Blair Says Uk 'must Continue To Fight Wars'

[Chinahand]

Not totally sure on this one though I can guess the usual split in responses! (If anyone bothers to reply I'll watch the fur fly for a bit then respond!)

 

BBC Link

 

Blair says UK 'must continue to fight wars'

 

Speaking aboard HMS Albion in Plymouth, the prime minister said Britain and the world faced a "new and different" security challenge following 11 September 2001.

 

And Britain had to choose whether it wanted to be in the front line of the global fight against terrorism, or retreat to a peacekeeping role.

 

"My choice is for armed forces that are prepared to engage in this difficult, tough, challenging campaign, to be war fighters as well as peacekeepers," he told an audience of servicemen.

 

He said he wanted to keep a strong American alliance and "for us as a nation to be as willing to fight terrorism and pay the cost of that fight wherever it may be".

[Declan]

Is fighting wars necessary to be influential in the World?

 

Is being influential important?

[Chinahand]

The text of the speech is available here.

 

I feel its rather unusual; its actually described as a lecture and not a speach. A bit of a potted military history and an attempt to give a context to the war against militant Islam. I find it rather odd to be lectured by the Prime Minister on why we have to fight the good fight.

 

September 11 wasn't the incredible action of an isolated group, a one-off strike masterminded by Osama Bin Laden. It was the product rather of a world-wide movement, with an ideology based on a misreading of Islam, whose roots were deep, which had been growing for years and with the ability to mount a radically different type of warfare requiring a radically different type of response. What we face is not a criminal conspiracy or even a fanatical but fringe terrorist organisation. We face something more akin to revolutionary Communism in its early and most militant phase. It is global. It has a narrative about the world and Islam's place within it that has a reach into most Muslim societies and countries. It adherents may be limited. Its sympathisers are not. It has states or at least parts of the governing apparatus of states that give it succour.

 

Its belief system may be, indeed is, utterly reactionary. But its methods are terrifyingly modern.

 

It has realised two things: the power of terrorism to cause chaos, hinder and displace political progress especially through suicide missions; and the reluctance of western opinion to countenance long campaigns, especially when the account it receives is via a modern media driven by the impact of pictures.

 

They now know that if a suicide bomber kills 100 completely innocent people in Baghdad, in defiance of the wishes of the majority of Iraqis who voted for a non-sectarian government, then the image presented to a western public is as likely to be, more likely to be, one of a failed western policy, not another outrage against democracy. In the months after 7/7, we had a debate in Britain as to whether foreign policy in Iraq or Afghanistan had "caused" the terrorism by inflaming Muslim opinion. The notion that removing two appalling dictatorships and replacing them with a UN backed process to democracy, with massive investment in reconstruction available if only the terrorism stopped, could in any justifiable sense "inflame" Muslim opinion when it was perfectly obvious that the Muslims in both countries wanted rid of both regimes and stand to gain enormously, if only they were allowed to, from their removal, is ludicrous. Yet a large part, even of non-Muslim opinion, essentially buys into that view.

[Tempus Fugit]

Bleah's lost the plot

 

I wonder who writes his speeches ?

 

I blame the media, didn't they stop reporting every bomb and flag waving incident etc in NI so that the publicity was eliminated.

[Pragmatopian]

Is fighting wars necessary to be influential in the World?

 

I don't think so. Some other ways to be influential that spring to my mind:

• Be in the possession of a lot of money (e.g. suspension of a probe into BAE slush fund because it jeopardised a Saudi Arabian military equipment contract)
  
• Be a celebrity (e.g. Live 8, where people used their celebrity to draw the attention of governments and their electors to the issue of third world debt)
  
• Use a reasoned argument (e.g. growing momentum behind efforts to tackle climate change on the basis of scientific evidence)
  
• Use a flawed argument (e.g. any 'article' published in the Daily Mail, outraging their readership about the terrible harms inflicted on the UK solely by filthy immigrants)
  
• Create empathy (e.g. Michael Buerk's reports on the Ethiopian famine, which gave human faces to a disaster and galvanised individuals and governments into action)
  

Adopting complex combinations of these and other methods may be be the most effective way garner influence.

