Be a beachcomber, a Parisian wino, an Italian pimp, or a Danish pervert, but stay away from the Armed Forces
Good advice from Hunter S Thompson back in 1957 still stands today. Even though their names change over the years it’s a sad truth that the people responsible for sending their fellow human beings into harm's way still do so often with self serving agendas influencing their decisions rather than more noble thoughts of the greater good.
A former Downing Street aide has done a pretty good job at embarrassing Downing Street over the weekend when the Mail produced excerpts from Lance Price’s memoirs that show Blair again in a less than favourable light. It’s easy to mock the PM because his fellow MP’s have taken to rutting on his sofa like horny teenagers when his back is turned, but it’s also hard not to put our dislike aside for Alastair Campbell when he calls Blair a ”dickhead”.
Apart from the fact that he dislikes the “Fucking Welsh” and shows a basic lack of understanding when it comes to sexuality not focused on finding Cherrie’s mutton face attractive (he bafflingly asked the gay Price “when you see a beautiful woman, doesn’t it do anything for you?”) Blair is revealed less like Dubya’s poodle (despite Chris Patten elsewhere in today’s Guardian saying that “Blair is all too likely to be judged by history as a leader who was braver in defending Bush’s agenda in Iraq than he was in standing up for his own, and Britain’s, strategic objectives in Europe”) and more like one of those bloodthirsty little terriers with delusions of grandeur. It’s a shame that so many innocent lives have been lost to help this one man feel assured of his place in the history books:
"I couldn't help feeling TB was relishing his first blooding as PM, sending the boys into action. Despite all the necessary stuff about taking action 'with a heavy heart', I think he feels it is part of his coming of age as a leader."
So far TB's coming of age ‘ceremony’ has cost the lives of almost 100 British soldiers while his reckless backing of the US in Iraq has led to countless deaths of civilians and provided motivation for the recent terrorist acts carried out here in the capital.
Blair's love of playing the big shot on the world stage has consequences then not only for those in uniform or Iraq. The pimping of weapons in Docklands ensures that the UK will have a hand in another generation of wrecked lives across the globe, our airports continue to offer a safe harbour to those ‘patriotic’ types who deliver people to their torturers, the hunt for terrorists will continue to play as an excuse for more of our civil liberties to be eroded and Blair like Bush seems set to remain untouchable. Like a knife between the shoulder blades or a perianal abscess.
Now we have a campaign for a new generation of nuclear weapons here in the UK at the same time that we frown at countries like Iran for going anywhere near the ‘N’ word.
It’s little wonder that some forty years later when Hunter bemoaned his own president for the damage done to his country that he left Blair with the most fitting footnote:
”…every nation in the world despises us, except for a handful of corrupt Brits, like that simpering little whore, Tony Blair."
We fired the wrong man out of a cannon.
More photos of the anti-arms fair demonstration are included after the jump. Many thanks to Paul Tacon for the use of his photographs. More can be seen over on Indy Media.
