EDM 1565: Libya, North Africa and the middle East

It's my view that the current situation in Libya is not the kind of clear cut ethical question that some people, on both sides of the debate, would have us believe. For me whether we come down for or against military intervention rests on an assessment of whether our proposed actions will work (rather than simply making us feel like we're doing something) and whether the wider impact of the action will not work to the detriment of the revolutionary process taking place across the Middle East and North Africa.

The moral certainty that has been displayed by some when debating this question has made me feel rather uncomfortable, particularly when many seem unable or unwilling to provide supporting evidence for their claims.

Whatever happens now it is likely there will be a humanitarian disaster in Libya and it is up to us to ensure we are helping these democratic upsurges across the region for the chance of a long term solution, as well as taking stock of the immediate tragedy as it unfolds.

On balance I'm opposed to the proposed military intervention, but I recognise that others take a different view for perfectly legitimate reasons. I'm sure this discussion will continue over the coming weeks and you can still vote in the poll (right) which seems pretty evenly split at the moment.

I am backing EDM 1565 on this issue proposed by Jeremy Corbyn and seconded by Caroline Lucas. If you also agree with it you may like to encourage your local MP to sign too. It reads as follows;

That this House does not believe that Western intervention in Libya or elsewhere will bring about the peace, justice and democracy that is being sought by millions of people in North Africa and the Middle East; and calls for a rethinking of British and European foreign policy and a more concerted effort to apply international law and its human rights clauses in any negotiations or actions relating to the historical process that is now taking place.

As the air strikes pile in we've moved a long way on from talk of a no fly zone. The days and weeks ahead will no doubt see news that supports both sides of the argument, but it will only be the long term impact that will truly make it clear whether this was the right course of action.

Poll: should we support military action over Libya?

I've already set out my case against the no fly zone over Libya here and Richard and Claude have put the alternative case.

Opinions seem divided so I thought I'd set up a poll to guage opinion on this important issue. If you allow your eyes to drift to the right you'll see you have eight options and I've set the poll up so you can tick multiple boxes.

If you 'don't know' or want to explain your answer feel free to leave a comment.

The case against a no-fly zone over Libya

After some consideration I've come to the opinion that a no fly zone over Libya would be a serious mistake for a number of reasons.

First of all, the Libyan regime has, from the outset, painted this rebellion as a Western backed coup. It is their strongest card in keeping the military together and mounting an ideological defence of the regime. We have seen pilots take their jets to Malta rather than bomb their own people. Those pilots considering similar defections are likely to think again if their next mission is to defend Libya against foreign aggressors.


Secondly, it's a response to current, awful, events not a long term plan. The longer term impact of military intervention is not even part of the thinking behind this scheme. For example, who exactly are we backing? I'm for the rebels against the regime, obviously, but Western intervention inevitably means strengthening the hand of one faction over others. I'm unconvinced we know what we're doing, or that if we do, we have the best interests of Libyan people at heart.

There are some forces in Libya who are calling for a no fly zone and others who oppose it. By enforcing military action on the say so of one group of rebels over another we are having a far more wide ranging impact than just doing what has been asked of us 'by the rebels'.

Thirdly, will it do any good? My understanding is that the Libyan air force is a tiny part of its military strength, which lies mainly in ground forces. So we would be throwing an air invasion into the mix without significantly depleting the regime's capacity to murder its own citizens. Indeed we would be strengthening that ability.

The siren calls to stop the murder are understandable, but a no fly zone *wont* stop the murders, only intensify them and in the eyes of some waverers in Libya legitimise them.


Fourth, what would the wider impact of military intervention in the revolution mean? In Tunisia, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia or Yemen the political implications of Western interference in what feels like a very home grown series of revolutions would be significant. The population of Saudi know that the West backs their dictators and to see their willingness to use military might, just as they did in Iraq, could hold back those struggles.

We are propping up corrupt regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan with the use of lethal force. To give the stamp of legitimacy on an extension of the right to use lethal force in any oil rich country we choose is dangerous. We are not the world's policemen, and even if we were it would not give us the right to stop black nations in the street and demand to know if this is really their country. *


However, the Arab League have backed a no fly zone, so does this mean it is legitimate? Well, the Arab League is a collective of 22 dictatorships who all buy weapons off the West and are scared shitless of their own populations taking the kind of action we have seen in Libya, Egypt and Tunisia. So it cannot be regarded as the authentic voice of the Arab people, only of their dictators.

