I don't mind him coming here, and I don't mind people protesting about it. Protestors are a good thing IMO, as it means people are taking an interest in what goes on, and they care.
No welcome from me. Where do you start with such a self serving piece of crap. The stolen election was just the beginning of it. The lie that he and Blair were defending us and the american public from the threat Saddam Hussein makes my blood boil. The suffering goes on in Iraq and the bodies continue to pile up. And the threat of interantional terror has been increased not decreased since this senseless action.
Also the tearing of the kyoto agreement, abandonment of nuclear test bans, the tax cuts for the rich, the persecution of arab americans with the patriot act.
The support of the corrupt Saudi royal family, the buying off of Uzbekistan despots who are free to abuse their own population aslong as they co-operate with 'war on terror'.
And we have to foot the multi-million pound bill for this jerk's vist
Good post RZCS. I just hope he doesn't give a patronising speech about how America 'saved your asses* during WW2 and are continuing to save them today'.
Row Z has it spot on!!! The bloke is the biggest threat to a stable world (not just in terms of war!) right now and I cant think of anything positive about the bloke whatsoever.
He was democratically elected i think you will find or have you been reading a little too much of Michael Moores lunatic conspricy theory's.
Iraq was about a number of things
1 Threat of Saddam to peace in region/world
2 WMD
3 Freedom and democracy for Iraqi people from a dictator
4 Saddams war crimes
Personally I think Mr blair was mistaken banging on about WMD all the time we know he has them he has already used them, so its old news.
Blair should have just said we are doing this for the freedom of the Iraqi people and to get rid of a dictator. That is enough IMHO
Kyoto agree he is wrong.
Nuclear weapons are neccessary as a detterant and i believe controlled testing should be carried out.
Tax cuts for the rich i can not comment as i do not know enough about the US tax system. But US policy is their business not mine and no resson not to welcome him to the UK IMHO.
Patriot act dito although keeping a balance between ensuring privacy and ensuring security must be difficult
Regime's in other countries are always going to be supported if in the Governments opinion it is is the countries(UK, US) best interest. Someone has to make that call.
Not welcome IMO.....Corrupt, greedy, warmongering hick from Backwater, USA. Only in office thanks to bruv who is Governor of Florida. No doubt Tony and his cronies in the Met will attempt to silence any protest against his best buddy, using the same tactics against protestors, just as when the butcher of Tianeman square was on a state visit!
SM BHAFC without retreading the same old arguments over the iraq war which has been done on here far too many times. Of the the four reasons you give, the only laudable one was number 3. We knew that there were no WMD, we knew that Iraq was not a real threat to any of its neighbours, and Saddam's most heinous war crimes were committed when he was being supported by the west or when we had left the marsh arabs literally high and dry at the end of GW1.
If the reason was the liberation of the iraqi people (they certainly deserve it, no argument there), then this campaign was poorly planned and carried out. The country has been left in no state for a smooth handing over of power. Chaos reigns and it looks like life is going to pretty tough in Iraq for a long time to come. Policy is being made up on the hoof. The mistakes started with the disbanding of the iraqi army (which included many unwilling conscripts) the allowance of the sacking of all the major ministries (except the oil).
Any action which was geared to the liberation aim would surely have had a detailed plan to make it as painless for iraqis as possible. However I believe the motivation was not primarily for this reason.
Saddam was a convenient bogeyman, who we knew to be weak and that we could roll over pretty quickly militarily (which we did) and thus makes the US/UK look the knights in shining armour to the rest of the world. I believe in the absence of any real leads on those responsible for the 9/11 atrocities made Iraq an easy target to satisfy the need for vengeance in the whitehouse, with the added carrot of having a compliant oil producing state under its wing.
As for the election I also disagree, I have seen straighter boomerangs. The great scandal being those incorrectly bumped off the electoral roll (by a GOP contributing company) and being denied a vote in the first place.
If nuclear weapons are neccessary as a deterrent shouldn't Iran be allowed to have them as insurance against possible attack from the US or Israel, ditto do you not think that North Korea feels that nukes are the only deterrent they have against the US attacking them.
As for your last point well, that was our view on Iraq during the war with iran, when millions died at the hands of saddam.
Still I guess we shall have to agree to disagree on this one.
G Dubya can f off. He is a war mongering turd in the pay of the oil industry and his political allies are among the nastiest group of far right thugs since the Nazi's
With a bit of luck it'll hasten the downfall of Tony B.Liar when the Met get heavy-handed with the protestors and turn whole areas of Central London into no-go areas for the British electorate