I’m afraid this might not be entertaining blogging but I have to be honest and say I belong to that section of people who are yet to take a stand either way on the necessity of military action over Iraq and so it has been useful to read some intelligent thoughts on the situation.
Chris Bartram on Junius is as thoughtful and philosophical as ever as he ponders the moral case for war. He is not convinced that war is justified in the current situation but does present a very fair, balanced and useful summary of the various pro-action positions.
The only convincing justification I can see for military action is that of freeing the Iraqi people from tyranny – I am not convinced that Iraq’s weapons arsenal is enough of a reason to take military action (as Chris says India could use such an arguement to take ‘pre-emptive action’ against Pakistan) — although obviously liberating Iraq would ease concerns about its military threat.
Like Chris my concern is that I am not at all confident that everyone in the Bush administration is really interested in helping liberate Iraq and the recent announcement of the plan for Saddam to be given immunity and exile confirmed those suspicions. On that topic Christopher Hitchens (him again, I know,) in a piece in Slate makes a good case against such a fudge and in favour of justice for the people Saddam has oppressed.
Finally Andrew Sullivan provides a passionate denunciation of Anti-Americanism, a fair assesment of Blair’s diplomatic achievements and makes the very valid point that the far left’s (and far right’s) modern anti-americanism (in the absence of any real positive alternative) has now simply descended into hatred.
He’s spot on and such hatred and barely concealed anti-semitism is one of the reasons why I won’t be attending any of the planned anti-war demonstrations in the next few weeks.
Even if I was convinced that military action would be wrong I certainly wouldn’t join the Trots of the odious Socialist Workers Party and their new-found dodgy Islamic allies in the Stop the War Committee on their demo in London.
And it is deeply depressing, if not totally surprising, to see former ‘comrades’ from my political past happily politicking with such reactionaries.