If you look at the list of member states of the Arab League you will see almost all have been rocked by protests in the last month. Of course they want their arms dealer friends flying war planes overhead, it gives them a sense of security. What better way of locking down those forces within their own countries who may be considering deposing them?

So am I in favour of doing nothing? No. I am in favour of our governments restraining their natural instincts to see killing someone as the way to solve an issue. I am in favour of the rebels continuing their brave fight to overthrow the Libyan government, just as others have done in recent times. I'm in favour of yet more Libyan servicemen and women laying down their arms or defecting with their equipment. Hardly a Utopian position.


What it does mean is having a little bit of steel in the belly. Bad things are happening, but that is no reason to make them worse or to do the first thing that comes to mind just because it is doing 'something'.

It also means having the tiniest bit of humility and understanding that the West can't just step in and sort out the problems in an African country by killing a few Africans. We may find that not everyone is as grateful for our help as we thought they might be.

In order to be true friends of these revolutions we have to accept that these are not our revolutions, but indeed revolts against regimes we have spent many years doing business with. The bullets and shells Qaddafi uses to rain down on his own citizens were manufactured here, and frankly many people in the Arab world know it to their cost.

* I heard this joke elsewhere, it's not mine sadly.

From the archives: Bitter fruits of Russian Imperialism

This piece, from September 2004, documents my reaction to the terrible events in Beslan when over 1000 people were held hostage and over 300 killed by Chechen terrorists. Russia today still faces a terrorist threat from this region.

As this article is written it seems that something like 350 people have been killed in the Russian school siege, where Chechen terrorists took hundreds of men, women and children hostage in a school.

The world news is full of the terrible ordeal that these people have been through, and in particular of course the children.

Whilst there has been an historic oppression of the Chechen people dating back to the Tsarist days and the invasion in the 1830's, the current conflict centres around the break-up of the old Soviet Union and Chechnya's ability to break away and form a separate state as other regions have done.

The Russian government says that this is simply unacceptable and that Chechnya is part of Russia, and sent troops to the area in 1994.

As the civil war intensified 1996 saw massive bombardment of the capital Grozny and estimates are that in this year alone around 70,000 people were killed. The civil war destroyed in infrastructure of the region, and Russian forces have continued a perpetual state of war ever since, setting up a puppet government whose President Akhmad Kadyrov was recently killed in a bomb attack.

Russian president said of these latest attacks that "we have shown weakness" - the obliteration of Grozny, the many thousands killed by Russian military forces both on the ground and from the air - all of this Putin characterises as weakness. It's nonsense of course - there is no military solution to the problem.

President Putin regards his order to level Grozny as weakness Russia will not withdraw its forces from Chechnya not because of some historic bond with Chechen people (of whom many Russians have a strong racist abhorrence of) but because Chechnya is essential in securing Russian oil supplies.

Some have been shocked by the high number of women who have taken part in suicide attacks and other violent acts. But many of these women have named themselves "black widows" because their husbands and other family members have been murdered by the Russian army.

Does Putin think these women only commit acts of terror because he's been too soft on them? To entrench the policy of state terror in Chechnya is to guarantee the escalation of terrorist attacks in Russia. Just as Bush's war on Islamic terrorism has ensured its growing popularity.

The only real way to fight terrorism is to fight for social justice on a world scale - not in order to be weak on terrorism - but in order to wipe out the deep rooted causes of bitterness, hatred and injustice.

From the archives: The Revolt of the Nobodies

This piece from March 2004 focuses on the anti-war movement of the time. Again the illustrations are new.

"The Great Men of the Earth, Approve with smiles and bland salutes, The rage and monstrous tyranny, That they have brought to birth."

from 'Great Men' by Seigfried Sassoon

The war was right, the war was good - and if it was illegal then the law is wrong. That was the message coming from Tony Blair in his 'robust defense of the war' this week.

There may have been millions protesting on the streets of London, millions demonstrating in every major country around the globe in a world historic first. But at the end of the day who are these people? What companies do they own? What political position do they hold? Who do they donate money too? Frankly, they are a bunch of nobodies.

Each demonstration has contained a fantastic cross section of the population. Young and old, black and white, probably the first significant mobilisation of the Muslim community in this country, we know all this - we've been there on the streets to see it for ourselves.

