Iraq: The alternative reality
Intellectuals, commentators etc, Post-invasion iraq, Rightwingers say the darndest things - - Posted on May, 8 at 11:15 pm by Ken L
I don’t often read stuff I know I’ll disagree with. I don’t have enough time to read more than a tiny fraction of the more-or-less factual material that I want to read, so blatant propaganda is generally not on my reading list. I would no more think of going to read Andrew Bolt or Piers Ackerman than I would of buying a book by Ann Coulter.
Nevertheless, my guilty secret is that I read a sample of ideological nonsense every week … partly out of awe-struck fascination at the mental gymnastics that people can perform in their obsessive self-delusion, partly to anticipate any new lines of argument they might run, and partly to get a few honest belly laughs. I don’t much care what kind of ideology drives the material - market fundamentalism, Christianism, the conviction that the world is run by The Illuminati - it’s all good when it comes to understanding the weirdness of the human condition.
Which explains how I came to read today’s column by Gerard Henderson.
I have to say that even by the standards of people of faith, this plumbs new depths. How’s this for an opening line?
I upset a few colleagues and associates on the ABC TV Insiders program last Sunday week when I said that no members of the left in Australia had publicly opposed the murders of Iraqi civilians by al-Qaeda in Iraq or by the Iraqi insurgency.
This goose is on ‘Insiders’? One more reason to be glad I have never watched it. Anyway Gerard goes on to say that when he speaks of ‘the left’ he doesn’t mean people like Nick Cohen and Christopher Hitchens. No, he means … well it’s not clear who he means actually because he excludes ‘the social democratic, as distinct from the left, tradition of the labour movement’. It will come as a surprise to many in the labour movement that they aren’t part of the left … it would come as a surprise to many wingnuts in the blogosphere for that matter, for whom the left is anyone who disagrees with John Howard and George W Bush.
Anyway it doesn’t matter who he’s talking about because the real purpose of Gerard’s gibbering soon becomes clear: it’s an excuse to quote John Pilger and Leunig. Where would self-righteous neo-cons be without those two? But the technique is clear - point out some ill-defined leftist group in the shadowy mist, appoint Pilger and Leunig as their spokesmen, and you’ve created a wonderful strawman that you can proceed to attack in the rest of your column.
(Typical of Henderson’s rhetorical style is his assertion, without supplying any evidence whatsoever, that Pilger ‘has a following within many university humanities departments and in sections of journalism.’ Maybe he got Morgan to do a poll or something.)
Hendo’s arguments are a disgrace. First, he states:
… they want to see the Multi-National Force defeated in Iraq and they want this to lead to the discrediting of George Bush in the United States, Tony Blair in Britain and John Howard in Australia.
This totally ignores the fact that people on the non-left ranging from General Sir Michael Rose to Brendan Nelson to Harry Reid have acknowledged that the USA can’t win in Iraq … it overlooks the fact that when it comes to Iraq, Bush and Blair could hardly be more discredited than they already have been … no matter, Hendo just puts his fingers in his ears and cries “I can’t heeaar you” and craps on about lefties wanting defeat for crass political purposes. Moreover, he makes this startling claim:
Whatever a person’s position on the invasion of Iraq, the fact is that most Iraqi deaths are being caused by members of the Iraqi insurgency - Sunni and Shiite alike - as well as by the radical Islamists who comprise al-Qaeda in Iraq.
The fact, as best we can judge it from this distance amongst all the deliberate misinformation that we are being fed by governments, is that most Iraqi deaths are being caused not by insurgents but by people engaged in a complex sectarian conflict. To label the other instigators ‘al-Qaeda in Iraq’ is just a lazy, simplistic substitute for analysis, a bit like labelling all the anti-colonialist resistance movements in the 1960s ‘Communists’. Oh wait, Hendo probably did that too.
How does the CEO of the Sydney Institute end his piece of drivel?
