Chickenhawk Tony Blair wants more dead British soldiers in Iraq

Tony Blair and the Iraq war, cartoon

This is a cartoon by Martin Rowson about Tony Blair and the Iraq war.

Tony Blair says British ground troops should return to Iraq

Tuesday 23rd September 2014

Infamous warmonger believes air support insufficient for country he ‘helped fracture’

Tony Blair said yesterday that British military intervention should be considered in the fight against Islamic State (Isis), as peace activists advised the former PM to shut up.

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This is the second time Mr Blair has called for armed troops to go into Iraq, after suggesting in June that the region would be politically worse off had it not been for the Iraq War.

In the new article the Labour politician insisted that “our capacity and capability to wage the battle effectively are second to none in part because of our experience [in Afghanistan and Iraq].”

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Stop the War Coalition convenor Lindsey German came out furiously against the essay saying: “Surely Tony Blair is the last person anyone should consult about the success or failure of bombing Iraq.”

Ms German maintained that “his last effort was based on a lie and the policies he supported helped fracture the country.”

And she contradicted the former PM’s belief that the Iraq war helped, stressing his policies in the region were “partly responsible for the creation of Isis” as they “destroyed the infrastructure, fragmented the country and increased sectarianism.”

According to Ms German, Mr Blair’s former political allies in the Middle East, namely Saudi Arabia and Turkey, have been arming and financially supporting the extremist organisation, giving the politician no leg to stand on.

“A period of silence and reflection is the very least we deserve from him,” she concluded.

Meanwhile, ISIS is stopped, not by Tony Blair, not by Blair’s ground troops, not by United States-Saudi-Bahraini-Arab Emirates-Jordanian air strikes in Syria, but by Turkish and Syrian Kurds whom Tony Blair helped to keep on NATO countries’ lists of ‘terrorists’.

By Ben Chacko:

Syrian Kurds halt Isis advance in autonomous Rojava state

Tuesday 23rd September 2014

Syrian Kurds fighting for the autonomous socialist Rojava state said yesterday they had halted the advance of Islamic State (Isis) fanatics in Kobane canton, near Turkey.

But heavy clashes were ongoing east of Kobane city, a Rojava spokesman confirmed.

Kobane Premier Anwar Moslem has warned that Isis is laying siege to the territory “with tanks, artillery and Humvees [US-made armoured cars] they seized in Mosul.”

The news came as Turkey said that the number of Syrians who had crossed the border in the last four days had hit 130,000. …

“This is not a natural disaster. We are faced with a man-made disaster,” said Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus.

“An uncontrollable force on the other side of the border is attacking civilians.”

But he did not acknowledge Turkey’s role in fomenting the crisis by allowing Islamist fighters and weapon-smugglers to flood across its border into Syria over the last three years.

Nor did he confront Rojava residents’ accusations that trains full of weaponry arrived in Isis-held territory from Turkey shortly before the latest offensive.

Turkey has made no secret of its wish to see Syria’s secular Bashar al-Assad government fall and rumours that it has an understanding with the terrorist organisation have been fuelled by Isis’s surprise release of 46 Turkish hostages on Saturday.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has refused to divulge what prompted Isis to give up its captives, merely saying “there are things we cannot talk about.”