Not in our name…
Last weekend millions took to the streets of cities around the world protesting against the apparent determination of the USA and Britain to attack Iraq. The enormous public antipathy towards this, at least without the backing of the UN, has been recorded by opinion poll after opinion poll. Tony Blair, on the other hand, seems absolutely determined to go to war whenever the US President — who is, of course, democratically elected (by the electoral college if not the American people) — decides to start the fighting.
I have no doubt the opinion polls are correct. I don’t personally know anyone who thinks this is a good idea. There is a guy I know who generally is favourably disposed to military solutions and dislikes anything which might be characterised (by him) as pinko leftie PC peacenik crap: even he thinks attacking Iraq is not a good idea.
Obviously there must be people supporting war, soon and without UN backing, but they are damn hard to find. Peter Hitchens, who is not noted for being a leftie peacenik, is dismayed that Blair does not understand that this is America’s war, not ours. (No, I don’t know why the Daily Mail’s only online presence is femail.co.uk either.) I suspect that many of the Spectator’s columnists back the war — the Tory party, such as it is, is after all Blair’s strongest support on this issue. I can’t be sure, though, because the Spectator web site seems to be down; The American Spectator, though, certainly seems to be for the war — perhaps this is not a very popular position even there, though, since the American Spectator’s URL would suggest a non-profit organisation.
Someone who does seem to have bought the Blair line that it would be immoral not to go to war (you’d think that the statements to the contrary by people whose whole business is morality would make him stop and think, but then humility is not one of Blair’s more prominent characteristics), is the Guardian’s David Aaronovitch. I’m sure he used to be a leftie; what happened to the days when the left opposed aggressive war (well, what else can you call the invasion of a country which has not attacked you?) and called those who disagreed with them fascist warmongers?
Aaronovitch has taken a swing at the marchers in a column entitled “Dear marcher, please answer a few questions”. Well, I wasn’t one of the marchers, although had I been fitter I might have been. So let’s have a look at Aaronovitch’s questions.
First, though, consider his opening paragraphs, where he displays a truly nauseating degree of smug self-righteousness.
[S]ome things get up an old marcher’s nose. The Sunday Telegraph had no trouble in finding what it called moderate protesters, such as 57-year-old Chelsea businessman Jonathan Callow, who had been on only one previous demonstration — with the Countryside Alliance. Sourly, I wondered how he had resisted all those entreaties we had made for him to support the anti-apartheid movement after Sharpeville and Soweto, or to march against the endless Vietnam war, and yet now was turning out every three months or so. Another woman more or less explained it. Saddam is not threatening us, she told the Telegraph reporter, The government should spend the money on British jobs, hospitals and the rural economy. Not in my name. Not in my back yard.
So the views of everyone on the peace marches — who were not by any means all former Countryside Alliance protesters — can be discounted because some supported campaigns Aaronovitch did not, and did not support those he did? He derides a marcher, portraying her as a narrow-minded Little Englander because she makes the point that Saddam is not threatening us, which happens to be true, and suggests there are better things for the government to spend money on, the truth of which should be bloody obvious to anyone who has used public transport or the NHS, or has seen anything of the decline of rural Britain.
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that he doesn’t like the marches because he doesn’t like the marchers; and he doesn’t like the marchers because some of them have held and do hold political views very different from his own. I wonder if he would have been so dismissive if the comment had been that the government should spend the money on British jobs, hospitals and decaying housing estates. I can’t help thinking he wouldn’t.
To the questions. The first thing Aaronovitch wants to know is, were the marchers bothered by those who weren’t there?
The Kurds, the Iraqis … where were they? Why were they not there? When Tony Benn was confronted by a young pro-war Iraqi woman …, why did he describe the organisations of the Iraqi and Kurdish opposition as CIA stooges?
That last one is easy: it’s because Tony Benn’s grasp of reality is erratic, to say the least, and one of the few things he shares with Tony Blair is an unshakeable belief that he is right. Of course Tony Benn said something bonkers, Tony Benn almost always says something bonkers; whether or not what he is supporting is right or wrong is a completely separate issue.
