Posts Tagged → Iraq
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.
I disown Bryan Gould
Those like me (and almost no-one else I know in the Labour Party) who voted for Bryan Gould to be both Leader and Deputy Leader of the Labour Party in the same election against John Smith will have been disappointed to read his piece in the Guardian today entitled, ”I disown this Government’.
I helped organise some meetings in Newcastle and on Tyneside for Gould. As a result of being a supporter of his in Nick Brown’s East Newcastle CLP I had to spend a period of two years when I couldnt even get elected to be one of the two constituency auditors – including being beaten by no-one at one AGM!
The reason I supported Gould was that at the time has was a moderniser. He wanted to change the way power in the Labour Party was exercised and by whom. He wanted Labour to have an appeal to the English middle class and to break out of the traditional ghettos of Labour support which had condemned the Labour Party to years of opposition. To me, Bryan Gould was new Labour before it was fashionable. I backed him but he betrayed us. Today’s article is just the latest stage of his own personal betrayal of Labour’s modernisers.
When Gould lost both elections at the same time (to John Smith and Margaret Beckett) rather than stay and fight for what he believed in he flounced out of British politics altogether to live on the other side of the World. Today, Gould (whose experience actually serving in a government is nil) seems to think that his views about British politics from his ivory tower 12,000 miles away actually still count for something significant. He lost all legitimacy to be taken seriously when he couldn’t stand the heat and got out of the kitchen.
I disagree with the content and tone of Gould’s article: the language of ‘betrayal’, which so peppers his writing, is reminiscent of the ritual denunciations of the Trotskyite Left (he should remember because they accused him of precisely that in the 1980s when he called for wider share ownership in Britain and was all but booed off at Party conference); his analysis that the Labour government has rejected “any decent and civilised values” is simply hysterical.
Others no doubt will want to challenge his economic argument. I just want to comment on his international one. He denounces the Iraq War as a contravention of civilised norms, based on a lie, which undermined the UN and destroyed Iraq. Wrong, wrong and wrong again.
Firstly, the Iraq War was waged to remove weapons of mass destruction and, as a positive byproduct, end the fascistic regime of Saddam Hussein, his psychopathic sons and their henchmen. Would it have been more ’civilised’ to let the regime continue to torture, kills and commit genocide against its own people?
Second, the war was fought because Saddam refused to comply with UN resolutions. Governments across the World believed that he possessed WMD. Yes, there were differences of opinion on the actions that should follow. Yes, there were errors of intelligence, perhaps even of presentation. But no, the governments that were part of the Coalition of the Willing did not lie. And none of the (too) many inquiries have shown that they intended to.
Third, the UN was not undermined by the Iraq War. There was an effort – led by Tony Blair – to achieve a second resolution but it was vetoed by President Chirac who made clear he would oppose military action whatever. No-one knows if that resolution had been passed if Saddam would have woken up and smelled the coffee and started to properly comply with the UN resolutions. What is clear though is that what undermines the UN is the failure of its Security Council members to properly enforce its resolutions – and the failure of the UN to be able to resolve anything at all, as with Kosovo.
Fourthly, Iraq was not destroyed. Iraq today is a democracy where record numbers of people participate in peaceful elections. There have been challenges, failures in the initial period after the liberation to ensure security for all but, Iraq today is rebuilding itself and showing that democracy can flourish in a majority muslim country in the Middle East.
Those of us who stayed and fought for the creation of New Labour, the successful election victories of 1997, 2001 and 2005, who contributed to the success of Labour in government, who continue to support this government in the difficult economic times since Tony Blair left office do not need Bryan Gould to disown us. He was never part of us when it happened. He never owned it in the first place.
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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