Telegraph on Chilcot report:
- There was “no imminent threat from Saddam Hussein” in March 2003 and military action was “not a last resort”
- The UK “chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted”
- Tony Blair’s note to George Bush on July 28, 2002, saying UK would be with the US “whatever”, was the moment Britain was set on a path to war
- Judgements about the threat posed by Iraq’s WMD “were presented with a certainty that was not justified”
Sir John’s inquiry, which was originally meant to last a year but ended up taking longer than the six years British forces spent in Iraq…
The Iraq war was in 2003. So it’s taken thirteen years before somebody’s finally said what a lot of people knew back in 2003.
It seems to always be the case with these enquiries. They take ages and ages and ages. And they finally report only when everyone’s more or less completely forgotten all the details.
Still, better late than never, I suppose.
Frank Davis 
Will you denounce all your right wing war mongers?
Tony Blair was right wing…………he took away brits guns……….no right winger would do that except a socialist,communist,leftist or an American democrat which could be all the above.
Warmongering isn’t exclusive to the right wing. It seems to have become integral to Western politics in general over the past couple decades. Underneath the façades we’re force-fed in the media, both parties seem to have become two sides of the same coin.
Fact-checking the war comparisons between Obama and Bush
Ya lets toss out PM Neville Chamberlain……….then came the true leader Churchill
Churchill was an unindicted war criminal.
Thatd be FDR and STALIN after Tehran.. that caused 50 million more to die under communism. Good try though.
http://www.politicususa.com/2013/09/01/bush-lying-war-monger-profit-obama.html
World War II pulled the US economy out of the Great Depression. Afterwards, the US was the only participating country relatively unscathed. We also got very rich and powerful. As a result, some people here are under the delusion that war is actually a positive thing that does good things for a society.
It took 30 years for the world to rebuild after ww2 and no the war didn’t get the US out of the depression it was the selling to war torn countries rebuilding them that got America out of the depression. FDR after the war was busy with his regulators running around the country stealing family farms to pay the war taxes that didn’t get collected I know My grandfather and his 4 brothers all came back from the war took their dads 800 acre farm spent 8000 bucks building a sawmill themselves houses and livestock only to see FDRs regulators come and slap a 15 grand tax on everything at one time. They burned everything and left.
From yesterday: i used Mike’s link on the Trump Vegas hotel to phone them to just clarify that not only were no-smoking rooms “available” but that there were no rooms for smokers. Right. None. Seems to me that no matter what Trump’s role there is he’d have the power to change the policy if he wanted to–unless, of course, he thinks there’s more money in the “smoke-free” policy. Which leads me to conclude, not for the first time, that with Trump money overrides principle (providing he has any. Principles). I may look into Vegas hotels w smoking rooms to catch the general lay of that land and if so, I’ll update. Meanwhile, looking at the Vegas law as Mike posted it, I’m again darkly amused at the ubiquitously civic idea that shs is only lethal in the presence of unpackaged food.
Here you go. This link is worth reading. Google headlined it as ” vegas hotels with smoking rooms ” BUT as you’ll see the list is merely compiled from customer comments that simply mention the word smoking. Some customers (at eg the entirely smoker-free Trump) complain that the room must have once been smoked in because they still detected an icky odor. At several other hotels, people complain that they were forced to settle for a smoking room because all the No rooms were booked, showing the popularity of no-smoking policies. This is disheartening, esp considering that Vegas is .. well, Vegas and, one would think, hardly a puritan mecca
https://www.tripadvisor.com/HotelsList-Las_Vegas-Hotels-With-Smoking-Rooms-zfp43667.html
trip advisor and a few other of the cruisline blogs are all anti smoking groups. If you ever posted on them they delete any pro smoking topics
Walt, I hate the damn two link limit. See below to access the site I quoted. Whoever wrote it deserves credit for their work. (Scroll down for the smoking information.)
http://www.lvlg.com/faqpage.htm
There’s a law firm that says it defends smokers charged with violating the smoking law. God only knows, but for anyone interested….
http://www.shouselaw.com/nevada/no-smoking-laws.html
I’ve never been to Vegas, and will certainly never visit. I’d feel like a leper trying to find a room for the night, only to be told that all rooms at the inn are booked. I might just as well stay in New York City, where (at least in Manhattan) the disdain for smokers is very pronounced. (The other four Boroughs are a bit friendlier.)
Seems to me that no matter what Trump’s role there is he’d have the power to change the policy if he wanted to–unless, of course, he thinks there’s more money in the “smoke-free” policy.
He may not have much choice about it, if local antismokers have made laws to outlaw smoking. And is there actually more money in the “smoke-free” policy? Trump seemed to know perfectly well that there wasn’t any money in smoke-free casinos. Why should he think there’s money in smoke-free hotels? Or smoke-free anything? After all, when has anything ever boomed when these sort of killjoy regulations have been introduced?
That said, the fact that Trump doesn’t smoke or drink (not even coffee) is for me at least the biggest question mark hanging over him. What’s the point of being rich if you’re going to deny yourself such pleasures? But then, it seems to be a characteristic of very rich people that they’re frequently penny-pinching misers. Ford. Getty. Perhaps that’s how they got rich in the first place.
Too damn many things to say in one comment at 7 in the morning, NY time.
ALL Trump hotels (and I think other properties in the U. S. and other countries) are smoke free? A man supposedly worth 10 billion dollars can’t fight local U. S. (city / state) laws? No link, but Trump is always suing somebody for something, and has been doing so for at least 40 years.
Agreed, the very rich are often puritans, first in the office in the morning, and last to leave at night. Michael Bloomberg has said that he wouldn’t take bathroom breaks unless absolutely necessary – he stayed at his desk, working, working, working. (Totally deranged.)
