Occupying the Moral High Ground

[crackerjack]

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

Just. There were a helluva lot of Munich-ites in the Tory Party. Thank fuck for Churchill - it's just about the only thing he was right about in his career.

Nazis were all for just that, they hated the bourgeosie just like the commies

Fascism in general has drawn quite significant support from the bourgeoisie - more usually from petit-bourgeois types - but you're correct in saying it has had large numbers of both left and right wing converts.

 

[IdleRich]

"Even though lots of people thought that they had WMDs - security services, foreign governments, NGOs, international monitors?"

They didn't - but let's pretend that they did, I don't think it matters. The US administration was notable by its absence from your list. Colin Powell presented "irrevocable proof" to the UN which the US government must have known wasn't anything of the sort. They may have hopefully believed that they would find some WMD there but they had no solid evidence of such (and they weren't willing to give the inspectors the chance to find out).

"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 think they hoped that they might find some somewhere but really once the war was started they knew that they were unlikely to be held to any serious kind of account anyway - which has proved to be the case.
To turn your question round, if they had honestly believed that Iraq had huge stockpiles of ready-to-fire WMD would they really have started a war with it?

"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."

Well, I meant revenge for (some think) making a fool of Bush senior and being a constant reminder of this just by existing. After 9/11 they had to be seen to do something, you know as well as I do that they tried to link Saddam to that and a lot of Americans believed this (and probably still believe it) - was this just in preparation for saving Iraq?
What I'm saying is, it was popular with the people to go after Iraq, it was popular with Halliburton, it was popular with the Bush family and the oil situation (if only because it was vital to China) was another reason.

"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."

What are you on about, can't you read or am I going completely mad? You, Vimothy, said "fear and stupidity" were the motivations not me, I didn't use those words until I asked you to clarify what you meant when you said that.
Read it again again properly this time.

 

[vimothy]

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?

I didn't say that anti-semitism was the norm amongst the left in the Weimar Republic, it was the norm across Europe (think of France: Leon Blum, and so on).

 

[vimothy]

They didn't - but let's pretend that they did, I don't think it matters. The US administration was notable by its absence from your list. Colin Powell presented "irrevocable proof" to the UN which the US government must have known wasn't anything of the sort. They may have hopefully believed that they would find some WMD there but they had no solid evidence of such (and they weren't willing to give the inspectors the chance to find out).

I thought you said you knew they were lying. Anyway, my question still remains if the US really knew as mush, why would they have bothered, why wouldn't they have found a stronger, non-imaginary, pretext?

(I didn't list the US administration because I thought that was so obvious as to be unnecessary).

I think they hoped that they might find some somewhere but really once the war was started they knew that they were unlikely to be held to any serious kind of account anyway - which has proved to be the case.
To turn your question round, if they had honestly believed that Iraq had huge stockpiles of ready-to-fire WMD would they really have started a war with it?

Ah - they knew they were lying but hoped that despite this there was a good chance that they'd be wrong in their intelligence reports (no WMDs) and so be proved right in their lies (WMDs) almost accidentally. Not much of a strategy.

In answer to your question, yes they would. In fact, I think that more than anything else the real old school war hawks in the Pentagon would love to go to war with someone with a half-way decent army instead of pissing about with these insurgencies. The US military is set up to traditional fight great power wars; it would have demolished the Iraqi army regardless.

Well, I meant revenge for (some think) making a fool of Bush senior and being a constant reminder of this just by existing. After 9/11 they had to be seen to do something, you know as well as I do that they tried to link Saddam to that and a lot of Americans believed this (and probably still believe it) - was this just in preparation for saving Iraq?
What I'm saying is, it was popular with the people to go after Iraq, it was popular with Halliburton, it was popular with the Bush family and the oil situation (if only because it was vital to China) was another reason.

Pretty stupid reasons for going to war with anyone, if true. I don't think they are. But outcomes matter more than intentions (unfortunately for Bush and co).

