There’s been some talk about Tony Blair’s testimony to the Chilcot Inquiry on the Iraq War on the open thread, so it might be best to have a dedicated post to focus comments.
A good starting point for discussion is the Guardian‘s comprehensive coverage.
Thanks Mark, I’d been thinking of putting a post together on this topic.
I would deeply love to see Tony Blair face criminal charges for starting an illegal and completely unjustified war. I’d personally like it even more than Bush or Howard facing trial. Aside from avoiding the appearance of conducting party politics through the courtroom, I personally find Blair most culpable as the leader of a political party, and a senior representative of a political ideology, that is supposed to care about international law, and that doesn’t go to war just for the hell of it.
But, more than anything else, Blair knew that he was betraying these principles, and did it anyway. And I really, really would like to hear him give an honest reflection on why, and an admission that in retrospect it was a fucking awful idea.
But admitting mistakes is not something politicians are known for, even after retirement. So all we’ve got is the sorry spectacle of Blair continuing to insist that up is down with all the rhetorical skill he still possesses.
There were always a number of things that puzzled me a little about the Iraq war, which Blair doesn’t touch on in his testimony so far as I can see. (Please note the following observations are made while recognising Saddam Hussein really was a bit of a monster. I don’t want to touch on the area “saddam deserved it because he was bad”.)
The first was that Saddam was an avowed enemy of Al-Qaeda and a recognised target of Osama Ben Laden’s, because Saddam had opted for a secular Islamic state.
The second was that, if the American intention was to wipe out Al-Qaeda, surely the diversion of military resources into Iraq, away from the theatre of war supposed to be directly associated with Osama Ben Laden, Afghanistan, wasn’t it a plainly stupid strategic decision. In my view, the war against Saddam happened because it was part of a Bush family vendetta. George W. Bush was out to impress his old man and get a bit of personal vengeance because, to paraphrase GWB’s immortal words, Saddam had tried to poison his daddy. I wouldn’t have expected Howard to understand this. Howard was always rat cunning, but never very bright. Blair though, was a highly intelligent man. He, at least should have been able to see through the American bumpf.
British Labour shifted to the unelectable left in the 1980s and thus then veered sharply to the right. Blair’s problem was he always wanted to be more than a run of the mill Labor pragmatist.
‘International law’ in this context has as much meaning as the Catholic term ‘natural law’ it is a term which obscures rather than enlightens. It is a metaphorical use of law.
Geoff, I’m not sure what you’re saying. September 11 added nothing to any pre-existing reasons for invading Iraq. The idea of military intervention whenever there is a tyrant in power is a dangerous one. There should be either actual or imminent genocide to justify military intervention, solely for the reason that military intervention involves killing lots and lots of people – either directly or indirectly. The excess mortality rate in Iraq a year after the invasion was horrific. The violence still goes on. Blair has blood on his hands. The coverage in today’s Age indicated he was worried about the effect of the invasion on certain geo-political (and local political) factors. But the bottom line is that a couple of hundred thousand people who would have otherwise been alive are now dead thanks to Blair’s decisions. He seems unfazed by this.
Geoff: the point is, I think the world would be a much better place if international law had more teeth, and trying (and, if the evidence supports it) convicting Tony Blair would be a considerable step in establishing its soundness. If a Prime Minister of a nuclear power ends up spending some quality time in prison for starting an illegal war, it sets a precedent that should give other leaders considering the same step pause.
So (as I assume) most of the posters here believe that Bush,Blair and Howard all went to war based on outright deception about WMDs, why werent they cunning enough to import a bit of WMD material stamped “made in Iraq”?
This isnt an attempt to “red herring” your post, just a genuine query.
If the main parties to the war knew what WMD material was unnacounted for by the UN inspectors, why not plant the stuff? Surely if anyone here was going to start a war on false claims theyd cover their own arses by having a bit of stock on hand?
Why didnt they do it?
The pity of it is that I suspect many of ‘us’ wanted Blair to civilise Bush/Cheney in their rush to invade. Blair may have thought he could do this too, so his failure is all the more profound. Alarm bells should have been ringing with Bush’s ‘if you’re not with us then your against us’ State of the Union address 2003. Blair the high Anglican, now a convert to Roman Catholicism, must present an interesting case. The culpability of others in cabinet like Jack Straw isn’t insignificant. The same goes for Colin Powell.
I’ll address Katz’s comments from the open thread. Critical media? Short answer is, they learnt from Vietnam. Given the post 9/11 circumstances, there was money to be made too.
As for Australia getting all introspective about its role in foreign wars, I’m reminded of Samantha Power’s comment “no US president has ever suffered politically for his indifference to [genocides] occurrence.” Similarly, no AU prime minister has ever suffered politically for his indifference to questions about Australian involvement in any foreign war that I can name. Not to say every war has been publicly popular. This isn’t likely to change either, because both sides of politics will defend the mechanisms by which they start wars and are careful to get us in deep well before we can mobilize to protest. Since Vietnam the watchword has been ‘minimize casualties’. Do that, and public concern rarely rises above a murmur.
mole, they didn’t plant the stuff because planting stuff leaves a trail. Sexing up the dossier alone left a trail that got a scientist to commit suicide (possibly be murdered). Why think they would leave an untraceable trail if they planted shit? Better to rely on the pliant media (e.g. the guardian with its “comprehensive coverage” of a labour party it sucks up to at every turn) to do what they’re told/expected.
I just don’t understand how Blair, who is clearly a vampire, gets about in sunlight. Maybe that’s why he turned up 2 hours early…
I like how he made it an issue of his belief – like that’s relevant. Not the slightest comment about *why* he believed any of it, which is presumably the point politically – and certainly the point in terms of legality.
The justification he’s left with could apply to just about any country – they might have been thinking about WMDs. We couldn’t be sure they weren’t.
Oh please…. what a load of old dossier.
mole the stuff is unique to a source to the point of a finger print. The smallest amount from outside and the inspectors would have been onto it. Also the inspectors were only looking for remaining 3 to 5 percent of material that was unaccounted for, and that could have been because of inadequate paperwork and accounting by the Saddam regime. In the case of the chemical and biological there was the added factor that the precursors have limited shelf lives as did the weapons, so the inspectors would probably have found non-viable material if any existed.
This was known before the invasion and the inspectors did ask for a short time more to prove conclusively if Saddam has WMD or not, which of course is not what America (and thus Blair and the sycophant Howard) wanted, so the inspectors were ordered out and Iraq was invaded on false pretences, the rest is history.
It is that which Blair should be held to account for. Bush made it plain that he could not have countenanced an invasion without an ally and Britain was his greatest ally.
Robert @ 5
I think International Law would be far better directed toward the elimination of violence toward citizens within individual states.
I personally blame Napoleon. The idea of invading states which had undemocratic, autocratic, brutal, exploitative regimes that allowed their masses no freedoms in the name of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity has much to recommend it imo.
(For the same reasons that I support the police invading homes where undemocratic, autocratic, brutal, exploitative domestic violence occurs – to stop the violence).
However, Napoleon blew it in two ways: first he merely substituted his own family members (and a few Marshalls) as replacement tyrants, and secondly he Lost.
Thus the undemocratic autocratic, brutal, exploitative monarchies of the day got to make the rules. ie If we get to the top in our country, we can do what we like without limit to our citizens, and the rest of the world can go hang.
Not a great framework to want to strengthen if I might say so.
Of course if international law had teeth to prevent despots from committing crimes against people within countries, then invading, and claiming that it was good to get rid of the Saddams and women hating Taliban would not really hold any water at all. Probably solve the problem we are seeing at the moment in fact.
Personally I think a first step of making it harder to get at the likes of Saddam without even considering the possibility of making the activities of Saddam illegal is arse about. Akin to making it harder for the police to intervene in domestic violence before making domestic violence unacceptable. Just for logical and moral consistency I mean.
