Nuance is sometimes a way of avoiding hard facts

Tweet

 

When the statue of slave trader Edward Colston was toppled in Bristol a few years ago, reactions were mixed, to say the least. In general terms, views fell into two main camps: those who felt that we should not be celebrating the lives of those who were responsible for a cruel and despicable trade and those who felt that, like him or loathe him, he was a part of history which should not be, to use one of their current favourite words, ‘cancelled’. The compromise, ultimately, was to place the statue in a museum with an appropriate explanation of his role in the past. It’s a nuanced response, which attempts to placate both sides in the debate about statues. It does little, however, to resolve the underlying debate about what history is and whether – and to what extent – we should feel ‘proud’ of it.

No such nuance was observed when it came to the toppling of statues of Lenin or Stalin in the former Soviet Union and its satellites, nor in the case of the toppling of statues of Hussain in Iraq or, this week, those of Assad in Syria. I don’t recall any great outpouring of outrage about the rewriting of history or about the attempts at ‘cancelling’ the role of dictators in the history of those countries, only pleasure at their fall.

That underlines the hypocrisy and deceit at the heart of the arguments of those in the UK who oppose the removal of statues and symbols of those whom history no longer treats so kindly as attitudes and values change. It isn’t just about slavery, it’s about imperialism, colonialism and militarism, with all of which slavery was inextricably bound up. Those who opposed the removal of the statue of Colston and other such statues are actually proud (and believe the rest of us should be too) of Britain’s imperial, colonial, and militaristic past, and it is that – rather than the celebration of slavery – which they don’t want to see ‘cancelled’ or revised. Most of them (but I’m not convinced that this is true of all of them) might see slavery as something of a blot on that history, which is why they want to divert attention to Britain’s role in the abolition of slavery rather than dwelling on its role in creating the trade, but they are unable or unwilling to accept or understand that slavery was actually a key element in the accumulation of wealth from colonial activities. What Colston was actually being celebrated for was what he did with the wealth which he brought back to Britain, as though the means by which he acquired that wealth is somehow irrelevant or unimportant.

Syrians cannot change the history of their country; the Assad dictatorship is something which will always be taught in their schools. But knowing history, understanding history, interpreting history – these are not the same as celebrating history. Those who tore down statues implicitly understand that better than most, even if it was not the uppermost thought in their minds at the time. There’s no nuance around the idea that ‘he did some good things as well’. It’s an attitude from which we can learn something ourselves.

The enemy's enemy isn't always a friend

Tweet

 

The UK’s Prime Minister has taken time out of his busy schedule appeasing a brutal dictator who has his opponents killed and chopped up, and whose regime treats women as second class citizens and executes those who protest against his rule, in order to welcome the fall of a brutal dictator in another country in the neighbourhood. It’s almost as though what matters is not how brutal and barbaric a dictator is, but whether or not he has money available to be laundered by being invested in the UK.

In his rush to celebrate the end of one dictatorship (aided and abetted by his deputy back home) in the middle of a visit to another, the question which he doesn’t seem to be asking is whether, and to what extent, whatever replaces Assad will be any better. If their concern is really, as Rayner put it, ‘the protection of civilians’, the signs are not good. Whilst there might be at least some hope of a more enlightened approach from the Kurdish authorities who control a large chunk of Syria, it’s more than probable that the rather more ruthless rebels who have taken over the rest of the country – aided and abetted by NATO member Türkiye – will merely refocus the civil war along the lines of control between the disparate rebel groups, with the Kurds as a particular target. And within the areas that some of those groups control, the outlook for women and minority groups may end up being even more repressive than what went before.

Our enemy’s enemy isn’t always our friend, and the replacement of one brutal regime by another may not look like such a blessing to those who suffer its excesses. Still, if they can find some money to invest in the UK, Starmer and the rest of the UK government may yet end up appeasing them too.

How does bombing help?

Tweet

I can understand why Tory MPs keen for the UK to further ramp up the pending conflict with Russia are ready to misrepresent the facts, but there is really no excuse for the media to be doing the same thing.  Suggesting that the OPCW have ‘backed the UK’ over the Salisbury poisoning is at best going beyond the available facts, and at worst a deliberate misrepresentation.  All the OPCW have actually done is to confirm that the UK had correctly identified the chemical formula of the substance used, as Craig Murray has succinctly pointed out.  And unless one chooses to believe the wilder conspiracy theories suggesting that there never was an attack, it was always close to certain that the chemical analysis would be confirmed. 

