14 years of war, and it's whose fault again?
It's a tale in essence of two deleted tweets. On Friday night at 10, while the siege at the Bataclan was still on-going, John Rentoul of the Independent, noted Blair fan and supporter of assorted interventions sent out a message asking "Will Corbyn say France made itself a target?" He fairly swiftly erased it, and the next morning made a fulsome apology. Stop the War Coalition meanwhile tweeted out a link to an article it had sourced from a certain Chris Floyd, titled "Paris reaps whirlwind of western support for extremist violence in Middle East". They too later deleted the tweet, and the article from their site.
You can no doubt guess which of these messages was brought up in the House of Commons this afternoon. In fact, it wasn't made reference to just the once, but three times, all by Labour MPs. The article itself, despite being fairly standard, simplistic anti-war boilerplate does not blame France or the French in the slightest. It makes no direct reference to France's taking part in strikes against Islamic State. It condemns the attacks in no uncertain terms, as does the actual statement from Stop the War.
This makes no odds, for there are only two groups of people that care what the Stop the War coalition thinks about anything. First, the Stop the War coalition; and second, those who got their war in Iraq but ended up losing the argument. Ever since they've wasted their time pointlessly trolling the StWC, achieving precisely nothing except making themselves feel better. The prior example to this was activists from the Syria Solidarity UK group turning up to the last StWC public meeting. SSUK wants a "limited" UK military intervention in Syria; StWC doesn't. Surprise, there was conflict, spun as the StWC refusing to listen to ordinary Syrians, even while the actual peace talks between the various powers involved in the war have no Syrian involvement whatsoever.
The most egregious remarks in the Commons came from Ian Austin. In his view those suggesting that Paris had "reaped the whirlwind", or that "Britain's foreign policy has increased not diminished the threats to our own national security are not just absolving the terrorists of responsibility, but risk fuelling the sense of grievance and resentment which can develop into extremism and terrorism". David Cameron agreed. "We have to be very clear to those people who are at risk of being radicalised that this sort of excuse culture is wrong. It’s not only wrong for anyone to argue that Paris was brought about by Western policy. It is also very damaging for young Muslims growing up in Britain to think that any reasonable person could have this view." This it's worth noting came after Cameron had pointedly responded to Jeremy Corbyn stating President Obama had recognised that Islamic State grew out of the Iraq war by saying "we should not seek excuses for a death cult".
At times like these it's hard not to wonder if you've gone through the looking glass. Forget for a second about the clear attempt to frame those who so much as suggest that foreign policy might have played a role, not in the Paris attacks themselves, but in the wider threat we face as terrorist enablers. Forget that some Labour MPs are so caught up in their hatred of Jeremy Corbyn they are willing to ignore President Obama and Tony Blair, both of whom have recognised that Islamic State owes its existence to the Iraq war.
Let's instead just focus on the idea that our foreign policy over the past 14 years has decreased the terrorist threat. Austin was referring to the speech Corbyn was due to give on Saturday but cancelled in light of the Paris attacks, where he would have said that "For the past 14 years, Britain has been at the centre of a succession of disastrous wars that have brought devastation to large parts of the wider Middle East. They have increased, not diminished, the threats to our own national security in the process."
Which part of that statement is incorrect? The security services, the home secretary, the prime minister, all inform us that the threat we face from terrorism is the most serious it has ever been. Have those wars made us safer? For short periods they might have done, prior to Islamic State rising again, with al-Qaida struggling to stay relevant. That is surely not the case now, when our failures in Iraq, even if we are not even close to being fully responsible, have undeniably helped Islamic State to grow. Our policy on Syria, of hoping that by letting or encouraging the Saudis, Qataris and Emirate states to fund whichever Islamist/jihadist groups they felt like would lead to the fall of Assad has not decreased the threat. It has increased it.
So too would joining in with the airstrikes on Islamic State increase the threat we face. Don't though take it from me; take it from our American allies, with the defence secretary no less stating that Russia would pay the price for its intervention. Well golly, they did, didn't they? The Daily Beast went so far as to report that some in the US government "privately delighted in the news that Russia was made to pay". Seeing as the prime minister and other politicians are so keen to police what are and what are not acceptable views on foreign policy, we could also remember that earlier on Friday Cameron was insisting killing Mohammad Emwazi was "a blow at the heart of Isil". The Sun's front page, before it realised it was in appalling taste in light of what was happening but not before 20 had already been confirmed dead, had a picture of Emwazi with the headline "JIHAD IT COMING". It's perfectly fine to say that our enemies had it coming and enjoy the schadenfreude, but when someone suggests perhaps there could be a link between our failures and terrorist attacks it's time to get out the ducking stool.