A dictator’s delight at the moment.
ewe2 (8). Good point. “Since Vietnam the watchword has been ‘minimize casualties’. Do that, and public concern rarely rises above a murmur”. I’m sure its implicit in your statement, but there’s no ‘murmur’ when OUR casualties are minimised. It doesn’t matter, however, how many towelheads get creamed. It’s a double standard we, as a nation, need to address.
@Acerbic Conehead #13 Yes, that was my intention, but you’re right to point out the double-standard.
Perhaps another worrying aspect of Blair’s testimony (and I say perhaps because he’s no longer in power) was his continuous urging at the hearing that we now make war on Iran. Sure, it was cover for his criminal behaviour over Iraq, trying to prove he was right in retrospect. All I can say is that we’re triply blessed that the evil trio of Blair, Howard and Bush are gone. Not that it gives me any hope for the future. The world is governed by madmen and monsters, and a fair few of them are on our side.
Having served my time in the old school public psychiatric bins (staff, thanks very much) I was aware while watching Blair’s testimony that I had seen this sort of behaviour before. The body language, facial expressions, micro expressions and language do not indicate a liar. I am covinced, however, that he is a confabulator which is to say that he makes things up as he goes along and projects sincerity because in fact at the time of any statement he believes what he is saying.
Confabulations have been defined as inaccurate or false narratives purporting to convey information about world or self. Psychiatrists, Kraepelin and Jaspers wrote extensively about confabulation and those who did it, and called it
Pseudomemory. Psychiatrist, Karl Jaspers referred to hysterical personalities “who, in order to heighten life and find new ways of making an effect, will resort to lying, at first quite consciously but soon this becomes unconscious and they come to believe themselves”.
Jaspers, did not invent the term, but he said this was pseudologia fantastica which is confabulation in its most elaborated form. Initially described in 1891, Pseudologia fantastica is typified by these characteristics:
(1) the stories are not entirely improbable and often involve real people and a background of real events
(2) the stories are enduring;
(3) the stories are not told for profit but for attracting attention;
(4) they are distinct from delusions in that the person when confronted with facts can acknowledge these falsehoods.
Pseudologia fantastica is a fascinating symptom.
The pseudologue spins tales that appear plausible on the surface but do not hang together over time. Fact and fiction are woven together in an interesting matrix until the two are virtually indistinguishable. Unlike a delusional psychotic person, the pseudologue will abandon the story or change it if confronted with contradictory evidence or sufficient disbelief. The stories do have an enduring quality and after repeating them enough times, even the pseudologue begins to believe them.
Acknowledgements to Dr Yolande Lucire for the above.
I know that there is resistance at LP to psychologising or pathologising public life but sometimes nothing else will suffice for explanation.
(
“I know that there is resistance at LP to psychologising or pathologising public life but sometimes nothing else will suffice for explanation.”
Anthony , you could have just said he was trained as a barrister.
More on Blair and the Iran confabulation.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/7113101/Tony-Blair-accused-of-spin-over-blaming-Iraq-War-failures-on-Iran.html
A question: if Tony Blair (or George W Bush) were actually brought to trial at the Hague, would a genuine belief on their part that Iraq had WMDs actually constitute a defence – or grounds for mitigation?
I don’t think the judges at Nuremburg allowed any genuine belief by Nazis that the Jews were a threat to the German race to cut the defendants any slack. However in the case of a democratically elected leader going to war with the support of parliament or Congress, a hypothetical Hague Tribunal would have to take ‘genuine belief’ into account (for political reasons as much as anything else).
I think it is reasonably well documented that prior to the invasion Saddam wanted to maintain a ambiguity about whether he actually had WMD. That is deny it to the UN, but keep his Iranian enemies guessing. He also thought Bush would never really invade – so he could keep bluffing.
Not everyone will accept this scenario but I think a defence lawyer could make plenty out of it in front of a tribunal.
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/saddam-pretended-to-have-wmd-fbi/57542-2.html
Blair, Howard and Bush lied about evidence they used to bolster their case for war. However they believed in their case regardless.
Blair, Bush and Howard all acted constitutionally under domestic and UN law.
The greatest failure therefore is not of the hawks who followed their natural biblical and blood-thirsty inclinations but of those who normally oppose war and yet failed to understand the situation and those who failed to use the media to inform the public of the rottenness of the premeditated invasion.
The New York Times, for example, and its feckless and idle dreamer Thomas Friedman, are the ones who I will always remember as examples of the worst participants in the Iraq war. Colin Powell and Hilary Clinton were other cowardly lickspittles. Only one US senator voted against it. And many were the nations whose leaders were cheap lackeys and allowed themselves to be bought off at the UN.
On the left there were legion who were effectively silent as their only case against war was that they didn’t trust Bush to do it right.
Blair is the moral scapegoat of the millions around the world who have a bad conscience. And even then he will be allowed to go scot-free. Of course. No country has ever paid for its war crimes unless forced to do so.
Anthony Nolan re:
Now which blogger from Canberra does that remind us of?
Tim Dymond, Re:
Even if Iraq had WMD, Resolution 1441 was ambiguous but did not explicitly (nor implicitly IMO) authorise an attack without further security council resolution, (nor was 1441 “capable in principle” of reauthorising 678).
In Ratty’s case, his best option for mitigating sentence would be to commit that one ecclesiastical (til 19th century) crime for which we could so easily forgive him.
Put another way many criminals have a genuine belief in becoming rich and another, ignorance of the law is no excuse.
wbb re
The jury is still out on that
“why werent they cunning enough to import a bit of WMD material stamped “made in Iraq”?”
One word: Daggett.
wbb@20: “Blair, Howard and Bush lied about evidence they used to bolster their case for war. However they believed in their case regardless.”
Self-contradiction. Either they knew the truth and lied, or they didn’t, and believed a falsehood. Either they were dishonest, or deluded/deceived. Either way, they were incompetent and criminal as national leaders.
@AndyC
Not necessarily. I took wbb as arguing that they fully believed that invasion of Iraq was necessary and justified by their standards, and that lying to create evidence that met general standards thus did not seem wrong. Of course it’s casuistry, but it’s just enough to pacify that cognitive dissonance.
George Bush never let a trifling logical indiscipline like self-contradiction put him off his righteous path.
I’d say two words: Ahmad Chalabi.
He claimed he had the “proof” but like Kemlani could produce absolutely nothing out of about 6 suitcases.
Imagine for one moment the hilarious results of Chalabi planting a bit of WMD at the behest of the Cheney conspirators? Using a favourite shotgun method, (like they used to blast a bit of gold dust around to sucker investors) Chalabi pulls the trigger on a radioactive shotgun blast in some underground facility: and blasts the other Cheney organised flunky in the face. Cheney then puts out the story via Fox News that the guy’s face that glows in the dark is proof of Saddam’s WMD.
(I reserve copyright on that for a novel!)
I guess what I’m saying is that the Bush administration was too incompetent to organise
a root in a brothelan occupation, let alone planting WMD.I dont think I put my point across well enough.
WMD werent found, in all likelyhood any existing were decomissioned before the invasion took place.
The UN weapons inspectors had accounted for most of the stock, but were fustrated by lack of co-operation or access to some of the remainder.
This could have been for a number of reasons, poor record keeping, Saddam wanting to appear to still have an “ace” to use, or incompitence.
At the same time dissidents (such as Chabali) were making claims either outright lies, or sincerely believed, that weapons were still around.
The vast majority of the worlds intelligence organisations believed there were still some weapons left, the “ability to restart production” was a red herring, Australia could develop some nasty bio-weapons if it wanted to as well.
It is my opinion the coalition went in fully expecting to find enough WMDs or WMD type material to justify the invasion, if they had found some the invasion was justified, their critics looked foolish, no downside at all for any of them.
As it was nothing of any consequence was found (I believe some extremely old gas shells has been about all), this led to the coalition looking foolish, and their critics being proven correct, absolutely no upside for them at all.