If the left denies the reality of contemporary Iraq, little wonder that no one on the left has condemned the attacks on civilians - including wedding parties, markets and funeral gatherings - by the Iraqi insurgency and its al-Qaeda supporters. It is this act of denial that makes it possible for the left to ignore the question as to what would be the plight of peace-loving Iraqi civilians if the Multi-National Force quit before the democratic government of Iraq was capable of defending itself and its citizens.
The juvenile over-simplification is staggering. The violence is all caused by one evil group - ‘the Iraq insurgency and its al-Qaeda supporters’. The Iraqi government is ‘democratic’ - that was the belly laugh I mentioned. And he has the stupendous gall to accuse others of denying ‘the reality of contemporary Iraq’. I love the bit about ‘peace-loving Iraqi citizens’ though, it’s lifted straight out of the Krushchev Guide to Hungarian Liberation (1956). That’s one of the really whacko things about the neo-cons … so much of their rhetoric and behaviour is scarily reminiscent of the USSR and its satellites in the 1950s and ’60s.
The thought that substantial numbers of people might look to Henderson for ideological leadership is depressing. The idea that he accurately reflects the opinions of the federal cabinet is frightening, but unfortunately I suspect that it’s not far from the truth.
Posted in Intellectuals, commentators etc, Post-invasion iraq, Rightwingers say the darndest things |
May 8th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
Thats right, there’s very little difference indeed between Henderson and soviet writers. They both believe their state is right.
In fact, you could say the same thing about virtually everyone in the ‘conservative’ party now, there’s no pretence at a free market, its high taxes, lots of state power, and jobs for mates.
The real difference now in our society is between lazy ‘insiders’ like Henderson and the rest of us.
May 9th, 2007 at 12:18 am
Does Hitchens even count as “left” anymore?
May 9th, 2007 at 12:22 am
I thought that Bolt, Ackerman & Henderson were for general entertainment, comic relief etc.
May 9th, 2007 at 12:45 am
Obviously Henderson is a complete idiot and his arguments are ridiculous and outrageous. At least he excludes the Labor movement from the ‘left’ as I’d hardly call the Labor Party ‘left’ these days.
May 9th, 2007 at 8:25 am
Henderson is a jumped-up little twerp who was once, many years ago and for a brief period, close to power in the corridors of canberra. It clearly went to his head, and he has ever since been intoning his opinions on the state of the world, and the moral and ethical values of the ‘left’ in particular. The problem is his limited intellectual reach, lack of imagination, and narrow life experience. The man has no more moral and ethical authority than you or me. He has invented himself as the CEO of the Sydney Institute, an organisation that employs himself and his wife. Anyone can do that. But he is given column space in the local newspaper to lift his profile way beyond his limited talents, and so we read him. I do too Ken, for the same reason that I read all these right wing commentators. To gasp in awe at their lack of common sense and their giant inflated egos, and more importantly, to know mine enemy. And by the end of the year it should be really entertaining!
May 9th, 2007 at 10:01 am
Henderson’s parents should make him apologise to the strawman he beat up.
May 9th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
I don’t understand this obsession some people have that unless you publically condemn something you must be for it. Henderson hasn’t publically condemned the Mafia so I guess he must be in favour of organised crime. I saw Henderson in Insiders and when he made the statement I just thought what a twit. As if condemning the violence publically would somehow make it go away.
May 9th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
Grace, you have Henderson in a nutshell.
I had the great privilege of being at the keynote presentation (’Democracy, Survival and Co-operation’), Adelaide Festival Hall, during the 1999 Festival of Ideas. Among the illustrious and globally intelligent speakers were Hanan Ashrawi, Beatrix Campbell, Arief Budiman and Phillip Adams.
And then, there was Gerard Henderson! A small, plump (then), inane man, whose ‘ideas’ range a minnow would have be ashamed of, and a simple lunar right mindset that was absolutely cringe making that night. Every time he pushed himself forward - in order to make himself visible - up and out of his rather large armchair, you could just feel the audience willing him to cease and desist. Some even muttered ‘oh no, please’!
