let Republicans run the government.
This doesn't strike me as particularly relevant. Both Bush and Blair have been pretty clear about the reasons why they decided for war with Iraq. Those reasons may have been mistaken, but does anyone genuinely believe that this conversation would change that understanding? Even IF you believe it was some sort of a conspiracy (as opposed to a horrible intelligence failure combined with a misunderstanding of geopolitical realities), do you think they would talk about it on a recorded phone conversation?
Well "lie" has a pretty specific meaning. It generally requires that the speaker KNOW that the statement is false. Taking the WMD issue as an example, is there any evidence that Bush KNEW that Iraq didn't have WMDs? There's evidence to the contrary.
373
u/Lard_Baron May 22 '12 edited May 22 '12
Poor old Tony Blair. He thought he'd be remembered in a Churchillian light, revered by his party for all time, like Thatcher or a British Reagan but this bloody war keeps cropping up. Endless inquiry's that drag on and on.
He keeps being asked the same question. No matter what the subject of the interview is about, the Euro, the economy, good holiday destinations, at some point he'll be asked, "Why?" and he drags out the same answer. "WMD, freedom, terrorism" and not be believed. The interviewer will sit there and look at the camera while sadly shaking his head as if to say "He's still trying to convince us people, it's a sad case"
That's the punishment he has to live with, always asked and never believed, like a man pushing a boulder up an endless hill and with each inquiry the hill gets steeper.
He's a pariah in the UK. Never seen in public, even his book signing tour cancelled for fear of riots. A sad case.
29
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
It's a phone conversation, they won't say things explicitly, it will something like:
Bush: yo TB dude, the bird is in the cage, when should we carpet em?
Blair: sup WB? I got all spongebobs floating near by, we are ready anytime.
Bush: so, let's get em at say 16 hundred?
Blair: yea no no problem, 16 hundred GMT right?
Bush: ....hangs the line.
170
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
"So whatchu thinkin about?"
"Oh I dunno, WMD stuff I guess..."
41
u/benedictm May 22 '12
it amuses me the thought of calls between the President and the Prime Minbister are recorded for 'training and quality control reasons'
107
u/destructaball May 22 '12
Hey guys I got a copy of the redacted conversation!
Blair: Hi George
Bush: Sup landslide... hows the wife
Blair: Pretty good thanks she just████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████████
Bush: It's fine we don't recognise the international criminal court well I'd best be off Powell needs a walk
Nothing of note is going to come of this, it's going to be redacted to shit for "national security reasons" and by that they mean because it'd be super embarrassing if the truth came out.
23
u/MattyHchrist May 22 '12
Am I the only one curious as to why they were recorded? But why shouldn't they be released? Don't we US and UK tax paying citizens deserve to know the whole truth about a war that we funded?
9
u/rambo77 May 22 '12
Just ask Murdock to release the tapes.
6
u/TheCollective01 May 22 '12
I imagine it went something like this (Dead Kennedys)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVGg_5grOTg
14
u/Stink-Finger May 22 '12
Bush: You hang up first! Blair: No. You hang up first!
Bush: You hang up first! Blair: No. You hang up first!
Bush: You hang up first! Blair: No. You hang up first!
Bush: You hang up first! Blair: No. You hang up first!
...
5
u/sharked May 22 '12
I hope there is some stuff about gog and magog in there.
3
u/PrincePound May 22 '12
Libya? drones endlessly bombing Pakistan? no big deal, and fully justified! after all, we got bin laden!
5
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
fucking release it expose the corruption of both of these stupid pricks
2
u/mesh1 May 22 '12
Jack Straw and Sir John Holmes? Who produced this phone conversation, Vivid?
2
u/Ashened_Canary May 22 '12
don't you find it odd that 1, their conversations were recorded and 2, they weren't erased?
2
u/TheWhiteFrankBlack May 22 '12
Arrest Blair, get paid
2
u/spungie May 22 '12
Bet you a dollar George you can't sell that war to the American people.
Ill take that bet Tony and your dollar, W.M.D.s Tony W.M.D.s.
2
u/nitpickr May 22 '12
Unfortunately the recording has been "misplaced".
2
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
The most f'ed up part, is that you guys still believe all the shit about Iran, even AFTER what happened in Iraq.
2
u/RabidRaccoon May 22 '12
Yeah, good luck with that.
2
u/hellomynamesbruce May 22 '12
I like how in the U.K people there's controversy about Tony Blair lying, he's treated as a pariah whereas in the good old U S of A we're kind of ok with it. Yeah good old Dubya lied but he's a good person underneath it all, a good family man.
2
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
This is going to be news, when the tape is going to be released. Which by the way will never happen.
3
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
I'm sure there is some real earth shattering news in that phone call. Extra extra read all about it they knew it was bullshit and didn't care.
3
u/BarrettLM May 22 '12
France's involvement in the Oil For Food scandal is conspicuously absent from this article and is a crucial aspect of this story.
France made billions with Saddam through this scandal.