The initial question, though, is not unreasonable. Of course the Kurds and exiled Iraqis want rid of Saddam Hussein, and I imagine if I were a Kurd or an exiled Iraqi I would be an enthusiastic supporter of a war which would topple him. That doesn’t mean it is necessarily right for Britain and the USA to wage such a war. (Let’s skip over the fact it isn’t absolutely clear that toppling Saddam is actually a war aim — one day it apparently is, the next it isn’t — and the fact that when President Bush I encouraged dissident Iraqi groups to revolt he left them in the lurch, ensuring Saddam would remain safely in power.) Saddam is not a nice person, the world would (probably) be better off without him; the desire of Kurds and Iraqis to be free of his tyranny is a wholly legitimate one.
Does that mean, then, that the West should be obliged to wage war on any odious tyrant because he is a bad man and because his people wish to be free? That sounds noble enough, but it is not a basis on which international affairs have ever been organised. If we say that things should be done in this way, then we are committing the West to an unending series of wars. It isn’t just a question of Iraq first then maybe North Korea: what about China? Do we wage war on China — a war the West would not be guaranteed to win, one which would kill millions and would be likely to end with nuclear weapons used — because China’s rulers are tyrannical, oppressing and killing their own people? Where would it end, and what sort of state would the world be in when — if — we are finished? What hope of developing a system of international law if the people with the most guns arbitratrarily decide who are the good and the bad guys?
Second question. Aaronovitch wants to know what the marchers thought of the slogans. Specifically:
Do you really believe that this parroted “war about oil” stuff is true? … What did you feel about the marchers wearing stickers bearing the Israeli flag and the words “the fascist state”?
Personally, I don’t believe the proposed war is about oil. If you ask me, I think it’s about President Bush II wanting the popularity boost of a successful war against a bogeyman he can beat to compensate for the USA’s failure to track down and capture (or kill) Osama bin Laden. I know some people think the proposed war is about oil just as some people thought the last Gulf War was about oil. I think they were wrong then, and I think they’re wrong now, but so what? People being wrong about the reasons behind a proposed war does not mean those who want the war are right.
Aaronovitch brings up the questions of Kosovo, Bosnia and Afghanistan. Well, the USA was justified in going to war in Afghanistan: the USA was attacked, and those who planned the attack were based in Afghanistan. I may have quibbles about some aspects of how the war was conducted, but it is inconceivable that the USA should not have attacked the Taleban’s Afghanistan. What went on in the Balkans is much more complex. I have always thought that the Bosnia campaign was grotesquely ill-thought out and that many of those who died did so as a direct, and predictable, result of the campaign. The fact that things are improving there now does not mean everything the USA and Britain did was the right thing to do.
As for those Israeli flag stickers, I can’t completely disagree with them, assuming Aaronovitch has described them accurately (I haven’t seen them myself). A few years ago I would have disagreed, but Israel today under Ariel Sharon is behaving despiccably. Tanks and troops are send against civilians, firemen are shot at, and ghettoes are constructed. Yes, suicide bombings are Bad Things; most Palestinians, though, are not suicide bombers — a state of affairs which may not long survive if the Israeli government continues with its inhumane and unjust treatment of a people who have at least as much right to live in Palestine as the Israelis. OK, describing Israel as a fascist state is a slight exaggeration; but only that, and unlike Saddam Hussein’s breaches of UN resolutions and human rights Israel’s actions have not produced demands for a change of behaviour on pain of invasion from either Britain or the USA. Yes, Saddam is worse, much. That doesn’t mean Israel’s government are nice people, justified in everything they do.
Next question: Aaronovitch wants to know if the marchers were bothered by some of the Hyde Park speeches. Personally, no, but then I wouldn’t have been in Hyde Park to start with and nothing I heard from the rally at the SECC I disagreed with. Anyway, he wants to know
How about the equivalence used by Tony Benn, as in, “If there are inspectors in Iraq, I want to see inspectors in Israel, inspectors in Britain and inspectors in America”? Name Welsh villages attacked with chemical weapons by British bombers in the past 20 years.