Indeed, the international members of the panel, one of whom was absolutely at one with his own right wing hegemon, appeared to hold Hendo’s contribution with something like awe, in that his obvious sense of self importance made him blind to the reality of his utter no-sense, or to the absolute twit he was making of himself.
Ashrawi and Campbell were their usual brilliant, authoritative, ’say it like it is’, selves (I find you appreciate their thinking or you don’t), Budiman, whom I had never heard of before, also provided his right of centre bias in an urbane, learned manner.
Phillip Adams, as chair, did what he always achieves on Late Night Live, keeping the whole show moving and shaking with intelligence and humour; and Hendo, somewhat in order.
In fact, on reflection, I think the man has become even more absurd, lightweight and obtuse, since he has gained full membership of the Howard Glee Club, than on that night - and that’s saying something.
May 9th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Good story Herindoors. Small men can be great men, Napolean and Nugget Coombs spring to mind, but Henderson is just a small man with a small mind. They should give him a bigger armchair on Insiders…
May 9th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
Yeah i saw that. He essentially created the whole incident, eagerly prompting the other journos to jump to his ‘challenge’. Pathetic and embarrassing.
May 9th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
I haven’t read Henderson for some years now, because he’s bad for my blood pressure. From the sound of it, the column quoted by Ken was a classic of the genre. He finds a provocative comment made from the left (quite often Pilger), does a hatchet job on the comment, and concludes that, ergo, everybody on the left of Dick Cheney is an idiot. And on this particular column, where does he get off pinning the blame on the left for ANYTHING that’s happened in Iraq? Hey Gerard, wasn’t it your mates who had the bright idea to invade in the first place, thereby creating the conditions that have produced the present tragedy? Just how is it that Pilger or Leunig need to apologise for it?
May 9th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
I haven’t read Pilger’s comments in detail but as far as I understand, he meant he supported those who fights the Coalition occupation forces, not the suicide bombers targeting civilians.
May 9th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
Being inclined more to sadistic than masochistic tendencies I rarely read or watch Henderson’s drivel so I don’t know if he has “publicly opposed” Abu Graib, extraordinary rendition, state ordered torture, the wholesale murdering of Iraqi civilians by foreign invaders, Gitmo and the other excesses/war crimes of the Bush/Blair/Howard imperium, but I’d be surprised if he has, so I assume the blood soaked lunatic right, as personified by Hendo, also “denies the reality of contemporary Iraq” (and elsewhere)!.
May 9th, 2007 at 8:41 pm
Hendo says: …little wonder that no one on the left has condemned the attacks on civilians - including wedding parties… by the Iraqi insurgency and its al-Qaeda supporters.
This is more than a little strange. The wedding party incident actually received widespread condemnation outside wingnut circles. Not to mention the fact that the U.S. military isn’t usually classified as part of “the Iraqi insurgency and its al-Qaeda supporters”. That’s Hendo world, I guess.
May 9th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
Ken this is “left right out”. Cheer’s.
May 10th, 2007 at 12:55 am
So, Ken, I should pay attention to you, a person who:
a. usually can’t be bothered reading or watching those with opinions which you already know you disagree with;
b. thinks that: “the fact remains that we have no moral right to be making plans on behalf of the Iraqis. They aren’t children or ignorant savages, they’re perfectly caspable of deciding what plans they want for their own country.” Hmm, I see. Just the same way that any country on the brink of the madness of a full scale religious/tribal/ethnic based civil war or forced population displacement should be just left alone to sort it out amongst themselves?
It’s not a moral right to make plans for Iraqis we are talking about; it’s a moral obligation to do what is in the best interest of preserving the greatest stability for Iraqis, which should also mean preserving the greatest number of Iraqi’s lives. (And don’t revisit the numbers of Iraqis killed already. I am talking the future.)
