Labour realising its mistakes over Iraq?
David Miliband’s speech today at the Labour party conference is perhaps the biggest indication that not only has the Labour party indeed learned from the fiasco that was the invasion of Iraq, but they need a different strategy for the future. Tying yourself down with idiotic American presidents who know little about foreign affairs is apparently not the best way forward.
He said a decade of “good intentions” and trying to extend western values of freedom and democracy to other countries had led many in the Muslim world to believe “we’re seeking not to empower them but to dominate them.”“The lesson is that it’s not good enough to have good intentions,” he said.
No kidding!
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Filed in: Current affairs, Middle East
too little, too late.
Good intentions? Jesus…
Yeah,right. Sorry about the war. There wouldn’t be an election in the air by any chance? I’ve never witnessed hypocrisy on this level in my life. At least Bush believes his own delusions.
Yes we should have listened to our civl service and we all know Brown’s record on that. Piss poor .Look at the warnings they gave him on tax credits his own personal ineffective expensive catastrophically delivered screw up. We have had the same problem for ten years in which brown was at least as powerful as Blair and it will continue . England is sleepwalking into the end of days and I do not believe they will not come to their senses. They must
Roger Scruton of the Apocalypse.
Newmania,
“They must”
To be continued…..
David Milliband is my favourite UK politician. He gave as good as he got on Newsnight tonight.
…still, words are all we have right now, not action.
I am reminded of that wise quip by famous political commentator, Ronan Keating: ‘they’re only words, and words are all I have…’
It would have been nice to see Miliband actually discuss Iraq instead of giving it a passing mention. Let’s not forget that invading Iraq was the greatest mistake in global politics for years.
http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com/2007/09/26/the-sheer-nerve/
F**k him and his intentions I say. Assholes need to backpedal now and look like they actually give a damn about Iraq. The damage is done, the private corporations have their oil, the military ones their juicy weapons contracts, and Israel has another reason to try and assert itself as the only regional power. What the hell is this guy trying to say? Lets talk about reparations and war crimes, then we’re getting somewhere.
I kind of agree with Random Guy – I suppose Milliband would say the lesson to Mugabe is that it is not enough to have good intentions, that efforts to reverse imperialism are perceived by many in Zimbabwe to impoverish and dominate them rather than liberate them from colonialism.
The lesson to Putin is that efforts to maintain the rule of law are perceived by many in Chechnya and the Muslim world as trying to subjugate and control rather than empower them.
The lesson to the Chinese Government is that efforts to develop and protect Tibet is perceived by misguided others as oppression and exploitation rather than liberation from theocratic feudalism.
Will Milliband end up saying Saddam Hussein was only trying to keep genocidal sectarian communities from unleashing violence on each other, and somehow people misconstrued this as a ruthless attempt to perpetuate his own power and political privileges for his own?
What is a well-meaning guy to do?
There is a genuine case to be made for people’s good intentions, but I would take it more seriously now if there were something like a genuine attempt at reparations when a mistake is recognised, or at least extending the same theory of good intentions to others.