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By Walter Laqueur
By Bill Boyarsky
$17.79
$19
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Flickr / neil365
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After England’s summer of unrest, Billy Bragg, folk- and punk-rock icon of the British protesting classes, recalls the musicians who politicized him after London’s 1976 Notting Hill riots and summons a new generation of artists to raise their voices against social and political convention. (more)
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Flickr / World Economic Forum
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Sticking with a position that appears based more on pride than empirical reasoning, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair waded through six hours of questioning at an inquiry in London with a resilient defense of the decision to invade Iraq in 2003.
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Flickr / World Economic Forum
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No longer in public office, Tony Blair has acknowledged in a BBC interview that he would have invaded Iraq and disposed of Saddam Hussein with or without evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
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Flickr / World Economic Forum
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In a surprising last-minute move, Tony Blair has dropped out of the race for the European Council’s presidency, a position for which he was an early favorite.
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AP / Sang Tan
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Tony Blair has apparently set his sights across the English Channel, as he is a contender to become the first president of the European Union. While he has yet to officially announce his candidacy, the British government has already declared its support for Blair, and he is seen as a front-runner for the position.
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David Miliband has written a sour review of the “war on terror,” challenging the worldview pushed by George W. Bush and Miliband’s former boss, Tony Blair. War is not the answer, Miliband warns. Instead, “We must respond to terrorism by championing the rule of law, not subordinating it. ... We must uphold our commitments to human rights and civil liberties at home and abroad.”
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AP photo / Rina Castelnuovo, pool
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By Bill Boyarsky — The president-elect has struggled to stay out of the Gaza fight, but based on everything he said during the campaign, he appears determined to stand up for Israel.
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CIA
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The president-elect has reportedly chosen Leon Panetta to head the CIA and retired Adm. Dennis Blair as director of national intelligence. Both men bring a mixed bag. Panetta is an experienced bureaucrat, but he’s no James Bond. Blair has been praised for his terrorist-fighting skills, but he was criticized for a supposed conflict of interest that benefited defense contractors.
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Tony Blair went to “The Daily Show” to talk about politics but found himself defending the Iraq war much more than he might have liked. The former politician, who still seems desperate to sell the nobility of invading and occupying Iraq, also managed to include some of the tired 9/11 rhetoric from Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign.
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Flickr / digiart2001
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There was the Jason Blair scandal, the Judith Miller WMD fiasco, the John McCain (yawn) brouhaha and the appointment of neocon “never-get-it-right” William Kristol as an Op-Ed columnist, to mention a few New York Times blunders. All that and a shareholders’ assault make the Sulzbergers’ lock on ownership of The New York Times seem not entirely impregnable, explains Vanity Fair’s Michael Wolff.
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Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair reveals why he kept a lid on his “profound” religious faith while in office: “You talk about [faith] in our system and, frankly, people do think you’re a nutter.”
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Rainer Hachfeld, Neues Deutschland, Germany —
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AP photo / John D. McHugh
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Has the meaning of Guy Fawkes Day changed, for this particular moment, in England? A holiday that traditionally had more to do with celebrating the squelching of a plot to blast England’s government to smithereens may take on a different significance these days, according to Harper’s columnist Scott Harper.
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whitehouse.gov
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In this thought-provoking opinion piece from the UK’s Daily Mail newspaper, writer Correlli Barnett points out how, in waging his own brand of holy war, Bush (and, by extension, former British PM Tony Blair) failed to comprehend crucial lessons about war that historical examples have repeatedly borne out.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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According to the Irish prime minister, Tony Blair has agreed to serve the quartet—the U.S., the U.N., the EU and Russia—as a special envoy to the Mideast. Earlier reports suggested that Blair bristled at the limited scope of the position, but an aide says the outgoing British prime minister was eager to take the job and continue to work on the world stage.
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AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
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Former President Jimmy Carter is not a fan of the Bush administration’s approach to international relations, calling it “the worst in history” in a recent interview. While he was at it, Carter took aim at British Prime Minister Tony Blair (above, with Bush), calling his compliance with Bush’s policies “a major tragedy for the world.”
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s announcement that he’s stepping down won’t quell the anger felt on so much of the antiwar left. But my own reaction is a deep sadness that he tarnished a formidable legacy.
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British officials won’t publicly question the results of a study that put the estimated Iraqi death toll at 655,000—that’s more than 500 deaths per day—since the beginning of the war. The dispute over the study, published in The Lancet in October, centered on its methods and the large disparity between its estimates and Iraqi government figures.
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Tony Blair is coming under intense domestic pressure to convince Bush to enter talks with Iran—and avoid a war with “unthinkable” consequences.
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Adding to a growing chorus of disapproval emanating from Europe, Tony Blair’s official spokesman has said Saddam Hussein’s execution “shouldn’t have happened in that way.” Earlier, Gordon Brown, the man widely expected to be Britain’s next prime minister, said the hanging was “completely unacceptable,” calling it a “deplorable set of events.”
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As the UK’s Tony Blair extols incipient Iraqi democracy from inside the sheltered Green Zone, the security situation outside—in the “Red Zone”—further deteriorates, making a mockery of Blair’s optimistic prattle.
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ICRC.org
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Sudan was unimpressed by threats from the U.S. and Britain to adopt alternative measures, including a proposed no-fly zone, to address the worsening humanitarian crisis in Darfur, where the U.N. estimates around 200,000 people have died. Meanwhile, Khartoum continues to prevent U.N. peacekeepers from entering the country.