What are you on about, can't you read or am I going completely mad? You, Vimothy, said "fear and stupidity" were the motivations not me, I didn't use those words until I asked you to clarify what you meant when you said that.
Read it again again properly this time.

You ask me how I can possibly know the motivations behind the Bush government's decision to invade. Obviously I can't. You pointed that out. However, you apparently can: it was fear and stupidity. What I meant was that fear and stupidity have destroyed the peace. I feel that the US went in there for the right reasons. Of course, that's just a guess. But so are your explanations (fear and stupidity; revenge; oil; haliburton).

 

[vimothy]

Fascism in general has drawn quite significant support from the bourgeoisie - more usually from petit-bourgeois types - but you're correct in saying it has had large numbers of both left and right wing converts.

Communism also draws from the same petit-bourgeois pool.

The Nazis in their own words:

"We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions." -- Adolf Hitler, 1927

 

[Gavin]

What definition of "democracy" is being used here? Particularly with regards vimothy's assertion that the MNF is "giving" democracy to a region that previously only had "bombs flying out of it" (or whatever horribly racist caricature he used, I can't be bothered to go back and check). Because when I think of democracy, I think of the right of self-determination of a people, which the MNF seems to directly oppose. Most Iraqis want the occupiers gone, so much so that many of them *gasp* DARE to take up arms (who would EVER condone the right of brown people to fight for self-determination with ACTUAL GUNS AND BOMBS -- only SAVAGES and the defeatist leftists who apologize for them, apparently). Certainly few Iraqis desire to see cities such as Fallujah or Baquba destroyed and decimated. And I'd imagine that the millions forced from their homes would prefer to return. Perhaps just a few more years (or maybe a few more Friedmans?) before Iraqi citizens control their own lives?

Or perhaps they need a few more bombs flying IN to the country before they truly learn what democracy means? How many more cities have to be destroyed before we can fully bestow blessed prosperity on this region, so troubled before the West arrived in its jackboots and helicopters?

Really, if nothing else this thread demostrates the remarkable gymnastics apologists for imperialism must go through to justify the war, and they STILL come off as foolish and racist.

 

[Gavin]

"We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions." -- Adolf Hitler, 1927

You never fail to take liars and hucksters at their word, do you? Are you familiar with how rhetoric works?

 

[john eden]

I didn't say that anti-semitism was the norm amongst the left in the Weimar Republic, it was the norm across Europe (think of France: Leon Blum, and so on).

Indeed - no doubt, as a free-market capitalist you would wish to distance yrself from the anti-semitism of Proudhon...

thank heavens for the great legacy of anti-fascism and anti-racism which the worker's movement has spearheaded in the intervening years, eh?

 

[crackerjack]

The Nazis in their own words:

"We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions." -- Adolf Hitler, 1927

Funny how the capitalist system seemed quitte at home with these sworn enemies of theirs - and the people Nazis really hated (other than non-Aryans) were their 'fellow leftists', the Communists. Don't tell me - the street battles in Germany in the 20s were the real inspiration for the People's Fucking Judean Front sketch!

 

[Mr. Tea]

What definition of "democracy" is being used here? ......

Really, if nothing else this thread demostrates the remarkable gymnastics apologists for imperialism must go through to justify the war, and they STILL come off as foolish and racist.

So here we have the charicature of the insurgency as the brave and entirely justified efforts of an oppressed people to throw of their hated imperialist oppressor, to contrast nicely with Vimothy's idea of the bloodthirsty ingratitude of a bunch of terrorists throwing the freedom they've been given back in the faces of their selfless, baffled liberators.

As usual, I think the reality lies somewhere between the two extremes - without, in this case, bearing too much resemblance to either of them.

