Well done Tony Blair/Labour 3rd term and a statement.

[SuLinUX]

Congratulations to Tony Blair and labour for a historic third term, even with the anti-war vote failed to make a serious impact on a good UK prime minister.

I'd like to say how distrubed I am about the personal attacks on Tony Blair about the war in iraq. He was right to go to war and free the iraqie people and remove Sadam, the biggest WMD of all. It's a sad day indeed that George Galloway who shaked the hand of a mass murder, gets elected because of his pointless anti-war compaign, sad indeed.

Stop the personal attacks on Tony Blair just because you disagree with him on the iraq war, after all a anti-war vote againest Blair is pointless. Lots of Labour MP's voted againest the war anyway so your protest vote is wasted. The iraqie people voted at risk of being killed and still came out to speak, it's sad that ONLY 64% of people voted in this country.

[vampireuk]

I'm glad the Iraq war did not have a huge impact like the vocal loud bastard minority claimed it would do. I voted Conservative myself but either labor or conservative are acceptable to myself. Any party that will not bow to terrorism and sell out our countrys military is fine by me, hence I didn't vote for the pinko lib dems. :p

[Sazar]

Congrats to Blair.

Wrt your statement, we all have our own views on the subject. Some of us feel very strongly one way or the other and seeing the same information, view it differently.

The British system allows for criticism and for that it is to be applauded. The "town hall" style discussions there allow for the whole gamut of feelings to be seen and heard unlike in the US and for that England is to be commended.

[sytaylor]

I would second the idea that the "term" liar was too strong and a mistake by the tories. Tony would have been better just using his legal advice that 1441 permitted military action. Just go "look: see, its legal STFU".

[Son Goku]

The British system allows for criticism and for that it is to be applauded. The "town hall" style discussions there allow for the whole gamut of feelings to be seen and heard unlike in the US and for that England is to be commended.

Actually, this might somewhat depend (specifically wrt primaries) in the US. Depending on where you have lived, you might be a bit unfamiliar with this, and quite understandably...

Some places, such as New Jersey (my birth state) and here in New Mexico, we do have primary elections, where one steps in the voter booth and castes their vote for whatever candidate. However, the time between my parents retirement (when I was 16) and when I moved out here, I lived in Lincolnville, ME. Specifically in Maine, they didn't have primary elections but a town caucus. In the case of the caucus, it was more akin to what is being described with a town meeting type format, where the people in the town discussed their views, opinions, feelings, and then took a more informal breaking up into groups (supporting whatever candidate), who's numbers were then counted... This was then taken as the number of votes for each primary candidate. The November election was done in similar fashion as elsewhere I've seen in the country, except that they used a ballot box, and had no electronic voting machines. (Maine was somewhat behind the times technologically...) The experience at a town caucus was a bit different, then the experience I've had with primaries (most noteably out here in NM).

It was in such a caucus, that I ended up getting selected (by the group) as an alternate (became delegate as the actual delegate couldn't show) for the state convention, and almost became an elector (though short a few signatures, due to our town being divided between 2 seperate congressional districts, and no knowing who was in what district...)

Sy, is your system more akin to the caucus system here (in jurisdictions where caucuses are held), or?

All said, and based on some of sy's description of the UK electroal system, there are some aspects that I do like... Moving to a three party system I would rather prefer, though for obvious reasons, I don't think we're likely to see that in the US anytime soon.

[sytaylor]

Whats a caucus system? :)

[ChAsM]

Congrats to Tony Blair. :beer: Like Bush, the man follows his heart for what he believes to be right. This makes him genuine; not perfect, but genuine.

Anyone who claims Blair joined Bush in the liberation of Iraq as a puppet is clueless. It simply was two genuine leaders convinced what they were doing was in their best interest. I'll take a proactive leader to a reactive one any day. The people of the UK should be proud to have a leader willing to risk his career for what he believes. Bravo!

[Son Goku]

Whats a caucus system? :)

Sorry, thought I described the caucus which I had attended... This article seems to describe the caucuses I had attended, while still living in Maine...

http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/politicalsystem/a/delegateprocess.htm

The Caucus
Caucuses are simply meetings, open to all registered voters of the party, at which delegates to the party's national convention are selected. When the caucus begins, the voters in attendance divide themselves into groups according to the candidate they support. The undecided voters congregate into their own group and prepare to be "courted" by supporters of other candidates.

Voters in each group are then invited to give speeches supporting their candidate and trying to persuade others to join their group. At the end of the caucus, party organizers count the voters in each candidate's group and calculate how many delegates to the county convention each candidate has won.

