"In 2007 Tony Blair stepped down as Prime Minister, but his surging momentum's shown no signs of slowing. Alongside his role as a Middle East peace envoy, Blair's channelled his energy into philanthropy, establishing three charities. The Tony Blair Sports Foundation pairs volunteer sport coaches with children in Britain's North East and his Faith Foundation aims to reconcile the three Abrahamic faiths, but his most ambitious is the Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative.
Launched in 2008, the foundation operates in six African countries - Sierra Leone, Rwanda Liberia, Guinea, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Senegal - where teams work alongside government bodies to bridge the gap between African leaders' visions for a better future and their government's ability to implement it. In Sierra Leone, for example, AGI has helped delivered an entirely free healthcare programme that's cut the number of children in hospital dying from malaria by 80 per cent.
On winning Philanthropist of year, Blair says, "I would like to dedicate this award to the people that work with and for my organisations. I feel the pulse of progress beating a little harder."
The thing is he should not be a free man to be doing those things, he should be in a prison somewhere reflecting on the meaning of such phrases as "abuse of power", "open government" and my personal favourite "war crimes".
I am personally suspicious of people who set up charitable foundations in their own names rather than trying to keep a level of anonimity. I fully expect it when it is in the name of a deceased loved-one, as it then becomes a vehicle for remembrance as well as charity. But when people use their own names it strikes me as a slightly distasteful way of showing-off. The self-publicisim detracts from the philanthropy.
I can hear in my head Blair saying the words above that Henry has quoted, "I would like to dedicate this award to the people that work with and for my organisations". But as I hear it the word "my" is exaggerated in the manner of a selfish two-year-old taking a toy from someone and proclaiming, "MINE".
Do you not think they might draw more support with their name than operating under Joe Blogger? Credit where credit is due eh?
The notion that Blair is guilty of war crimes has as much credence as the claims that Thatcher should have been tried for war crimes after the Belgrano was sunk or that Bomber Harris/Winston Churchill should have been tried for war crimes for indiscriminately bombing German cities in WW2. Swivel eyed looney nonsense!
Dont remember a million people marching against our boys going to the Falklands....
Deliberately lying to the people who elected you and entering into an illegal war seems to have escaped some people.
I guess we will be forced to accept revisionist history that Tony saved the free world from terrorism, sorted out the middle east at vast human and financial cost to this country, and should be sainted. ffs wake up! Does anyone think we were right to go into either war? A million felt so strongly that they marched against war. They, and millions of others knew there would be bloodshed. Countless thousands of locals, hundreds of brave British service men and women, countless thousands of distraught family members, tens of thousands of our youth suffering physical and mental disability. How much has this cost out country? Whilst Blair and his slimy associates like Jonathan Powell sit pretty, advising paragons of virtue like Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev how to clean up his image following protestors being shot dead on his streets.
'WarCrime'? There is absolutely no basis for Tony Blair to be tried for War Crimes. His actions might be tried as a Crime Against Peace. Really, judging by some of your judgement of him, you could setup your court with Al Murray as your judge.
Tony Blair's actions can be directly linked to the current clusterfuck happening in the Middle East. After removing Saddam's regime, there was no attempt made to restore any kind of civil service in Iraq. Anyone who was rich enough or connected enough fled and anyone unable to escape Iraq was left to clean up the mess. The UK is a relatively stable country by comparison but you can imagine the chaos that would ensue if every single public sector worker stopped getting paid and all managers and directors in all public sector institutions fled the country. Now imagine that happening in Iraq, tens of thousands of the people who run the country not reporting to work because they're terrified of any retribution if they do cooperate with the Western invaders. What is now known as ISIS or ISIL or IS was incepted in Tony Blair's Iraq when he failed to lay down even the most basic groundwork for a stable post-war state. Every village that gets massacred, every beheading, every slave taken is on his hands and his crazy neo-con buddies in the Republican Party. If he isn't guilty of any war crimes, he is surely guilty of sowing the seeds of the atrocities we are now witnessing.
So, unspeakably evil islamic atrocities against the secular free world only started as a result of Tony Blair's actions in the second Gulf War? The murder of 3000 innocent people in New York by an evil crazy muslim terrorist group was ultimately the fault of Tony Blair and his cronies? As I stated above 'swivel eyed loony nonsense'.
With the benefit of hindsight many historians blame the rise of the Nazis and, ultimately, the holocaust, on the onerous peace treaty terms imposed on the Germans by the Allied Powers after WW1. Are the people who drew up and implemented those terms guilty of war crimes?
'WarCrime'? There is absolutely no basis for Tony Blair to be tried for War Crimes. His actions might be tried as a Crime Against Peace. Really, judging by some of your judgement of him, you could setup your court with Al Murray as your judge.
Attacking another country without justification or provocation is not a crime?
Comments
Do you not think they might draw more support with their name than operating under Joe Blogger? Credit where credit is due eh?
Deliberately lying to the people who elected you and entering into an illegal war seems to have escaped some people.
I guess we will be forced to accept revisionist history that Tony saved the free world from terrorism, sorted out the middle east at vast human and financial cost to this country, and should be sainted.
ffs wake up!
Does anyone think we were right to go into either war?
A million felt so strongly that they marched against war.
They, and millions of others knew there would be bloodshed.
Countless thousands of locals, hundreds of brave British service men and women, countless thousands of distraught family members, tens of thousands of our youth suffering physical and mental disability.
How much has this cost out country?
Whilst Blair and his slimy associates like Jonathan Powell sit pretty, advising paragons of virtue like Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbayev how to clean up his image following protestors being shot dead on his streets.
With the benefit of hindsight many historians blame the rise of the Nazis and, ultimately, the holocaust, on the onerous peace treaty terms imposed on the Germans by the Allied Powers after WW1. Are the people who drew up and implemented those terms guilty of war crimes?