NY Honours list

[SmallTown]

Tony Blair was the best prime minister in my lifetime

 

[Andy_W]

How is it? How was Iraq a British problem? How was Afghanistan a British problem? Oh what's the common trend here? That's right bending to the will of the yanks and their shoot first ask questions later mantra which has existed ever since the 1800's.

Pathetic? You want to go there? Who was it who tried him and punished him? Certainly wasn't the British, hell it's wasn't even the Yankee World Police either. Pathetic? If Blair was a paid up member of the Conservatives you'd be throwing rocks at his face but because he was a red tie wearing leader of the country at the time he gets a free pass from you. Blinded.

Nobody else was going to remove him? How could you possibly know that? See above, who tried him and punished him. Why haven't the yanks and us removed Xi from power? His country is currently committing acts of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Or Mr Kim Jong Un who every autumn and winter takes food out of the North Korean's mouths and kills anyone who disagrees with him. Putin, nobody has made a move to remove him from power even though he's consistently threatening to invade other countries and just recently one of his too advisors threatened to point nuclear weapons in the direction of mainland Europe. Is it because the Americans have absolutely nothing to gain from removing those three people? Or is it because those three countries in question are actually more than capable of fighting back?

Iraq - Saddam was trying to control oil, invaded Kuwait in 1990 and had his eye on SA, and we kind of rely on oil, so we went in to defend that (as well as him using chemical weapons). So there was previous before 2003.

Afgan - OBL/ Al Qaeda tried to blow up the world trade centre in 93, blew up two US Embassies in 98, and the Twin Towers in 2001, among many other things, he was based in Afgan, using Afgan recruits. USA was in NATO, and out closest ally (they've helped us out numerous times), so that would have been enough, then him bombing loads of places in 2003, 2004, and 2005 (including London) cemented our problem.

Of course it was the USA who captured Saddam and OBL, with Brittish assistance, they were running the show and had the most troops there, this was always going to be the case. I Blame the Tories just as much as Blair/ Labour, they pressed for it and voted for it, only 39% of the public were against it at that time, but half of those were for it with a bit more evidence (which basically means a bit more of a delay). I think using the WMD line wasn't the right way, as most assume this meant nukes, if they had just said we need to get this mad b****d out before he does more horrendous things with chemical weapons it would have got more support.

China and North Korea have a much lesser direct threat/ impact on the USA and their allies (like the UK), and they're much harder wars to "win". There's only so much "policing" that can be done, until one of them kicks off big time and the rest of the world jumps in as well. Putin isn't as much of a threat, military wise (lots of old/ crap/ underfunded gear and troops), they concentrate more on cyber warfare/ disinformation and using that to destabilise (like helping Trump get in, same with Brexit etc).

 

[HarryVegas]

It's amazing Blair ever got re-elected after the war. Judging by the rabid responses here and elsewhere on social media, you'd think he was the devil incarnate. He won his 3rd election comfortably, the most successful Labour PM in history.

 

[Randy]