Jeremy Corbyn

firefinga

Well-known member
And I can think of few things that would delight Putin more than for one of only two nuclear-armed countries in Europe outside Russia to give up its capability.

Just for precision:

Several NATO member-states keep nuclear weapons ready to be deployed (as parts of bomber ammunition), Turkey included.
 

droid

Well-known member
Modernising trident within the NATO framework is seen (rightfully so) as an explicit threat to Russia, especially in the light of Eastern European first strike missile placement. Now you can argue about MAD until the cows come home but in the context of increased tensions and a renewed build up of Russian, US and now UK arsenals, I don't think brinkmanship is far from the mark.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Just for precision:

Several NATO member-states keep nuclear weapons ready to be deployed (as parts of bomber ammunition), Turkey included.

OK fair enough, although that's a different thing from having their own capability (and yes, I'm aware even the UK's status here is open to debate, given that we technically rent warheads from the USA and - I believe - can't even use them without American permission*). But the extreme isolationism of the Trump administration is making the future of NATO look fairly doubtful at the moment.

*Edit: seems I'm wrong about this, the warheads are built here and are the property of the British state - but I think there are US nukes deployed here as well.
 
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droid

Well-known member
Thanks! I'll try and post some more later today but hopefully you get where I'm coming from in my criticisms of Corbyn.

On Iraq, we should never have gone in. I marched against it at the time and think there are grounds for trying Blair as a war criminal. One of the many side efffects of Iraq - pretty low down the hiearchacy of horror -

So you agree that Corbyn's policies would have prevented war crimes and massive destabilisation of the region?

is that people now assume any foreign intervention is wrong by definition.

A safe assumption when it comes to interventions by the UK certainly. The record is almost entirely appalling.

A counter question - was it right or wrong to bomb Isis forces when they had Yezidis surrounded on Mount Sinjar?

Sure. And you can find very minor isolated examples in every conflict. Fact remains, without Blairite interventionist doctrine NONE of this would have happened.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
This is the piece I was looking for: http://www.trtworld.com/opinion/jeremy-corbyns-internationalism-is-a-myth-370423
All these quotes are sourced from Hansard, no "altenrative facts" at work.

Similarly, to characterise what’s happening in Syria as a “regime change” war is not so much bizarre as it is a grossly indecent re-writing of history. In fact, by endorsing this myth, Corbyn is simply repeating the propaganda of the Assad regime and its allies – the intent is to justify the war against the rebels.

He has form where this is concerned, such as casting doubt on the Assad regime’s well documented culpability in carrying out the gas attack in Khan Sheikhun.
 

firefinga

Well-known member
OK fair enough, although that's a different thing from having their own capability (and yes, I'm aware even the UK's status here is open to debate, given that we technically rent warheads from the USA and - I believe - can't even use them without American permission). But the extreme isolationism of the Trump administration is making the future of NATO look fairly doubtful at the moment.

Absolutley, only european state which can independently strike with nuclear weapons is France.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
I mean, do I want the abolition of student debt? Absolutely! Am I wary of a guy who literally called for solidarity with North Korea being at the heart of Corbyn's campaign? Yes, just a bit.

Do I think the NHS should be much better funded? Absolutely! Do I want a guy who writes apologia for Stalin to be the most powrful unelected official in the country? No, not really.

Annoyed and put out that I had to choose.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Modernising trident within the NATO framework is seen (rightfully so) as an explicit threat to Russia, especially in the light of Eastern European first strike missile placement. Now you can argue about MAD until the cows come home but in the context of increased tensions and a renewed build up of Russian, US and now UK arsenals, I don't think brinkmanship is far from the mark.

And Russian expansionism is an explicit threat to the rest of Europe. So the geopolitical motivation for the UK to destroy its nuclear arsenal while Russia retains its far larger arsenal is - what, exactly?
 

firefinga

Well-known member
And Russian expansionism is an explicit threat to the rest of Europe. So the geopolitical motivation for the UK to destroy its nuclear arsenal while Russia retains its far larger arsenal is - what, exactly?

C'mon Tea, you know it. There is no Russian expansionism. It's self defence.
 

firefinga

Well-known member
But to get this back to the election - how much was this a pro-soft Brexit thing more than anything else?

At least that's the angle most commentators in the German speaking world seem to stress.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
C'mon Tea, you know it. There is no Russian expansionism. It's self defence.

All we need to do is get these people "round the table" with Jez and all will AOK! It's not they'd break a ceasefire and bomb a UN Aid convoy or anything like that.
 

droid

Well-known member
We've done this, on this very thread in fact. There IS Russian expansionism and its indefensible, but it is directly related to NATO's actions after the fall of the Soviets. The Warsaw pact disbanded, NATO expanded. This is indisputable.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Fact remains, without Blairite interventionist doctrine NONE of this would have happened.

