Hilary Benn just destroyed Corbyn. Brilliant speech. The only new war being declared tonight is within the Labour Party. The debate was not about a new war, but a war that has been being fought for 14 years. (Badly, sadly.) It's a new campaign in the fourth world war in our collective lifetime.
Amazing, simply amazing that anyone believes in the idea that morals play a factor in the actions of great (or not so great) powers.
I agree that for the most part they don't. However the 2003 Iraq invasion was motivated by neo-conservative idealism rather than realism of Thucydides, kenneth waltz, et al. Likewise there have been a few cases of humanitarian intervention, which don't particularly serve the intervening countries interests.
I wonder how many of you would accept craners premise, that the fight against Muslims is WWIV? Barty clearly does. I wonder how different people characterise our engagement with the Muslim world and the Middle East in particular
This is the essay in which craner lays out his thesis. He considers it a work of outstanding insight and oracular prescience https://kirkpatrickmission.wordpress.com/2004/10/28/world-war-four/
Please familiarise yourselves with it
BARTYMAN WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF CRANERS ESSAY? GIVE A FULL CONSIDERED AND COGENT RESPONSE
Hilary Benn just destroyed Corbyn. Brilliant speech.
This is it basically isn't it? Once you realise this then it's hard not to become cynical about everything. But although I'm sure there was a time before I'd realised that I can't really remember it unfortunately."Amazing, simply amazing that anyone believes in the idea that morals play a factor in the actions of great (or not so great) powers."
It wasn't even a particularly good speech - which we know to be an objective fact, as Michael Fallon said it was brilliant. Noticeable also that he (Fallon) waited until this morning to highlight the elephant in the room yesterday - that the bombing campaign will be going on for years, rather than months.
Hilary Benn's speech was not the masterstroke of a consummate statesman; it was disingenuous nonsense. Even on the level of pure rhetoric: he imitated better speakers by occasionally varying his tone, rising from a sincere whisper to tub-thumping declamation without much regard for the actual content of what he was saying; this is now apparently what passes from great oratory. The speech was liberally garnished with dull clichés: "clear and present danger", "safe haven", "shoulder to shoulder", "play our part", "do our bit". He said "Daesh" a lot, and mispronounced it every time.
And then there's what he actually said. Hilary Benn has form here: he voted for the 2003 war in Iraq (making him far more responsible for the rise of Isis than some of the people who will die in the airstrikes he's so passionately promoting) and the disastrous 2011 air war in Libya. Much of his speech is familiar invocation of the just war doctrine: laying out the brutality of Isis, as if the eight British jets we're sending could put an end to it; asking "what message would [not acting] send?", as if the self-image of the British state were worth a single innocent life.
I think a big problem was Corbyn made it a debate about whether the abstract notion of bombing I.S. in syria is a good idea or not. Because of that the commons debate (including Benn's speech) was of the calibre you'd get in a sixth form common room. If it had focused on tangible military and strategic concerns, the results would have been far more constructive.
While I agree with bombing I.S in Syria, Cameron's plan is an utter shambles. A level-headed counter proposal by the opposition could have done some real good.
This is it basically isn't it? Once you realise this then it's hard not to become cynical about everything. But although I'm sure there was a time before I'd realised that I can't really remember it unfortunately.