That tells us nothing, though, about who actually made it or deployed it, and it was never going to answer those questions.  The answers to those questions depend on the continuing investigations by the police and other agencies, and the government issuing both verdict and sentence in advance doesn’t change that.  Personally, I tend to the view that the most obvious explanation is likely to be the correct one; I just don’t think that ‘likeliest’ is good enough to start punishing the supposed perpetrator.  Having motive, method, and opportunity (as the Foreign Secretary has put it) isn’t the same as proving guilt - especially if you can’t demonstrate that no-one else had all three.

I have a similar position on the chemical attack in Syria, in that I suspect that the likeliest explanation is the most obvious one, but again, I don’t think that ‘likeliest’ is good enough to start dishing out the punishment, particularly when the individuals likely to be executed in the process are neither those who used the weapons nor those who ordered their use, merely those who happen to be in the vicinity of the chosen targets.  Killing a random group of military personal and/or civilians is a very odd definition of ‘holding Assad to account’.

I understand the frustration of those who feel powerless in the face of the tragedy of Syria, and I agree with those who argue that non-intervention has a price as well as intervention.  And of course it’s true that allowing people to get away with the use of chemical weapons once will encourage them to do it again.  But the argument which takes us from those statements to ‘we must bomb Syrian military forces or facilities’ is lacking in logic or reason, and simply attacking anyone who questions that as being unpatriotic and a supporter of Russia is a puerile and unworthy debating tactic.  

What those people calling for military action against Assad need to demonstrate is how such action would make the situation better not worse for the people of Syria and how it would shorten rather than prolong the war.  To date, they have not only failed to do so, they don’t even seem to be trying.

Don't just do something

Tweet

Whether chemical weapons were or were not used in Syria, and who was responsible if they were, are questions to which the answers, at present, are far from being as certain as the Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister are asserting.  They, of course, believe that they are uniquely placed to judge guilt or innocence without needing firm evidence, as we've seen on other issues recently.  But one doesn’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to wonder why the Syrian regime would choose to risk international outrage and potential further military action against itself by using such weapons in a battle which it is on the point of winning in any event, even if the war still seems to be far from over.  I can accept as a fact that dictators are not necessarily bound by any considerations of logic, but that, like much of what the UK and US governments are saying, is not enough to pronounce Assad guilty.   

But let us suppose that the simplest explanation of the facts that are known is also the correct one, and that Assad did order the use of some sort of chemical weapons against civilians in a rebel-held area, what should the response be?  The outrage against the use of banned weapons is justifiable, although I note in passing that I struggle to understand why the method of inflicting death and injury is considered more important that the fact of inflicting them.  My support for banning certain types of weapons has always been based on such bans being a step along the road to ending war, not as a means of legitimising non-banned forms of warfare, which is how governments seem to interpret it.  Civilians killed by high explosives are no less dead than those killed by gas, and the tragedy of what is happening in Syria is by no means contingent on the methods being used.

It seems likely that the madman in the White House will respond by launching a further military strike against some target or other in Syria, and apparently the UK government is seriously considering taking part in any such action.  But what exactly would adding further to the toll of death and destruction in Syria (which is the inevitable outcome) actually achieve?  The Prime Minister said that her aim is “…to ensure those responsible are held to account”, which sounds strong and resolute, but it's just a meaningless form of words.  The likely target of any strike is an airfield or military base somewhere in Syria (preferably where there are no Russians who might become victims of such a strike), but that is more to do with killing a few government soldiers or airmen selected at random than with holding anyone to account.  It assumes, seen from the perspective of those claiming that Assad has authorised the use of banned weapons, that killing a few random members of his armed forces will punish a ruthless dictator to such an extent that he will mend his ways and never do it again.  That seems unlikely to me, to say the least.

