I don't get the reference, but the mental picture appeals my sense of humour
.
I don't think people here are pissed (well, not in the angry sense, maybe in the drunk-too-much-bad-Australian-lager sense).
Not sure I could agree on Blair being more to blame though. Complicit definitely, and I think he had his ego massaged (plus he seemed to see himself going down in history as some sort of saviour). Foolish perhaps.
The UK government did spend quite a lot of time trying to push through diplomatic solutions (or at least they claimed that) and the perception here is that they were hanging onto Bush's tail trying to slow his rush into war. Plus, I somewhat doubt the UK could bully a US government into doing something it didn't want to do.
As Scott Adams noted in one of his Dilbert Zone strips: "50% of the people are below median intelligence!".
Seriously, I doubt the US public is any worse than most. It's consistently surprised me how similar people are all around the world, whether they be American (north or south), European, Asian, Oceanian or African.
A Ukrainian friend once said to me that they used to think their leaders (back in Soviet times) were corrupt, and that the west was this shining beacon of light. "Now I realise you're all just as bent as us", she said
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You're welcome
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Remember that the Scots are technically "British".
Given that the Scots, Irish, Northern Irish (and Welsh... no one ever remembers you guys eh
) all hate the English, it wouldn't surprise me if the attitude towards the US was more positive - after all, they'd probably prefer the US to be the superpower than the English.
That's were my cynicism kicks in. I remember the huge positive fanfare when Blair got to power in 97. We'd had years of an ever more decrepit and corrupt Conservative government, and there was genuine hope for the future (very un-British... all that chest thumping and flag waving
).
Of course, as time went on, it became obvious the Labour government was full of just as many weasels. To even get near the top of a western democracy you need the support of so many business and media individuals that you're always owned by the time you get to power.
The idea that governments are there for the interests of the people is a somewhat naive hope. My bet is that he'll look after those that got him there, and those that he needs to keep him there But that's no different to anyone else.
Not sure about the lying thing. I don't know the scope in the US, but certainly in the UK the government embellished information - to the annoyance and concern of the UK security forces. As one commentator put it, "They put exclamation marks where there were questions marks".
On the subject of WMD though, what was Saddam supposed to do? Turn round any say his country didn't have anything, and that they were pretty defenseless. I'm sure the Iranians and Kurds would have been listening keenly.
There's a great political sketch show here, where some of their guys conduct spoof interviews. One of which was an interview with the leader of some fictional "...istan" country, and he was planning on announcing his country had WMD... because the only way to stop yourself being attacked for having WMD, was to actually have WMD.
Your point about lack of plans hits the nail on the head though.
It's worth noting that Churchill, the "Greatest Ever Briton" was actually a pretty nasty piece of work. He had a long history of being pro-war, and even advocating the use of chemical weapons on civilians.
To an extent, he's probably seen in a positive light because his warnings on Hitler were right. If Iraq had turned out to be brimming with WMD then Bush and Blair would probably have looked pretty good.
Of course, some of that WMD would have been stamped with "Made in the US, with best regards from Don Rumsfeld". Which takes us nicely to...
Spot on. I love the hypocrisy of selling a known dangerous dictator chemical agents one decade, and then attacking him in another... because he's dangerous.
I think you mean the current system in the UK, where the public owns the liability, and the corporations own the profit
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Sounds good to me. All in favour of blaming the Canadians for everything?
