Why We Need Tony Blair On Our Side (and a plan to get it)

[displacedyankeedem]

Yes, he supported the war in Iraq, and yes he was with Bush in the War On Terror. But we need him now, and it's better late to the party than not at all.

Here's why:

Blair is much admired by most Americans. Republicans like him because he seems tough on terrorism. Democrats like him because he's a Labour guy. Independents like him because he's British.

Blair is the one leader in the world who can really swing this election, simply by saying: "As a world leader who has fought the war on terror, I have seen the way the Bush administration fights terrorism, and it does not work. I have seen the way that the Bush administration bullies other nations into taking reckless courses of action, and it does not work. I have seen the Bush administration mislead the world about the case for the war in Iraq, and as we have seen, it does not work. I know there's an American adage: "If you're in a hole, stiop digging.". The world is indeed in a deep hole in fighting the war on terror. But there is one thing that we can do to start climbing out of it. That is to elect John Kerry as President of the United States."

Republicans will listen. Democrats will listen. Most importantly, swing voters will listen.

What's in this for Blair? Well, half of his own party hates him for going into Iraq, and he's scheduled to be impeached soon. Perhaps that impeachment could be headed off if Blair were to do this as a sort of back door denounciation of the war in Iraq; a mea culpa if you will. The UK hates Bush just as much as we DUers do. An endorsement of Kerry helps Blair in the polls, while simultaneously crushing what stature he has as a world leader. Suddenly the "coalition of the willing" becomes neither a coalition nor willing.

I don't care if Kerry has to fly all the way to London to get the endorsement. It's a trip worth making and will make him seem more 'presidential' to American voters and a plausible alternative to GWB.

How can we accomplish this? Well we can start by appealing to the powers that be in London to help us in our time of need as well as the British people. They still haven't forgotten what we did for them over a half-decade ago. During World War II we did our part to rescue Britain from Nazism by joining in that great crusade. After the war, we helped save Britain from the brink of financial ruin. During the Falklands War, we provided intelligence and logistical support to the British against the junta in Argentina.

Now we need them to help rescue us from George Bush just as we have rescued and aided them in their time of need.

The stakes are that high.

Here's what you can do:

Forming Our Own Coalition of the Willing (to get rid of Bush)


If you have any British friends, call them and explain what's going on. Ask them for their help. Tell them to besiege their MPs, the Labour Party, and the Prime Minister's Office with e-mails, letter's and phone calls. Then tell them to motivate their friends to do the same. Chain e-mails are encouraged on their part. I think we underestimate what the Internet can do these days. Time to use it to our full advantage over there.

The Air Campaign
E-Mail the Labour Party and the Prime Minister's Office and ask for action against GWB by Tony Blair. I think we may find some sympathetic feelings for our efforts, especially within the Labour Party.

Write LTTEs to the British newspapers. Unlike in the US, they have several well known national newspapers, so hitting those will have maximum effect for minimum effort.

Links

Governmental
Labour Party: http://www.labour.org.uk/
Prime Minister's Office: http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page1.asp

Newsmedia

The Daily Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk
The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/
The (London) Times: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/

A much fuller listing can be found here: http://dir.yahoo.com/News_and_Media/Newspapers/By_Region/Countries/United_Kingdom/

This is just a rough start. Let's see how far we can take this.

[punpirate]

1. Blair is admired by Republicans...

... and only because he's been Bush's poodle. Otherwise, they'd be kicking him at every opportunity.

Here it is in a nutshell: Blair begged Bush to come along, and his own people hate him for doing so. People in this country who despise Blair for doing so will never trust him to behave honestly in any foreign policy decision the United States makes in concert with the UK.

Blair is toast, because Bush is toast. And for good reason. Both of them are inveterate liars who misled their citizens into war. End of story. The United States needs another quisling like it needs another Bush.

Blair is, in a way, worse than Bush, because he had no vested interest in the Iraq war--his election did not depend upon it--indeed, his election prospects have been damaged by his lies to his constituency when he need not have lied at all.