Hang on a minute here. Let's not pretend the Iraq invasion was Blair's work alone. GWB, or the people 'advising' him, were itching to have a go at Iraq since 9/11 and probably before that. The UK contributed about 12% of the personnel involved in the invasion and subsequent occupation, all told. Yes, having the UK as a partner was important to the Bush Jnr. administration in terms of giving the appearance of a 'coalition', but it was always going to be an overwhelmingly American venture and would probably have happened sooner or later even if Blair had refused to have anything to do with it, or if MPs had voted against it.

And even in the total absence of an invasion, it's foolish in the extreme to try and predict what sort of state the country or the wider region would be in now. Saddam wasn't going to last forever and fuck knows what would have happened to the place with one of his even more brutal and considerably less intelligent sons in charge. Perhaps eventually an open civil war between Shi'ite insurgents supported by Iran and the Ba'athist state plus Gulf-backed Sunni extremists. Perhaps an all-against-all conflict involving those three sides, without neglecting the independence movement in Iraqi Kurdistan and Turkey's grotty involvement there since forever, the likely persecution of Christians and other religious minorities, the spectre of another Iran-Iraq war, Israel throwing its weight around in 'self-defence'... yes I warned against predictions, so I'm not saying all of these things *would* have happened, but it's likely some of them would have, in some combination or another.

So yes, without the US/UK-led invasion, the terrible things that happened wouldn't have happened, but other things would've happened instead, many of them no doubt also terrible.
 
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droid

Well-known member
Hang on a minute here. Let's not pretend the Iraq invasion was Blair's work alone. GWB, or the people 'advising' him, were itching to have a go at Iraq since 9/11 and probably before that. The UK contributed about 12% of the personnel involved in the invasion and subsequent occupation, all told. Yes, having the UK as a partner was important to the Bush Jnr. administration in terms of giving the appearance of a 'coalition', but it was always going to be an overwhelmingly American venture and would probably have happened sooner or later even if Blair had refused to have anything to do with it, or if MPs had voted against it.

The UK provided essential political support for the war, as well as votes in the UN. Blair was one of the most prominent global cheerleaders. Without the UK it is unlikely they would have gone ahead. Possible, but unlikely. If the UK had actively opposed the war like the rest of the world it rises to highly unlikely

And even in the total absence of an invasion, it's foolish in the extreme to try and predict what sort of state the country or the wider region would be in now. Saddam wasn't going to last forever and fuck knows what would have happened to the place with one of his even more brutal and considerably less intelligent sons in charge. Perhaps eventually an open civil war between Shi'ite insurgents supported by Iran and the Ba'athist state plus Gulf-backed Sunni partisans. Perhaps an all-against-all conflict involving those three sides, without neglecting the independence movement in Iraqi Kurdistan and Turkey's grotty involvement there since forever, the likely persecution of Christians and other religious minorities, the spectre of another Iran-Iraq war, Israel throwing its weight around in 'self-defence'... yes I warned against predictions, so I'm not saying all of these things *would* have happened, but it's likely some of them would have, in some combination or another.

We've done this as well. But sure, if I hadnt burnt your house down, killed most of your family, destroyed all of your possessions and begun a series of related arson attacks, then your abusive father may have beaten the children, burglars may have killed your wife, you might have accidentally smashed all the crockery, or your water tank might have ruptured and ruined the plaster...

The invasion was an utter catastrophe, it destroyed the country, created ISIS, destabilised the region. The global consequences (which include a refugee crisis and the rise of a global right wing movement) are arguably worse than any other post war conflict, and the sophistry you've indulged in above leads one down some very unpleasant roads if applied to other conflicts.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Easy there, tiger, don't confuse me with the other Ollie - I'm not defending the invasion or saying it wasn't a disaster. All I'm saying is that Iraq was a fucking powder keg to start with, given the sectarian and inter-ethnic tensions, the influence of Iran on Shi'ite Arabs, the general spread of Wahhabism/Salafism in the region as a whole - which was obviously hugely accelerated by the invasion, but was surely happening already - and that it was only going to get worse once Saddam pegged it (or got bumped off by some ambitious son or general). For all that, I agree that Iraq and the wider region would be less of a mess if the invasion had never happened.

