You meant well Tony? Of course you did!
Anthony Seldon had an article in the Sindy lamenting how unfair everyone has been to Tony Blair. There’s just not enough sympathy in the world for megalomaniacal twits with a god complex and their finger (formerly) on one of the Big Red Buttons.
Some of what Seldon says is pure comedy gold, such as his comparison of Blair to Gladstone: “For them, moral conviction in foreign policy was core.” One wonders what difference it makes if your foreign policy is still resulting in the deaths of the same foreign people as that of your “immoral” Opposition.
He was dealing with someone who was an evil dictator and that was the right thing to do, in his mind, because what was at stake was world peace. In another sense he has been remarkably consistent and I think is tremendously frustrated at not having the opportunity to say that.
If there is one thing worth pointing out to Professor Seldon, it’s that Mr Blair is very good at re-writing history all by himself, without needing the help of his accomplices in the declaration of war, or the media.
continue reading… »
After Dubai
Sovereign default is basically the posh name for what happens when a country says it can no longer meet repayments for the 545% APR doorstep loan it took out from Provident Financial.
But here’s the good bit; in these cases, the friendly neighbourhood bloodsuckers can’t exactly send round the bailiffs to take away the telly and the stereo. So what do they do? Hold a whipround for the victim instead, and write off large chunks of what is outstanding.
Would that Britain’s poor were treated the same way as Mexico in 1982, Russia in 1998 or Argentina in 2002. The real surprise is that states don’t try it on more often than they do.
Chilcot and the ’smoking gun’
Although Oliver Kamm and Scott Ritter could not be further apart on their views about the invasion of Iraq, both use the phrase ‘smoking gun’ in their relation to the Chilcot Inquiry whose existence or non-existence they believe must be the test by which its results will be judged. Kamm makes the case against having an inquiry at all while Ritter warns that unless the UN weapons inspectors are called to give evidence it will end in another whitewash.
Kamm, quoting John Rentoul, says that opponents of the war have become convinced that ‘there is a big secret that is being concealed from us, a smoking gun that “explains it all”. This is a symptom of the anti-war psychology, which so strongly disagrees with the decision made by Tony Blair, the Cabinet and the House of Commons that it seeks constantly for a hidden reason for it.’
Ritter, by contrast, says: ‘As of December 1998, both the US and Britain knew there was no “smoking gun” in Iraq that could prove that Saddam’s government was retaining or reconstituting a WMD capability. Nothing transpired between that time and when the decision was made in 2002 to invade Iraq that fundamentally altered that basic picture.’
continue reading… »
The continuing madness of Melanie Phillips
At the weekend Ed Husain wrote an eminently reasonable, measured and very restrained attack on the more out-there views of Melanie Phillips. Husain clearly feels that Phillips is a potential ally in the battle against radical Islam, although quite why judging by her record it’s difficult to tell.
His main concern now seems to be that rather than being an ally, she’s becoming a prominent obstacle to any kind of progress. Especially in the way she seems determined to see conspiracies where there are none, in this instance with Inayat Bunglawala and his determined opposition to the remnants of al-Muhajiroun.
Again, this isn’t anything new with Phillips: a few years back she was convinced that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction had been buried beneath the Euphrates and that Saddam’s crack team of WMD experts had upped sticks and moved to Syria.
Nonetheless, it was also going to be interesting to see how Phillips responded.
continue reading… »
Over-compensating by turning pro-Israeli
My old psychology dictionary of terms informs me that overcompensation can be ‘a Freudian defence mechanism, whereby an individual attempts to offset weakness in an area of their lives by focusing on another aspect of it.
I thought back to those English Defence League marches, where 2 things are promised every time; that an Israeli flag will appear to show solidarity with Israelis over Muslims (like it was a simple choice between the two), and a couple of beered up scummies will produce the fascist salute (for examples see here and here).
It came up again when Nick Griffin stumbled over his words on Question Time tell the audience that his party was the only one to give full support to Israel and their right to exist during its clashes with Gaza, or more precisely:
[National Socialists in UK] loathe me because I have brought the British National Party from being, frankly, an anti-Semitic and racist organisation into being the only political party which, in the clashes between Israel and Gaza, stood full square behind Israel’s right to deal with Hamas terrorists.
Back through the looking-glass
On 17 March 2003, the British Attorney General published a short statement, in response to a parliamentary question, claiming that the forthcoming invasion of Iraq was legal under international law. This legal opinion was sufficient to head off a major rebellion within the British government against the war.
It was also enough for Sir Admiral Michael Boyce, the Chief of Defence, who had demanded a clear assurance of the war’s legality to ensure military chiefs and their soldiers would not be “put through the mill” at the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Ten days before his opinion was published the Attorney General had sent a longer, private and secret, memorandum to the Prime Minister setting out the legal arguments in more detail.