Jaysus, America does not "need" Blair any more than it "needs" Bush. Both are politicians of the lowest order.

[displacedyankeedem]

3. Blair was dragged into this thing

My guess is one of the following:
1) He was out and out lied to by *.
2) Bush called in an outstanding favor (probably from the Falklands War) that the British owed us.

[punpirate]

4. The only way that Blair was...

... dragged into "this thing" is if he was on a leash. I rest my case....

[AP]

7. Blair was preventing fascism from taking root in the UK.

When do fascists beat liberals? When the economy is in chaos.

The middle east is the source of oil for Europe. A chaotic ME is going to make economic development in Europe more difficult. Had Blair stayed out, Bush would have had free reign in Iraq. The UK would have been cut off from the oil. There would have been malaise. Blair would have been punished at the polls. Tories would be back in power. If there had been a terrorist attack in London, it would have been even worse.

Blair, in my opinion, had to get involved now so that he could protect the electability of Labour candidates for the next 15 years. People seem to forget that Bush and Rumsfield were pretty unhappy when the UK said they'd help out. (And people seem to ignore the fact that the areas the UK control are not so chaotic as the places the US controls -- you'd think that people would appreciate that that sort of fucks up Bush's project for chaos a little bit.)

Look what happened to Germany. Schroeder stayed out. In the recent regional elections his party took a big hit (with conservatives doing better) because people were unhappy with the malaise.

See how that works? See how fascists win? They create the chaos which causes the malaise which then becomes the reason they get elected. That's what would have happened to Blair. And that's what he's effectively preventing, at the cost of being called Bush's poodle. But that poodle BS will be over when Kerry wins and they start working together.

[leesa]

12. Blair is a murderous war criminal who thought he could cash in on the

oil profits to be made. He got burned. He's also a lunatic Fundie securing the ME for the Rapture.
I can't believe you still support this thug.

[AP]

13. Whatever.

Suffices to say, I don't think you have a clue.

Blair could have done nothing. Fascists would have taken over the UK within 4 years. How would that be good for Iraq or for Brits or Europeans.

There was a great deal at stake in Blair's decision. The next 100 years of Europe's and ME's future were at stake, and Blair was clearly motivated by a desire to see (1) the EU succeed, and (2) chaos NOT reign in the ME.

[Kellanved]

16. So Blair's party did well in recent regional elections?

Funny, I recall reading otherwise.

Blair has led Labour away from the European left; he himself seems to prefer Berlusconi's company.

Do I like him being in office better than a Tory ? Yes, I do. But I have lost all respect for him.

[AP]

17. If Blair had to run a general election campagin today,

regardless of where the polls have him right now, I think he could definitely win it.

Labour would still have a majority.

[AP]

2. This is already happening, but the British press isn't going to report it

The British press likes Blair as little as the American press likes Kerry. Their project is to tar Blair by connecting him to Bush. What you need to do is write letters to the British press asking why they aren't reporting this story properly.

The more conservative the paper, the more likely they quote anonymous sources claiming the worst things about Blair muzzling MPs. The less conservative the paper, the more likely actual people are quoted saying that Labour is supporting Kerry.

For example:


Labour leaders told to 'back Kerry'  

Labour MPs signed EDM backing Kerry

The Labour Party is stepping up its support for John Kerry's presidential campaign.

Commons leader Peter Hain is said to have met Democrat officials during a private trip to America and expressed his party's support for their electoral campaign.

Next week the magazine of the Blair-supported Progress group of senior Labour figures will state in its editorial: "Those who recognise that American leadership is vital and a force for good in an uncertain world will wish John Kerry well."

...
http://www.epolitix.com/EN/News/200409/315771b3-2a20-4c5a-a640-063b6ee7662f.htm


And here's the more conservative version of the news on the same day from the mirror:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/tm_objectid=14590088&method=full&siteid=50143&headline=labour-support-for-kerry-sparks-rift-name_page.html

[Gyre]

5. A dead man is nobody to hitch your wagon to.

And Blair is politically dead; he (and you) just doesn't know it yet. I believe it's ill-advised to solicit whores and poodles in general.