My favourite example of this was from the day the war began and hundreds of school kids in Colchester poured onto the streets in protest. The police went frantic, and as soon as they thought they had it all under control another gang would appear from another school blockading the high street and creating havoc. Fantastic and every copper on duty had an inkling of how General Custer felt at the Little Big Horn.

One of the great things about the younger protests is they made me (at 33) feel both young and old at the same time. You feel young from the inspiring energy and fearlessness around you and then they'll start chanting "We all live in a fascist regime" to the tune of Yellow Submarine and you think "Well, strictly speaking although capitalism breeds imperialism and fosters dictatorship we're not actually living under fascism." But obviously I didn't bring it up at the time.

Apparently the rulers of ancient Rome, when returning home from a successful imperialist conquest, would have a slave stand behind them in their victory procession murmuring in their ear all the while "remember man is mortal". Blair turned this on its head and had Alistair Campbell whispering in his ear saying "Go on Tony, you've got a historic mission, people love you, it's a war against evil Tony, go on drop another bomb."

They might feel they are being written into the history books as Great Rulers - just as Nixon, Hitler, George Bush (the elder), et al have done before them, but it will not prevent their ignominious end.

Western Imperialism knows only how to destroy. Their bombs and bullets and check points have not got a snow ball's chance in hell of bringing democracy, peace and prosperity. Bush and Blair were dreaming if they ever thought that the people of the Middle East would welcome this kind of military intervention and occupation.

If they ever thought that.

Leaving rather dubious BBC polls aside the Iraqi population has not welcomed Western troops with open arms, and it is ordinary people who suffer from the anarchy, poverty and brutality endemic in Iraq today. By and large it is ordinary people who take part in demonstrations against the occupation, for water, for jobs and security. It is the nobodies of Iraq that, driven to desperation take part in the revolt.

The solutions that the West offers to poverty is carving up the reconstruction contracts among themselves, privatising utilities, its the bucks that are fast rather than the reconstruction. Rather simply, without water there can be no liberation. There is a rage in Basra that swells up out of the ground. A rage born of years of sanctions and hardship, of murdered loved ones, of poverty and indignity.

But there is a hope in the world today. The millions of nobodies both East and West that can resist, that can demonstrate, that can rise up. Unfortunately too many people still know their place in the world today - but the great signs of hope are that some of us really are beginning to reply our great leaders "Who are we? No - who the hell are you!?!"

"I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on those lifeless things. The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear. "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works ye mighty and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away." "

Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

To all those Great Men past, present and future whatever empire you build, what ever position you attain, your day will come.

Don't forget Bradley Manning

Adrian has reminded me to do something I've been meaning todo for a bit now - remind people about one of wikileaks sources who is getting no celebrity backing, no big cash support payouts for his legal defense and no real media attention. It's time that the world remembered Bradley Manning who is being held in a cage by an unaccountable a vicious regime.

Bradley Manning is accused of leaking military secrets to the public. While headlines around the world are full of Wikileaks, Bradley Manning has been in prison for over 200 days.

Exposing war crimes is not a crime. The authorities have imprisoned a suspected whistle blower, and left those who committed war crimes go free.

See: Website here; Facebook here

You can donate to his legal fund appeal at his website, something that he urgently needs you to do.

A lesson from history

When the Roman Republic decided that it wanted to dispatch Julius Caesar and his armies to as yet unconquered Gaul they needed to give his job a title. What do you think it might have been?

Protector of the Gauls.

That's right, and in the course of protecting the Gauls Caesar found himself having to kill around one million Gauls, a quarter of a million Germans, a few Brits and he also enslaved around one million of the barbarian peoples.

A more energetic protector of the Gauls you will not find.

In fairness to him he let them keep their oil and he didn't go on to describe himself as a 'peace envoy'.

Is Cameron a loud mouth?

David Cameron is in trouble with the former Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, for being direct and clear in his speeches about foreign affairs.

First Cameron called Gaza an "open prison" and then he criticised elements of the Pakistan security services for aiding the UK's enemies in Afghanistan. Miliband described the PM as a "loud mouth" although he made no comment on the content of Cameron's speeches.

We know Miliband would never do such a thing. After all, his tour of duty was not known for either criticising the actions of the Israeli government, no matter how revolting, nor taking an open and honest stance on the Afghan situation - we didn't even need the recent leaks to know that.

