Wild men of the right

Friday, January 26, 2007

Fed up with wars committed in the name of freedom? Read an interesting article in today's Financial Times by Anatol Lieven. He points out that US President Roosevelt's 1941 speech calling for war against Germany and Japan famously lists 'four freedoms'. These are freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear (by which he meant abolition of aggressive war).

Missing from the list, Lieven points out, is the freedom to vote. He suggests this is for two reasons: that the Nazis were in fact elected, and their success stemmed in large part from the failure of the parliamentary system in Germany to deal with effects of inflation, unemployment and the onset of economic slump.

How differently the question of freedom is dealt with today. 'US official and semi-official rhetoric has too often reduced Freedom with a capital "F" chiefly to the right to vote. Even freedom of expression is usually taken to mean little more than unrestricted private media ownership.'

The recent Freedom House report, partly US government funded, treats, as Lieven says, the US 'as the embodiment of democracy and support for America as a key index of virtue.'

Roosevelt had his own reasons for putting forward his particular four freedoms. But they are still wanting today: freedom from want is a freedom lacked by millions, as is freedom from fear. Freedom of worship is denied or made extremely difficult in a number of countries. Freedom of speech and expression...in Saudi Arabia? in Egypt? even in the US, where dissent is all too often clamped down on?

If some one time liberal commentators had their way, there would be even more clamping down on dissent. Sent crazy by the failure of the imperial project on which they pinned all their hopes, Hitchens, Amis and Cohen sketch wilder and wilder plans for how to save the world. Hitchens 'Facing the Islamist Menace' (winter 2007 City Journal)ends with a ten point plan which looks to me a lengthy but infallible recipe for more wars, terrorism etc which Hitchens will then declare need even stronger remedies to defeat.

His plan includes an open alliance with India on all fronts against 'Muslim fascism', energetic support for all the opposition forces in Iran, and comes out with this gem: 'We should, of course, be scrupulous on principle about stirring up interethnic tensions. But we should remind those states that are less scrupulous _Iran, Pakistan, and Syria swiftly come to mind_that we know that they, too, have restless minorities and that they should not make trouble in Afghanistan, Lebanon or Iraq without bearing this in mind.'

He quotes Martin Amis at length from a Times interview. Martin (isn't he so like his father?) says he has an urge to say the Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order. His suggestions for suffering: 'not letting them travel. Deportation _further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they're from the Middle East or from Pakistan'.

At least we wouldn't have all that hold up at airports _or perhaps we would as they would be full of people being strip searched or deported.

Martin doesn't bat an eyelid at these tactics which would be familiar to anyone who lived under a dictatorship or even fascism. Which brings me to the third Musketeer, Nick Cohen. Cohen has out a new book on the left and the war. Apparently, he equates opposition to the Iraq war with support for Hitler. Is this arrested development (he came from a Communist family but clearly hasn't caught up with Communist opposition to war and imperialism)? Or has he just boiled his brain?

1/26/2007 04:22:00 PM | Permalink

Eviction notice

Monday, January 22, 2007

You might have expected more of a media fuss. No, not about Big Brother but about Alistair Beaton's The trial of Tony Blair. He is after all still the prime minister, yet this programme ended with Blair disappearing in a police van to be put on trial as a war criminal.

Cherie took the light bulbs from no 10 when they departed. A light bulb lit up above her head with the realisation that their new £3 million house off the Edgware Road put them slap in the middle of thousands of Lebanese _yet another group of people with a grudge against Blair.

But not a single voice raised in parliament, no outrage from angry viewers. Perhaps everyone is just hoping that life will imitate art and that Blair's next stop will be the Hague. Although judging by the investigation of cash for honours he may be facing domestic proceedings first.

The silence speaks eloquently of majority opinion on the war and the warmonger. But it rolls on inexorably. Yesterday the 130th British soldier was killed, as were 25 US soldiers. Today an estimated 75 Iraqis died in a market bombing. Little of it makes the headlines, and few believe that the extra US troops _21,000 as part of Bush's surge _will do anything but lead to further deaths.

One image that did get reported was that of soldiers tied to a helicopter trying to rescue, unsuccessfully, one of their number killed in Afghanistan. The war there is getting worse. The Nato troops are calling in airstrikes because they cannot win battles; the airstrikes are killing lots of people; more Afghans are turning against the troops and supporting the Taliban.

The outgoing Nato commander told the Guardian that he wanted one more year to defeat the Taliban. That's what the US has been saying in Iraq for nearly four years now. No wonder he's worried. Especially when you consider these facts: the Taliban has increased their area of operations more than four times between 2005 and 2006, and is now effectively running parts of the south and east; direct fire attacks nearly trebled to 3,824 between 2005 and 2006;suicide attacks increased from 18 to 116; attacks on Afghan forces incresed over 300%, and those on Nato forces by 270%.

The military expect a big offensive against them this spring.

War is stretching from Helmand province to the Horn of Africa, where Somalis is the latest victim of US intervention. The rhetoric against Iran is rising again. The long war _the war on terror rebranded _ at least is an accurate description.

Blair promises us war for a generation. He and Bush are both on their way out, but the Bush gang is determined to shoot it out on the streets of Baghdad rather than admit defeat.

Expect much blaming of Iraqis for the mayhem created by the occupation; expect too more attacks on the French (and Germans) for failing to pull their weight and sacrifice their troops in Afghanistan.

Expect also an escalation of anti war protest to match this surge: already the Washington demo next weekend looks like being one of the biggest ever against the war. Our date is 24th of February _ against Trident and for troops out of Iraq _ which also promises a good response.

So we shouldn't take silence as agreement. If 82% voted to evict Jade Goody from the Big Brother house, how many would do the same to see the back of Blair?

1/22/2007 01:24:00 PM | Permalink