See no evil / Euston - 36 comments
If anyone's interested in my opinion on the recently averted airline terrorist outrage, you'd do well to read Scribbles' post instead, which makes the points I wanted to make, and shows a humanity that is, frankly, absent from all too many of the posts I've read. Some extracts:
[...] We get passengers at airports being interviewed asked if they think this is the fault of British foreign policy. People writing letters to the Guardian saying that this is all a set-up, staged to distract from matters in the Middle East. Comments in blog posts from British lefties telling us that if they were Muslim they'd probably do it too.Read it all.
And today we had a smarmy man in a suit, being interviewed by ITN lunchtime news, who told us calmly that there can be no surprise that Muslims are trying to do this to us. It is obvious, he explained casually, and the fault is entirely our own. It is totally normal behaviour to plan to commit mass murder because you disagree with government policy. Totally normal to kill yourself and others because of events that are happening to people you don't know in countries you have never been to. And all the while he spoke as if he were verbally shrugging his shoulders at the idea of thousands of people being ripped apart in our skys.
[...]
And, you know Iâm not sure how much longer I can keep doing this. I really donât think that it would have mattered to some people if this plot had not been foiled. If the attacks had gone ahead as planned and hell had opened up above the cities of America, they would still be doing it. Still shrugging their shoulders, still making excuses, still blaming Tony Blair. Because thatâs what they are like these people. Devoid of any heartfelt compassion, lacking in any sense of reality. When that man was pontificating today on the ITN news I started shaking with anger. Literally. And when he had finished his easy delivery of his world-view in which guilt attaches to the innocent and murder is standard, I burst into tears. I had to spend the rest of the afternoon trying to distract myself from the pure fury that was burning me up. His complete nonchalance at what violence on a mass scale is, at the idea of it, at the threat of it, was just unbearable to me. If he knew, I kept thinking, what he was being so casual about, if he knew just what he was shrugging his shoulders at, he wouldnât do it. He couldnât do it.
It is depressing to encounter so many people - Comment Is Free is particulaly foetid at the moment, if you've spent any time trawling through the comments - for whom murder is either a legitimate, 'inevitable', or 'understandable' reaction to a real or perceived injustice.
If you feel the same way, I encourage you to sign the Euston Manifesto - you'll find yourself in good company.
Update: See also Rob, Lola, Hak, to name just three. And well done, Kim Howells.
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36 comments so far...
Kim Howells officially made my day yesterday.
Tony Blair was warned repeatedly that invading Iraq would increase the likelihood of terrorist attacks on this country. In my view it is dishonest to pretend, therefore, that our foreign policy is not linked to the increase in successful and attempted attacks.
It's not dishonest and it's not pretending. It's a legitimate, rational view - particularly when you look at the timeline of al-Qaeda attacks, some of which predate 9/11.
People must begin to understand that if our foreign policy were totally different, *we would be subject to attack anyway*.
SC, do you think we should change our foreign policy in response to terrorist attacks? Shouldn't we apply one that best encompasses our values of internationalism, democracy, religious freedom, and fair wealth creation, even though that will attract the ire of terrorists, who will only be appeased by our quietude, impotence, or concern only with national interests? No offence, but I really don't think those are Labour values!
I fail to see why seeking to understand the reasons behind some outrageous act (such as a plan to bomb a plane and kill a lot of people) should be criticised as if it were an attempt to justify it.
The alternative appears to be to simply condemn people who carry out such acts, without seeking to understand the reasons.
What good does that do comrades?
To suggest that Blair's approach to global politics has made us more likely to face terrorist attacks does not assign blame for such activity to anyone other than the perpetrators themselves.
It seeks instead to address the question of how we reduce the likelihood of such events in future. This is a sensible question about which we ought to have a sensible debate. Ruling out debate on the grounds that even posing the question is to capitulate to terror is a counsel of despair.
I quite accept that some on the left may not be engaging in such a debate, preferring to score points - but I am not sure that I see much difference in the attitude of those condemning the left critics of Blair.