The fact is that to plenty of Labour MPs and their friends in the media, their real problem with Corbyn has always been his views on foreign policy more than anything else. It admittedly doesn't help when he fails to explain himself clearly, whether it's in interviews or at meetings of the PLP. It was painfully obvious however that his comments on "shoot to kill" to Laura Kuenssberg were in relation to manhunts, not in bringing an end to situations similar to those in Paris. Plenty of his critics are happy to be wilfully obtuse so long as it's seen to damage him. Things like how "shoot to kill" policies have gone horribly wrong in the past, or how the two murderers of Lee Rigby, who charged at the police while armed were not shot dead are unimportant. When it comes to Corbyn's comments on the legality or alternatives to the drone strike on Emwazi, they point to how it would be impossible to have acted otherwise. It almost certainly would have been, and yet time and again the same people make the case for military intervention without the slightest thought for the implications or to the how it should happen as opposed to the why it must right now.
If the prospect of Corbyn attending the Stop the War Christmas fundraising party really is enough to make shadow cabinet ministers consider resigning, perhaps it's time they re-examined their priorities. How exactly did they think Corbyn was going to respond to a terrorist attack on the scale of Paris? Did they honestly believe he would come out swinging, agreeing entirely with Dave in his "the case for action has grown stronger since Paris" claim? Did they really think he would go all gung-ho for the sake of it, when the best thing an opposition leader can do is to urge calm and for cool heads to prevail? Do they genuinely imagine that if Corbyn came over the military hard man that the public would be impressed by it?
Of course they don't. The only thing John Rentoul did wrong it turns out is sending his tweet too soon. It doesn't seem to occur to Corbyn's opponents that the reason they're stuck with him at least for now is because of their own failures. They lost to a near pacifist hard leftist and rather than consider if there's a reason why the Labour party membership voted for such a person, they insist on carrying on regardless. The attempt to pillory and silence anyone who thinks there might be more to attacks like the ones in Paris than they hate us and our freedoms is predictable, but also revealing of a total refusal to accept even the most basic lessons of the past 14 years. What amazes above all however is that after those 14 years, somehow, incredibly, it's the people that have failed to stop any of those wars that are the ones accused of making excuses for and giving succour to the terrorists.
You can no doubt guess which of these messages was brought up in the House of Commons this afternoon. In fact, it wasn't made reference to just the once, but three times, all by Labour MPs. The article itself, despite being fairly standard, simplistic anti-war boilerplate does not blame France or the French in the slightest. It makes no direct reference to France's taking part in strikes against Islamic State. It condemns the attacks in no uncertain terms, as does the actual statement from Stop the War.
This makes no odds, for there are only two groups of people that care what the Stop the War coalition thinks about anything. First, the Stop the War coalition; and second, those who got their war in Iraq but ended up losing the argument. Ever since they've wasted their time pointlessly trolling the StWC, achieving precisely nothing except making themselves feel better. The prior example to this was activists from the Syria Solidarity UK group turning up to the last StWC public meeting. SSUK wants a "limited" UK military intervention in Syria; StWC doesn't. Surprise, there was conflict, spun as the StWC refusing to listen to ordinary Syrians, even while the actual peace talks between the various powers involved in the war have no Syrian involvement whatsoever.
The most egregious remarks in the Commons came from Ian Austin. In his view those suggesting that Paris had "reaped the whirlwind", or that "Britain's foreign policy has increased not diminished the threats to our own national security are not just absolving the terrorists of responsibility, but risk fuelling the sense of grievance and resentment which can develop into extremism and terrorism". David Cameron agreed. "We have to be very clear to those people who are at risk of being radicalised that this sort of excuse culture is wrong. It’s not only wrong for anyone to argue that Paris was brought about by Western policy. It is also very damaging for young Muslims growing up in Britain to think that any reasonable person could have this view." This it's worth noting came after Cameron had pointedly responded to Jeremy Corbyn stating President Obama had recognised that Islamic State grew out of the Iraq war by saying "we should not seek excuses for a death cult".
At times like these it's hard not to wonder if you've gone through the looking glass. Forget for a second about the clear attempt to frame those who so much as suggest that foreign policy might have played a role, not in the Paris attacks themselves, but in the wider threat we face as terrorist enablers. Forget that some Labour MPs are so caught up in their hatred of Jeremy Corbyn they are willing to ignore President Obama and Tony Blair, both of whom have recognised that Islamic State owes its existence to the Iraq war.