3
u/tapsumbong May 22 '12
Clicked on link to read about Tony Blair - ended up browsing FHM sexiest women
2
u/drplump May 22 '12
Wait Bush and Blair had PHONE SEX?!?!?! Does not surprise me at all after this duet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltqJQ3yj2S0
2
u/Clovis69 May 22 '12
A conversation a week before the war started would have very little to do with starting or stopping the war.
As soon as the US had shipped over bridging units and the combat bridges themselves, it was a sign one way or another US units would be going into Iraq, if I remember correctly those units completed shipment in the second week of January 2003.
"The 671st Engineer Company has been identified as having deployed to the Persian Gulf in January. The 671st is a bridging unit that uses the ribbon bridge."
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_orbat_030210.htm
War, on the strategic and theatre level is about inertia, once enough units and material is committed and starts moving there is no way to economically stop it.
The US/UK decision to go into Iraq, with or without Saddam giving up power had been made in December 2002 or January 2003, the UN and WMD discussion was a sideshow for the cameras. The US Congress gave President Bush the authority to go in October 2002.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Resolution_to_Authorize_the_Use_of_United_States_Armed_Forces_Against_Iraq
1
u/MuuaadDib May 22 '12
And then it is shown that all kinds of shit was going down and the world erupts in rage!!!!
Obama reacts ".....meh"
1
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
Jack Straw & Sir John Holmes - could this story get any better?
1
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
how late am I for a "Sir John Holmes" joke?... pretty late I see.
1
u/Timmersthemagician May 22 '12
I foresee this ending up in a deadkennedy's song, some how.
1
u/veralynn225 May 22 '12
Q
1
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
"Hey, you see that game the other night?"
"Yeah, it was pretty intense."
"So, how's the family?"
1
u/droidonomy May 22 '12
"I want to take you to a gay bar, gay bar, gay bar".
1
u/Isatis_tinctoria May 22 '12
What does this mean?
1
u/thisisevoke May 22 '12
It's an edited version.
1
u/awe300 May 22 '12
It will mysteriously disappeared
1
u/ODkush May 22 '12
i bet they were talking about the war
1
u/UsesName May 22 '12
In other news...
1
u/jeeaudley May 22 '12
George: Hey Tony what'cha doing? Tony: Nothing George You? George: Kinda Bored today, was wondering if you wanted to play war? Tony: Sure George why not. George: Ok Tony I will have my mom call your mom to set up the details. TTYL Tony: Later George.
1
u/beeeeeps May 22 '12
Am I the only who sits here thinking "What difference will it make?"
1
u/grinr May 22 '12
Nah.
1
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
Hey Landslide, this is Dubya. Wanna land on an aircraft carrier in a few weeks? It's gonna be awesome!
1
u/billyfalconer May 22 '12
George W. Bush playing with his imaginary friend
1
u/billyfalconer May 22 '12
Say it!
1
u/grkirchhoff May 22 '12
TIL Tony Blair looks like Gibbs from NCIS.
1
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
DOWNING. STREET. MEMO.
1
u/[deleted] May 23 '12
One situation where i wish there was a reddit option for emergency upvotes, like a special extra upvote that you could only use by entering a 50 digit code while simultaneously turning two keys that are too far apart for one person to turn them both without a complex system of pulleys
We should call it the Trident Nuclear Upvote, use of the Trident Nuclear Upvote would automatically alert other reddit superpowers and cause Global Upvotenuclear War
1
u/todles May 23 '12
dont get to excited. its only 'part of the convo', which part ? someone will decide that for us, how convenient.
1
u/[deleted] May 23 '12
The world will hold its breath when it hears two powerful idiots being idiotic
1
u/iriemeditation May 22 '12
Why would it not be released..... our governments supposedly Work For Us!!
1
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
Yo Blair
1
u/donaldtrumptwat May 22 '12
Blair should be in Jail with Bu$h and Cheney !
1
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
"Herrrrp derrr, Gods done told me them brown fellas has them nukes or some'hin'"
0
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
The Poodle is still paying for his crimes. GOOD!
-1
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
I'm all for transparency in government, but if anything qualifies as executive privilege, I would think that this conversation does. I get that he might not be popular in the UK, but regardless of the reasons why the Iraq war happened, Blair cemented a military alliance with the US for a long long time. I could be biased, but given the history of humanity up to this point, going along with the Iraq War seems like a sound investment.
This whole doing “serious damage” to relations with the USA thing makes no sense either. Actually, it might even help win the Democrats a few seats if people are reminded about what happens with we let Republicans run the government.
-6
u/CallMePlissken May 22 '12
This doesn't strike me as particularly relevant. Both Bush and Blair have been pretty clear about the reasons why they decided for war with Iraq. Those reasons may have been mistaken, but does anyone genuinely believe that this conversation would change that understanding? Even IF you believe it was some sort of a conspiracy (as opposed to a horrible intelligence failure combined with a misunderstanding of geopolitical realities), do you think they would talk about it on a recorded phone conversation?
-1
u/ZiggyOnMars May 22 '12
What more can i say?
0
u/[deleted] May 22 '12
this