Last week's Observer had a useful story about "world terrorism expert Robert Pape" and the findings of his study of 462 suicide bombings. He concluded that "such acts have little to do with religious extremism and that the West must engage politically to halt the relentless slaughter."
Does that make him an apologist for terror?
I won't sign the Euston manifesto I'm afraid - not least because of its lazy caricature as "anti-American" of legitimate opposition to the neocon domination of US foreign policy.
But then again I am an unrepentant trot I suppose :)
john rogers, i'm buying you a beer fellah.
and....... seriously......lola..... if it only takes Kim Howells to make your day, aim higher. ;-)
W
We waste a lot of time on this chicken and egg question - what came first, the terrorism or the foreign policy?
The answer (if indeed there is one) doesn't much matter. What does matter is the cycle of violence and misunderstanding, which must be broken. And the inititative won't be taken by the terrorists.
Good on you for backing the government on this one. The Saturday's grauniad was a disgrace. Eulogies on the suspects and column inches for the political wing of Islam to lay out their blackmail letter. All the appeals for calm are to the Muslim community as if they are the ones with the right to be angry. I'm livid.
Birmingham Labour Muslim MP Khalid Mahmood recently criticised those that wrote the foreign policy letter to the Government and said the Muslim community leaders should spend less time complaining to the Government and more time rooting out extremism.
I certainly hope Ruth Kelly gives Mahmood's message to the Muslim representatives when she meets them later this week.
I just read the entry above and was touched by it. It is good to see some people retain a degree of humanity and can discern right from wrong. I also couldn't agree more with Rob's comment.
The flaw imo of Jon Rogers' comment is that he is saying people are trying to understand the reasons for such attacks. There are no reasons, only excuses. Posing the question is not to capitulate to terror, it is to miss the actual roots of the terror.
Robert Pape's study is flawed because never set out to examine the teachings of Islam as applied by Imams who recruit terrorists. It could only ever give the excuses he was given by people he spoke to.
Thanks for the information re Khalid Mahmood. He also came out of the difficult situation related to last year's Lozells riots with credit imho. So while I will lambast Sadiq Khan and his ilk for all I am worth, we need to be backing the likes of KM to the hilt at this time.
Monty, what on Earth are you talking about?
"There are no reasons, only excuses."
Ah, so acts of terror are the great uncaused are they? In a world of causes and effects, only acts of terror lie beyond the application of reason, do they?
Can't you differentiate between an attempt to understand the causes of events and therefore the points at which such events can be made subject to intevention, and an attempt to morally justify such events?
Clearly, you can't.
And as for all this crap along the lines 'we should not change our foreign (or domestic) policy in response to terrorism - our modern ME policy IS a response to terror. We are told that it is a response to terror that is designed to reduce levels of terrorism. The perfectly reasonable questions to ask of our actions in the War on Terror are; "Does it actually reduce terror? By what mechanisms can it be argued that it can/could do this?"
Now, if, on reflection it happens that our foreign policy - a response to terror - does not reduce the incidence of terrorism but in fact increases it, then it is time to look again.
Who would argue otherwise?
Well, loons who abandon reason, such as Monty, for one. Those with a political or economic interest in war, for another. And those too unreflexive and unquestioning to avoid lapping up soundbites such as "we will not allow foreign policy to be a response to terrorism", never considering the simple fact that our foreign policy already is just that.
Thank you Jon Rogers for articulating perfectly why I can't sign the Euston Manifesto. You are spot on, it is a 'lazy caricature of legitimate opposition to the neocon domination of US foreign policy' by calling it 'anti-american'.
As you point out, the EMers are as guilty of trying to close down debate as those people they criticise?
Why pick on the EMG, Neil? You're wrong if you think that Jon's comment is the kind of thing that the EMG would single out for criticism - it's substantially more reasonable than the standard fare of the liberal media and the disgusting CiF comments. So, Jon & Andrew, the point is not to dismiss all investigation of consequences, it is that at the very least we condemn terrorism unequivocally, especially the idea that terrorists were somehow driven to do whatever they've done - whatever the circumstances they claim. We can then move on.
