War criminal Tony Blair to be given most senior knighthood in new year honours list

'Opinions on why he would be bestowed with this honour now?'

Because he is active in the media now promoting digital health passports, "climate regimes" and every other unwise garbage idea that the worst of the mainstream establishment wants to push on people.

He did a ten stretch in Belmarsh.

He's never been convicted anything at all, let alone war crimes, so there is a factual inaccuracy to your headline. I'm not saying he's not uncontroversial as Prime Minister in his decisions in the post 9/11 era, but show me an uncontroversial British prime minister and I'll show you a guy who was in the job for one day.

That aside, the British honours system is self-indulgent nonsense and always has been. Nigella Lawson turned one down years back, saying there was nothing special about being a cook. Even today the Kenny couple who won a bunch of Olympic cycling medals said 'we just ride bikes'

And in fairness to them all, they are right. These baubles are tossed around like confetti and in that regard they are largely meaningless and routine.

So who cares what the royal PR office decides to pin on a politician who has been out of office for 15 years.

You don't have to be convicted to be a criminal. Plenty of blood on his hands despite the predictable lack of conviction.

Blair was a good friend to Ireland and without him the Good Friday Agreement would have taken many more years.

Well he did at least play a part in bringing peace to the north.

Blair is the only successful left wing leader in Britain, along with Wilson since the 40s.

Are you honestly comparing Blair to Hitler.

Given the Jew baiting and bizzaro Circus of the Corbyn years, destroyed Labour, it may well be the 2030s till another Labour pm appears.

He has advanced more Labour policy than anyone since Clement Attlee in the 1940s.

An achievement that makes him especially unpopular with the activists who love the safety of opposition.

I was talking in terms of being convicted and doing time as per the point I was responding too.

Pretty basic rule of law- you can't legally be called a criminal unless you have been convicted by a lawfully convened jury of your peers.

It's really a good principle on the whole.

As an anonymous poster on Boards you'll probably get away with it.

However, don't make a habit of it in public.

Not that I disagree with the substance of the post but it is worth noting that there will probably not be a society as open, tolerant or concerned about rights etc as Western Europe or the wider Western world from the 60s to now, not for a very long time anyways.

I'm not talking legal semantics. I'm just making the point that the absence of a conviction doesn't mean one is innocent.

There are no semantics in law.

In general it is correct that the absence of a conviction doesn't mean one is innocent.

If he’d been a black African leader who had attacked another country, he’d likely have been in The Hague for show.

But as he backed up America's bloodlust and the gormless Dubya’s attempt to sacrifice 100,000s of human beings to get re-elected, he’s a hero!!

Everyone knew that Operation Iraqi Liberation was nothing to do with 9/11 and was all about other things.

Saddam was a secular leader who despised Al-Qaeda, and yet the lies that they were two sides of the coin were backed up Bliar and his ilk. Shall we ask those who died under the US/British bombs that were dropped on the centre of Baghdad if he was a war criminal? Oh, that’s right, we can’t.

If Saddam was so bad, why didn’t they prosecute all those who armed him during the 80s and who protected him from Iranian war crimes charges?

Becaue we live in a deeply racist world. One so racist that taking awards in the name of the British Empire is seen as honourable.

He was basically Bushes lapdog.

True that.

What oil did the Americans and Brits get from Iraq?

Have a look at the contracts that were drawn up after Saddam was kicked out. China was becoming a big demander of oil. Iraq had huge reserves. Invade and put some gimp in charge (or get your very own lackey to do it) and you keep the competitor at bay.

Saddam invaded Kuwait because he felt the Kuwaitis were stealing his oil and that he believed the Americans had given him the green light.

Overnight Saddam become worse than Hitler. Cold War was over and a lot of people had to keep their jobs relevant. Aha!! A new enemy! Amazing how Saddam wasn’t a bad guy to the same people when he was gassing Iranian civilians.

A tabloid take? 🙄

Ah right, well I sense a downgrade in the idea of 'taking the oil' to 'get them to sell it to us instead of them'.

If you're going to invade a country you might as well just take the oil without even paying for it.

Your take is it was all just about getting Irag to sell their oil to us rather than them, which just doesn't have an air of plausibility to it for me.

I mean, your're seriously suggesting that Blair sacrificed the lives of his own people for that? And no other reason?

I just don't buy it. Your take to me is a bit on the 'conspiratorial' side, which is why I referred to 'tabloids'.

I don't mean to be insulting to you about it but at the same time I can't hold back on your take either.

I'd guess maybe you think I'm being naive or something, but I don't think I am.

Naive or in denial about how evil the likes of Bush and Bliar are. It’s always easier when the “evil ones” speak a different language and look different too.

https://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/19/opinion/iraq-war-oil-juhasz/index.html