Why is the left always on the back foot

Internecine arguments.

Ah, but most people did back the war didn’t they. Uncomfortable but true.

Where and of whom was the picture at the top taken?

You go stand with the Luton loonies if you like and see where it gets you.

I think if you look back, it was the press, not the government who were “bigging up” WMD.

Here’s Blair at the US congress, July 17 2003

Can we be sure that terrorism and weapons of mass destruction will join together? Let us say one thing: If we are wrong, we will have destroyed a threat that at its least is responsible for inhuman carnage and suffering. That is something I am confident history will forgive.

But if our critics are wrong, if we are right, as I believe with every fiber of instinct and conviction I have that we are, and we do not act, then we will have hesitated in the face of this menace when we should have given leadership. That is something history will not forgive.

Read the whole speech, it was good enough for me.

I’m on the left, and I don’t agree with your views about “anti-war” protest or your views about soldiers at all. I don’t think this is because I am “on the backfoot”, I think it because you are wrong.

Evidently you are only capable of making sense of the fact that the left wing hasn’t with one voice expressed the views you hold, by some inexplicable weakness on the part of the left. I suggest you give some more thought some alternative explanations, such as the possibility that lots of people on the left don’t agree with you.

I would also like to know where the picture came from

Oh I see, blame the media instead of blaming yourself. A fairly pathetic strategy.

The media don’t set the tone – they respond to it. The media wouldn’t get away with such headlines if it didn’t sell newspapers. So the question becomes why do these headlines sell newspapers? It sells newspapers because the public is completely shut out of the political process by the socialist authoritarians running this country. The public are angry about what is happening to this country and the newspapers play to this anger, which is a perfectly reasonable line to take.

The fact of the matter is that if political correctness didn’t cause so much frustration and irritation, if every foreigner contributed to this country and integrated into British society, if social workers were all brilliant, if no-one was allowed to abuse the welfare state and if every Muslim wanted to be British and show loyalty to our values and heritage, these newspapers would go out of business.

The fact that there is so much material to use on these issues says a hell of a lot about what’s going on in society and if the liberal left cannot compete then they clearly are not relevant or offering useful solutions to any of the problems facing society.

Sorry? Because some soldiers allegedly committed crimes it’s okay to scream abuse at others? So collective guilt is acceptable? Intereting notion of “liberal”…

I myself am of the left, & think there are serious concerns to be made over Islamism in this country & worldwide. I also think, for environmental & social reasons, that immigration should be reduced. I am not aware of being beholden to agree with ultra-liberals who will always support immigration & excuse-making out of ideology, without regard to practical consequences.

Before anyone calls me right-wing, ask yourselves why I am at odds with right-whingers over virtually everything from the licence fee to the environment to the USA.

Those who disagree with you are not traitors who refuse to carry the left-wing flame, we have reality-based left reasons for questioning your views.

There are people every week telling Johann Hari not to rock the boat & does he really think it’s a good idea offending people, but we’re better off for voices like this.

Why are we giving yet more publicity to these 20 people who crave publicity? It’s utterly counterproductive.

Well, debate on issues such as the right to protest of Islamist dingbats is, on all sides, carried out almost exclusively by horrible cockends who would contribute more to society if they just went home and shouted into a bucket instead of browning their trousers at protests or on the internet.

Personally, I’m not particularly afraid of twenty rowdy Muslim wingnuts shouting deliberately provocative slogans – OTOH, I’m not down with whitewashing the invasion of Iraq as an act of democratic altruism either. It’s possible to believe both things without the back of your head blowing up.

That said, can I note that it’s most sporting of the British government to send “boys and girls” to Afghanistan and Iraq. Personally, I’d have sent “heavily armed and combat-trained professional killers” into a warzone, but obviously the government fancies giving the Taliban a sporting chance.

There are people every week telling Johann Hari not to rock the boat & does he really think it’s a good idea offending people, but we’re better off for voices like this.

This is because Johann, like others of his ilk, has a horrible habit of garlanding some reasonable arguments with highly contentious assertions and hyperbolic statements, then denouncing anyone who doesn’t accept the whole package as a fellator of Nazis.

In addition, I note that he appears to believe that offending people just for the sheer merry fuck of it seems to be a desirable end in itself, regardless of whether it has any positive effect at all. That’s a perfectly reasonable thing for student politicians, stand-up comedians and toddlers to believe, but is perhaps not the best policy for, say, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

The problem with the Left, if this site is representative, is the continual focus on the lowest form of debate. Rarely have I read a critique of anything that’s appeared in the Telegraph. Instead, you are obsessed with the Sun and the Daily Mail. Should you be concerning yourselves about the views of Ross Kemp? Only, if power is more important than principle. Then, you might as well join the Labour Party.

