Martin Salter is a Trotskyist Labor "queen" whose enlistment would be turned down for rather obvious reasons.
I'd say you're right, on the face of it.
Posted on 11/24/2001 5:27:32 AM PST by samtheman
I was too young to fight in Vietnam, but I like to think that, had I been born in America a few years earlier, I would not have flinched from doing my duty. Not for me the soft option of the draft dodger. I would have been bearing arms, all right - for the Vietcong.
And now, some 30 years later, I find myself on public platforms defending American military action against an enemy the CIA helped to create. In the House of Commons, I've just voted to give the Home Secretary draconian powers to intern foreign nationals without charge.
What on earth has happened to the early 1970s radicals, like myself, who have found themselves in Parliament 25 years later? Have we sold out - or simply grown up? Or was September 11 so appalling that all our value systems have been turned inside out?
There are no easy answers, but I do know that the crude but comfortable anti-Americanism that has been the hallmark of the British Left is no longer intellectually credible.
In the immediate aftermath of the attacks on America, I felt extremely apprehensive about how the United States would respond. Mindful of past fiascos, I tried to recall a single example of a successful American foreign intervention in the past 50 years.
There is quite a list: Cuba, Nicaragua, Vietnam, El Salvador, Panama, Chile, Somalia - none of which inspires confidence. The prospect of a hawkish Right-wing regime under George W Bush, blindly carpet-bombing thousands of innocent civilians in revenge, filled me with dread. There was talk of nuclear retaliation, even of world war.
For 24 hours, Britain had no influence on the shell-shocked Bush administration. But, even at that early stage, our Prime Minister was already helping to forge an international coalition against terrorism.
By standing firm as a partner in Nato and by pledging full support for a measured and proportionate response, Tony Blair won us a seat at the top table. The hawks were tethered; there would be no senseless bombing in the name of revenge.
Ten years ago, I would probably have been on the other side of the argument. My instinct would have been to see any attack on America as chickens coming home to roost - an inevitable consequence of an unjust foreign policy designed to bolster the over-mighty dollar at the expense of the world's poor.
But, this time, there was a difference. The main protagonist was a spoilt rich kid from the Saudi plutocracy who had discovered religion. My own experience of Northern Ireland and Right-wing Christian evangelists had taught me that religious and political fanaticism make a lethal cocktail.
This was no desperate act by a bunch of misguided freedom fighters. What occurred on September 11 could have happened in London, Paris or Delhi. We are dealing with a global conspiracy to bomb the planet back into a medieval age in which democracy and freedom are replaced by an ultra-conservative religious order.
I still believe that America has much to answer for, and must break out of the arrogant pursuit of self-interest that has been a hallmark of its foreign policy. It still refuses to work with the rest of the world to tackle climate change; it is doing precious little to press Israel to end the assaults on Palestinians.
Yet none of that is justification for what happened on September 11 or for opposing the alliance against international terrorism. This is a coalition backed by the United Nations - the very institution so revered by my friends on the Left.
Every argument against the use of force has proven false. It was said that bombing would only strengthen the Taliban's hold on Afghanistan. Really? Military action would impede the flow of humanitarian aid.
Hardly: it is actually increasing, following the fall of Kabul. It was said that the West should negotiate with the Taliban. Funny - I don't remember hearing this demand when it came to stopping Slobodan Milosevic from butchering the Kosovan Muslims. And so on.
So, yes, I find it strange to be numbered among the hawks, but I make no apologies for my position. A new world order is possible; it can start with the West rebuilding the shattered infrastructure of Afghanistan. There must be an enhanced role for the UN.
And there must be recognition that the next generation of suicide bombers is growing up in Palestinian refugee camps, in the grinding poverty that so scars the Third World and that we have done insufficient to address.
I am no great convert to the American Dream. I still have huge reservations about President Bush's willingness to do more than simply hunt down bin Laden and his network. I'm still proud to call myself a socialist - but I would choose America every time over the brutal, fascistic regime of the Taliban and their type.
I respect the rights of those who, through their own deeply held beliefs, oppose armed conflict. It's just that, this time, they are wrong.
Freakin' creep. I won't read any further, such tripe from an avowed enemy of the United States. If he had an epiphany, good. But he starts -- and ends -- as an avowed enemy of the United States.
I have never defended, and have often derided, Christian evangelists on this board. But, is this idiot finding a comparison between CE's and the IRA? Between CE's and the Taliban or Hussein? Jeesh. I have advocated raising the voting age to 25 or 30, because Rush is correct about skulls full of mush. But a voting age limit wouldn't do anything bout morons like this (I know he's Brit, but we have them also).
Get used to it, lefty-boy.
Liberals and leftists create problems and conservatives have to clean them up.
(That's no knock on our *real* friends in Great Britain).
I think we can take care of our current problems without his help.
You're right.
WOW!
Martin Salter is a Trotskyist Labor "queen" whose enlistment would be turned down for rather obvious reasons.
I'd say you're right, on the face of it.
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