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Conservative Commentary www.ukconservatism.com |
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![]() Monday, March 24, 2003 This page has moved ...
This page is now located at I AM SLOWLY completing the move over to Movable Type right now. So there may not be as many posts as you would expect. Posted by Peter Cuthbertson | 13:51 | Permanent Link | Sunday, March 23, 2003 Hey Saddam ...
Not my own work, I hasten to add. Posted by Peter Cuthbertson | 15:04 | Permanent Link |Link of the Week THE LINK OF THIS WEEK is to Protest Warrior, a great new right-of-centre page devoted to joining leftist and anti-war protests and inserting a few facts in between all the emotive rhetoric. Their posters in particular are marvellous.
Saturday, March 22, 2003 New Political BritBlog helps the Right stay in the lead
Road map for appeasement
Of course, the difference between pacifying Iraq and pacifying Palestine is that while no sane person in this country blames anyone but Saddam Hussein for his terror and wars, when it comes to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, everyone in enlightened circles now blames not the government-backed Palestinian terrorists who make a peaceful settlement that does not threaten Israel's survival impossible, but Israel herself, for defending against such people. What is meant by "applying equal vigour" is not dealing with Palestinian terrorists the way Saddam's threat was dealt with, but bullying Israel into accepting a 'peace' settlement irrespective of its terms. When it comes to Israel, the strategy of blaming the victim is second nature to our liberal elite. They don't recognise or care that both a Palestinian and an Israeli state is not compatible with the likes of Yasser Arafat remaining in power. What they see as 'peace' would be a nightmare for Israel to which the US, Britain and no European country would ever agree for themselves - a full neighbouring Palestinian state with its borders protected by international troops, free to arm for further conflict and to launch constant terrorist attacks on Israel in the mean time. Handled wrongly, the 'road map for peace' could literally mean Israel's destruction. Dealing with the Middle East conflict the way she dealt with Afghanistan and Iraq would mean America going into the Palestinian Authority, killing all the terrorists and kicking Arafat's despicable, kleptocratic regime out of power. What is proposed instead is equivalent to the rest of the world forcing the US to accept Taliban control of Canada in the midst of terrorist attacks on American soul, in one final hope that this concession, this carrot, this one last act of appeasement, will be enough. There is an inherent flaw in appeasement which ensures it cannot work. It can be expressed economically, even if the resources in question are not money. It is that if you reward someone for doing something, for acting in a particular way - if you subside terrorism and aggression - then you encourage it and get more of it. The fundamental problem with every negotiated settlement with an aggressor is the contradiction of rewarding his wrong-doing on the one hand and asking that he stop it on the other. If every inch of ground Arafat has gained is through terrorism, then what possible incentive does he have after this to give up on terror? Because it rewards deliberate malice, appeasement is worse even than bailing out a lame duck industry, which merely means rewarding involuntary incompetence. What if the Palestinians refuse to implement a particular part of the recommendations? We already know what it will mean from our own shameful experience in Northern Ireland - demands in every case that Israel take "one last step for peace", with concession after concession given without the peace itself ever arriving. If there is one lesson to be learned from the Good Friday Agreement, it is that in these peace settlements, the democracy must not meet all of its own commitments first, and then just rely on the terrorists' goodwill to get the benefits in return. Ending terrorism even for a short time would be a good thing - though don't count on Arafat implementing it - but it can be reversed in a second. A grant of statehood to the Palestinians is a bargaining diamond whose reversal would require an invasion certain to be condemned worldwide. Israel would therefore be crazy to agree to any Palestinian state if she could not be sure of safety from terrorist attacks launched from this state. Ensuring this means peace first, Palestinian statehood second. It means democracy for the Palestinians, free and fair elections, and an end to any government by terrorists, for if the Palestinians elect such people in free and fair elections, then clearly they do not want peace. Nothing I have seen of the road