Many of those who were against the Iraq War did in fact vote Labour in 2005 and will do again in 2010. The anti-Tory phenomenon is a more powerful force than moral or political principles in far too many lefties.

“The media don’t set the tone – they respond to it. The media wouldn’t get away with such headlines if it didn’t sell newspapers.”

You don’t believe that they can set the tone? Was there, then, a widespread and simultaneous fear of Saddam Hussein that the media innocently exploited with ZOMG! 45 minutes! nonsense? No, there may have been a general insecurity, but the media can target those emotions with spin, hyperbole and the propagation of lies. Just as, now, there’s a very real and justified discontent, but one that the media have targeted and fuelled with distortion and disinformation, thus effectively weakening the power of the populace.

The fact that there is so much material to use on these issues says a hell of a lot about what’s going on in society…

In some cases, maybe, but often it just says a hell of a lot about how unscrupulous the media is. For example, on the subject of apparent Islamic extremism…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/feb/26/sun-pays-damages-to-muslim-bus-driver

http://www.ministryoftruth.me.uk/?s=so+sang+the+blithe+reporter+man

http://5cc.blogspot.com/2008/02/warming-up-old-food-and-why-its.html

http://www.islamophobia-watch.com/islamophobia-watch/2009/2/10/another-muslim-ghetto-takes-shape-another-paranoid-rant-by-d.html

http://5cc.blogspot.com/2008/04/i-ve-just-been-bit-sick.html

http://5cc.blogspot.com/2007/07/outright-lying-in-daily-express.html

And that’s just what I could find in three minutes before English.

The anti-Tory phenomenon is a more powerful force than moral or political principles in far too many lefties.

I’m loath to admit it, but that’s a very fair point.

This is a classic case of lefties wanting to think they are oppressed and on the back foot, so that they can rail against the big, bad Establishment.

The fact is that left-wing politics scored major victories during the 20th century. We now have an ever-expanding welfare state, an NHS, no death penalty, multiculturalism, abortion, the UN, the EU, mass immigration and a whole host of other things that would never have happened if not for the left.

And that’s despite the horrors of Soviet Russia, which you’d think would make anyone think twice before adopting leftist positions.

You have won, so far. You control the government, a few major newspapers, the BBC, the Civil Service and even much of the church. Some of your ideas have even rubbed off on our next King.

So don’t do yourselves down. Congratulate yourselves.

Because the left wing middle classes have great difficulty in gaining the support of traditional working class and lower middle class voters, who provide the great majority of the Armed Forces; especially those undertaking combat operations. Look at the sale of newspapers 400, 000 Guardian, 1,500,000 Daily Mirrror and 250,000 Independent compared to the sales of the Sun, Daily Mail, Telepgraph, FT and Times which is probaly around 7.4 million. For every soldier serving there are probably 10-20 friends and familiy. People would listen to those criticize the Armed Forces if they had undertaken tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan in combat roles. Apparentlly Claire Short refused to allow DFID to provide support for reconstruction in Iraq . It was the lack of reconstruction which rightly so fuelled much of the Iraqi’s anger. Therefore Claire Short’s actions made it iconsiderably more difficult for working class soldiers.

When Iraqi thieves stole from food stores, the local population wanted them executed. The British soldiers beat them up. They had to no prison capability to detain them. Of course the easiest option would have been to hand them over to the local population which would most likely have beaten them to death. The problem was that Britain with drew too many armed forces too quickly before local forces had been trained. There were many complex conflicts betwen a large number of groups , Sunni and Shia . Britain cannot be blamed for Iraqis hating each other and wishing to exact revenge due to life under the Baath Regime. Let us not worry about this , just blame the British soldiet for not having the patience of a saint, the wisdom of Solomon and inability speak fluent colloquial southern Iraqi arabic and understand the complexity of religious and tribal feuds all in summer temperatures of 53 centigrade in the shade combined with very high humidity.

It would be interesting to know how much Paul Shiner earns. If he takes home the pay of a soldier then fair play to him. If he is making money out of the mistakes of an under resourced and overstretched Armed Forces; then I cannot imagine the family and friends of a working class soldier are going to be particularly supportive of the left wing middle class. Loyalty is an important quality in working class life, especially for those who undertake dangerous work- one has to be able to look in someones eyes and trust them with one’s life. Where is the loyalty of the left wing middle classes to the British working class soldier? Billy Bragg appear to be the only person in the left wing middle classes who has grasped this point.