Miliband's outburst attacking Cameron is in stark contrast to his mumbled and embarrassed comments during Israel's bombardment of Gaza that had to be wrung out of him, so reluctant was he to use the UK's clout for good.

During the Blair years the fact that business was always done behind closed doors was always made a virtue of so you'd see Blair claiming he was "influencing" Bush behind the scenes as the war machine pushed ever onwards unabated.

Various diplomats have rushed to Cameron's defence saying that direct language can be completely appropriate on the international stage, it's just we haven't seen much plain speaking for the last thirteen years. I think I agree.

For me a bit of honest speaking is just what we need to clear the air after years of manipulation and distrust. A large number of countries do not see the UK as an honest broker and that is unlikely to change if we continue with a Miliband style policy of half-truths, mumbling and blood.

Guest Post: was Churchill a hero?

The first of my guest posts this week is from Rob Ray who is international editor of Freedom anarchist newspaper and a member of the Black Flag magazine collective.

I've always had a bit of a thing about heroes where if I see one I always wonder what's behind those green curtains in the corner of the room. What dark little secrets are being quietly forgotten about while they strut their stuff for an awe-struck Dorothy and friends?

The reason I'm confiding this is twofold, first because the master of The Daily Maybe himself stoutly defended the boys featured in Band of Brothers to me the other day before asking for this missive, and second because I've recently been looking back through my own blog and remembered that I'd been meaning to look properly at a previous bit of rummaging I'd done around the life of Winston Churchill - that irascible grandaddy of heroes.

In particular a sideswipe I'd made about his relationship to India was something I wanted to look more closely at, as it was only the basics of something much more complicated, so for this blog I decided to go back to it.

Quit India

India in the 1940s was in something of an uproar. Ghandi was a powerful man and his independence movement, backed by an influential local bourgeoisie, was gaining a great deal of ground across the subcontinent. There was huge anger over the decision of governor-general Lord Linlithgow to unilaterally declare India for the Allies and in July 1942, after failed negotiations with the British representatives, a declaration of independence backed by the threat of mass disobedience was launched.

There are conflicting reports of what happened next. To listen to Churchill's reports to parliament, it would sound like a violent rebellion with little mandate broke out featuring a tiny minority of the population which was "repressed and punished with incredibly small loss of life."

To hear other voices however, the British Raj had unleashed a wave of brutality at the very thought of independence, for which Churchill was ultimately responsible as Prime Minister. For Indian histories, the tale is one of overwhelmingly non-violent protests, strikes and processions organised mostly by students, which became violent only after days of beatings, mass arrests and sackings.

With the excuse of pacifying "violent rebels" the British and their allies rounded up and jailed over 100,000 people, with thousands facing torture and public floggings being implemented across the country against any hint of dissent, be it violent or not. Churchill himself noted that a "small loss" amounting to least 500 people killed in the wave of terror they unleashed - while non-British estimates put the death toll in the thousands.

A particularly interesting take on this debate comes from Clive Branson, a British soldier who served in India at the time. His 1942 reports on the repression and on the subsequent man-made famine which followed (I'll come to this in a moment) suggest Churchill's line that it was a small minority with no mandate being put down by a loyal majority was disingenuous to say the least:

Millions upon millions in this country live on the borderline of starvation always. Their poverty is too dreadful to describe.... Year after year of living underfed, appallingly housed (if one can use the word to describe a tent-like structure made of rags, bits of matting - floor space 4ft by 8ft and maximum height 5ft - in which a whole family shelters in monsoon, cold and heat, the smallest children without clothes at all) and gaining a livelihood by scavenging, doing a sweeper's work in the filthiest places, etc.

Such communities are to be found outside every village or town. In speaking of them, one is not speaking of the slum dwellers whose standard of living is 'higher'. Millions upon millions of poorest peasantry - ill-fed, uneducated, downtrodden - patiently accepting their hideous lives only because they cannot see any way out. This immense abuse of all human decency by our British imperialists - all this is taken by Halifax (British appeasement Foreign Minister-GB) to mean that there is 'popular support for our way of governing India.

Using the economic threat of destitution and keeping a reserve workforce of the desperate to intimidate everyone else into silence should be very familiar to us even here in Britain - it doesn't imply popular support for your cause. Yet Churchill twisted a situation which should have been the shame of parliament into a confirmation of its nobility.

