And another thing…

Would it not actually be possible to be both anti-war and anti-fascist? Take pacifists for instance, I doubt many of them are fascists.

And when was there ever a pro Taliban or pro Saddam march in Britain? Dates and locations please.

Does being anti-war imply being pro fascist? Methinks it doesn’t.

I happen to think that the West did need to deal with the Taliban, and I first thought that after watching a C4 undercover documentary back in about 2000, when the West was happy to let the situation go on. But I also think that the planning at the highest levels has been extremely flawed in both Afghanistan and Iraq, essentially betraying British and American service personnel. That certainly does not make me a fascist.

Why then are Labour turning a blind eye to the 80ish Sharia courts in the the UK? Well it’s not really the UK is it? They’re mostly in England?

You are becoming more sound by the blog post, Mr Harris.

That’s all well and good fighting fascism but the problem is that you need to have a proper plan when you go into a country with Armed Forces to ensure that what you are doing is going to succeed and make life better than it was before. In this the UK has patently failed in many parts of Iraq and Afghanistan. The “Comprehensive Approach” is currently scoring about 3/10 in its effectiveness in Afghanistan after 8 long years (longer than WWII). Why is this?

Your history is wanting. I’m getting tired of knowing so much. I’m getting tired of other people’s complacent ignorance. Either admit it when you’re not sure or shut up.

That I’m getting tired might be good news to the newly ignorant who can flaunt their ignorance as fact without my being there to correct them.

Saddam modelled himself quite deliberately on Stalin, not Hitler. He saw himself as Stalin reborn – Stalin was born in Gori, Georgia, which, I believe, is closer to Baghdad than it is to Moscow. Stalin and Hitler were very different men. Equally evil but very different.

Would you like more? You only have to ask. there’s a lot.

The taliban are scum.

however….

Maybe if on the july 3 1979 the US president hadn’t approved covert aid to muslim fundamentalists to try and overthrow the kabul government and attempt to lure the soviets into a military intervention then it wouldn’t have happened.

After all the afghan government in july 1979 , had banned forced marriages , given women the right to vote,declared a secular state,brought in land reform etc,etc.

Clearly that was unacceptable to the US when it was given a chance to give “the USSR its Vietnam war.” as Brzezinski wrote to Carter the same day the soviets crossed the border 5 months after Carter had decided to supply the muslim fundamentalists with weapons.

Blowbacks a bitch. Which is all the more reason to think long and hard about getting involved in places like Afghanistan.

“But beyond the immediate necessity of bringing bin Laden to justice…”

Let’s ignore for a moment the fact that Osama bin Laden was once a CIA “intelligence asset,” the USA has had opportunities to capture/kill him and not bothered, which makes your “the US had no choice but to demand bin Laden be handed over” sound quite naive.

Two months before 9/11, Le Figaro reported he was having kidney treatment in the American Hospital in Dubai where he was visited by the local CIA agent.

Yes, the Taleban are horrible, but so are the rulers in many other places. Should we not be carpet bombing all these other countries in the interest of fairness!!

Or is it just the countries with oil and drugs that are worth getting involved in?

I gotta agree with Stewart. He’s a nut, but just this time…

No, joking aside, he cannot be dismissed as the ‘lone conspirancy nut that nobody will believe’. Not this time. Not anytime.

But we have to let it go. Here comes the really big news. It’s just a game. Relax. Play with your kids. Have a plate of chips once in a while.

“British soldiers are fighting and dying in the campaign to build a democratic and free Afghanistan.”

Well guess what – it’s not working. The coalition forces don’t have a hope in hell of defeating the Taleban, and eventually they will end up retreating in a suitably undignified fashion.

I’m no isolationist. There’s no moral justification for sitting back and allowing fascists, dictators and people who spit on human rights to stay in power. But in case you haven’t noticed, the British government is isolationist, and it does allow fascists, dictators and human rights-abusers to stay in power – right across the world.

So, anyone thinking at a level more sophisticated geo-political level than your average action-movie has to go beyond, “let’s kill some randomly assorted bad guys. Wahoo!”

“If you persecute gays, treat women as second class citizens, rule by intimidation and violence, deny citizens the basic tenets of democracy and consider those of a different ethnicity, race or religion to be worthy of death and imprisonment, then you are a fascist.” – Er, no. I’m sorry to be pedantic but this is a description of tyranny not Fascism. Why does the left use the word “Fascist” to describe anything it doesn’t like? Fascism is a distinct political ideology (though not one to which I subscribe I hasten to add!). Mussolini was a Fascist but your description would not in most cases apply to his government. Nazism (which is not the same as Fascism) is closer to your description but again doesn’t quite fit. The Taliban are tyrants, not Fascists, how can they be when they are not in any way motivated by Fascist ideology?