Andrew, my mian criticism is that you use terrorism as a sign of an unjust foreign policy. I might once have accepted that, but the groups we oppose are so fundamentally opposed to the values we believe in (rendering our left-right spectrum trivial) that the relationship doesn't apply. Quietude would no doubt reduce terrorism aimed at the UK, at the expense of the preservation of tyranny abroad. This idea that we should put British citizens first - even though many need our help - still repels me as an internationalist. If we could sort out our differences on a progressive foreign policy that we really meant to act upon, would you then back that policy against the tolitarian, manipulating, theocratic forces that are trying to 'poison the well' of Islam?
This is the problem with the 'rational' approach: significant protagnoists are, by any standards, being powerfully manipulated - note the incidence of recent converts to Islam as suicide bombers. Where's the Marxist analysis when you need it?
Well said, Andrew Bartlett and Neil Harding. And a very interesting point, Neil, about the 'closing down' of debate. I shuddered.
Much as I find it distasteful to agree with George Galloway on any issue, it saddens me to admit that I now believe that Tony Blair, having taken us into an illegal war, is effectively guilty of a war crime. That may sound extreme. The reason it may sound extreme is because it is, in my view, extreme: Tony Blair and George Bush are responsible for the unnecessary deaths of one hundred and twenty British soldiers, two thousand six hundred American soldiers, and forty thousand Iraqi civilians.
I believe that Tony lost the trust of the British people, irrevocably and quite rightly, when he lied about WMD and the 45 minute threat. His amateur dramatics too, most memorably after Princess Diana's death, have been unsavoury to say the least. I am ashamed to have knowingly allowed myself to be blind to these issues for so long.
As for this thread's issue, the prime minister probably has greater reason to take to heart the following oath than any medical doctor: Primum non nocere. First, do no harm.
That is saddening, though I'm astonished by the extent of your jump, Seb. The "closing down debate" point is also mystifying - seems to me you're all speaking your minds here quite freely.
Don't you see how inaction can produce casualties for no reason at all, and how a retreat into insularity robs the powerless abroad of a powerful friend - if the policy is (well, is it?) carried out properly?
Primum non nocere. First, do no harm.
We signed up for an ethical foreign policy. I think what we have is about as close as a UK government is likely to get, so: where do we - in your opinion - go from here? Pacifism? "More money for schools"?
and the euston group's position on the current situation in Lebanon is...
Hi all,
As ever, I appreciate the Euston Group's good intentions without quite agreeing, but it still surprises me that Andrew finds Seb's comments astonishing - he is only articulating something which a huge number of ex-Labour party members and a large proportion of the electorate concluded a couple of years ago - that Tony Blair took the country to war illegally and on false pretences. That many - but not all - of us consider the bulk of New Labour foreign policy to be dangerous and deeply irresponsible consolidates the sense of unease and dismay.
That said, I don't understand the closing down of debate aspect. I do think, as I've argued before, that the manifesto was calculated to offend the anti-war left, but not that it tried to shut down debate; if anything, surely, it wanted to provoke it. And on that basis it was a worthwhile exercise for it certainly succeeded.
B4L, I have decided to repent, to use an old-fashioned term, and I think Tony Blair should do the same. Defending the indefensible was becoming too hard. There is loyalty, and then there is dishonesty. I was allowing my loyalty to Tony Blair to blur this distinction.
You seem to present inaction or pacifism - sarcastically or simplistically perhaps - as the only alternatives to the illegal war in Iraq. This is of course untrue. The majority of the international community were, and still are, opposed to the Iraq war, and in favour of further diplomacy. Yet we went ahead regardless, into an unprovoked and pre-emptive invasion. An illegal invasion. An illegal war, which, incidentally, renders our ethical foreign policy far from ethical.
And now we wonder why British Muslims are becoming more vociferous, more daring, more restless.
