Tony Blair is a cockweasel

He was wrong to meddle in the SFO investigation into BAE's sale of weapons of mass destruction to a tyrannical theocracy. He's also a genocidaire, a corporate whore and a religious fundamentalist nutbag but we all knew that already- this is new.

The Corner House and Campaign Against the Arms Trade are both awesome!

the $6 trillion war

Joseph Stiglitz may be a neo-classical economist but this is, without doubt, the most damning critique of the Iraq war. Despite the blatant lack of morality-based, security-based or diplomacy-based justifications for the Iraq war; neo-con war-pigs were still content to sit smugly in their exorbitantly indulgent petro-homes in texas and wax lyrical about the economic benefits of interventionism to the US economy. Stiglitz just fucked them over beautifully.


Predicting obvious criticisms from Republicans Stiglitz observed:

"They had two reactions," Stiglitz says wearily. "One was Bush saying, 'We don't go to war on the calculations of green eye-shaded accountants or economists.' And our response was, 'No, you don't decide to fight a response to Pearl Harbour on the basis of that, but when there's a war of choice, you at least use it to make sure your timing is right, that you've done the preparation. And you really ought to do the calculations to see if there are alternative ways that are more effective at getting your objectives. The second criticism - which we admit - was that we only look at the costs, not the benefits. Now, we couldn't see any [economic] benefits. From our point of view we weren't sure what those were."

(Emphasis is my own).

Pieces of information in this article are just so damning of Bush's rule. They are nothing short of incredible:

"By way of context, Stiglitz and Bilmes list what even one of these trillions could have paid for: 8 million housing units, or 15 million public school teachers, or healthcare for 530 million children for a year, or scholarships to university for 43 million students. Three trillion could have fixed America's social security problem for half a century. America, says Stiglitz, is currently spending $5bn a year in Africa, and worrying about being outflanked by China there: "Five billion is roughly 10 days' fighting, so you get a new metric of thinking about everything."

I ask what discoveries Stiglitz found the most disturbing. He laughs, somewhat mirthlessly. "There were actually so many things - some of it we suspected, but there were a few things I couldn't believe." The fact that a contractor working as a security guard gets about $400,000 a year, for example, as opposed to a soldier, who might get about $40,000. That there is a discrepancy we might have guessed - but not its sheer scale, or the fact that, because it is so hard to get insurance for working in Iraq, the government pays the premiums; or the fact that, if these contractors are injured or killed, the government pays both death and injury benefits on top. Understandably, this has forced a rise in sign-up bonuses (as has the fact that the army is so desperate for recruits that it is signing up convicted felons). "So we create a competition for ourselves. Nobody in their right mind would have done that. The Bush administration did that ... that I couldn't believe."

Stop Blair!

Please could everyone who visits this site sign this petition against Tony Blair becoming President of the EU.

The man is a war criminal and should be jailed for life, not given more power. Try and imagine what his appointment would imply about the values of the people of Europe; a continent so desolated by war twice in the last century. People guilty of Blair's crimes were executed at the Nuremberg trials. I do not believe in capital punishment but if I did and had to apply it to a single individual it would be Blair.

Corpofascism

This sounds unpleasantly familiar. The language might be crap and it needs a thorough rewrite but the salient points are there.

Merry Christmas, monkeys!

Tony Blair forced Goldsmith to abandon BAE investigation

In a turn of events that is surprising solely for the awesome success achieved by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade and Cornerhouse human rights campaign groups in forcing hugely confidential material to be made public, it was revealed in court today that Tony Blair wrote personal and highly coercive letters to The Chief Cockweasel and High Sanctioner of Genocides, Lord Goldsmith, to persuade him to drop the corruption investigation into BAE's payments to the Saudi government. In a ironic turn of phrase, Blair actually tried to convince Goldsmith that the Saudis "would cut off the flow of intelligence about al-Qaida terrorists" if a prosecution was successful.

That would be the flow of intelligence that lead to the events of 11th September 2001 and 7th July 2005, yes? Both of which were inspired by- or carried out by- Saudi money, Saudi philosophy (Wahhabism, duh!) or Saudi nationals.

I wonder if they (Blair, Goldsmith, et al) can be tried for misgovernment? Or gross incompetence? Or conspiracy to pervert the course of justice? Or fucking anything that might present the victims of the Iraqi genocide and the July 7th attrocities with something that could be considered justice. Conspiracy to cause genocide would be an ending worthy of Walt Disney. With lashings of illegal arms distribution.

Tony Blair is such a donkey!

I can't believe that he comes out with this stuff. Its like he's actually trying to incite people to murder us in our beds. The man is a delusional idiot and needs to be removed from any position of responsibility.