Look, get the message: Benn is a loon. Having said that, he actually has a point here. Perhaps British bombers haven’t gassed Welsh villages in the past 20 years, but it is disingenuous in the extreme to ignore the fact that Saddam got the chemical weapons he has used on his people from Britain and from the USA. Nobody should be manufacturing chemical or biological weapons, including the USA and including Britain. If the only way to stop the manufacture of WMD is to have UN inspectors in Britain and the USA, that’s fine by me.
Aaronovitch goes on:
Do you agree with Harold Pinter that the US is “a country run by a bunch of criminals … with Tony Blair as a hired Christian thug”? Is there any word in that sentence, apart from Tony, Blair and Christian, that isn’t quite mad?
Well, George W. Bush has been arrested three times, something which strikes me as unusual in a head of state; I also seem to recall some questions relating to Dick Cheney’s probity while CEO of Halliburton. I think “thug” is the wrong word for Blair, but Pinter’s slightly weird statement does correctly get the subordinate nature of his position vis-a-vis Bush.
What about rail union leader Bob Crow’s suggestion that the government be brought down by civil action? Are you up for that?
We have a government which pays no attention to what its own supporters think let alone the general public and, to make matters worse, we have an “opposition” that would have to significantly improve its performance to be merely useless; it is understandable that some people will feel frustrated and contemplate some form of civil action. Crow is, though, very premature (to say the least) in his call for such action, and he is clearly pushing his own agenda more than anything else; but, again, even if Bob Crow has said something which is foolish, something which is wrong, it has nothing to do with whether or not the war is right or wrong. Such questions are nothing more than a smokescreen.
Aaronovitch next takes a swipe at Charles Kennedy, under the guise of a question asking the marchers to explain his speech.
Here is the boss of a top party, yet one cannot tell what his view on war against Saddam actually is. Instead his speech was all about how unconvincing Blair's arguments were. “I have yet,” he said, “to be persuaded that the case for war against Iraq has been made.” It’s been made, Charles, and if you don't agree with it, why don’t you just say so? Stop blathering on about how “people are suspicious and scared” and tell them what you think ought to be done. Or is there a serious case for war, but you didn't want to say so in front of a million demonstrators?
That quote demonstrates everything which is wrong about the Blairite approach to public discourse, an approach in which what Blair says is right and it is a sign of “wrong values” to disagree. No, the case for war has not been made. There has been talk of the threat posed to us by Iraq, but no demonstration that the threat actually exists; Blair’s government did produce a dossier — cribbed from a student’s thesis; there has been talk of the terrible things done by Saddam, ignoring the fact he was able to do them because of the support of Britain and the USA (among others), and specifically with the help of Donald Rumsfeld, one of the people most loudly proclaiming the moral need to attack Iraq now. What we have had from the government is rhetoric, not proof that war is necessary. When Kennedy says he has to be persuaded that the case has been made, he is disagreeing that it has been made, and if you can’t follow that you need to go back to school to improve your English comprehension skills. When Kennedy says that people are suspicious and scared, he is speaking for the people, the people whom the government seem to be setting out to frighten with their vague talk of war and terrorism. I am not confused by what Kennedy says, and I suspect only the pro-war lobby affects such confusion.
I’m not even going to consider the odious suggestion that Kennedy is so hypocritical to believe there is a strong case for the war yet say the opposite. I might believe it of some in the ranks of the Labour Party for whom the truth is nothing more than a flexible friend; I would not believe it of Kennedy (or even IDS for that matter). By the way, in case you are wondering: no, I have never, as far as I can recall, voted for the Liberals.
Next question: should Blair act on the demands of the marchers because of the number of people who marched? Aaronovitch throws up the smokescreen of a march in Lee-on-Solent opposing the local housing of asylum seekers, but the question of whether the nation becomes involved in an unjustified war is rather different from any local issue, serious or trivial. All opinion polls show that a clear, large majority of the British population oppose war without UN backing. Yes, Blair should pay attention and respond to the will of the people. (As for asylum seekers in Lee, I can’t help thinking that the government’s approach to the whole matter of asylum seekers has been pretty incompetent; Blair could do worse than listen to the voters and think things through.)
