Posts Tagged ‘Saddam Hussein’
Assassination Is the Ethical Option.
I am for assassination of Putin and key Russian government and military officers.
This is the option that minimises casualties and puts most risk on professionals who have chosen their role. Special forces would welcome this task. They may bear heavy casualties before they succeed but they are volunteers and it is better than the death of civilians, particularly children. Multiple small teams infiltrating by helicopter, HALO parachute jump and every possible route equipped with our most sophisticated weaponry. Many will die but only one needs to succeed.
It’s what we should have done with Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, Netanyahu and Assad. In any circumstances, if there is justification for action that may result in civilian casualties, there is better justification for assassination. It’s the ethical option.
Was Tony Blair A Force For Good?
My Non-Appearance On Sunday Morning Live
Since Wednesday the BBC had been in touch every day. This morning they started calling me and testing my webcam and sound from 8.30am. They had me sitting at my desk from 9.45am, 15 minutes before the programme started. I was warned I could be in shot at anytime. I drank too much coffee. I did get a little nervous and jittery. I was desperate for a cigarette even though I gave up six months ago!
Who was that suave, debonair, good looking chap in the crisp white shirt on the background screens? Yours truly of course, waiting patiently for my big moment, trying not to sneer or laugh too raucously at the ridiculous first discussion on animals.
I had my notes blu-tacked to the window frame right behind my webcam, adjusted so that viewers would never lose deep, seductive eye contact with me.
“We’re coming to you now Peter”
“Stand by”
I fancy I can see Susanna Reid flushing slightly in anticipation of introducing me…
“Uh, sorry Peter, we’re not going to be able to come to you. Out of time I’m afraid.”
Such are the trials and tribulations of my life! Suddenly the programme was over.
You'll Get Your Chance, Gorgeous
Turning to far more important things, the dogs and I set off for the hills. My mobile rang and it was Anna from the BBC, apologising and promising me dinner and a hot night with Susanna all at the corporation’s expense. “No, sorry, I can’t be bought off. Call me tomorrow. I’m too busy now.”
On the panel in the studio had been Mary Whitehouse’s successor, frumpy Anne Atkins and the utter jerk, Francis Beckett. What a prat? Why would anyone want to listen to his obnoxious, ill considered views, delivered with all the grace of a blind, three legged rhino?
Was Tony Blair a force for good? This was the question I was supposed to be answering. The BBC had come to me as a result of this article. I had, of course, considered my response and this is what I intended to say.
Was Tony Blair A Force For Good?
I do not count myself as a Tony Blair supporter. I never voted for him. In fact, at all those elections I deliberately spoiled my ballot papers writing “no suitable candidate” across them. I am an admirer though.
I think you have to give him credit for a number of things. He rescued Labour from its madness and turned it into a credible and electable political party. That was good for democracy. He finished off the good work that Margaret Thatcher had done on the unions. He was her true successor. Now the only nutters that we have left are Tweedledum and Twitterdee from Unite and the mad and bad Bob Crowe from the railways.
You have to give him huge credit for Northern Ireland, for Kosovo and Sierra Leone. I think he was also responsible for a fundamental change in British politics in that he reconciled caring with competition. For the first time it was accepted that you could have a social conscience but still believe in business and the free market.
On Iraq, clearly it is a good thing that we got rid of Saddam Hussein although, personally, I think we should have assassinated him. If there was a moral justification for war, for shock and awe, then there was for assassination. Even if we had lost thousands of special forces that would have been better than hundreds of thousands of innocents. I do think that Blair became carried away with George Bush and that was a mistake. Bush will be forgotten long before Blair. He was not of the same calibre. All he had to offer was the might and power of America.
Fundamentally, what you have to ask is did Tony Blair act in good faith? I believe he did. I believe he is an honourable man. Look backwards from Blair to Thatcher and there’s noone else until Churchill and then Lloyd George. That is the company in which Tony Blair will be remembered. He is a great man.
I Was There For You Tone!
The one thing I really don’t understand in this man of vision and intelligence is his conversion to Catholicism. I can just about accept his Christianity although why a man with his intellect needs organised religion I don’t know. I really can’t understand why he wants to be allied to the institution that has been responsible for more evil over the last 2000 years than any other. I think it demeans him. He has far, far more to offer the world than that stupid old bigot the Pope, for instance. It seems to me the Catholic Church will benefit far more from him than he will from it. That’s his business though.
Send British Troops To Gaza. Nazi Israel Must Be Stopped.
The Israeli pirate assault on aid ships seeking to relieve the besieged people of Gaza is just the latest atrocity from this vile and inhuman regime.
Stormtroopers Against Saints
Israel now represents just as much a threat to civilisation as did Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. It constantly flouts UN resolutions, commits war crimes and we are certain that it has weapons of mass destruction. The civilised world needs to step in. Israel must be stopped at all costs and this is a cause that it is worth our troops dying for. It is more urgent and pressing than Afghanistan. British troops would be better employed in crushing the evil Israelis than they are in fighting the Taliban. If we do not stand up against the great Nazi evil that Israel has become then we have no right to call ourselves civilised
We should send in the Navy and smash the Israeli blockade, open up a sea corridor to allow aid and relief in. HMS Daring, with the most advanced anti-aircraft weaponry in the world, should stop tootling up and down the south coast and blast the Israeli air force out of the sky. The time for negotiating with and appeasing this pariah state is past. We must take decisive action now.
Israel
I am not anti-semitic because Arabs are Semites just as much as Jews. I am not anti-Jewish but I don’t understand the relationship betwen the state of Israel and the Jewish religion. I am anti-Israel and all men of honour, decency and common sense must be. Its conduct in Gaza and throughout Palestine is beyond any justification. Its conduct is always disproportionate. Its whinging about the little fireworks that the Palestinians shoot in is pathetic. If my country was being oppressed and bullied then I would react at least the same. Suicide bombers against Israeli targets are equally as justified and heroic as any suicide mission against the Nazis in the Second World War.
War Criminal
This may well be my generation’s equivalent of the Spanish Civil War. Give me a chance to fight against the fascist Israelis and I don’t see how my conscience could deny it. They need to be given a dose of their own medicine and pulverised into submission, forced to withdraw from the settlements, forced to abandon their entire national strategy and policy. It is clear that the world made a great mistake in establishing the state of Israel. Perhaps we should have left them to their fate.
Prime Minister Netanyahu is presently in Canada, a nation famed for its defence of freedom and justice. He should be immediately arrested and detained as a war criminal.
The onus is now on us. Obama and Cameron must step up to the plate and condemn this action outright. US and UK forces must join in this most urgent mission. Leave the rest of Europe to dither as usual. We must get on with the job.
Karadzic Faces The Music
It was heartwarming to see Karadzic looking frightened and vulnerable before the very dignified Judge Alphons Orie at the war crimes tribunal. We must now grant him undeserved due process before he is sentenced, undoubtedly to life imprisonment.
I am deeply and fundamentally opposed to the death penalty but I will glady make exceptions for subhuman monsters like Karadzic and Mladic as the Iraqis did for Saddam Hussein. It would be good to see Karadzic twitching and jerking at the end of a rope. In fact, why not spare him the drop and let him strangle slowly.
Peter Reynolds 