[Albert Tatlock]

I think Tony Blair's speech demonstrated to me only that Tony Blair has learned nothing. Whether we refuse to learn anything from the past six years is now down to us. The argument that 'Britain had to choose whether it wanted to be in the front line of the global fight against terrorism, or retreat to a peacekeeping role' is far more complicated than that.

 

In conjunction with dubya, Tony Blair's leadership of the UK has done the people of the UK, including the people of the Isle of Man, a great deal of damage and his foreign policy has severely harmed the UK's reputation. The main reason for this, IMO, is that unlike Margaret Thatcher's response to terrorism, which was: "all attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail. it must be business as usual", Tony Blair and dubya have given victory to the actions of terrorists by responding against their own people, including the introduction of incideous schemes such as ID cards, indefinite detention without charge of foreign nationals, biometric passports, DNA databases and extraordinary police powers etc. etc.

 

3000 new criminal offences have been introduced since Blair gained power, including broad new speech offences that impact on free speech rights. The UK is now a country where a women can be arrested for reading out the names of our war dead, an innocent man can be gunned down by the police without anybody being held to account (in 12 years there have been no prosecutions of the police for over 30 shootings), and hundreds of thousands of innocent people's data (including children's data) has been added to a criminal database. Even an 82 year old man can be forcefully ejected from a 'democratic' party conference for complaining about it.

 

Moreover, under Tony Blair, HM Forces have been abused and used to invade others based on lies and deceipt, whilst at the same time being sent both under-equipped and over-extended. Britain is currently very much over-extended. Whilst Iraq and Afghanistan tend to top the news, many people forget that the UK makes many contributions to peacekeeping in over 30 countries including Bosnia, Sierra Leonne and Cyprus etc. as well as having a permanent defence obligation to protect Belize, the Falklands and several other (now-ex) colonies. The UK also undertakes a large number of humanitarian aid actions around the world (Montserat volcano, hurricane relief, tsunami aid etc. etc.). The navy (especially) is also involved in crime-fighting to help combat international drug smuggling etc.

 

So the real facts are that: the Empire has gone, we are over-extended, we have spoiled our reputation through poor foreign policy (in association with what history will decide as the worst president in US history), we have a poor relationship with Europe, and we have changed the lives of our own citizens by starting to make George Orwell's 1984 a reality.

 

I think that it's time for any new prime minister to take stock, before rushing into decisions that could put the UK into an even worse mess. There is more to 'influence' than bombing the crap out of poor people and stealing their oil. This should include a major national debate as to the direction the UK is heading. Should the UK be modelling its role in the world, not on the US as at present, but on other countries such as Japan, Sweden, Norway, Ireland and Switzerland etc. who do not interfere with everybody else's business like the UK does? These are surely successful countries with high standards of living, and it would seem that their governments concentrate on looking after their own citizens, with many of them even owning and controlling the UK's water, gas, and electricity supplies, they are our customers for our manufacturing industries, and the a major contribution to our GDP comes from arranging transactions between them. Although, thankfully, the island has been protected from high levels of tax, the average Brit now has the arse taxed off him, and yet the UK has some of the poorest infrastructure in Europe (trains, water pipes, motorways and roads) compared to these other countires.

 

However, large areas of the world tend to be run by dictators, and others full of terrorists and criminals. As surely someone has to stand up to them there are other arguments as to who should do this. Personally I believe that should be the UN i.e. everyone stands up to it, not just the US and UK, and everyone financially and personally contributes. Part of any 'take stock' exercise should also aim to stop arming, training and giving them finance, as well as serious attempts to deal with the route causes such as Israel and Palestine.

 

Both world power and influence require good leadership. We currently have little influence on the USA, little influence in Europe and seem to have 'lost the plot'. If anything, it's time to do nothing, and stop and think.

[Cronky]

I agree with everything just said. Well put.

[tucker]

Blair Says Uk 'must Continue To Fight Wars

What with ?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml...1/05/navy05.xml

[P.K.]

