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Wednesday, April 27, 2005

responses

Stephen Pollard in his comment below, raises the old problem of what to do when you want to support a particular political party but disagree with a key policy issue or with the candidates view on a key policy issue.

As an ex MP I can say that tough choices are a necessary part of politics! But let me try and be a little more  helpful!

As nobody has found a way of running a modern democracy without Party's we are all pushed into making a choice for a coalition which inevitably has many strands of opinion within it.

Sometimes the Party is so alien to our beliefs that we just can't support it. That's the easy bit. The tough bit is when you want to support the Party but either the candidate or one aspect of the policy stick in your throat.

In that situation you can join the Party and seek to change it within or you just have to make the choice on election day.

As a strong Labour supporter I am going to say that even if you disagree on Iraq (and Stephen Pollard believes as I do that it was right but his Labour candidate doesn't) then you can recognise that it was a tough choice and that there are strong arguments on either side.

From there you can go on to ask what the other candidates and Party's would do in the present situation and balance that against the overall policy aims of the Party.

I think the Liberals really do have to ask whether they are seriously going to pull the troops out of Iraq at the end of this year. That alone is a good case for not voting Liberal. Because even if you think that the invasion made a bad situation worse there is no case for making it worse still!

Time for the tough choices!

 

Clive,

From my usual pages of rambling to a quick point. You and other Labour supporters keep talking about how "tough a choice" you were all facing. The point to remember is the apparent world wide danger that was being touted at the time by Blair, after having agreed so with Bush if Claire Short and others are to be believed, was a manufactured crisis. The weapons inspectors were still doing their job and had asked for more time, the "human rights" situation was dire but has not been improved by bombing and invasion, and therefore using this as a reason for immediate "intervention" was rather stretched. This was not Kosovo with one army attacking a region and therefore able to be pushed back with bombing (and I'm not supporting what happened there, just making a point), this was a country with a brutal regime which had its tenticles deep into the heart of every neighbourhood.

The "tough decision" was, rather, whether to support Bush and therefore cement a position as his key supporter, or to stand against him, which risked his wrath and distancing the UK from the US and an ally. Where then does the UK turn for influence? Nobody really gives a hoot about us in Europe anymore, despite what we pretend. We're not that important.

This was a manufactured crisis based on exaggerated claims and bare faced lies, albeit with enough deniability to allow room for escape should things not go to plan. This "45 minute" claim is a case in point. It is simply rediculous for Blair or Straw to claim that they didn't know that this applied to only "battle-field weapons", and not long range weapons. Anyone on the outside can see that it's non-credible, but legally they've left themselves an escape route. The same with the unfounded claims of a connection with al-Qaeda. With all the years of experience that the FCO has regarding the Middle East, with all the available experts who know the various groups and factions inside out, it is inconceivable that the Blair and Straw were unaware of the fundamentally impossible logic behind that claim.

MPs may have had to make tough choices regarding whether or not to support a popular leader or split the party, Blair may have had to make a tough choice regarding whether he wanted to be Bush's best friend or be consigned to "Old Europe" status, but to suggest that there was really a pressing decision to be made regarding the safety of the UK, or that this was the final and only way to free the Iraqi people from Saddam simply has no basis in historical fact.

Did I say a quick point? Well, I guess you know me better than that now. If we keep corresponding I promise I'll try and edit my thoughts as a go.

S

It looks more and more that Blair wanted to make the case for war, and made it by sexing up data.

The release of the legal advice makes this even more apparent: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/frontpage/4492439.stm

Blair had to make a tough choice; tell the whole truth and risk Parliment not voting for war, or hide part of what was known, and give the impression that what was disclosed was hard facts.

He chose to hide the full truth - in my book, that is lying.

Blair is a liar.

Regs, Shaggy

I agree with the above but I come to a different conclusion as to the important decision we will make next week on May 5th.

We must ensure that the Tories do not get in via the back door.

