The date for the public hearing of former Prime Minister Tony Blair has been announced… by the Iraq Inquiry… Mr Blair will appear for a full day’s session on Friday 29th January 2010.

I have had so many competing issues to attend to over the last few months I simply haven’t had time to maintain this blog.

However, it is not abandoned. I will get back to it just as soon as I can and I can only imagine the type of material I’ll have to following Blair’s appearance before the Iraq Inquiry.

What will he say? What can he possibly say? Enough of the facts are now public to determine beyond reasonable doubt this man waged an illegal war that resulted in the deaths of uncounted innocent men, women and children.

What can he say? He did what he thought was right?

In many ways this would be the most truthful outcome. Because the record shows, Blair never had any qualms about resorting to violence to meet his objectives, and the agendas of his foreign friends in high places.

I will watch with the same uneasy fascination as the observers at Nuremburg must have felt as they listened to mass murderers make their excuses.

Meanwhile, thank you to everyone who has contacted me. I’m so, so, sorry I haven’t got back to you. The trouble is, I really don’t have time right now and I just know that if I get involved with this again I won’t be able to resist fully engaging.

Even this short note has me thinking of a host of things I need to research or catch up with. I’m amazed at how well the traffic levels have kept up to this blog. I won’t let it go to waste, I will be back, just as soon as I possibly can.

Blair and Bush at the Whitehouse, 2003

Despite the long since uncovered lies, the deceit and corruption, the intensifying violence of the state, the broken lives, shattered families, splintered society, breakdown of law and order, looting and collapse of the economy and disenfranchisement of the people under a nightmare parody of democracy, there remains a small body of loyalists who cover their eyes, block off their ears, hold their noses and speak sweetly and softly of the warmonger, the serial bomber, the self-obsessed man monster who is Tony Blair.

Not only in Britain did he leave such a trail of destruction, he reserved a special malevolence for his overseas victims. Iraq, Serbia, Afghanistan and then Iraq again fell under his blood-drenched, openly criminal policies. Driven by his self acclaimed vision of “right” and “wrong” and in contempt of any and all other opinion, most notably the British peoples’, like his accomplice in Washington Bush the “Decider“, he swept the nation through a state sponsored crime wave, outright terrorism by any definition.

He heaped bloodbath after bloodbath on our shoulders whilst allowing his corporate friends to lavish the treasure of nations upon themselves. Thus he doubly loaded the average citizen’s burden, both physically and morally. To this day he has made no apology for his despotic behaviour, indeed he unashamedly defends himself with the idea that his beliefs alone are sufficient to explain and excuse every crime, every murder, every theft and every lie.

It is necessary to make leaders hesitate before indulging in “the paramount war crime” to quote the judges of Nuremberg, of “unprovoked aggression against a defenceless country”. Unless leaders fear that they might be tried for their war crimes, we will live in an increasingly violent world, where The Geneva Conventions are treated as a joke, the UN is of no account, and death, destruction, torture, and repressive policing are commonplace. At the moment such leaders enjoy more and more trappings of power, and retire with vast sums of money, houses, medals and lucrative contracts. –
Blair War Crimes Foundation

Usefully for Blair, his small and faithful army of disciples is more than willing to apologise on his behalf and even now, many months after he was finally levered from power and cast aside in scorn by the British people, this workforce busily promotes the agenda of Blair, the man of peace, Blair, EU President most perfect. A man of conviction they proudly suggest and without a trace of irony as others, more willing to examine the stark evidence, insist a very different type of conviction is long overdue.

This is why the upcoming Iraq Inquiry is of such a worry to the loyalists. Already they have positioned their champion as being forced between a rock and a hard place, damned if the inquiry has teeth and he is forced to break the habit of a political lifetime by telling the truth, damned if the inquiry is a re-run of the Hutton and Butler whitewashes and he evades responsibility once more – to the disbelief of the watching public.

The “Get Blair” crowd, apparently, won’t be satisfied until their prey is shackled and incarcerated. For them, much like the “Get Myra Hindley” mob or the “Get that guy who we just saw with our own eyes commit a huge crime” rabble, nothing but direct punishment will be sufficient. The Blair faithful are horrified at the injustice of it all. I can see (right through) their point, which after the bluster is set aside is to suggest a British leader should never have to answer for his actions. How else can their open hostility to the idea of an inquiry be explained? They use other excuses that are just as unlikely. National security will be put at risk if he testifies, for example. Or a leader cannot lead effectively if he is challenged. Or even that British sovereignty itself is placed under threat when the representatives of the people are quizzed by the people, for the people. What is their definition of representation, I wonder?

All of these excuses distil to a basic idea. The state must be allowed to proceed in whatever manner that supposedly promotes the interests of the nation and the governed are not permitted to ask any questions in order to determine whose interests are actually being served. The assumption exists that the state will always act in our best interests. Beside that assumption is a mountain of woeful evidence that dispels the far fetched lie. Ask yourself these simple questions. Whose interests were served when Blair lied us into war? Whose interests were served when he handed the keys of the city to the profit lusting bankers? Whose interests were served as he embarked on his program of destroying education, or converting our health services into faceless corporations, or inviting his cronies into public office, or pocketing cash for favours, the list goes on but the questions remain. Whose interests?

