Blair’s Speech
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The century of humilition stuff that is pumped into schoolkids heads in China gets on my wick. They are poisoned from a very young age that China is the eternal victim and there is no attempt at historical reconciliation. If young Vietnamese can be broadly comfortable in their relationship with the US, so too should Chinese be more relaxed about their place in the world. Their historical self-image obsessed about this narrow window of their past, and glaring blank spots where famine of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution should sit - events that are far more relevant, scarring and traumatic to the China of today.
A lot of Chinese I suspect they know in the long run, as a country they backed the wrong horse in the CCP. After WW2, if the KMT had prevailed in the civil war, there's a high chance that China would have been a superpower held in genuine global esteem, probably in higher esteem than the USA had history taken its course and they liberalised just as Taiwan had liberalised.
An old Chinese collegue of mine confessed something to that effect after too many glasses of baijiu one evening.
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If we're assigning guilt, and there's plenty to go around in Iraq, put it in the right place. I don't believe there's anyone in the thread who has said the war was advisable or morally the correct course of action (including me if you want to re-read my posts).
If there's a guilty verdict, make the coalition guilty for the deaths they were responsible for. My point is basic, Blair is not responsible for the deaths of 1.2 million people. 20'000 civilians (probably more) dead from f*ck up airstrikes is bad enough, but lets not over egg the pudding. There was some apocolypticly bad people active tearing the country to pieces and murdering hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis - overwhelmingly, they were Iraqis and other Arab extremists in rapture to sectarianism and Islamic extremism.
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The century of humilition stuff that is pumped into schoolkids heads in China gets on my wick. They are poisoned from a very young age that China is the eternal victim and there is no attempt at historical reconciliation. If young Vietnamese can be broadly comfortable in their relationship with the US, so too should Chinese be more relaxed about their place in the world. Their historical self-image obsessed about this narrow window of their past, and glaring blank spots where famine of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution should sit - events that are far more relevant, scarring and traumatic to the China of today.
Have you spent any time in the North/South of Vietnam, because there is a serious difference in attitude towards America and their history, depending on where you are.
In any case, Vietnam is an entirely different culture to that of China. As for the century of humiliation, there are clear points where China was penalised by the western powers, or simply taken advantage of. I'm not seeking to justify their anger, but history itself shows the seeds for their resentment... and I've met many Chinese who aren't shy about talking about the cultural revolution or the other stupidities involved by Mao. Some see it, some don't. Some are indoctrinated, many more are not.
Which is why modern China is not the unified force that most westerners think it to be.
A lot of Chinese I suspect they know in the long run, as a country they backed the wrong horse in the CCP. After WW2, if the KMT had prevailed in the civil war, there's a high chance that China would have been a superpower held in genuine global esteem, probably in higher esteem than the USA had history taken its course and they liberalised just as Taiwan had liberalised.
Unlikely. There seems to be a lot of rose tinted glasses when it comes to the KMT, and avoidance of how they ruled Taiwan for decades. The KMT were far closer to fascism, and the expression of a military government than what democracies would have wanted. Oh! I know they would have tolerated them as an ally against communism, but the US has a long history of supporting monsters when it suited them.
Which would have been better for Chinese people? The KMT or the CCP? I suspect both would have been as brutal as each other. It's not as if China was a fair and wonderful nation before the communist revolution. But sure, I would suspect that many Chinese regretted siding with the Mao.. however, I can't imagine their other options were much better either.
An old Chinese collegue of mine confessed something to that effect after too many glasses of baijiu one evening.
Oh, I know. My ex's family, most of them ended up in Taiwan, while her own immediate family stayed in the mainland. A lot of anger and bitterness there, with links to both the CCP, and the KMT. I've heard similar from members of her family.. although I've heard a lot of other things too which supported the CCP, not out of fear, but out of loyalty.
If we're assigning guilt, and there's plenty to go around in Iraq, put it in the right place. I don't believe there's anyone in the thread who has said the war was advisable or morally the correct course of action (including me if you want to re-read my posts).
Put it in the right place? Sure... in the hands of the US, with Blair coming up a close second.
Nor did I say that anyone had stated the above (your quoted piece)... not even you. So, perhaps you should reread my posts before assigning points to me that I didn't make.
airstrikes is bad enough, but lets not over egg the pudding
Care to quote me as to where I've done that?
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I'll keep this to the Iraq issue.
Of the 1.2 million souls lost in that war, a very small fraction were lost to the hands of coalition forces. Little consolation to those families of the civilians that were killed by coalition f*ck ups, but there's a world of moral difference between a clumsily targetted airstrike and a car bomb in a crowded market by a suicidal religious extremist who wishes to wipe out as many Shiites/Sunnis/Kurds as they can in one shot. And there's the obvious distinction of scale of who was doing most of the killing.