map for peace suggests that this is the course that will be followed. Posted by Peter Cuthbertson | 05:23 | Permanent Link |Quote of the Day "The United Nations should pass a resolution prohibiting the sun from rising while they are at it." - A Freeper's response to Jacques Chirac's declaration that he will use the French veto to force the UN to oppose any post-war administration of Iraq by Britain and America Posted by Peter Cuthbertson | 01:54 | Permanent Link |Friday, March 21, 2003 The first free Iraqis celebrate their liberation AS COALITION FORCES entered Sawfan, Baghdad, tearing down the great imposing portraits of Saddam Hussein, here are some of the reactions of Iraqi civilians at last freed from his tyranny. Milling crowds of men and boys watched as the Marines attached ropes on the front of their Jeeps to one portrait and then backed up, peeling the Iraqi leader's black-and-white metal image off a frame. Some locals briefly joined Maj. David "Bull" Gurfein in a new cheer. I am so proud that Blair stuck this one out. I am so glad I am British and not French. The twelve troops who died tragically this morning are martyrs to liberty, and we should remember their sacrifice, as well as rejoicing at how it will benefit Iraqis above all. I hope that camera crews arrive at more Iraqi cities as they are liberated over the coming weeks, and that the footage is juxtaposed against recordings of Charles Kennedy's opportunistic anti-war posturing in every Labour and Tory party political broadcast between now and the next election. Posted by Peter Cuthbertson | 21:29 | Permanent Link |Heroes 12 COALITION PERSONNEL, 8 British and 4 American, have been killed in a helicopter accident in Kuwait. Posted by Peter Cuthbertson | 03:24 | Permanent Link |They care about Iraqis so much they'd rather Bush lost power than Saddam
Bush, because he's a menace, a real threat to world peace. Saddam causes misery to his opponents in Iraq. Bush causes global misery - from civilian bombings in Afghanistan, support for the evil Sharon regime (no word of its contempt of UN resolutions), and a stash of lethal weapons which it has no intention of giving up. Suffice it to say the world would be a better place without Bush, and Iraq would be a better place without Saddam. Hang on let me think for a micro-second,got it, BUSH. I find it astonishing that many people would prefer to see Bush removed from power rather than a man who has over two decades of murder and torture under his belt. Bush by a hundred miles. Why do many of you pretend to care about 'Iraqi Civilians' when you state on this very thread that the man most guily of killing them would be a preferred leader of the country. [M]uch as we deprecate Saddam Hussein, his time is past. The answer to this question is so obvious that it makes little sense in asking it. Bush.Posted by Peter Cuthbertson | 02:10 | Permanent Link | Worth trying ... A COUPLE OF IDEAS that just occurred to me:
Does Woody Allen count as an Israeli?
Thursday, March 20, 2003 Combine David Irving and Gerry Adams and the new Palestinian PM is what you get
Cal Thomas has more on the BBC's favourite intellectual, whose claims about the Holocaust extend to the view that fewer than a million Jews perished. Posted by Peter Cuthbertson | 05:39 | Permanent Link |Not all Muslims think alike, BBC
The BBC continues this depressing phenomenon in rather gratituous fashion regarding every single Briton who happens to follow the Islamic faith: Iqbal Sacranie of the Muslim Council of Britain said the religion's 1.6 million followers all over the UK were deeply disappointed that their government had committed its forces to battle in dubious circumstances.Posted by Peter Cuthbertson | 04:30 | Permanent Link | It's war at last THE SECOND GULF WAR HAS BEGUN, the White House has just confirmed. Posted by Peter Cuthbertson | 02:54 | Permanent Link |The land must come after the peace
Peter Hitchens and Mark Steyn have both in the past covered this issue exceptionally, and their comments are certainly worth examination again now. I am disappointed that President Bush has apparently abandoned the win-win situation which Steyn defended so well. If I knew that, as is likely, this U-turn is a response to Blairite pressure, I would be even sadder. Posted by Peter Cuthbertson | 02:18 | Permanent Link |Opportunism knocked and Charles Kennedy answered
