A riveting and thought-provoking insight into the processes by which Tony Blair has taken us to war more often than any other recent Prime Minister. No Prime Minister in modern times has led Britain into as many wars as Tony Blair. In six years in office he has committed soldiers to action in Kosovo, in Operation Desert Fox against Iraq, in Sierra Leone and Afghanistan -- and now he is making preparations for a final battle with Saddam Hussein. It has been a dramatic course of action for a man who, until he won the 1997 General Election, showed only a rudimentary understanding of the workings of foreign policy. Combining page-turning narrative and revelation with an analysis of the philosophy underlying his adventures abroad, BLAIR's WARS shows how this government has sought to be at the forefront of a new and turbulent world order. Putting the reader into the 'smoke-filled rooms' of Whitehall and Washington where the real decision-making takes place, John Kampfner draws on his unparalleled contacts within and outside government to provide a compelling account of the tensions, rivalries, deal-making and back-stabbing that have accompanied inexorable acquisition of foreign-policy control.
| ||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
John Kampfner is currently Political Editor of the NEW STATESMAN. He is the author of one previous book, a critically acclaimed biography of the former Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Blair's Wars,
This review is from: Blair's Wars (Paperback)
This book is fascinating for the descriptions of the dynamic between the UK and US government alone. This book describes how Blair will do nearly anything to placate George Bush and will lead the UK into any conflict in support of the US. This book was clear to read, shocking in places and eye opening about some of the ways Blair behaves and the policy he follows. Worth a read, but watch your blood pressure!
Feel free to check out my blog which can be found on my profile page.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
LOL,
This review is from: Blair's Wars (Paperback)
Kampfner's book ain't bad...the quality of his real reporting is consistently superior to his self-indulgent mischaracterizations of american policy and policymakers...but at least his 'analysis' is coherent and somewhat related to the facts he surfaces...
that said, the other reviewer of this book who believes he/we live under war-mongering elites and dictators probably should take a sedative or, preferably, vacation in teheran and/or pyongyang and/or damascus and/or havana...who knows? perhaps he will find how 'class struggle' has been resolved in those places to be more congenial to his taste for freedom and fairness and choose to make his new home there... ...our loss...
1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Useful study of Blair's warmongering,
By
This review is from: Blair's Wars (Paperback)
This is a fascinating study of social democratic warmongering. Blair has organised a record five wars in six years - `Desert Fox' against Iraq, and invasions of Serbia, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Iraq.
We can't say we weren't warned. Blair said in April 1997, "Century upon century it has been the destiny of Britain to lead other nations. That should not be a destiny that is part of our history. It should be part of our future. We are a leader of nations or nothing." In the same speech, he was to have said, "I am proud of the British Empire", but one of his spinners told him to omit this! Didn't the Empire's rulers always claim to be taking over for the sake of the benighted natives? Blair has, over and again, backed the US state, which has consistently schemed to control the Middle East and its oil. All during the 1980s, Reagan and Thatcher sold chemical and other weapons to [...], to sustain his attack on Iran. Thatcher even signed a £340 million export credit guarantee for Iraq a month after the chemical attack on Halabja, in March 1988. After that war, the US no longer wanted proxies in the Middle East: it wanted direct control. As the Project for the New American Century proclaimed in September 2000, "the need for a substantial American presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of [...]." So the real reason for war was never the nature of the Iraqi regime, never the need for democracy. Bush does not want free elections in Iraq, he wants a government that will accept US occupation and control. In free elections, the Iraqi people would reject such a government. Nor was a supposed threat from Iraq the real reason for war. Blair misled the nation when, in his TV address to the nation on 20 March, he said, "My judgement as Prime Minister is that this threat is real, growing and of an entirely different nature to any conventional threat to our security that Britain has faced before." But all these unnecessary were not just `Blair's wars': they were social democracy's wars too, because the Labour Party endorsed them all. And they are not the end of the matter: Vice President Dick Cheney has said that sixty regimes in the world needed changing. What would Blair do if Bush decided to change Cuba's regime? What would the Labour party do? More important, what would we all do? Even two million marchers did not stop a war. Marches, like elections, are based on the false premise that we live in a democracy, where people's opinions count. But we don't; we live under a dictatorship, run by a warmongering ruling class. To stop their wars, we have to remove that class from power. We can do more than march.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