A couple of sea containers of bio gear, or a bomb site contaminated with radiation and they were off the hook, back to option 1:”We were right all along”..
I cant for the life of me see how, if they expected to find nothing, they couldnt have organised something/anything to be found.
(note: Im not saying they would have been successful in doing this, but it stretches credibility to imagine those involved would leave themselves open to domestic odium if they believed nothing would be found all allong)
I think that premise is wrong. Despite intelligence agents saying it wasn’t there, or that it was highly doubtful/little proof it was there, NeoConBushOilCo believed it to be there because they believed their own propaganda (ie believed the charlatans like Chalabi who would say anything for money and power, and did.)
Peter Kemp
So dont put down to malice what can be put down to a stuff up instead??
Or confirmation bias instead?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
I suspect Bush and company expected the Iraqi project to be an uninterrupted glorious triumph for American shock and awe, with a tame puppet regime installed in short order. Remember Howard’s confident assertion that our troops would be there for months and not years? Presumably they expected the whole exercise to be such an unchallengeable success that there would not be any significant political downside later on.
It was both IMO Mole. Malice and utter contempt for International law and incompetence on a grand scale exemplified in Iraq by the immediate aftermath of the invasion and that fool (among many) Bremer.
(Malice and believing one’s own propaganda are not mutually exclusive issues, when working up into a “heroic lather” and “righteousness” in perpetrating the war crime of aggression. WW2 was started by “those guys in Poland” firing on the border area with Germany right???)
I won’t, Mole, unless the stuff up, as you call it, involves the slaughter of hundreds of thousands people.
This stuff up did not lead to a someone being billed twice on their phone bill. It lead to full scale military bombardment & invasion of a country of 25 million.
It depends on what you mean by the Coalition.
Certainly, intelligence professionals in the CIA, MI6 and ASIS (via ONA) doubted the existence of WMDs.
Cheney needed to send his Office of Special Plans goons over to Langley to redact CIA intelligence. This redacted intelligence was then fed to GWB. CIA specialists fought a failed rearguard action. George Tenet squelched dissidents at Bush’s request. Several specialists resigned from the CIA.
Blair saw the writing on the wall and conspired in Bush’s determination, including even accepting the risible story of Niger yellowcake. British connivance with Bush is made quite clear in the Downing Street Memos. The JIS rolled over and did their political masters’ bidding. Dissidents like David Kelly were vilified.
John Howard was determined to follow Bush to war. When Andrew Wilkie privately and then publicly demonstrated that Australian intelligence (much of which came in a raw stream from MI6 and the CIA) did not justify assertions about WMD, Wilkie was sidelined, vilified and accused of being emotionally unbalanced.
Short answer: the coalition political leadership went to war with the coalition professional intelligence gatherers. Most of the latter surrendered. An honorable minority refused to concede and paid a heavy price.
Why was all this necessary? To convince the voters and taxpayers in each of the three countries that the coalition political leadership had conscientiously accepted expert advice. this was to hid the truth that the intelligence services were in fact parrots who recited back what the political leadership told them to say.
Katz,
There is some truth in what you’ve written. However, it overlooks one crucial point. People like Wilkie were dissidents within their organisations. Yes, his views were suppressed. Yes, he was ultimately forced out the door.
But it should not be assumed that Wilkie, and similar dissidents in other Western agencies, represented the majority expert opinion. We don’t know what the majority position was, because they’re still working in their classified jobs and aren’t writing books.
Actually, we do have one. You remember Valerie Plame Wilson, the former CIA agent? Her career was destroyed by leaks widely thought to have come from the White House. So she, of all people, would have little incentive to lie on behalf of Bush.
Keeping that in mind, read the following from a review of her memoirs:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/21/AR2007102101630.html
So the staff of a CIA analytical division were “very worried that Iraq would use chemical or biological weapons on U.S. forces”. How does that square with your version of events?
Oh god, not WMDs again. Is this the 849th or 850th rehash of the same tedious argument?
EVEN IF Saddam possessed an arsenal of WMDs it was no justification for waging aggressive war. That is the salient point. All the other points repeated ad nauseam by the war apologists are like the ink of the octopus, serving merely to obscure the clear war guilt of the USA, Australia and Great Britain.
Countries should not wage aggressive war, full stop. We did. That’s the start and finish of the argument and all the warlovers’ excuses are just bluster and bullshit.
Ken Lovell
So the Kosovo intervention was a war crime then?
How do UN peacekeepers fit into your worldview then?
And given the WMDs were the stated reason, then how is it a tedious rehash?
In your world any nutjob can kill/etc any other person inside their borders and no-one should act.
Those bloody Viets overthrowing poor old Pol Pot like they did eh?
Mole the fact that aggressive war is not justified under any circumstances is a well-settled principle of behaviour between nations. Calling it ‘my worldview’ suggests that you have no understanding at all of history or international conventions. I am simply stating a settled principle that most sovereign nations have agreed to observe, including the sovereign states that blatantly ignored it in the case of Iraq. You are of course free to argue that the principle is wrong, but it is intellectually fraudulent to pretend it doesn’t exist or that it means something it plainly does not mean.
And yes of course the aggressive war against Kosovo was a breach of the principle; indeed those who supported Kosovo have no moral standing to oppose the invasion of Iraq as a matter of principle (although of course there are numerous other grounds upon which they can oppose it).
I am with you there mole.
Personally I think that making human rights internationally enforcible is the way to go. With negotiation being the preferred method, but backed by the military option if dictators start persecuting people.
Sort of like domestic violence – a graduated response starting with negotiation and conciliation, but backed up by tactical response groups once a situation reaches a trigger level.
I suspect also that if dictators round the world thought that there was the likelihood of the international community actually coming in to spoil their little party, that they would back off. Who knows, maybe with less violence at home there might be less need for the Christmas Islands of this world.
In some ways, the refugee debate today is a bit like the old debate on ‘womens shelters’ with the original debate being between those with the view: “Building more shelters only makes more women leave home”, and the “Build as many shelters as you can” brigade. The debate itself was rendered secondary (but not dead unfortunately for the victims) when someone came up with the novel idea of trying to stop the violence at the source.
Then Im afraid that “a well-settled principle of behaviour between nations” is completely immoral then.
It exists to ensure the soverinty of a country outweighs the crimes committed by its governments.
‘I suspect also that if dictators round the world thought that there was the likelihood of the international community actually coming in to spoil their little party, that they would back off.’
But dictators would know that the ‘international community’ (whoever they are) is for 95 per cent of the time unable to do anything to ‘spoil their little party’. Oh they could whack on sanctions – but they already use that tool. The US military is the only global force that could realistically do any spoiling – and it has been tied down by two wars for nearly a decade.
If the only thing you can threaten dictators with is invasion, then after Iraq and Afghanistan dictators can say ‘I double dragon dare you to attack me’. How many wars do you expect the US to actually start for human rights?
The outcome of the major powers downgrading and diminishing those boring multilateral talky talky institutions is that they have nothing more than force with which to threaten dictators. If international institutions were built up and valued by the big powers then it would actually matter to (many of) the dictators to be excluded from them.
Yes Paulus.
You have made a point which helps us better to understand the state of mind of intelligence professionals and their relationship with political decision makers in relation to this question did Saddam have WMDs?
If I were a member of a western intelligence agency in 2002 and 2003 I too would have assumed that Saddam had WMDs, just like Plame did. After all, Chemical Ali killed thousands of Kurds with chemical weapons and they had beenused on the Iranians too.
The function of a professional is to overcome her suppositions and her version of common sense. Rather, she looks at the best information available — evidence from the wide world, not the figments of their own imagination.
With this evidence of the real world professionals construct an evidence-based picture of the world. This is precisely what Iraq specialists at Langley did. They said to themselves and to each other, “Well, blow me down, I thought that it was a cinch that Saddam had WMDs. However, according to the very best evidence at our disposal we have to conclude that our expectations were incorrect. Saddam has no WMDs.
