Lurch to the Right

I think I'd spent the whole week prior to this being patronised by those on the political left for suggesting that America was fully justified in retaliating against Afghanistan. As such, this rant is rather...prickly. Not to mention full of absolute bullshit.



Okay, so it's been two whole weeks since I really ranted about anything in particular and I should really exorcise my demons again before I end up becoming one of those rather tragic gentlemen who stand at Grey's Monument in Newcastle every weekend shouting randomly at passers by about how Jesus/Buddha/Mohammed/Barrymore will save them. I was incredibly gratified to see the reaction to my last set of acidic musings and I shall definitely be making more of an effort in future to rant more about more universal social issues such as dating. If nothing else, it's a hell of a lot easier to write that stuff than it is to try and present world and domestic politics in an amusing and readable manner.

That said however, I'm now going to try and talk about world politics in an amusing and readable manner. Sorry. These days it's difficult for me to talk about any other subject (although not in Dublin, where a taxi driver gave me the friendly advice about what to do if the subject of politics arose whilst in a Dublin bar; "Keep you fuckin' mouth shut son"). After all, we are seeing the first examples of biological and chemical warfare since I last farted and shoved Joanne's head under the duvet, so this is a fairly serious and worrying time for the world. But I think what I'd like to talk about is not so much the war itself, nor the anthrax attack on America, but the way that both of these events have been and are being reported on.

I don't think I'm revealing any great secret when I say that I am of a liberal mindset. Nor should it shock you to find that I am a critic of many principles of right-wing thought (having been guilty of thinking them for about 8 years...). So therefore, according to stereotyping I should be firmly opposed to the war, bitterly complaining about the civilian casualties, and generally soul searching about the motivations of the West in prosecuting this conflict. What I should not be doing is getting irritated beyond all belief about the hand-wringing and good-intentioned bleating about the civilian casualties of the war, becoming annoyed by constant attempts by certain sections of the media to lead us to believe that the war is as good as lost and that we should cease all hostilities before anyone else gets killed, and finding myself being in favour of the war.

Let's deal with that last point first of all, as it's one that needs clarifying. I believe that the war is a just one. The US was the victim of a terrorist attack that was planned by men in Afghanistan. The (not-quite-legitimate) government of Afghanistan 1: Refused to hand over the suspect for the bombings and 2: Refused to close down the training camps where the men who committed the atrocities received some of their training. No amount of diplomacy was going to persuade the Taliban to hand them over. War is being waged to try and achieve those 2 aims. Any of the whining about how the US should go through the UN, or the West is bullying a 3rd world nation, or how America was to blame for being attacked in the first place is nothing more than sophistry. The fact is that the US (and it's allies; I'll not bore you with the details of the NATO treaty that provides for this) is fully justified in fighting this war.

That's not to say that I agree with how it's being fought. My contempt for Dubya knows no bounds, and it doesn't surprise me that he is providing America with a level of leadership last shown when Mad Jock "Madman" McMad selected Culloden Moor as a surefire place to beat the English in battle. He has made a balls up of handling the anthrax crisis (Postal workers dying? No problem. What's that? It might be affecting politicians and spreading to the White House? OH MY GOD!! CALL THE NATIONAL GUARD!!! AAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!) and the tactics of his military show something to be desired. America is going to have to realise at some point that it is going to have to take its soldiers out of the their boxes and play with them. And some of them will get broken. This is not a nice thing, but it is a necessary thing.

Of course, it could be said that the tactics that are being used have been chosen to assuage the criticisms of liberal thinkers. I am of the opinion that it is a very bad idea to let liberal thinkers (and I include myself in this statement) decide courses of action during a war. In wartime, right wing thinking with its clarity of purpose and ability to ride roughshod over semantics and nit picking should flourish. It is the job of liberal thinkers to take over after the war is concluded. It is the job of liberal thinkers to ensure that nothing like that *ever* happens again. All we do in wartime is complain that the world no longer follows the nice, civilised rules that it (sometimes) does in peacetime. This is a distraction. Had it been this way in WWII then chances are the media would have made vehement demands that we pull out of the war by 1942 due to the unpleasant nature of David Stirling's new SAS regiment in Africa, not to mention the large number of civilian casualties on both sides. Frankly, after the war I would like the freedom to continue to make the left wing observations that I currently make. I'm not likely to be allowed this luxury if we back down and allow terrorism and extremism to continue to flourish. So can we forget all of the secondary observations about how the West is not doing what it should and doing things it shouldn't? Good.

Now, the thorny issue of civilian casualties (or "collateral damage" as it is euphemistically called). Obviously I believe that this is a bad thing. I think you'd have to be something of a sociopath not to think this. However...well, this is a war isn't it? It certainly looks very much to me like one. And, as war is not conducted in some hermetically sealed environment where one can only find soldiers and no civilians, there is always a chance of civilian deaths. Again I'll make it clear; this is deplorable and every conceivable effort should be made to avoid it.

Now here's a thing; the West has developed weapons that are far more accurate than anything that has gone before. They are not as pinpoint accurate as we were led to believe in the Gulf War but they are not as indiscriminate as the bombs that dropped in any previous wars. Research is constantly ongoing to try and make these bombs more accurate still. I would say that we've discharged our moral responsibility to avoid the death of innocents. Now how about the Taliban and the Al-Quaida terrorist network? Well, the Taliban have butchered hundreds (if not thousands) of their own civilians in Kabul. In their war against the Northern Alliance (who, it must be conceded, are probably as bad as the Taliban) they have shown scant regard for the welfare of the non-combatants who live in or near the battlegrounds. As for Al-Quaida...well, I hardly need remind you that the reason that this war started in the first place was because they deliberately planned and carried out an attack that killed 5,000 civilians.

Current reports from the left wing press and media provide us with a barrage of images of civilian deaths. The Taliban and the more media savvy Al-Quaida know that this will cause consternation in the west and so allow journalists access to sites where innocents have dies. We should not let this deter us. We should certainly acknowledge that it is a tragedy, but we are basically allowing our conscience to hold us to ransom if we join the clamour for the war to stop based on this. Surely the best way to minimise civilian casualties would be for the West to stop pussyfooting around and go in hard; by which I mean fight a ground war with air cover. Remember the shambles caused in the Balkans because the west hummed and hah-ed about committing troops? Remember the *huge* number of civilian casualties that were a direct result of that reluctance to fight (Jesus, they're *still* finding mass graves from that unpleasant period, and they'll probably be finding them for years to come)? The quicker that ground troops are used to 1. Capture or kill Bin Laden and his lieutenants and 2. Destroy the Al-Quaida training camps in Afghanistan (and hopefully 3. Get rid of those inhuman, misogynist, hateful bastards running Afghanistan) then the sooner the war in that particular region will be over, and the civilian casualties will stop. Well...assuming that we can get enough food to the poor hungry people they will anyway....

It's disingenuous of the left wing media to try and derail the war effort (such as it is) for no other reason than it will sell papers or increase their audience share. War is a very bad thing. Their posturing only ensures that this war lasts longer. If one wishes to be critical of the war, then limit criticism to the fact that it is being fought poorly by all means, but don't doubt that it should be fought in the first place.