‘When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.’
Epitaph on a Tyrant, WH Auden
I spent a little time at the ‘Occupy’ tent city in the grounds of St Paul’s Cathedral yesterday. You can read what I think about it here. I was there as confused accounts of the death of the tyrant Gaddafi filtered through to the protestors. As word spread amongst the anti-capitalism protestors, the anarchists, and others, you could hear the whoops of joy. Knots of people gathered round their iPhones to get the latest. Spontaneous celebrations erupted, and culminated in a huge outpouring of joy at the demise of a brutal dictator and sponsor of terrorism. Actually, I’m making that last bit up. There seemed to be no reaction whatsoever to events in Libya.
I’m not surprised. Very few of the protestors are actual supporters of Gaddafi. I didn’t see any WRP comrades amongst the hippies and students. But on the other hand, very few of them could bring themselves to support NATO, or bombing raids, or the theory of liberal interventionism which has led directly to the death of the Mad Dog. So, like the regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, the torture chambers of Tripoli would have remained in business if the liberal left had its way. What are a few fingernails and a little light electrocution when there’s ideological purism at stake?
Had I stuck around and asked them, instead of going to Marks & Spencer, my guess is that the protestors would have taken very little time before they started to blame the real bad guy in all this. I refer, of course, to the true villain of the peace: Tony Blair. Like Godwin’s Law which states that the longer an internet conversation continues, regardless of its subject, someone will mention Hitler, so no debate about foreign events can take place before someone blames Tony Blair.
The Tories and the anti-globalisation protestors have a common cause in linking Tony Blair and Colonel Gaddafi. The Conservative MP Robert Halfon told the Daily Telegraph last night that the true story of the British government’s ‘shameful appeasement’ of Gaddafi must be told. The ‘appeasement’ line is just as likely to be heard in the Guardian today. The pictures of Blair and Gaddafi in an embrace, or shaking hands, are everywhere. There are dark rumours of clandestine meetings, private jets, and personal gain.
The narrative that Labour was soft on dictators and Cameron is strong is gathering strength. It is pernicious and ahistorical. It ignores Labour’s pioneering of the liberal interventionist strategy, given shape by Blair’s Chicago speech in 1999, which led to the end of massacres in the Balkans, of amputations in Sierra Leone, violent misogyny in Afghanistan and mass-murder in Iraq. The idea that Blair was soft on brutal regimes, or sought to appease dictators is laughable given the very obvious evidence to the contrary.
But it also ignores Blair’s own role in the fall of Gaddafi. In December 2003, after months of negotiations, Libya renounced its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programmes. A single plant, the Rabta pharmaceutical factory at Qabilat az Zaribah had produced up to 100 tons of chemical weapons. By now, he might have developed radiological, or even nuclear weapons.
Imagine the likelihood of a successful revolt against Gaddafi by those guys with their mirror shades, pick-up trucks and AK47s if he had chemical weapons, for example his huge stockpiles of mustard gas, to use against them. A Gaddafi armed with deadly weapons capable of killing millions would still be in power today.
Blair led the negotiations. Blair helped to disarm Libya. Blair, alongside the Libyan people, and the NATO pilots, should be lauded today for his role in bringing down Gaddafi.
But he won’t be.
I agree with most of what you say about the protesters ,nutters and liggers,but there are a few real ones and their message IS sound.Yes they should join the Labour Party . A few nights in the cold and those nightly chats they are having with each other may focus their minds in some way. I went on Monday and I brought two bags,one with toilet roll ,clothes pegs,candles ,6 pairs of socks (son doesn’t wear them) in the other, two bags of apples ,three bags of assorted crisps and three packs of jaffa cakes. I know they don’ even need that really but I just wanted a little concrete walk to say, yes I hate the bloody banks and spivs too.
So Tony Blair “should be lauded today for his role in bringing down Gaddafi”? Nice try, Paul!
