Occupying the Moral High Ground

vimothy

yurp
vimothy, please can you list the great track record of 'the right' has when it comes to 'fighting tyrants'? is it bigger than the list of tyrants 'the right' has supported?

World Wars II through IV (that is, the wars against fascism, communism and Islamism - the right defended and continues to defend democracy in all three, the left only in WWII).

as you should know, there was no link between iraq and suicide bombers until after the invasion (which, i may as well point out again, was illegal).

Well, I can think of one sense in which you're totally wrong about that (Saddam's sponsorship of suidice bombers in Israel), but that wasn't what I was saying. If you consider the Mid East as a whole, Saddam's regime was the worst in terms of cruelty and was a failing state. If the Mid East was filled with successful stable democracies, I don't think that people would be as quick to turn to recationary fascist movements.

your continued assumptions regarding the absolute goodness of the west and the shock at the lack of gratitude shown by those who are suffering due to our goodness, continues to astound.

Yawn - none of this is true. Tyranny is the norm through human history, the acheivements of the west are remarkable in that regard, but they are in no sense reflective of some sort of innate "absolute goodness" (whatever that means), they are accidents of geography and historical development, no more, no less. I would like to give the rest of the world the same advantages we enjoy.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
World Wars II through IV (that is, the wars against fascism, communism and Islamism - the right defended and continues to defend democracy in all three, the left only in WWII).

I don't normally get drawn into discussions about international politics on the net, but this is bollocks of the highest order.

I think your monolithic treatment of the "the left" is problematic as it neglects the left opposition to Leninism, Stalinism and what you call "islamofascism".

In terms of the situation in Iraq, you may find this text and others on the site interesting:
http://www.geocities.com/pract_history/iraq.html

Setting my own views aside, it is more likely that there will be left opposition to fascism than communism, as it that there will be right wing opposition to communism than fascism.

You seem to have carved out a nice niche to support your views, but have not included events from relatively recent history such as the Spanish civil war, apartheid, Pinochet, etc.
 

vimothy

yurp
OK, there are two things that Mark Humphrys is saying he has a problem with - one is Ramadani's opinion and the other is that Ramadani is saying it despite being a refugee.
He is saying that the second point is relevant to his right to say the first (or why mention it?). There is a debate to be had about what Ramadani said and whether he should be able to say it in the Guardian but using emotive and unfair points such as that is not helping and is part of the general tone and level of that website. OK, you are now distancing yourself from that bit but you linked to it and defended Humphrys at first.

I said it wasn't despicable, and I stand by that. Is it really that unfair?

Again, I don't impugn the motives or actions of individual soldiers but they don't decide the purpose of the mission, it's Cheney and his friends who do that.

The purpose of the mission was to depose Saddam and install a demoratic Iraqi government. What Cheney wants or feels that he gets out of it is not relevant either.

Well, if that was the case then (1) why didn't they say so? and (2) why did they take steps which they were warned would (and which in fact have) turn(ed) it in to a more hideous mess from which human bombs will only fly faster?

Fear and stupidity, then some more fear, in that exact order. However, the only other alternative would have been to leave Saddam in place, continue with the murderous santions regime and start worrying about the succession of one of his two evil offspring.
 

crackerjack

Well-known member
Sorry I've missed all this but Idle Rich has defended my position very well so it makes no difference. I should just add one of the things I really objected to in Humphry's piece (apart from the 1-sided roll-call of Guardian crimes) is the tone. The bit before the one I quoted referred to someone enjoying "a fantastic life in the west thanks to the US/UK" (I'm not digging out the exact quote coz I'm off out again). While I don't object to people pointing out the hypocrisy of Islamists who seek refuge in a wicked west they despise, I can't stand this arrogant view of the rest of the world permanently holding out a begging bowl. If you want to talk about a university professor, then talk about a university professor, not someone who was "given" a job through our munificence.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"I said it wasn't despicable, and I stand by that. Is it really that unfair?"
That wasn't the bit I said was despicable.