This was shared with the Foreign Office and Defence Chiefs and appears to have been what alarmed Boyce into demanding the clarification. In it he noted that the three legal grounds for the use of force were “a) self-defence (which may include collective self-defence); b) exceptionally to avert overwhelming humanitarian catastrophe; and c) authorisation by the Security Council acting under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.” He stated that he did not believe that the invasion could be justified on either of the first two grounds, but that an arguable case could be made for it on the third.
continue reading… »
Stop war criminals getting away with murder – Amnesty says please act today?
Amnesty have a good action on Gaza which you can support byclicking on the following link
They are calling on as many people as possible to email David Miliband right now. It is a very short, simple action. An independent UN fact-finding mission into the Gaza conflict has just published its findings. This major report outlines powerful evidence of war crimes and other violations of international law on both sides, consistent with the results of Amnesty’s own investigations. And the UK Government is reviewing it right now.
The UN Human Rights Council will debate the report on Tuesday (29 September), when a vote will be taken on how its recommendations should be acted upon.
The UK Government (a member of the council) is not planning to support key recommendations, which Amnesty believe offer the best chance of ensuring justice and accountability, as a well as a deterrent to future conflicts. Instead, they appear to be taking a lead from the US Government in dismissing the findings.
War criminals are literally getting away with murder. Act now
There can be no long-term peace and security in the Middle East without an end to impunity – please email David Miliband today and urge him to support the Goldstone Report.
During the 22-day conflict from 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009, some 1,400 Palestinians and nine Israelis were killed. Most of the Palestinians killed by Israeli forces were unarmed civilians, including some 300 children. Indiscriminate Palestinian rocket attacks killed three Israeli civilians and six soldiers.
Blair: I didn’t know much about Middle East
You may remember we pointed out a few weeks ago that Tony Blair was going on a six-talk tour around London to offer his views on faith and politics and why he loved invading foreign countries. Or something like that.
It turns out one of those talks offered an interesting insight into the former Prime Minister’s knowledge of Middle Eastern affairs. That, it didn’t amount to much.
One of the most interesting replies Britain’s former Prime Minister gave was to a question that was asked on how insights from his work for the Tony Blair Faith Foundation inform his work in Israel, Palestine and the Middle East and vice versa.
He said he had been working with the rabbinate and the Christian and Muslim communities. ‘I think it’s very important for the Christian community on the Palestinian side not to feel disadvantaged.’
Then he went on to confess he could perhaps have been a little bit more knowledgeable about Israel-Palestine when he was running the country.
Leave aside his unwillingness to say anything on the disadvantages faced by the Muslim community on the Israeli side.
But acknowledging he could have “been a little bit more knowledgeable” about I/P is akin to saying he knew as much about the area as George Bush did.
And these people run our foreign policy.
More on why we must stay in Afghanistan
Last year when traveling around Nepal, a friend who worked out there said she saw India as basically an imperial nation telling the Nepalese government what to do. India controls all the main trade routes going into Nepal (the border with China is closed) and this allows them to dictate policy.
I highlight this point to illustrate that in South Asia, all the big powers are in a sense imperialists – trying to exert lots of influence outside their borders. Afghanistan has always been a target of proxy wars, with India, Pakistan, Iran, Russia, China and USA trying their hands in various degrees.
If we leave, the game begins again. I said this as much in an article for Guardian CIF on Friday: that staying in Afghanistan right now outweighs the potential dangers of leaving: the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, their attempts to take over Pakistan, and stir trouble in India. With over a billion and half people in the immediate region, the deaths caused by more instability, which is inevitable, would outweigh the death-rate right now.
I highlighted a comment on my own blog in response to my article, by a Pakistani, on the menace that the Taliban is. And I think to leave the Afghanis under their mercy is not a viable position to take: for humanitarian reasons and because it would mean we’d have to intervene again sooner or later (if war broke out between India and Pakistan over terrorist attacks).
continue reading… »
Al-Megrahi and right-wing hypocrisy
Why is everyone in such a tizz over the release of Al-Megrahi? As has been documented time and time again by Private Eye, a question mark hung over his conviction anyway – and the man had cancer.
We do tend to release the terminally ill on compassionate grounds, in this country, and it probably saved the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of pounds in continued appeals anyway – not to mention the cost of keeping the man prisoner. So what is the furore about?
Then I read these two articles by Cllr Piper. Iain Dale, Newmania and the other Tory trolls are involved; suddenly all becomes clear. Despite the Westminster government having nothing to do with the release – beyond Bill Rammell saying that he and his colleagues hoped al-Megrahi wouldn’t die in prison – the issue has become a stick with which to beat Gordon Brown.