As I understand it (via the BBC) the whole idea of Libya giving up its WMD in December 2003 was seen as a way for the Gaddafi regime to remain in power. They wanted assurances that the US (and its allies) would leave Libya alone – following the rhetoric coming out of the G.W.Bush administration (John Bolton explicitly included Libya in the “Axis of Evil”) and the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
Of course Tony Blair can claim that he was right to facilitate the disarming of Libya, because it reduced the risk of military conflict and loss of life. But there are legitimate questions to be asked about decades of UK and US foreign policy which have included implicit support for dictators and non-democratic regimes (notably throughout North Africa and the Middle East) as a means to promote (an appearance of) political stability and encourage profitable trade links.
Today the question we must address is this: if we now support pluralist democracy and human rights for the people of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya … then what about the people of Syria, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia? There are no easy answers but avoiding the question is not a long-term strategy.
Paul Richards in his sabrerattling glee assumes responsibility for amongst many others crimes ,(1) the undiscussed murder on about July 28 of Gen Abdul Fatah Younis, C-in-C of the insurrectionary forces (2) the ethnic cleansing (ca 2-9 September) of the entire city of Tawarga, some 50 km S of Misrata (3) the mass pogroms, heralded since late February by the targeting of all black people in Libya as ‘foreign mercenaries’ and continuing into the concentration camps where beating to secure confessions is routine . (Come to think of, rather similar to the murder of Baha Musa in Basra by British squaddies, sorry, heroes. Does he really think or claim that “a little light electrocution and a few fingernails extracted” are all the British and American gaolers in eg Abu Ghraib, not to mention the plentiful rendition centres with British Military Intelligence in keen attendance, got up to?
PR IS right on one issue: Blair no doubt did swindle Gadafi into believing in the good faith of the Anglo-American imperialists. Poor fool, like Saddam Hussein, inveigled by US ambassador April Glaspie in 1990 into believing that “the US has no interest in the issues between Iraq and Kuwait” and so assumed that he had been given the green light to re-integrate the 19th governorate and end the apartheid-style rule of the Emirs over the helot Palestinians, Philipinos, Bangladeshis and other ‘lower races’. Stupid fellow to give up the WMDs so early: hanged for a sheep as a lamb……
The lesson for Kim Jong Il, Ahmadinejad, and indeed Hugo Chavez, not to mention President Lukashenka of Belarus and perhaps Asad and Saleh is “ARM TO THE TEETH AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. The AngloAmericans and other NATO powers will attack on any pretext or none. Disarmament is a swindle to gull the Third World. The Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty is a joke for the US, UK and France. the Iranians were fools to have anything to do with it. Look at the Israelis’ massive nuclear arsenal….No inspection there….”
Well well, we are at the end of the beginning. Tony and I can only hope and pray, but Iraq set an examplar for this. But David, Bill and Phill can ring Tony if they need help. I’m a bit deaf when God calls.
might be a dictator to the anglos, but it would interest you to know that the dictator gave money housing education and medical facilities free to every libyan, there was nothing owed to IMF?WB or anyone else and when he want the West to pay for oil in gold and not the rubbishy paper currency with which they bully the world, then he because a dictator who did all of what your media, controlled by zionists etc have given out. Shame that you can crow over the murdeer of a human being, and if you cant forgive your enemy you are not very high in the hierarchy of humanism.
‘Crow over the murder of a human being’? Gaddafi is a worthy example of a human being?
I don’t think so.
How about the many thousands HE murdered, both in Libya and in other countries?
This country isn’t controlled by Zionists and you’re probably only here in the UK because we allowed you entry for some cooked-up reason. What are you? An ‘asylum-seeker’? A fake student?
If you don’t like what we stand for, go back to where you came from.
Of course you won’t… you just want to criticise ‘anglos’ while living off us.
If you loved Gaddafi so much for all the ‘good’ things he did, why aren’t you living in Libya?
British citizen – who do you think cares for your opinion of the ‘worthiness’ of other human beings. When you murder someone in cold blood, and turn up in court and plead “i didn’t feel s/he was a worthy human being” do you expect plaudits or an increased sentence for your psychopathy?
ANd what is your life worth, if the lives of the political opponents of neocon fundamentalism can be so cheaply discarded? Less than nothing.
A man who has no idea of his own interests, who has no knowledge of history, or of politics or of the world and his place in it, but who insists on spouting nonsense is generally considered a fool
Who cares about my opinion?
Probably about as many as those who care about yours… in other words nobody at all.