I understand and share the frustration of the leaders of countries across the world at their apparent inability to bring the war in Syria to a negotiated end.  But negotiated end there will have to be, eventually.  In the meantime, the very least we should be doing is avoiding making a bad situation worse.  Dropping more bombs on a country which is already being bombed by half a dozen air forces from around the world because we ‘have to do something’ and that’s all we can think of doesn’t look to me like the best way of helping the Syrian people, even if it didn’t run a serious risk of escalating the conflict.

Frustration isn't justification

Tweet

One of the results of the cynical manipulation of truth and fact by successive governments is that it becomes harder to trust anything they say subsequently.  So, whilst I’m inclined to believe that the deaths and injuries caused by chemical weapons in Syria last week were the result of the intentional use of those weapons by the Syrian government forces, I don’t feel able to rule out entirely the possibility that the Russians and Syrians might be telling the truth when they say that it was actually the result of an attack on a weapons store.  Perhaps those governments supporting the US missile strikes in response have more substantive evidence than they’ve released to date; perhaps not.  But two aspects of the response leave me with an uneasy feeling, even accepting that events were as they have been presented.

The first is whether the response was the right one.  I understand the frustration of external parties who see chemical weapons being used in direct breach of international treaties and agreements and want to stop it happening again.  But taking unilateral military action against another country is also contrary to international law.  And it can’t turn the clock back; it can’t change what happened.  The justification for it can only be based on an assumption that it will in some way prevent a repetition; otherwise it’s doing ‘something’ because that is all that can be done.  Will it deter Assad?  I don’t know – and neither does anyone else.  What we do now know is that it ramps up the possibility of direct military confrontation between the two most heavily-armed states in the world; and that’s never a particularly brilliant idea.

The second response is to question the underlying moralising of those involved.  Which is the more important fact in Syria today – that adults and children alike are being maimed and killed on a daily basis, or that some of them are being killed by a particularly nasty form of weaponry?  The response to the use of chemical weapons seems to be suggesting that the latter is the more important; or to put it another way, the method used to kill and injure is more important than the fact of the killing and injuring.  What is the message delivered to Assad by the missile strike – that he can carry on bombing and shooting but must not use chemicals?  That may not be the intention of the message, but it looks like the probable effect.

I don’t have a simple and ready answer to the conflict in Syria; but then that hardly makes me unique.  I’m certain, though, that there will eventually have to be a negotiated peace; there invariably is.  All those involved know that as well, but they’re carrying on with the killing in order to try and put themselves in the best position before they start talking seriously.  The question our government should be asking is not “what does Trump want us to say?” but “does adding to the killing and destruction help move us towards peace?”  Mere frustration at not being able to do anything else isn’t enough to justify adding to the destruction.  And it will never be enough.

How badly do we want to change?

Tweet

George Osborne’s speech in parliament yesterday has been widely reported.  And in saying that the UK should have done more to prevent the unfolding tragedy in Aleppo, I’m sure that he’ll have struck a chord with many.  He’s far from being alone in feeling frustration at what has been happening over the months and years, as well as anger and sorrow over the loss of life.

I’m not sure though that he’s offered much of an alternative.  As I understand what he’s saying, it is that lives are being lost as a result of the bombing and fighting now because the UK decided not to bomb the other side three years ago.  Now it is, of course, possible that the total number of people killed might have been lower had the UK decided to start bombing Assad’s forces (although it’s not certain – it could, on the other hand, have led to a more direct clash between Russia and the west, with even more far-reaching consequences). 

It’s certainly true that it would have been different people being killed.  However, the argument that fewer people would have been killed in total if only we’d killed different people earlier isn’t one which is going to convince any of those of us who were opposed to UK military intervention.  It’s akin to comparing two piles of bodies, and deciding that what’s ‘right’ is whatever produces the smaller pile; it reduces casualties to numbers rather than seeing them as people.

But I’m equally uncomfortable with the idea that the rest of the world should, in situations like this, stand aside and let events take their course until one side or the other emerges ‘victorious’ over the piles of rubble and human bodies.  I wish that those of us who reject the simplistic proposition of military intervention from outside could propose an equally simplistic solution which did not involve inflicting more death and destruction on a country.  The immediate problem is that there are no easy, simple, short term solutions; peace is an elusive thing which needs a great deal of human endeavour to bring about.  The bigger problem is that current international agreements and institutions barely scratch the surface of what is required. 

