My point is that a government to thrive must claim to be backed by moral authority. Instilling fear would also work but I believe only for a short time. In the Philippines, the Church is a key player in politics as it occupies the role of providng moral authority. Its power may be more limited compared to the Thai King, but the Church has that role.

Yet what makes the king’s role in Thailand much more powerful is that it’s a constitutional monarchy. The strict lèse-majesté laws make it punishable to publicly question the king’s authority. He is also exempt from public scrutiny.

Anyway, I think it’s good that we’re discussing regional politics in Southeas Asia for a change, even if only bcause it somehow connects to Gloria, as Filipinos are normally more familiar with US and UK politics.

Filipino journalist Roby Alampay posted this insightful report in Asia Times, mentioning the uncharacteristic interest of Filipinos to the happenings in Thailand, and drawing up possible parallels to Philippine democracy.

Hence, the speculation that Blair was “pressured” to join Bush on Iraq lest the US refuse to “sell” appropriate replacement technology in time to meet target date.

Nuclear submarine replacement must be assured beforehand – specifications drawn, contract negotiated, signed, sealed long before the current one expires. You don’t “buy” nuclear tech replacement on the day or year it expires. Kinda stupid to do that! (According to Royal Navy, Trident will be considered obsolote in a couple of years.)

If you read what I said, this “blackmail” is based on rumours circulating in EU lobby town.

The wikeda on the net may be your sole or best source of knowledge or info but sensitive stuff eg, defence, aren’t always on the net, wikeda or on bbc.

Anyway, Bush is perfectly capable of blackmail (remember “either with me or against me crap”)! UK needs to replace Trident and Bush knows this – he had Tony Blair by the balls so Tony was forced go with Bush on Iraq otherwise, bye-bye Trident replacement!

We will know the truth in 20 or 30 years – as in the case of a planned coup d’état (with the help of the CIA) against Labour’s Wilson government which was kept secret for almost 3 decades but finally revealed to the public this year.

PS: And yes, I inadvertently used a French expression which when translated in English is “to put one and one”.

Here is a related URL:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5103764.stm

[PS: The idiom is "put two and two together" for "To draw the proper conclusions from existing evidence or indications."]

If this is ever true that Blair was forced to cave in because of a life and death situation for the UK lest it might not enjoy superpower status unless he said yes to Bush, then I might just judge Blair less harshly.

Could be but I doubt it. Blair was in on the secret before the invasion of Iraq as the Downing stret memos revealed – there were no stockpiles of WMDs in Iraq but he laboured on beside Bush. That’s why the common topic when it comes to this fiasco is why Blair went ahead defying common sense and reason to invade Iraq?

He went beyond the calls of friendship and all that WWII gratitude crap – it was just utter dog loyalty to an ideal that was completely wrong. So people think, why – what could have been the reason? Maggie didn’t behave like that at all and told Reagan in no mean terms that she was not for a head on confrontation with the USSR despite Reagan’s insistence to build his star wars as a pre-emptive move, just in case…

There was more than what meets the eye with regards Blair incredibly stupid public “fealty” to Bush; he was an educated man, considered a politician of high caliber so how could he when he could have persuaded Bush to wait for a couple more days for the UN inspectors to finish their job. So, people now say, it’s the eternal superpower blackmail: defence technology!