The Taliban are Religious Extremists and I don’t see what threat they present to us, probably about the same as the Weapons of Mass Destruction. We have the very worst elements of society in the form of corrupt Politicians sending the very best elements to fight a war for no good reason.

My son was home from University recently and commented that it was a bit like the war in Orwell’s 1984 which I thought summed it up quite well. There are greater threats to us on the streets of the UK in the form of Preachers of Hate etc who have been let in under the open door immigration policy.

I believe the war in Afganistan is a just and worthy war but your criteria for Facism (“persecute gays, treat women as second class citizens, rule by intimidation and violence, deny citizens the basic tenets of democracy and consider those of a different ethnicity, race or religion to be worthy of death and imprisonment”) could be applied a number of other Middle Eastern states so you not think?

Before you give the reasons, the first thing to ask is ” Can We Win”. History tells us No.The performance to date says no. what will happen will be a long drawn out battle with more loss of life in a war we will never win, we will then leave kidding ourselves we have won.
Labour have again taken the lives of our people by going into a war we will never win. Of course Labours pig headedness will ensure it continues whilst cutting defence spending.

Shame on you all.

Johnny – you are aware, aren’t you, that the Conservative Party supported our intervention in Afghanistan and still do? Just checking.

I’d rather send troops into battle with the equipment they need to do the job rather than just relying on hope and prayer to protect them. We’ve had enough cases now where it’s clear that they don’t have enough armoured vehicles or even basic protective equipment.

I thought Nick Clegg’s piece in the Telegraph today basically saying the Government could and should be doing better on both the military and political side of their action in Afghanistan was worth reading.

“If you persecute gays, treat women as second class citizens, rule by intimidation and violence, deny citizens the basic tenets of democracy and consider those of a different ethnicity, race or religion to be worthy of death and imprisonment, then you are a fascist.”

Tom based on the above analysis, are you campaigning to the UN for a similar military intervention
in Saudi Arabia? You know, those nice chaps that the Queen had to tea not all that long ago?

Well, actually most of Saddam’s regime was based on the socialist, Iosef Stalin.

He even modeled his hair style and mustache on the Steel Man. The show trials, beatings and everything else are all hallmarks of Stalinist regime, rather than Fascism. So technically they’re right. They’re supporting a former socialist regime.

“deny citizens the basic tenets of democracy”

To be fair to the Taleban, at least they are honest about denying democracy.

Here in Britain we were promised a full fourth term of Blair (i.e. no Brown without an election) and a referendum on the Lisbon Consti-treaty (still waiting on that one).

Complain they don’t have democracy in Afghanistan all you want, but your protestations look a little hollow when your party treats public opinion as an obstacle to be avoided rather than a reason to change direction.

Mark – are you even capable of addressing the subject of any post? Or is everything in your world about Lisbon and your peculiar obsession with Labour Party internal election process? I’m only surprisedFrank Davis hasn’t left a comment yet denouncing the government for introducing a smoking ban, which would make as much sense as your comments, Mark.

I think I detect a defensiveness among some of my right wing commeners about this. For the record, I couldn’t care less whether you think fascism is of the Left or the Right – it’s evil and wrong either way and should be defeated. As it happens, Con Coughlin’s biography of Saddam suggests Saddam modelled his regime on Nazism, but a more important point is that the world’s better off without him, whether he was a devotee of Hitler or Stalin.

Tom, you are making more sense than ever. Perhaps the fact that I am a Conservative Association officer might not be helpful;)

What Ross said.

Tricky thing, though, terminology. Ask the American military if they ‘invaded’ Afghanistan to get Bin Laden, and they will say no. They bombed the hell out of it from the air, but they didn’t ‘invade’, like they did in Iraq. Major deployment of troops in A-stan didn’t happen until after the Iraq invasion, when the ‘coalition of the willing’ realised they’d taken their eye off the Afghan ball, and it was too little, too late.

Another seven British soldiers, on top of how many besides? And yet, no reports of any British MPs coming home in body bags yet…

‘You know, those nice chaps that the Queen had to tea not all that long ago?’

are they the same ones that our prime minister praised for having ’shared values’?

Evil s*** the Taleban may be, but the warlords who have filled the power vacuum left behind are far worse in many cases.

The warlords have also brought the huge opium trade back to life in Afghanistan, while the Taleban had almost completely wiped it out. Food for thought.

