JB wrote: Gallowglass - no, offence, but your post seems to betray a complete lack of grip on politics, UK or international, or indeed on reality. You have clearly made up your mind and it seems unlikely that piffling conerns such as law, morality, logic or common sense are likely to change them; but I might try to flag up a few points. Big fan of the Daily Mail? This is the world as seen by Alf Garnett.
You donât do the tone of your argument any favours by presuming that I am both a reader of The Daily Mail and similar in outlook to Alf Garnett - if Iâm not careful you will doubtless be calling me Mr. Nasty Poopie Pants soon and sticking your tongue out at me. Mercifully, I have spared myself the deep trauma of ever even picking up a copy of such filth as The Daily Mail, and the mention of Alf Garnett is nothing more than oafishness masquerading as cleverness. If you mean no offence, then donât be offensive â keep this kind of language in the gutter where it belongs. That said, I hope that in time I may recover from the considerable personal upset such crass allusions to my character have causedâ¦..
JB wrote: The fatuousness of your argument is shown by saying things like this - quite apart from questioning since when has the right had a monoploy on morality - if you are going to challenge 'leftists' as bleeding heart types unable to offer credible alternatives, you can't also say they're inherently ammoral. Or does leftists just mean anyone you don't like?
I have re-read my post a few times, and I donât recall mentioning âthe rightâ let alone suggesting that they have a monopoly on morality (please donât confuse the terms immoral and amoral). I didnât say that leftists were âinherently immoralâ, you brought this up - I said they have never been over-burdened with morality (I am using English, arenât I?). By âLeftistsâ I mean people of a left-wing persuasion.
As for the well-worn tactic of suggesting that someone knows nothing â âbut your post seems to betray a complete lack of grip on politics, UK or international, or indeed on realityâ - that is an attempt to safeguard against the need to actually make a coherent point - a bit like those anti-Bush types who keep on repeating âBut, heâs a moron!â â they cover themselves by adherence to the âItâs the stupidity stupid!â position, but never manage to advance their own argument beyond that point. Heaven forbid that I should dare to âmake up my mindâ in this age of moral relativism. I will henceforth only think those thoughts which are deemed correctâ¦
Whatever about the average age of MPs today, surely you are not suggesting that they are all adolescents with a hazy memory of the Berlin Wall? To name a few with a more immediate memory of the good old/bad old days - Mandelson, Short, Blair, Cook, Dalyellâ¦â¦Even those younger MPs will be ideologically of the left, despite New Labourâs rebranding. And the party is still radical â or do you dismiss the House of Lords âreformâ, the attempt to abolish the office of Lord Chancellor, the Hunt Bill, the creation of devolved government, the disbandment of the RUC, and other âprogressiveâ measures as mere details?
As to your question regarding the reliance of the US on Middle Eastern oil, read the journalists Mark Steyn, Kevin Meyers, contributors to the National Review and others (or alternatively donât, and sneer that because they may not be politically and ideologically in tune with you, they are therefore mad/liars/misinformed). God help you if âItâs all about oil!â forms part of your thinking about the current war.
JB wrote: So, it wasn't awar about oil, but it would have been right and proper if it had been, yes?
To give you a straight answer - yes it would have been. Do you remember the oil shortages of the 1970s, which led to the near collapse of several Western nations? All because the Arabs took a fit of the huffs because the Israelis defeated them yet again, when they once more decided to invade that country. Oil is the lifeblood of the West - it is power, plain and simple. I donât particularly like that, but it is a fact.
Many thanks for pointing out that we live in a democracy. My point - if you bothered to pay any attention to what I had written, instead of haring off at the first hint of an opinion you didnât agree with - is that in the context of the war on terror, and specifically the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, from a purely âwill we or wonât weâ stance, whether Saddam had WMD or not was indeed moot. Please do not think that I am under any illusion as to whether or not Blair ever believed he had WMD and lied to parliament and the people. What tires me is that there is this degree of endless debate while the war is still going on. By all means crucify Blair politically, but why hamper the war effort with this interminable debate? â because hamper it surely will. Good God, I am not defending Blair or his ham-fisted attempt to justify the decision to go to war (and there is no reason to suppose that he would have had an easier time âsellingâ the war to his party on humanitarian grounds). Maybe you have no objection with action being hindered by interminable debate and the pious squawking of the Clare Shorts, George Galloways and Robin Cooks, but I do â it only hands the advantage to the terrorists.
