The Killing$ of Tony Blair

I have finally got round to watching this documentary which has come highly recommend by others.  And I have to say I am appalled.

I admire bits about George Galloway, notably his testimony in the US when he has been accused of being in the pocket of Saddam Hussein, a man he was admittedly, felt to be too close to.  But this documentary is driven by hatred and is quite biased.  

The main thing it forgets, is that to bring about change, you must be heard. And Tony Blair and the U.K. under his leadership was heard and was listened to.

Galloway slates Blair for his work in Khazakstan, notably after a massacre of strikers there, but forgets to mention that Blair addressed this (and that action was taken against those found responsible).

He discusses the deal with the devil that Blair made with the Murdoch empire which was vital in helping secure public opinion which allowed Labour to do so much by being elected more than once into office. And while he admits Labour under Blair did improve things for many, he glosses over a lot of what had been done to help the nation under New Labour.

He discusses the debacle that was (and sadly still is) PFI without looking at the reasons why it was used, this being to rescue the NHS from the terrible state that the Conservatives had left it in 1997.

He claims that the man who had Labour elected over and over again was trying to destroy Labour.

And he also mentions the Iraq War.  Back then, we had to face several bad choices.  Our nation, under the Conservatives had armed Saddam, and when it came to what Iraq had with chemical weapons, we still had the receipts. If we were to not invade, it would have been to continue sanctions, or allow Saddam to regain the WMD he had used, during the Iran-Iraq war again.  And that ignores the help he was giving to support terrorism in Palestine and Israel which made it so much harder to bring about a just peace.

That was not the first conflict that Blair had taken the UK into.  We had the interventions in Sierra Leone, preventing a recurrence of he violence seen in Rwanda where the world watched genocide take place. We had e conflict in Kosovo, where we backed the side that was felt to be the least bad to prevent a repeat of the horrors seen during the Bosnian War.  And of course, there was Afghanistan, where the Taliban had sheltered the man behind the September the 11th attacks.  We could have left the Taliban alone, and allowed them to continue to oppress women and religious minorities and shelter terrorists, who had attacked the west.

He is however right to bring up issues such as the deal with Bernie Ecclestone, as well as the sale of a military air traffic control system to an impoverished nation with no meaningful air force of significance. The deal with the Saudi's, which ignored the bribery that had occurred, was, in my opinion a necessary evil to try and get them to take some more action to combat terrorism.

In summary, an interesting 'documentary' but on that belongs on channels known for mixing fact and fiction, such as Russia Today, Fox News or Press TV.

Why did we invade Iraq?

To answer the question, it was to get the Weapons of Mass Destruction that we, in the west, allowed Saddam to develop.

In 2003 Iraq was invaded by the United States of America and allies that included the United Kingdom.  Saddam Hussein was overthrown and while the war was easily won (and I was surprised at how easily it was won), the peace that was meant to occur afterwards was lost. 

Now, after many years, the Chilcot has finally been published.  And the United Kingdom have appeared to take it as gospel.  But, I feel that the way it has been reported has been unfair.  When looking at the decision to invade Iraq, we can look at it in isolation, or we can look at it in the context of history around that time.  And I think that we should bear in mind events that occurred before the invasion.

First of all, during the Iran-Iraq war we helped Saddam Hussein’s Iraq (which had been armed by the USSR).  Then we turned a blind eye when he used chemical weapons against Iran.  And then when he used chemical weapons against Iraqi civilians (though being Kurds, he felt that they were the enemy) we continued to support him.

Saddam then invaded Kuwait, or as he saw it, the un-elected leaders of Kuwait were overthrown by a revolution, who then asked for Iraqi help.  And this threatened the oil that the west depended on then, and still continues to depend on.  The world had two options, to leave Iraq in control, or defend Kuwait and go to war.  Oil won, and the first gulf war occurred were we fought against one dictatorship to protect a monarchy.  To be fair, Kuwait now has elections, but it is still a monarchy.  The war was won, and won with relative ease by the west though the human cost in Iraq was different and was to get worse.

Sanctions were imposed on Iraq and efforts were made to ensure that Iraq no longer had the capability to use the chemical weapons that it had used in the past again.  But this affected the people of Iraq while Saddam did not seem to suffer.  We also encouraged the people of Iraq to revolt, and then did not support them when they did, allowing Saddam to massacre them.  But Saddam did not allow the weapon inspections that were part of the ceasefire agreement to take place.  He would agree, then change his mind.  And a report by a weapons inspector (who died later) stated that Saddam was hiding weapons, and while they could not be used, he would try to do so if given the chance.

So before the second war, we were faced with several options.
1 - continue the sanctions (and continue the harm to ordinary Iraqi's)
2 - lift the sanctions (and let Saddam get WMD's)
3 - invade (and we all know how that ended)

While in hindsight, we can say the invasion was a bad idea, it appeared to be the least worst of three terrible options at the time.

The west had seen what military intervention had done before.  In Kosovo by intervening, we had prevented a repeat of the horrors of Bosnia.  In Sierra Leone, intervention helped and avoided any chance of the horrors of Rwanda occurring there.  So I understand the desire to bring about the change that had happened elsewhere.

My concerns at the time, was the spin and propaganda being sold to us at the time.  I did not believe that Saddam posed a direct threat to us, but I did feel that he was someone who needed to be removed for the overall benefit of humanity.  At the time, I felt that we should show that we could bring democracy to Afghanistan (which we had not at the time) and also bring about a more equitable solution to the troubles in The Holy Land.  

So overall, due to the threat that Saddam posed, I felt that regime change was needed.  

If you disagree, please post why.  I do try to learn from others and if you feel I have missed out on points on this, please let me know.