The Blair story on the news:

Sieg Heil !!!

Me?

No, dude, this is me...

I don't give a rat's ass what you believe. Now... topic, please?

You are showing your true face.

There's a lot about politics that you don't understand, isn't it?

More from Tony Blair...

any person who has studied the constitution at all knows that the iraq war was illegal. as a matter of fact, it wasn't even a war; it's considered a conflict. the US hasn't been to war since WW2 when roosevelt declared war on the japanese and all of their allies. due to the war powers clause in the constitution, only congress has the authority to declare war. i think it's kinda funny that it took less than 1 piece of paper to declare war on the japanese, and to go to iraq it took hundreds if not thousands of pages filled with loopholes and bullshit. 

do i believe that iraq was a "rogue state" that needed to be taken care of? no. we put saddam in power, after all. anyone who thinks the US should be the world's policeman must understand that doing so would require us to go through an endless line of countries who are suffering from dictatorship, slavery and genocide. we only went into iraq because they had valuable resources which we, as capitalists, needed - and wanted. i highly doubt that anyone here would volunteer their kids for the infantry so that they could fight these wars.

i personally believe that george bush and dick cheney should be hanged on the white house lawn. make an example of them; let their families see what it's like to have someone you love taken from you so unfairly and ruthlessly.

di oppresso liber

 the only sensible foreign policy the US should keep is one that includes us not taking part in the world's affairs. we fueled osama bin laden while he was fighting the soviets didn't we? entangling alliances endanger american lives. america can barely take care of her own borders, population and economy; what makes you think we could handle the world? that's ridiculous within itself. in 2002 we received 11.3 million barrels of oil from iraq. i think that's a legitimate amount.

and i'm confused what you were getting at with the airborne/SEAL comment. you're going to take on an entire country with SEALs? that's fucking impossible. SEALs aren't meant to do that kind of stuff. and being a paratrooper i would like to point out that airborne soldiers aren't meant to be a sustained fighting force; all we're meant to do is "strike" and "hold" (504th PIR "devils in baggy pants&quot positions until the regulars catch up to relieve us.

and yes, we do live in a volunteer military, but why do young men and women have to go to war to serve their country? i mean, it seems like we're always fighting somebody. why does it have to be that way? why can't they come in without the threat of being killed overseas? it's easy to support this shit when you're back in the states and have never volunteered.

We live in a global village now, the old rules don't apply. Basically, we have no choice.

And he chose to fight the U.S. once the Russians left. Just to clarify, islam has been at war with dar al harb since its inception.

Are you suggesting an isolationist approach? That won't work, for very obvious reasons.

which the U.S. paid for. We didn't 'take' it. Conversely, how much did we give Iraq in aid?

Just being facetious.  all the kids I know want t be in a 'real' regt. not just some poor grunt.

They don't.

Or you could take the viewpoint that someone is always fighting us.

Human nature. Politics. Greed.

I agree with the last part, however I was a Redcoat, so to speak, so I whilst I volunteered for Iraq I was turned down due to my age.

We were dealing with sectarian shit in N Ireland and the Falklands when I was in active service.

OT, but I really appreciate you doing what you do even though you see it as contrary to what you believe.

From a dead WWII German Officers' diary: "American parachutists -- devils in baggy pants -- are less than 100 meters from my outpost line. I can't sleep at night; they pop up from nowhere and we never know when or how they will strike next. Seems like the black-hearted devils are everywhere.”

So you are a Brit after all then. How come you speak of "we" when referring to American matters then?

You cannot both be a Brit and an American. You have to make up you mind.

Were you actually in Northern Ireland or the Falkland War? Did you experience confrontations and battle?

I would guess no, you never did. People who have very rarely agitate for more of that shit.

Those who are having a hard-on for war are doing so from the safety of their own couch.

And that is just... disgusting.

Be that however it may, enough about "you".

This thread is about the topic of an illegal war and the fact that the process against those who made the decisions that killed thousands of young soldiers and an unknown number of Iraqi civilians have now slowly started. Do you even remember anything about how it all happened? Now Tony Blair is stating that "the objective always was to remove Saddam" - which, to say the least, is a questionable pretext for going to war. So you don't like the style of some foreign state leader? Invade! Remove! I am sure you will be as liberal with the rules of engagement in the case of Russia, China or Serbia as well. Just to name a few. We are heading for interesting times now that it is OK by international law to engage in war just because you don't like the head of state in some other country. Nobody's disputing the fact that Saddam was a bad motherfucker - but do you seriously think that the dead care much about who's injustice it was that killed them?

Linkthrough to reports from a variety of British newspapers' comments on the Blair process.

You don't know a whole lot about how politics happen, do you?