On the Leaders Question Time Michael Howard had said that he would not even have dressed up the issue on Iraq he would have flouted international law by going to war on the justification of regime change alone.
His stance and carefully worded policy on imigration although not being an equivalence does sadly and dangerously pay hommage to the way that historical dictatorships have exploited the fears of the outsider. At its logical conclusion that causes us to fear our deeper selves and does nothing to forward our deeper moral and spiritual aspirations.
Although I have expressed on this site and elswhere my concerns about the implications of voting Labour, the party I have always voted for, in respect of my opposition to the Iraq war and of the spread of imperialistic power by the USA, I will be voting for Labour at this general election for the reasons given above. I flinch from indulging to give Blair a bloody nose in the knowledge that we have a responsibility to those who have most to lose. Young children and families assisited by the 'Sure Start schemes' and other vital services which will be cut by the Tories without the affluent Middle Classes even noticing it.

My vote does not represent a flag being waved or a concession to moral shadow play. Our watchfullness should not waver and let our conscience remain unsatistfied.

'My vote does not represent a flag being waved or a concession to moral shadow play. Our watchfullness should not waver and let our conscience remain unsatistfied.'

Whatever your vote represents will not necesserily be representative of your view.

In politics, your vote will be used by politicians to justify what they wish it to justify.

That said, I'm undecided, but the last few days have moved me a little.

Regs, Andy

I think people need to bear in mind what happened when Bush was rewarded with a second term despite lying to get his country into war. Rather than accepting any wrong doing on Iraq, he viewed his win as a new mandate to go even further than he had gone in his first four years.

I don't think we should be so naive as to think that a Labour win will mean a humbly grateful Blair. It'll mean a more empowered one and a move to the economic right that will remind us all why we were so happy to see the Tories leave in 1997.

I'm not suggesting I have a clear alternative for those who are afraid of a Tory win. But to pretend that you're necessarily doing the country good by allowing Blair back into office is extremely short sighted.

The first thing that Bush did when he got back to the Whitehouse was start to dismantle the country's Social Security program, which keeps millions out of poverty. We'll have to see what a new and more empowered Blair will do (especially given that it'll be his last four years in office), but I have a feeling that Labour voters will feel even more screwed and humiliated than they do now.

Apologies for the crude analogies, but we are being raped, and rather than trying to escape, we're looking for the least uncomfortable position to be screwed in.

S

Clive, Apologies for posting a comment in error at your post titled "General Election" - my comment was intended as a response to the comments here re Iraq, Clare Short and Bush. So, I am re-posting it here:

People seem to forget to mention how many UN resolutions -- over how many years -- and how many weapons inspections -- ad nauseum -- went on after Iraq invaded and attacked its neighbour Iran. My understanding is that Iraq lost their war on Iran and as part of the UN post-war agreement, Iraq was not allowed to build long range superguns and stockpile weapons that would pose as such a threat again. It was Iraq who was responsible for starting its next war.

Nobody can say the Iraqi regime was not aware of the war on terrorism after 9/11. The world's superpower was attacked unprovoked without warning. It was an act of war that shook the world. Iraq was was given many years and every opportunity to come clean about its weapons it was harbouring and could have stopped the invasion from happening at any time. Iraq was given a countless number of warnings.

If I recall correctly, Saddam Hussein was given years, months, weeks, days and hours - right up until the final 48-hour warning and unmistakable last 24-hour countdown. Right up until the final hour, he defiantly thumbed his nose at the West and invited war. Did he think the US was bluffing and so thought he could away with anything? What was he hiding all those years? Who knows what was shipped out of the country or even out to sea before the war started. I for one fear nuclear, plutonium, anthrax or any kind of bio warfare and wmd getting into the hands of tyrannical whacko one-man bands such as Saddam Hussein.

