From The Guardian
A US war with Iran looms. Don’t for one second think that it is justified
s worst humanitarian crisis. Critics of war are demonised as stooges or useful idiots of an enemy that imperils national security and menaces its own people, and as haters of their own country.
It happened in Iraq, it happened in Libya, too: both countries were swiftly drowned in blood and chaos. In a just world, one might expect the cheerleaders of these catastrophes – which ended in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands, the maiming and traumatising of countless others, created millions of refugees and internally displaced persons, and turned both nations into playgrounds for violent extremists – to be driven from public life in disgrace. Instead they retain their influence – within the US administration (most strikingly in the form of
John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser), within the leading echelons of the Conservative party, and within the commentariat. And, without shame but with much bloodlust, they set about building the case for a new war with Iran.
After Jeremy Corbyn suggested that the Trump administration’s pronouncement of Iranian guilt over the tanker attacks
needed to be scrutinised, and that “Britain should act to ease tensions in the Gulf,” he faced a barrage of denunciations. You see, you are more likely to be regarded as a respectable politician if you casually call for wars that will incinerate sleeping infants and
annihilate wedding parties than if you call for de-escalation and peace. Never mind that EU foreign ministers echoed Corbyn’s position, demanding an
independent UN investigation and more evidence. Corbyn was “pathetic and predictable”, pronounced flailing Conservative leadership candidate Jeremy Hunt, asking why Corbyn could “never bring himself to back British allies, British intelligence or British interests.” This is somewhat curious given the Labour leader had the same line as Britain’s European allies, and only the delusional or the wicked could imagine a new Middle Eastern conflagration amounts to “backing British interests”.
It is the comments of fellow flailing Tory leadership candidate Michael Gove that are particularly instructive: Corbyn’s “comments on Iran show once again he is not fit to be trusted with our national security”. Here is a man who called for the invasion of Iraq
two days after 9/11 and who remains gruesomely supportive of it. According to Tory ex-chancellor Ken Clarke, with Gove as prime minister “
we’d go to war with at least three countries at once”.
COMMENT:-
Despite the "editorial tone" and "inflammatory rhetoric" (and this IS an "opinion piece") there is a lot of concrete information in the piece, so I urge anyone who feels like reading it to disregard the "editorial tone" and "inflammatory rhetoric" in order to concentrate on the SUBSTANCE rather than the TONE.
Of course I have absolutely no expectations that any discussion will not consist of 90% attention to TONE and 10% attention to SUBSTANCE - but that IS what politics is all about these days, isn't it?