Tony Blair was warned repeatedly that invading Iraq would increase the risk of terrorist activity on home soil.
Senior politicians are not immune to committing acts of wrongdoing, or crimes. Tony Blair committed a crime when he gave the order for British troops to invade Iraq.
Tony Blair should therefore resign.
Grr. my comments won't work.
Well, there's more here
Andrew Bartlett, given your level of rudeness and unpleasant aggression I donât think anything anyone says that does not agree with your views will resonate with you. My own view is that on the specifics of this terror there are no valid reasons, only excuses.
Young Muslims need some kind of excuse for their actions because they need to rationalise what they are doing. They do not have enough understanding of the theocratic drivers of those who are brainwashing them into achieving the theocratic ends of their inciters.
I enjoyed your attempt at clever word play. You know full well that there is a big difference between a foreign policy that aims to combat terrorism in the middle east and south Asia, and a foreign policy that is drafted specifically to appease the people threatening us in the hope they will leave us alone. Surely even you can understand the difference?
You raise the perfectly reasonable questions that can be asked of our actions in the War on Terror; "Does it actually reduce terror? By what mechanisms can it be argued that it can/could do this?" My answer is that the aim is not simply to reduce terror but to fight those who encourage and facilitate the terror. In this regard I do not think the way it is being fought is correct. We are fighting by a set of rules that other people do not respect. We are being discriminate while the enemy is being indiscriminate. War is not pleasant. If you fight it, then you should fight it to win. In that vein I would prefer to see targeted operations that decapitate the architects of the terror we are opposing. If that means sanctioning assassinations and selective strikes, then so be it.
What you fail to understand is that our foreign policy is about more than combating terror. You only see it as a response to terror, which is naive and simplistic, rather than a complex set of objectives encompassing a broad spectrum of aims. How could the sum total of our foreign policy be a response to terror alone? In any case, just because any war on terror could be protracted and difficult that does not mean you change an entire foreign policy when so many aspects of it have nothing to do with a war on terror.
It is a shame you have to resort to name calling and allow your own ignorance of what constitutes a foreign policy to undermine what could have been a reasoned discussion. Suggesting that our foreign policy is only a response to terror is a soundbite in itself and demonstrates a lack of understanding of the complexities of international relations and diplomacy.
Yet we went ahead regardless, into an unprovoked and pre-emptive invasion. An illegal invasion. An illegal war, which, incidentally, renders our ethical foreign policy far from ethical.
Unprovoked??? Just because Saddam didn't kill (many) British people, have we - or indeed any country in the world - no right to declare his actions worthy of punishment?
Norm sold me on the illegality point: will hunt for the link.
Our foreign policy might have been naive, or even foolhardy, but doesn't the principle look ethical?
And now we wonder why British Muslims are becoming more vociferous, more daring, more restless.
You'd think we went into Iraq to punish Muslims, not free them from a dictator, and you'd think it was coalition forces blowing people up by the thousand, not other Muslims. You can't deny that manipulation, propaganda, and Jew-hatred are at work here. I really, really don't think that Muslims in the UK have a legitimate grievance, let alone even the slightest justification for violence.
there is no moral justification for killing civillians, none.
unfortunately people are blowning people up..... and trying to understand why they are doing it isn't to excuse it - it is to try and explain it. And once we understand what the heck is going on at a deeper level than "they hate us for our freedom"........ we might get somewhere in turning people away from this.
A great problem is the people willing to destroy themselves and us don't share our secular progresssive view - but those likely to terrorise aren't the vocal ones. The local islamic nut who yells about homosexual paedophiles, the glory of allah and the saviour coming isn't going to be the guy strapping a bomb to himself.
The guy doing the blowing up is the quiet one who is integrated into society, be it the young muslim society one or the wider secular one..... and as we have seen - it is these least likely who are most difficult to find. Example 7/7.
There is no way that a "war on terror" can be won, there will always be people willing to kill for their beliefes, or just to make a bloody point.