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nytimes.com
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With Tony Blair by his side, the president was careful on Thursday to laud the Iraq Study Group’s report, but maintain his stance on troop withdrawals and diplomacy. In particular, Bush said he would not compromise on preconditions for talks with Syria and Iran.
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politics.co.uk
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Tony Blair intends to modernize Britain’s nuclear arsenal, including the U.S.-made missiles and nuclear-powered submarines that deliver them. But the prime minister will have to survive the misgivings of his own party, with critics questioning the utility of nuclear weapons against suicide bombers.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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After Tony Blair agreed with an interviewer that the violence in Iraq since invasion has been a “disaster,” his representatives on Downing Street insisted that the prime minister was simply being polite.
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Scotsman.com
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A new report from Human Rights Watch accuses the British government of softening protections against torture, abdicating its responsibility to pressure the U.S. against the practice and knowingly deporting terror suspects to countries where they are likely to suffer abuse.
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Tony Blair has been busy, meeting with both Mahmoud Abbas and Ehud Olmert in recent days?all while fending off controversy at home over when he?ll step down. For their part, the Palestinian president and Israeli prime minister have agreed to meet with each other.
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British Prime Minister Tony Blair has told aides that he will step down as the leader of his party on May 31, 2007, and resign as prime minister on July 26, according to the British tabloid The Sun. He had already announced he would not seek a fourth term in office, but this is the first news of a specific resignation date.
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Liberal Democrat leader Menzies Campbell challenged Tony Blairs stance on Lebanon during the last Prime Ministers Questions. Blair defended his governments position regarding the conflict, despite growing pressure in Europe to take a harder line toward Israel.
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By Molly Ivins — George Bush at the G8, Katherine Harris in Florida, Joe Lieberman in Connecticut, Ralph Reed in Georgia, and good old Tom DeLay in the grand state of Texas ... so bad they’re almost funny.
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By Robert Scheer — In the midst of a Middle Eastern crisis that threatens to destabilize the entire region and perhaps beyond, it was unnerving that what most seemed to interest President Bush at the G8 summit is that China is a long flight from western Russia.
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Responding to Monday’s “open mike” incident in Russia, The Guardian said Blair “all but offers to carry [Condoleezza Rice’s] bags” to the Middle East (Bush denied him), revealing Blair’s subservient role in the relationship. (article, British press reactions)
Not to mention the fact that Bush carried on the conversation about one of the most dangerous powder kegs in the world while chewing with an open mouth and barely looking at Blair.
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“The Daily Show” host was just being playful last night when he joked that President Bush could have been caught on the open mike talking about German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “camel toe” (a lewd sexual reference). But in light of the just-publicized unsolicited massage Bush gave to Merkel, Stewart is looking prophetic all of a sudden.
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At the G8 summit for world leaders, President Bush was caught on a live microphone telling Tony Blair that he held Syria accountable for Hezbollah’s actions against Israel.
“What they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it’s over,” Bush told Blair while chewing on a buttered roll.
Important: This is not a hypocrisy alert. Bush’s unguarded statements were for the most part consistent with his public ones. But it’s still a fascinating glimpse into his manner of interaction with America’s closest ally.
Article
Best video/audio/transcript combo: CNN.com (The video link “The sh_t hear ‘round the world” in the center of the page—not linkable)
Blogger reaction:
The Carpetbagger Report: “The president often comes across as an unsophisticated simpleton in public…but incidents like this…suggest Bush is even less impressive in private.
Juan Cole: Bush’s comments “astonishingly simple-minded”
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From DemocracyFest
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Shameless plug alert: Truthdig managing editor Blair Golson will be co-hosting a panel on alternative media at this weekend’s DemocracyFest in San Diego. Tickets for the conference are going fast. Panelists and speakers include Howard Dean, Al Franken, comedian Marc Maron, Democratic strategist Dave Sirota and BuzzFlash Editor Mark Karlin.
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The British leader has been battered in the polls as of late, and in the UK it’s a lot easier to remove a head of government than it is here. AMERICAblog has the gossip (and that’s all it is now.)
Posted on May 15, 2006
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From MarkDanner.com
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New Yorker staff writer and Berkeley professor Mark Danner has a new book exploring America’s scandalous indifference to the Downing Street Memo—the “smoking gun” that all but proves Bush was set on going to war in Iraq eight months before the actual invasion.
Read the Buzzflash interview
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From nedlamont.com
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By Blair Golson — The wealthy cable entrepreneur and darling of the progressive blogosphere discusses his antiwar primary challenge against Connecticut’s pro-war Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman. “The state party brass, they don’t like primaries. Competition is a little unsettling to them.”
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According to leaked secret memos, top advisors to the British leader gave him explicit warnings three years ago that the U.S. had “No leadership, no strategy, no coordination, no structure and [was] inaccessible to ordinary Iraqis.”
Not that this kind of thing shocks us anymore, but still it’s eye-opening when it’s confirmed by a staunch ally.
Daily Kos tees off on this.
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John Thys / AFP
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The British prime minister is planning on scrapping a 40-year ban on tapping MPs’ telephones. The soon-to-be tapped are jolly cross. | story
Posted on Jan 16, 2006
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Says Blair “should not be allowed to walk away from” going to war on ultimately false grounds | more
Posted on Jan 9, 2006
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