As in the primaries, the caucus process can produce both pledged and unpledged convention delegates, depending on the party rules of the various states.

How Delegates are Awarded
The Democratic and Republican parties use different methods for determining how many delegates are awarded to, or "pledged" to vote for the various candidates at their national conventions.

Democrats use a proportional method. Each candidate is awarded a number of delegates in proportion to their support in the state caucuses or the number of primary votes they won.

For example, consider a state with 20 delegates at a democratic convention with three candidates. If candidate "A" received 70% of all caucus and primary votes, candidate "B" 20% and candidate "C" 10%, candidate "A" would get 14 delegates, candidate "B" would get 4 delegates and candidate "C" would get 2 delegates.

In the Republican Party, each state chooses either the proportional method or a "winner-take-all" method of awarding delegates. Under the winner-take-all method, the candidate getting the most votes from a state's caucus or primary, gets all of that state's delegates at the national convention.

One perhaps intervening step... We had a state level party convention. After voting for the candidates (in the local meetings described above) all people who voted for a given candidate, selected delegates to then attend the parties state convention, to represent them in support of whatever candidate they were pledged to. It was then at the state convention, that the delegates selected who would move onto the national convention...

[sytaylor]

Anyone who claims Blair joined Bush in the liberation of Iraq as a puppet is clueless. It simply was two genuine leaders convinced what they were doing was in their best interest. I'll take a proactive leader to a reactive one any day. The people of the UK should be proud to have a leader willing to risk his career for what he believes. Bravo!

I'd rather have one who didn't try to "sell" a 45 mins away from disaster type threat and had the decency to be up front with the people he leads about why Saddam was being removed. Yes he stood up for what he believed in, but when it came crunch time under the spotlights he went for sensationlism. I have no respect for that.

[ChAsM]

I'd rather have one who didn't try to "sell" a 45 mins away from disaster type threat and had the decency to be up front with the people he leads about why Saddam was being removed. Yes he stood up for what he believed in, but when it came crunch time under the spotlights he went for sensationlism. I have no respect for that.

I'd say it was more like idealism, if any negativity can be implied, than sensationalism. Given what happened here in the US on 9/11, perhpas it wasn't so cut and dry? To claim both leaders *knew* Iraq wasn't a threat - at the time - is still just a conspiracy theory. To err on the side of caution is the mark of a good leader, IMHO. Either way it was clear Saddam needed removed from power. Given Saddam's previous track record, I'd say it was good, cautious "righteous judgement". Sooner or later, it had to be done. Perhaps Saddam's son(s) wouldn't have been so "conservative".

[sytaylor]

Regardless of wether saddam was an immediate threat of not, he could be legitamatley removed under 1441. The rest is Blair cheerleading in the hope we won't think he is a bad man.

[ChAsM]

Regardless of wether saddam was an immediate threat of not, he could be legitamatley removed under 1441. The rest is Blair cheerleading in the hope we won't think he is a bad man.

Oh yeah, we should've left things in the capable good hands of the UN. Oh yeah, for 10+ years we did...and they did - nothing. Remove the French from the UN and I'll consider giving them another chance; well, maybe. :D The UN was one of those great ideas that went really wrong. The concept makes sense, but the finished product is disconcerting to say the least.

[sytaylor]

Dude, we should have, and did go legally on the basis of 1441. I never said anything about relying on the UN, you've made that up. Nowhere did I say it.

[ChAsM]

Dude, we should have, and did go legally on the basis of 1441. I never said anything about relying on the UN, you've made that up. Nowhere did I say it.

Open mouth; insert foot. Sorry about that sy. :crosseye:

[SuLinUX]

It's distirbing that people didn't think Sadam was a thread to us because we are thousands of miles away, Blair seen this and took action as you people elected him to do. The US didn't think Japan was in WW2 but they made a huge mistake for there ignorance. 9/11 was another reminder the US thinking it was safe and Sadam could put something like that together if he could, thankfully Bush and Blair put a stop to this while others where sitting on there arse.

Everybody knows Sadam needed to be removed unfortunally not many people listened and maybe Blair had to shout louder, make things appear worse as they would have been in the future anyway.

[9point9]

Why wasn't he removed earlier though? They should have carried on in the Gulf War and taken him then. Nobody would have argued with that at the time.

[DaveW]

Why wasn't he removed earlier though? They should have carried on in the Gulf War and taken him then. Nobody would have argued with that at the time.

Probably because most people believed that military action was no longer necessary once Iraq "surrendered"... even though they continued shooting missiles at our planes the next day.