Churchill's Ireland

And this method of control and humiliation through want took a far more sinister turn shortly after the rebellion. In 1943, India experienced the worst famine of modern history with between three and four million people dying, four times the number who perished in the Irish famine. But what made this unforgiveable, and turned Churchill into one of India's most despised figures, was that like the Irish famine of the 19th century, this was a deliberate, man-made event. It was described at the time as the Bengali Holocaust, and again, Clive Branson illustrates why:

The endless view of plains, crops and small stations turned almost suddenly into one long trail of starving people. Men, women, children, babies, looked up into the passing carriage in their last hope for food... When we stopped, children swarmed round the carriage windows, repeating, hopelessly, Bukshish, sahib, with the monotony of a damaged gramophone... I saw women, almost fleshless skeletons, their clothes grey with dust, not walking, but foot steadying foot, as though not knowing where they went. As we pulled towards Calcutta, little children naked, with inflated bellies stuck on stick-like legs held up empty tins towards us...

Because the British refused to ration or expropriate food for the masses, instead following an ideological commitment to free markets and taking large quantities of food away for British troops fighting the Japanese, a situation where there was just enough corn and just under enough rice turned into a nightmare, compounded by the Japanese capture of Burma admittedly, but also worsened by the deliberate stifling of British shipping in the region.

Churchill himself was directly involved in the denial of food shipments, berating the Indian population for "breeding like rabbits and being paid a million a day by us for doing nothing by us about the war." (an attitude which so disturbed Indian viceroys dependent on regional industry to supply their troops they quietly censored many of his comments). Even winstonchurchill.org, as biased a site as you're likely to find on the subject, notes:

"It is true that Churchill opposed diverting food supplies and transports from other theaters to India to cover the shortfall: this was wartime."

In fact, wartime was not the issue. Britain was still at war in April 1944 (when the famine had been officially declared over) when he wrote in a secret letter to Roosevelt asking for aid in shipping Australian grain to India saying: "I am no longer justified in not asking for your help." He wasn't indeed. Within the decade, popular fury would have ended British rule in the subcontinent.

None of this, incidentally, made it into Churchill's six-volume history of the Second World War which claimed, outrageously, that Britain had "carried Hindustan through the war on her shoulders."

But then, if you're writing the first draft of history with yourself as the hero, you can afford to leave some of your notes behind that bulging green curtain.

Pieces of skin trump pieces of paper

The invasion of Iraq was wrong, whether or not it was illegal. The fact that the UN refused to endorse the war with a second, clearer, resolution was an inconvenience to those who were determined to destroy the country and one they retrospectively decided was no barrier as the first resolution that they had previously thought inadequate did in fact give them carte blanche to obliterate hundreds of thousands of lives.

By refusing to pass the second resolution the UN made it clear they did not endorse the war that we all knew was, by this time, inevitable. However, even if they had passed that resolution it would not have made the suffering any the less acute, nor the injustice any less bald.

Tony Blair is giving evidence to the inquiry tomorrow (Friday) and the Stop the War Coalition is organising a welcome party for him starting at 8 am.

Assemble at:

Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre, Broad
Sanctuary, Westminster, London SW1P 3EE

Check out the website for their timetable of events although I'd recommend getting there early as the Metropolitan Police's idea of the right to peaceful protest and ours is not entirely contiguous.

Sadly this inquiry will bring no real reassessment of our foreign policy priorities from the government, opposition or the press, even as the Afghan 'President' cheerfully informs the world that he expects UK forces to stay in the country for another fifteen years.

This particular lie, that bit of spin, this specific distortion of the truth become the day to day fodder of a media that seems oblivious to the wider logic that set us on the course to war not on any given day but over decades. In my opinion we should be challenging the global imbalance of power and wealth in a system built on profit over need.

New airstrikes on Gaza

Today the Israeli state agreed to pay the UN $10 million compensation for damage done to its buildings during last year's bombardment of Gaza.

This time last year 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed in a remorseless attack which also left much infrastructure in ruins. The blockade of Gaza has been designed to immiserate the Palestinians in the area and prevent reconstruction.

Tonight Israel launched new strikes killing at least one person. So far we have three air strikes and two missile attacks on the area apparently in response to mortar attacks which were in response to an air strike which was, no doubt, in response to something else in this continuing cycle.

Haaretz also reports that thousands of leaflets were dropped on the area which "featured a map, and warns Gazans that anyone within 300 meters of the security fence is endangering himself."

