My ally right or wrong

"I'm with you, whatever."

The words of Tony Blair to his "boss", George W. Bush in 2002.
"You can't say that!" Said Sir Joh Chilcott today, speaking for the first time in a while about his report, which at the time, appeared to vindicate Blair. He didn't lie deliberately, was the conclusion at the time, and he re-iterated that today. But, Chilcott reminded us, Blair is above all an advocate, hardly surprising considering his background in the law, and his peruasive powers are, apparently, legendary. (Pity he couldn't have used it to greater effect in Palestine, instead of sitting on his arse in the American Colony hotel in Jerusalem and banking those fat cheques he got for his job as Middle East "Peace Envoy"). He talked the cabinet, the government and eventually the House into doing what he wanted- sorry- what his boss wanted. But he cannot be said to have taken the country with him.  The guy on the Clapham omnibus remained skeptical- and he was right to be so.

Blair believed what he was doing was right, bought the fictitious tales that Saddam had WMDs- he didn't, and Hans Blix knew it, but his version was not what Blair and Bush wanted to hear.

Could it happen again today? Christ, I hope not, but do you know what? I think it could- watch out for Trump asking us to join him in a regime change operation in North Korea. We'd be insane to do that, but the US is our biggest ally, and there's that "special relationship", which to Blair meant being Bush's poodle, with him, "whatever"

Pelagius says: Never again! Never again should we follow the US down the road to war, however close our special relationship is. It doesn't mean we should go down the road of madness with a guy following his own twisted agenda. And if you don't think Trump has a twisted agenda, you haven't been paying attention.