Where to now?
john eden
male pale and stale
Given that it won’t happen, and given that most of the British state’s military interventions in my lifetime have been bad, is it actually such a terrible idea?
I mean yes it is a deeply weird idea for someone expecting to be the government. But if we reviewed the military interventions of the Labour Party in power over the last 50 years - would they have been worse if party members were given a say?
From Burgeon's Twitter:
In 2015, Labour held a members' poll ahead of the Parliamentary vote on bombing Syria.
It had a big impact. After members rejected military action, most Labour MPs did too.
You can guess what I think of this.
The fact he is citing this proudly while Russian airplanes are still bombing unarmed civilians in Idlib, is to be frank, an obscenity.
What would be his solution to this, do you think? He wouldn't have one. Just pretend it's not happening. The exact same that this section of the Left always, always do when the wrong people are dying. Tumbleweed.
Politics is hard. We have elected representatives to make these tough decisions for us. To just throw away any expertise on the matter on the ignorance and prejudices of "the members" is really very very dumb. I know he's just playing for the anti-war/crank vote in the leadership elections but it's still bullshit.
In 2015, Labour held a members' poll ahead of the Parliamentary vote on bombing Syria.
It had a big impact. After members rejected military action, most Labour MPs did too.
You can guess what I think of this.
The fact he is citing this proudly while Russian airplanes are still bombing unarmed civilians in Idlib, is to be frank, an obscenity.
What would be his solution to this, do you think? He wouldn't have one. Just pretend it's not happening. The exact same that this section of the Left always, always do when the wrong people are dying. Tumbleweed.
Politics is hard. We have elected representatives to make these tough decisions for us. To just throw away any expertise on the matter on the ignorance and prejudices of "the members" is really very very dumb. I know he's just playing for the anti-war/crank vote in the leadership elections but it's still bullshit.
For the record, the strikes were against Isis who were committing genocide . They weren't about David Cameron helping Al Nusra which is what Corbyn says. He's basically repeating the Russian propaganda line that the Syrian conflict is Assad vs jihadis.
Can't see any circumstances where I'd get behind this idea but I might give it the time of day were the party not led by a bunch of malicious racist cranks.
Can't see any circumstances where I'd get behind this idea but I might give it the time of day were the party not led by a bunch of malicious racist cranks.
droid
Well-known member
Quite.
Yemen: up to 85,000 young children dead from starvation
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ren-dead-starvation-disease-save-the-children
‘The Saudis couldn’t do it without us’: the UK’s true role in Yemen’s deadly war
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...out-us-the-uks-true-role-in-yemens-deadly-war
baboon2004
Darned cockwombles.
"Party never again backs military action abroad without the explicit backing of party members, except in a national emergency or where there's UN backing."
This is almost meaningless anyway, given the flexibility of 'national emergency'.
Time and time again (and especially when the inside details get released way later) Western military intervention has been shown to be very poorly thought out and/or morally bankrupt, with scant consideration for human life - if the people leading it are 'experts', then it shows that expertise is worth almost nothing without a moral compass or an ability to self-critique (also absorbing more and more information often just leads to information overload, an inability to process reality, and a reversion to oversimplicity/bias). So I do think improved public scrutiny could only be a good thing, given that any amount of public pressure has meant nothing up til now.
But the way in which it is done has to make practical sense and not presuppose the moral answer, so I think this suggestion fails on both those counts.
This is almost meaningless anyway, given the flexibility of 'national emergency'.
Time and time again (and especially when the inside details get released way later) Western military intervention has been shown to be very poorly thought out and/or morally bankrupt, with scant consideration for human life - if the people leading it are 'experts', then it shows that expertise is worth almost nothing without a moral compass or an ability to self-critique (also absorbing more and more information often just leads to information overload, an inability to process reality, and a reversion to oversimplicity/bias). So I do think improved public scrutiny could only be a good thing, given that any amount of public pressure has meant nothing up til now.
But the way in which it is done has to make practical sense and not presuppose the moral answer, so I think this suggestion fails on both those counts.
Last edited:
john eden
male pale and stale
I think the problem with this is discussion is that everyone can think of a few military interventions which should have happened, especially where Nazis or Isis are involved. The fact that they didn't - and other things like the 2003 Iraq war and troops being sent into Northern Ireland did, suggests that there is a problem with the state having total control over how to unleash its departments of mass murder.
If you start with a position that war is generally the worst way of resolving disputes and that we cannot ultimately trust the state to reflect our interests and those of ordinary people in other countries, then starting a discussion about how we might put the brakes on all this is at least worth a go.
