Posts Tagged → al-Qaeda
Not really that extraordinary
The news today that Britain was afterall involved in helping to take two Al-Qaida terrorists out of Iraq and hand them over to the Americans to be interrogated has been greeted with the usual hand-wringing.
Ministers and their officials didn’t know at the time but is this so-called extraordinary rendition really extraordinary at all?
Why on Earth should Pakistani terrorists illegally in Iraq, engaged in military actions against Coalition troops and the population of Iraq, be treated as though they were local civilians?
When people argue that this is a War Crime or a violation of the Geneva Convention they are playing the terrorists’ game for them: accepting that somehow an armed foreign fighter in a theatre of war is somehow actually a civilian.
In Northern Ireland IRA terrorist hunger strikers died to be recognised as prisoners of war. British governments refused to accept that status but almost certainly operated a “shoot to kill” policy towards IRA terrorists at times during the Troubles.
Today, we are supposed to feel bad about Britain for recognising foreign fighters in Iraq as combatants rather than civilians.
These people were in Iraq to kill British and other Coalition forces and terrorise genuine Iraqi civilians. They weren’t there on holiday or pilgrimage. They were captured in theatre and, as I understand it fully within the rules of the Geneva Convention, handed over to our allies and removed from the theatre of war. So what?
The Geneva Convention rightly, seeks to put in place a framework to protect civilians. What a shame that across the World terrorists don’t apply the Convention, instead they deliberately target or use civilians as part of their military campaign.
It is time Britain stopped beating ourselves up for treating foreign fighters like terrorist combatants not friendly civilians.
Democracy for all, not just a privileged few
Lord Paddy Ashdown, one of the more effective and serious liberal democrats, made some very interesting comments in his interview this morning on the BBC Today programme about Afghanistan. Encouraged by John Humphries, Lord Ashdown argued that “you can not impose mid-western American democracy on an Islamic middle eastern country.”
Firstly, on any assessment of Afghanistan’s geographical location it is not in the Middle East but central Asia.
Secondly, and more importantly, this is so patronising. Why on Earth is it acceptable to say that democratic systems of government are inappropriate for people wherever they live because of the religious beliefs of a majority of their population? Such an outlook, that there are some people who are capable of living in a democracy and those who are not, is the sort of rubbish used to defend every dictatorship, fascistic and totalitarian regime on the planet. It isn’t that long ago that people made a similar argument in defence of apartheid or the baathist fascist regime of Saddam Hussein.
Democracy is not an American invention although it would be no less attractive if it were. Nor is democracy an imposition. As Iraq shows, the people want democracy. It is the tyrant who imposes their own alternative system of government in order to keep power from the people. Sometimes it is necessary to depose the dictator so that democracy can find the space to breathe.
I for one, am fed up hearing Western liberals tell the oppressed people of other countries that democracy is not for them – whether it is because they live in an Islamic country or not. Iraq today is an Islamic country and a democracy – and is infinitely better off as a result.
As those who fell in its defence, whether fighting Hitler or Saddam or Al Qaeda show, democracy is always worth fighting for.
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