Flying Rodent, I see no evidence of offence-giving for its own sake in Johann Hari’s work.

The fact is there are a lot of people who are ludicrously thin-skinned. We do not want to offend them but we will anyway, so we might as well just say what we believe to be true based on our observations & research.

I dislike mindless wind-up merchants such as the RCP/LM brigade as much as anyone, but I like to think that I & those like me do not behave in such a way. I do observe a tendency to assume that anyone who, for example, disagrees with unlimited immigration must be a Mail reader, & so on.

BTW, Cicero, might I ask why you’re on this site? You don’t seem to do anything but berate those you consider to be left-wing &, therefore, unacceptable. Your life, but it strikes me as a waste of your own time.

Luis:

I’m on the left, and I don’t agree with your views about “anti-war” protest or your views about soldiers at all. I don’t think this is because I am “on the backfoot”, I think it because you are wrong.

Exactly.

Oh look, a me too post.

Claude, you might have had a point if you’d stuck to general defensiveness of the liberal position on some issues (I don’t think it’s a strong one because I sure as hell aren’t defensive). But you muddled it up with an issue on which opinion across the board is divided.

James:

Because some soldiers allegedly committed crimes it’s okay to scream abuse at others? So collective guilt is acceptable? Interpreting notion of “liberal”…

Claude seems to think his position is a liberal one. I sure as hell don’t. I opposed the war, I thought it was being fought for the wrong reasons, at the wrong time, with poor planning and with no clear objective.

There were, however, liberal reasons for an intervention of some sort, and that intervention should have happened a lot sooner (eg during the uprising post GW1 that our Govt allowed Saddam to break the “no fly zone” in order to suppress). Paddy Ashdown remains a politician I greatly admire, and his liberal internationalism led him to support the war, my liberal internationalism led me to oppose it.

Liberals were divided on the issue, the left were divided on the issue, even the bloody Tories were divided on the issue, yet Claude’s decided his view is the only one that’s valid.

Not, in any way, a liberal position.

Liberals were divided on the issue, the left were divided on the issue, even the bloody Tories were divided on the issue, yet Claude’s decided his view is the only one that’s valid.

Not really , Conservatives uniformly supprted the war with or without WMDs. They are also uniformly in supprt of our troops .
T

And that’s despite the horrors of Soviet Russia, which you’d think would make anyone think twice before adopting leftist positions.

Why do stupid people keep coming here and posting such drivel? Is such idiotic thinking meant to drive us into the arm of rightwing policies?

Mat: Claude seems to think his position is a liberal one. I sure as hell don’t. I opposed the war, I thought it was being fought for the wrong reasons, at the wrong time, with poor planning and with no clear objective.

Don’t think Claude is arguing for the semantics of what is a liberal position – because the case can be made for intervention and not.

The point is – why should we accept the idiotic jingoism of the very papers that cheered on the war in the first place? Anyone who thinks opposing the war is the same as siding with the Luton Islamists is bereft of thinking clearly, because that would imply anything that vaguely chimes with a BNP position means you may as well be part of their agenda.
It’s like that classic riposte: Hitler was vegetarian, ergo all vegetarians are potential fascists. People who have such simplistic thinking should go back to school.

I don’t agree with the article entirely but it makes some good points.

Again, you’re going by what you think the Tory party is & what you want it to be rather than any reality.

The above were addressed to Newmania.

Adam

Don’t think Claude is arguing for the semantics of what is a liberal position

No, I don’t think he is either. He appears to have assumed his is the liberal position, the only possible one, and that therefore what he’s saying is self evident truth.

It’s like that classic riposte: Hitler was vegetarian, ergo all vegetarians are potential fascists. People who have such simplistic thinking should go back to school.

Yes, but that’s all I can see from Claude’s argument on this position. Simplistic reductio ad absurdium.

don’t agree with the article entirely but it makes some good points.

Agreed, it does try to. But it hides them amongst some bloody awful ones and makes a supposition that cannot be backed up.

@Newmania. I was giving the tories the benefit of the doubt, but if you want to assert on their behalf that the entire party are a hive mind united entirely around the issue with no dissenting voices whatsoever, then I bow to your superior wisdom. The Tory activists and members I’ve met who opposed the war and regretted the decision of the Parliamentary party must’ve been a figment of my imagination. Nice to see you debunking the “party of individualism” thing so comprehensibly.

Is there any point reading newmania? I don’t bother with that incomprehensible drivel.

Claude’s post seems to be missing a massive bloody great point about class, which is surely an important bit of being lefty (or did I miss that memo?), in that most of the people in the army are there because of a massive shortage of other options.

