Comment at end
Ban Blair-Baiting
22nd March 2010
Tony Blair was at the EU parliament today, as mentioned here yesterday. He nearly got slammed up. Not.
I’ve been busy with normal human things all day, and I already have too much in draft to write on this Cronin idiot to any extent.
So, since John Rentoul does it so well anyway, I’m sure he won’t mind if I use his post. I’ve pasted it here below.
David Cronin. So-called freelance reporter at Brussels, sometime Guardian 'elucidator'. Always wrong on Blair.
The Parliament.com: ‘Blair was harangued as he arrived for the hearing by journalist David Cronin who accused him of being a “war criminal.”
The Brussels-based reporter tried to make a citizen’s arrest on Blair but was bundled away by security guards.’
‘Bundled away’? If you ask me, and I know you haven’t but I’m telling you anyway, Cronin should have been arrested. You can tell a lot about someone by looking at those he admires. Rentoul admires Blair; Cronin admires Slobodan Milosevic. Cronin also doesn’t think much of Herman van Rompuy. With the foolish alacrity, skewed thinking and originality of many at the Guardian he suggests that van Rompuy will be “more (US) poodle than president”. What? AnOTHER “poodle”. And I thought it was the Brits and not the Americans who loved their canine pets.
Cronin seems to ‘think’ equally highly of NATO, the USA or the rest of the west. What the hell is he doing working in Brussels? To put it in the Irish colloquial -
EEJIT.
[The reason I mention the word "Guardian" so frequently in the heading will become clear in an upcoming post or two.]
A cursory glance at Cronin’s articles for Comment Is Free reveals that he has an unusual notion of what constitutes a war criminal. A recent contribution in December supports Serbia’s application to join the European Union, and criticises the Netherlands government for blocking it on the grounds that it suspected the Serbian government of “not co-operating fully with the war crimes tribunal in the Hague”.
What these hypocrites should be doing, Cronin suggests, is:
As he points out:
No, but Slobodan Milosevic was. Cronin wonders why:
It was Milosevic’s refusal to accept the precepts of free-market ideology that put him in the dock in The Hague, apparently. Of what, then, did Cronin’s “harangue” of Blair consist, I wonder: “Arrest this man for the crime of welfare capitalism”?
RELATED
Excerpt:
‘Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair has called for Israel and Palestine to “get back on track” and open direct negotiations “as soon as possible”.
He was speaking after talks in Brussels with EU foreign ministers who later urged the two sides to aim at a two-year deadline for achieving an “independent, democratic, viable” state of Palestine.
Mr Blair, appointed in June 2007 as envoy representing the EU, US, UN and Russia, admitted the violence in the region in the last fortnight had been a setback, but added: “Setbacks occur, and the key thing now is to get back on track again and get the negotiations going. We have got to carry on, whatever the setbacks from time to time.”
Mr Blair said the EU was playing a big part in building up Palestinian law and order, security and the economy.’
Tags: anti-capitalism, Cifers, citizen's arrest, David Cronin, EU, European Parliament, Guardian, Middle East Peace, Milosevic, Tony Blair, war criminal
March 23, 2010 at 12:51 pm |
[...] Tony Blair « Guardian, war criminal, Blair, Guardian, Cifers, citizen’s arrest, Guardian, Cronin, anti-free… [...]
March 23, 2010 at 11:31 pm |
The guy was right to make an arrest acting according, like Blair, to his own convictions.
I’m beginning to have doubts about Blair, he did after all shred his own expenses claims and delete them.
Sorry old pal, he’s been coining it in on the back of his public office, using his oil knowledge as a result of his contacts from Iraq days. Back when he was PM, he must still have contact there.
However, he has left office now, so I don’t think he should be involved in that stuff. Unless he wants to attract criticism. And his windrush accounts are obscure.
He would have made a good EU president all the same.
March 24, 2010 at 1:52 am |
DC,
What? According to “his own convictions”? What does this ill-informed biased Guardian journalist know about convictions? Has he ever had to make decisions for a whole country? This is nonsensical puerile behaviour, imho, got up by the press in the main, as is most of the Blair-baiting. They’re envious bastards, imho, nothing else. Not one of them – not the Guardian pacifists or anarchists, nor the Mail’s Tory readers, (who supported the invasion right from the start), not ONE of them has principles on Iraq worth considering. And not one of them went to Iraq over all the 12 years Saddam was killing his own people.
This ‘caring’ about the Iraqi dead is nonsense. No Iraqi has asked them to speak for them in this way. But Iraqis have signed the Ban Blair Baiting petition.
These arresters are hypocrites of the first order.
I have never given a fig about what people earn. It really does not bother me one iota. And Blair has foundations with good principled aims to fund. Why not be pleased he is doing this? Who the hell else in this country thinks and acts big any more. We all wrongly think we have little power and influence in the world. Blair knows that is a wrong position to take. We are still a power to be reckoned with, for all sorts of reasons.
I don’t think he cares any more for what this country (or the press) thinks of him. He’s moved onto a bigger stage. He can’t win right now at home, whatever he says or does, clearly. So he doesn’t say much. But I think he is doing a helluva lot worldwide. If he wasn’t worth it, they wouldn’t continue to pay him so handsomely.
Btw, NO, DC, he didn’t shred his accounts. That was a Mail story as are most of the lies you see around his finances. It’s envy, pure and simple. The Tory party doesn’t make leaders like him any more and the Mail knows it, so they have to destroy his reputation.
Just in case he comes back.
March 24, 2010 at 12:54 am |
[...] Honestly, it’s tough to know where to start with this one. Paragraph by paragraph or line by line? It’s ALL so easily dissected, chewed up and spat out, to mix metaphors. Folowing on from my post yeterday on this Guardian scribbler – Guardian, war criminal, Blair, Guardian, Cifers, citizen’s arrest, Guardian, Cronin, anti-free mar… [...]
March 25, 2010 at 12:50 am |
[...] well be Saddam or insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to this he has a soft spot for Milosevic. Are their heroes also those who oppose worldwide [...]
March 25, 2010 at 5:58 am |
Bravo for David!
March 25, 2010 at 10:08 am |
We have fun, don’t we!?
You might want to see this:
http://ec.europa.eu/avservices/player/streaming.cfm?type=ebsvod&sid=157505
They seem to have edited out little David attacking Goliath. Goliath sure looks bothered, doesn’t he?