"If Stones Could Weep": Syria, Blair's Plans and an Archbishop's Son
Not only is Middle East "Peace Envoy",
Catholic convert and Butcher of Baghdad, Tony Blair gunning for another
overthrow and mass destruction in Syria, he has recruited the son of an
Archbishop to help him. Not any old Archbishop either, Blair's latest
recruit is son of Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of
All England, who heads both the Church of England and the eighty
million member Anglican Communion worldwide.
Felicity Arbuthnot
Blair has given Peter Welby "a key role"
in his mega-funded Faith Foundation as: "a researcher for a new website
... that will analyse the role of religion in conflicts around the
world."(1) Perhaps enjoining, as George W. Bush put it, a "Crusade"
against majority Muslim countries might be an angle worth pursuing.
Photo: Blair in Kosovo visiting children named after him
Twenty three year old Welby is clearly a
faithful Blairite, having already hawkishly warned of President Putin's
"annexation" of the Crimea and that the British Government: "would be
wise to consider reversing some defence cuts ..." As a "researcher" he
clearly has a bit to learn, since the Crimean referendum with a 83.1%
turn out and near 97% vote to cede to Russia had clearly passed him by.
He will surely fit well in his new post
since the above exhibits a splendidly Blair-type mindset and abandonment
scrutiny of facts - like weapons of mass destruction that can be
unleashed "in forty five minutes."
However, it is with Syria that he
follows Blair's line to the letter. The "Peace Envoy" embraces wars of
aggression as a fish takes to proverbial water - courageously always
traveling with an army of armed protection officers funded by the
un-consulted British tax payer.
Blair's determination to do for Syria
what he did for Iraq is a litany, but here are a random four: Legality
ditched again, he declared of President Assad: "He's got to go ..."
(CBS 19th April 2012.)
"We've got to look very carefully to
what more we can do to ratchet up the pressure on Assad ... " (BBC
"Today" Programme, 17th September 2012.)
There would be: " 'catastrophic
consequences' if the West fails to arm Syrian rebels to defeat the
regime of President Bashar al-Assad." (Daily Telegraph 19th June 2013.)
Blair either missed or is cheering on, the unspeakable atrocities being
committed by the (Western paid) foreign insurgents and terrorist groups.
As this was being written he popped up
on the BBC's "Today" Programme again, loftily attempting to justify the
catastrophes of Afghanistan and Iraq in his "I'd do it all again" mode
and saying of Syria that the strong opposition of the British people (he
didn't mention the "No" vote in Parliament) did not "invalidate" the
need for action. As Stop the War put it: "We should invade Syria whether
the British public want it or not."
The cynic might ponder on whether, for a
man for whom precious human lives lost in orders of magnitude are
clearly very cheap indeed, there is an element of pay-back involved.
At the beginning of November 2001, three
weeks after the invasion of Afghanistan, Blair went to visit President
Assad: "the first ever visit to Damascus by a British leader, to enlist
support for the bombing campaign. Instead he was subjected to a recital
of ... Western failures in the Middle East."
Rather than gather support for the
bombing, he: "was forced to listen as the Syrian President heaped
criticism on the killing of Afghan civilians."
"We cannot accept what we see on
television, the killing of innocent civilians, hundreds now dying every
day", Assad told Blair, adding that: "We are always against war" - and
moreover, the West also placed little value on Arab lives.(2)
Whatever Blair's motives, Peter Welby is
firmly on side. On 31st March he wrote, in an article for the Faith
Foundation's website: "Last week I went to a presentation by Emile
Hokayem hosted by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in
London." In a "fascinating" talk: "Hokayem argued that engagement with
Assad is not the way to defeat jihadist forces in Syria - rather, engagement must be with rebels more favourable to Western interests ..." (emphasis mine.) (3)
In a ramble about the complexities of
terrorist groups in Iraq and their travels between Iraq and Syria, there
is no mention that they were never there before in secular Iraq and
Syria and, as mentioned previously, literally came in with Bush and
Blair's tanks, in their illegal invasion, which also left all borders
wide open for all comers.
