Where's Tony?

The Middle East Suffers, but where is Tony Blair?

Will Blair quit his hopeless Mideast task?

Two articles from The First Post answered a question that had been nagging me. He is lurking in hotels, under threat and mainly failing completely to bring peace to a region that he formerly inflamed. I have one word to say about Mr. Blair: hubris.

Britain's verdict on the Blair years

The Observer has commissioned a poll on Tony Blair's 10 years in power, asking questions such as do you think the UK is a happier place now than it was before New Labour came into government? The results are very negative, a "damning verdict" on Blair's policies and style of governing. Blair is reportedly seen as too fond of spin (and of George Bush). He has not improved people's feelings of safety and is not judged to have improved any public services, noticeably the NHS which is seen to have declined.

Iraq the 51st State (from March 2003)

A good satire and all true. This is from Mathew Engel's column in the Guardian. (NB: as I revisited this piece in my laborious conversion to the new Blogger, I reread the piece - it is chilling how what was satire in 2003 has come to pass - and is not that funny.)

What it's come to

I am sort of watching (intermittently listening to) PMQs on the TV (Prime Minister's Questions for those not familiar with British politics, and no, I can't explain what it is, you will just have to watch it sometime.) I see in the Guardian that support for Labour has slipped to a 20-year low, and that the Conservatives have a chance at coming back to power. How can they be so stupid? Also in the Guardian is this excellent comment piece from Simon Jenkins on Iraq.

This country has been turned by two of the most powerful and civilised nations on Earth into the most hellish place on Earth. Armies claiming to bring democracy and prosperity have brought bloodshed and a misery worse than under the most ruthless modern dictator. This must be the stupidest paradox in modern history. Neither America nor Britain has the guts to rule Iraq properly, yet they lack the guts to leave.
Blair speaks of staying until the job is finished. What job? The only job he can mean is his own.

Wasn't that a time?

The Guardian has a retrospective article about the Greenham Common Peace Camp. Participants in the demonstrations are asked for their recollections, both the positive and the negative, and it is interesting to see where they are now and how they compare the political feel of the present day to 1981-83. One of the women pictured left is now a Plaid Cymru member of the Welsh Assembly. She feels very betrayed by the Labour party's present support for war in Iraq and the Trident missile. No surprise there. Many women today question the exclusion of men that was a major hallmark of the Greenham Common camp. Could there be a connection, do you think? Who knows how many gentle, thoughtful young men, now more anonymous even than the Greenham heroines, were discouraged forever from political activism, and what if they had come to lead the Labour party, rather than a naked opportunist named Blair and a curiously old-school, paternalistic socialist named Brown, and all their male and female acolytes, none of whom would have been at Greenham Common in the first place? It kind of makes you think.

Is It Civil War Yet?

So asks Christopher of Back to Iraq 3.0. Defense News, the trade publication for defence contractors, says so. When will the media admit it?

The best die young, part II

Mo Mowlam passed away yesterday after a period of grave illness. She survived a brain tumour several years ago. Among other glowing tributes, Prime Minister Tony Blair said of her:

It is no exaggeration to say she transformed the politics not just of Northern Ireland itself but crucially of relations between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, and it was this transformation that created the culture in which peace-making could flourish.

Londoners Pay Heavy Price for Blair's Deception

This no-holds-barred polemic against the Iraq war. which does not shrink from calling Bush and Blair war criminals, is on the usually more conservative Newsmax website. I probably would not have put it this strongly, but there really isn't anything I can disagree with in it.

Coverage of London terrorist attacks

There are a number of sources of information about the terrorist attacks in London earlier today. Web sources do not tend to be as up-to-date as the TV and radio, but if you are at work or not near a TV, it may be your best bet. Sky News has a good selection of stuff on the web, including this summary of public transport and traffic conditions. My first checkpoint at work was Google News UK, and although it was a little slow getting the news at first, there is a lot there now. I see from the Guardian that the US has raised the HSA threat level to orange. (It is my perception, by the way, that the British take this sort of thing in stride a lot better than Americans; there is a remarkable air of sang-froid and getting on with it, and not letting the terrorists win by shutting everything down and going into full panic mode.) The Guardian also has a story about the possible perpetrators, and the level of planning that would have been required for this type of attack. The choice of time for the offensive is chillingly brilliant strategy, with the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, in Singapore for the IOC meeting, and much of the nation's security force focused on Gleneagles and the G8 Summit.