"The purpose of the mission was to depose Saddam and install a demoratic Iraqi government. What Cheney wants or feels that he gets out of it is not relevant either"
I said Cheney and his friends (by which I meant Bush, Rumsfeld etc) not just Cheney and being as how it was them who decided the purpose of the "mission" (which apparently you have some privileged access to because everyone else was told it was to get weapons of mass destruction) I would say what they want is pretty fucking relevant.

Fear and stupidity, then some more fear, in that exact order. However, the only other alternative would have been to leave Saddam in place, continue with the murderous santions regime and start worrying about the succession of one of his two evil offspring.
Fear and stupidity on whose part? You seem to be saying that the US and Britain lied about their motives and then attacked Iraq because of fear and stupidity - which is about right but not what I normally expect to hear from you.
 

vimothy

yurp
I don't normally get drawn into discussions about international politics on the net, but this is bollocks of the highest order.

I think your monolithic treatment of the "the left" is problematic as it neglects the left opposition to Leninism, Stalinism and what you call "islamofascism".

In terms of the situation in Iraq, you may find this text and others on the site interesting:
http://www.geocities.com/pract_history/iraq.html

Setting my own views aside, it is more likely that there will be left opposition to fascism than communism, as it that there will be right wing opposition to communism than fascism.

You seem to have carved out a nice niche to support your views, but have not included events from relatively recent history such as the Spanish civil war, apartheid, Pinochet, etc.

Well, of course it's generalisation, but I don't think it's unfair to say that the left generally supported communism during the Cold War, less so as Stalin's crimes became apparent, but even then...

If you think about what the left represents (statism, collectivism) and what the (modern, perhaps) right represents (anti-statism, individualism), then the left is closer to both fascism and communism than the right. I'm not a cultural or religious conservative though, I agree with the left in social terms (civil liberties, anti-racism, universal sufferage, worker's rights, etc), but these are old battles, for the most part already won.

[Oh yeah, and I'm aware of Britain's shameful colonial past.]
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I think the biggest problem with the modern right is its insistence on the primacy of corporate/commercial freedom; in theory, this goes hand-in-hand with personal freedom, but you'd have to be very naive to actually believe this. I don't know enough economics to get drawn into a protracted debate about this, but just look what happened to Russia when, as soon as the old Communist regime fell, the country adopted (economically) ultra-liberal practices - and what's happening in Iraq right now. Regardless of (inherently dubious) claims that Bush and Blair had the wellbeing of Iraqis at heart when they launched the invasion, do you think the same can be said of Haliburton?
 

vimothy

yurp
I said Cheney and his friends (by which I meant Bush, Rumsfeld etc) not just Cheney and being as how it was them who decided the purpose of the "mission" (which apparently you have some privileged access to because everyone else was told it was to get weapons of mass destruction) I would say what they want is pretty fucking relevant.

If they went in to get weapons of mass destruction, and they didn't find them, why didn't they just leave when it became apparent that there was none? Why have they stayed to try to secure the peace, despite prohibitive cost and loss of life?

What they personally want is not relevant in strategic terms. The goal was regime change, whether Dick Cheney is motivated by greed or agape doesn't matter, just as what Nagl or any other commander is motivated by doesn't matter in terms of the mission.

Fear and stupidity on whose part? You seem to be saying that the US and Britain lied about their motives and then attacked Iraq because of fear and stupidity - which is about right but not what I normally expect to hear from you.

So you have privileged access to the "real reasons" behind the invasion, not WMDs but fear and stupidity? The mess has been made because of fear and stupidity, the invasion was motivated by a desire to change the Middle East for the better, thanks to the neo-cons. If old school foreign policy realists were in charge acting in the ways that get America criticised routinely, then there probably would have been no invasion.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
I don't think it's unfair to say that the right has generally supported fascism. This doesn't really moves things on, however.
 

vimothy

yurp
I think the biggest problem with the modern right is its insistence on the primacy of corporate/commercial freedom; in theory, this goes hand-in-hand with personal freedom, but you'd have to be very naive to actually believe this. I don't know enough economics to get drawn into a protracted debate about this, but just look what happened to Russia when, as soon as the old Communist regime fell, the country adopted (economically) ultra-liberal practices - and what's happening in Iraq right now. Regardless of (inherently dubious) claims that Bush and Blair had the wellbeing of Iraqis at heart when they launched the invasion, do you think the same can be said of Haliburton?