These attacks coincide with rioting at the Egyptian border (pictured) over the aid convoy led by George Galloway hoping to break the blockade. These riots resulted in a number of injuries, the death of an Egyptian soldier and their eventual entry into Gaza. Green Party councillor Peter Offord is part of that convoy, and whilst he has been through the mill somewhat I believe he's currently alright.

Let's hope this is not the beginning a repeat of the horrors of last year.

Walter Mosley on Afghanistan

I was pleasantly surprised when listening to Radio Four last night to discover Walter Mosley was being interviewed on Front Row (16 mins in). Whilst I've not read everything he's ever written that's largely because he writes faster than I read and so it will take longer than forever for me to catch up.

Anyway, during the interview he mentioned that he was for the Afghan war. He thought that since Obama was elected "Now we're trying to change, we're trying to do the right thing." He conceded that Obama was upping the troops presence but he said he'd be willing to "go along with him" on that one.

I have to say I was shocked. Not that someone could say that, of course there are plenty of people in favour of an Afghan surge, but that this passionate critic of capitalism and imperialism was willing to "go along" with the war.

However, he introduced a condition. He'd only support it if "he institutes the draft." The draft would mean that "all Americans would have to go off to fight, not just the poor ones who have to join the Army."

The interviewer, knowing Mosley, was surprised and so Mosley explained;

"Look, if a country's going to go to war, a country should believe in that war... If [all the 18-27 year olds] are drafted and their parents are still okay with it and want them to go to war, you know the voters, then fine!...

I think that if middle class men and women have their daughters about to be trundled off the Afghanistan they're going to think two, three, four, five times, but they're not going to worry when some poor black, Mexican or white kid gets sent over."

I guess that's one way of getting your point across, although I still wish he'd warned, at my age any sudden surprises could be my last.

Blackwater disgrace

The unchecked and arbitrary power of the privatised mercenaries in Iraq received another boost today as the Blackwater soldiers who massacred seventeen Iraqis in 2007 will not stand trial. A US dismissed the charges against the men;

on the grounds that the five had had their constitutional rights violated by the way confession statements they had made had been used by the prosecution.

The statements were made when the men were under threat of losing their jobs if they did not cooperate with investigators. The US government had promised that their statements would not be used against them in a criminal case.

The Guardian describes the incident in this way;

The incident began when a heavily armed Blackwater convoy moved into a busy square in Baghdad, after breaking an order to stay in the US-controlled green zone of the city, prosecutors allege. The five were accused of opening fire with automatic weapons and grenade launchers on unarmed civilians, killing children, women and men attempting to flee in their cars. One victim was alleged to have been shot in the chest while standing with his hands in the air.

The men do not deny their role in the incident but claim they killed the men, women and children because they felt they were under enemy fire. I guess we'll never know.

What would an ethical foreign policy look like?

Robin Cook did us a favour when he came up with the phrase 'ethical foreign policy', even if he wasn't always able to live up to that exacting standard when foreign secretary.

It seemed to sum up for many of us what we wanted to see when it came to international relations. A step away from prioritising business interests and our relationships with more powerful nations and moving towards doing the right thing because it's right rather than the pragmatic thing that we're able to put a progressive spin to.

But, it seems to me, that there is no easy path to take when trying to decide what's a truly ethical foreign policy. It's worth grappling with some of the contradictions and problems in order to help clarify what it is we really want.

For example, we could take a completely non-interventionist position, as some nations do. That would mean we could keep our hands clean but at the cost of never acting to improve the world.

Would that policy extend to aid and trade relationships? Having worked in international development I know there are plenty of grey areas where you need to weigh up exactly whether the 'help' you are giving is really helpful, and where it is, to whom?

I take it as a given that military strikes and occupations of other people's countries would take no part in that policy, and arms sales would go too. However, should that be treated as a principle? The ability of the weak to be able to militarily defend themselves against the strong is not an irrelevance in many parts of the world, a genuinely pacifist foreign policy would certainly claim the moral high ground, which is quite a good spot to be able to see all the horror and murder going on in the rest of the globe.

Then again if we simply say that it's the way previous governments have used force and have been complicit in violence that has been the problem and we'd know better, wouldn't we be laying a trap for ourselves? Risking the slippery slope into liberal interventionism and before you know it we're propping up dictatorships to prevent civil wars or arming semi-democracies in the hope that they might see there way to cleaning up their act.

