The “left” also wants a critical relationship with political agents, because it is always questioning who the victim is and who the victimiser – and it seems that the victimiser in one context is the victim in another. And then the lefties fight it out about who is siding with which oppressor for what sly motives. In a way this is a healthy argument, but the level of hostility it generates gets out of proportion.

My view is that we are all sensitive to different forms of oppression and domination, and that the fact that some are more traumatised and fearful about Imperialism and others by Fascism does not mean we should be at each others’ throats. I am happy to have a left able to engage with anti-fascists and anti-imperialists alike, and work with their allies to broaden everyone’s sensitivity to different forms of oppression.

If the left becomes dominated by self-righteous condemnation of anyone with different sensitivities, then it’s sad, but maybe it can help them understand the mindset of the Takfiri Muslims they are most afraid of.

In addition to that, I supported the Afghanistan attacks because I felt the ascendancy of the Taliban was fundamentally destabilising for the whole of South Asia, and might lead to an escalation between Pakistan and India. So I also took that into account. Iraq on the other hand was going to make everyone more insecure – as inevitably happened.

What Ravi is talking about is a thing called R2P – Responsibility to Protect, which, I think was and is a good Liberal doctrine. It has been treated like a pariah since Iraq. Because it’s clothes were stolen by neo-cons and lies were told in its name.

It is an incredibly hard sell these days. Both to governments and peoples.

So the intervention in Balkans would have been wrong? I always felt that there should have been some kind of intervention would have been needed and appropriate in Rwanda and Sudan (there is some but far too little).

Shamit, it is good not to conflate things. I think most progressives would support military intervention in places where there are humanitarian crisis – Balkans, Rwanda and Sudan. Most moderates supported the Afghan War because of Al Qaeda attacks.

Iraq is a completely different matter. The cause of war was formulated in 2003: Iraq had WMDs, and Iraq had something to do with 9/11.

Sunny

I think the analogy is probably not very accurate — I don’t see the coalition forces in the same light as the British Raj. But even if I agree with your argument, by your logic–intervening in Afghanistan is wrong as it would be in Pakistan.

So the intervention in Balkans would have been wrong?

I always felt that there should have been some kind of intervention would have been needed and appropriate in Rwanda and Sudan (there is some but far too little).

It is not only the Blair doctrine but also the pope and the Secretary General of the UN have argued for humanitarian intervention.

I rest my case

And as for likening my position to Archbishop Cranmer? You’re in danger of losing the plot entirely.

Right – so I’m assuming you’ll disagree with David T’s decision to want to ban all these Islamist nutters coming into the country, and Geert Wilders etc?

Anyway, you’re backing away from your original position – which was stupid to start with. It’s the kind of crap that bigot Archbishop Cranmer comes out with: ‘we shouldn’t let these Muslims build mosques because Middle Eastern countries don’t allow churches’.

Exactly. The curtailment of free speech in the UK is very much in wingnut-land at the moment. And it is the laws which have been introduced to support this curtailment that is being used to abuse the civil liberties, not to mention freedom of speech or to publish offensive thoughts, of the very people they were introduced to protect.

“Let us make Jihad
Move to the front line
To chop chop head of kuffar swine”

“Must a man stand by what he writes
As he stands by his camp-bed or his weaponry
Or shell-shocked comrades as they sag and cry?”
asked Geoffrey Hill in The Mystery of the Charity of Charles Péguy . On the other side:
“Did that play of mine send out
Certain men the English shot?”
Yeats said.
Is a poet less reprehensible because they only commit the tongue’s atrocities or more so because they inspire others to kill? Is the only justification for the lyrical terrorist’spoems the fact that they were so bad they could not inspire what she aspired to?

No doubt that is true. Now all we need to do is agree on whether:

1. they were idiots who said nonsense no-one could possibly take seriously.
2. their position was so self-evidently true no-one could possibly take seriously anyone who disagreed with it.

In the 90s the progressive politics of choosing what is right rather than what does my ideology tell me did deliver goods.

Can you give an example of this? Not sure what aspects of the progressive ideology can be abdicated in order to do what is “right”.

And if it makes you happy I am willing to retract that particular bit. But please tell me how could Iraq now be a beacon of hope if the cause of the war was wrong. But lets not revisit arguments which we have many times agreed to disagree upon. I think we share similar ideals and so why not just agree to disagree on this Iraq war issue.

Shamit – there is no doubt that the Iraq War was wrong, and I haven’t heard Obama say otherwise. But I do not think it is fair to castigate a commander-in-chief for being optimistic about the future of the region, and bringing up the moral of the soldiers and their families – specially considering that they are going to be stationed in Iraq for another year, and some will definitely die. Saying that their lives and efforts are meaningless, or not acknowledging their efforts when he goes to visit them, seems cruel to me.

Although I haven’t read What’s Left, from what I have heard about it leads me to agree with Sunny; namely about the book tarring far too many lefties with the SWP/Respect brush.

From here. Interpretation are welcome:

Let us make Jihad
Move to the front line
To chop chop head of kuffar swine

Secondly, it’s still a facile argument because I’m not trying to bring our human rights down to a level that HuT find appropriate – I have my own standards…

I suspect your standards are in keeping with universalist values. And as long as they are, we should be fine.

Well, let’s put it this way. India is now a democracy. Do you then think the British Raj was a good and necessary ‘intervention’?

I think we’re detracting from the main points (thanks Ravi and Shariq) – which is that:

1) The Red / Green alliance wasn’t created because the Reds wanted religion, but because they saw themselves as choosing the lesser of two evils (which is the same strategy as those who put in their lot with GW Bush) – and because it was naked political opportunism.

2) That most of the people who came to the Iraq war march weren’t there to support the SWP or the MAB, but to protest against the war. The two are not the same.

3) That lefties have made other alliance with religious people (evangelical black Christians in London, Hispanics in the US) for specific political goals (minimum wage campaign, immigration reform respectively).

4) That whatever Cohen’s point was back in 2003 is now redundant since the collapse of the Respect party.

He has now become a narrative looking for the culprit, and failing miserably.

In the 90s the progressive politics of choosing what is right rather than what does my ideology tell me did deliver goods.

So lets focus on what is right –rather than what fits my ideology best.

And if it makes you happy I am willing to retract that particular bit. But please tell me how could Iraq now be a beacon of hope if the cause of the war was wrong. But lets not revisit arguments which we have many times agreed to disagree upon. I think we share similar ideals and so why not just agree to disagree on this Iraq war issue.

I see where you are coming from, but a caveat. That movement c2003 had a religious element enough to get the whole march renamed from StW to StW/FFP with all the connotations that brings to mind. StW/FFP is not the 1980s peace movement (and for peace moevment read CND). StW/FFP is not fit to lick the boots of CND 1983 vintage.

Sure, the war in queation may have been the Iraq war, but there was far more under the surface and to simply disregard that is short-sighted. Cohen at least looked at the whole.

Pro-war lefties or pro Iraq war lefties — interesting? Because I think most in the centre left support the Afghan strategy especially since Obama said so.

Oh please. The Afghan War started after 9/11, and very few objected – certainly not the moderate Left. Bush had 90% of support, and Obama was virtually unknown at that time – so your “especially since Obama said so” strikes me as disingenuous.

When people talk about “anti-War” movement, they talk specifically about the Iraq War.