If Iraq's leader was Mr nice guy simply full of bluff and bluster minding his own business moving between his many palaces and bolt holes (one for nearly every day of the year because he was in fear of his life) -- how come -- even during the final countdown -- and the last 48 hours of warning -- he was willing to risk the lives of his own people in the face of the world's superpower and its military capability of shock and awe? We watched the tanks roll into Baghdad. There was no resistance. No plan. They didn't fight back. His only plan was to go into hiding. His army deserted him. He never cared about his army and the ordinary folk of Iraq. If he did, he would have stopped the invasion before it had even started simply by co-operating. Iraq was always thwarting UN weapons inspections and stalling for time, why?

Look at the people he surrounded himself with, like his minister for information Comical Ali. If Saddam Hussein knew his forces did not have the capability to fight back why did he invite war? The guy was a psycho who was dangerous and completely untrustworthy. His word meant nothing. He proved it after he'd bragged over and over again to the world's media that he'd shoot himself before being taken captive. It's no surpirse that instead of courageously leading his men he ended up alone hiding like a rat down a dirt hole to save his own skin, cuddling tens of thousands of American dollars and a loaded pistol.

Despite the countless number of cruel orders he meted out to end the lives of his own people he didn't even have the guts to take his own life. Instead he chose to be humiliated in front of his people, army, the world's leaders and media. What about his people? He did not give a fig. He gassed and tortured and killed and oppressed countless numbers of them. Within such an oil rich country, he ruled by fear and cruelty and built palatial mansions for himself so he had somewhere different to hide every few days while his people existed in dire straights.

Now he languishes in jail acquiring a penchant for American muffins (true). Poor chap was visibly shaken when he saw TV pictures of a new leader being elected by the people of Iraq. No doubt all the other psycho dictators, responsible for the misery, suffering and deaths of millions of people, took note.

America is an ally. Nobody can convince me a conservative government would not have done the same thing. Look what Thatcher went to war over - a piece of rock in the middle of nowhere - housing a tiny community of people - that didn't even seem to really belong to us. There are some 50 million people in this country, of which a small percentage will always be protest against and object to war.

As for Clare Short, Iraq's great humanitarian and anti military intervention campaigner: she is on a panel that last month published a parliamentary paper pushing for military intervention in Darfur, Sudan. The report was publicised through an orchestrated barrage of press reports that flashed around the world in the run up to the start of Labour's election campaign.

Over the past 12 months I have followed almost every news report on Darfur but can barely recall a word Clare Short has said in the press to help the people of Darfur. Where was she between the time the death toll was reported as 10,000 in April 2004 until it reached half Rwandan genocide proportions?

Clare Short is an embarrassment to this country. Any military intervention in Darfur over the past year would have brought every jihadist out of the woodwork and set the tinder box of Africa alight. It would have caused a bloodbath and made Iraq look like a picnic. Taking cheapshots at Tony Blair for political gain by using the starving and dead people of Darfur is shameful. Tony Blair has done more for Africa than any other British prime minister. Clare Short knows it too, which makes her and her anti-Blair cronies and their venture into the media's spotlight to pull down Tony Blair over Darfur is a disgrace.

I'm sure I've said it here somewhere before: Labour's best opposition always seems to come from within the party itself. The internal opposition ought to band together and start up their own party to see for themselves how many people would vote for them to lead this country through the complexities of today's age of globalisation and terrorist threats.

As for Bush and his push on promoting democracy. I've recently come come round to thinking, after spending two years looking into the reasons for mans inhumanity to man, that famine and genocide would not occur in a modern day democracy. So, Bush is on the right track. The sooner people clue themselves up as to what happens on the present day UN Security Council, and supports its reform, the better.

Ingrid, I agree with many of the points you make about Iraq. I haven't heard anything about the dangers of intervening in Sudan and that is interesting as well. I do think that whether intervention is possible or not, Labour under Tony Blair really does seem to be prioritising the problems in Africa and that this is another reason for supporting this Government.

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