This is the conclusion they reported to Bush. Cheney didn’t like it. Cheney sent his goons to redact and to falsify the conclusions of these professionals.
Cheney didn’t like the truth because it conflicted with his desires. The truth had to be destroyed. And it was.
‘Who knows, maybe with less violence at home there might be less need for the Christmas Islands of this world.’
Or maybe marks @ 38 the international human rights body you want might decide our immigration practices are a breach of human rights and force us to change them under threat of military action. After all if Jordan and Iran and Syria have to cope with millions of refugees courtesy of our wars of aggression, a rational human rights body might conclude it’s only fair for us to look after a decent sized number of them.
That’s the thing about world government … you have to cede your sovereignty. It’s not just something you do to the benighted savages in the third world.
Oh my goodness. Not the old Treaty of Westphalia nonsense again. That was in 1648. To settle a European civil war. When they were still semi-feudal. The United Nations Charter of 1945 was intended to replace that- hence the importance of the issue of WMDs.
Ken Lovell really should try to get himself up to speed with history and the development of international conventions, especially Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, before he questions the understanding anyone else has of those matters. After all that Charter is over 60 years old and quite well known, except, it appears, to him.
Sorry Ken. It is just your world view. The world is a much more complex place than you would like it to be.
‘The United Nations Charter of 1945 was intended to replace that- hence the importance of the issue of WMDs.’
Well there’s a non-sequitur if ever I read one. But no doubt it all makes perfect sense to wingnuts.
Treaty of Westphalia GregM? Well I applaud your erudition but perhaps you could remind me where I mentioned it?
Well Ken @ 42, maybe they are, and maybe we should.
Maybe if the dictators of this world were actually effectively addressed, then there would not be refugees and our immigration practices would be moot.
Is a lessening of our sovereignty necessarily a bad thing? After all, in 1901 our States lost some of (a lot of) their sovereignty.
If, as happened in the former USSR under Stalin in particular, I were subjected to the same treatment as the ordinary citizens of that country, I might actually think it a good thing that sovereignty was compromised, and that outside forces had some legal backing for intervention.
‘Maybe’, marks, is a less than committed position. I can’t see much progress in enforcing human rights if the advocates can do no better than suggesting some changes would ‘maybe’ be a good thing.
In any event the thread concerns the question of whether Australia, the USA and the UK acted in accordance with currently accepted principles of international behaviour, not some imagined alternative world order. They didn’t.
Let’s clear up this “a well-settled principle of behaviour between nations” regarding the prohibition on aggressive war. There are two clear exceptions under the Charter, and International Law more broadly:
1. Where the UN Security Council authorises the use of force.
2. Where a country acts in self-defence. Here, the threat must be real, proximate etc. As Homer Simpson was told, the exception “doesnt cover made-up stuff”.
The COW didnt get 1, and since they’d clearly already decided to invade, they had to argue 2.
Thu, an deeply tendentious argument that Iraq posed an immediate threat to the US and UK (not just a bit of a threat, to someone else) was not only political cover, it was a necessary legal strategy, to produce a fictive sheen of legality; at least enough to bamboozle folks for the time it took to make it all fait accomplit anyway, and then to argue about later at inquiries, until people forgot.
It was cynical – but the power of the general prohibition is evident enough in the fact that they had to pretend it met the exception. I dont believe for a moment that Bush, Blair or Howard ever really believed in Iraqi WMDs.
The messianic Blair thought he could rid Iraq of a dictator and thus be counted amongst the blessed. Bush thought he could secure the region for uninterruptable oil production, hem in Iran, keep China out and establish closer control of the regions threats. It was all upside if you didn’t count the dead and if you bought the neocon Wolfowitzian delusion that US democracy was God’s gift.
Howard was just one of many US acolytes.
Agree Wbb – all had perfectly discernible motives for supporting the invasion. The WMD business was just a necessary pretext under international law, not some mysterious ‘intelligence failure’.
They had to have a case that could be dressed up as self-defence, and they created one.
Belief in WMDs was about as necessary as it is to a lawyer taking a brief – just dont actually tell me its complete rot (that might trigger my duty to the court), and I’ll advocate for you.
Ken L @ 46
“In any event the thread concerns the question of whether Australia, the USA and the UK acted in accordance with currently accepted principles of international behaviour, not some imagined alternative world order. They didn’t.”
Oh well, if you say “They didn’t.” what on earth are those silly poms spending all that money on an inquiry? Show trial anyone?
You don’t seem to want for intelligence Ken, so I suspect you know the meaning of my ‘maybes’. However, to spell it out, I was suggesting by the use of ‘maybe’ that it is something that ought to be on the table for discussion. It is such a wide area that a simple dogmatic statement without much much discussion would be folly. Perhaps you were trying to induce such folly? Not falling for it.
However, if you like, one thing I will say is that trying to harden up the laws relating to international intervention before broadening the scope to intervene when dictators are repressing their people is arse about. Morally indefensible support of brutal dictators is what one is without the other.
India invading ‘East Pakistan’
Kosovo
Cambodia
vs
The moral masturbation of people tut tutting about:
Sudan
Zimbabwe
Burma
North Korea
Tibet
etc
and doing nix other than hand wringing and pointing to international law as to why they can do nothing.
Perhaps if a few of those morally masturbatory countries that could have helped in Iraq and Afghanistan had actually involved themselves, they could both have diluted the ability of the US to try to corner whatever economic gain was supposed to have been had, plus provide enough resources to secure the country with less loss of life. Unless of course one conflates the interests of Saddam H or the Taliban with the interests of the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan?
‘If the main parties to the war knew what WMD material was unnacounted for by the UN inspectors, why not plant the stuff? Surely if anyone here was going to start a war on false claims theyd cover their own arses by having a bit of stock on hand? Why didnt they do it?’
They tried to:
‘http://www.truthdig.com/report/page4/20080811_where_are_the_weapons_of_mass_destruction
but they were as hopeless at that as they were at everything else. However I agree it does seem odd that they worked so hard on manufacturing lies about the provenance and existence of WMD for a plausible casus belli, and then left manufacturing the smoking gun itself as a bit of an afterthought. More evidence of the incompetence that comes with hubris.
‘The same goes for Colin Powell.’
It’s always seemed to me that Blair and Powell were the only two individuals on earth in 2003 who could have derailed the war train steaming out of the neo-conned White House. Had they joined forces, they would have stopped it dead in it’s tracks. No amount of Jack Straws or John Howards or Dominique Villepins could have made a fraction of the impact of either and especially both of these two crucially placed individuals in early 03 had they decided to say ‘no’. A major fulcrum of history rested on their puny shoulders and they were found wanting. So far from stopping or even slowing that evil momentum, both lent their relatively good names to the project, giving it the final imprimatur.
‘Perhaps another worrying aspect of Blair’s testimony (and I say perhaps because he’s no longer in power) was his continuous urging at the hearing that we now make war on Iran.’
He realises his name is mud from here on in and has decided he might as well be in for a pound as a penny. He knows he cannot now backtrack into respectability; that road has been bombed to smithereens. The only path left is to pretend he really does still believe all that WMD shite in the hope that people will remember a resolute, if clueless politician. Fat chance, when we read of his earning 200,000 per day giving pep talks to hedge fund bankers and holidaying with Mr Berlusconi. How much as he been paid for flapping pointlessly around the ME for the last few years?
He is now just a salesman for anyone who’ll pay him and the dominant US/Israel axis of evil will ensure he is rewarded handsomely for giving them continuing cover, on this latest occasion brazenly touting the bogus Iran WMD war-train while he was supposed to be explaining the bogus Iraq version of same. There seems to be no turd he won’t stoop to polish. If you’re going to spend your declining decades accompanied by the knowledge that everyone hates you, you might as well be mega-rich I suppose.
‘The JIS rolled over and did their political masters’ bidding. Dissidents like David Kelly were vilified.’
Kelly’s family I’m sure would be thrilled if he had only been vilified. The Brits have just sealed his case for 70 years. Draw your own conclusions.