Tom – With respect to the post I do agree with what you say about the invasion of Afghanistan. We took the correct international procedures and the war there is unquestionably legal, although it would be nice to hear some form of exit criteria.

I’m just pointing out the hypocrisy in your denouncing the Taleban for, among other things, denying their citizens democracy while at the same time you support giving our powers away to Brussels without so much as asking the people what they think. The EU is very similar in this, in that they support Tibet’s rights to be free from China while swallowing up the freedom of EU nations.

It sounds like I’m starting to get to you though. Could it be because you don’t like having your contradictions pointed out to you?

For what it’s worth, I do enjoy the blog and I think you’re brave for running one as a Labour MP. If you were my local Labour candidate I wouldn’t vote for you, but I would feel bad for not doing so.

Tom. Just because the Conservative party supported the war does not mean I just blindly follow. What i have said about it is what will happen.

Study your history, If you were serious about winning, it will take far more commitment than you will give it. I would suggest you should start at home by getting rid of those that support the taliban etc. But no thats far to difficult for you to do.

I am not a Labour sheep but a Tory free thinker.

Mark – it’s a peculiar outlook which can equate the Taleban with the EU. Although it’s an obvious and logical comparison for commenters on this blog to make, it’s one that ordinary people from Earth would find incomprehensible. Don’t you think that, as a visitor to this planet, you should make more of an effort to respect Earth logic?

Tom

what about the Saudi’s, will you denounce them as fascists too?

They tick all the boxes you have talked about

Ross

‘There is no question over the legality of action in Afghanistan, or its legitimacy in terms of UN authorisation.’

Yeah. Kind of reminds me of the end of ‘Charlie Wilson’s War’… “These things happened. They were glorious and they changed the world… and then we fucked up the endgame.”

Are we sure that the Taleban means what we thought it used to mean? Anyone resisting the foreign occupation of Afghanistan is now presumed by the media to be ‘Taleban’. If they try to murder our soldiers then they have earned the right to be murdered in their turn – that’s what soldiers do and should do – but let’s not kid ourseleves that we are dealing with some kind of finite, homogenous enemy. We’re not. Anyone who has seen family or friends killed, anyone who hates foreign troops in his country, anyone who is just a young hothead who wants to fire off a gun, is now ‘Taleban’. There will be no end to it.

Damn. Made me use the main armament. I hate that. I’ll have to paint the barrels again. Third time this week. Normally I just let of a few from the midships Bofors. Make of that what you like you internet weirdos you, with your Super Etendards.

Tom – You really want to talk immigrants and respecting local values?

Back on topic, when you consider that French, Dutch and Irish voters have all rejected the EU Constitution / Lisbon Treaty, and that the EU is still trying to force it through, do you really believe that the EU respects and responds to public opinion?

Anyway, I’m sure this could go on all day so let’s just agree to disagree and wish our armed forces across in both Afghanistan and Iraq the best of luck. The job they do makes our squabbling look insignificant really.

‘Con Coughlin’s biography of Saddam suggests Saddam modelled his regime on Nazism’.

Well, we could argue about that, and about how definitive one book can be.

There are big differences between fascism and totalitarian communism though I would agree that the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ become worthless as a description of either.

Which raises the question – I’m sorry, I mean, ‘begs the question’ (that used to mean ‘assumes the truth of that which is as yet under debate but it doesn’t any more) – of what you mean by your ‘right wing commenters’, of course. Am I ‘right wing?’ It’s a rhetorical question. Tom knows what that means but for the benefit of others it is a question which expects no answer.

Stop pushing it Baxter. Tom’s on a short fuse at the minute. He’s a decent guy who went in to politics for the best of reasons and he now feels let down, disillusioned, he’s seriously thinking about jacking it all in… cut him some slack.

Answer Ross’ question.

The Taleban are indeed vile fascistic thugs but the crimes you accuse them of could just as easily be levelled against the regime in Saudi Arabia, to whom we’ve been very happy to sell arms and agaisnt whom we most certainly won’t be fighting in the near future.

Of course we used to supply arms to the Taleban when they opposed the Soviet Union.

The war in Afghanistan, like that in Iraq, is unwinnable and a stark reminder of how hypocritial British Governments of whatever hue have been and apparently always will be.

The sooner Scotland removes itself from the post-Empire, war mongering abomination that is the United Kingdom, the better for it and the rest of the UK’s constituent parts.

I didn’t hear you say “please”.

Your main salvo is saying that it’s a big ‘ole mess, Jim?