Hokayem, writes Welby unquestioningly,
thought Assad's victory "improbable", but his money is basically on the
thugs and: "peace is unlikely until one group is sufficiently dominant
to take the others with it."
No mention of countless beheadings,
including children and of the numerous, unspeakable mediaeval atrocities
meted out by these demonic, illegal immigrants.
In fact, even the Washington Post is of
the view that President Assad's tide is turning and that: "He is in a
stronger position than ever before to quell the rebellion" and indeed,
to win a third term in the upcoming elections.(4)
Mr Welby's temporarily absent
researching skills have also perhaps missed that Mr Hokayem, who does
not just lecture at the International Institute for Strategic Studies,
but works for them, seemingly has a touching faith in Israel's views, as
evident in a recent tweet:
"Emile Hokayem __*******_ 34m
Israeli intel reports recent Assad use of non-lethal chem agents. Before
trashing news, remember: Isr intel was 1st to report CW use last yr"
Seymour Hersh's latest meticulous piece (5) on the chemical weapons attack in Syria is summarily dismissed:
"Emile Hokayem __*******Apr 7
So, just as there was no reason to take
his 1st LRB piece on Assad CW attacks seriously, there is no reason to
do so with the 2nd one either
Last year's claim to which Hokayem
refers, that Syrian government forces used chemical weapons at Ghouta
has been widely discredited. Hersh's piece seems to put the lid on any
doubts.
Perhaps, however, Peter Welby's
appointment by Blair is not so surprising. His father is seemingly a
close friend of the self-styled "Vicar of Baghdad" Canon Andrew "I get
most of my money from the Pentagon" White.
On Justin Welby's appointment as
Archbishop in November 2013 Andrew White commented: "What do you say
when your friend and former colleague, the one who reopened St. George's
Baghdad with me, is announced as Archbishop of Canterbury?
"Bishop Justin Welby is a great and
wonderful man of G-d. I count it as a great privilege to have had him as
my closest colleague ever."(6)
One man is incandescent about the appointment of Peter Welby and has written to his father in no uncertain terms.
Nicholas Wood is author of "War Crime or
Just War? The Case Against Blair", a meticulous legal compilation of
just that. Wood, is also Secretary of the Blair War Crimes Foundation.
He writes:
"The Archbishop of Canterbury.
Canterbury Cathedral..
Dear Sir,
I enclose my book on Blair, and also a
letter to the Prime Minister on his criminality. Though quite why I
bother to pay the postage I don't know.
I cannot comprehend that you are someone
who is supposed to think every day of moral values but not realise that
Blair is a very dangerous psychopath, who, as well as causing untold
devastation and misery in Iraq, wishes to extend that violence into
Syria and Iran to protect Israel.
If you read page 570 of his autobiography you might possibly see what I mean."
Referring to Blair's advisory position
to various heads of State, including Uzbekistan, of which former
Ambassador Craig Murray blew the whistle on mind numbing torture, he
states: " Your son will be benefiting, indirectly of coursei from money
obtained from despots who boil their victims. This, under the guise of
piety.
I was brought up as a child, a long time
ago, to think of Thomas A Becket as a Saint, who resisted the power of a
military state, and paid the price with his life. I cannot see you
doing that.
I also was brought up to worship the
medieval beauty of Canterbury, it's stones and it's stained glass. If
stones could weep they would be weeping now.
Yours faithfully, Nicholas Wood, MA."
Page 570 of Blair's autobiography to
which Wood refers contains a phrase which should surely grab the
attention of any psychiatrist:
"I had a vision for Britain. All the
way I had believed I could and would persuade the country it was the
right choice, the modern way, bigger than Iraq, bigger than the American
Alliance, bigger than any one thing; a complete vision of where we
should be in the early twenty first century; about how we finally
overcome the greatness of our history to discover the full potential of
our future."
"Bigger than Iraq"? The nearing two
million deaths since 2003? The five million orphans, million widows.
five million displaced? On to Syria, Iran?
Nicholas Wood says in succinct
understatement: "I suggest that such a vision should be restrained
before it is emulated and allowed free rein."
3. http://www.tonyblairfaithfoundation.org/blogpost/syria's-fragmented-extremists