We can back pro-democracy movements, the fight for independent trade unions, women's liberation and a host of other life and death causes - and as a movement the left must be internationalist in its outlook. Does that mean we think the government should be shipping anti-aircraft missiles to the Kurds or printing presses to Zimbabwe's MDC?

The answer can be yes, but if it is we should carefully think about what the implications of such acts would be. Personally I don't have any bullets that I can spare to pop in a jiffy bag and send to a freedom fighter, even if I wanted to, but there are differences between our solidarity and demands as a political current in the UK and precisely what we'd see the government do if we had more influence with it.

Having said all that I don't want to imply everything is a grey area and, even if I accept sometimes bad things need to be done to produce a good result, I can't ignore that the means are things in themselves as well as the ends. The responsibility to choose ethical methods to achieve ethical outcomes is a heavy one.

There are no subtleties or up sides to nuclear explosions that can make owning weapons of genocide acceptable. Arming oppressive regimes to repress their own people in the name of our 'war on drugs' or 'war on terror' is not right no matter how you squint at it.

Lines exist, but even when they are blurred it doesn't mean not taking a position on what we want to see happen, only recognising the complexities on how we lend a helping hand - if at all.

Thoughts on the Christmas terror flight

Another quick catch up post really, but the attempted terrorist attack on an airliner on Christmas Day has attracted so much international press that it's difficult to ignore. However, my thoughts are mainly in a jumble about the whole thing so rather than take time might a cogent think piece I thought I'd make a list of 'things what occur to me'.

• Fail to blow up a plane, you get wall to wall coverage for your cause in every nation on Earth. Actually blow up dozens or even hundreds in Pakistan, Iraq or Afghanistan and you're lucky if you get into the inside pages once let alone over and over again. It's obviously news but the response feels disproportionate.
  
  
• What would the world be like if we rewarded non-violent protest with this kind of media coverage? Does the international media actually, inadvertently, make violence more attractive than democratic avenues? The media's approach is certainly what leads Al Quaida to see airplanes as their targets of choice over other possibilities.
  
  
• Despite protestations to the contrary the bomber's failure is down to security precautions working. The fact that he had to resort to complex equipment that let him down is entirely down to the fact he had to circumvent airport security checks. No system can prevent people who want to blow up planes trying to do so, but the current system did prevent the bomber using a weapon that would have actually achieved the job.
  
  
• The bomber's motivation was religious. Any involvement he'd ever had with any national liberation struggle (if any) came directly from his religious convictions he'd held from an early age. His prosperous upbringing insulated him from real hardship and allowed him travel and get a decent education - it's difficult to this young man as a victim driven to extremes rather than a zealot whose personal beliefs led him to the conclusion that the murder of many innocent people was a worthy act.
  
  
• Terror attacks equal excuses to bomb. This time the US have been given the green light to openly make attacks in Yemen for the first time. CNN, Guardian.
  
  
• Prior to this the US has been active in the Yemen and this has been a contributory factor in these events.
  
  
• These events have also raised, once again, the specter of torturing suspects. The Republicans don't even want to learn apparently. Guardian.
  

We Wee Where We Want

The student who had the poor judgement to get drunk and wee on a war memorial has been sentenced to 250 hours of community service - which is a lot.

If he'd had the good sense to go in a graveyard and pee on the gravestones out of sight like everyone else he'd have had no bother. However, is it just me or is this new?

I don't advocate the application of fresh urine to war memorials under any circumstances, my preference is for people to keep their bits and pieces tucked away in their pants, but in England I think it's fair to say it's common practice for drunk people to piss in public.

It's horrible and I don't like it, but it is pretty common place and you don't have the courts filled with these weak bladdered drunkards.

It feels like he's being made an example of, not least because he's being pilloried in the press, and I'm not sure I like it.

Afghan corruption is life and death

I've only just seen this but The Sunday Times had an in depth story by the exceptionally fine journalist Christina Lamb on Afghanistan. It includes revelations about the recent shooting of five British soldiers that made my blood run cold;

The 25-year-old, an unmarried man called Gulbuddin, was part of a 15-strong team that manned a police station in the Nad Ali district, in the heart of Helmand’s poppy-farming lands.

Embedded with the Afghan police were two trainers from the Royal Military Police and a protection force of 14 soldiers from Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, the Grenadier Guards.

The Taliban subsequently claimed Gulbuddin as one of theirs. Senior sources say local intelligence shows the claim is false, however. In addition, witnesses contacted by The Sunday Times say other factors lay behind the massacre.