Riverbend talks back

Baghdad Burning's point by point reply to George Bush. It's nothing you haven't heard before, but dammit, we just have to keep saying it.

Blair is election liability, warn Labour aides

The Observer reports on trouble within the Labour election camp. Tony Blair is too "presidential". He must now appear with cabinet members at his side, and Gordon Brown will be put more to the forefront. Oh, the irony of it.

Seymour Hersh: "We have been taken over by a cult"

I got this from Pete (WWW of Fat Buddha). Seymour Hersh's article in Counterpunch, We've Been Taken Over By a Cult, is a transcript of a rambling, jittery and yet totally sincere speech he gave at a synagogue in New York. It is pretty chilling reading, as he harkens back to My Lai, fast-forwards to Abu Ghraib, and speculates on the amount of damage the President's cult can do to the US in the next four years.

Steve Bell

I am just sad that I am too old to offer to bear Steve Bell's children. This man is an effing genius.

If the rest of the world could vote

John Kerry would win by a landslide. This is the news from the worldwide (somewhat controlled) straw poll for US president, Theworldvotes.org. Billed as the first global experiment in e-democracy, the site allows anyone in the world (US citizens included) to register electronically in advance of the election, then receive an electronic ballot and vote in advance of November 2. Intermediate surveys in the run-up period have been published showing preferences amongst the site's registered voters. The faq page promises that "a global Electoral Commission will be established to validate the election process and results. It consists of the most experienced managers of national elections" but I don't see any follow-up on that, and today is their election day. Unsurprisingly, given the tense, partisan atmosphere in the US, cyber-attacks have been threatened against the site and the coalition it forms part of, The World Speaks, for "trying to affront the sovereignty of the United States".

George Soros enters the fray . . .

GeorgeSoros.com is a new site with an associated blog which is dedicated to the proposition that "President Bush is endangering our safety, hurting our vital interests and undermining American values". The WaPo says: "Soros is a figure whom Republicans should extol -- arguably the world's most effective capitalist anti-communist. He made his money the old-fashioned way, on Wall Street." And the LA Times Book Review says of his book The Bubble of American Supremacy: "Soros' intensely polemical but also succinct and well-reasoned book ought to provide a welcome template for how the candidates might begin to think their way through to a more coherent view of America's place in the world." And Booklist's reviewer says (briefly and to the point): "This may be the one anti-Bush book that reaches an audience beyond the Democratic amen corner."

Why Bush Left Texas

Finally someone (and I'm not surprised it's someone at The Nation) is doing some serious journalism about the AWOL issue.

'Can't Blair see that this country is about to explode? Can't Bush?'

Robert Fisk's article in The Independent asks the above question. He says watching the Western media's coverage of Iraq is like "tuning in to Planet Mars" it bears so little resemblance to what is actually happening.
"Living in Iraq these past few weeks is a weird as well as dangerous experience. I drive down to Najaf. Highway 8 is one of the worst in Iraq. Westerners are murdered there. It is littered with burnt-out police vehicles and American trucks. Every police post for 70 miles has been abandoned. Yet a few hours later, I am sitting in my room in Baghdad watching Tony Blair, grinning in the House of Commons as if he is the hero of a school debating competition. . . "

Bloggerheads: The Parting Shot

A talented young blogger is fed up and quitting but leaves us this brilliant and moving Parting Shot (for Bush the fascist and Blair the appeaser). This takes a few seconds to load, and have your speakers on.

Tony, Tony, Tony

Richard Ingrams of Guardian/Observer Politics, says Blair is getting "barmier and barmier". "A possibly more interesting reflection would centre on the dangerous self-delusion of which Blair seems to be capable. This, in turn, might also lead to reflections on the urgent need for him finally to be replaced by someone with a slightly firmer grasp of reality."

Flap, flap, flap

It's the sound of chickens coming home to roost. Text of a letter from 52 former senior British diplomats to Tony Blair, objecting to his government's foreign policy moves. Bush faced similar criticism from diplomatic circles some months ago but it was more low-key, largely ignored by the press, and not taken very seriously by American pundits. They do take this sort of thing seriously here, though, despite the government's attempts to pin it all on "understandable frustration".