Another House For Tony
And this time it's a palace! Apparently Blair wants to use the old residence of the British High Commissioner for Palestine as his base for his new role of Middle East envoy. Well, I suppose he has to stay somewhere and he can hardly be expected to rough it without essentials like a ballroom. And, of course, he'd want to be kept well clear of the Palestinians and as close as possible to his Israeli sponsors. Actually, the location of this palace is ideal for Tony:
The house, built of Jerusalem stone in 1931, was once the pride of British diplomacy and occupies a commanding position in West Jerusalem on the inauspiciously named Hill of Evil Counsel, where Judas is said to have negotiated his betrayal of Jesus. It has acres of lush gardens filled with delphiniums, roses and trees. After the British mandate ended in 1948, it was taken over by the United Nations. [My emphasis]
For someone who has dedicated the last ten years to betraying just about everybody except the Americans and Israelis (not least the Palestinians) the location seems entirely appropriate. Presumably the reward for his new job will be substantially more than thirty pieces of silver.
I would have thought a nice
I would have thought a nice little bedsit in Ramalla would be more than perfect. This would guarantee that the proceedings would not be a long drawn out affair of hot air, no decisive action, lots of partying and generally trying to look important. There is nothing like being on the wrong end of a bullets flight, to sober ones thoughts and speed up some action, afterall.
He's not supposed to achieve
He's not supposed to achieve anything. He's just there to look like something is being done. How's the Palestine question going? Don't worry, there's this guy Tony Blair on the case. Did very well in Ireland you know, so leave it to him.
Unfortunately, the solution of stopping to occupiers shooting and start negotiating and of forcing the settlers who are like Ian Paisley to be reasonable, is not an option.
I wonder what he thinks he is doing? Maybe he is being taken advantage of owing to his faith in his own abilities. When will it suddenly click that he looks like a tosser and is a tosser, and he has been played for a fool? He'll have plenty of time to come to terms with the fact that Israel doesn't want peace in the territories. (Unless it's the peace of the graveyard.)
I give him six months before he makes his exit and graces the boardrooms of the arms manufacturers where he belongs. (John Major was on the board of the Carlyle Group within a year of not being PM.) I really hope he has time for jail at some point in his life.
I couldn't put my finger on
I couldn't put my finger on exactly how I felt about this move by Blair, ok the same annoyance experienced by everyone, but there was something else. And then it struck me, where else should this wicked man go other than the theatre of the grotesque that is the middle east, if you think about it's a perfect match. On the up side this is exactly the sort of place where he might actually come to some grief, you never know.
This house, “After
This house, “After the British mandate ended in 1948, it was taken over by the United Nations,” the UN gets houses, the British mandate ends, who gets the law?
Mordechai Vanunu, whose movements are still being restricted by laws which date back to the British Mandate, surely a 16 times Nobel Peace Prize nominee, is a fine case in point to highlight this discrepancy of law, which surely calls for reform?
Why don’t our Tony try and sort some little issues before he promises us World Peace, tomorrow, again?
Hi Davide Very well written
Hi Davide
Very well written article.
Makes you think if there is such a thing as reincarnation.
It's worse than that AJ...
It's worse than that AJ... Vanunu was sent back to prison on 2nd July, for "Talking to foreign journalists":
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6261204.stm
How many British MPs are supporting Vanunu, I wonder? I know that Jeremy Corbyn got into trouble with the media for daring to go to Israel to witness his first release from jail.
Please ask your MP to sign EDM 1517
http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=33311&SESSION=885
I nominate Ghengis Khan
I nominate Ghengis Khan posthumously for the Nobel Peace Prize. Surely, he must be in with a chance, if they can make Blair a Middle East peace Envoy.
It is likely that the former was responsible for less deaths due to war and carnage than the latter, the only thing that Mr. Khan did more of was probably the rape, as it was better to be involved in the battle in those days to get the fresh spoils of war, not exactly what Tony would have had in mind.
House of Commons Speech
Taken from the Harold Pinter web site...
There's an old story about Oliver Cromwell. After he had taken the town of Drogheda
the citizens were brought to the main square. Cromwell announced to his Lieutenants: "Right! Kill all the women and rape all the men." One of his aides said: "Excuse me General. Isn't it the other way around?" A voice from the crowd called out: "Mr. Cromwell knows what he's doing!"
That voice is the voice of Tony Blair "Mr Bush knows what he's doing!" But the fact is that Mr Bush and his gang do know what they're doing and Blair, unless he really is the deluded idiot he often appears to be, also knows what they're doing. They are determined, quite simply, to control the world and the world's resources. And they don't give a damn how many people they murder on the way. And Blair goes along with it.
He hasn't the support of the Labour Party, he hasn't the support of the country or of the celebrated "international community". How can he justify taking this country into a war nobody wants. He can't. He can only resort to rhetoric, cliché and propaganda. Little did we think when we voted Blair into power that we would come to despise him. The idea that he has influence over Bush is laughable. His supine acceptance of American bullying is pathetic.
Bullying is of course a time honoured American tradition. In 1965 Lyndon Johnson said to the Greek Ambassador to the US: "Fuck your parliament and your constitution. America is an elephant. Cyprus is a flea. Greece is a flea. If these two fellows continue itching the elephant they may just get whacked by the elephants trunk, whacked good".
He meant what he said. Shortly afterwards the Colonels, supported by the United States, took over and the Greek people spent seven years in hell.
As for the American elephant, it has grown to be a monster of grotesque and obscene proportions.
The terrible atrocity in Bali does not alter the facts of the case.
The "special relationship" between the USA and the United Kingdom has, in the last twelve years, brought about the deaths of thousands upon thousands of people in Iraq, Afghanistan and Serbia. All this in pursuit of the American and British "moral crusade", to bring "peace and stability to the world".
The use of depleted uranium in the Gulf War has been particularly effective. Radiation levels in Iraq are appallingly high. Babies are born with no brain, no eyes, no genitals. Where they do have ears, mouths or rectums, all that issues from these orifices is blood. Blair and Bush are of course totally indifferent to such facts, not forgetting the charming, grinning, beguiling Bill Clinton, who was apparently given a standing ovation at the Labour Party Conference. For what? Killing Iraqi children? Or Serbian children?
Bush has said: "We will not allow the worlds worst weapons to remain in the hands of the worlds worst leaders". Quite right. Look in the mirror chum. That's you.
The US is at this moment developing advanced systems of "weapons of mass destruction" and is prepared to use them where it sees fit. It has walked away from international agreements on biological and chemical weapons, refusing to allow any inspection of its own factories.
It is holding hundreds of Afghans prisoner in Guantanamo Bay, allowing them no legal redress, although they are charged with nothing, holding them captive virtually for ever.
It is insisting on immunity from the international criminal court, a stance which beggars belief but which is now supported by Great Britain.
The hypocrisy is breathtaking.
Tony Blair's contemptible subservience to this criminal American regime demeans and dishonours this country.
Harold Pinter
http://www.haroldpinter.org/politics/god_bless_america.shtml