Regarding whether the invasion would have taken place if Blair had said no: I do wonder if you're making the same mistake Blair himself made (the irony!), of overestimating the influence of Westminster on Washington. But perhaps not. It's certainly true that Bush and Blair wanted to give the appearance of a joint mission, despite the obvious asymmetry in the forces deployed.
 

droid

Well-known member
My main assertion is one I made to Barty when he challenged me on the semiotics of alternate history is that we can only really deal with the political consequences of what actually happened and the opportunity costs of decisions that were actually made.

I don't believe Iraq had as much potential for chaos as it may seem is evident now, and even it had, it is possible that a relatively peaceful restructuring could have taken place, or more likely a continuation of a decrepit repressive regime but one in which most of its citizens lived in relative peace.

War however has a tendency to spiral out of control, and blood, once spilled leads to streams, and then rivers... and now the tide has come in.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
But Syria is complex. It cant be denied. What started as a popular revolution was hijacked by a patchwork of Islamist and anti-democratic forces compounded my multiple regional actors exploiting the situation to advance long standing geo political aims whilst global players poured in arms and money in pursuit of morally indefensible political and military goals as a murderous Islamist cult takes advantage to attempt to form a state within a state.

Syria is indeed complex, on the ground. My problem with people who say that is it normally feels like something of a hedge, that's designed to overlook one key fact, that simplifies and cuts through this complexity: the Assad regime, with Russian and Iranian backing, is responsible for 95% of the deaths out there, if not more. Assad is the key aggressor who has perptuated and prolonged the war. Yet we find plenty of those on the Left i.e. The Morning Star (Corbyn's breakfast table choice) celebrating their brutality as some kind of victory against the forces of US imperialism, delighting in atrocities that won a war of "regime change" (Corbyn's exact words) that has never really happened. At best American influence out there has been to preserve the stalemate. That America was fighting a war of "regime change" out there is a deeply conspiratorial "alt left" narrative that Corbyn appears to buy into when he - for instace - minimises Assad's responsiblity for Khan Sheikhoun.

"What started as a popular revolution was hijacked..."

I don't know to what extent the revolution survives out there. What happened out there was amazing however - the more I read on the Local Co-ordination Committees, the more impressed I become. The creativity unleashed by the revolution continues to amaze me. See here for instance: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jan/27/dancing-in-damascus-by-miriam-cooke-review

However, Corbyn has been smearing these people as nothing but "jihadis" since 2012. There are also plenty of signs that revolutionary intent and civic organisation still survives. This was the last thing I read that seemed hopefully in that regard: https://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/syrians-roll-back-extremism-idlib/
I'm sure a real expert would be able to provide many more sources. The "revolution was hijacked" narrative is too easy and convenient in excusing our complicty in it's supression, and the failure of imagination and empathy of the Western Left.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Worth a read:

"When Americans [OR THE LEADER OF THE UK OPPOSITION my addition] position the United States as a primary aggressor in the Syrian conflict and frame the conversation exclusively within the logic of US imperialism and the War on Terror, they’re proliferating a narrative that doesn’t apply to the Syrian civilian. This framing is dangerous, erasing the Syrian context by homogenizing its conflict with the illegal US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan. This leaves little room to consider the popular anti-dictatorship movement that gave rise to the conflict.

To understand the structures of violence operating in Syria today, the conversation should place the Syrian civil society activist at its center and map out culpable parties based on their responsibility to safeguard the inherent dignity of the civilian. This “civilian-centered approach” immediately places the Syrian regime as the primary actor culpable in creating and perpetuating violence within the state. All other actors, therefore, commit violence in Syria in relation to the Syrian regime."


http://www.warscapes.com/opinion/why-americans-must-change-conversation-about-syria
 

droid

Well-known member
I didnt claim there was no civic society, but Ive read numerous commentators from across the political divides who are in basic agreement that the original anti-Assad coalitions have mostly been replaced by more extremist Islamist forces.

Im not saying that there isnt ambiguity here, one of the features of the conflict is the virtual impossibility of disentangling propaganda from reality, and Western media organs are particulalry guilty of this. For example.

the Assad regime, with Russian and Iranian backing, is responsible for 95% of the deaths out there, if not more.

How precisely have you come to this conclusion? Its repeated ad nauseum in press in the West, but to the best of my knowledge of the approximately 330,000 verified casualties about 112,000 are pro-government forces, about the same amount are anti-government forces and the rest are civilians. The figures you hear on the radio are of half a million casualties, 95% of which are the victims of Assad and Putin, which seems to be a total falsehood.

Clearly Assad is a monster, and Putin has shown on numerous occasions that he has no compunction about murdering civilians, and I agree that Assad is primarily responsible for the brutal oppression that sparked the expansion of the conflict - but there have also been widespread reports of appalling circumstances and massacres in rebel held areas.
 
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