‘Taleban’ means ’student’. It may have become a catch-all term, but probably no stranger than referring to the Parachute Regiment as hats of a particular colour. Dunno if they would regard resisting occupation as ‘murder’, though, or if our troops think that is what they’re doing either. I saw a special report on the BBC news yesterday evening, and thought, this is what happens when political considerations trump national security. Like Pink Floyd said ‘Bring the Boys back home’.

‘I didn’t hear you say “please”.’

Looks like it’s ‘pinata time’…

pretty please, with a cherry on top!

im sure in your response you will address the apparent inconsistencies in the differences in the UK and USA approaches to Saudi and some the other fascist regimes (i.e. the taleban)

Please Tom, will you answer Ross’s question?

The Taliban want Afghanistan under Sharia law which has all the components of your definition of fascism.

Will you condemn the establishment of Sharia courts in the “UK” (England)?

Pretty please with a cherry on top.

Naldo: “The sooner Scotland removes itself from the post-Empire, war mongering abomination that is the United Kingdom, the better for it and the rest of the UK’s constituent parts.”

Yeah, but “Scotland the Neutral and Non-Committal” just doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?

for the avoidance of doubt (and without making this a ‘Ross’ based thread) I have no worrys about Sharia courts like @Wyrdtimes. That wasnt the thrust of my question.

I am interested in the potential double standards involved in the UK’s attitude to Saudi

Ross

Oh, all right. Tom’s OK, he’s as rude as he’s always been. It’s me…. ME do you hear me that’s seeing things differently.

Yes, it’s true, I’m having one of my manics. Could I not do the decent thing and keep it to myself as Jack Kerouac recommended? No. The title of this blog gives me the right. Anyway, the more people who get to understand health problems the better. I refuse to call them ‘mental’ health problems.

As long as I try to say at least one thing that’s relevant to the topic. Here it comes.

Tom is thinking of jacking it in. But, the other voice also calls to him. The one that says ‘We need good guys in politics, now more than ever… stay the course’.

Clever of me eh? Nah. Which of us doesn’t think that each day?

@Joe K

Well, aren’t you a trial. If I understood what you were saying (apart from the salvo bit – my ’ship’s complements_- note the ‘e’ not the ‘i’ – I might respond. It’s my fault – thick – hold me hands up.

Me too, Ross. I fear we may have to keep wondering, though.

Well, I just meant that ‘murder’ is a word that gets thrown around rather casually. Terrorists ‘murder’, freedom fighters ‘liberate’…

Now I’m about to murder/liberate a copy of the Indy, with my special voucher.

I bet the guns ammunitions and rockets being fired at our troops either come from the CIA or from the British government, funny how the old Tali Ban are our friends one minute and the next we are killing them.

While these people were fighting the Russians (who lost), they were seen as Mates of the UK and the USA. But in over 2,000 years hardly anyone has beaten these people, so how come the great USA will do it nuke them.

@Kafka

Yes indeed. Our filthy media report that hostages have been ‘executed’. They mean murdered but they are too moronic to know the difference, not that there is much difference apart from the sanction of the people.

God save us from the will of the majority. Stay with it Tom. We know it’s tough but we need people like you in the HoC.

@ Robert

couldn’t have put it better. Pure UK hypocrisy from this discredited Labour government.

I watched a documentary a few weeks ago where a unit of US marines were in the mountains of Afghanistan searching some locals for weapons. They actually found a Lee-Enfield riffle from the LAST time British forces were in the country.

How ironic, if not utterly demoralising for our brave young soldiers knowing that this has all happened before, and no doubt will all happen again someday as long as we have warmongers in No.10. These brave lions are being killed by their own governments’ weapons (and if not British then a good proportion will no doubt be American arms), utterly contemptible.

Deep joy. They quoted this blog on the Today Programme. I believe they described it as ‘confused’, though.

Anyhoo, any bets on who said this on last Sunday’s Westminster Hour?: ‘it is actually a complete falsehood to claim that they don’t have the right equipment, I have spoken to many of the commanders and many of the soldiers on the ground there, and the equipment problems they had at the start of the conflict, just, are no longer present…’

Funny thats not the response from a serving officer this morning, he said the army is seen as the lowest order when it comes to buying equipment. it’s all about the grunts can do it, we waste money buying equipment if it gets blown up. I wonder if Blair had his kids in Iraq or Afghanistan would be be so quick to go to war.