To Gavin, I would ask: if the sole purpose of the insurgency is expel US/UK forces from Iraq (as an Iraqi woman writing in the Guardian not long ago claimed), why are the overwhelming majority of its victims other Iraqis? How is reducing a bunch of civilians - Arab Muslims to a person - to lumps of wet meat on the pavement meant to strike hard at the American military presence? Is it like a baby holding its breath until it gets what it wants, or what? The 'few Iraqis' who want to destroy their own country unfortunately seem to have lots of weapons and power, and they presumably wouldn't have those unless they had some level of popular support in at least some areas (leaving aside for the moment any foreign, i.e. Iranian, assistance). Just because you (understandably) blame the coalition forces and the powers that control them for their (at best) incompetence and (at worst) outright greed and barbarity, that does not mean you have to let wicked religious extremists off scot free.

To Vim: how can you expect a population to be 'grateful' for their 'liberation' when a huge number of them - not just die-hard Ba'athists, but conscripted soldiers and civilians - have been killed in the initial war, when the occupying force supposed to keep the 'peace' is so clueless about the country it's in it can scarcely scratch its arse without inflaming deep-seated religious hatreds and tribal rivalries, when almost unbelievable amounts of the country's own money meant to be used in restructuring have been squandered or simply stolen and when abuses and killings of exactly the sort that have been (retrospectively) used to justify the invasion have been committed by the 'liberating' troops?

On one last note, I don't think it's doing anything other than muddying the waters here by slinging around insults like 'racist'; Vim is obviously well to the right of most people on this forum but I for one don't think he's racist.

 

[gek-opel]

It's not a question of being "right all along" - I supported the invasion at the time, on the basis that even the US and UK, with their clearly ulterior motives, couldn't be worse for the country than Saddam. The horrific cock-up that has been made of the 'reconstruction', the obviously massive levels of anti-Western sentiment this has stirred up and the insurgency/civil war this sentiment is fuelling have unfortunately given the lie to this.

Do you know nothing of history man? This outcome was in all honesty from the off incredibly likely... even if you believe, as you and Vimothy clearly do that the West is approaching some form of innate moral goodness, then a short perusal of the history books will demonstrate that nothing good comes of these kind of interventionist activities, especially by the west in the middle east... ignoring questions of morality and reducing the matter simply to that of the implementation of restructuring, I think there was an absurd faith in the power of the West... even with the best possible plan (again ignoring morality, merely in terms of efficacy) it would have been nearly impossible to achieve the stated aims given the historical and geographical context.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Do you know nothing of history man? This outcome was in all honesty from the off incredibly likely... even if you believe, as you and Vimothy clearly do that the West is approaching some form of innate moral goodness...

Well hang on a minute, that's pretty unfair - have I or have I not been at pains to point out that I thought, at the time, that the country might benefit from Saddam's overthrow despite, rather than because of, America's and Britain's intentions? The worst you can accuse me of is naivety.
I know, and I knew then, that Bush, Cheney et al didn't start this war because of their undying empathy for the Iraqi people - otherwise, there are any number of other countries with dictators as bad as Saddam which would have been much easier to 'liberate', on account of being far less well-armed - what I thought was that a stable, Saddam-less Iraq (which is what the Whitehouse, Pentagon and oil industry wanted) would coincidentally be good for the Iraqis. As it is, I don't think those who started the war and are currently conducting the American side of it are exactly rubbing their hands with glee every time a car bomb goes off in Fallujah.

 

[vimothy]

Funny how the capitalist system seemed quitte at home with these sworn enemies of theirs - and the people Nazis really hated (other than non-Aryans) were their 'fellow leftists', the Communists. Don't tell me - the street battles in Germany in the 20s were the real inspiration for the People's Fucking Judean Front sketch!

Just as the Communists in Russia butchered their fellows on the left. (Or should that be "left")?

Don't understand your opening sentence though, the Nazis were certainly socialist in economic terms, not free market capitalists.

 

[john eden]

Just as the Communists in Russia butchered their fellows on the left. (Or should that be "left")?

Don't understand your opening sentence though, the Nazis were certainly socialist in economic terms, not free market capitalists.

There are bigger divisions between schools of thought than "free market capitalism vs everything else."

Were the nazis dedicated to reducing inequality? I think not.

