{"id":194700,"date":"2015-10-27T01:29:01","date_gmt":"2015-10-27T01:29:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=194700"},"modified":"2015-10-27T01:29:01","modified_gmt":"2015-10-27T01:29:01","slug":"is-tony-blair-a-liar-or-is-he-actually-stupid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/is-tony-blair-a-liar-or-is-he-actually-stupid\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Tony Blair a Liar, or Is He Actually Stupid?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse<\/span><\/p>\n

On Sunday October 25th, CNN headlined “Tony Blair says\u00a0he’s sorry for\u00a0Iraq War\u00a0‘mistakes,’ but\u00a0not for ousting\u00a0Saddam<\/span><\/a>\u201d and reported:<\/span><\/p>\n

“I can say that I apologize for the fact that the\u00a0intelligence we received was wrong because, even\u00a0though he had used chemical weapons extensively\u00a0against his own people, against others, the program\u00a0in the form that we thought it was did not exist in the\u00a0way that we thought,” Blair said in an exclusive\u00a0interview on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS that airs\u00a0Sunday.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Blair was referring to the claim that Saddam’s\u00a0regime possessed weapons of mass destruction,\u00a0which was used by the U.S. and British\u00a0governments to justify launching the invasion. But\u00a0the intelligence reports the claim was based on\u00a0turned out to be false.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013\u2013<\/span><\/p>\n

Actually, here\u2019s the\u00a0Downing Street Memo on that matter (dated 23 July 2002):<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cC reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift\u00a0in attitude. Military action was now\u00a0seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to\u00a0remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of\u00a0terrorism\u00a0and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around\u00a0the policy.”<\/span><\/p>\n

That was written by Matthew Rycroft, to David Manning, John Scarlett, Alastair Campbell, and others. It summarized \u201cPRIME MINISTER\u2019S MEETING, 23 JULY.\u201d Blair was the Prime Minister. The memo then goes on to say:<\/span><\/p>\n

“The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and\u00a0legally if Saddam refused to allow in\u00a0the UN inspectors. [NOTE: He did let them in; they were making progress and were pleading to continue their work when Bush\/Blair ordered them out so we could invade<\/span><\/a>.] Regime change and\u00a0WMD were linked in the sense that it was the regime that was producing\u00a0the\u00a0WMD.\u201d So: Blair at that time considered to be beyond question that Saddam was trying to reconstitute, and was reconstituting, his prior WMD operation.<\/span><\/p>\n

The memo continues: “There were different strategies for dealing with Libya and Iran. If the\u00a0political context were right,\u00a0people would support regime change.\u201d So: Blair likewise wanted to overthrow the leaders of Libya and of Iran.<\/span><\/p>\n

So: Blair took some serious questions as being instead simply unquestionable, true beyond doubt. This fits in with his devout religious commitment<\/span><\/a>. He respects faith: that consists only of unproven beliefs, and of the conviction that these beliefs should remain as beliefs no matter how weak the actual evidence for them is. For a person of faith, the less reason there is to believe an allegedly authoritative statement, the stronger his belief in it is. In short: Blair is stupid. But he\u2019s authentically following the Bible there, and he\u2019s committed to it. For example, the Gospel of John<\/i> opens: \u201cBefore the world was created, the Word already existed; he was with God, and was the same as God.\u201d Then (8:31-32): \u201cJesus said to the faithful, \u2018If you obey my teachings, you are authentically my followers; you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.\u2019\u201d Blair is free: he is committed to The Word \u2013 not to reality. He\u2019s free from reality, which can be figured out only by lots of careful work, which we call by the name of \u201cscience.\u201d It\u2019s a methodology above methodologies; and it demands lack of faith in anything, because it\u2019s the exact opposite of faith, which is the opposite meta-methodology from science. He is the ultimate conformist. And he has become enormously successful as a result.<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore: he really is sincere that the problem was \u201cthat the intelligence we received was wrong.\u201d He didn\u2019t lie when he spouted what Bush told him; he really was that stupid. His faith was real, though what he believed was false.<\/span><\/p>\n

He believed this even though he already knew that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around\u00a0the policy.\u201d He knew, on 23 July 2002, that the \u201cpolicy\u201d (invading Iraq) was the goal, and that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around\u201d it. In other words: he didn\u2019t even care whether Saddam really<\/i> <\/span>was a threat \u2013 Blair simply had faith in Bush, and was willing to send British soldiers to kill, and be killed, for that faith.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013\u2013<\/span><\/p>\n