The journalists on the ground (quoted in another thread here) seem pretty confident a premature departure will mean a “bloodbath”, and I don’t see you explaining whether you think they are right or wrong. Instead, your position (taken from an earlier thread) seems to be: no one can tell what will happen, so you may as well leave and see what happens. To me that’s called “gambling,” and doing it with people’s lives is not what I call moral.
The moral response, as far as I am concerned, is that the US has an obligation to help a bad situation that it helped create (so do other countries too, for purely humanitarian reasons - yes, thanks for all your help, EU); and it’s never appropriate to give up on trying to make reasonable assessments as to likely human cost of decisions.
If you genuinely think that fewer Iraqis will die as a result of a sudden withdrawal, you could not be accused of being immoral, only of having dubious judgement as to the consequences of withdrawal.
But if your position is to deny that there is legitimacy in trying to make the assessment of what is best for preserving the lives of Iraqis who are already in a dire situation, to me that just seems to be an abandonment of moral decision making.
In this and your other posts on Iraq, it seems to me that you do exactly what Henderson says: avoid directly talking about the plight of Iraqis if the US leaves. No wonder he upsets you and you use a spray of diversionary argument to get away from that point.
May 10th, 2007 at 10:06 am
Not at all Steve. I’m not a paid pundit who goes on national public television pretending to be an intellectual. If you were a rational individual not a troll you’d piss off and never visit this blog again.
But I do love this bit:
In other words ‘the CoW’s caused hundreds of thousands of deaths up to now but let’s put all that behind us …’ Unfortunately in this case the past is an accurate guide to the future and the Cow’s presence will cause hundreds of deaths each and every week that it continues. There are no rational grounds for expecting that to change, ever. As General Sir Michael Rose said the other day:
Forgive me if I take more notice of people like him than I do of people who keep muttering that if only we hang in there long enough things will somehow get better.
May 10th, 2007 at 10:16 am
Oh BTW:
You’re kidding, right? A couple of goons from CNN sit in the Green Zone and report what they get told by the CoW spin merchants and the Iraqi government spin merchants and they’re the source of your authoritative analysis of the situation in Iraq? You’re a joke.
May 10th, 2007 at 10:55 am
I sometimes wonder why the SMH and Radio National keep giving Henderson a weekly spot. Maybe they want to appear to give the Howard huggers a fair run, or maybe they want the righties to make themselves look stupid. It’s a mystery to me.
The Age got rid of Henderson years ago. Of course when they stopped publishing his crap he described it as a lurch to the left, an intolerance of differing opinion etc, etc. However, the rumour is that the last straw for Andrew Jaspan (the English born editor of The Age) was when Hendo offered a piece on ‘Doc’ Evatt. After a series of articles on increasingly obscure topics from Henderson, Jaspan had had enough. “Who”, he asked the people who worked for him “was ‘Doc’ Evatt”. Half had never heard of Evatt and the other half couldn’t have cared less about him. Jaspan decided The Age was boring enough without this sort of academic wankery and gave Hendo the boot.
The thing is that if you read Henderson regularly, and, for whatever masochistic reasons, I usually make myself do so, you discover that he is really, really boring. When he’s not being silly (like this latest offering) he usually has some arcane piece of Australian history that he probably wrote decades ago and stored in the bottom of his filing cabinet. It might be interesting to him but is eye-glazingly dull for the rest of us.
May 10th, 2007 at 10:56 am
Ken, I am trying to establish your position clearly. Do you think a bloodbath is likely no matter when coalition forces leave, and that you may as well get it out of the way now as in the future? Or do you think it is in fact likely that no great increase in bloodshed between Iraqis will occur, and there may be fewer loss of life by coalition forces leaving now?
Or am I correct in believing that your position (as previously indicated on this blog) is that there is no point in trying to judge what the outcome of withdrawal will be, it’s what should be done anyway?
