Battered and bruised Blair remains unrepentant
the Lupercal thrice refused a kingly crown Maithripala Sirisena very wisely thrice ignored Blair’s overture to more western shenanigans.
That is not all. The British media reminds us that Blair does not do anything for nothing, that invitations for Blair to deliver a lecture costs the hosts a very large sum - something like £200,000-£250,000 for 45-minutes.The Blairs - both husband and wife - are hardly known for altruism.
For the benefit of some of our political leaders and diplomats who hardly inform themselves of the Blair necessities, let me quote from a Newsweek article on Tony Blair published in early November 2015, coincidentally at the time the Blairs were holidaying in Sri Lanka and Blair (Tony not Cherie) was readying himself to praise Kadirgamar.
Alex Perry writes: “Many Britons consider him to be a Machiavel with a Messiah complex, a war criminal who claims - the deviousness of the man - to be saving the world. He is said to be a fixer for dictators, bankers, media barons and billionaires, a method actor who believes in lines, a globe-trotting Iago with penny-pinching addiction to free holidays who charges a small fortune for a 45-minute speech and more for advice and whose speed dial is a diabolical list of 21st century power, fame and money….Blair was up to something. He was always up to something. He lied about Iraq. Probably lied about everything. Always seemed to make out himself. Insufferable, slippery, greedy, shameless, sun-tanned bastard.”
This was the opinion of an incisive journalist after a series of interviews conducted in three countries.
If the initiator of the Blair ‘infiltration’ and others who take credit for having persuaded (if persuasion was indeed necessary) the Blairs to ‘holiday’ in Sri Lanka have hardly recognised Machiavelli or Iago, then the sooner they do their home work, the sooner our country will be saved from further tragic errors of judgment.
A more damning report around the same time the Blairs were in Sri Lanka appeared in “Global Research” by Felicity Arbuthnot who had spent much time in Iraq and used to write frequently to London’s Gemini News Service when I was working there as a copy editor.
In her article headlined “Tony Blair heading for handcuffs and a war crimes indictment”? she quoted former Director of Public Prosecutions Sir Ken Macdonald’s scathing attack on Blair:
“The degree of deceit involved in our decision to go to war on Iraq becomes steadily clearer. This was a foreign policy disgrace of epic proportions …It is now very difficult to avoid the conclusion that Tony Blair engaged in an alarming subterfuge with his partner, George Bush.”
So is Tony Blair, QC. finally headed for handcuffs and a trial at The Hague Arbuthnot asked adding that “Ian Williams, Senior Analyst with Foreign Policy in Focus, New York, has a view. He believes:
… it’s increasingly serious enough to be worrying to him. And I think Tony Blair is rapidly joining Henry Kissinger and Chilean Dictator Augusto Pinochet and other people around the world.”
The Chilcot report naturally avoids any mention of possible charges against him for this was beyond its remit. But it certainly damns him on several other counts including the case he placed before parliament that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and they could be deployed in 45 minutes threatening British interests in the region.
The Swedish diplomat Hans Blix who headed the UN inspection team searching for any evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) or signs of Iraq restarting the programme wrote last week that months preceding the invasion UN inspection forces carried out 700 inspections without finding any WMD.
He said in the months that followed inspections by the US came to same conclusion.
Blix argues that Blair and other leaders misrepresented reality urging war over a faulty picture they had created. Chilcot seems to concur.
Blair speaking after the report was released was still defiant with regard to his decision to go to war to topple the dictator. He said the world is a better place without him. What he did not say was who created the monster, urging him to attack Iran and promoting the Kurds to confront Saddam and then letting the Kurds down and also providing the chemicals and ingredients for WMDs.
The problem is that while regime change appears to have been the prime purpose and agreed to with Bush, the reasons adduced by Blair in calling for the Commons to vote for his decision to go to war was the imminent threat posed by Saddam with his WMDs that did not exist.
Blair argued that he took the decision in good faith and he would do it again. Blair who subsequently embraced the Catholic faith might have taken a lesson from Thomas Aquinas whose doctrine of “just war” said that war must be the last resort. In the case of Iraq it was not so as Chilcot observes.
Those who promoted the Blairs to come to Sri Lanka and those who invited him to deliver the Kadirgamar lecture could do one thing for Sri Lanka. Forever hide their heads in shame.