Comments on: Galloway wins!

By: Martin Wisse

Martin Wisse — Mon, 06 Dec 2004 16:04:27 +0000

Besides, Mark is wrong in supposing human rights was why Bush wanted this war: it’s always been the WMD which were given as the reason this war was needed now, not because Saddam was such a bad man. that reason only popped up with the useful idiots, who thought Bush shared their motivations and later on when it became clear that the WMD issue was not convincing anyone as a post-hoc justification.

By: John

John — Sun, 05 Dec 2004 20:49:20 +0000

I have to admit that Mark’s logic is immensely puzzling. The way he makes the argument is fundamentally false. “If you dont support action X then you can be taken to support the evils that action X is ( at least nominally ) attempting to eradicate”. Right. So if I see a boy steal a chocolate bar from a shop and I don’t want to have him executed, I’m in favour of stealing, right ? Wrong. It’s up to me to decide what the merits of action X are. I may decide that action X is irrelevant to the evil being targeted. I may decide I don’t trust the personnel taking on the job to carry it out effectively. I may decide that action X may effective in targeting the evil concerned but that it creates innumerable , far worse, potential evils of its own. But what I don’t have to do is put up with the proponent of action X trying to shift the burden of proof onto me for his half-ass proposals. If they’re bad ideas, they’re bad ideas, and no end of pontification can shift the responsibility for any evil out there onto me just because I don’t agree with your half-ass idea. Death Penalty advocates are the most tedious example ( I suspect Mark may well be highly Islamic in that sense ). Because you don’t agree that the Death Penalty is the solution to the problem of violence, ergo, you must be in favour of murder , right ? Wrong. And its the same with Iraq. Just because I don’t agree with the invasion of Iraq it doesn’t follow that I agree with the Saddam tyranny, any more than I think NOT invading China is a betrayal of Tibet. Is that what we should do, Mark, invade China, as otherwise we are not supporing Tibet and we are personally responsible for its destruction ? How about Russia – should we invade there or else be accused of having the blood of Chechnyan massacres on our hands ? I doubt it. Its funny because there was a government in the 80s that disapproved of the Saddam tyranny but did nothing to stop it. On the contrary it helped it as it seemed a less worse option than supprting Iran. That country was the US. The government Of Ronald Reagan was not , I suggest , pro-tyranny.

By: rob

rob — Sat, 04 Dec 2004 01:16:31 +0000

Mark, also, I don’t see how pointing out that the bad points you made here had been made elsewhere and shown to be bad is either uncivil or rude. Repeatedly posting points which have been shown to be wrong, however, might be construed as being rude, as violating a general rule of discourse that you take your opponents objections seriously.

By: rob

rob — Sat, 04 Dec 2004 01:05:09 +0000

Mark, I think it is reasonably civil and polite to point out that you had no adequate answer to the points which were raised in opposition to you on the Norm Geras thread, and that if you want to make exactly the same points that you made there, you really ought to have an answer to them. Specifically, by your standard of evidence, no-one can say anything about causalties in Iraq, including you, and you continue to make the frankly obviously slanderous remark that the left agitated for the continuation of Saddam’s regime. When you have addressed the replies made to these earlier posts, then you should post, before then, just piss off.

By: Uncle Kvetch

Uncle Kvetch — Fri, 03 Dec 2004 22:27:01 +0000

Mark seems to want to wallow in corpses. From a safe distance, needless to say.

By: Uncle Kvetch

Uncle Kvetch — Fri, 03 Dec 2004 22:08:20 +0000

Mark seems to want to wallow in corpses. From a safe distance, needless to say.

By: Morat

Morat — Fri, 03 Dec 2004 21:41:10 +0000

So Mark prefers dead Iraqs (killed by both Americans and other Iraqis) AND dead Americans to simply dead Iraqis? Personally, I’d have gone for the choice that minimized the number of dead. Mark seems to want to wallow in corpses.