I think they have been disgustingly opportunistic, and that this is apparent in their constantly changing position on war, and their new reverence for the "unquestioned moral authority" of the United Nations, which gave no more support to the Kosovo War - which the Liberals backed strongly - than to this one. But most of all, it is clear with regard to their conduct towards the Conservatives. In the closing couple of years of Paddy Ashdown's leadership, he was espousing a doctrine of 'constructive opposition', which worked out as vigorously supporting the new Labour government on some issues and - in theory - opposing them equally strongly on others. When the Tories attacked them as Labour's poodles, they fired back the charge of irresponsibility and opposition for its own sake, condemning 'yah-boo' politics and the like. This was not a generation ago, but four years ago. The extent to which they followed this doctrine became clear when William Hague (showing what events have confirmed was very accurate foresight) said that release of IRA terrorists should happen while the organisation decommissioned their weapons, otherwise we would lose all bargaining chips against a fully armed terrorist organisation ready to wage war on innocent people at any time. Charles Kennedy made zero allowance for legitimate criticism of this policy, and in his first conference speech as the new party leader, he outrageously told the Tory leader: "Loose talk at Westminster can literally cost lives in Northern Ireland... William Hague, grow up!" Yet as it became clear that Tony Blair had no intention of forcing proportional representation through, this constructive opposition strategy fell apart completely. Suddenly, the Liberal Party found all sorts of new principled objections to government policy. So within three years of telling the Leader of the Opposition to "grow up", Kennedy was reporting to his party conference his utter disgust at Hague's successor's strategy of 'constructive opposition': supporting Blair on a tremendously important issue of national security, of war and peace. Kennedy used the fact that he had himself been the one to be tougher on the Prime Minister as an example of his party's own emergence as the "real opposition", draining all possible political capital out of the Iraq crisis, managing to attack the leaders of both main parties over their attitudes. How "loose talk" might cost lives in Ulster was not made clear. The recommended tougher line on the IRA would probably have saved a number of lives in the Catholic areas of Northern Ireland now tyrannized by the Provos. But let's just entertain the possibility that Kennedy was right about Hague's "loose talk" risking lives. How much more true this is of the Iraq crisis! Every major political speech works to relieve a little more pressure on Saddam, ultimately making war more likely. Kennedy has ensured that in the last six months such speeches are all he has been known for. Constructive opposition was fine for Kennedy when it suited his party political interest in a rigged electoral system, which - unlike the voters - would deliver the Liberals power. But when it meant principled Conservative support for a war the party leadership knew to be right even if it was not popular, constructive opposition was suddenly a sign of Conservative moribundity. When dealing with a threat to national security in Ulster, Kennedy thinks the slightest criticism "costs lives". But when dealing with a threat to national security in Iraq, massive, constant opposition was perfectly acceptable to him. Kennedy has done all he could to squeeze political capital out of this crisis, backing away from and disparaging positions he held to passionately a couple of years ago. Reasonable people can certainly take the view that the Liberal Democrats are right to oppose a second Gulf War. But they cannot sensibly claim that the party has not been intensely hypocritical and opportunistic throughout the Iraq crisis. It's a fact. Posted by Peter Cuthbertson | 00:35 | Permanent Link |Wednesday, March 19, 2003 Even more than Blair, Brown is the continuity candidate
The article also contains the startling revelation that in Blair's first term, Gordon Brown would permit the Prime Minister a maximum of two interventions a year into the domestic policy over which the Chancellor has such a grip. Posted by Peter Cuthbertson | 21:00 | Permanent Link |He cares only about France and himself
Quote of the Day "I'm sure that as a leader he loves his people" - Jacques Chirac on Saddam Hussein, the only tyrant in history to gas his own people Posted by Peter Cuthbertson | 19:59 | Permanent Link |More 'patriots' against the war
They made their choice when they took the queen's/president's shilling. They agreed to fight and kill and die as directed. Fuck 'em. Why would anyone wish for things to go badly for our soldiers. That would just mean more deaths all around. [Asking opponents of war to back our troops is] nothing more than a ploy to defeat opposition to this war. If you don't support our troops now, then you are a traitor. McCarthism is alive and well. Much as I fear the death of many Iraqi civilians, I equally don't want thousands of soldiers dead either.Posted by Peter Cuthbertson | 17:31 | Permanent Link | Jingoistic? Moi?