There are places we could start, however.  Controlling and reducing the trading and manufacture of armaments would be one good step to take; rejecting the concept of unilateral intervention in the affairs of another country would be another.  Both of those require a strengthening of international institutions, particularly the UN.  But all of those things are tackling the symptoms rather than the underlying causes, which are about power, and control of resources, and the real, or merely perceived, differences between the earth’s tribes. 

In an age where there seems to be an increasing tendency to split humanity into ‘us’ and ‘them’ rather than building an understanding that we have a shared existence on one small and fragile planet, I’m pessimistic for the future.  On this issue, as on so many others, it seems that most of humanity is currently determined to advance its own interests at the expense of those of others.  I still believe that things can be different; but presently, there just aren’t enough of us who want them to be.

What's in a word

Tweet

To listen to UK Ministers, one would believe that only Russians kill civilians in Syria, ‘we’ only kill ‘terrorists’.  It’s not credible; there can never be any guarantee that anyone dropping a bomb from the air will only kill those it deems combatants.  But there was another thing that struck me about what Michael Fallon said yesterday as well.  He said that whilst the UK, US etc. are bombing ‘terrorists’, Russia is bombing ‘legitimate opposition forces’.  I’m sure that’s a distinction which will be of great comfort to those being killed by both groups.

It brought to mind the way in which words regularly change their meaning.  It’s a natural attribute of any language, but changing meanings and different interpretations don’t always help rational debate, particularly when those involved in the debate stretch words to mean whatever they want them to mean.  ‘Terrorism’ is a case in point.

As I understand it, the word originated in France as terrorisme to describe the reign of terror during the French revolution.  It referred specifically to actions being taken by the state against its citizens – almost completely the reverse of the way in which it is generally used today.  In the mouths of politicians, it has become a catch-all for anyone using violence in pursuit of political objectives, excluding, of course, those who are seen as friends, and those who use violence as a means of promoting ‘acceptable’ objectives.  As a result, some people can be ‘terrorists’ today, ‘resistance fighters’ tomorrow, and ‘friendly allied governments’ the day after, whilst continuing to do the same things in the same way.  Or all three of those things, depending on who’s describing them.

It’s not only singularly unhelpful as a word when used like that, it’s also a cop-out to avoid debating, or even considering, the underlying causes and issues. But they have to be considered sometime; responding to violence with violence kills individuals but doesn’t kill grievances or beliefs.  On the contrary, it often reinforces them.

The UK has managed to get itself involved in yet another war in the Middle East, and looks likely to be dragged further in; and as is their wont, the politicians have described it as being part of the ‘war on terror’.  IS, or whatever they’re calling themselves today, are a pretty nasty and unpleasant bunch of people.  And the way they administer the territory that the have captured is closer to the original use of the word terrorisme than most of what we’ve seen from many groups to which the term has been applied. 

But I’m simply not convinced that bombing them is a path likely to meet with success in the long term.  We’re sending aircraft to bomb them largely because we have to be seen to be doing something, and this is something that we can do.  But being ‘something that we can do’ is not the same as being ‘something which will make a difference for the long term’.

Throughout human history, one of the hardest forces to tackle has been force based on an absolute religious belief.  The perspective that God demands that we submit to his will, and if anyone refuses, then they must either be forced to submit or be killed is a strange one to most of us today, even if it really isn’t that much different from the perspective of some Christian armies in the past, or that of the Inquisition.  To us, it looks dated and medieval, of course; but that’s a matter of context, not of nature.

The key point is that it isn’t a perspective which can simply be defeated by force.  It's an absolutist idea which needs to be tackled and subdued, but history indicates that we’re more likely to be successful in doing that through trade, education and negotiation.  It’s not often that I find myself half wishing that I was wrong; that a bombing campaign which kills a few thousand now will achieve its aim and avoid the deaths of many, many more later.  Such a belief would be easier in some ways than standing back and saying ‘truthfully, we can’t sort this quickly’ which I guess is why so many have adopted it.  But I can see no successful precedent for such a belief.  And nor could I bring myself to weigh human lives against each other in such a callous fashion - although that's something which seems to come very easily to governments.