We can try and disrupt attacks, stop them completely or if they happen minimize fall out - but there will always be attacks by one group or another for some (percieved)reason or another.
Iraq has happened, and continues to happen, but the uncomfortable truth excellently being masked by militants is that the biggest killers of muslims in Iraq at the moment are.......... muslims. Sectarian extremists intent on civil war and self destruction - the american invasion blew the lid off the powder keg that saddam had been sat on.
The bombs being set off in the middle of Baghdad are not aimed at american troops or any government infrastructure - just at civillians.
The situation in Iraq changed when Americans and us stopped being the primary targets..... we can't protect the Iraqi people from each other - we don't have the fighting power or intelligence ability and our invlvement in the civil war raging among islamic sects will spiral us downwards with it. We will be percieved as taking sides -whoever we try and protect from who.
W
B4L, I am so happy to be free of this self-deception. I have lifted my head out of the sand. Far too late, I admit, but I have done it.
Let's not confuse matters here: our foreign policy is, in respect of the illegal invasion of Iraq and the deliberate failure to call for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon, causing resentment among British Muslims and an increase in planned, attempted, and successful terrorist attacks by young British Muslim males. There is nothing complex about this. Tony Blair was warned repeatedly by the Joint Intelligence Chiefs that invading Iraq would increase the risk of terrorist attacks on Britain. Do you think they were wrong?
"Yes, but there's no excuse for terrorist activities!"
Shall we count the difference in the number of Islamist terrorist attacks on British soil before we invaded Iraq and after we invaded Iraq? I believe the number of Islamist terrorist attacks on British soil before we invaded Iraq is 'very few'. I believe the number of Islamist terrorist attacks on British soil after we invaded Iraq is 'quite a few'.
Wars are not policy blips, or little errors. They are not like whimsical suggestions that drunken yobs be taken to cashpoints and fined, that can be laughed about, and then forgotten about. Wars are messy, hateful, irreversible, murderous, bitter, bloody, brutal and lengthy affairs. Emphasis on 'lengthy'. For more than a thousand consecutive days, our troops, British troops, previously respected around the world, have occupied a foreign country without the blessing, agreement, or support of the international community, and forty thousand mums, dads and kids are now dead. I can't imagine the majority died peacefully in their sleep. It was probably a bit more unpleasant for them than that.
Having made the initial error to become involved in the illegal war, Tony Blair and his cabinet have had no option but to justify that erroneous decision for ever more. With each day that passes, each day that more innocent Iraqi civilians are murdered, Tony Blair and his cabinet have to lie to the British people to justify the situation we now find ourselves in. There were no weapons of mass destruction. There was no mandate from the international community. There was merely a sense of resentment after 9/11, and a gun-toting, hip-shooting American president who decided that revenge at any price was a price worth paying. And a prime minister who agreed with him.
I'm glad I've lifted my head out of the sand. I don't like the way it tastes.
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John Reid has said that MI5 were monitoring one or more (I can't actually remember how many) of the potential-terrorists arrested last week before the Invasion of Iraq, and they have apparently found evidence that something was being concocted even before 9/11.
Correct me if I'm wrong. I don't have Reid's interview at hand so I can't be 100% sure of what he said. I am certain that he said the recent terror plot has been in the making since before 9/11.
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Sam, that's a good point, but I'm afraid I don't trust or believe Dr Reid any more. I felt that he was telling lies during that interview. Like other loyal members of Tony Blair's cabinet, he has no option but to lie in order to justify the presence of British soldiers in Iraq.
One way to judge the situation would be to assess the number of attempted and successful terrorist attacks before and after Britain's involvement in Iraq. Can you recall any successful attempts beforehand?
Again, I come back to a critically important point: Tony Blair was advised by the most expert and senior military analysts in this country that an invasion of Iraq by British troops would increase the risk of terrorist attacks in this country.
I doubt that they said to him 'Oh, but Tony, you mustn't worry, because everyone knows that these terrorist attacks have been attempted before, so no one will blame you. Go right ahead and invade.' They said that there would be an increased risk of terrorist attacks on British soil. That has proved to be the case.
