Which cretinous spin doctor decided that Tony Blair deliver his defence lecture from on board a naval vessel? This obvious stunt just served to remind everyone of George Bush's famous speech from the deck of an American carrier after the first stage of the war in Iraq when he declared the war was over and the US had won. Over 2000 more US and British service people and countless thousands of Iraqis have died since that supposed victory celebration.
Blair's speech was equally delusional, littered with statements of the blindingly obvious, further desperate attempts to rewrite history to justify his disastrous invasion of Iraq and more irresponsible slurs on the Muslim community, which will innevitably contribute to the stoking of the flames of Islamophobia.
In the speech the Prime Minister remained in a state of denial over the role his support for Bush's foreign policies, particularly the invasion of Iraq, has played in recruiting terrorists. He sought to portray himself as the leader of a warrior nation taking the decisions to exercise "hard power", i.e. to wage war, which other feckless politicians and countries have shirked.
Tony Blair has used the British army to enable him to strut the world stage, making the most catastrophic foreign policy mistakes in the history of this country since Suez, which many believe have been paid for with the suffering and lost lives of both British military and Iraqi civilian families.
He tried to argue in his speech that the choice for our country was between a country that could use both humanitarian and miltary means to secure peace and progress in the world or a country that took the easy way out by avoiding conflict and just concentrating on the much lees risky role of conflict prevention and peacekeeping.
This is the classic New Labour rhetorical device of setting out unreal options. Blairite sophistry at its worst.
The choice is not between some cowardly avoidance of one's duty and the brave commitment to war and blood sacrifice.
It is the choice between a Prime Minister who seeks to promote and secure peace and one that engages in the bloody invasion of a country in support of a Bush regime whose motives were to secure the control Iraqi oil and a dominant strategic military presence in the Middle East.