Let's instead just focus on the idea that our foreign policy over the past 14 years has decreased the terrorist threat. Austin was referring to the speech Corbyn was due to give on Saturday but cancelled in light of the Paris attacks, where he would have said that "For the past 14 years, Britain has been at the centre of a succession of disastrous wars that have brought devastation to large parts of the wider Middle East. They have increased, not diminished, the threats to our own national security in the process."
Which part of that statement is incorrect? The security services, the home secretary, the prime minister, all inform us that the threat we face from terrorism is the most serious it has ever been. Have those wars made us safer? For short periods they might have done, prior to Islamic State rising again, with al-Qaida struggling to stay relevant. That is surely not the case now, when our failures in Iraq, even if we are not even close to being fully responsible, have undeniably helped Islamic State to grow. Our policy on Syria, of hoping that by letting or encouraging the Saudis, Qataris and Emirate states to fund whichever Islamist/jihadist groups they felt like would lead to the fall of Assad has not decreased the threat. It has increased it.
So too would joining in with the airstrikes on Islamic State increase the threat we face. Don't though take it from me; take it from our American allies, with the defence secretary no less stating that Russia would pay the price for its intervention. Well golly, they did, didn't they? The Daily Beast went so far as to report that some in the US government "privately delighted in the news that Russia was made to pay". Seeing as the prime minister and other politicians are so keen to police what are and what are not acceptable views on foreign policy, we could also remember that earlier on Friday Cameron was insisting killing Mohammad Emwazi was "a blow at the heart of Isil". The Sun's front page, before it realised it was in appalling taste in light of what was happening but not before 20 had already been confirmed dead, had a picture of Emwazi with the headline "JIHAD IT COMING". It's perfectly fine to say that our enemies had it coming and enjoy the schadenfreude, but when someone suggests perhaps there could be a link between our failures and terrorist attacks it's time to get out the ducking stool.
The fact is that to plenty of Labour MPs and their friends in the media, their real problem with Corbyn has always been his views on foreign policy more than anything else. It admittedly doesn't help when he fails to explain himself clearly, whether it's in interviews or at meetings of the PLP. It was painfully obvious however that his comments on "shoot to kill" to Laura Kuenssberg were in relation to manhunts, not in bringing an end to situations similar to those in Paris. Plenty of his critics are happy to be wilfully obtuse so long as it's seen to damage him. Things like how "shoot to kill" policies have gone horribly wrong in the past, or how the two murderers of Lee Rigby, who charged at the police while armed were not shot dead are unimportant. When it comes to Corbyn's comments on the legality or alternatives to the drone strike on Emwazi, they point to how it would be impossible to have acted otherwise. It almost certainly would have been, and yet time and again the same people make the case for military intervention without the slightest thought for the implications or to the how it should happen as opposed to the why it must right now.
If the prospect of Corbyn attending the Stop the War Christmas fundraising party really is enough to make shadow cabinet ministers consider resigning, perhaps it's time they re-examined their priorities. How exactly did they think Corbyn was going to respond to a terrorist attack on the scale of Paris? Did they honestly believe he would come out swinging, agreeing entirely with Dave in his "the case for action has grown stronger since Paris" claim? Did they really think he would go all gung-ho for the sake of it, when the best thing an opposition leader can do is to urge calm and for cool heads to prevail? Do they genuinely imagine that if Corbyn came over the military hard man that the public would be impressed by it?
Of course they don't. The only thing John Rentoul did wrong it turns out is sending his tweet too soon. It doesn't seem to occur to Corbyn's opponents that the reason they're stuck with him at least for now is because of their own failures. They lost to a near pacifist hard leftist and rather than consider if there's a reason why the Labour party membership voted for such a person, they insist on carrying on regardless. The attempt to pillory and silence anyone who thinks there might be more to attacks like the ones in Paris than they hate us and our freedoms is predictable, but also revealing of a total refusal to accept even the most basic lessons of the past 14 years. What amazes above all however is that after those 14 years, somehow, incredibly, it's the people that have failed to stop any of those wars that are the ones accused of making excuses for and giving succour to the terrorists.
Labels: David Cameron, foreign policy, Iraq, Islamic State, Jeremy Corbyn, Labour, Paris attacks, politics, Syria, terrorism
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