That's the real story of the bloodletting in Iraq. But John Pilger needs to sell books,George Galloway needs to rant on Russia Today to burnish his pensions, the Guardian/NY Times/ need scoops and subscriptions - and sectarian warfare that wipes out hundreds of thousands isn't as sexy as trying to pin everything on Bush / Blair or whoever else you're having from the coalition.
Hezbollah, Baathist loyalists or Al Qaeda (very active in the conflict in the Sunni insurgency lest we forget) won't exactly be presenting themselves to Newsnight to be berated by Jeremy Paxman, and there's no faces to put before the Western media for all these deaths, so Blair will have to do.
Once again, the war should never have happened, was morally wrong on a number of levels, and the US and UK unleashed something they couldn't control. That thing was sectarian blood feudes going back centuries, and Iranian proxies taking their chance - and to be honest, we're wasting our time trying blame Blair or anyone else for that.
It was and is a deeply complex war. For simplicity's sake, and for those who don't get the texture of the Middle East, It's tempting to blame every drop of blood on Bush, Blair and assorted Ivy League and Oxbridge educated folk-baddies. I get that, but it's not exactly the truth is it? In fact it doesn't even approach the truth.
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It was and is a deeply complex war. For simplicity's sake, and for those who don't get the texture of the Middle East, It's tempting to blame every drop of blood on Bush, Blair and assorted Ivy League baddies. I get that, but it's not exactly the truth is it? In fact it doesn't even approach the truth.
Look back at my posts... and you'll see that my only consideration regarding the Iraq war is the justification it provides to other nations to engage in similar wars of aggression. Western nations can posture and moan about the freedoms of nations, but when it comes down to it, they started the ball rolling in the modern sense, or simply continued what they'd been doing previously. Which is why there is so much hypocrisy when people laud Blair for this stance on China, or the US with regards to Putin.
China is a risk to their neighbours. That's it really. They're not a risk to western nations, unless western nations seek to ally with other Asian nations. Which will happen.. but the realities are clear. A Chinese war of aggression is little different from a US war of aggression. We might coach it in nicer terms, but the civilian casualties involved in all Western wars puts the lie to such claims. As is the past behaviour of countries like the US, UK, France etc in installing or propping up governments which we'd consider to be monsters.. but it's okay because we did it. Whereas if China gets involved in such activities, it's terrible beyond belief.
It's not a defence of China.. or any nation that engages in such things. I don't like the double standards involved, nor the propaganda that we're expected to accept... hook, line, and sinker..
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I don't ever recall any suicide bomb attacks in Iraq before the invasion.
If say a body or authority goes into a random city and removes the police force from that said city and afterwards the murder and rape rates sky rocket surely that is the fault of the authority that intervened in said city.
The Iraq invasion was one of the biggest war crimes in the past 50 years, all the western propaganda cannot expunge that stench from the history books.
George Bush and Tony Blair are worse than Vladimir Putin.
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Again, I'll circle back to my initial point in response to an unfactual statement. Tony Blair, George Bush et al are not responsible for 1.2 m deaths in Iraq. They're responsible for what they're responsible for. Launching the war to overthrow Sadaam, the hubris to think there wouldn't be second-order consequences, and ultimately, the civilian collateral deaths that came from their forces, which numbered too many and will likely haunt Blair until he shuffles off this mortal coil.
The sectarian bloodletting belongs to the bad actors that committed those murders, which were widespread, happened in markets, schools, mosques up and down Iraq every day; and in numerical terms,outstripped Coalition Forces deaths by a factor of hundreds. If you want to ignore the black hand of Iran in partly sponsoring this madness go ahead. Sunni extremists doing the exact same thing sponsored by rouge elements in Saudi and Qatar also.
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Ooooh. That's not going to go down well.
Will be an interesting read though.
Fist bumping a murderous leader you said you would make a pariah while declaring sanctions on a different murderous leader for being a murderous leader while you yourself are guilty of being a murderous leader ..
Crazy world.
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Again, You're assigning a position to me that I didn't make myself. If you can't be bothered to deal with my own arguments, what's the bloody point in having a discussion...
Going to stop here because I suspect that's going to continue.
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Bush had the fact that he was president of the US and Blair was prime minister of Britain. And it has always (well, since the Second World War anyway) been the policy of British governments of ANY hue, Red or Blue, Labour or Conservative, to support America on just about every issue. Even during the Vietnam War, which Britain helped to instigate in the 1940s but was hopelessly powerless to engage in in the 1960s, the Labour government of Harold Wilson resisted the demands of the bulk of the British population to condemn American aggression in that country. Wilson's attitude was "he who pays the piper calls the tune" and Britain in those pre EEC membership days was utterly beholden on America for its military strength, its economic support and also for its self identity as a country aloof from the squabbling mainland Europeans.
Britain went to war in Iraq essentially because America asked them to. A conservative British government would have done EXACTLY the same.
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What's a "globalist" FFS?
Globalism isn't an ideology; it's a technology enabled facility. Why do we buy mobile phones from China and PCs from Taiwan?
Because we can.
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I wouldn't believe anything he says.
