Obsolete: Joyced.

Eric Joyce's resignation as PPS to defence minister Bob Ainsworth is to say the least, intriguing. Joyce is most certainly on the Blairite wing of Labour, and even under Brown until recently a major loyalist, and with little chance of influencing any sort of attempt to overthrow the prime minister, it seems his decision to go is based purely on his considerable discontent over the war in Afghanistan.

Judging by his previous tenacity in supporting and defending the war in Iraq, Joyce's apparent conversion to an almost anti-war stance on Afghanistan, as that is very close to what he outlines in his resignation letter, is an indictment of current policy. Then again, anyone could have already pointed that out: the madness of the status quo, where troops apparently give their lives so that tens of ordinary Afghans can vote, sitting ducks acting as target practice for the fighters who disappear as soon as they launch their attacks, while back home the only justification given by a government that also seemingly doesn't believe in what it's doing, the complete joke which is that somehow what the soldiers are doing is preventing terrorism on British streets, is close to being truly offensive in its fatuity.

Joyce sets out, while clearly trying to be as non-threatening and as lightly critical as he can while questioning the entire current strategy, that the public is not so stupid as to believe or to much longer put up with the "terrorism" justification, that we are punching way above our weight in our current operations, and that we should be able to make clear that there has to be some sort of timetable outlining just how long our commitment is both able and willing to last. All of this should be way beyond controversy, yet already we have the ludicrous sentiment from both Bob Ainsworth and the even more ridiculous Lord West that they don't recognise the picture which Joyce sets out (confused and disjointed was West described it). This would be reminiscent of Nelson putting the telescope to his bad eye if he hadn't done so with the best of intentions. The only part which it's difficult to agree with Joyce on is his criticism of the other NATO countries' contribution: who can possibly blame France, Germany and Italy for not wanting to spend a similar amount of both their blood and treasure to us on a war in which they can't even begin to claim as we do that it's preventing terrorism on their streets?

The reason why it doesn't seem right to truly coruscate Labour over the utter cowardice of their current lack of a policy is that it's a failure of leadership which is shared across all three of the major parties. For all their protests and attacks on the government over Afghanistan, you could barely get a cigarette paper between both the Conservatives and Lib Dems' own ideas on what we should be doing. All still think, at least in public, despite doubtless their private misgivings, that this is both a war that is worth fighting and one which can be "won", whatever their own idea is of a victory. Again, perhaps this isn't entirely fair: the Americans, after all, have only just got around to the idea that they should be focusing on hearts and minds and not blowing everywhere where they think there might be a Talib to kingdom come, and to hell with the consequences when it turns out there was actually dozens of civilians in the same compound.

At the same time, it's also hard not to think there might be a touch of cynicism, even conspiracy here on the part of the government and also some of the more pliant sections of the media. Last week the Sun launched its "Don't they know there's a bloody war on?" campaign, which while not being entirely fair on the government did make me wonder whether there was some collusion with the paper when Gordon Brown the next day turned up in Afghanistan. Now, exactly a week on from the start of the campaign, Brown will tomorrow be giving the major speech on current policy which the paper demanded, undoubtedly organised weeks if not months in advance. These could of course all be coincidences, or even the government responding remarkably quickly to a newspaper which it has always gone out of its way to woo, but it's also suggestive of past cooperation between the two. For the paper which goes out of its way to claim to be the forces' first and last line of both defence and support, such collusion would be incredibly shoddy. At the same time, it's also a government that cares more for its image, still, than it does for those fighting for it. To be succinct, there has to be an exit strategy, and at the moment absolutely no one is offering one.

Labels: Afghanistan, Eric Joyce, fall of Gordon Brown, foreign policy, insurgency, jihadists, madness, Pakistan, Scum-watch, Sun-watch, terror, terrorism

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On the "coincidence" of Brown popping up in Afghanistan immediately after being slagged off by Murdoch's finest, I don't know whether you watched Newswipe at all, but Peter Oborne (I know, I know) featured in a couple of episodes where he claimed that there was overwhelming collusion between certain elements of the press and the government. Oborne specifically identified The Sun and some anti-immigration campaign it ran which culminated in David Blunkett giving the paper an exclusive interview where he agreed with everything the paper said and promised to do whatever ignorance inspired bullshit the paper's readers demanded.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L6U0ZQE32E

So. Probably not a coincidence.

Excellent post.

Posted by Sonofajoiner | Saturday, September 05, 2009 12:47:00 am

Obsolete

Thursday, September 03, 2009

Joyced.

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