‘But it should not be assumed that Wilkie, and similar dissidents in other Western agencies, represented the majority expert opinion.’
‘Majority expert opinion’ that said experts would be willing to declare in public, or the opinions they held in private? The difference matters. I think a majority probably felt just as Wilkie and Ritter and Wilmerson and Gun did but simply didn’t have their courage. In any case, what matters more – majority expert opinion, or the right opinion?
The silent majority of ‘experts’ who kept their head down were only doing down at their level what Blair was doing up at his – sniffing the wind and taking the path of least resistance. At least there were some people at those lower levels who were prepared to stick their neck out for the truth. The cupboard upstream is very bare indeed for anything that resembles gumption, and what that tells us about the arrangements we have in place for our governance is very depressing indeed.
Tony Blair is quite simply a weak man who made it as far as he did partly because of that weakness, and even more because of the skill he displays in obscuring it. You and I might not find those qualities desirable in a leader, but some people with more clcout than us obviously do.
Marks @ 46 the only moral self-indulgence I read in the thread is from people imagining some totally unrealistic alternative global order. Utterly pointless, akin to wishing for fairies at the bottom of the garden.
The removal of the Baathist regime was a straight forward measure of risk reduction.
September 11th, 2001, proved that the enemies of the West, and the US in particular, were and still are intent on our total destruction. They would dearly love to get and use WMD against us.
Threat is based on capability and intent. So, in a Post 9/11 analysis of threats to the West and the US, who had both the intent and capability to make and use WMD? Iraq stands out as the global winner on both counts. They had previously made and used WMD against their enemies. Even if their WMD program was in a dismantled state, if the Baathist regime was left in place, there was a strong possibility that either they or a proxy would have a crack at the US with WMD sometime in the future. Even if the WMD capability was non-existent now, they had the capability and intent to rebuild a WMD capability ASAP.
The argument that the Baathist Regime and Al Qaeda were enemies and that therefore meant that Iraq was an unjustified target is a very weak argument. History is replete with examples of “thine enemy’s enemies are your friend”. (Abu Nidal was a house guest for many years before being rubbed out – why was this Islamist terrorist given protection for so long if Islamists were the enemy of Iraq?) Therefore, there was every chance that in the future Iraq would develop a WMD capability and pass it to Al Qaeda or some other group to use against the US or another western target.
Based on that sound analysis and the laundry list of other evils of the Baathist regime, I fully support the war. The politics of selling the War to the electorate of Western democracies was always going to be difficult in the face of pacifists, leftists and the timid.
It is unfortunate that the subsequent transition of Iraq to a new indigenous government has been so bloodied by internecine conflict between Muslims, but the long term future is surely going to be better than if Hussein had been left to his own devices.
You never hear anyone complaingin about WWII, the Falklands, the Malayan Emergency, Somalia (1993), Kosovo . . .
Mobius @ 11 makes it sounds as if the Baathist regime welcomed the UN Weapons Inspectors with open arms, presented all their acounting and stocktaking records to them and then took them on a guided tour of all potential production faciltiies and reacted promptly to every request to inspect anything they wanted.
Razor’s reheated nonsense is not worthy of any response, since it’s already been demolished about 875 times since 2003, but his comment @54 is extremely revealing, unintentionally I assume. It illustrates how completely some wingnuts can simply ignore reality and believe things that are demonstrably untrue; or alternatively, deliberately distort the truth in an effort to mislead others.
‘You never hear anyone complaingin about … Kosovo’. In fact I frequently read people condemning the aggressive war in Kosovo, not least conservatives in the USA. However because it doesn’t suit the argument that Razor has already decided he wants to make, he just ignores the evidence and asserts that black is white.
‘You never hear anyone complaingin about the Falklands’. What, not even the Argentinians? Silly question of course; Razor’s analysis of events is done through a purely ‘Western’ lens in which the views and interests of others are simply not relevant. In fact Argentina got a lot of support at the time from people who believed Great Britain had no moral right to continue its occupation of the islands, and the British response was strongly criticised for its ferocity, on the grounds that it was little more than a political stunt by Thatcher to reclaim domestic popularity. Again, Razor simply airbrushes all this out of history so he can make his absurd claim.
‘You never hear anyone complaingin about WWII’. Well in fact the primary justification for Australia fighting in WW2 was to defend nations against aggressive war, and whole libraries have been written ‘complaining’ about the behaviour of Italy, Germany, Japan and the other aggressor nations. Razor’s point is therefore utterly incoherent, but the narrow ideological frame driving his comment and blinding him to other perspectives is clear.
I make these points only to support a broader argument, that this kind of deception and outright lying has become the hallmark of the neoconservative approach to foreign affairs and national security. We see it also in the defence of torture, which the US has adopted in blatant breach of international conventions which it not only signed but championed – and now, in an act of fantastic mendacity, denies that it is breaching.
Rational argument is impossible with people who have no conception of evidence and logic, or who William Buckley style openly concede that they lie because the masses can’t be trusted with the truth. The tragedy of contemporary politics is that so few progressive politicians are inclined to take up the argument with them and that the MSM, in the interests of ‘balance’, faithfully reports their nonsense without any attempt to scrutinise it.
Clare Short provided a short, sharp demolition of the evidence Tony gave, that was heard on A.M. this morning, despite the ordinary commentary warning, by Aunty, about her ongoing hostility to the little prixx.
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2010/s2806193.htm
If that is the case (and it very well may be) why didn’t the leaders of the COW let their voters in on the real reasons for the Iraq misadventure?
Why indulge in that farcical charade about WMDs, Niger yellowcake, mobile germ labs, human shredding machines, etc., etc., etc.
All that nonsense didn’t convince their political enemies and apparently their political friends were already convinced.
What a ridiculous waste of time and effort! These lies only served to make more enemies in the Muslim world who know a lie when they see one.
Bush Blair and Howard should be sent to the Hague and prosecuted for being unconvincing liars.
The voters of the west deserve to be misled by better lies than the ones these idiots concocted.
“Why indulge in that farcical charade about WMDs, Niger yellowcake, mobile germ labs, human shredding machines, etc., etc., etc.”
Because in a western democracy – it is important to win the information war, possibly more so, then the actual combat (see Vietnam as the perfect example of never losing a battle but losing the information war, allowing a a muderous regime take over a weakly governed state).
Due to the ascendency of left leaning journalists in the western media it is essential for any democratically elected governemnt to “sell” military action to the electorate in an almost overwhelmingly positive manner in order to get at least partially symathetic coverage from journalists and media commentators. Politician do not have the luxury of directly communicating with the electorate. If it doesn;t bleed it doesn’t lead and dour real politik nnational security arguments aren’t going to get front page or even page 10 coverage from the media.
For example – Australia is currently at war. We have young men and women in combat risking their lives day in day out and yet go to even the most serious of media outlets and there is sweet FA coverage.
“people imagining some totally unrealistic alternative global order. Utterly pointless, akin to wishing for fairies at the bottom of the garden.
Um, no Ken, I am not going to let you get away with that.
I am saying, and said, that I believe that if we want to make things harder for interventions, then we first need to make it harder for dictators to hide behind sovereignty. Otherwise we merely make dictators harder to eject. If you want to vote for that, I am glad my vote is worth the same as yours.
Further, if I did wish for an alternative global order where dictators could be immediately stopped from repressing citizens, then are you seriously suggesting that such an aspiration should be compared to fairies at the bottom of the garden?
I am aware that people who wished women to have the vote at one stage were also scorned. From your comments, the anti suffrage movement’s mocking “Votes for Women, Babies for Men” mocking slag probably resonates. There were plenty of men at the time who thought “people imagining some totally unrealistic alternative global order. Utterly pointless, akin to wishing for fairies at the bottom of the garden.”
There is nothing at all wrong with ‘imagining’ a world order where dictators can be sanctioned immediately. However, my practical point was as I have said earlier in this post.