Must say, I'm with seb on this one.
And we're both Euston signatories!
Big problems for me are:
(a) Insularity. People abroad have been dying for years at the hands of the same terrorist groups/twisted ideology that we are faced with. Our reaction is to judge the danger of that threat solely in terms of the greater/lesser risk to ourselves! Where's the solidarity with the victims of Bali or the USS Cole?? And do we seriously believe that a creed that seeks to kill 'unbelievers' can ever leave Britain alone? Just as there is no concession Israel can make that will ever stop certain terrorist groups pledging themselves to its elimination, we can't fool ourselves into thinking that we can - with our liberal society - ever not be a target.
(b) The emphasis on Iraq (I might say 'conveniently for some') deludes us into forgetting attacks and attempted attacks going back many years. See here, or here (last couple of paragraphs).
You don't have to "trust" John Reid to accept those points. I wouldn't say I trusted or distrusted him, luckily we don't simply have to rely on what the Govt. says for our information.
Thanks El Tom - I need all the support I can get!
Andrew (aka B4L), I respect your opinions, although I disagree with them.
a) international solidarity does not mean it's ok to walk into a country and occupy it without the support of the international community.
b) let's not quibble over the obvious: no Islamist terrorist attacks were visited upon this island before we invaded Iraq.
c) there were no weapons of mass destruction.
I will never forget sitting on a red double decker bus on my way to work in the summer of 1994, crossing Westminster Bridge towards Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, and feeling a lump rising in my throat as I read the Guardian's headline: 'Brown Falls on his Sword'. The untimely death of John Smith had foisted an unwelcome and unexpected leadership contest upon the Labour Party, and, to many people's surprise, and my delight, Tony Blair had won. I was beside myself with excitement. We as a nation knew that the new leader of the Labour Party would be the next prime minister. I was twenty-seven years old at the time, and had never known anything other than a Conservative government.
From that day to this, I have been a hard-line, die-hard, stupidly loyal, head-in-the-sand, head-in-the-clouds supporter of Tony Blair. He could do no wrong, and in the early days, rarely did. I justified, excused, and supported many things I should have questioned: the mediocre restoring of rights to trade union members; the early decision to stick to the Tories' spending limits; the public-private partnerships; the unnecessarily complex and underhanded methods of increasing the tax burden; the Iraq War; the awful, hammy amateur dramatics after Diana's death; the pandering to Rupert Murdoch, the CBI and big business; the forcible expulsion of octagenarian hecklers from party conferences; the second-fiddle playing to George W. Bush; the increasingly draconian sentences being handed out; the focus on crime, rather than on the causes of crime; the insistence on targets and the sinking morale of an overburdened NHS and teaching workforce; the lies, the cover-ups, the distractions, the denials, and the dishonesty surrounding the weapons of mass destruction issue. Anything, but anything, was better than having a Conservative government back in power.
So what's changed? I don't know. Too much, and not enough. Something is wrong with the Labour Party. The job of a Labour government is to look after the workers, the under-privileged, the vulnerable, the needy, the hurt, the helpless and the poor. This government is therefore failing in its duty. One half of the equation has been satisfied: the creation of wealth. The other half remains undone: the redistribution of it. I voted for a left wing government, and I want a left wing government.
Andrew, I find myself in the embarrassing position of being a turncoat, a U-turn merchant, and a volte-face doer. I won't respect you any less if you decide to do the same.
Labour Party supporter, member and activist for 27 years between 1972 and 1999. I cut all links with the party when they agreed to use NATO forces, with no UN backing to bomb Serbia.
The performance of the Labour government under Blair with regard to Iraq is reprehensible.
The foreign policy of this government is falling apart. It was based on lies told to the UN, parliament and the British people.
Regardless of whether this has made me more or less a target of militant Islamic teerorists I demand that my government comes clear... The Iraq war was a fiasco based on cynical manipulation of the British people, aided by a willing media.
