Felix the Cat
03-06-2006, 04:19 AM
http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10912
After the U.S. President George W. Bush claimed that occupying Iraq was "a mission from God", his ally British Prime Minister Tony Blair, now says his conscience guided the decision which will be ultimately judged by God.
In an interview with chat show host Michael Parkinson to be broadcast on Britain's ITV1 television Saturday, the British Premier said he followed his conscience when he decided to join the United States in its war on Iraq.
"That decision has to be taken and has to be lived with, and in the end there is a judgment that -- well, I think if you have faith about these things then you realise that judgment is made by other people."
"If you believe in God, it's made by God as well."
Terming the decision to launch war as the toughest he had faced since he came to power in 1997, Blair told interviewer Michael Parkison "I struggled with my conscience over the decision to join the U.S.-led invasion."
"This is not just a matter of a policy here or a thing there, but of their lives and in some case their death ... the only way you can take a decision like that is to try to do the right thing, according to your conscience and for the rest of it you leave it to the judgment that history will make."
Asked whether he prays to God when making a decision such as going to war.
"Well, I don't want to get into something like that," he said.
"Of course you struggle with your own conscience about it because people's lives are affected and it's one of these situations that I suppose very few people ever find themselves in. In the end you do what you think is the right thing."
In response to Blair's comments, which were strongly criticised by opposition parties and families of some of British soldiers who lost their lives in Iraq, Menzies Campbell, leader of the smaller opposition Liberal Democrats, which opposed the British PM’s decision to go to war against Iraq, said: "Going to war isn't just an act of faith, it requires rigorous analysis of the legality of doing so, the likelihood of success, the number of possible casualties and the long-term consquences.
"My complaint of the prime minister is that while he may have believed what he was doing was right, the prospect for military action was flawed."
Also Evan Harris, an honorary associate of campaign group the National Secular Society, agreed.
"It's a bizarre and shocking revelation that the prime minister claims to have been guided by the supernatural in this matter, especially given the particular religious sensitivities in the Middle East." Harris said.
Reg Keys, whose son was killed in Iraq in June 2003, said god and religion had nothing to do with the conflict.
"This is his (Blair's) effort to fudge it. War should be the final option that a prime minister takes when all avenues have failed," said Keys.
"In my view those other avenues hadn't failed. He is using God as a get-out for total strategic failure and I find it abhorrent."
After the U.S. President George W. Bush claimed that occupying Iraq was "a mission from God", his ally British Prime Minister Tony Blair, now says his conscience guided the decision which will be ultimately judged by God.
In an interview with chat show host Michael Parkinson to be broadcast on Britain's ITV1 television Saturday, the British Premier said he followed his conscience when he decided to join the United States in its war on Iraq.
"That decision has to be taken and has to be lived with, and in the end there is a judgment that -- well, I think if you have faith about these things then you realise that judgment is made by other people."
"If you believe in God, it's made by God as well."
Terming the decision to launch war as the toughest he had faced since he came to power in 1997, Blair told interviewer Michael Parkison "I struggled with my conscience over the decision to join the U.S.-led invasion."
"This is not just a matter of a policy here or a thing there, but of their lives and in some case their death ... the only way you can take a decision like that is to try to do the right thing, according to your conscience and for the rest of it you leave it to the judgment that history will make."
Asked whether he prays to God when making a decision such as going to war.
"Well, I don't want to get into something like that," he said.
"Of course you struggle with your own conscience about it because people's lives are affected and it's one of these situations that I suppose very few people ever find themselves in. In the end you do what you think is the right thing."
In response to Blair's comments, which were strongly criticised by opposition parties and families of some of British soldiers who lost their lives in Iraq, Menzies Campbell, leader of the smaller opposition Liberal Democrats, which opposed the British PM’s decision to go to war against Iraq, said: "Going to war isn't just an act of faith, it requires rigorous analysis of the legality of doing so, the likelihood of success, the number of possible casualties and the long-term consquences.
"My complaint of the prime minister is that while he may have believed what he was doing was right, the prospect for military action was flawed."
Also Evan Harris, an honorary associate of campaign group the National Secular Society, agreed.
"It's a bizarre and shocking revelation that the prime minister claims to have been guided by the supernatural in this matter, especially given the particular religious sensitivities in the Middle East." Harris said.
Reg Keys, whose son was killed in Iraq in June 2003, said god and religion had nothing to do with the conflict.
"This is his (Blair's) effort to fudge it. War should be the final option that a prime minister takes when all avenues have failed," said Keys.
"In my view those other avenues hadn't failed. He is using God as a get-out for total strategic failure and I find it abhorrent."