Aaronovitch also wants to know if there was anything troubling about the way Baghdad reported the marches, any worry that they might make him “more obdurate and not less?”
Well, Saddam is obdurate. He is as obdurate as he can get away with, any time, all of the time. If millions had taken to the street proclaiming their support for a war with slogans like “Bomb Saddam now!” and “Strike now!” then Baghdad would have put its best spin on that, Saddam would very likely be as Muslim as he can be and, crying that the West was preparing to launch a crusade against Islam, he would be as obdurate as ever. Whatever the West does, he will be obdurate and he will do whatever he can to extract something to his benefit from any situation.
In any case, what Baghdad says and what Saddam does are not our direct concern. What our government does in our name is our direct concern. Democratic, liberal countries are not supposed to wage unprovoked war on other countries whether they are run by brutal, murderous thugs or not. To do so is the antithesis of what liberal democracy is supposed to stand for.
Next, Aaronovitch wants to know what we think got the inspectors back into Iraq in the first place.
Was it because he felt it was the right thing to do? Or was it because of the threat of force? If it was the latter, what does this tell you?
It reaffirms my view of Saddam as an obdurate thug who will do his best to get away with whatever he can unless he is made to do otherwise. However, there is a big difference between marshalling some military force to rattle sabres and make Saddam back down and readmit the inspectors and setting out to amass an army to attack Iraq whether or not anyone else thinks it justified. And don’t try to suggest this is a cunning bluff on George W. Bush’s part, talking tough and sending troops, ships and aeroplanes to the Gulf to convince Saddam he’s going to be attacked so he’ll back down. For one thing, Bush isn’t that smart, and for another the size of the force being assembled in the Gulf is getting to the point where it will have to be used. I can’t help thinking of the position Europe got into in 1914, with armies mobilised which could not be demobilised without exposing the nation to attack; there was, then, no alternative but war.
Should your protest bear fruit, are sanctions part of your preferred containment strategy (should you desire one)? If not, what replaces them? What do you mean, you don’t know?
Some form of sanctions, possibly, although not the form of sanctions which have been used until now. However, it is entirely legitimate for me and for any other man in the street to say, “I don’t know.” Our elected governments in the West should be able to find diplomatic solutions, and statesmen should be able to conceive of possibilities which may not be obvious to the layman. There is nothing wrong with the people saying: “War is not the answer, go and find another solution.”
Why, I wonder, does Aaronovitch forget the half-century of the Cold war when the USA and the USSR faced each other with vast nuclear arsenals without once coming to a direct military conflict? Deterrence was the lynchpin of the Western strategy, and it worked; why should not deterrence work against a third-rate dictator like Saddam? Why should it not even be attempted? Surely the use of deterrence is preferable to sending our troops to kill ordinary Iraqis (which will happen)?
Aaronovitch finishes with a question that is nothing more than a recasting of the question about why Kurds and Iraqis in Britain are not opposing war, this time bringing in the people of Iraq. The answer is the same: whatever the legitimate needs and asperations of these people, they are not legitimate reasons for Britain to join in launching an attack on a country which is not threating it.
Iraq had no part in the September 11th, 2001, attacks on the USA, no part in the Bali bombing, no part in the attacks on Israelis in Mombasa. Where is there any evidence it is more than a purely local threat (if that). If there were good evidence that Iraq was a threat to Britain or our allies, that would be a different matter; but in that case wouldn’t we have been shown at least some of the good evidence? All we have had, from our government and from the US govenment, is rhetoric, lies, and poor, circumstantial evidence.
If the UN reaches the conclusion that all other routes have failed and it has become necessary to use military force to disarm Saddam, we will know that every effort has been made to implement UN resolutions in accordance with international law. If the US brushes the UN aside and attacks anyway, with or without Blair yapping at their side, this will mock the very concept of international law: it will be plain that all that counts is what the US wants.
© DC 2003. All rights reserved.