Back to the CNN piece:<\/span><\/p>\n

On the video, starting at 1:25, Blair says: \u201cIt\u2019s important also to realize that \u2026 ISIS actually came to prominence from a base in Syria and not in Iraq.\u201d If that belief by him is true, then one might reasonably wonder why the wikipedia article on ISIS<\/span><\/a> doesn\u2019t even mention \u201cSyria\u201d until it reaches: “Syrian Civil War: In March 2011, protests began in Syria against the government of\u00a0Bashar al-Assad. In the following months, violence between demonstrators and security forces led to a\u00a0gradual militarisation of the conflict.[107]\u00a0In August, al-Baghdadi began sending Iraqi members\u00a0experienced in guerilla warfare across the border into Syria to\u00a0establish an organization there. Led by a Syrian known as\u00a0Abu Muhammad al-Julani, this group began to recruit fighters and establish cells throughout the country.[108][109]\u201d And this statement hardly supports the likelihood that ISIS started in Syria instead of in Iraq. In fact: It denies that, where it asserts: \u201cIn August [of 2011], al-Baghdadi began sending Iraqi members\u00a0experienced in guerilla warfare across the border into Syria to\u00a0establish an organization there. Led by a Syrian known as\u00a0Abu Muhammad al-Julani, this group began to recruit fighters and establish cells throughout the country.\u201d ISIS in Syria resulted from the spread of ISIS in Iraq, which had begun in 2006. ISIS spread five years later into Syria. And ISIS in Iraq had begun in 2006, three years after we invaded. Here is how the Politico article that wikipedia used there as its source<\/span><\/a> describes the situation: \u201cHe called himself Abu Mohammad al-Golani, and the young fighter, about whom little is known for sure except that he is a veteran of that war against the Americans in Iraq, had been authorized by his boss, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and al Qaeda\u2019s central command to set up a Syrian offshoot of the notorious group.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In any case, Blair is either stupid, or else lying, because what he\u2019s saying makes no sense, other than as self-\u2018justifications,\u2019 for whom and what he is \u2013 which is either stupid or lying.<\/span><\/p>\n

On this basis, Blair says in that CNN interview (0:47-): \u201cBut I find it hard to apologize for removing Saddam. I think even from today in 2015 it is better that he is not there than that he is there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Really? The wikipedia article \u201cCasualties of the Iraq War\u201d<\/span><\/a> cites estimates ranging from 174,000 Iraqis killed, to over a million. The most scientific counts (and each of the studies is linked to there), the Lancet study and the PLOS survey, are both in the 500,000-600,000 range. Yet, Blair still says, \u201cI find it hard to apologize\u201d for having done that.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, the situation is actually even worse than that. On 29 September 2015, I headlined, \u201cGALLUP: ‘Iraqis Are the\u00a0Saddest & One of the\u00a0Angriest Populations in the\u00a0World\u2019,\u201d<\/span><\/a> and reported that, “This Gallup survey covered 1,000 adults in each of 148\u00a0countries during 2014.\u201d\u00a0On page 8 of Gallup\u2019s report<\/span><\/a> is the headline, \u201cIraqis Are the\u00a0Saddest & One of the\u00a0Angriest Populations in the\u00a0World.\u201d The current residents of Iraq, as surveyed by Gallup, are the saddest people on Earth, or at least in all of the 148 nations they surveyed. And they\u2019re also shown on page 7 to have the world\u2019s \u201cHighest Negative Experience Scores.\u201d That\u2019s an overall score on how frequently the residents experience pain, sadness, stress, and anger. Iraq is number one. In other words, they\u2019re experiencing what\u2019s probably the most miserable lives of any nation on this planet. <\/span><\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know whether Blair is a liar or only stupid; but, we do know that he\u2019s so callous, that he must qualify as being a psychopath. Can it be that he\u2019s too stupid to recognize this clearly established fact? Somebody should tell him: \u201cMaybe you don\u2019t know it, but knowledgeable people do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013<\/span><\/p>\n

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of \u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse On Sunday October 25th, CNN headlined “Tony Blair says\u00a0he’s sorry for\u00a0Iraq War\u00a0‘mistakes,’ but\u00a0not for ousting\u00a0Saddam\u201d and reported: “I can say that I apologize for the fact that the\u00a0intelligence we received was wrong because, even\u00a0though he had used chemical weapons extensively\u00a0against his own people, against others, the program\u00a0in the form that we thought it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":194702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[30,43,1036,27,96,1037,38,59,8546,55,49,76,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-194700","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"tag-big-brother","9":"tag-tony-blair","10":"tag-breaking-news","11":"tag-bush","12":"tag-cover-up","13":"tag-interview","14":"tag-iraq","15":"tag-military","16":"tag-saddam","17":"tag-uk-news","18":"tag-usa-news","19":"tag-warfare","20":"tag-white-house"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}