No time to ask if Trump believes that smoking or non-smoking properties earn him more money.
walt is correct I called the bastaards
Daniel Hammond just called trump international to book 22 rooms and 18 smoking rooms they said sorry sir we are non smoking,I said my god look how much business for a week you just lost!
The rest of this discussion above floors me. Churchill as war criminal? Should he have let his bombed and blitzed country be invaded, and occupied by Nazi rule? Is there no form of evil you guys would be willing to fight? No degradation or enslavement you’d lift a finger against? Would you prefer living in a Jew-free, gypsy-free, homosexual-free disabled-free European Union united under Hitlerian fascism? Are you out of your frickin minds? Ww2 may have been the only modern war ever absolutely, unconditionally worth fighting –tho the Cold War was worth coldly fighting too.
Aways fight fire with fire.
(unless you’re a firefighter..)
Walt, I also find some of the comments really weird. Churchill as a war criminal?
FDR died before the war ended. If “regulators” were “running around the country stealing family farms to pay the war taxes that didn’t get collected” the person responsible would have been Harry Truman.
We freedom-loving Americans pay lots of taxes. It’s where we get the money to bomb other countries. Unlike EU rules, however, we can fight the government, and sometimes actually win. It sounds to me like some people just didn’t want to pay their bills. (The cry of REGULATIONS! and UNCONSITUNAL TAXES! gets a lot of Americans real pissed.)
I don’t like discussing UK politics because I know so little that I’m apt to say something stupid. However, below is a link on the gun law.
Unlike America, to my knowledge, the freedom-loving UK has always taken a dim view of guns. Kind of like having a Royal Family, for better or worse, it’s the way they choose to live.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_policy_in_the_United_Kingdom
It was obvious the Tony Blair was starstruck , not for nothing was he known as Bush’s Poodle.
Blair battles “poodle” jibes
3 February, 2003
“Tony Blair is no more than George Bush’s poodle.”
It is a jibe that stings the prime minister and which he is desperate to nail. But he is fighting an uphill battle.
Each time he is asked whether the president is as committed as he is to seeking a second UN resolution before bombing Baghdad, he always says “yes” before quickly explaining the reasons why it may be necessary to go ahead without one.
The trouble with this line is, quite simply, a large number of people do not believe it.
And the president’s comments after the weekend war summit clearly suggest he is far less bothered about a second resolution than is the prime minister.
At worst, the critics think the prime minister is being “led by the nose” and is ready to chose America over Europe and the rest.
At best, they think that the president is only going along the UN route because it suits him to keep the international community on board. For the moment. ”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2721513.stm
Looking back, it was a very odd period in our history, a few of the curiosities that I remember.
Cafe culture call for UK towns
1 August, 2003,
“The UK’s towns and cities need a continental-style cafe culture during the evening and fewer pubs, a group of MPs has said.
A parliamentary committee said the proportion of drinking venues in town centres was too high”
http: //news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3115485.stm
Plans to flood the country with casinos.
Blair hits back at casino critics
25 October, 2004
“Asked who wanted more casinos, other than US operators, he said: “Go and talk to the people in Blackpool who urgently need the regeneration. For many of these places this is a chance to put it on a proper modern footing.”
He also dismissed as “nonsense” claims that government officials had offered US gaming operators tax cuts to invest in British casinos.
The Times quoted a US article in which American Gaming Association head Frank Fahrenkopf allegedly said an offer to cut tax from 40% to 20% was made.
But Mr Fahrenkopf told Radio 4’s Today programme: “I recommended that there be a reduction from present rates, but I got no commitment from anyone.”
Culture Minister Lord McIntosh also described a newspaper story claiming ministers were “in retreat”, dropping planned casino numbers from around 250 to 40 or less as “pure fantasy”.
He told the BBC: “I said all the time we expected 20 or 30 or 40, the figure of 150 or 250 was built up out of nothing by the Daily Mail and followed by some others.”
http: //news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3950299.stm
Meanwhile
DECEMBER 16, 2004
Britain ratifies anti-tobacco treaty
http: //www.wired-gov.net/wg/wg-news-1.nsf/0/77D27AEF0BE504D7802572AB004BA8C4?OpenDocument
Blair supports two super-casinos
9 May 2007
“Tony Blair has told MPs both Manchester and Blackpool should get super-casinos, if there was sufficient investment.
In January Manchester was named the preferred site for such an attraction at the expense of Blackpool, whose supporters said it would benefit more.
Peers rejected plans for 17 casinos, including one super-casino, in March.
But at prime minister’s questions, Mr Blair said the government hoped to bring forward proposals “very shortly” to introduce regional casinos.”
http: //news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6638927.stm
Media ‘like feral beast’ – Blair
12 June 2007
“Tony Blair has said the media can operate like “a feral beast” and its relationship with politicians is “damaged” and in need of repair.
The prime minister said relations had always been fraught, but now threatened politicians’ “capacity to take the right decisions for the country”.
“The associate editor of the Sun newspaper, Trevor Kavanagh, said Mr Blair’s comments were rather “sour” and “ill-advised” and out of character.
He added that Mr Blair and his government had received the most benign coverage of any leader in recent years.
That benign coverage only changed after the self-confessed “mistakes” made in putting the case for the Iraq war, not because of any change in the way the media operated, he said.
Liberal Democrat culture spokesman Don Foster said: “It’s easy to blame the press for a loss of trust in politicians; a fairer analysis would point to his own culture of spin. ”
http: //news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/6744261.stm
Blair resigns as prime minister
27 June 2007
http: //news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6243558.stm
1 July 2007
England smoking ban takes effect
http: //news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6258034.stm
BREAKING:
Dallas Authorities release sketch of a man who helped facilitate the slaughter of Dallas Police Officers.