You are obviously some kind of misguided nutcase, probably on drugs and no doubt sponging off the British taxpayer.
Pretending to be knowledgeable and throwing insults around when you clearly have some grey cells missing is all your kind can do.
Clear off back to whichever country you came from and keep your idiotic claptrap to yourself.
What Blair will never be forgiven for is his success. How on earth can you decide that somebody embodies every kind of evil, the complete opposite of what “our” people stand for, the exemplar of double-dealing and hypocrisy…who then wins three elections on the trot and enables us to put into practice the many policies we’d only dreamt about in opposition.
Still, you have to admit, it’s nice in opposition. You can attack the boss class. Fight the wicked landlords. Bring down the capitalist system… and nobody notices!
“What are a few fingernails and a little light electrocution when there’s ideological purism at stake?”
What are a few hundred thousand dead Iraqis when ideological purism is at stake?
Very cheap dig, largely at very sensible people, Paul. When will Labour’s right flank learn to speak without the almost compulsory dismissive tone?
Also a silly debate, in particular because Libya was carried out on the ground by domestic forces with overwhelming political support.
It comes as no surprise that Tony Blair is again vilified by the media, Tories, Lib Dems, the BBC, ITV, various anti-Labour voices etc. etc. What is totally unforgiveable is the vitriolic attacks mounted by some Labour MPs (Diane Abbott being one of the worst examples) and a number of ignorant but vocal Labour members (instance the disgraceful booing incident at Conference). Shame on you, Ed Miliband, for failing to defend Blair (re dealings with Gaddafi) during a BBC interview yesterday. Ed poured praise on Cameron for his role in bringing the downfall of Gaddafi but was deafeningly silent during the mandatory media allegations of Blair arse-licking!
I am proud of Tony Blair’s efforts and achievements in helping the world become less brutal and more democratic. What appals me is that these words will never be spoken by our leader.
humanism has no hierarchy Nina, exactly the opposite of what Mr.G. exemplified.
and Nina, Libya has lower population than London ,he could have given each of them a million quid ,still only be 6 million – could have given them that every year ! think how much the oil revenues are ; what ? 400000 barrels from the refineries a day possible . I don’t say go back where you came from,perhaps you are here for a good reason,to train as a doctor or something like that.And baby that gold standard isn’t God given either! Money is what it does ,therefore you must include Gaddafi in your bullies.
So Paul Richards has failed – yet again- to respond to challenges to his ignorant dogmatism. Will he please attempt to justify the pogroms against Libyan and other blacks, the concentration camps, the ethnic purging of Tawarga, the conversion of Sirte into a simulacrum of Fallujah and Warsaw 1944… not to mention the murder and – according to CBS News footage, the sodomization with a knife or a machine-gun barrel of his body shortly before that…..all too reminiscent of the bloodthirsty warmonger Winston Churchill who boasted of racing Hitler to the bottom of the moral precipice and Bomber Harris – now given his commemorative statue in London, – who boasted that he was winning that race in targeting the German working class. If these columns reflect Progress, it is harder to think of a stronger argument for reaction.
Tribute paid to Gaddafi in London http://redyouthuk.wordpress.com/2011/10/28/tribute-paid-to-gaddafi-in-london/
Progress | News and debate from the progressive community Progress Online
Progress is the New Labour pressure group which aims
to promote radical and
progressive politics for
the 21st century
Well, “Progress” says:
“Labour’s pioneering of the liberal interventionist strategy, given shape by Blair’s Chicago speech in 1999, which led to the end of massacres in the Balkans, of amputations in Sierra Leone, violent misogyny in Afghanistan and mass-murder in Iraq.
“Blair helped to disarm Libya. Blair, alongside the Libyan people, and the NATO pilots, should be lauded today for his role in bringing down Gaddafi.”
Well let’s all vote Labour and everything’s AOK!!
At least you’re honest. Labour party is a party of imperialism – Amen brother!
just don’t have the nerve to talk of progress and liberalism. what Blair and other imperialist spokesmen sponsored and promoted was genocide. War aimed at enforcing an economic regime of systematic looting that in itself impoverishes and kills 35 million annually at present estimates.
Something you may be proud of, but working people in all countries despise, disown and will overthrow.