Historic Parallels

Paddy Ashdown has said that the decision to not take action against the use of chemical weapons in Syria will make England “be a country that shrugs its shoulders and says ‘nothing to do with me’”. I agree. Of course I understand that there are many well-intentioned people who disagree with Syrian military intervention, mainly because they do not fully understand the difference between the Iraq conflict and that which is going on now – i.e. U.N. democracy, or lack thereof – and I fully accept that British democracy has been proven functional in its resistance to warfare. But unfortunately, Syria now stands alone, just like Britain once stood alone, and tyranny will have to take its toll before decent human beings realise that allowing Assad to commit torture is almost as bad as when America refused to fight dictatorship in 1939. This is not sensationalist, it is historical relevance that many people have seemingly forgotten.

The Red Line Is About Time

Most people I speak to about the news (and most politicians that I see on the news) tend to be rather tentative about getting involved in the ongoing Syrian civil war. This mainly stems from the unnecessary war with Iraq, but I think there is a significant difference between the conflicts. Before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Hans Blix and his U.N. weapons inspectors were doing a good job, albeit a little slowly; they would have eventually determined that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and rendered him militarily impotent. I know that it wouldn’t have been particularly moral to leave a previously brutal dictator like Hussein in power, but further political measures would hopefully have been deployed (e.g. harsh economic sanctions) that may have forced a new Iraqi dawn – as in Egypt and Tunisia – without having to resort to warfare. But Syria is different: it is the U.N. Security Council that has been rendered impotent this time with Russia / China and Britain / America / France in a seemingly permanent stalemate that prevents political implementations. So now that today it has been revealed that President Barack Obama’s ‘red line’ has been crossed (proof has been shown that Bashar al-Assad has been using chemical weapons), I’m pleased that the U.S. government has taken the decision to arm Syrian rebels; in fact, it’s about time. Just because Russia and China have their own immoral agendas to keep Assad in power, doesn’t mean that the rest of the world should sit idly by while tens of thousands of people are massacred, many of them innocent civilians. As much as it may be reasonable to avoid sending in the soldiers (so that we don’t get dragged into another Afghanistan) we still have a moral duty to intervene somehow. We were able to get rid of Colonel Gaddafi by helping rebels in Libya (though that was with more political consensus), and that country is certainly better off without him. So I hope that Obama is strong in his decision-making, and forces Assad to back down from genocide.

Finality

It has been reported this week that a man from Britain has been convicted of supplying cannabis in the United Arab Emirates; he is now facing the death penalty. Regardless of whether this man is innocent or guilty, and regardless of the issue that perhaps people shouldn’t really be travelling to countries with backward legal systems, I fundamentally oppose the death penalty. As a civilised human being I do not believe it is my place, or anyone else’s, to take another human life against their will. Even for those criminals who have taken a life themselves by committing murder, I feel it is important for a decent society to rise above those criminals by not performing similar acts. If an enraged relative or close friend of a victim took lethal action against the perpetrator of a heinous crime, I would have a significant degree of empathy, but for a country or state to sanction killing outside the confines of warfare / self-defence is, in my opinion, taking things to a lower level of morality that we should all be trying to avoid. I am proud to say that in the United Kingdom nobody has been executed since 1964.

UN Unfit For Purpose

After the end of the Second World War, the United Nations was set up in the hope that it could prevent further terrible conflict. A Security Council was appointed to specifically oversee areas where potential warfare could break out. The five permanent members of that council - the five main victors in World War II - were the United Kingdom, the United States of America, France, Russia and China; each of the permanent members was granted the power of veto, so that any military intervention would require the consent of all five countries. These were noble aspirations of introducing democracy into scenarios of violence during a period of difficult political and social reconstruction. Unfortunately, the long passage of time appears to have rendered these constructs unworkable. Syria is a country in chaos. The UN estimates that around 9,000 people have died since pro-democracy protests began in March 2011. Regardless of a recent UN-brokered ceasefire, lethal aggression is continuing; this week an explosion in Hama took more innocent lives. France is now saying that the Security Council should consider the use of force in Syria as the peace plan is failing. Britain and the USA (although preferring to be non-interventionist) would almost certainly be willing to go along with using force as a last resort which we now must have reached. Yet the force option will probably not go ahead due to the veto of the other permanent members. Russia and China have their own agendas: they are anti-American (just watch the Russia Today news channel and see that every other story is slating the US!); they are worried about sacrificing their own economic deals (i.e. oil) that they have previously brokered with the brutal dictator Bashar al-Assad, as then they would have to share the spoils with other world powers; and they are concerned about losing dominant influence in a prime political area. Basically, Russia and China are gladly putting their own nationalistic egos first, and genocide a distant second. Shame on them, eternal shame.