According to two Afghans who knew him, Gulbuddin had complained of being brutally beaten, sodomised and sexually abused by a senior Afghan officer. A policeman named Ajmal, a friend of the gunman, said Gulbuddin had been constantly tortured. “He was being used for sexual purposes,” said Ajmal.

Another policeman, Kharullah, who was injured in the shooting, said: “Gulbuddin was beaten many times and that’s why he got angry. One day when he was patrolling with British soldiers, he swore he was going to kill him.”

When Gulbuddin opened fire with a machinegun, his target was his alleged abuser. According to the Afghan sources, the five British soldiers were killed simply because they were present and considered to be the man’s protectors.

The allied task to prop up this corrupt regime is not simply one where we are making the best out of a bad situation but one where we are actively protecting rapists, ballot-riggers and reactionaries.

Far from being killed by the Taliban it appears that these British servicemen were in fact killed by a police officer that we'd severely let down in the most horrendous way. I've no doubt that they did not deserve to be killed, just as Gulbuddin did not deserve to be raped and beaten by a superior officer protected by a ring of British bayonets.

Speaking on Question Time last week Sir Ian Blair had said the problem was that the police officers were being recruited "off the streets" (i.e. they come from Afghanistan) when in fact the main problem is that the regime the police serve is itself corrupt to the very top.

Report: Strong demo against the war

I attended the anti-war demonstration today in London calling on our government to withdraw the troops from Afghanistan.

It seemed well attended and lively, and although I don't really bother much with the speeches at the end, Green Party member Farid Bakht spoke very well from the platform I thought. I'm sure others spoke well too but I was off for a sit down and a natter with pals I hadn't seen for a while.

This report on Channel Four News is probably the best mainstream coverage I've seen of an anti-war demo to date and it shows how important it is to reach out to those serving in the armed forces as part of our struggle for a truly ethical foreign policy.

Red Letter Dai

It's always nice to get feedback and so when someone as prestigious as MP Dai Davis writes in to the Morning Star to agree with something I wrote there it warms the cockles of my heart. Here's my citation in full;

I agree with Jim Jepps (M Star October 13) that President Obama merited the Nobel peace prize.

I have submitted an early day motion in Parliament that warmly welcomes the award of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama.

It also welcomes his announcement on September 17 that the United States was cancelling the deployment of missile defence technology in Poland and the Czech Republic and the positive response from the government of the Russian Federation.

It also recognises the historic UN security council session that committed all member states to resolve to "seek a safer world for all and to create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons."

Dai Davies MP
House of Commons
Westminster

Thanks Dai.

One thing though, when I say things like "He did not deserve the prize... But we should not allow any cynicism at Obama's achievements to date to obscure the fact that the prize is being used to promote peace rather than reward it." It does tend to imply that I don't think he merited the award.

However, pedantry aside, the EDM is a good one (here) which does exactly what I'm advocating - using the Peace Prize to promote peace by holding Obama to its aspirations regardless of what we might think of his achievements to date.

What's even more interesting is the list of signatories so far. Anyone who can get Bob Spink (UKIP), Peter Bottomly (Tory) and Jeremy Corbyn (Labour) to put their names to the same document has some very special powers indeed. Kudos to Mr Davies and keep up the good work.

Daily Sport - what a stunna!

You may be aware of a publication called the Daily Sport. It's soft core porn in a newspaper format, for those who wish to pretend not to know. Anyhow, it's not a paper with much of a distinguished journalistic or campaigning history and is the kind of publication that those of us on the left eschew with distaste and alarm.

It's also the most 'read' paper by British soldiers posted abroad who find it's lack of in depth studies of Shakespearean theater and absence of exposés of the insurance industry refreshing after a hard day out on patrol, which makes the fact that the Sunday Sport has launched a Bring Our Boys Home Now! campaign absolutely outstanding.

The Sport hopes to collect 10,000 signatures on its petition for withdrawal from Afghanistan and they couch their explanation for the campaign in terms that are tailor made to appeal to squaddies. In other words they are reaching into places that anti-war activists could never hope to reach and on a scale that it would be impossible to emulate.

Would it not be churlish to refuse to support this worthy campaign?

Of course, I'm not expecting to see them follow this campaign with one against the objectification of women but well done all the same. I wonder if we'll see the editor invited to the next Stop the War Coalition AGM?