Will national security be compromised simply because Blair has to explain himself? Does anyone seriously imagine the establishment will openly discuss its dirty little secrets on national TV? It’s a preposterous claim and can be rejected outright as a reason for excusing Blair’s appearance at an Inquiry. Is the leadership role diminished or undermined if we question our leaders? Tell me, what sort of leader cannot tolerate scrutiny? If a leader is acting in the interests of those being led then his role is greatly enhanced and his chances of successfully leading the group are multiplied if he is as open and honest in his intentions as possible. Leadership in the dark is counter-productive and highly suggestive of a hidden agenda designed to bring followers to places they may not willingly wish to go. Leadership by decree is not leadership at all, it is dictatorship.

Is British sovereignty at stake when we insist our leaders be held accountable for their deeds? I think not and I’m looking forward to meeting the people who suggest as much at the next anti-Lisbon “Treaty” rally – a process that Blair and the recipient of his soviet style succession, Brown, have denied us a voice in despite their repeated promises. Once a liar… How can Britain suffer if it shows the world it is prepared to treat each and every one of its citizens equally under the law? How can it not fail to be harmed when it demonstrates the opposite?

As for Blair’s right to follow his own course regardless of the will of the nation, or even his cabinet as it turns out, has he the right to take any action and provoke any consequence, no matter how catastrophic, just because he has been elected as the senior administrator in parliament? Is he a dictator, a monarch of old, above the people, above the law? This is precisely what Blair’s advocates seem to be suggesting. Even the thought of him answering a few questions amongst friends is abhorrent to them.

Would it be fine if this notorious war criminal entered your home, shot your family, claimed you were a terrorist, blew up your house, locked you up, tortured you and kicked you out on the street years later without any explanation for what had been done to you and with a dismissive claim that it seemed like the right thing to do at the time? Would you be satisfied with that kind of treatment? Rinse and repeat thousands of times and you begin to reach the horizon of Blair’s criminality. Of course he may not be done yet, there are many more special interests that might require his unique brand of humanitarianism and Europe beckons.

If you had been the victim of what so many others have had to suffer and were driven by a desire for justice (why wouldn’t you be?) who would you call on for assistance? What if the police simply weren’t interested and sent you away for “lack of evidence?” What if your MP crossed the road to avoid you? What if the BBC planted Nick Robinson outside your tormentor’s door to fawn over his moral courage? Would that upset you? How badly would it upset you? And if justice was denied to you, would you settle for revenge? Or would you instead start hating your neighbour “because he is free?”

This has been the full extent of Blair’s “interrogation” to date, protection by a thoroughly corrupted establishment, praise from on high blasted at a volume that drowns out the torrents of criticism and contempt surging up from the general public. Oh yes, the mix-up over WMD was unfortunate but for the small price of an uncounted number of dead, let’s say a mere 100,000 compared to the ridiculous claims of those that have actually tried to count, Iraq is now a bombed out, radiation poisoned, non-functioning, hell hole of a democracy. Democracy meaning, as always, control by an elite few who ignore the people and operate in the interests of big business.

So now Blair will have to sit in front of a carefully selected panel of insiders and play out the lead role in another theatre for the masses. Only the most naive will have to wait until the end of the show to determine the outcome, and even if they don’t fully grasp all the plot twists and limited hang-outs the media will be on hand with a study reader.

I’ve no doubt even the highest and mightiest will suffer mild criticism here or there, “Oh Tony, you must be more careful in the future… Tony, Tony, Tony, you have to learn to share with the other boys and girls…” The euphemism for avoiding all consequences, “Lessons learned”, will become a catchphrase again as we are informed in cosy terms that it’s true, our leaders are above the law and they can kill when they like, who they like, how they like and steal what they want, when they want, how they want. Because in the end they did it for us, in our best interests and with the best will in the world. Case closed, bury the dead, move on to the next lesson to be learned again.

Are you still buying it? All the dead bodies, the destruction, the rip-off bankers and their new round of bonuses, the crumbling national infrastructure that could have been rescued for a fraction of the hand-outs laid at the feet of the swindlers in the city or the billions of pounds converted to bombs and dropped on Iraq? The crimes, the lies the corruption. All for you, all done on your behalf. Are you grateful? Indifferent? Do you feel helpless, powerless? Do you believe I am mad for deviating from the mainstream script? Should I be punished, interrogated maybe, forced to face the consequences of my words even though I have thrown no sticks or stones?

Because you see, the law applies to you and I. Every law you can think of and thousands of new ones since Blair infected the nation in 1997. Leave your bin handles pointing out or be fined, Don’t speed on empty roads, or be fined. Pay your ballooning taxes, or be fined. Don’t let your child drop his food on the pavement, or be fined. All of these serious crimes are punishable when we wreak them upon society.

But lie to a nation, wage the very worst kind of war as defined in the Nuremberg Principles, open the safe to every crook in a suit and watch the innocent thrown from their jobs and homes or blown in pieces out of them and apparently there’s no need to even turn up and account for such acts, according to those who make it their mission to apologise for Blair.

What have they to fear? Can’t they spot a whitewash as it appears over the horizon? They’ve had enough practise by now. Maybe they are engaged in pre-emptive apology, just in case the world goes mad and justice is done.