Gyre

[AP]

9. Blair isn't dead. He has amazing resilience and is probably the most

effective elected leader in the last 50 years, including Clinton. The way he has beaten the right wing in the last two elections, and the way he is beating them now is remarkable.

The UK is an incredibly unfriendly place for electing liberals, and Blair is figuring out a way to break down all insitutionalized conservativism in the UK.

Kerry is definitley going to hitch his wagon to Blair after Kerry is elected and the two are definitely going to create a bulwark against fascism that bridges the Atlantic.

[IronLionZion]

6. Blair is rumored to have a spot in the Carlyle group waiting for him

it could just be bullshit, but it would explain his constant use of kneepads for Bush

[AP]

10. Gotta love the passive sentence structure. "Is rumored." By whom? By DU?

Blair is not going to be on the Carlyle board.

[IronLionZion]

14. haha, we'll see

Rumors work nicely for the Republican corporate media

[AP]

15. As does this one.

The right wing press would love to see Blair gone. He's rasing wages, lowering unemployment, giving the working class more choices and more power.

Yes, rumors work great for the RW press.

I like to form my opinions based on facts.

[mazzarro]

8. I absolutely disagree!

This is one of the reasons democrats, instead of reThuglicans, are having credibility problem with the voters. Voters know full well that most anti-war protesters disagree with both the chimp and the poodle on Iraq. And for the democrats to be so desperate to win the election that we will embrace the poodle and at same time condemn and demand that the chimp be removed from office, is hard to make the message coherent. It will be synonymous to the problem Kerry is now having trying to explain why, given what we now know about Iraq and WMD, he would have still voted for IWR. Voters tend to equate this as being inconsistent. And to me it is inconsistent - period! The poodle purposefully joined the chimp - his master in going to war despite all the countervailing evidence and we should deal with that as such - the two of them making up excuses to go to war well before they admitted to it. We do have more than enough to clobber the reThugs with all the lies and incompetent decisions they have made. However we are burdened by the fact that the DLC and their opinion experts and consultants control and pervade both the Democratic Party leadership and Kerry's campaign. These DLC people tend to want to soft pedal everything that should be highlighted and hammered home to the voters in no uncertain way. No wonder we are foundering when all we want to do is blur the distinction between the two parties. THIS MAKES ME MAD AS HELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[leesa]

11. I don't want him on our side. I want him in prison where he belongs.

Your first statement is incorrect.
"Blair is much admired by most Americans." How did this bit of mythology come about?? Americans don't give a rats ass about Tony Blair. It is the Congress who was smooching his butt to cover their illegal warring. No one else cared.

[in_cog_ni_to]

18. I don't admire Blair.

Not anymore. He helped the Fuhrer accomplish his goal of illegally, preemptively attacking another sovereign country. No, I hope Blair goes down, just like Bush. Does the UK have Orange Jumpsuits too?

[AP]

22. Blair's job isn't to impress Americans. It's to stop fascism from rolling

through Europe.

[displacedyankeedem]

19. We all make mistakes

Wellstone voted for the Patriot Act. Kerry voted for the War in Iraq. Let's let bygones be bygones. We've all done things we're not proud of.

The important thing is that Blair admits that he was wrongly misled by Bush into Iraq and regrets supporting it.

[Cha]

20. I don't think much of blair and his phony

religous posturing for war! he's a war criminal.

But, he is backing away from the dead bush.

They part their ways on the environment, Ha!

[BillZBubb]

21. Blair is more despicable than even Bush*

If he wants to come out against Bush*, fine, we can use all the help we can get. But we should never forget that he is just as culpable in the Iraq fiasco as Bush*, and he knew better. He let himself become a partner in war crimes.

He's even worse because his support enabled Bush*. Had Blair come out forcefully on the side of the UN, we wouldn't be in this God damned mess.