Presumably it never occurred to the SNP, a party with no love for Labour – who are the main Opposition in Scotland, to tell London to stuff it up their jumpers. Tory blogger Iain Dale predicates his claim of pressure on the fact that three Ministers sent letters to the Scottish executive outlining the position of the UK government on the issue. Dale dismisses, of course, that in each of these letters the outlining of position is counterbalanced by acknowledgement that the matter is one for the Scottish government entirely – and so it is.
continue reading… »
Feminists aren’t letting down Muslim women
For some reason, these past few weeks have seen a great deal of attention paid to the relationship between Islam and western feminism. The latest issue of Standpoint features lengthy essays by Clive James & Nick Cohen who both argue that feminists have let down their Muslim sisters by failing to protest with sufficient vigour at the atrocities carried-out in the name of Islam.
Meanwhile, The Guardian’s CiF ran a series which asked “can western feminism save Muslim women?” To this, The Heresiarch acidly replies:
No. Western feminism is too bogged down in its own limitless self-regard, arguing ad nauseam about the evils of sexually stereotyping adverts, or why female bankers don’t get quite such enormous bonuses as their male equivalents, to care about anyone else. Least of all the millions of subjected women living in conditions they cannot begin to understand.
Now, I have a huge amount of respect for Heresiarch (as well some for Clive James, and a little for Cohen), but this kind of statement reminds me of the folks who run around lazily claiming that hip hop’s only about violence and misogyny. Sure, there’s plenty of hip hop which is violent & misogynistic, but if you think that’s all there is, then you’re clearly not listening to enough of it.
continue reading… »
What’s missing in talk of the Libyan debacle
I haven’t seen any leftist comment on the topic yet that hasn’t welcomed the Scottish Executive’s decision to free Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi.
Many of them were explicitly premised on the idea that the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing was innocent. Megrahi’s defenders – not least my journalistic hero Paul Foot – have always maintained that the crime was actually the work of Syria-based terrorists acting as proxies for Iran. The argument is long and involved, and in so far as I have studied it, I find it convincing.
There is also an impeccable liberal case that the move is accordant with Scottish law as it stands; compassionate release is available to prisoners within three months of death, irrespective of the offences they are said to have committed, and irrespective of guilt. Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill was undoubtedly right to come to the conclusion to which he came.
continue reading… »
Making Gaza even worse
When Israel launched its military offensive against Hamas last year, critics of the operation made a number of important points.
First, we argued that it was a fantasy to believe these raids would do anything more than briefly reduce its ability to toss rockets into Israel, and that there would be no prospect of either destroying the group, or fatally weakening its grip over the Gaza Strip. But more importantly than that, we also insisted that it was a mistake to think Hamas’ defeat would end Israel’s security problems.
Whilst there’s always a (very slight) possibility that Hamas could implode or that the people of Gaza will eventually turn to the more moderate & cuddly Fatah, given the amount of poverty & raw despair in the territories, it’s far more likely that whatever did replace the militant group would be even more extreme, more reactionary and more likely to render peace between Israel & Palestine as impossible.
We’ve seen some evidence of that in recent days, as a deadly shootout between members of Hamas and a militant splinter group demonstrates that some of the alternatives to Hamas are even uglier.
continue reading… »
Israel and using “apartheid”
Talking about Israeli policies in terms of ‘apartheid’ is nothing new – you can find the claim going back at least 30 years. This kind of description for Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians became increasingly common through the 1980s and ’90s, until now, nine years since the Second Intifada began, ‘Israeli Apartheid Week’ is held in dozens of cities worldwide and numerous trade unions, faith groups and politicians use the term routinely.
Nevertheless, to consciously use the ‘apartheid’ framework in critiquing Israeli policies past and present, with the presumed analogy with South African history, is still considered by some to be inappropriate or even completely unacceptable.
continue reading… »
#MichaelJacksonRIP vs #IranElection
Evenin’ all. I wanted to make a quick point about certain global news stories, and the relative amount of news coverage given to each.
Its fashionable, yet incredibly easy to complain that the Michael Jackson death has crowded out news of other more pressing matters. Shawn Micallef sounded an early word of warning about this attitude:
There is no need to compare MJ & Iran – completely dif, just intersect on same medium, not a social/moral lesson to be learned.
Then (again via Twitter, though the link is now lost in the maelstrom) I came across this MJ/Election mash-up, and it occurred to me that coverage (be it on Twitter, blogs or the international MSM) is not a zero-sum game, and that coverage of one piece of news could promote awareness of another.
continue reading… »
Miliband should avoid falling for Ahmedinijad’s trap
If your authority was being undermined by street protests and an election widely seen as rigged – what’s the best way of uniting people behind you? Why, starting a diplomatic row of course, with the hope it will escalate into a bigger show of force.
