The highly respected peace campaigner and Elder has called Mr Blair's actions over Iraq "morally indefensible", and no doubt those words will sting a man of pride-some could say of arrogance. We do not know still the real reason for his unhesitating commitment to a cause which wise men and women warned him against and which was hugely unpopular from the start, but we know there were lies, deceit and obfuscation used to justify the decision for war and thence inevitably great loss of life.
Being the leader of a country is never easy: decisions must be made which may hurt or be judged harshly and history has a habit of rehabilitating some statesmen with the benefit of hindsight and vilifying others. To take your country to war must be the hardest choice of all because of the sacrifice involved, but appeasement can be just as undesirable and morally more repugnant, and far more destructive.
Tony Blair's apparent determination for war with Iraq seems based on a subjective priority rather than a detached assessment of the facts using expert counsel. He claims to have acted with integrity and in good faith but many question this because of what has come to light, and there is the suspicion that he was both an appeaser (for Bush) and a warmonger (for Bush) without good cause. If so, under the Law of Karma he will continue to learn hard lessons from his actions so many years ago now.
Desmond Tutu's words yesterday and his refusal to share a public platform with Blair are another reminder of the truth and certainly will not be the last. Truth will always out, however long it takes, and our actions, great or small, bring their own perfect rewards.]]>
Tony Blair, as I feel he perceived himself, was caught between a rock and a hard place. No. 10 knew the U.S. intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were false (witness the original Downing Street Memos: http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/memos.html), something No. 10 did little, if anything, to conceal. Both Blair and G.W. Bush were acting out of a sense of compassion for the suffering of the Iraqi people, but where the karma lies, in my opinion, is in the ends justifying the means. When Tony Blair tagged along with G.W. Bush and his cronies, he essentially signed off on the ends justifying the means. Therein, in my opinion, is where the karma lies for Mr. Blair - which, unfortunately, clouds the more positive aspects of his time in power (i.e., the creation of the Welsh and Scottish assemblies, essentially turning a unitary state into something more diverse and responding to pent-up demand - especially in Scotland).
Thank you, William. You are generous in your views. Incidentally, there are many who regret the creation of the Welsh Assembly, at least, which has failed, sadly, to live up to hopes for it.