From: hjkhjkhd@hhhh.com   
      
   General Sir Richard Dannatt's comments about the British Army in Iraq are to   
   be welcomed. I've suspected for some time that the Min. of Def. have been   
   spinning and choking news about the dreadful situation out there. Blair   
   looked fucked off at the press conference and tried to say that the general   
   was only saying what *he'd* been saying all along. Now that was a bit of   
   classic Blair: a complete, utter and demonstrable lie told bare-faced on   
   international broadcasting networks. Respeck to the general for speaking up   
   for the poor bloody infantry.   
   At the start of the war in Iraq I was very much in favour of the invasion.   
   During the lead-up to it I had a play on the fringe in London and was   
   exposed every day to theatrical luvvy-lefties banging on about the war,   
   hijacking the box office of my play with Stop the War stuff, and talking   
   crap about how 9/11 was a conspiracy by the CIA and the planes was radio   
   controlled bombs. My political outlook was changing somewhat at the time   
   and, kind of in the spirit that Orwell attacked pacifists, I enjoyed   
   pillorying anti-war people; mainly because I got the impression that the   
   ones I met had been quite happy to skip past Saddam's atrocities in the   
   world news sections of their newspapers but suddenly got righteous because   
   the hated Americans were involved.   
   And it has to be allowed that the Americans made a fine old fuck up of the   
   situation. Rumsfield being the arch-criminal. So I changed my mind. The   
   whole invasion was of course about getting a foothold to make sure that   
   Saudi Arabia keeps selling us the stuff that makes the planes fly. The Yanks   
   are committed to the project and it was their big idea. It is the great   
   mystery of the Blair years as to why this democratic socialist government   
   wanted in on the adventure. I have come reluctantly round to the reactionary   
   right-wing view of the scrimmage: our own society and democracy is degrading   
   fast: what the fuck are we doing sending the army off - with niggardly   
   rations of equipment - to try and impose democracy in other countries? If   
   you're like Nick Cohen and the rest of the Euston Manifestoids then you'll   
   likely disagree with my assertion that ten years of wanky left govt haven't   
   exactly made things better in British society - making things better after   
   the spivvery of Thatcherism was the reason I and many others voted for them.   
   The Blair govt is a madhouse. Derek Draper, who had a breakdown as Mandelson's   
   second banana and decamped to California to train as a psychotherapist,   
   wrote in the Daily Mail on Thursday that for all the ministers bar Blair,   
   New Labour was a Faustian pact. Politicians like Benn and Thatcher stayed   
   sane because they believed 100 per cent in their own positions. Whereas:   
   '.New Labour was different from the start. In essence it was a political   
   strategy that involved the rejection of who you had always been.'   
   Talking about David Blunkett and Alistair Campbell's admissions about their   
   poor levels of mental health, Draper says: '.(they) knew on some level that   
   Blairism was a political sleight of hand and its contradictions played on   
   their minds. Blair alone remains on the inside of the trick, looking out.'   
   Meanwhile the worst upshot of this vast trick is still playing itself   
   bloodily out in the Middle East.   
      
   --   
   Tertium Quid   
      
   http://oldbonesoftheriver.blogspot.com/   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)