Wars can certainly be ‘won’ in the short term.  But time and again history teaches us – even if we rarely learn from it – that the ‘solution’ to one conflict is often part of the cause of the next.  Fundamentalist beliefs cannot be killed by killing those who hold them – even if they could be identified, and even if the thousands of innocents killed in the process were deemed a price worth paying.  Ideas can only be defeated by other, better ideas.  Ignoring that simple reality has already cost the world far too many lives; failure to act on it is costing more on a daily basis.

Jobs for life

Tweet I have only limited sympathy for those poor Labour MPs who are being castigated for voting in favour of dropping bombs in Iraq.  Some of the threats and language contained in the messages were clearly unacceptable and have no place in rational political discourse; my sympathy is limited solely to those receiving those particular comments.

But much of what some of the MPs seem to be complaining about doesn’t look much different from the normal cajoling, threats and blackmail which are the stock-in-trade of the Whips’ Offices; and it looks as though some of the more delicate souls amongst them are really complaining more about the source of the responses than about their content.  How dare ordinary party members – let alone the voting public – threaten not to vote for MPs just because they disagree with them?

But why on earth shouldn’t members of any party, who have selected a candidate for election and then canvassed and leafletted on his or her behalf, have an absolute right to withdraw their support and demand an opportunity to select a candidate more in tune with their own views?  The concept of deselection or reselection of MPs is being treated as though it is utterly outrageous, and the MPs concerned sound as though they believe that they should have a job for life, regardless of what they do or say.  Why?  What gives them that right?  The very fact that they think they should have such a right underlines how far the Labour Party has drifted from being the property of its members.

Control of territory doesn't defeat an idea

Tweet Last week, the First Minister treated us to his views on the question of bombing Syria.  The first point he made – that there is no possibility of negotiation with ISIS - was entirely sound.  At the heart of their worldview is the certainty that they know what God’s will is, and that God wants them to impose his will on others.  It’s hard to see how there can be any scope for negotiating with divine will.

Carwyn Jones also called for a ‘plan’ for dealing with ISIS as a context for deciding on what if any military action should be taken.  Again, I entirely agree with that view.  A major part of the problems which the world faces in Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan is that military intervention took place without any sort of a plan for the longer term. 

He didn’t tell us, though, what such a plan might look like.  In fairness, I can’t really blame him.  Although I’m equally certain that we need a plan, I don’t know what it might look like either.  But those of us who want a plan but won’t have much idea of what such a plan might be are far from being alone in the world.  The bigger problem is not that no-one really has a plan or knows where to start; it is that some people pretend they have a plan without being able to articulate it, whilst yet others, faced with the frustration of not knowing what to do simply fall back on military action as the ‘solution’.

For what it’s worth, I don’t actually doubt the sincerity of those arguing for a bombing campaign to attack ISIS in Syria as well as in Libya.  What I do doubt is the efficacy of that as an approach.  It seems to conflate military ‘victory’ with winning a war against an ideology.  There is no question in my mind that bombing ISIS can and will degrade their military capability on the ground; there is evidence already that the bombing campaign has helped the non-ISIS groups engaged in the war on the ground to regain territory.  But the battle isn’t really about territory at all.

A former director of the CIA was quoted in the Sunday Times as saying that “Their claim is that they are acting out the will of God … and nothing cuts against that narrative more than defeating them.”  I’m not sure that that actually displays very much understanding of the mindset behind ISIS, and without understanding their perspective rather better than that, progress is likely to be limited.  From their perspective, it isn’t a “claim”; they have an absolutely certain knowledge that they are implementing God’s will.  And from that perspective, military losses and setbacks are more likely to be interpreted as God testing their resolve than as a sign that they might be in any way misinterpreting God's will.

Yesterday, Cameron referred to ISIS as a ‘death cult’; others have talked about an ‘ideology of hate’ and used various other similar phrases.  It might be good for sound bites, but none of this shows any understanding of just how different a worldview we are dealing with.  Name-calling may help to justify sending in the bombers, but it doesn’t do much as a way of countering the ideology.