Thanks for admitting that BBH were telling a pack of lies, Razor.
As to realpolitik, how long do you think voters in the west will accept being lied to?
I draw your attention to the raped nuns and crucified babies of 1914 Belgium. British punters ate those stories up in 1914. By the late 1930s, however, they refused to believe Nazi atrocity stories, perceiving them to be lying propaganda like the raped nuns, etc.
If the media really is left-wing, why did they eat up BBH’s lies in 2002 and 2003? Your overarching thesis is shot full of holes.
Marks:
“I believe that if we want to make things harder for interventions, then we first need to make it harder for dictators to hide behind sovereignty”
How? If you can’t answer that, then you are quite simply “wishing for fairies at the bottom of the garden”, as Ken said.
Q1: Who gets to define ‘dictator’?
Q2: Who then gets to decide which ‘dictator’ identified by that definition to go after?
A1: Whoever has the necessary force and the will to project it
A2: See A1
Couldn’t the state actors in A1 and A2 be pretty accurately described as “dictator states”, given their ability and demonstrated desire to define wrongdoing arbitrarily and punish it capriciously and inconsistently?
“Due to the ascendency of left leaning journalists…’
Now I know Razor lives in some bizarre parallel universe. Whatever you do don’t let reality intrude old fella. BTW is your first name Edward by any chance? As in E.Razor because you’re so good at erasing the truth.
Katz – don’t verbal me – where did I say lies were told?
Leftists and Greens are the masters of spin – I present as supporting evidence the hysteria that surrounds nuclear power whenever the debate raises it’s head here in Australia.
I am currently trying to sell a car – I don’t walk the potential buyer around it and point out the scratches and dings, nor do I show them that the airconditioner selector switch is a bit dodgy and you have to wiggly it a bit to get the aircon to work. No, I focus on the low mileage, full service hostory, one owner and excellently maintained interior. That is what selling is all about – it isn’t being a liar.
The Information war in relation to campaigns and operations, however may invovle propaganda, which will involve lying, such as John Howard lying about Australian Troops not being in operations when in fact the SASR were already in Iraq handing out a bit of good Aussie justice. Nothing wrong with that at all.
Who’s talking about right or wrong? I thought we were talking about realpolitik. Stay on task, Raze!
I’m talking about what does and doesn’t work. The record shows that regimes that rely on telling lies fail. Lies come back to bite you on the bum. And that has already happened. Public opinion is soured against the war and in the Middle East, where hearts and minds have to be won, the COW has already lost the war.
That’s why the COW is now prodding itself into accepting the idea that bribing the Taliban might be a good idea.
Here’s a prediction for you: the COW’s puppet in Kabul, Hamid Karzai, will hang from his heels with his testicles in his mouth. That’s what happens to folks who act on American lies.
That’s because American regimes run out of the ability or the will to go on telling those lies and to go on acting on them.
adrian – there have been a number of surveys done that indicate that most journalists in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, NZ are politically inclined to the left, even if a lot of them work for the nasty capitalists.
Katz – I think the idea of bribing the taliban is based on the success of the surge in Iraq, where various militia were paid by the COW. I don’t hold out a lot of hope for that strategy as the circumstances are vastly different.
There is no doubt that lying is fraught with danger, unless it is part of a ruse where at the end you get to say “we lied – sucker!”.
The Karzai regime will not survive without external support until it proves itself capable of governing. Hope springs eternal in the human breast.
I have always seen the war against the Islamists as a generational thing. It will last for many decades because it requires immense cultural changes in societies that are barely beyond medieval. The question is whether Western democracies will maintain the rage.
Just out of interest, Katz – what do you do for real. I do enjoy crossing swords with you but I am not long for this blogging as I have sold my business and am changing career next week and hope never to have time or motivation (boredom) to return here again.
Do?
Real?
Best wishes on your future endeavours, Razor.
(I believe we haven’t seen the last of you.)
Thanks for the best wishes.
FDB
On your reasoning, we never would have started attacking domestic dictators in homes around Australia.
Just imagine:
Q1 Who gets to decide who is a perpetrator of domestic violence?
Absurd and immoral. Apparently we can avoid dealing with violence in other countries. Geez, I must be getting grumpy, but I DO remember a time when the police used to avoid interfering in ‘domestics’ unless the neighbours complained about the noise (interfering biddies were they?) – the fact that people used all sorts of excuses to avoid ‘interfering’ then was bad enough – but to hear someone trot them out now disgusts me.
If you can tell me why the moral arguments are different just because of some arbitrary imaginary line upon a map, go for it.
@Razor,
so, many of the lower and middle level employees in are left-leaning, while the owners of the press itself tend to be right-leaning. How exactly does that translate to the leftist journos being ascendant, when every word they write has to pass through the editorial filter?
How many of the editors are left-leaning, Razor? Exactly how hard is it to red-pencil out any lines in an article that stray too far to the left?
Razor allow me to wipe the Malayan Emergency from your list. I participated in the later part of that effort and it saved me from further participation in actions that people like you delight in.
ORLY?
A1: The laws regarding what constitutes domestic violence are enacted, interpreted and enforced by the people elected, appointed and employed according to the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia.
I disagree. I think it’s a quite surd and depending on the particulars usually a moral(-ly acceptable) situation.
As opposed starkly to the unaccountable actions of nation states in the (for all intents and purposes) absence of international law.
Moral ? legal.
Moral ? legal.
So that if the legal position is that Tony Blair did nothing illegal, that’s it?
I thought that the ideas expressed in this post (for example RM @ ) were that even if he got off the hook on a legal basis, we should move to change the law to align more with the moral.
On that basis, I do not see it as an unreasonable proposition that if the law is to be changed to make it harder for arbitrary/dodgy invasions, then it can also be changed so that dictators have less protection from outside intervention.
“I think it’s a quite surd…” LOL! Since a surd is a number that cannot be described rationally…..as a ratio that is…
However that may be, perhaps I was wrong in appealing to the moral dimension of trying to limit the powers of dictators. Whatever was I thinking?
I shall appeal then to the political. At the moment there are many who would oppose the extension of international law to limit the Iraq/Afghanistan situations…so you won’t get it. If, however, you are willing to compromise your principles and include measures aimed at limiting the powers of dictators, then you might get the numbers for what you want.
I’ll support with my vote a proposition to limit invasive powers, if and only if it comes embedded with a proposition to limit dictatorial powers. No agreement, no deal, no vote.
Sorry Marks, but the onus is still on you to explain what you mean. As in, what specific legal changes would achieve what you’re talking about. Otherwise it’s still just a fairy tea-party at the bottom of the garden.
I agree completely that your objective is sound – limiting through international law both the power of dictators to oppress and of foreign powers to intervene – but in practice the two are opposite objectives. No big problem with that, but you need to explain exactly how the current compromise has the balance wrong – it can’t get stronger in two opposing directions at once. That is logically absurd.
If what you want is a vastly more decisive and powerful UN, so that individual state actors or ad hoc coalitions don’t go making up their own rules, then great [I suspect that's not what you mean though]. The UN already has definitions of unacceptable domestic rule AND international aggression, and the ability to impose sanctions or issue resolutions authorising force in cases where it is seen as warranted. Blair et al first tried to game these processes with lies and distortions, then thumbed their nose at them entirely when it was clear it wouldn’t work.
Hence the whole point of the Chilcot Inquiry, the subject of this post.
Marks I’m truly puzzled by your hang-up about ‘dictators’. You appear to believe that the international community should have intervened in Burma, Tibet, Kosovo and unspecified ‘etcs’ that I’m sure others would argue should include Iran and Afghanistan. None of these countries was or is governed by a dictator, nor arguably is Zimbabwe. Is your objection to the behaviour or to the form of government?
FDB is correct. If you want a more powerful UN you have to accept greater limits on state sovereignty for ALL nation states. Otherwise you’re simply adopting the classic wingnut position that international rules apply to everybody except the countries making the rules, who are exempt.