May 10th, 2007 at 11:40 am
May 10th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Grace
Well of course, they would have needed to spring to your mind, coming from such a lower centre of gravity.
We all know these guy were shortstacks, no need to rub it in!!
May 10th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Oh, and Steve - why the cheap shot at the EU? (”yes, thanks for all your help, EU”)
Seems to me that the majority of the EU was smart enough to decide the whole thing was a horrifically bad idea, that they wanted no part of.
Are they to be criticised now for being right?
May 10th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
1. ‘…it’s a moral obligation to do what is in the best interest of preserving the greatest stability for Iraqis…
2. …the US has an obligation to help a bad situation that it helped create…
3. …on trying to make reasonable assessments as to likely human cost of decisions…’
Steve if you and your fellow apologists for the US imperial plans for ME oil had got three and one right then you wouldn’t have your faux dilemma with two. Simple, really and it’s not as though you weren’t warned.
May 10th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
Hah, good one mG.
May 10th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
1) I hardly think that the forces that caused said country to go in to meltdown are best placed to do the rescuing!
2) I wonder what the reaction would have been if the Ottomans, Iraq’s rulers at the time, had imposed themselves on America back in 1860?
Do you really still believe that America is in Iraq to serve the best interest of Iraq, instead of its own? Sigh!
Ah, journals are experts in warfare and international statesmanship, huh?
While no one can precisely predict what will happen when, repeat when, not if, foreign combat troops leave but history does suggest it won’t be as bad as staying on.
Much the same argument the journalist/you make was also made when American, French, British and Italian troops occupied Lebanon in the early eighties. And what happened when they left? Not much. Hardly a shot was fired from the moment the last combat boot lifted off Lebanese soil though Israel’s presence was to keep the pot boiling for another 6 years.
OTOH, the saga of Vietnam gives a good guide on what happens if you’re too stupid to understand when you’re not wanted and can’t win.
For those with some understanding of the situation, the signs that Vietnam would be a disaster were already evident in 1965. Don’t believe me? Read Halberstam’s “The Making of a Quagmire” published that year.
At the end of 1965 2,255* American GIs had died since Kennedy started the meddling, and the Vietnamese casualties probably numbered less than 15,000 in the same period.
The writing was writ large by the time the gunsmoke cleared after Tet around Feb 6th, 1968, at which point American losses were about 9,700 and total Vietnamese deaths may have been as low as 120,000.
More Americans were to die in 1968 post Tet than had in the war upto and including Tet.
I believe you could make a strong case that had foreign troops left in 1968 the Vietnamese deaths, including payback after the inevitable NV victory would have amounted to less than 300,000, perhaps as low as 220,000 (of course if America hadn’t interfered and let the UN been allowed to hold elections ahead of reunification in the 1950s then there would have been almost none).
Sadly, hubris won out over common sense and the war went on for another 7 years, killing another 42,800 American’s (post Tet) and about another 1,700,000 Vietnamese, and most of the 500 Australian who died for SFA. The Cambodian holocaust would also have been avoided.
However, the biggest argument for leaving Iraq is that in survey after survey Iraqis have made it very clear they want the occupiers to leave - NOW. Why shouldn’t there wish be respected. After all its their democratic right isn’t it?
* figures from http://www.archives.gov/research/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics.html
May 10th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Codger: you illustrate the point that Nick Cohen has gone on about. It’s one thing for the Left to say that it was correct in its warnings; it’s another thing to say “well, now that we are shown to have been right, get out of there now US and let the real meltdown begin.” How is that a moral stance (unless you genuinely believe a meltdown won’t happen)?
Same goes for the EU and UN.
Left arguments that the US should not be trusted to sort it out are fair enough, at least if they were to promote a more broad based international community response. But as far as I am see, the Left generally thinks it’s fair enough for the rest of the world to say “not my problem”, and also encourage the US to get out now regardless of consequences. It is a far from humanitarian attitude, I think.