Over the last week, far too many politicians trying to appear responsible have said that they will “listen to” what Cameron has to say before deciding whether they will support a bombing campaign or not.  To an extent, that serves to legitimise the principle; the decision on whether to bomb or not becomes merely a matter of considering the detail.  No matter how careful or precise any campaign of bombing is, there will inevitably be civilian casualties.  And although the ideology which is the target will end up controlling less territory, it will probably emerge with a strengthened resolve and a more diffuse and even harder-to-tackle structure.  Not for the first time, we will end up failing to learn the lesson that the use of military might against an idea never really resolves anything in the long term.

Fighting fire with fire rarely works

Tweet The gulf between recognising that there is a problem and finding the ‘solution’, can often be immense, and it’s unrealistic to believe that every problem even has a solution.  In the world of politics, though, politicians feel a requirement upon them to claim that there is a solution, that they know what it is, and that they must express such claims with as much sincerity as they can muster.

It’s in that light that I attempt to interpret what Cameron said yesterday about the danger which ISIS represents, and the ‘solutions’ which he proposed.

He talked about the need to ‘enforce’ British values.  I’m far from convinced that I know what these ‘British values’ are, let alone what makes them uniquely British.  But insofar as I have any concept of what those values might be, I’m pretty sure that ‘enforcing’ a set of beliefs and values on others isn’t amongst them.  Indeed, I would have thought that that was more the speciality of ISIS and similar groups.

He also justified his desire to bomb targets in Syria on the basis that ISIS don’t respect borders.  But most borders are where they are – in often arbitrary places – as a result of past wars and/or settlements of past disputes.  ISIS, in that sense are ‘merely’ tearing up past settlements and creating a new state by use of force.  That’s exactly what other military campaigns have done over the centuries – and the UK traditionally has a lengthy, and not exactly honourable, record of doing just that.

Cameron continually talks about ‘the true meaning of Islam’, claiming that those who don’t share a more mainstream interpretation are somehow not true to the religion.  This one simply doesn’t seem to stand up to any scrutiny.  Within any religion, there are always different interpretations of the ‘true’ meaning, and the adherents of each will always believe that their interpretation is the only really ‘true’ one.  And the problem with this sort of ‘truth’ is that it cannot be determined by majority vote.  For those who hold a particular viewpoint, their ‘truth’ is absolute.

The ‘truth’ which drives ISIS and similar groups seems to me to be simply this – “we know what god’s laws are, it is god’s will that we all obey those laws, and we are imposing god’s will”.  It’s so far away from modern Christian interpretations (although not so far away from those of the relatively recent past), let alone the secular viewpoint of an increasing number of us, as to be almost incomprehensible in a western context, but for those who hold that view it’s so obvious as to need no further explanation.

And that brings me to my biggest issue with what Cameron is saying and doing.  However strange and alien some ideas may seem, bombs and bullets cannot change them, let alone kill them.  They can kill some of the people who hold those ideas, certainly.  But they are unlikely to kill them all, even if that were to be the aim.  There is a real danger that they actually have the opposite effect, and simply encourage more people to hold those ideas.  And one of the few certainties is that they will kill many innocents along the way.

I fully accept what Cameron and others are saying, in that armed groups of fundamentalists ranging across the world using extreme and often barbaric violence to impose their world view is a danger which needs to be countered somehow.  And I won’t pretend for a moment that I know with any certainty how to counter that threat.  But I just don’t believe that more bombing and destruction carried out in the name of all of us, simply because our leaders don’t know what else to do, is much of an answer to anything.

Was he right or was he wrong?

Tweet Members of the Labour Party haven’t exactly been rushing to agree with Blair following his comments about the situation in Iraq this week.  And I can imagine that Miliband and chums aren’t exactly best-pleased to hear a voice from the past resurrecting a ghost that they have been trying to lay to rest.

In essence, Blair’s claim, which has astonished many (to put it mildly) is that the latest events in Iraq are in no way a consequence of the war which on which he and Bush so enthusiastically embarked, and that the situation would have been even worse had they not taken the action which they took.  He’s also calling for more resolute action now (a curious position for a ‘peace envoy’ to take, but let’s leave that to one side).