“Politician (sic) do not have the luxury of directly communicating with the electorate.”
Razor, you have been a true revelation in this thread. Aside from the arguments upthread, this comment is contradicted by the truckloads of advertising I saw from the Howard govt to support, for instance, Workchoices. And what I see now from the Vic ALP govt repeatedly telling me how superbly they are governing for me.
Politicians absolutely DO have the luxury of communicating directly with the electorate. And they do it at my cost, and your cost. They get best rates, they get best media positioning. They are better positioned than any group in society to place their message.
And like any form of communication, anything bar honesty is going to complicate things very quickly.
Ken, I think that only the narrowest of legalistic interpretations would have Burma and Zimbabwe excluded from what most people would describe as dictatorships.
FDB is correct. If you want a more powerful UN you have to accept greater limits on state sovereignty for ALL nation states.
Yes, and…? I know that. Is there anywhere I said that was a bad thing?
The point I have been making all along and which you are avoiding is that if as you say there is a balance, then proposals made to change it – on this site (eg RM @ 5) which make it harder for any external intervention, should also include measures to make it harder for dictatorships and other forms of government (is that better?) which repress their people to hide behind those or existing measures.
I also say to FDB that the assertion that these are mutually exclusive is a fallacy designed to divert attention from the immorality of giving dictatorships and other forms of government which repress their people more protection.
Oh, and I am not making any more of a fairies in the bottom of the garden aspiration than those who want to unilaterally make it safer for dictatorships and other forms of government which repress their people. (Hey, can we just shorten this to ‘dictatorships’?) I can just imagine the Brits and the Yanks agreeing to that in the UN Security Council. That is wingnut territory. However, they might just agree to some sort of balanced approach, as might China and Russia.
“Oh, and I am not making any more of a fairies in the bottom of the garden aspiration than those who want to unilaterally make it safer for dictatorships and other forms of government which repress their people.”
Who are these people, who hold these views?
Honestly marks, ‘those who want to unilaterally make it safer for dictatorships …’? That’s incoherent babble. As FDB said, ‘Sorry Marks, but the onus is still on you to explain what you mean.’ And if you mean any of the current permanent members of the UN Security Council are about to surrender their right of veto, I’d put more money on the fairies.
Burma? The last time they had an election, in 1990, the Opposition won and the junta shot the people who voted them in for being so audacious in doing so.
Tibet? Subject to a dictatorship of the proletariat, self-described.
Kosovo? Milosovic was their dictator Ken, and when the Serbs got tired of his fraudulent elections they threw him out.
Ken, let’s face it on those three examples. You love dictatorship and are prepared to make any apologies for them that you have to. You hate democracy.
Now I know that you’ll come back with some outraged and ill-considered response but that is the simple plain truth.
That’s without your chamnpioning of Mugabe.
And you don’t think you are a wingnut? That’s just simply sad and pathetic.
GregM
Apparently the leader of the political party which won a handsome victory in the 1990 elections in Burma has been under house arrest for most of the 17 or so years since her victory.
Sounds like the act of a dictatorial junta to me. But perhaps the news hasn’t leaked out yet? Perhaps some folk in Australia haven’t heard about it??
Hm, how about allowing international intervention when there is a coup d’etat against an elected government.
Just a thought.
Nope.
I am sure someone will come up with a reason why dictators should have more rights than elected governments. And why it couldn’t possibly be done.
*waiting for an ingenious convoluted load of bluster telling me why the present system is the best and I am a wingnut for thinking otherwise*
@marks
You mean like the CIA sponsored coup d’etats against the elected governments of Panama, Cuba et al?
Why didn’t we all go to the wall against that again?
Yeah why didn’t the UN intervene to restore the Marcos Government in Manila? Actually Imelda is still alive so it’s not too late.
Maybe they could have sent a gunship in 1975 to protect the Whitlam Government too. They’d need permanent bases in places like Thailand. But at least Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could sleep more easily in his bed, secure in the knowledge that if those pesky demonstrators ever resort to violence he can call on the UN to keep him in power.
But I think maybe marks means coup d’etats would only count as such if they passed the Fox News ideology test.
Tigtog,
Actually those are good examples of why things ought to be codified and made part of international law. They were wrong then, and should be wrong now.
Ken,
Marcos regime? Well Ken if the Marcos were elected fair and square by the Philippine electorate, then no intervention needed. I don’t see that poor choices is what we are talking about here. Or do you think Mugabe, SLORC etc were elected fair and square in your reality? Chalk…cheese. I have not ever said that electorates should be shielded from poor choices, rather they should be shielded from brutal dictatorships.
“But I think maybe marks means coup d’etats would only count as such if they passed the Fox News ideology test.”
Ad hom. Bzzzzzzzt!
Perhaps you just ought to “…think…” Perhaps on this? Whose ideology would it be to remove SLORC from Burma and put Su Kyi back pending free and fair elections? Whose ideology would it be to oppose removal of SLORC. From what you have been posting so far, I presume you would be opposed to their removal? Really?
Marks, Marcos was elected by the Filipino people and subsequently deposed by a coup d’etat, an outcome that was widely applauded throughout the world. I thought you wanted to intervene when there was a coup d’etat … wish you would make up your mind.
You might also learn what ‘ad hom’ means.
The discussion BTW has been about whether it is realistic to posit an alternative world order that allowed for international intervention in the internal affairs of sovereign nations. Arguments like yours and GregM’s along the lines of “Oh but look over there those people are just awful” are not germane to the issue unless you can explain how an international system of governance would work; something which you have declined even to attempt despite several invitations to do so.
In other words you are simply painting a romantic picture of a desired outcome without the slightest idea how to achieve it, like so many ideologues. It seems an utterly pointless exercise to me and I’ll leave you to get on with it.
I might add, marks, that Mugabe was also legitimately elected (the first time, at least, and probably a few times after that).
His subsequent behaviour is certainly even worse than Ian Smith’s, but still. As always, history provides a key to understanding the present.
Ken,
The answers to your questions are contained in my previous posts. I do not feel impelled to provide great detail on a statement of principle any more than any of the posters who suggested changes in the world order to make Iran/Iraq excursions more difficult have been asked to provide detail. Zero point, stupidity to try to argue detail if principles are not agreed.
Are you suggesting that RM @ 5
If you choose not to read what I have written, then your incoherent responses are understandable. I hope at least that is the case rather than a wilful misrepresentation of what I have written.
marks – it is futile to talk only in terms of principle. Intervention for you equals saving the oppressed from bloody dictatorship.
In the real world intervention means military attack, killing hundreds of thousands – and replacing one dictatorship with another.
We are talking about Iraq. Not a theoretical exercise. All of the people who died in the invasion of Iraq were real. They are still real and they are still dying & the Iraqi government is still not a democracy.
marks, where you’re losing your way is holding onto the quaint notion that US foreign policy, or foreign policy anywhere, is guided by principle. It’s guided by national interests, which shouldn’t surprise anybody, but this simple fact routinely evades the perception of those who like to believe the Manifest Destiny of the USA is to raise the flag of liberty and freedom across the world. The founding fathers would shudder at such grandiose hubris.
Where were the defenders of democracy when Pervez Musharraf led the coup d’etat in Pakistan against the democratically-elected Nawaz Sharif?
As soon as you start talking about principle in foreign policy, for any country, the entire discussion is moot.
“As soon as you start talking about principle in foreign policy, for any country, the entire discussion is moot.”
For any country, and for any coalition of convenience or mutual interest between countries.
The only way you’ll get what you want Marks, is if all nations cede a pretty decent chunk of the sovereignty (and capacity to act internationally) to the UN. IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT???
Another example of “principle” in foreign policy that’s closer to home: Australia took 25 years to remember its ‘principles’ and intervene in East Timor, coincidentally when it was apparent there’s about a trillion dollars worth of oil in it.