Blaming them for stupid/evil decisions taken by Blair and Bush is missing the point, at best…

Quite. No reason why we can’t welcome soldiers back, recognise their sacrifice and willingness to put themselves in danger, make sure they haven’t lost out by being a soldier through missed opportunities/not being on the right waiting lists etc AND oppose the war.

Mind you, I have no objection to the war on Iraq on the basis of illegality or flawed grounds either. If something will have a terrible outcome, it seems pointless to criticise it on the basis of not correctly following the right process – it’s the act itself we should be criticising. Anyway, that’s a four-year-old argument, just some of the language of the original post made me want to revisit it.

2. SL
You really have a very weak and peculiar way of debating- by basically denying facts.
It’s like someone writes there’s a recession and you go “Well, who said there’s a recession. The economy is going fine”.
Most people were in favour of the war? Where? It’s true that at the time of the attack there was not a majority against the war “come what may”, but in the UK, a poll commissioned by the Times (published 11/2/2003) said that 86% wanted more time for weapons inspections and only 25% thought enough evidence had been found to justify a war that quick.

3. cjcjc
I’m at work now but hopefully later I can provide details of where I got the pic from (hoping that my g/f didn’t delete stuff from the PC…! not unlikely…). However, google “British torture Basra” or similar combinations and you’ll be confronted by a vast array of images. Don’t get too proud though.

4. SL
what are you talking about? What planet are on? I bet you also think that West Brom are currently top of the league and Man Utd at the bottom. You think Tony Blair’s speech was good enough for you. Fine. Keep believing what those in power tell you. I’ll count you and those like you when I try and get some sleep.

5. Luis Enrique (didn’t he use to be a Spanish player?…)
“the fact that the left wing hasn’t with one voice expressed the views you hold, by some inexplicable weakness on the part of the left”.
That’s OBVIOUSLY not what I meant.
It’s the fact that the initiative seems to be consistently seized by the other side and the left let them.
The Luton episode highlighted levels of goldfish memory previously unknown to man. Which suits the Sun & co very very well. The left should have gone…where those 20 people in Luton come from is at this stage IRRELEVANT. The relevant part is that Britain became active parties in an atrocity – made worse by the fact that it was craftily manufactured for the media.

9. asquith
But my point is exacty that. The tabloids are going to use 20 “Islamists” to pummel in the “Our Boys” slogan and change the whole discourse over the Iraq war. So called “Islamists” gorup couldn’t be any further from my political idea. But that doesn’t change the horrors of the whole Iraq affair, from the way it was concocted to the actual war itself.

12. chavscum.
I agree with you when you write that “Many of those who were against the Iraq War did in fact vote Labour in 2005 and will do again in 2010. The anti-Tory phenomenon is a more powerful force than moral or political principles in far too many lefties”.
Unfortunately, you’re right on that one.

13. BenSix
I totally agree. There are countless episodes of tabloids stirring up tension or collective hysteria. That stuff about “paediatricians/paedophiles” in Wales around 2000. Remember?
Or the hate campaign against the England v Portugal referee at Euro 2004 that forced him to move to a new abode…all the way up to the anti-social workers campaign. Those who say that the media don’t influence stuff but it merely reflects taste have never heard of the word ‘marketing’, for one thing.

14. Cicero
Oh yeah cos Soviet Russia was “leftist positions”. Then Mussolini was a Tory. How’s that?

15. Charlie
I agree with your analysis of newspaper circulation and appeal to the military and their family. BUT. To depict the army solely as ‘working class’ belongs to a totally different era, I’m afraid.

17. Mat GB
Liberals were divided on the issue? Are you sure as hell? When they voted in the commons in 2003 (the day Robin Cook resigned), the Lib Dems were the only parliamentray group to express a unanimous vote. Which was against the war, by the way.

18. Newmania.
Similarly. You didn’t do your homework. 15 Tories MP rebelled and voted against the war, including Mr Rifkind, John Dercow and Ken Clarke.

19. Adam.
I totally agree with your analysis.

24. john b
Yours is a massive and out-of-date generalisation, at least as far as Britain is concerned. You find that the US army has a higher percentage of lads fom the lower classes.
Look around. Broadly speaking (of course) I disagree with the idea that joining the army is a consequence of lack of options. There is also an element of Rambo type that is being spectacularly forgotten here. Am I the only one who’s met people who were gagging to join the Army for reasons that I don’t wanna type? (please do take a wild guess)

“Am I the only one who’s met people who were gagging to join the Army for reasons that I don’t wanna type?”