I suspect that history will ultimately judge Blair to have been wrong, even over the long term, but in truth, none of us can know for certain.  The point is that we can never run history twice to see what would have happened if different decisions had been taken.  If the latest events demonstrate anything, it is surely that the whole situation is far more complicated than most of us realise, and it’s extremely difficult to decide who are the good guys deserving of support and who are the bad guys needing to be dealt with.  Indeed, it’s increasingly the case that yesterday’s bad guys are becoming today’s good guys (or perhaps ‘not-so-bad guys’), and alliances are shifting, largely on the basis that our enemy’s enemies are now our friends, whatever we may have said about them yesterday.

What I do know is that it was always less than honest to try and present a very complex situation as a simple case of good vs evil, in the way that Blair and Bush did.  And what concerns me even more is the possibility that they might have genuinely believed that to be the case.  There’s something more than a little dangerous about any politician who has such unshakeable faith in his own rightness that he cannot even conceive of the possibility of being wrong.

Or else...

Tweet Two short words often used by parents to children.  They don’t often work – the rebellious will ask “or else what?”,  whilst the even more rebellious will carry on and see whether any sanction is forthcoming or not.  Unless accompanied by a clear statement of the consequences – and a firm belief in the mind of the target audience that those sanctions will actually be imposed – it’s something of an empty threat.  Bluster and bluff.

Nor is that analysis is restricted to parents and children, as Obama, Cameron and others have discovered in relation to Syria.  Admittedly they face the not insignificant added complication of establishing beyond doubt that the miscreant is who they say it is; and given the past record of the UK and US governments in such matters, there will be some who will never believe even the apparently most incontrovertible evidence.

The lack of clarity about how to respond when their bluff was called merely underlines the extent to which the “or else” was indeed mostly bluff in the first place – it’s as though they believed that that the mere threat to do “something” would be enough of a deterrent in itself.

That isn’t the end of the confusion however – there also seem to be several elements of moral confusion involved in their thinking at present.

Horrific though chemical weapons are, and outlawed as they are under international law, the method by which Syrians are being killed daily is surely secondary to the fact that they’re being killed – from their point of view at the very least.  There is a real danger that the US, UK, and others are telling Syria that killing people on a large-scale is fine with the international community, as long as they use the “right” weapons to do it.

Further, the outrage at the use of chemical weapons is coming from people who themselves own, and want the rest of the world to believe that they would in certain circumstances use, weapons of mass destruction.  It’s not a particularly high ground on which to stand and moralise.

Outrage at the use of chemical weapons is understandable, and the desire to “punish” Assad for their use is also relatively easy to understand.  But in which way precisely does killing Syrian soldiers, and the inevitable civilian casualties which even the most precise “surgical” strike would kill, actually punish Assad?  As in all wars, those who suffer most are those at the bottom of the pile, not those at the top.

Then we have the US military elements who are apparently looking for ways to damage the Assad regime a little but not so much as to help the rebels win, given the influence of Al Qaeda in their ranks.  This is a recipe, if ever there was one, for prolonging the slaughter not ending it.

The inability of the international community to respond effectively to events in Syria is frustrating; the UN seems to be impotent.  The breach of international protocols in the use of chemical weapons is clearly unacceptable.

But the most unacceptable aspect of all is the daily slaughter which is taking place in the country, and none of those demanding “action” has given an adequate explanation to date as to how the “action” they propose will actually stop that slaughter, rather than simply add to it.

In our name?

Tweet

The situation in Syria daily goes from bad to worse.  It’s clear that the position is a good deal more complicated than sometimes appears to be the case, with an opposition which is far from being a single united or easily categorised grouping.  Nor are all of those who are part of the opposition forces any more enlightened in their approach to human rights and the lives of civilians than the supporters of the existing regime.

Faced with such a tragedy, I think that the UK government has been absolutely right in offering and providing humanitarian aid to those affected by the conflict.  Indeed I cannot think of any circumstances in which it would not be right for a government to provide humanitarian aid to people who are suffering.

I’m a good deal less certain about the other types of assistance which the UK and other Western governments have been providing, such as intelligence information.  It’s been rather euphemistically described as ‘non-lethal’ assistance.

It leaves me feeling more than a little uneasy.  There is a serious danger that Western governments are effectively providing enough aid and assistance to keep the conflict running, but not enough to give the opposition a decisive advantage.  The net result could be an extension of the conflict and an increase in the numbers suffering as a result.  And it’s being done in our name.