Harsh, but fair?

[karen2205]

I ask you to accept one thing. Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right. I may have been wrong. That's your call. But believe one thing if nothing else - I did what I thought was right for our country. [Tony Blair - quote from BBC website]

Is it overly harsh for me to think; yes, I believe you when you say you thought you were doing the right thing, but that's not good enough. You are the Prime Minister; you have a duty to do the job properly, it's not a role where you can legitimately excuse your poor perfomance by saying 'I did my best' where your best falls far short of the objective standards of what was needed. And that's not a purely political point - I think there was an arguable political case for involvement in Iraq, the same way there was a good case for not getting involved. But you dodged the issue. You didn't engage with the unpalatable argument, instead you now appeal to the heart; 'I did my best' and fail to engage with the issues.

Comments

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

The Cold War was something of a special case. Obviously from where we are now it looks clear that Islamic fundamentalism is the more dangerous ideology to our way of life than Soviet communism, but I think before 1979 it was reasonable to be less clear about that. Ditto selling weapons to unpleasant regimes - if we didn't do it there was a large and hostile power bloc more than happy to take them on.

My first aim would be to reduce arms and armies in every country and think more about multinational forces if needed.

Right, so what you'd like to do is an impossible thing that won't happen, which is fair enough, you're entitled to want that, but the choice which is actually open to us is between doing or not doing those things which we can in fact do.

[skibbley.livejournal.com]

I think having a clear idea of what I'd like to see is a good first step. It doesn't have to constitute an immediate, workable plan - particularly since I have little say in the decisions.

Institutions, countries etc. do change so I don't accept it being impossible. Highly improbable possibly, depending on other changes in the world, timescales etc.

I don't find the way things are acceptable. I don't like the currently available options. While accepting that decisions need to be made in the present, I still want to look for better future options.

[cabd.livejournal.com]

All very, very commendable and I agree with most of what you're saying. But at the same time, while discussing the world we want to create, its reasonable to form an opinion on what to do in the imperfect world we're living in.