God, I really should be working!

But meanwhile, check out this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hernando_de_Soto_(economist)
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I don't think it's unfair to say that the right has generally supported fascism. This doesn't really moves things on, however.

Well, there's right and there's Right, isn't there? I mean, in 1930s Britain you had not only the Tories, but also Mosely's BUF. And today's Tories are different again from the Tories of 70-odd years ago.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Well, there's right and there's Right, isn't there? I mean, in 1930s Britain you had not only the Tories, but also Mosely's BUF. And today's Tories are different again from the Tories of 70-odd years ago.

This is precisely my point.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"If they went in to get weapons of mass destruction, and they didn't find them, why didn't they just leave when it became apparent that there was none? Why have they stayed to try to secure the peace, despite prohibitive cost and loss of life?"
I'm saying that they claimed that it was to get WMD but that was clearly a lie. You are saying that the real reason was regime change for the benefit of the populace. I'm asking how you know that and if they had such moral reasons then when did they lie?
I've not said what their reasons are but given that I know they lied in the first place I'm not going to just assume it was the most charitable one I can think of.
I would say that possible reasons include (as well as the one you've mentioned), the desire to be seen to do something after 9/11, the desire for revenge on Saddam (and, yes, regime change whatever the consequences) and the chance of getting control of some oil. Probably these were all seen as benefits of attacking Iraq.
There has been prohibitive cost to the state and there has been a lot of life loss but there has been no personal loss to the main architects of the war - that's why it's quite relevant to ask what the personal motives of Cheney et al were.

"So you have privileged access to the "real reasons" behind the invasion, not WMDs but fear and stupidity?"
Hang on a minute, I never said I had any access to anything and I never gave any reaons for the invasion until this post, it was you who said that the neocons were guilty of fear and stupidity - read it back:

Vimothy: The purpose of the mission was to depose Saddam and install a demoratic Iraqi government.

Rich: Well, if that was the case then (1) why didn't they say so? and (2) why did they take steps which they were warned would (and which in fact have) turn(ed) it in to a more hideous mess from which human bombs will only fly faster?

Vim: Fear and stupidity, then some more fear, in that exact order.
 

vimothy

yurp
I don't think it's unfair to say that the right has generally supported fascism. This doesn't really moves things on, however.

Fascism is basically a socialist economic programme married to nationalism, totalitarianism and violent revolution. Other than nationalism, I don't see anything there that would have the support of the right, but there are and have been plenty of leftist nationalists.

My position is libertarian right (i.e. classical liberalism), which I would describe as pretty much the exact opposite of fascism in every way.

Anyway, when it mattered, the right fought the fascists in WWII.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Fascism is basically a socialist economic programme married to nationalism, totalitarianism and violent revolution. Other than nationalism, I don't see anything there that would have the support of the right, but there are and have been plenty of leftist nationalists.

My position is libertarian right (i.e. classical liberalism), which I would describe as pretty much the exact opposite of fascism in every way.

Anyway, when it mattered, the right fought the fascists in WWII.

But it was the left who tried to stop the rise of fascism and who were the first victims of it.
 

vimothy

yurp
I'm saying that they claimed that it was to get WMD but that was clearly a lie. You are saying that the real reason was regime change for the benefit of the populace. I'm asking how you know that and if they had such moral reasons then when did they lie?

Even though lots of people thought that they had WMDs - security services, foreign governments, NGOs, international monitors? You might also like to consider why, if WMDs were going to be used as a pretext for war, the US Administration bothered in the first place given they knew that they were lying. If I was going to find a pretext for a war so that I could make some fat dollar for my company, I'd pick one that wouldn't make me look like a lying imperialist cretin when the war's over. I would have gone for something that was there instead.