No, but I’ve met people like that in most walks of life, not just in the Army. And I’ve also met people who went into the army for the best reasons, and people who went into the army (more so in the US, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen in the UK) for lack of alternative choices.

Claude? Do stop shooting yourself in the foot.

17. Mat GB
Liberals were divided on the issue? Are you sure as hell? When they voted in the commons in 2003 (the day Robin Cook resigned), the Lib Dems were the only parliamentray group to express a unanimous vote. Which was against the war, by the way.

Yes Claude, tell me something I don’t know. But it’s nice to know that the 63 MPs in the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party are the only people in the country who are allowed to be classed as “liberals”.

We ought to shut the site down, as only the MPs count, obviously.

FFS, I wasn’t talking about the MPs of one party, there are liberals in all the main parties in the house, let alone outside of it. I even named one specifically who is undoubtedly a liberal who disagreed with the line agreed by the parliamentary party.

Am I the only one who’s met people who were gagging to join the Army for reasons that I don’t wanna type?

No, but you do appear to be the only one who assumes all those who join the army do so for that reason.

By the way I would like to state that there is a list of conscientious objectors both from the US and UK army who actually left because of the policies of the so-called “Coalition”.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0415-11.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/5024104.stm

These are the soldiers I salute.

Re: your response to Cicero, there actually are a fair few right-whingers who try arguing that Mussolini, Hitler et al were on the left & this is somehow relevant.

They don’t tend to mention Franco or Pinochet so much though.

Mat GB,
do calm down. No need to lower the tone of the debate.

By the way I would like to state that there is a list of conscientious objectors both from the US and UK army who actually left because of the policies of the so-called “Coalition”.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0415-11.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/5024104.stm

These are the soldiers I salute.

eh? you think that The Sun is “changing the whole discourse about Iraq” – as if The Sun wasn’t around, the whole country would be carrying on like a conversation between Robert Fisk and John Pilger?

[Damn you! **shakes angry left fist at The Sun** for distracting us from the relevant fact that Britain became active parties in an atrocity! I'm going outside to remind the people of the relevant facts! ]

What are you on about? What do you want lefties to do, go outside and start shouting in the streets? burning copies of The Sun? Everywhere I look, in every left wing outlet, every left wing expression of opinion, the idea that the invasion of Iraq was an atrocity is everywhere. It is absolutely the ‘dominant discourse’ (probably because it’s correct, I shouldn’t wonder). What else do you want? There’s already been roughly 500,000 newspaper columns and 2000 books explaining that the invasion of Iraq was an atrocity, maybe another few thousand would really ram the message home to whatever the percentage of the population is that disagrees?

Say the left wing wasn’t “on the backfoot” and was out there “saying it clear and loud”, challenging that empty rhetoric, grabbing the initiative etc. What exactly would the left be doing differently? Perhaps we could arrange for The Independent to put “IRAQ OUTRAGE!!” on their front page everyday? (not too hard to imagine). We could storm News International in Wapping, seize the means of production at the BBC!

Please explain to me using actual real examples of things you think left wingers should be doing, what would constitute the left doing as you urge in this post.

“I bet you also think that West Brom are currently top of the league and Man Utd at the bottom.”

Well no actually, so you’re wrong again, you’re not very good at this are you?

26. Claude you are correct. What I should have said is that the majority of the pivates and the NCOs from the infantry, gunners and engineers come from a working or lower middle class background and these units suffer by far the highest caualties. Consequently , many middle class wingers alienate potential Labour supporters.

28. Mat GB

you do appear to be the only one who assumes all those who join the army do so for that reason.
And when exactly did I say that?

Let me ask a question.
What ratio soldiers: episodes of torture would make people stop “supporting our troops” in an illegal war?
—
Also I tried to post links to the hundreds (in the UK) and thousands (in the US) of conscientious objectors regarding the Iraq war. It didn’t post.

On the Iraq point, from my stand point and the vast majority of people I know, both left and right – were against the Iraq war – the second one. And, I may add, still are.

Yet, those majority of people would not blame each and every soldier for some of the horrendous stuff that has gone on in Iraq. IE the beatings etc. Has this happened, of course – the evidence is clear – and what is the response? The vast majority say that those who have done this should be prosecuted in a military court – what’s wrong with that?

On to the protest.

As a very large majority in the UK do support the view that we may not agree with the reasons WHY the troops go to war but they will be supported once in that war still stands. We as civilians can argue to our hearts content that those troops should not be there – yet they are and they are taking a lot of bullets to the head and body.

War, of any kind is a dirty business that you cannot understand until you have been in the thick of it – I know that is an old cliche but it will always stand – because it is one of those simple yet fundamental truths!