By: Doctor Slack

Doctor Slack — Fri, 03 Dec 2004 19:45:45 +0000

“My comment is about the practical consequences to innocent iraqis under both war opposition and Saddamist supporters; continued fascist dictatorship.” No, it wasn’t. Your comment was that “if you opposed the war you agitated for the same set of affairs as that of Saddam’s fascist supporters.” Now, it’s reasonable to assume that “Saddam’s fascist supporters” would have wanted a “set of affairs” based on perpetual Saddamist rule well into the future. Since you’re not, to put it mildly, in a position to assume that opposing the war was equivalent to that position, your original statement is nonsense—in exactly the same way as it would have been nonsense to argue that the US during the Cold War was “objectively pro-Soviet” for failing to invade and depose the Politburo. So, yeah. The reason the “anti-war left” tended to laugh at the “objectively pro-Saddam” yammering that preceded the war is that it was silly then, and it’s silly now, heady though I’m sure it is to throw around accusations with the word “fascist” attached to them. If you insist on engaging in that kind of juvenile flamebaiting, though, kindly don’t try to dignify it with words like “civil” and “polite.” It’s neither. Now, if you want to contend that the consequences of opposing the war were continued dictatorship in the immediate term, that’s obviously true. But supporting the war has effectively meant supporting the dismemberment of Iraq by dozens of small fascisms instead of its oppression by a single large Baathist system, so you really don’t get to pretend you’re on the moral high ground.

By: Walt Pohl

Walt Pohl — Fri, 03 Dec 2004 19:09:50 +0000

I notice Mark remains comfortable with the practical consequences of dead American soldiers and the reduction of a foreign country to chaos. At least he’s honest enough not to deny it.

By: Randy Paul

Randy Paul — Fri, 03 Dec 2004 18:59:14 +0000

Mark, I wouldn’t infer it if you weren’t busy implying it. I’m correctly inferring it, by the way, even if you feel I’m incorrect to do so. As for ignoring things, you still haven’t addressed the causus belli as brought out by Wolfowitz, nor have you addressed the piss-poor security situation in Iraq, which is probably impacting many more Iraqis on a daily basis than were being impacted before the war.

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 03 Dec 2004 18:40:56 +0000

Randy, “What you are implying is that these same people found common cause with Saddam and that is a smear.” You are wrongly inferring this. My comment is about the practical consequences to innocent iraqis under both war opposition and Saddamist supporters; continued fascist dictatorship. That both camps agitated for the same result (although, presumably, for different psychological reasons), is something anti-war leftists are loathe to address. So I don’t blame you for ignoring it. If the US supported Saddam in the past, this only shows inconsistency; it doesn’t go toward defeating my previous contention. Rob, I’ve always tried to post in a civil and polite manner. I’d ask that you do the same.

By: junius ponds

junius ponds — Fri, 03 Dec 2004 18:31:46 +0000

>I’m not sure what you think this gets you, but if it’s as obvious as you say, you should have no problem proving it. I look forward to your argument.< Um, why don't you check the next blog post? It's about the Lancet study; I don’t think sanctions and Saddam would have killed at a rate of 100,000 people/21 months. Genocidal, you say? He had shown he was capable of mass murder, but was he gassing Kurds in March 2003? Let me put it this way: If Bush hadn’t made a total hash of the occupation, Iraqi casualties would be a fraction of 100,000—say, p*(1E5). Even if Bush had waited x months while Saddam and sanctions killed at a rate of S per month, S*x + p*(1E5) < 1E5.

By: Randy Paul

Randy Paul — Fri, 03 Dec 2004 17:51:47 +0000

Perhaps, but this doesn’t defeat the claim that if you opposed the war you agitated for the same set of affairs as that of Saddam’s fascist supporters. The problem with that statement is that it ignores motivation. There are plenty of people who found Saddam’s rule repellent, but who opposed the war. What you are implying is that these same people found common cause with Saddam and that is a smear. You also didn’t comment on Wolfowitz’s statements which play down Saddam’s human rights record as well the behavior of our government in the 1980’s which facilitated Saddam’s brutality. Accordingly, Donald Rumsfeld in his role as envoy to Saddam “agitated for the same set of affairs as that of Saddam’s fascist supporters,” especially when one considers the fact that the worst of Saddam’s brutality occurred between Rumsfeld’s visit and Gulf War I. That’s not a smear, by the way; that’s the truth.

By: nick

nick — Fri, 03 Dec 2004 15:56:21 +0000

“Truth is not a defence in UK libel cases, if I recall correctly”, for God’s sake. Quite. “No, Glenn, you don’t. Now shut the fuck up.” He’s the mirror-image of Galloway, in many respects. Incidentally, I believe the Telegraph’s David Blair was a contemporary of yours, dsquared.

By: reuben

reuben — Fri, 03 Dec 2004 15:23:19 +0000

Crikey those 501 errors are confusing!