I've not said what their reasons are but given that I know they lied in the first place I'm not going to just assume it was the most charitable one I can think of.
I would say that possible reasons include (as well as the one you've mentioned), the desire to be seen to do something after 9/11, the desire for revenge on Saddam (and, yes, regime change whatever the consequences) and the chance of getting control of some oil. Probably these were all seen as benefits of attacking Iraq.
There has been prohibitive cost to the state and there has been a lot of life loss but there has been no personal loss to the main architects of the war - that's why it's quite relevant to ask what the personal motives of Cheney et al were.

None of these reasons make sense - they could have done anything, could have just bombed Saddam a bit and left him to it, could have not bothered anyway (revenge againsts Saddam for what?), had already deposed the Taliban (hosts of al Qaeda), etc.

Oil is actually the weakest argument. Firstly, if you want oil there are far, far (far) easier ways to get it than invading a country (just ask the French). And given the Mid East's reliance on petrodollars, it needs to sell its oil more than America needs to buy it. And rich countries can stand price hikes, poor countries can't. And the countries with real strategic influence in securing stable energy supplies are the newly globalisaing counties in the East: India and especially China.

Hang on a minute, I never said I had any access to anything and I never gave any reaons for the invasion until this post, it was you who said that the neocons were guilty of fear and stupidity - read it back:

I know what I said. You said that fear and stupidity were the motivations behind the invasion, but you also asked me how I could possibly know what the motivations for the invasion were. I was just trying to point that out.
 

crackerjack

Well-known member
Well, of course it's generalisation, but I don't think it's unfair to say that the left generally supported communism during the Cold War, less so as Stalin's crimes became apparent, but even then...

Just seen this and jumped to the end, so forgive me if someone else has already taken issue with this crock of shit.

We are presumably dealing with the 10 year period between the Berlin airlift and Khruschev's destalinisation speech in 1956. Which left are we talking about here? If 'left' means the Labour Party - and Attlee's govt was probably the most left-wing this country has had - then it's a left which 'supported communism' by joining NATO, building a nuclear deterrent to point at the USSR and fighting communism in Korea. With suppport like that, who needs etc etc?
 

vimothy

yurp
But it was the left who tried to stop the rise of fascism and who were the first victims of it.

The street battles between the Nazis and commies in germany pre WWII were battles between two groups of revolutionaries, two sides of the same coin. Violent revolution is a leftist idea, and the Nazis were all for just that, they hated the bourgeosie just like the commies, they were illiberal just like the commies. Their anti-semitism was the pathetic norm at thet time and not particularly partisan (pogroms in the USSR for e.g.). The revolutionary left fought them in Germany but not to save democracy, to conquer it before the Nazis did.

That whole period of European history is disgusting and should serve as a good example of why liberal democracy does need to be defended from the totalitarians who threaten it (be they communist, fascist or Islamist).
 

vimothy

yurp
Just seen this and jumped to the end, so forgive me if someone else has already taken issue with this crock of shit.

We are presumably dealing with the 10 year period between the Berlin airlift and Khruschev's destalinisation speech in 1956. Which left are we talking about here? If 'left' means the Labour Party - and Attlee's govt was probably the most left-wing this country has had - then it's a left which 'supported communism' by joining NATO, building a nuclear deterrent to point at the USSR and fighting communism in Korea. With suppport like that, who needs etc etc?

The British government has a good record against communism. I was refering to intellectual support for the USSR. (You know, think Slavoj and his ilk).
 

john eden

male pale and stale
The street battles between the Nazis and commies in germany pre WWII were battles between two groups of revolutionaries, two sides of the same coin. Violent revolution is a leftist idea, and the Nazis were all for just that, they hated the bourgeosie just like the commies, they were illiberal just like the commies. Their anti-semitism was the pathetic norm at thet time and not particularly partisan (pogroms in the USSR for e.g.). The revolutionary left fought them in Germany but not to save democracy, to conquer it before the Nazis did.

I would be very interested to hear more about the anti-semitism amongst the german left in the build up to world war two - do you have a reference?
 
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