So from all that the people who were waving their banners and placards and throwing verbal abuse at those squaddies were wrong in the eyes of so many people. They wanted the headlines and they got them – end of. Do they have the right to protest? Without a shadow of a doubt – yet they could have just as easily picked a different area to protest, had achieved the aim of grabbing those headlines and – God forbid – have a much better support from the wider public as they have now because of it.

This isn’t about the left being on the back foot and I take exception that you say that I am on the back foot. I am not – a Labour government is in office but how many time do we have to repeat that this maybe a Labour government by name yet it is not a Labour government in spirit or policy or anything else.

We need the Liberals in all party’s – especially the LibDems, to get out there and tell the message, yes – but to do that you need them to come together as a whole.

There is a vacuum to be filled indeed – and the Liberal Left message is being swamped – all it needs is the right media to get it out more forcefully and there are a lot of us who are trying to do just that.

Claude, tell us what the ratio of soldiers: incidents of torture currently stands at and we’ll tell you whether it’s enough to colour our oppinion of soldiers in general. Then we can play a game of how other ratios effect our perception of other groups.

It’s always best to get our crass stereotypes on a firm statistical footing.

[troll]
The trouble with the Left is that, like its organ, the BBC, it has no moral compass.

Most terrorists who accuse the West of torturing them are liars.
Anyone who believes them is a useful idiot, but most SWP types lie as enthusiastically as
any terrorist

The Left think the ultra reactionary Islamists should be supported, because they hate the US.

When I was kid, the US was saving the West & the Islamists were Hitler’s allies.

Martin

Fuck off, Martin.

This article is truly disgusting. If it wasn’t for the British Army, Carpentieri’s right to criticise immoral wars would have been extinguished years ago.

david brough, tut, tut, tolerence – free speech and all that

Photo from
http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-5708-4.html#backToArticle=337496

Claude, you don’t need to link to a picture of an American soldier doing illegal things that he was eventually tried for to ‘prove’ that bad things happen.

we already know that.

In fact, that bad things were likely to happen is one of the reasons that most of us opposed the war in the first place.

There’s more than one bad apple. But most of the British troops that went over there were there because they wanted to do right. I disgaree with them, but I’m not in the army.

The elected Govt of this country told them they were there to do right. And after the war kicked off, the elected govt got re-elected. That is the issue. Blaming the soldiers who were, overwhelmingly, doing their jobs and had been assured it was legal, is counter productive and pointless.

It won’t get you anywhere at all.

So do you have anything substantive to rebut the Actual points raised, or are you going to keep going like a stuck record?

Mat: I’m not sure what your ‘liberal’ argument is. I mean… what is it exactly? Who said there was a liberal position? Who said there was a leftwing position? Though, undoubtedly most on the left and liberals were opposed to the war. I’m still not sure what point you’re fighting over. Can Claude not berate the left for standing up to stupid tabloidy jingoism? I’m genuinely confused.

Yes, you are confused alright Sunny.

The crux of Claude’s argument, such as it is, is that the Left has failed to unite against the soldiers on this issue so it’s a bit rich to characterize it as an example of left pluralism.

Had he described anti-soldier hatred as ‘a’ left wing position you might have a point; he doesn’t, he treats his oppinion as if it is that of ‘the’ Left.

Oh, and Claude: I’m sure supporters of the War could find examples of abuses in Iraq prior to the invasion. They didn’t convince me that the war was just then, nor do images of the Iraqi on Iraqi violence which followed the invasion convince me that all Iraqi’s are evil, so try another tactic.

“This is because Johann, like others of his ilk, has a horrible habit of garlanding some reasonable arguments with highly contentious assertions and hyperbolic statements, then denouncing anyone who doesn’t accept the whole package as a fellator of Nazis.”

*ahem*

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/dec/13/gayrights.thefarright

Doesn’t seem like he thinks that that’s anything to be ashamed of…

A murder of crows, a parliament of owls…a fellator of Nazis?

I think ‘fellator’ should be adopted as the plural noun of Nazi, in honour of Hari.

Those guys suck, big time.

MatGB,
I only posted the link to the photo because people at the top of this thread earlier today asked me where the pic came from.
You go on like a possessed hosepipe so it’s frankly impossible to answer whatever it is that you write.

“Most of us opposed the war”, you write.
But unfortunately, enough of the left favoured it. Deny that, for god’s sake!
Enough to grant it a parliamentary vote. And it’s not just Labour MPs and Blair’s own arse lickers. May I remind you that The Observer also threw all its weight behind the pro-war movement?