The US built up China by importing industry there and pumping it up full of money. Maybe stop doing that?
Inshoring of US companies has already begun in fact. Biden is a continuation of Trump.
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By attacking a country and regime that both he and Bush knew had nothing to do with 9/11 or had any WMD. They used the anger and pain of people for their own agenda.
His points are valid but I question his motives. We, the west, have been trading with China despite their human rights record. The tiananmen square massacre etc.. Ireland was even patting businesses on the head as great entrepreneurs for setting up in China and FF even sent a delegation over in about 2003.
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I'm not sure that stating that Britain helped to instigate the Vietnam war is correct - unless it's a reference to the British occupation of the south at the end of WW2. After a few months the French took control - although I didn't know until recently that the British engaged the Viet Minh in the time they were there.
As for the Americans in Vietnam in the 1960's, I recall reading that the US government wanted a UK military involvement in the war, [probably LBJ's administration]. The British refused.
I don't recall that the UK expressed an interest in getting involved.
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American policy makers were quite prepared to do a deal with Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh at the end of World War II to allow Vietnam to become independent of France but the British wouldn't wear it. They insisted that it be given back to the French. After all, they reasoned, if the Vietnamese managed to throw off the yoke of a colonial European power, the next thing would be that the Malayans and Indians (then also comprising Pakistan, Bangla Desh and Sri Lanka) and Burmese would want to do the same. And we can't have that, now can we.
A few years later that was all rendered moot, when the British proved themselves to be utterly incapable of hanging on to their Easter Empire and began withdrawing from all territories "east of Suez". And then in the 50s, they lost Suez as well.
And true, the British did not want to get involved in Vietnam in the 50s but nor were they in a position to oppose America too strenuously. So they gave them moral support despite the consensus view of their population that the Americans get out of Vietnam immediately. Google for footage of the riot outside the American Embassy in London in 1968 for evidence of that hostility.
It's a bit like successive Irish governments allowing American forces to stop off at Shannon despite almost zero support for that among the population.
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Larger scale immigration into UK during the Blair years came from when the EU added 9 countries into the EU back in 2004 meaning Freedom of movement. Sweden, United Kingdom and Ireland did not at the time add any stipulations as to how many people could relocate, work and live- unlike many other EU countries -Germany, France to name a few EU members, they put caveats as to how many and who could arrive into their countries. This was an EU members decision to vote and later ratify the nine additional members joining the EU - after prolonged application status to join.
Frau Merkel took the decision to open the German borders to aid the peoples from war torn Middle East in 2015. We can all recall the dreadful harrowing scenes of human suffering (still happening now). Frau Merkel opened up the German border to try and help, but acted as one country. That in my opinion later gave fuel to a fire of hate - haters from the right. The movements of mass peoples, suffering entering the other EU countries, with no plan how to handle, zero discussion, agreement, plan of the logistics did in my opinion cause problems for the EU - from a politics perspective I mean. The intention was only the best, help and aid the weary, terrified people. As numbers increased rapidly, alarm bells rang within Germany. Resident refugees in an EU country have freedom of movement to move around. I recall the comment from Frau Merkel then stated that there needs to be a fair distribution of peoples around the EU.- no discussion with other EU members how this could happen. This did at the time cause some concern and alarm from other EU members. From a humanitarian perspective, it was correct. Germany had over 1 million arrive in one year. That is a huge amount of people. Many still living there, playing active happy lives and roles.
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Many still living there, playing active happy lives and roles.
Many aren't though. Have you ever seen the Turkish district in Frankfurt? Sure, that's from an earlier wave of immigration but there are similar examples in other German cities from the more recent waves. German is not the language spoken there. Signs are not in German. Most of the shops/services are operated by Turks, and the police avoid the area completely.
That's the reality of mass immigration. As France has found out, and so too has the UK. As populations of a foreign ethnic group rise, suburbs are overtaken, with the locals pushed out, until there is enough influence/pressure to enforce the foreign culture on that area.. and while that might sound harmless, what happens when 8-9 suburbs are taken over by various national groups?
It's true that many are playing happy lives and roles. It's also true that generational welfare dependency is present in such groups, along with a wide range of social problems, from unemployment, domestic abuse, to crime.
Blair added to the problems already present from the UKs immigration from former colonies, and those from the commonwealth. He joined with those like Merkel, with an irresponsible short-term view on immigration, failing to consider what kind of society would arise from such influxes of foreign populations without any effective/proven means of bringing about integration (whatever that actually means), or assimilation (now considered something of a bad word).
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Talking about fighting the wind. The Empire was on borrowed time after the surrender at Singapore to the Japanese.
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lol This f**king gadge, what will next weeks termerity lecture to the great unwashed be about, not to invade Iraq?
Some of us seen over 30 years ago the dangers of pumping the Chinese dictatorship full of money for their materialistic trash, not good auld Tony though, now suddenly he has a problem with it. Simp.
"You have disgraced yourselves again" - W. B. Yeats
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