Counterproductive!

Len McCluskey, the Unite (a major trade union) general secretary has suggested that civil disobedience could be timed to coincide with the Olympics. This is a bad idea.
In the winter of 1978-9 (the winter of discontent), unions disrupted Britain to such an extent that the majority of the voting public decided that Margaret Thatcher was a necessary Prime Minister. Her seeming ability to restore order to a chaotic situation was more important to people than workers’ rights. But the British public cannot be blamed for this; if bin bags are piled high in the street, gravediggers won’t dig, and the NHS is only open for emergencies, then of course people will lose faith in the current system. This may seem like an extraordinary analogy, but nowadays unions are much more easily condemned than they used to be, so it is vitally important to preserve the public faith.
I personally am not a fan of the Olympics; I would prefer to see millions of pounds spent elsewhere. But there are a significant number of people who are delighted that the Olympics has come to London, and this section of society cannot afford to be isolated. If they are, then how long will it be before the majority of people resent the unions and begin to feel that right-wing governments are necessary for orderly preservation? Then we will see another government like Thatcher’s! The one that made greedy, materialistic capitalism an acceptable aspiration. We must never promote that again to such an extent!
So please, for the sake of socialism and equality, do not strike during the Olympics.

Mind Your Own Business

After undercover reporting from the Daily Telegraph, an inquiry has been launched by the Department of Health into disturbing claims that some doctors in Britain are carrying out abortions on the grounds of sex selection. Obviously, this inquiry is necessary; an abortion based solely on whether the unborn child is a boy or a girl is grossly unethical and drifts into the dangerous territory of eugenics.
However, what was uncalled for after the inquiry had been announced, was input from the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (Spuc). Its communications manager, Anthony Ozimic, said: “This investigation confirms the reality of eugenics in modern British medicine … Sex-selective abortion is an inevitable consequence of easy access to abortion, a situation to which the pro-abortion lobby has no convincing answer.” Well then I’ll give you an answer, Mr Ozimic! All this investigation confirms is that some doctors (almost certainly a small minority) have broken the rules and will soon be accordingly punished. A minority of rule breakers does not confirm the reality of eugenics because most doctors take a very ethical stance towards abortion and follow the law. Very few things in this world are inevitable, and tight regulation of pregnancy terminations (such as two doctors having to agree that an abortion is necessary before it can be carried out) will ensure that sex-selective abortion never becomes widespread in Britain.
The reactionary Mr Ozimic went on to say: “The government needs to cut its ties to … abortion rights organisations, as they are complicit in sex-selective abortion domestically and internationally." The reason that the government has ties to abortion rights organisations is because women need rights to abortion in order to prevent unwanted childbirth that could be damaging to both mother and baby. And as long as an organisation is not condoning sex-selective abortion in any way, then it is not complicit in anything! So I suggest that the protection of unborn children is left to medical experts, politicians and mothers.

Nuclear Proliferation ... And Religious!

The UK has signed a deal with France regarding the progression of nuclear energy, i.e. more of our energy demands will be realised through nuclear power. It apparently strengthens co-operation between the two countries. However, putting aside the problems that Britain and France are currently having over Europe, this is still a bad idea. Eleven months ago, a tsunami swept into Japan and reached the Daiichi nuclear plant in Fukushima. The result was radioactive material being leaked into the air and sea; a twenty kilometre exclusion zone was necessary - can you imagine having to evacuate your home because something twenty kilometres away had blown a gasket?! Yet that could soon be the reality. Germany has become the example of nuclear correctness: they are going to decommission all of their plants in the coming years. But Britain and France don’t care about what other countries have been through. Please simply acknowledge this point: if a nuclear power plant is severely disturbed, it can cause inestimable results. The Chernobyl disaster created problems that lasted for years, if not decades. And as much as there is obviously no chance of a tsunami happening in Britain, the Japanese government didn’t see it as a likely threat either; any random event could possibly afflict us. Nuclear power just isn’t worth the risk - randomness can fuck us up too readily!

Addendum: last week, I wrote about Bideford Council’s right not to have to witness Christian prayer. Unfortunately, this week Eric Pickles, the communities secretary, has arbitrarily decided that the High Court made an “illiberal ruling”. He stated that the ruling was “striking a blow for localism over central interference”, but surely if he is now introducing a law opposing the High Court’s judgement, that is the epitome of central interference! Pickles said that “freedom to worship” was more important than “intolerant secularism”, but forcing councillors to pray to a god that they don’t believe in at the beginning of every council meeting is intolerant by definition and opposes freedom. The communities secretary is basically worried about losing Christian voters, rather than preserving liberty.











P.S. Don’t mess with David Haye, he’ll bottle ya!