God save us from Blair and his morals.

What I find particularly interesting about the US/UK interventions in Yugoslavia is how they were honing their media playbook even back then. Create a narrative that “streamlines” (i.e. erases) the messy bits of a given conflict (“we’re always the good guys!”), turn the dial of moral righteousness up to 11 (“they’re so evil!”) and you’ve got yourself a recipe for fabricating consent/support.
This gets repeated so often, you’d think people would’ve caught on (or at least gotten tired of it), but alas, here we are again.

I’m glad you mentioned the bombing of the Chinese embassy by NATO. NATO was lucky China was way behind economically and militarily back then. If such an incident occurred today, World War Three may break out.

Also I’d never known about how much sex trafficking had been going on to gratify the peacekeepers. I was aware how prevalent Kosovans/Albanians were in organised crime in the UK but this was new to me so thanks for highlighting.

Tonibler strikes again. He has quite a charge sheet, doesn’t he.

Blair honestly inspires me to vomit – he should be in jail for genocide and other war crimes, and for treason against the people of the UK.

In 1946 both Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel and Generaloberst Alfred Jodl were HANGED for ‘initiating and waging wars of AGGRESSION’.

Both the wretched Tony Blair and his lickspittle colleague and ardent co- conspirator Bush Jnr SHOULD have suffered the same fate.

I am surprised there’s no mention of Blair’s other foreign escapades here like the invasion of Sierra Leone in 2000, the biggest UK deployment since the Falklands War.

”And, in the context of Ukraine, it’s hard not to see Blair in Pristina as the model for Boris Johnson, or indeed Keir Starmer, in Kyiv. (How envious they must be to see all those Toniblers.)”

Perfect!

Boris seeing himself proudly walking the Kyiv streets as Ukrainian woman in traditional dress throw flowers to him, wile behind them ranks of Ukrainian men stand uniformed and at attention, saluting him, with their polished AK 47s held across their chests…… (and knowing Princess nutnut is watching the scene on BBC, glowing with pride, back home with the little ones)

I think you have found the actual reason Boris has created this WWIII from a regional conflict which was none of his business.

I regret to inform the editor of Unherd that the regular contribution from the Blair Foundation for open reporting is being witheld pending staff re-education and reparations.

Last week, I read a book about approaches to war by Orthodox Chrisitans. It was a dry, academic collection of writings but it raised interesting questions about the varying attitudes of war among the Latin West and war-torn Byzantine Empire / Eastern Orthodox countries. The latter never formalised their theologies of war like Aquinas did at Rome. Just War Theory is unique for the Latin West, the civilisation which justified the Crusades (for understandable reasons). Of course, the Reformation happened and the Anglo world took on a Protestant bent – but enjoyed a geographical primacy many mainland European and Middle Eastern countries simply don’t have. When WWI broke out, I believe a superior in the Anglican church rebuked Germany’s attempt at Just War Theory, giving a succint perspective over the BBC about the nuances in ‘just war theory.’
My point: Blair’s moral posturing, as well as Johnson’s stance on Ukraine, are firmly in line with Anglo approaches to diplomacy and war. Heck, who can forget Churchill’s speech about never surrendering and fighting on the beaches? Or Roosevelt’s “The Arena” analogy, where boxers and warriors are praised over mere critics? None of this is necessarily bad. It’s admirable – we want to stand up to bullies. But these bulldozzing attitudes rarely help in the Balkans, the Middle East or Eurasia.
The Anglosphere does have a tradition of rationalism, hard work, diplomacy and using evidence. Perhaps our leaders should strike the ideal balance between those and the Churchillian characteristics we all know – and (mostly) appreciate. I really don’t want to be negative about the Anglosphere – rather, I wish to illustrate a hopeful direction so tragedies like Iraq never occur again.

Oh what tangled web we weave / when first we practice to deceive!

Virtue signaling with other people’s lives.

Before the bombing of Serbia, the UN had been discredited by its failure to defend Bosnian Muslims from rape and murder. With no sign that it would defend the Kosovans any better, the UN was widely seen as irrelevant to the debate on the morality of bombing Serbia to save Kosovan lives. This and the fear of losing funding probably prompted the UN to get its act together and consequently UN arms inspectors played so prominent a role in Iraq in 2003.

The danger of ambitious men like Blair (or women like Hillary Clinton) is that their ambition cannot be sated. The more power and adulation they get the more they crave. That’s why political power needs to be dispersed, not concentrated. When was the last time Switzerland pauperised itself with a pointless war in the Middle East?

The logic of the author’s argument is that the non-intervention by the collective West in the Rwanda genocide in 1994 was the right approach. The outcome? 500-600 thousand people were murdered. Anyone writing snide pieces like this (or posting supportive comments below) needs to address this point. Otherwise, the argument is invalid.