Blair is 'unfit for purpose'.
To be honest I don't think that comment is relevant, but it seems to me that whenever someone has to act against a brutal dictator, out comes the opposition. Tackling tyranny would appear to be the definition of our foreign policy (not clearly or consistently enough, IMO) which is why I object to your use of words like 'reprehensible'.
So: is the policy wrong or is it inconsistent, and do you/did you have alternative strategies for getting rid of Milosevic and Hussein?
In my opinion, Mooney's comment is highly relevant. We've been talking about the government's foreign policy.
I would have to agree with Mooney's use of the word 'reprehensible' too. In my view and in that of many others, the Iraq War is an illegal war in which Tony Blair chose to involve this country.
I agree too that the war is 'a fiasco based on cynical manipulation of the British people, aided by a willing media'. It horrifies me to consider that the media of the Western world benefits from, and feeds voraciously upon the bloodletting of civilians in distant lands, while we, the civilised, consume their product, watching the live 'action' in horror and fascination like a bedraggled mob, baying for blood at a public execution, all the while expressing our concern.
'Aren't they uncivilised over there?' 'Aren't we lucky to live over here?'
Andrew, we simply cannot delude ourselves any longer. The Iraq War is an illegal and unnecessary war.
Did we really 'have to act against a brutal dictator', as you have just stated? Why then was the international community so against us going in to Iraq? Forgive the perhaps-inappropriate levity, but why did we score nul points in the Eurovision Song Contest a year or two ago? The rest of Europe was simply disgusted with us, and understandably so.
The mature democracies of Europe can act as a counterveiling influence on the almighty and disproportionate sway of the USA, and should do so at every turn.
Blair in 1999 made a speech which set out some of his considerations for an interventionist foreign policy. It seems to me that the government have been remarkably consistent in how it has carried forward foreign policy given that doctrine.
If weâre going to talk about the legality of the invasion of Iraq, then we should at least acknowledge that there is some dispute about whether UN resolutions 1441 and 678 provide a legal basis for the war. I think its also helpful to point out that Parliament played a part in determining whether to send British troops to take part in the overthrow of the regime. And unless Iâve misread this resolution we should also acknowledge that the troops in Iraq at the moment are there with UN authority, which may or may not imply some âblessing, agreement, or support of the international communityâ.
I think I accept that the foreign policy that the government has pursued has made us more likely to be the target of terrorist attacks, in the same way that previous governments refusal to cede to the demands of the IRA meant that their terrorism continued. Did that make the policy position of those governments wrong?
Iâd rather we worked through what we wanted our foreign policy to achieve first, then to look at the most effective way of making that happen, and then look at mitigating against the risks that might ensue.
Andrew B - well said, these are all very good points. I wish I had time to research my answer more thoroughly, but I don't, so I'll just have to do my best.
Your first point - about consistency of the government's policy - is a fair one, though nothing in my view can excuse an illegal war. This illegality you challenge in your second point. Yes, there is some dispute. I fear there was a heady mix of revenge, bloodlust and anti-Islamism post nine eleven which in the end carried the day - despite the more level-headed and measured approach urged upon us by France and others. Many others.
The fact that Parliament played a part is true and a fair point also. In times of war, however, it is highly unusual for the Opposition benches not to support the Government of the day, and would probably be political suicide. Charlie Kennedy excepted, of course - he committed political suicide in an entirely different way.
I think the words 'UN authority' almost constitute an oxymoron these days. If I remember rightly, the USA and Britain bullied the UNSC into tabling another resolution which was sufficiently vaguely worded to allow the use of force. I question such authority.
I do not equate IRA terrorism with Islamist terrorism. One is global, the other local. One is predominantly ideological, the other primarily territorial. One is, or was, on home soil. The other is both here and abroad. If the IRA are saying 'Get out of Northern Ireland', what do you believe the Islamist extremists are saying?
The IRA terrorism was visited upon us - yes, perhaps because of the 'sins' of our fathers. The Islamist terrorism we visited upon ourselves.
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