I said that regime change and not necessarily the issue of WMD was the policy ambition for Bush, not Blair - hardly incisive insider knowledge.
The UN Oil for Food Programme is currently under investigation - good God almighty, have you read any decent broadsheet in the recent few months? The UN officials under investigation? The supplies that Saddam was able to siphon-off for the regimeâs benefit?
It was undoubtedly introduced âin good faithâ, as are most UN initiatives, but it didnât work, and if anything it prolonged the regime. I refer you to a number of articles in the Daily Telegraph such as âUN officials 'covered up Saddam theft of billions in aid for Iraqis' by David Rennie on 22nd April 2004 and the letter of Sir Peter Smithers (UK delegate to the UN General Assembly, 1960-62) to the same paper on 27th April; there are numerous articles on the DT website on this subject.
To explain the enormously complicated concept of âthug statesâ at the UN. For example, the fact that Libya headed the UN Human Rights Committee and Syria held the chair of the Security Council doesnât strike you as being in any way strange (check their website if you doubt me, and it has been in a few newspapers). The UN has had enormous success in the area of humanitarian aid, disaster relief, development funding, educationâ¦â¦but I was not challenging that. I object to the widespread belief that the UN is in someway an over-arching, all-powerful political body that has ultimate say in all international affairs, when there is plenty of evidence to show that it is ineffective in this regard (Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfurâ¦). I note that it is you who automatically implies that âthug statesâ and the Third World are one and the same. I am sorry, but I find it ludicrous that there is a form of moral and political equivalence and relativism drawn between wholly undemocratic states (Syria, Iran, North Korea, China, Saudi Arabiaâ¦â¦.) and those countries with a long and proven record of democracy, at the UN. Treating every state equally at the UN diminishes democracies and elevates undemocratic terrorist-sponsoring thug states.
JB wrote: the flip side was that it[the UN] preventyed the great powers engaging in a thermonuclear war that would have destroyed the planet.
The UN did not prevent the great powers from going to war during the Cold War - the realization of guaranteed mutually assured destruction did that. Please, spare me the utterly deluded notion that the UN kept the USSR and the USA from each otherâs throats. Youâll be telling me next that the UN caused the Cold War to end.
Certainly, the US and all other UN and NATO states could and should have done a great deal more in Bosnia, particularly at Srebrenica. In truth though, why should the onus rest solely on the US? The commander of the Dutch UN troops in the Srebrenica âsafe havenâ was repeatedly denied air support (again, I suggest you check these facts from the recently concluded investigation into Srebrenica - I suggest the BBC News website). I would certainly not agree with the obsessive adherence of the Clinton administration to the UN in Bosnia, when clearly the organization had been sidelined by events. What do you suggest be done when the international system of law you so highly esteem becomes useless? That is my point about not being able to fight terror, in its many forms, with the rule bookâ¦.I should have added âwhen the rule book has been rendered obsoleteâ. Surely you are not suggesting that the nations of the Western world should have their actions decided upon by the likes of China, Russia and other less than salubrious states hiding behind procedure at the UN? I seriously doubt if the UK and US could every conceivably fight a âpopularâ, ânon-aggressiveâ (?) war merely to placate international opinion.
Much as I objected to the US stance over Bosnia, I can understand how the administration and the wider American public were reluctant to involve themselves in what they viewed as a European problem. Unfortunately, âEuropeâ (the EU) proved both unwilling and unable to do anything about the situation in the former Yugoslavia (save complicating matters) until it was already too late. In situations such as this, morally lazy states tend to throw up their hands and say itâs the responsibility of the UN, which isnât able to deal with the situation.
JB wrote: And lots to do with[the Jews] being put there[Palestine] by the Great Powers in the eraly twentieth century as an expedient solution to political Zionism in the west and public outrage over the Camps.