Like I said, it isn't going to happen. It would be good if the 2003 invasion of Iraq hadn't happened. There is a strong argument for bombing ISIS in Syria and I would support efforts to have those political discussions with people and forcing our leaders to take that and Yemen seriously.
If you start with a position that war is generally the worst way of resolving disputes and that we cannot ultimately trust the state to reflect our interests and those of ordinary people in other countries, then starting a discussion about how we might put the brakes on all this is at least worth a go.
Like I said, it isn't going to happen. It would be good if the 2003 invasion of Iraq hadn't happened. There is a strong argument for bombing ISIS in Syria and I would support efforts to have those political discussions with people and forcing our leaders to take that and Yemen seriously.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Sure. "ISIS are horrible" is an uncontroversial statement that pretty much everyone - leftists, liberals, conservatives, whoever - agrees on.
Where it gets thorn(berr)y is when you consider that the Syrian state and its Iranian and Russian backers are responsible for far more of the violence than ISIS, or even than ISIS plus all the other Islamist brigades put together. So the StW lot were quiet as a mouse while the CJTF, of which British forces are a part, were pounding the Islamists, because this made them de-facto allies of Assad, Hezbollah and Russia, even while the civilian death toll mounted into the thousands. Then in 2018 when the USA, UK and France launched some missiles at some (obviously evacuated) air bases and chemical weapons facilities, it was all "Hands off Syria!", as if some massive atrocity were occurring, when the human toll amounted to a handful of injuries and no deaths even according Syrian government source
This is lovely in theory but with the cast of characters involved and the previous positions they've taken on literally everything, no. Just no.
If the Labour Left/leadership had ever taken credible moral stances on events that conflict with their campist geopolitical biases I might go with it (see Paul Mason on Syria for an example of what I'm on about). Was reading a book on Corbynism at the weekend and the authors (Matt Bolton/Harry Pitts) pointed out the reason for the importance of STW on the Left is in part because all of these people were shut out of having any say in domestic politics under Blair. They also point out that Iraq is a kind of ultimate trump card for deploying in any argument about foreign policy. Any intervention ever gets the "BUT IRAQ" treatment. It's also given them an unhealthy glow of righteousness that fed into the cult of Corbyn.
john eden
male pale and stale
You can't concede a monopoly of violence to the state, based on an argument that the alternative is that a few hundred weird lefties will then run everything. That isn't going to happen either.
That isn't the whole of my argument though - the reason I'm against "weird lefties running everything" is that they'll be a total retreat for any intervention, ever, and moral contortion, lies and conspiracy theories to justify that position. Into that void step - have stepped - other imperialist powers who will continue to brutalise the populations that we're supposed to care so much about. And again, we see lies, conspiracy theory and distortions to justify that position, and the actions of these powers, with a lot of the "weird lefties" actively colluding with this and those powers. And this isn't just a theoretical question - it's a fair description of what's happened over the last few years.
I guess my question is, do you think there should be intervention when there's an act of genocide happening? What decides this for you?
You could say that I have a naive belief in the judgement of the state to do the right thing, and maybe I'd agree with you.
To me, the way round this is actually listen to people in those countries and support democratic movements when they seem to be springing up. What is the record of the anti-war Left in giving a voice to these people? Actually listening to those being bombed, those under assault? Newflash, surprising exactly no one - it's not good.
If they fall on the wrong side of the ideological divide, they're not heard. Their voices are shut down and they're systematically ignored.
To me, the way round this is actually listen to people in those countries and support democratic movements when they seem to be springing up. What is the record of the anti-war Left in giving a voice to these people? Actually listening to those being bombed, those under assault? Newflash, surprising exactly no one - it's not good.
If they fall on the wrong side of the ideological divide, they're not heard. Their voices are shut down and they're systematically ignored.
droid
Well-known member
Yeah, let's listen to the Vietnamese, the Cambodians, the Kenyans, the Saudis, the Egyptians, the Nicaraguans, the South Africans, the El Salvadorians, the Malayans, the Yemenese, the Timorese, the Indonesians, the Irish, the Chileans, the Guyanese, the Ugandans, the Palestinians, the Greeks, the Afghans, the Iraqis, the Chagossians...
I mean if you do want to establish the argument that states don't give a fucking shit about non white people in the Middle East, you can have this from an interventionist point of view - there's a credible argument that Obama threw the Syrian people under the bus 'cos of the nuclear deal with Iran. Now shredded of course.