And this is Ahmedinijad’s obvious gambit as Iran arrested nine staff working at the UK embassy on suspicion they took part in the recent street protests. The EU has now threatened a “strong response” to Iranian harassment of EU staff. Which is obviously what Ahmedinijad wants.
This is a diplomatic headache because escalating the war of words helps Ahmedinijad. At the same time, not many of the protesters are likely to believe Ahmedinijad’s latest attempt at diverting attention. We can play this in two ways: by not making a big fuss and denying Ahmedinijad what he wants. He may then try and escalate the situation and will shoot himself in the foot or quietly release the staff. Or the EU could escalate this massively with a real threat of war very quickly, and asking him for evidence of his claims. That would force Ahmedinijad to back down and expose his stupid gambit. I prefer the first option. But a muddle of the two is unlikely to work.
Why Arab governments keep quiet about Iran
Obam has been widely criticised for his tardiness in openly backing the pro-Mousavi protests in Tehran, although on balance, STFU probably was the best course from a diplomatic point of view.
But as far as I know, not one Arab government has yet pronounced on the situation in Iran, either for or against. That strikes me as rather more interesting.
continue reading… »
For a policy of non-interference in Iran
I don’t even know why this is worth stating, but there seem to be far too many uninformed people out there saying something must be done about Iran. What? Invasion? Lots of public support for Moussavi? What is with this idiotic right-wing view that they have the right to interfere in every part of the world?
Let me be clear about my position. Ahmedinijad is being exposed as an undemocratic tyrant, willing to use illegal militias that kill protesters to assert his authority. The election was a fraud. The country’s clerics are now splitting amongst the unrest. Street battles carried on over the weekend (see video below), and I support the people on the streets fully.
continue reading… »
Iran: neither Ahmadinejad nor Mousavi
One of the most striking aspects of the commentary provided by the British left on events following the Iranian election is a marked and muddleheaded lack of clarity. Whether this is motivated by reluctance to criticise a regime sometimes characterised as anti-imperialist, or the generous subventions available for hosting programmes on Press TV, I am not sure.
Even where these factors are not obviously at work, generous resort to qualifying adjectives is certainly notable. Thus the election is described not as rigged but as ‘widely seen to be rigged’. Ahmadinejad is not confidently proclaimed the winner; instead it is noted that he ‘was declared the winner’. Protesters are described as ‘fearing the election had been rigged’.
A degree of prevarication is perhaps justified. Even Robert Fisk – who probably knows as much about the Middle East as any Briton – has yet to pronounce definitively one way of the other. Let us therefore suspend disbelief and admit it is logically possible that – just maybe, however unlikely it looks – this was a fair fight and the incumbent won. That still leaves the left having to decide where its sympathies lie.
Top Stories – Thursday 18th June
Kitty Ussher leaves the Government, as TheTelegraph’s Augean project continues…
NATIONAL
Governor seeks more powers for Bank of England
Belfast Romanians rehoused after race attacks
Terror law used to stop thousands ‘just to balance racial statistics’
INTERNATIONAL
Mousavi urges more demonstrations for Thursday
New financial rules in the USA too…
Cricket attacker arrested in Pakistan
British ambassador attacked for supporting gay march in Bulgaria
You can read articles through the front page, via Twitter or rss feeds.
» How bad is the feline obesity crisis?
» Why don’t MPs pay back tuition fees instead of increasing ours?
» Obama is right to slam BP – and why capitalists should too
» Why does Phillip Blond see civic cohesion as a security issue?
» So what if the Labour candidates went to Oxbridge?
» Last night’s Labour hustings: will it get interesting or turn to torture?
» It’s now down to Ken to win London for Labour
» The Labour people need
» Blog Nation: what would you like to see discussed?
» The Labour leadership’s token contender.. and it’s not Diane Abbott
» In defence of these fraternal nominations
|
66 Comments 20 Comments 13 Comments 10 Comments 18 Comments 4 Comments 25 Comments 49 Comments 31 Comments 16 Comments |
|
LATEST COMMENTS » Shatterface posted on How bad is the feline obesity crisis? » Shatterface posted on Complete tits » McDuff posted on Why I'm defending Ed Balls over immigration » damon posted on Complete tits » Sunny Hundal posted on Complete tits » sunny hundal posted on Why don't MPs pay back tuition fees instead of increasing ours? » Lee Griffin posted on The Labour leadership's token contender.. and it's not Diane Abbott » dan posted on Defend the urban fox! » Richard W posted on Boris rise for Living Wage left of Labour » Julian Swainson posted on How many cabinet MPs went to private schools? » sally posted on Complete tits » Joanne Dunn posted on How many cabinet MPs went to private schools? » Lovely Lynnette Peck posted on How many cabinet MPs went to private schools? » Nick posted on Why don't MPs pay back tuition fees instead of increasing ours? » Bob B posted on Complete tits |