Oh dear, you arenât one of these tiresome types who believes that the Jews have no business being in Israel? (perhaps you would rather see them in Madagascar?). Israel is, after all, their historic homeland, from which they were driven long before the Arabs came on the scene - this fact may mean nothing to you, but it means a hell of a lot to Israelis and it sustained their forefathers over the centuries of their exile. A Jewish community survived in Israel (or Palestine in deference to your sensibilities) and this was expanded with the arrival of immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which they were legally quite entitled to do. Palestine at that time was a barren backwater of the Ottoman Empire, and over the course of the following decades the Jewish settlers introduced modern irrigation and farming processes to enrich the land (again, this is in the history books which you might condescend to consult). Would it interest you to know that many, if not all of the early Jewish settlers bought their land, either from the Ottoman authorities or the Arabs themselves? I take it that you are also aware that the Jews were attacked firstly in 1927 and 1936 by their Arab âneighboursâ?
As to your doubting my statement regarding the decline of living standards within the PA, I would recommend the following sources - the Palestinians themselves, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bankâ¦in short, anyone who has been monitoring the economic situation of the PA since its establishment. Do you really need me to tell you? Does it not strike you that the standard of living of the Palestinians have declined? Or perhaps you believe that they are concealing their prosperity under an artfully constructed veneer of impoverishment? As to why their living standards have fallen, I refer you to my original posting. True, the intifada cannot be helping matters, but surely it even strikes you as odd that the average Palestinian is in such dire straits despite the fact that the PA has been funded to the tune of several hundreds of millions over the past number of years?
JB wrote: You are about 20 years out of date, stop trying to write off most of teh world as boodthirsty savages and actually look at the situation. Probably the major obstacle at teh moment is teh Occupied Territories, land held illegally by Israel after a military invasion (like the Sudetenland in 193
and Sharon's outdated intransigence on this issue - there is though a will to resolve it, just much dispute over how.
Your righteous indignation and snappy dismissal of what I wrote no doubt looks well and makes you feel awfully good about yourself, but it is not justified. I donât see how this can be 20 years out of date, since I am talking about the Palestinian Authority, which, if memory serves, is somewhat less than those many years old. Barak preceded Sharon as PM, which further shows that it is you who is chronologically incorrect. As for the misappropriation of funding to the PA, I would direct you to the US Departments of State and the Treasury, the EU, and numerous articles and seminars that cover this topic in the Israeli print media (but I suspect that you wonât do this). Again, you are putting words in my mouth with the use of the term âbloodthirsty savagesâ which I did not use. I challenge you to travel in the Middle East and prove that the majority of Arabs do not want the destruction of Israel. They are certainly irrational for thinking this, but not âbloodthirsty savagesâ. The Occupied Territories were occupied by Israel in 1967 as it was from these same territories that the Arabs of the surrounding states had attacked Israel the day after it had been established under UN resolution. The occupation of the Golan Heights is similarly strategic, because the Syrians had an annoying habit of placing artillery there. Israel will withdraw from the Occupied Territories when the Arab world recognises itâs right to exist and when Arafat decides to rein-in the various terrorist factions running amok (again, this has been in the news). On a minor point of historical accuracy, the Sudetenland was annexed, not invaded, in 1938, as a result of the (admittedly deeply dishonourable) Munich Agreement. âThe IMF report âEconomic Performance and Reforms under Conflict Conditionsâ of September 2003 concluded that at least 8% ($135million) of the PAâs annual budget of $1.08 billion is being spent by Arafat at his sole discretion⦠In addition, the report states that $900 million in PA revenues "disappeared" between 1995 and 2000, and that the 2003 budget for Arafat's office, which totaled $74 million, was missing $34 million that Arafat had transferred to pay
unidentified "organizations" and "individuals."â (this quote from âEuroCash
What does the Palestinian Authority do with European money?â by Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, Director of the NYC based American Center for Democracy).
I said: It is difficult to negotiate with people whose media portray Jews as being descended from apes.
to which you responded:
read any Darwin lately? We all are. They're a modern grown-up democracy, it goes with the job, deal with it.
