Blair pitches for EU presidency

[Doggy Styles]

I don't think that's even slightly true. He might be self-motivated, greedy and evil - you can make cases for those - but he's clearly not dumb.

That is true, not politically he isn't. But he depends on others for ideas, visions and solutions and just presents them. What does he actually believe in?

MPs from 'both sides' have opined that, left to his own devices, he couldn't think his way out of a paper bag (that's a metaphor I remember one of them using).

Although, I don't suppose all that that matters if he is just a figurehead presenting the company line.

[vetran]

If I pick up a rifle and shoot someone I'm told to, I'm a murderer.
If I join the army and pick up a rifle then shoot someone I'm told to I'm a hero.

Bliar went to war at Bush's request without following the formalities which are there to stop power mad lunatics declaring war on people they don't like. Its what makes us civilised we follow the rules.

He blatantly lied to the electorate about a very serious matter and may have been involved in the unresolved and suspicious death of a scientist who was an inconvenience.

Yes Saddam was vile but that is why we were encouraging insurgents. In the hope they would kill him for us. that is the 'civilised' way.

[fckvwls]

an idiot like him got into power,

He may be many things but an idiot is not one of them. One of the smartest politicians Britain has ever had imho.

[RasputinDude]

I have day to day battles with HR whereby the "process" is more important than filling the job, and though I have yet to use the WMD excuse for sending unsolicited CVs, I might now make some up and drop them on members of internal resourcing

Now normally, I'm all up for giving the 'process' (and those that slavishly follow it) a good kicking. But I'm sorry again DA but you can't equate the process for recruiting someone to sit a desk and the process for ordering the invasion of a country with all the deaths and injury that such an invasion would cost. The two are not comparable in the slightest.

[darmstadt]

I didnt see your precious German friends stepping up.

Probably becuase one of the main reasons is that they weren't allowed as their consititution (created after the war with help from the allies) did not allow them to base their soldiers on foreign soil. Also they didn't feel it was neccesary in many ways:

German leader says no to Iraq war | World news | The Guardian

Dieter Dettke

Bush also lied about them:

Gerhard Schröder and Joschka Fischer made every effort they could. The German chancellor and foreign minister spared no effort with their appeals, whether in public or private, in small groups or with the eyes of the entire world upon them. In the end, though, it was all for naught. Then-United States President George W. Bush wouldn't allow anyone to change his mind. He was dead set on launching a war against Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and thereby bringing "freedom," as he put it, to the Middle East. It was a freedom that Bush described as " God's gift to mankind."

Over time, however, this would-be gift from God has grown to become the biggest foreign-policy disaster in US history since the Vietnam War. The war in Iraq and its subsequent occupation has cost more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians and over 4,000 American soldiers their lives. Washington's credibility has been severely damaged, and Iraq will remain a trouble spot for the foreseeable future.

It is facts like these that have helped stoke the outrage since Bush recently published his memoirs, "Decision Points," in which he claims that Schröder -- the very man who won re-election in 2002 in large part based on his opposition to the war -- assured him in January 2002 that Germany would support the United States if it decided to go to war against Iraq. For his part, Schröder was quick to deny Bush's comments, claiming instead that "(t)he former American president is not telling the truth."

However they are making money out of it :-)