From: kharin (hidden@lucifer.com)
Date: Fri Aug 16 2002 - 03:51:33 MDT
"From my reading of the article it would seem that Blair would be a fool to attempt to follow Bush's lead"
I think it is very difficult to gauge. The Liberals would find it impossible to support action without a new UN mandate, but that would entail only the loss of 50 or so votes in the House of Commons (they have stronger support with the public but the electoral system tends to dampen this in terms of seats). With that in mind, it would depend on whether Blair's own party would back him; clearly many would not, but most of avoiding answering the question at the moment. As stated, the Tories would support action. Of course, Blair will also try to avoid a Parliamentary vote at all in the way he did with Afghanistan.
The signals from Blair indicate to me that he does favour action, but is being cautious in the light of those polls you cited (bear in mind that opinion may be fluid on that, if only because people are nervous about making the case for action before they have to). The King of Jordan said that Blair had told him of grave reservations over action; my belief is that this was a misreading based on Blair's chameleon-like ability to make statements that can be read in two opposed ways. I doubt if Blair would have committed himself one way or another at the moment.
Well, it seems that a few of the responses on this thread are specifically anti-US in their tone.
At the risk of being unhelpful, what does that mean and entail? The US is not a homogenous entity and it is inevitable that people will have disparate reactions to it; all the more so in the case of the position the US currently occupies as sole world power. At the risk of reintroducing an old bugbear, I can't see other variants on that phrase; though the term could be applied to a great many Americans at this time one never hears the phrase 'anti-european' being bandied about in return. Is it really not possible to have disagreements over policy without unpleasant connotations of 'anti-americanism' being brought into the equation.
Ponder this...can we, or should we, blame the Brits for Israeli/Palestinian conflict from it's beginnings in the 1940's, the conflict in Kashmir that erupted after India and Pakistan were granted independence in 1948, the eradication of thousands of Aborigines, Africans, Indians, and American Indians throughout the history of the British Empire?
You'd be surprised; regarding the current situation in Zimbabwee the UK remains legally culpable in certain areas referring back to the original treaty of independence. While I am not fond of the sins of the fathers being inflicted upon subsequent generations, the fact remains that actions have consequences that cannot be escaped; and in that sense, yes, I'm afraid that Britain does retain some blame for the above.
PS
Sorry Andy, I only saw that Ivrken had already made that observation.
---- This message was posted by kharin to the Virus 2002 board on Church of Virus BBS. <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;threadid=26114>
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