May 10th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
Update:
Not only do the majority of Iraqis want the CoW out, but now so do the majority of their elected representives:
Majority of Iraqi Lawmakers Now Reject Occupation
If the wingnuts believe in democracy then they should be demanding the troops be bought home - NOW!
May 10th, 2007 at 9:03 pm
[...] Lovell has his own nomination for barbarian of the week. Here he grits his teeth and dismantles Gerard Henderson’s latest inversion of reality, in which ‘the left [...]
May 10th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
Steve
it’s not a ‘moral’ argument never has been never will be. If you go in for oil, dress it up how you like, rationaslise it how you will, make it up as you go along for trailer city types or god bless us, even our own dave and doreens, I don’t care; but the people that live there will. And they will garner whatever support they can to kill americans or anyone else that they percieve to be a good target. That’s what happens when you sign on to bullshit…and then keep repeating it. More dead yanks, ‘contractors’, get used to it; and hopefully not any aussies.
Steve those quotes were yours; I don’t need Nick Cohen or anyone else to back me; you are off road in a gemini not a 4 wd; you haven’t thought through the appalling dilemna that your gambit sets up; you rely too much on gung ho yankee blah blah recycled by rodent or whoever…
Then fall into the false trap of oh we fucked it we fix it…hey come on Steve; how do you think ‘we’ really fix it Steve? Post mission accomplished?
That’s for the Iraqis to fix; perahps with a little help from Iran, Syria. Kurdistan, Turkey, Jordan and sundry other US proxies…etc etc but only with a little help; you know, effective help…
Don’t hold your breath, in the meantime, just count the body bags…
The sad truth Steve is that the illegal invasion & occupation of Iraq by the US has given the ‘moral’ key to any ‘party’ in the current mayhem that stands in the marketplace in oppostion to this…that’s what you’re looking at…
Who you barrack for , well that’s another question.
Practical solutions Steve, out, now. Then all the smart things ‘we’ can do; and not just in Iraq.
May 11th, 2007 at 12:42 am
Codger, I was mentioning Nick Cohen in support of my arguments, not yours. There is no point debating you on the issue of the reasons for the invasion; it’s clearly a matter of faith to you that I can see would not be budged. As to what you mean about Iraqis sorting it out with the help of Iran, Jordan, etc, your point remains obscure to me.
Ian: interesting point that a non binding petition has been put up by a small majority (led by Shia), and the future outcome of the process is not clear. Hardly an outstandingly clear case of democracy to be acted on, especially if the executive arm of government is not on board.
I still see in the comments here a solid block of support for the idea that, having caused the problem, the US has to get out now, and damn the consequences. (And also an belief that it is the presence of the US that is causing the sectarian violence between Iraqis.) At least Don Wigan acknowledges that maybe there is a need for a ‘restraining force’ and notes that it would be better if it was led by the UN. Fat chance of that happening, though.
Just to be clear, I agree that if the political situation makes no improvement, the US cannot support the government forever. (Even Cheney has just been there to give them that message personally.) What I don’t agree with, and think very callous, is the attitude that the US is wholly dishonourable in staying on there for now, and that an immediate withdrawal is the right thing to do without regard to likely outcome for Iraqis.
May 11th, 2007 at 1:56 am
Steve it’s your ‘faith’ that’s on display here…all I can say is that’s nice and a good thing and wish you all the best. Cheers. I hope that’s clear too.
May 11th, 2007 at 3:30 am
As I sit here and read the oh, so commonsensical, cogent posts above, interspersed by Steve’s passionate repostes, I am constantly reminded of the moratorium marches, the police responses, and the letters to the newspapers during the Vietnam War. I was a young nurse at the time. I can also see in my minds eye, with absolute clarity, the final ignominious leaving of Saigon, with the victorious Vietcong tanks crashing through the American Embassy gates, in 1975.