"We don't want to fight but by jingo if we do,
It's Britain they hate
But as I have now paid great tribute to a political opponent, let me also register my utter disgust with other such foes. Maybe it's something others have known for years, I don't know, but I finally got the Lib Dems yesterday. The party doesn't merely want their professed aim of a federal Europe - they want an end to any British influence on the world. If we are to have a voice on the world stage, the Liberals actively want it to be as part of an EU choir, not an expression of British will. I sat open-mouthed as Charles Kennedy, always happy to revel, if not take part, in anti-American bigotry, talked about Britain being broken off from her natural allies in this conflict. France, Germany, Belgium? Natural allies? America is head and shoulders above the rest Britain's natural ally. I don't know what's worse - believing that France is a more natural ally to Britain than America, or lying about such a belief for cheap political gain. On Thursday, Simon Hughes announced that his party had in the past argued for a single EU seat on the UN Security Council, France and the United Kingdom losing their seats and representation. Does anyone believe Britain's interests would then be represented at all? Does anyone think that under such circumstances Britain could have overcome the Franco-German duopoly of EU influence in favour of a positive vote for disarming Saddam? Of course not. On all the issues that matter - Iraq, Zimbabwe, the Middle East - Britain's voice would have been stifled by the rest of the European Union, our instincts, votes and passions coming to nothing. The Liberal Democrats cannot stand Britain as a country. They want us to join the European Union because any British influence on the world is for them only acceptable within the context of French approval. The party has latched onto leftist paranoia about Britian becoming America's 51st state. But their vision is worse still - the "regions" of Britain as a dozen impotent branches of a European superstate, the country as a whole having no independent power and influence over the world, bound always to the European powers the Liberals trust rather than to the Westminster politicians elected by the British people, whom they do not. I don't use the word "traitor" lightly, and I will not use it here. But the party's vision of Britain and the world is certainly not compatible with any notion of patriotism except perhaps that of Euro-patriotism. Their loyalty is not to Queen and country but to Prodi and the EU. No wonder they haven't won an election in nearly a century. Now, I simply await with glee the loss of so many of those seats they gained at the last two elections. The recent Lib Dem successes have been entirely down to Conservative weakness. When we have fully recovered, they will not know what has hit them. They deserve every defeat. [Edit: Some seem to believe that my refusal to classify the Liberal determination to abolish Britain's presence on the world stage as treason as being part of a trick to make out that I did in fact believe that, but hadn't the courage to say so. That certainly isn't the case, and my aim was precisely to distinguish between treason and total lack of patriotism, the latter being the true Lib Dem position when it comes to Britain.] Posted by Peter Cuthbertson | 15:50 | Permanent Link |Tuesday, March 18, 2003 Quote of the Day "[T]hose voting in Parliament today need to consider what sort of a nation Britain is. Ours is the only European country in the post-war era which has never shirked its obligation to try to preserve peace in the world and defend the interests of the West against its enemies. This fact has maintained our high military reputation, our global influence and our self-esteem. From 1940 to the present day, we have continuously recognised that we must be strenuous for peace and freedom, and that this sometimes means fighting for them. In this, we have sustained with the United States the most important alliance of modern times. If we slink away now, we will suffer much more than the relatively minor catastrophe of losing a prime minister: we will be weak and friendless, and we ought to be ashamed." - The Daily Telegraph Posted by Peter Cuthbertson | 13:36 | Permanent Link |There will be a war, the UN isn't behind it, but Short still won't give up her ministerial limo
Perhaps saddest of all, I now won't be able proudly to post the 'then and now' image below, which I painstakingly put together last week.
Ahem! No comment
Courtesy of milspecgear.com: America's US-hating 'patriots'
Monday, March 17, 2003 Wow! The Indy got it right ROBIN COOK, the last Foreign Secretary and the Leader of the House of Commons until today, has just left the government over Blair's Iraq policy. One wonders what he may say in his resignation speech.
The BBC has an interesting analysis of this move, noting that Cook is the first Labour minister to resign on a matter of principle since the 1970s. The same column suggests he will immediately become the leading rebel on the Labour backbenches, and could even be the Kingmaker in the next Labour leadership election. Posted by Peter Cuthbertson | 17:16 | Permanent Link |The UN has failed in its last chance to prove itself relevant BUSH AND BLAIR have now abandoned efforts to get an eighteenth UN resolution condemning Saddam Hussein before launching military action. Posted by Peter Cuthbertson | 16:15 | Permanent Link |He's come out against war - he can't backpedal on this one
"Any war will cause a refugee crisis of huge proportions - not to mention the dangers of famine and disease." "[Iraqi civilians] have suffered terribly under Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. There is no question about that. But war could so easily make their plight so much worse." "Regime change is a thoroughly flawed doctrine. There is nothing in international law to justify it." Spare some time to read the whole speech. On the whole it is disgraceful, with fine talk about "universal human rights" that Kennedy wants to deny to Iraqis (see the Liberty Log for an even more gratituous example of such reasoning), and the "unquestioned"(!) moral authority of the United Nations. More importantly, it is a speech he cannot now change his mind about. He has made his position on this war clear, and if and when it is a success, the terrible weapons of mass destruction are found and destroyed, and Iraq is democratic, no one must allow him to forget what side of the fence he eventually came down on. Posted by Peter Cuthbertson | 15:48 | Permanent Link |![]() The first counter (top right of this page) tracks the total number of hits the site gets. The second tracks the number of individual visits. If you refresh this page, the value on the first counter will increase because you viewed the page again, but that on the second will not, because it is the same visit.
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