[CybrSage]

Why wasn't he removed earlier though? They should have carried on in the Gulf War and taken him then. Nobody would have argued with that at the time.


Because it was outside the UN resolution, afaik.

[zakelwe]

Well, whether 1441 allowed the war or not is open to ongoing debate, it's certainly not as cut and dried as made out above.

Who decided that 1441 was enough, the security council or the USA ? It seems from leaked documents that our attourney general originally thought that it was the security council who would have to agree it was enough, but having listened to the US viewpoint seems to have swapped his view over to just saying itr was one member of the security council who could say it was enough to go to war.

Certainly the only obvious material breech of 1441 was the ground launch missile, but this would not have been enough for the governement to say we have to go to war , so they did overstress the WMD part so that people thought it was the best thing to do.

You can say to people the following

1) We should go to war to get rid of Saddam
2) We should go to war because Saddam has WMD's that could hit us within only a short period of time
3) We should go to war because Saddam has a small ground launched missle that flies longer than agreed.

People would only really go to war because of 1 or 2, but 1 is totally illegal and 2 there was very sketchy information on, if there were any at all. No, 3 actually is the most in agreement with 1441 but people would not have one to war because of this.

You can tell how problematic this war by comparing it to the Falklands war. Then they came back triumphant and the Prime Minster got a massive victory at the poles, compare that to now.


Regards

Andy

[Sazar]

Resolution 1441 allowed for a resumption of hostilities. The UN did not resume those hostilities and from the subsequent information gathered, there would have been a requisite resolution needed to authorize the use of force by the members who wished to pursue military action.

Please read the hundreds and hundreds of pages of the main resolutions and subsequent addendums and modifications to get an idea about what the hell was written and what it specified.

The leaked minutes of the brit's meeting regarding the matter made it very clear what was required in order to go to war. Blair's comments made it very clear about the position that britian, and by consequence the US, was in.

[sytaylor]

Legally a second resolution was not required to long as the first defined an allowance of hostilities to be resumed. It was not a mandate, but legally it was authority.

[CybrSage]

Iraq did fail to meet the requirements of UN Resolution 1441. Illegal missles were not the item mentioned in the resolution, it was access to any site the inspectors wanted to access:

UN Security Council Resolution 1441
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 is a resolution by the UN Security Council, passed unanimously on November 8, 2002, offering Iraq "a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations" that had been set out in several previous resolutions (resolution 660, resolution 661, resolution 678, resolution 686, resolution 687, resolution 688, resolution 707, resolution 715, resolution 986, and resolution 1284), notably to provide "an accurate full, final, and complete disclosure, as required by Resolution 687 (1991), of all aspects of its programmes to develop weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles".
Resolution 1441 threatens "serious consequences" if these are not met. It reasserted demands that UN weapons inspectors should have "immediate, unconditional, and unrestricted access" to sites of their choosing, in order to ascertain compliance.

http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery;jsessionid=5ch4cj6pgte84?method=4&dsid=2222&dekey=UN+Security+Council+Resolution+1441&gwp=8&curtab=2222_1&sbid=lc02b

Since Saddam did not let the inspectors do their jobs, he found himself facing serious consequences.

[zakelwe]

I'm not sure you have got it right, quoting from 1441, the main point was

"Recognizing the threat Iraq’s non-compliance with Council resolutions and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles poses to international peace and security,"

That's the shocking accusation, not the fact that weapons inspectors wer not allowed into some sites etc, that is hardly a reason to go to war.

So, is this accusation actually true ? Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction ? What actual proliferation was that then ?

It's no wonder Blair had to sex it up given this baseline that still did not convince the UK public.

Like I said above it was not the security council who decided whether war was legal or not, it was the USA and UK.

Who wrote 1441 ?

Here's a clue

"United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and United States of America: draft resolution

[Adopted as Resolution 1441 at Security Council meeting 4644, 8 November 2002]
"

It's blatently obvious that the USA wanted a regime change and the Uk went along with it, but they could not say that, so had to make a mountain out of a molehill on WMD's and missiles that would not even hit Athens, never mind London or Washington.

Regards

Andy

[vampireuk]

The weapons saddam had were not illegal enough!!

Where did I put that picture from a earlier thread....
http://www.vampireuk.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/cylons.jpg

[oldsk00l]

And the UN resolutions were soooo effective

:rolleyes:

They pretty much just called "Saddam" bad whenver he misbehaved. However in preparation for war it was the US who had to get shafted by building up and then backing down.