Indonesia spent the intervening years blowing raspberries at the UN, and the USA, since the USA, in very principled fashion from Ford to Carter to Reagan to Bush I to Clinton, gave all sorts of support to Suharto, who was the “right” kind of dictator.
FDB @ 92 to be fair I think marks has made it plain that’s exactly what s/he wants. It’s just that s/he has no idea how to get there and refuses even to discuss means until we all agree with him or her about ends.
BTW marks I think you have fundamentally misconceived the argument made by Robert and others. They don’t want to change the law, they only contend that ‘the world would be a much better place if international law had more teeth’ as Robert commented @ 5. If arrogant warmongers like Howard and Bush and Blair had to face the real prospect of being dragged to The Hague a la Milosevic, they might be more reluctant to go around waging aggressive war. That’s an issue of enforcement, not of principle or law.
Jesus Wept.
Ken, what planet do you live on? Marcos was “elected” in an election he rigged in 1986. As he was “elected” in the election he rigged before that. The people (who as a mattter of principle it seems, you despise) threw out a dictatator (to whom, it seems, it is your natural disposition to cower to). Ain’t democracy grand?
What is it with you and your love affair with dictators?
Also you might learn the imprudence of describing other people as “wingnuts”, as you have by allusion to me, while championing corrupt dictators.
Then you might reflect before you refer to the “ad homs” of others.
That said, though not on the thoroughly contemptible argument that you advance, that dictatiors are our friends (and thoroughly nice and fluffy people too), I lean to your conclusion. Every time the liberal democracies intervene to overthrow the vicious dictatorships that you so ardently support they pay a price in their own liberty and democracy for which they have to take time to restore.
GregM, see my comment @ 88. I think it applies (broadly) to Marcos as well.
And just to set the record straight, I doubt if any of us cared for Pinochet.
Well, yes, MarkM.
One might argue that the Treaty of Westphalia was a landmark in ending the fuedal system in Europe. The theory of national sovereignty is a repudiation of the dynastic and faith-based ties of fealty between churchmen and nobles of different rank.
As imperfect as the new world order ordained by the Treaty of Westphalia might have been, imagine the alternative. Any major power (permanent members of the Security Council perhaps?) may concoct any pretext at all to “save” the “people” of some inconvenient regime or another.
The Treaty of Westphalia has been breached often enough in the 350 years or so since its promulgation. It is a weak deterrent holding the strong away from the throats of the weak. But try to imagine how much more often the powerful might have marched across international borders if the Westphalia principle did not exist.
The Soviet invaders of Afghanistan in 1979 persuaded themselves that they were marching behind the banner of human progress, just like the occupiers of Iraq.
The United States has been one of the most dogged defenders of its own national sovereignty, including denying the right of others to intervene on behalf of persecuted minorities in the United States. It is an odd principle that allows the very powerful to appeal to it but not the less powerful.
Rather than tossing it in the garbage can of history, thought may well be given to deterring the powerful from breaching it.
Mercurius
“marks, where you’re losing your way is holding onto the quaint notion that US foreign policy, or foreign policy anywhere, is guided by principle.”
I don’t give a rats backside about US foreign policy. It has had its share of evil and contemptible episodes (just about everywhere in South America for a start).
However, I do see your point about foreign policy everywhere and principle coinciding purely by chance in many cases.
What I do not see is that if in the wake of even a little bit of soul searching (navel gazing even) such as at the Chilcott inquiry, that some improvements cannot be made.
For example, some here would have the international community make it harder to intervene in the affairs of other countries…and I do believe that most proposing that are doing so out of principle – and without being called upon querulously to explain the detail of how it is to be achieved.
I therefore am just a little dismayed that people can accept that somehow it is possible and principled to make it harder to intervene, and yet argue that it is impossible and somehow unprincipled to want to make things harder for the likes of SLORC and Kim Jong Il and Mugabe etc etc as a quid pro quo.
Getting back to the US, I would like as well for it to be more difficult for them to support the likes of Marcos, Batista, Pin O’Shay and so on for exactly the same reasons. I have looked through my previous posts, and I cannot see anything I have written that implies even a jot of support for such a notion on my part.
Again with this intervene word, marks! The US and UK invaded Iraq – they didn’t intervene. Hundreds of thousands died – and that’s the difference.
Save your time Katz. Wingnuts (descriptive expression BTW GregM, nothing pejorative about it) routinely reserve the right to decide whether elections in other countries were rigged or not – see Iran and Venezuela for recent examples. Their judgements are based on impeccable evidence such as reports on Fox News and op-eds by renowned independent analysts like John Bolton and Mark Steyn.
Marks I haven’t read anyone wanting ‘to make it harder to intervene’. Several commenters have said it would be nice if existing international law could be enforced more effectively. That’s all. Existing international law prohibits countries from waging war unless they are attacked or faced with the genuine prospect of imminent attack. Neither condition was remotely applicable to Iraq in 2003. Blair doesn’t even bother now to pretend otherwise.
Ok wbb I’ll accept the word ‘invade’ if you like plus any synonym or collection of like words from Roget.
So let’s make it harder to ‘invade’.
Happy?
But you won’t get my vote for that unless it also contains something making it harder for dictators and unrepresentative governments. And probably not enough votes from a lot of others in the centre. (Despite some wrongly trying to characterise my position as one of the right).
Sooopreeem execative power derives from a mandate from the massiz.
“So let’s make it harder to ‘invade’.”
But how?
“something making it harder for dictators and unrepresentative governments.”
But what?
Prosecuting Blair, Bush and Howard for crimes against peace would be a start.
‘But how?’
Obviously 20 metre high concrete walls around the borders of all countries.
Some things are just so simple, just ask Barnaby or Tone.
‘But what?’
Well I’m thinking Rugby League or cricket ambassadors, spreading the word to any
uncivilizedundemocratic countries about the joys of democracy Australian style. A few videos of the Barnaby and Tone comedy show should do the trick. An added bonus is that they could be taught the many benefits of Rugby League or cricket as a natural addjunct to democracy.I think if we all just agree that it should be harder for brutal dictators to oppress their own people, the motion will pass by acclamation. And if it doesn’t work, we can always walk across a bridge or something.
Well, now that there’s some meat on the bones of Marks’ brave new world order, maybe I’m coming around…
“I think if we all just agree that it should be harder for brutal dictators to oppress their own people, the motion will pass by acclamation.”
Now now Ken, you’re leaving out all Marks’ nuance. It will only work if we also pass a motion to make it harder for other countries to do anything about dictators oppressing their own people.
Then, everyone would understand each other and freedom will reign for a thousand generations.
This new international body oughta take care of marks’ concerns…
AORTA: Another Organisation Ready To Act
Then, whenever something terrible is happening, everybody can stand around and say
“AORTA do this, AORTA do that, AORTA do something else…”
(For best results, say it out loud in your broadest Strine…)
Personally I’m happy for marks’ day to come when the UN will have the teeth to impose its will on genocidal maniacs. I was all in favour of UNIFET.
I just hate to see the concept discussed in the same thread as though it has some historical application to Blair’s invasion of Iraq.
If genocide is imminent or in train then everybody is duty bound to step in. But in Iraq the mass deaths didn’t start happening until the outside forces went in.
“Personally I’m happy for marks’ day to come when the UN will have the teeth to impose its will on genocidal maniacs. I was all in favour of UNIFET.”
Word.
Word, mister baboon’s arse.
Well, Mercurius.
Perhaps I should cut and commit your AORTA to memory.
AORTA have ‘free’ childcare – even if it costs more than ‘not free’ childcare.
AORTA not filter the internet
AORTA do something about climate change
AORTA stop people building nukalar weppens and power stayshuns
AORTA do something to close tax loopholes for the rich.
AORTA stop racism and the first thing AORTA realise is that Australian Sossiety is deeeeeply rayyyyysist.
AORTA put more money into social infrastructure.
Geez Mercurius, you are ‘brillyent’ (Said with an ocker twang of course, and with emphasis on the last four letters).