david's doodles

Begone, Blair

Blair’s legacy is not the one of sweetness and light his departure speech would have us believe. For the Brits, “it’s the rich wot gets the gravy, and the poor wot gets the blame.” While some in Britain prospered, a recent U.N. survey on child welfare shows Britain and the U.S. ranked at the bottom among 21 of the wealthiest countries.

Internationally, he was the driving force behind the Israel-Palestine “road map,” but that rapidly became a dead letter when Blair backed the Sharon-Bush agreement that Israel retain major West Bank settlements. Then there was his wholehearted backing of the Iraq invasion, just part of his catastrophic stance on the Middle East, for which he will probably be most remembered.

He would probably prefer to be remembered as the leader who oversaw the end of the very long conflict in Northern Ireland. But Blair is no peacenik. Robert Fisk refers to Blair as “a vicious little man.” In his article for Saturday’s Independent, Fisk says:

Yes, I must acknowledge Northern Ireland. If only Blair had kept to this achievement. If only he had accepted that his role was to end 800 years of the Anglo-Irish conflict. But no. He wanted to be our Saviour – and he allowed George Bush to do such things as Oliver Cromwell would find quite normal. Torture. Murder. Rape.

Well, now he is finally going. It looks like his replacement will be Gordon Brown. May the saints preserve us!

Helena Cobban wastes few words in dismissing this horrid man. She posted this Tony Blair Haiku on her “Just World News” web site a few days ago:

Blair. What can we say?
Dulce et decorum est
NOT TO GO TO WAR.

The reference is to Wilfred Owen’s First World War poem.