Mea Culpa on this point. What I should have written was ââ¦whose media, institutions, and school text books portray Jews as apes (among other things). Far be it from me to challenge Darwin. I would direct you to Mark Steynâs article âThe Clashes Within Civilizationâ in his book The Face of the Tiger and to the websites
www.fair-reporting.org and Palestinefacts.org You might also do well to look at numerous Israeli and Arab news websites.
I said: The anti-war brigade often say that 'the West' (read US and UK) armed Saddam Hussein. Well, to a certain extent, but they were by no means the only ones, and proportionally they were smaller backers than say Brazil, Germany, France, Russia...... Hold on though, didn't most of those countries oppose the invasion?
To which you responded:
Quite right, so what?
So what? Well, if you cannot see the hypocrisy of these same states opposing moves to topple a dictator they armed and supplied then nothing I, or anyone else can say is going to make you see otherwise. And since when should any state have its foreign policy decided upon and dictated by others? I say again, the UN is not the worldâs government.
I said: The left in the West has always, and will always, oppose the use of military force for two reasons. Firstly, they dislike the fact that waging war is the ultimate expression of a state's power (they would prefer a show of hands).
To which you responded:
Oh, you mean democracy, based on the principal that people from other countries are still people?
No, I mean the left (or do you regard democracy as being solely the preserve of the left?). Again, you are introducing things I did not mention. Democracy is based on the principle of government by, of and for the people, not some fluffy idea that âpeople from other countries are still peopleâ.How can you not be aware that leftists loathe armed forces? The lack of ex-servicemen in traditionally left-wing parties? The dismissal of military tradition by left-wing politicians (Mandelson and his âchinless wondersâ jibe). The attempt to blacken Col. Tim Collinsâs name on spurious war crimes charges? The regular attempts to portray the Armed Forces as being comprised of the dregs of society in the ranks or toffs?
There is a considerable difference between the Labour Party of 1945 and New Labour. I stand to be corrected, but I do not recall there being 1945 Labour equivalents of a Clare Short or George Galloway praising those who were killing British and American troops - if there were, then I imagine they were imprisoned or committed to an asylum.
Oh yes, I certainly have heard of the anti-war movement in the US during the Vietnam War, and yes, you are correct to point out that this was during a war (mea culpa again), but you cannot be attributing any real moral superiority to these people. The same people who spat on returning servicemen? The same people that bred violent underground groups such as the Weathermen, and undermined society? The same people whose spokeswoman, Jane Fonda, visited Hanoi, cheered when anti-aircraft crews shot down US âplanes, and broadcast treasonous propaganda to US soldiers in the field? The same woman who insisted upon âinterviewsâ with American POWs, who were forced to attend on pain of death? Again, before you accuse me of making this up, I refer you to assorted history books and innumerable articles on the subject.
JB wrote: I'll be honest, i'm getting tired and bored with this now
Ah yes, the cheap dismissive put down which is the automatic fallback position of the intellectually lazy. If it is all so boring, then why are you bothering? Your time could be better spent verifying some basic facts, despite them being apparently distasteful to you. On one point we do agree however, and that is that reasoned debate is the only way to deal with people such as Chomsky, Moore et alâ¦.but my point is that this debate, necessary and all that it is, is distracting attention from the real task in hand. My gripe is not with the fringe and mainstream lunatics at and near âhomeâ, but rather with the assorted lunatics of Jihad/Al-Qaeda Inc. Senator John Kerry offers nothing in terms of foreign policy. In his twenty years in the Senate he has achieved nothing and has opposed almost every single military expenditure bill that has come before him. Whatever about his four months of service in Vietnam, it is his dishonourable testimony before Congress in 1971, at which he accused those he has recently termed his âband of brothersâ of horrendous war crimes that he should be held accountable for. Many of those he cited as having committed crimes were subsequently exposed as being false veterans (again, this can be verified). How can a man who consistently switches policy position be trusted with the conduct of US foreign policy? I would advise you to stop living in the world of September 10th 2001.
P.S. I admit that the 'militants with the UN van' footage is open to interpretation, and I have chosen to interpret it as a sign that they are using the UN as a flag of convenience. Maybe they are and maybe they are not. Please excuse the length of this posting.