Today some of his journos actively admit they were “naive” and gave ground to “flawed” evidence, such as David Rose. There was also the Independent;s Johann Hari, who now owns up to being also “naive” as he bought all that shit about Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld & Blair “exporting democracy”.
There was Aaronovitch, Nick Cohen, the great majority of Labour backbenchers. A significant chunk of the left made the Iraq war possible. Don’t forget it. That is crucial and it’s rated as one of the root causes of the current collapse of the Labour movement.

So ok, you write most of us opposed the war in the first place, well you probably did, I don’t know you as a person and the judgement isn’t about you as Mat GB.

The article was NOT about the Iraq war and “possible” “liberal justifications” for interventionism.
It was NOT about that.

It was about how I suspect the Sun is sperheading some major revisionism over the whole Iraq adventure. And what better ingredients to make that happen than banging the “Our Boys” drums and going on about a bunch of “evil bearded ones”? It’s about the fact that the Left as a whole should nip it in the bud and not let them get away with it. It’s about the courage of saying (like some on LB did, credit to them) that the “Our Boys” rhetoric is opportunistic and dangerous.

Luis Enrique. If you calmed down you’ll be able see that what the left should do in response to that is written in the 2nd part of my article. Grab the whole thing by the jaffa. I am yet to see a politician attacking the “Our Boys” rhetoric. If any one did, then I will stand corrected. But to my knowledge…none so far.

Sunny:

Who said there was a liberal position? Who said there was a leftwing position?

Claude did. Repeatedly. My response is that he’s wrong to lump us all together and assume we all think the same way he does.

Can Claude not berate the left for standing up to stupid tabloidy jingoism?

Yes, of course he can. And if he wants to do so in a way that’s incoherent, illiberal and counter productive, that’s also up to him.

But the above article doesn’t effectively do that, which is what I originally said: you might have had a point if you’d stuck to general defensiveness of the liberal position on some issues (I don’t think it’s a strong one because I sure as hell aren’t defensive). But you muddled it up with an issue on which opinion across the board is divided.I’m still unsure what point Claude’s trying to make, as behind the blanket assertions and straw men, the substance is hard to see.

Also, Mat GB,
I’m afraid these photos from the link provided above do not show an American soldier doing illegal things. They show British ones.

MatGB.
But what you’re writing is not true.
You say :
Claude did. Repeatedly. My response is that he’s wrong to lump us all together and assume we all think the same way he does.

But I never said all.
If you look at the article again, this is what I put:
“the reaction from a number of journalists and bloggers”;
I then said: “Most (though not all) on their website expressed…(etc)”

Quite obviously I cannot begin and end each and every sentence with “73% of people commonly associated with the left” or, “roughly 7/10 of LB users”. So forgive me if a few sentences began with the terrible and sinful swiping generalisation of “the left” or “the liberal left”.

In the meantime the expression “splitting hairs” springs to mind.

In #49 I clarify my position.
In #51 (funny how you didnt reply to that one) I told you that the pictures are of British soldiers, NOT American…and it may be quite freudian how you chose to interpret them as “Americans”. Really ‘our boys’ can’t do no wrong, can they?
—-
#40. Burberry
What a trite, tired, literally -old- argument yours is.

Claude, you are rather tiresome. Who said that British soldiers can do no wrong? And you haven’t answered the question of what percentage of British troops are involved in torture and whether you think such a percentage justifies treating all British troops as collectively responsible.

Shatterface,
don’t make me violate the comments policy.

Lol. I’m not sure this discussion is going anywhere anymore.

PS: The crux of Claude’s argument, such as it is, is that the Left has failed to unite against the soldiers on this issue so it’s a bit rich to characterize it as an example of left pluralism.

Mmmm, I didn’t read it like that. Look, I think its possible to argue that most of the left opposed the war, and that enough of the Labour left supported it so it could go ahead.

I think Claude is initially lumping the left as saying that we are all constantly on the backfoot to the tabloid agenda, and later giving individual examples. Now, I don’t agree with his position, but I do accept that sometimes, on issues of national patriotism for example, the left is on the back-foot because we don’t really engage with that.

And by that, I mean that the discourse in America is different. There, both the left and rightwingers play the game to be as patriotic as possible (while saying the opposite isn’t) and use that discourse to justify their position. So, lefties say that they love their country and that’s why the Iraq war was bad etc…

My reading of Claude’s article is that he is complaining that we give in to the tabloids when we attempt to appear patriotic, which is rather the opposite of the idea that we should sieze patriotism – or at least find space within it – for the left.