Steve don’t you get it, it has nothing to do with damning the consequences, or the left wanting to cut and run, or, or, or. Although the CoW broke it, they cannot fix it, now, not ever.
It matters not that we ’should’ do something, or we ‘could’ do something. Can’t the armchair warriors get it into their heads - this war is not ‘winnable’ or even manageable, in any way, shape, or form. All we are achieving are appalling costs - in body bags; unbelievable lifelong, both physical and mental, injuries; terrible destruction; grieving families, and mispent dollars, trillions of them by now. And unrepayable debt.
The surge will not work, keeping American troops in Iraq way past a sensible furlough, and sending them back again, and again, and again, will not work. It is not working, it cannot work. In spite of the courage, the fortitude, and the best of intentions, or indeed, otherwise.
But don’t take any notice of me, I’m just an old duck, who should be knocking off the zeds. But, mark my words, we will leave Iraq within the next year or so, indeed most have, including the Brits, who are in the process of leaving - to be completed in that time frame - and the mission, for who ever thought it was worth it, will not be accomplished.
Just as the myriad, dreading, groups around me forcast - though none quite realised how horrendous it would become - when my hub and I marched, on that beautiful February summer’s day in Adelaide, against the CoW’s threatened Iraqi invasion, four long awful years ago.
May 11th, 2007 at 8:02 am
Harry Reid is “on the the non-left”? No he’s not, he’s on the left. That is, if you’re talking about the American one; maybe there’s some Australian one I don’t know about.
May 11th, 2007 at 10:43 am
Hey Steve, what is a “small majority”, besides contradictory?
And boy am I sick of people saying that the “left” (or “right”, for that matter) want this or that - these categories are just thinly veiled insults.
What you’re really trying to say is that “people who want this or that are people I don’t like or agree with. Just be up front about it.
May 11th, 2007 at 11:06 am
Ian: interesting point that a non binding petition has been put up by a small majority (led by Shia), and the future outcome of the process is not clear.
It’s not a “non-binding petition”. It’s draft legislation, currently going through their legal drafting process.
And a “small majority”?? LOL. Do they need anything more than that to pass it into law?
May 11th, 2007 at 11:43 am
Beautifully put, Herindoors. You can write more eloquently than most of the paid hacks masquerading as journalists.
I too get so sick and tired of the lame justifications, the faux outrage and the sheer emptiness of the arguments from the likes of Steve of Brisbane.
The ability of people to deny reality never ceases to astound.
May 11th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
Ed - ‘The Left’ as a hackneyed cliched category is useful, not in categorising a group, but in identifying yourself through opposition to some group. It’s rhetorical shorthand. Same goes for comments about ‘The Right’.
The problem comes about when people start seeing ‘The Left’ as truly existing as some group, to which Steve is obviously alluding.
Also Steve, as regards the moral concerns / responsibilities / decisions you keep invoking, you say things like:
“What I don’t agree with, and think very callous, is the attitude that the US is wholly dishonourable in staying on there for now, and that an immediate withdrawal is the right thing to do without regard to likely outcome for Iraqis.”
It’s funny how the antiwar position is now positioning itself as one of sober realism, isn’t it. In a way, the positions are now reversed from those before the war started. You’re now the one prattling on about morality , callousness of feeling and ‘honour’.
To which I can only reply “join the real world and stop being so namby pamby”. This war is happening right now, and the longer it continues the worse it will be for the US (my concerns for the innocent Iraqi civilians go without saying at the moment). Imperial powers decline over intractable nasty little colonial wars like these, you know. Do you truly believe that this can continue indefinitely like this with no serious long term consequences for the US?
Finally, with regard to all your wonderful heartfelt moralising (now that the war has failed of course - my bet is you were a strident hard-nosed ‘realist’ in the lead up to the invasion) I can only quote Tallyrand:
“It’s (Iraq) worse than a crime. It’s a mistake.”