Tony Blair: Shock and Awe, Hell and Damnation

“God damn you, Tony Blair, God damn you.” So says United Kingdom parliamentarian, George Galloway, who seems to have made a justified assessment of what constitutes a war criminal. Tony Blair brought “shock and awe” and “Hell and damnation” to so many, the legacy of which still goes on everyday for countless people. Unsurprisingly he has already been found guilty of war crimes by a Malaysian tribunal, in a country not under United States domination. Yet Tony Blair is being remembered for what some consider good deeds and not the legacy of death he has left in his wake everywhere he has waged war. Mark Anthony’s Shakespearean oration over the body of Caesar tells us: “The evil that men do lives after them: the good is oft interred with their bones.” Future generations must ensure that those who write the history books do not simply remember Blair for his so-called charitable trusts.

Tony Blair was awarded Save the Children’s highly-regarded Global Legacy Award in the US on November 19, 2014. This award immediately met with criticism worldwide, spawning countless articles about the decision. A few days later a 38 Degrees petition was started by Miranda Pinch here in the UK requesting that Save the Children rescind the award. In just two days, there have been more than 100,000 signatures, showing that Blair is not quite as popular as his office would like people to think. Furthermore workers at Save the Children have sent a letter about their disapproval of the choice. Save the Children’s highly-paid directors have been fending off this criticism by saying the award was given for Blair’s charitable trust funding in Africa. The Global Legacy Award is one of three awards this year for Mr Blair’s charity trust funding.

Most people can see through the flimsy veil thrown over Blair’s widespread slaughter and bloodshed by his foundations as a cover to promote a favorable image. A former employer in the Tony Blair Faith Foundation wrote of Blair’s messianic autocracy in a similar way to how Clare Short described the diktats Blair delivered in cabinet meetings. “I started to feel as if I was in the presence of an Old Testament prophet. The answers had been revealed to him. And he was revealing them to the world.”

Wherever there is war and political unrest, there is Tony Blair with a figurative Molotov cocktail in his blood-soaked hands, ever eager to fuel the flames. The former British Prime Minister arrived in London on July 21, 2014 with the primary intention of fomenting further conflict in areas that were before relatively safe and stable. The ostensible official reason for the visit was to celebrate 20 years after his becoming Prime Minister. He was asked on his arrival by Michael Crick (Channel 4 News): “Why are you in London, Mr Blair?” Crick suggested that, as peace envoy, should he not be in Gaza, which is being continually bombed by his friends in Tel Aviv?  It was a question for which Blair had not prepared, and consequently Crick was ignored. This failure, or disinclination to solve problems in the middle east, is why a petition has been created calling on Ban Ki-moon to sack Blair as Middle-East envoy.

Blair is rarely short of words, but he was as gobsmacked when Crick caught him unawares, as gobsmacked even as on the occasion when he was asked: “Do you have blood on your hands Prime Minister?” This was after the death of weapons inspector, Dr David Kelly, whose body had been found only hours before in a copse on Harrowdown Hill. Tony Blair, through his old flatmate, Lord Falconer, had already prepared to bypass the proper procedure of a coroner’s inquest by arranging the Hutton Inquiry to whitewash over Dr Kelly’s death, which many believe was state murder. Tony Blair’s preparation for the Hutton Inquiry was set in motion at about the same time as the pathologist, Dr Nicholas Hunt, arrived at the scene where Dr Kelly died, and some 12 hours before any report could be made. There could have been no knowledge at the time the Inquiry was initiated as to the cause of death, yet a government inquiry was already under way.

The real reason Blair was in London in July 2014, of course, was to rally Europe to build up a European army to face off Russia instead of relying all the time on US initiatives. While admitting that he was a great fan of the US — and even those who dislike Blair would concede him that much — he urged Europe to build up its own defenses instead of relying so much on Washington. Blair, who has failed everywhere unless his prime intent was to create failure — not an unreasonable assumption — clearly pointed out that the enemy was Russia, and Europe needed to stand up to Vladimir Putin. Until the western-funded coup in Kiev, although Ukraine was economically insecure, it was a relatively peaceful place, and a very peaceful state when compared to what it has become. In less than 12 months 4,000 people have been killed in Ukraine’s civil war: the first civil war since the end of the Russian civil war in the early 1920s. Having created failed states in Afghanistan and Iraq, Blair was turning his rhetoric towards a failed state in Ukraine.

Tony Blair has much blood on his hands. Tony Brierley, father of soldier Shaun Brierley killed in Afghanistan, refused to shake it. This is understandable. When you lose someone precious in a futile war, which has left countless soldiers and civilians dead and the country upon which you declared war a virtual tinder box, you have every right to be cold shouldered towards the person who instigated this war. In 2009 Brierly told Blair “your hand has my son’s blood on it, and all of the other men and women who died in this war.” Of course, Afghanistan was not the only wasteland Blair helped to create. Iraq has never been stable since the night Bush and Blair were shocking us all with the awesome destruction of this ancient land of culture and multi-culture, which was at relative peace prior to their intervention.

Before the Iraq War, which Tony Blair was determined to commit us to, come Hell or high water, he would lie openly on television when he told an audience of skeptical women that if it was oil NATO countries were after, then we could always negotiate with Saddam. He lied about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, and about a 20-minute capability to strike. Everybody today knows that the ministry of oil was the first place seized by western warmongers to install their puppets. Many lies have slipped through Blair’s viperous fangs and forked tongue in a stream of venomous verbiage that strikes at the weak and vulnerable. The man is possessed. While Blair was not alone in lying to take us into an illegal war, he has proved himself to be a master of the art of the almost-believable.

Editor’s Notes: Photographs one, four, five and seven by Jason; composite two by Duncan Hull; photograph eight by Adrian Wallett, and composite six from Truthout.