[PEN-L:36260] "Are we witnessing the madness of Tony Blair?"

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Matthew Parris, entertaining liberal conservative columnist in the Times,
who actually opposed this war before it started, has the space in Gramscian
terms to post this serious article. It will be seriously read.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,482-626898,00.html

IMO interesting extracts:


> Did he this week stop for a moment to think what impression would be made
> on grieving parents by his wild-eyed suggestion (based on misinformation)
> that two British soldiers had been executed by the Iraqis in cold blood?


> He keeps retreating into a hopeless, desperate optimism: another sign of
> lunacy. He seems to have promised the Americans he could deliver Europe,
> and told the Europeans he could tame America. There was scant ground for
> hope on the first score and none on the second.


I do not actually agree with the hypothesis, because I think Blair has used
his excess stress to build up public perceptions of the sincerity of his
position. It think also he has a better exit strategy from this disastrous
war than Bush, and is just about to cut a deal with Putin on getting in
humanitarian aid.

But certainly Blair has scored a bad own goal by his accusations about the
Iraqis executing prisoners. The family of one of the two Brits remain
extremely angry and for the second day running the mass selling Mirror, is
attacking the slender basis of this accusation. Today it mocks the clumsy
nature of the government's apology.

This story may be important for the propaganda battle in the US. I note a
US spokesperson leading the list of Saddam's crimes as "executing
prisoners". But the evidence of these two dead sappers is based apparently
only on two facts: that Al Jazeera filmed their bodies lying some distance
away from the vehicle which was blown up, and without the standard
regulation flak jacket. But as there were exultant crowds around the
vehicle some time, had elapsed and it is quite possible the bodies had been
initially searched for information, and then laid out. But as the pictures
are supposed to be too gruesome for our sentitive western eyes, we cannot
judge for ourselves about the evidence that Tony Blair blurted out on (US?)
military advice, at his news conference with Bush, was final proof of the
barbarity of Saddam's regime. Unfortunately a British officer had already
briefed the family that the sapper had died instantly, honourably, in the
course of routine military duties.The family have angrily asked why the
British government is lying.

Not for the first time that the British government has been found to be
post-modernist with the truth, but on this occasion it is drawing a veil
over whether the military advice was US or UK.

No, I personally do not think Blair is mad, but I pinch myself that he has
walked into such a total political disaster. Basically I think the UK media
is more searching than the US, but even it cannot articulate the monumental
nature of this strategic miscalculation, or really understand how Blair, so
keen on focus groups, put himself out on such a strategic limb.

Without invoking insanity as an explanation, Parris is correct to ask
whether the divide between "Europe" and America led by Bush and Rumsfeld is
too great even for a gymnast like Blair. It is fundamentally about how much
one individual can straddle and reconcile the inter-imperialist
contradictions as they are sharpened by popular resistance across the
world. Which individuals crack up first is part of the particularity of
manifestation of the deeper contradictions.

Chris Burford
London