I think Tony Blair's speech demonstrated to me only that Tony Blair has learned nothing. Whether we refuse to learn anything from the past six years is now down to us. The argument that 'Britain had to choose whether it wanted to be in the front line of the global fight against terrorism, or retreat to a peacekeeping role' is far more complicated than that.

 

In conjunction with dubya, Tony Blair's leadership of the UK has done the people of the UK, including the people of the Isle of Man, a great deal of damage and his foreign policy has severely harmed the UK's reputation. The main reason for this, IMO, is that unlike Margaret Thatcher's response to terrorism, which was: "all attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail. it must be business as usual", Tony Blair and dubya have given victory to the actions of terrorists by responding against their own people, including the introduction of incideous schemes such as ID cards, indefinite detention without charge of foreign nationals, biometric passports, DNA databases and extraordinary police powers etc. etc.

 

3000 new criminal offences have been introduced since Blair gained power, including broad new speech offences that impact on free speech rights. The UK is now a country where a women can be arrested for reading out the names of our war dead, an innocent man can be gunned down by the police without anybody being held to account (in 12 years there have been no prosecutions of the police for over 30 shootings), and hundreds of thousands of innocent people's data (including children's data) has been added to a criminal database. Even an 82 year old man can be forcefully ejected from a 'democratic' party conference for complaining about it.

Well Albert, first off well done for putting up a well-reasoned point of view. It makes such a pleasant change from the "dogshit" "speed limits" "weather" "establishment are shafting us (yes they are)" type of posts that the proles can so readily relate too. OK. Rant over.

I personally don't think the situation is any more complicated than "you can either stand up to these people and fight or you can choose islationism (and be a cheese-eating surrender monkey) and let those willing to get stuck in do your fighting for you" and hope they prevail on your behalf. Now I don't think anyone would argue that the Taliban regime in Afghanistan was anything less than awful. It took 9/11 and a US led effort to remove them and drive Bin Laden into hiding. I keep hearing about Afghanistan and Iraq and how the "post invasion" efforts have failed miserably and they should have been so much smarter.

 

It really pisses me off. The military are organised to make difficult decisions and get hard, ugly things done. Not because they want to, but because they have to.

 

And that's the rub. The military are not politicians nor policemen, they're soldiers. You hear tragic stories of civilians shot up at checkpoints. Where's the surprise? They're soldiers, NOT policemen. What the hell else do you expect?

 

Moreover, under Tony Blair, HM Forces have been abused and used to invade others based on lies and deceipt, whilst at the same time being sent both under-equipped and over-extended. Britain is currently very much over-extended. Whilst Iraq and Afghanistan tend to top the news, many people forget that the UK makes many contributions to peacekeeping in over 30 countries including Bosnia, Sierra Leonne and Cyprus etc. as well as having a permanent defence obligation to protect Belize, the Falklands and several other (now-ex) colonies. The UK also undertakes a large number of humanitarian aid actions around the world (Montserat volcano, hurricane relief, tsunami aid etc. etc.). The navy (especially) is also involved in crime-fighting to help combat international drug smuggling etc.

Come on Albert, the forces have been there to be abused since their inception. "If you can't take a joke you shouldn't have joined". Sure they're stretched. But really, would you rather pay more taxes?????

 

However, large areas of the world tend to be run by dictators, and others full of terrorists and criminals. As surely someone has to stand up to them there are other arguments as to who should do this. Personally I believe that should be the UN i.e. everyone stands up to it, not just the US and UK, and everyone financially and personally contributes. Part of any 'take stock' exercise should also aim to stop arming, training and giving them finance, as well as serious attempts to deal with the route causes such as Israel and Palestine.

Yep, you're right. The world has lots of good guys and also lots of bad guys. Unfortunately the only way to stop the bad guys overwhelming the good guys is mostly via the barrel of gun. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a dangerous fool. Now the raison d'etre quoted by these religious loonies blowing the innocents to shit is the "State of Israel". Particularly how the west "supports Israel's very existance". Well guess what? The state of Israel is not conveniently going to go away. But can their enemies learn to live with that I wonder?

 

At the end of the day the only way to end wars is to have them. After all, shit happens. QED.