October 8, 2001

Tony Blair: The Mad Bomber of Kabul
Tony Blair has finally lost the plot

Author's note. Literally as I finished the spellchecker on this I heard that the bombing of Kabul had started. The immediate relevance of this piece may have diminished, but let's remember that the insanity of the leader America's "foremost ally" is a crucial point here. Let's pray that this will soon be over and that only the terrorists suffer.

It wasn't the outright lies that did it for me when Tony Blair addressed the faithful at the Labour Party conference. Tony Blair is such a prodigious liar, even by the competitive standards set by politicians, that a lie disproved again and again like 60% of our trade being with the EU struck me as boring rather than outrageous. It wasn't the half-truths, such as the Taliban having the worlds largest drugs horde – even if it is because they have not been letting the stuff on the market at America's insistence. It is the sheer terror realising that someone who is quite simply insane wants to run the world.

Just think about what he is saying. He's not talking about anything limited like topping Bin Laden, destroying al-Qaeda or even toppling the Taliban. That would be too easy. It is to "re-order the world around us". That's right. This military action is not an act of vengeance, and not an act to make the West safe from any threat. We are to re-make the world.

Before looking at the mad, mad ways in which he intends to endanger us, let us look at just the mental colossus with which we are dealing. Here is his take on American history:

But I think of the Union of America born out of the defeat of slavery.

Oh dear, obviously he skipped the bit about the American Revolution, or perhaps he thinks that King George was the President of the confederacy. It may be easy to sneer at the simplistic suggestions that follow, but just remember that we are dealing with, in intellectual rather than political terms, an imbecile.

Let's have a look at some of the fun new ideas that he is putting forward:

A Partnership for Africa, between the developed and developing world based around the New African Initiative, is there to be done if we find the will.

On our side: provide more aid, untied to trade; write off debt; help with good governance and infrastructure; training to the soldiers, with UN blessing, in conflict resolution; encouraging investment; and access to our markets so that we practise the free trade we are so fond of preaching.

But it's a deal: on the African side: true democracy, no more excuses for dictatorship, abuses of human rights; no tolerance of bad governance, from the endemic corruption of some states, to the activities of Mr. Mugabe's henchmen in Zimbabwe. Proper commercial, legal and financial systems.

The will, with our help, to broker agreements for peace and provide troops to police them.

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Emmanuel Goldstein is the pseudonym of a political drifter on the fringes of English classical liberal and Euro-sceptic activity. He is a former member of the Labour Party, who knows Blair and some of his closest buddies better than they realise, yet. He has a challenging job in the real world, working for a profit-making private company and not sponging off the taxpayer in politics, journalism or the civil service. "Airstrip One," appears Mondays at Antiwar.com.

There is a word for this, its Empire. Most people think that the latest unpleasantness will end with the dismemberment of an Islamic terrorist network. Instead, it will extend to Africa. Why? Because this is something he's been thinking about a long time, and wouldn't it be so easy to provide just a few troops and just a bit of foreign aid and some investment (only slightly subsidised). Of course, the presence of our troops will be minimal, only policing flash points and to provide training and some advice. Quite how many flash points there will be and quite how far the training and advice will extend is not mentioned. Nevertheless, "all" Africa will be required to provide is to allow the structure of their government to be decided in the West. Tony Blair may think that this is different to late Victorian colonialism, although (and this is the terrifying part) it assumes that he even bothered to think about it at all.

To take a slightly more concrete example:

It [the international community] could, with our help, sort out the blight that is the continuing conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where three million people have died through war or famine in the last decade.

That's right, sort it out. The Democratic Republic of the Congo. Does he have any idea of what he is saying? As anyone who has spent more than five minutes studying this conflict could tell you it has been "sorted out" by the international community so thoroughly that 3 million have died there. Angola and Zimbabwe on one side, Uganda and Rwanda on the other. Of course, we could go back a bit further and look at the last time the international community "sorted it out". King Leopold was given the Congo as a personal estate – anything else would have given this to a big power – if he hasn't read history, he won't have read the Heart of Darkness. If anyone wants a more concrete example of how arrogance trumps experience, you'd be hard pressed to find it.

However, rebuilding Africa is not enough for a man divorced from the trifling constraints of reality. There is also a millennium old religious divide to heal:

And if we wanted to, we could breathe new life into the Middle East Peace Process and we must.

The state of Israel must be given recognition by all; freed from terror; know that it is accepted as part of the future of the Middle East not its very existence under threat. The Palestinians must have justice, the chance to prosper and in their own land, as equal partners with Israel in that future.

Now call me a pedant; but when the conclusions are pre-stated then there is not much of a process. Moreover, if one of the two party's can’t be persuaded or bribed into supporting all the conclusions (as it may fairly be pointed out they haven't so far), how do we enforce it? Yes we, as in Britain. Of course, if it was someone else I would just dismiss it as bluster – but remember this is the man who seriously suggests that we put in a "Partnership for Africa" and has sent troops to Sierra Leone.

However, we really know about his sense of proportion and ability to see things in the whole when we read this about Kosovo:

The sceptics said it was pointless, we'd make matters worse, we'd make Milosovic stronger and look what happened, we won, the refugees went home, the policies of ethnic cleansing were reversed and one of the great dictators of the last century, will see justice in this century.

Ethnic cleansing was reversed? Not for the Serbs, gypsies or Jews – who under the noses of the world's most powerful military alliance were cleansed from their homes. Or the tinpot Milosovic who was one of the century's greatest dictators, up there with Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Lenin and Pol Pot? Now if he had any sense of history I would say that that is just stupid, instead it is a mixture of laziness and craziness. Of course, we will pass over the fact that Milosovic was stronger thanks to our intervention, and was actually toppled from within by forces that would have moved earlier if we had not attacked their nation.

And let's look at the latter day Issiah's latest quite frightening take on Rwanda:

And I tell you if Rwanda happened again today as it did in 1993, when a million people were slaughtered in cold blood, we would have a moral duty to act there also. We were there in Sierra Leone when a murderous group of gangsters threatened its democratically elected Government and people.

So what about China's one child policy, Tony? Do we have a moral duty there as well?

To finish off, there is this gem:

We will take action at every level, national and international, in the UN, in G8, in the EU, in NATO, in every regional grouping in the world, to strike at international terrorism wherever it exists.

Like bombing Serb civilians at 15,000 feet?

The truly frightening thing about Blair is not what he stands for. It is not even his total lust for power. What is frightening about him is that he is insane. And he's in charge of the asylum.

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