As a free marketeer I am interested in your praise for democracy. Presumably you adhere to the idea that the state is a parasite on the backs of hard working entrepreneurs and all that. I am curious why someone with that philosophy would be hung up on democracy and government. Surely you want to do away with all that to allow market forces to reign supreme?

 

[IdleRich]

"I thought you said you knew they were lying."

They were lying about having proof (and they knew it).

"However, you apparently can: it was fear and stupidity."

For the millionth time, I didn't say that - you did.

"What I meant was that fear and stupidity have destroyed the peace."

That might have been what you meant but it's certainly not what you said. You gave those reasons as an answer to my direct question as to why the US had lied about WMD and attacked Iraq.

 

[vimothy]

There are bigger divisions between schools of thought than "free market capitalism vs everything else."

But basically the Nazis sought to control the economy and privatise industry. If we're talking about a scale that's well off to the left.

Were the nazis dedicated to reducing inequality? I think not.

Between aryans they were.

As a free marketeer I am interested in your praise for democracy. Presumably you adhere to the idea that the state is a parasite on the backs of hard working entrepreneurs and all that. I am curious why someone with that philosophy would be hung up on democracy and government. Surely you want to do away with all that to allow market forces to reign supreme?

Shrink the state, yes. Replace democratic institutions with a dictatorship, no thanks. Democracy is the best guarantee of basic freedoms. Maybe it's not perfect but it's certainly better than any of the other options.

 

[vimothy]

For the millionth time, I didn't say that - you did.

But apparently you know that it's right, even though you told me that there's no way that I can know the reasons behind the invasion. That's obviously contradictory. I was just pointing that out.

That might have been what you meant but it's certainly not what you said. You gave those reasons as an answer to my direct question as to why the US had lied about WMD and attacked Iraq.

Rich, this is the most boring bit of the whole goddamn argument!

(Incidentally your question was: "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?")

 

[john eden]

Between aryans they were.

I think the racial thing was maybe a tad important, maybe that's just me.

Similarly they seemed very keen on maintaining hierarchies to a pathological degree.

Bosses, workers, orders. Money.

Shrink the state, yes. Replace democratic institutions with a dictatorship, no thanks. Democracy is the best guarantee of basic freedoms. Maybe it's not perfect but it's certainly better than any of the other options.

So you don't actually have faith in the ability of free markets to take care of social issues, then? You are actually a democrat rather than a free-market capitalist? Do you agree that having a welfare state and an education system funded by tax payers is a good thing?

 

[vimothy]

I think the racial thing was maybe a tad important, maybe that's just me.

Similarly they seemed very keen on maintaining hierarchies to a pathological degree.

Bosses, workers, orders. Money.

Not that different from any other socialist state. None of them actually in reality abolished hierarchies and inequality.

So you don't actually have faith in the ability of free markets to take care of social issues, then? You are actually a democrat rather than a free-market capitalist? Do you agree that having a welfare state and an education system funded by tax payer is a good thing?

You misunderstand me. I said shrink the state. I'm not a social democrat. Democracy guarantees basic freedoms, the welfare state is something different. (And "no" in answer to your question).

 

[john eden]

Not that different from any other socialist state. None of them actually in reality abolished hierarchies and inequality.

The difference is that these socialist states did not achieve communism whereas the nazi state did achieve nazism.

So whilst you can have a go at the left for not coming good on its promises, I don't think you can say that nazism and communism are the same on a philosophical level.

You misunderstand me. I said shrink the state. I'm not a social democrat. Democracy guarantees basic freedoms, the welfare state is something different. (And "no" in answer to your question).

I do misunderstand you, it all seems very wishy washy. The welfare state also guarantees certain freedoms, so that will have to do until we achieve communism.

But surely from your point of view - if we did away with democracy, people would be free to trade without the shackles of things like health and safety regulations, taxes, and the penal system? You presumably approve of the conditions in Iraq which have allowed cunning enterpreneurs like yourself to increase their profits?