Lets cut to the chase, Tony Blair is today's Benito Mussolini. He hitched his wagon to the world wide punitive campaign by Herr George W. Bush. He misses the old glories when England was an empire where the sun would never set. All that came crashing down in Dunkirk when the Nazi military spared thousands of English troops trapped in that port.
So, Blair got England to support the US invation of Afghanistan and Iraq. Let us remember here that it is in great part the responsability of England for the present day regional disputes in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. Who can forget tha the first aerial attacks with biological weapons (what today is called weapons of mass destruction') against civilian populations were ordered by the bulldog butcher by the name of Winston Churchill.
But that was not enough, in the recent rape of Lebanon where hundreds of innocent civilians were murdered by the terrorist Israeli offense forces, it was Blair who supported Bush on his push for a delay in the international demand for a cease fire.
Therefore, to have Blair supporting Rodríguez during the peace process in the Basque Country is a bit worrying, despite the way London has been dealing with the IRA over the issue of the English occupation of Northern Ireland.
Here you have the note that appeared at Yahoo News:
Tue Oct 3, 3:45 PM ET
British Prime Minister Tony Blair passed on tips gleaned from his experience brokering an uneasy peace in Northern Ireland as he backed Spain's current drive for peace in its troubled Basque country.
Blair said the oft-drawn parallel between Northern Ireland and the Basque conflict was on his mind after the watchdog monitoring disarmament of paramilitary groups in the British-ruled province sent a key report to London and Dublin on Monday ahead of key peace talks next week.
"If the report is positive it is a serious demonstration that the conflict is genuinely over," said Blair at the start of a two-day Spanish visit.
The Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC)'s disarmanent report, whose contents were scheduled to be disclosed on Wednesday, will be central to multiparty talks in Scotland on October 11-13 aimed at restoring power-sharing in Northern Ireland, nine years after multiparty talks started in 1997.
Those talks eventually culminated in the Good Friday Agreement of April 1998 which set out a plan for devolved government.
Blair cited the "many ups and downs and difficulties" of seeking peace.
"You need perseverence... patient determination," he told reporters, adding he had enjoyed a good and constructive meeting with his host, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
"Resolving these very long-standing issues is very difficult work," said Blair, who noted that in Northern Ireland as in the Basque country "there can sometimes appear to be a blockage or you can get diverted off the path -- but this is a natural part of the process."
But he added that if the will existed on all sides to progress then peace was achieveable.
"It does happen if you do your best to move forward," said Blair, adding that in Northern Ireland progress had been made once "there was leadership prepared to take risks," a sense among people they want peace and a feeling that in the modern world this type of conflict was "alien to the 21st century."
Zapatero was keen to enlist Blair's support after a planned first meeting this summer between government officials and ETA representatives was postponed prompting further tension amongst Basque nationalists.
The Spanish leader, under pressure from opposition conservatives opposed to any dealings with ETA, said a Basque peace process had become reality six months ago when ETA announced a permanent ceasefire. Zapatero thanked Blair for his input.
"I received much information on the peace process in Northern Ireland and it was very useful to have heard his experiences," he said.
Blair noted the "positive" development of the ceasefire which has held notwithstanding low-level urban unrest since its announcement and also noted the last fatality in the conflict was in mid-2003.
But he warned that ending both conflicts was a "still difficult and complicated process".
Besides, one has to wonder what Blair thinks about being a Basque descendant.
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