I think it’s perfectly possible to be proud of being British while ashamed of much of it’s foreign policy, but Claude’s links are all about the crimes of a small number of our troops rather than the bastards who sent them there.

Deliberate abuses are to be condemned outright; however any war will produce civilian casualties because the rules of engagement are based on the need to complete the task while minimizing casualties to one’s own side. That, again, is a political decision.

These are the same troops who, in an earlier time, might have been fighting the Nazis; we would not have asked them then to vote among themselves on whether they should fight or not.

40. This article is truly disgusting. If it wasn’t for the British Army, Carpentieri’s right to criticise immoral wars would have been extinguished years ago

What a load of guff. Yes, armed forces in the past have defended our freedoms – but the last time they did so was World War II. Why are we still stuck in a 1940s-era mentality? Why do we have to prelude every anti-war argument with jingoism like “we support the troops”? I support the troops in as much as I don’t think they should be there getting killed and fired at in Iraq or Afghanistan, but are we still living in an age when the very act of voluntarily signing up to fight wars against other countries is something we have to automatically support?

Why are they “our boys” and why does their status as soldiers make them heroes? This is Britain, people – not America! We are not the US mainstream left. The issue shouldn’t be about the soldiers but the people who they’ve killed.

My condition for supporting any troops is that their cause is just – which is not the case for the two wars being fought by the British Army at the moment, whatever Ross Kemp would have us think. Why don’t we refer to our social workers, our teachers, our nurses as “our boys and girls”? Surely what they do is of far greater value to society in this day and age than soldiers, a day and age where Britain’s security comes not from our military might but our economic and political power? Yet the tabloids regularly demonise social workers, and don’t stand up to a government that pisses upon nurses and other essential public servants.

The military aren’t only defending the country when they are at war, they defend it by their very existance so the idea that they last defended our rights was in WWII is just bullshit, even if we disregard peacekeeping duties or disaster management.

They act as a deterrent.

No country on Earth spontaneously creates an army from scratch the day war breaks out.

47, I remember that article. I love it.

“I tried to persuade him that perhaps gay people weren’t evil, especially in light of the fact that he had just been having wild gay sex”.

You couldn’t make it up, etc.

It was about how I suspect the Sun is sperheading some major revisionism over the whole Iraq adventure. … It’s about the fact that the Left as a whole should nip it in the bud and not let them get away with it.

… what the left should do in response [is] Grab the whole thing by the jaffa. I am yet to see a politician attacking the “Our Boys” rhetoric. If any one did, then I will stand corrected. But to my knowledge…none so far.

What on earth would “not letting the Sun get away with it” look like? How does the left nip the Sun’s editorial stance in the bud?

“I suspect the Sun is sperheading some major revisionism ” you suspect what? I think you write a lot of words that do not mean anything at all. What is the difference between The Sun writing as if the invasion of Iraq was a glorious adventure (which it does) and “spearheading some major revisionism”? You keep writing things like “grab it by the jaffa” as if that means something. How would a world in which the left grabbed things by the jaffa differ from the world we live in today?

Your complaint now seems to have reduced down to the fact that no left wing politician has “attacked the Our Boys rhetoric”. Of course, as already mentioned, this might be explained by the fact that left wing politicians don’t actually share your point of view about “Our Boys rhetoric” but even if they did, can you imagine what a speech attacking Our Boys rhetoric would sound like? In effect you are complaining that left wing politicians aren’t committing political suicide. Way to go.

This has got FA to do with WWII. Absolutely nothing. Nowt. ZERO.

What a peculiar way of debating!

As if every time someone criticised Labour, no matter the topic, you’d go “Shut up! How dare you? This is the party that in 1945 gave us the NHS, IF it wasn’t for Labour you wouldn’t have free NHS”. That’s, quite literally, living in the world of 60+ years ago.

That’s not the same Army, Shatterface.
Britain has now a voluntary/professional Army.
It’s a totally different kettle of fish.
And don’t conveniently mix in the subject of Peacekeeping. That’s got FA to do with Iraq.

And like Ryyan said in #57, my support of the troops cannot be detached from the cause they’re fighting for. In the case of Iraq, with it being an INVADING arny, with an illegal war and all the stuff that (I hope )we agree on, I really don’t feel like getting my little plastic flag out and cheering “Our Boys! Our Boys!” In the street.
Sorry about that.

But what the last 24 hours taught me is that in Britain ‘criticising’ the Armed Forces is like the Royal Family amongst (many, not all) older people, whether left or right. They may concede that Prince Charles’s got funny ideas and that Harry is a bit wild, but they just go apeshit if you criticise the Monarchy.