‘Our’ intervention to bring democracy to other countries (i.e. install puppet governments who dance to the US regime) looks particularly disingenuous when you consider incidents like this:

Teens from Okeechobee church deported from England after running afoul of anti-terror law

Not only does reading this make me feel sick about how these teenagers were treated, but I am ashamed at the way our so-called laws constantly target totally innocent people.

Then we read this today on Cranmer: Coptic Christian family deported

A young Egyptian asylum-seeking family (kids aged between one and ten) were awoken in the night by at least fourteen coppers breaking in through the door.

Labour’s Gestapo would be terrified to do this if, instead of claiming to have been tortured for his Christian beliefs, he had been involved in terrorism or homosexual behaviour in a Muslim country.

But the Mansours are a) a happy, normal family and b) Christians, so two crosses against their names.

I hate your government, Tom. I hate it so much; it’s turned this country into the sort of dystopia we would claim to have the right to restore ‘democracy’ to if New Labour were operating in Afghanistan.

You claim to be a Christian. How can your soul have peace being part of all this?

“You claim to be a Christian. How can your soul have peace being part of all this?”

of course, Stewart, I forgot that you were the final arbiter of who is a Christian and who isn’t. Forgive me. I’m sorry that my personal faith falls short of the standards you, in your purity and wisdom, have set us.

I don’t suppose it has occurred to you that some of the descriptions of failed asylum seekers (or, more accurately, “illegal immigrants”) are misreported in the media? It certainly happens in Glasgow where officers arrive at 7.00 am and that’s described “middle of the night”>

And of course it hasn’t occurred to you that maybe, just maybe, the information that asylum seekers give the authorities about their homeland circumstances isn’t entirely accurate. Do you believe that only those claiming to be Christians should be spared deportation, or everyone who claims asylum?

Tom wrote: the US had no choice but to demand bin Laden be handed over. The Taleban’s refusal to do so was in effect an invitation to the international community to invade.

My dim recollection is that the Taleban refused to hand him over to an international court, but they said they’d hand him over to a Sharia court. The offer wasn’t accepted.

But anyway, once the international community invaded, Osama Bin Laden got sidelined. He escaped Operation Anaconda, and after that George W Bush lost interest in him. And said as much. The mission shifted to one of defeating the Taleban and bringing democracy to Afghanistan. Oh, and Iraq too.

Osama bin Laden is still at large, needless to say.

I take it from your misplaced tirade that your soul doesn’t have complete peace in the matter. Neither does mine on your behalf – or theirs.

You should look to Christ’s example rather than mine. My standards aren’t very good, but I like to think I recognise extreme unfairness and inhumanity when I see it.

14-plus policemen to sort out one Christian, his wife and their wee girls all under 10?

“It certainly happens in Glasgow where officers arrive at 7.00 am and that’s described “middle of the night”"

What are you saying, that it’s OK to batter down the door at 7am while they sleep, terrifying the kids and taking them away without even being allowed to bring a change of clothing?

Maybe the bloke wasn’t really tortured in Egypt, but is this really acceptable behaviour by the ‘authorities’?

Why does your gov’t give dangerous Islamic illegals all the breaks? Why do their human rights matter more than others’?

And who in their right mind would come to the UK pretending to have been tortured for their Christian beliefs and expect sympathy from this government?

“Do you believe that only those claiming to be Christians should be spared deportation, or everyone who claims asylum?”

How about some *equality* for a change. It’s what New Labour pretends to be about.

It’s clearly been a lie for some time. You are a second-class citizen in your own country, partly of your own making?

And what about the American kids being deported as soon as they arrive. I know you know this isn’t what the anti-terror laws were meant for, but that’s how they’re being applied by low-grade ‘officials’ desperate to ‘comply’ with directives and meet ‘targets’ and ‘quotas’.

And anyway, I’m not even talking about Christian values, but normal human reactions to injustice.

What I simply cannot understand, is the moral support given by those on the extreme left and other unthinking moral relativists, to those deranged traitors in the British muslim ghettos who whoop and cheer when news of the deaths of British soldiers comes through.

Have they no shame, or failing that, no sense of moral proportion?

Nothing to do with fascism. There are plenty of other countries with fascist traits in the world.

There were certainly good reasons back in 2001, but that was to do with regime change and stabilisation of a failed state that was a possible terrorist base. Strategic focus was completely lost with the bizarre decision to invade Iraq….even more stupid than Hitler attacking Russia in 1941. Since then the situation has deteriorated, and there are not enough troops to to the job of destroying the Taliban, taking and holding ground, and protecting civil infrastructure.

The terrorism excuse is a poor one….there was a credible and a potential threat back in 2001, but targeting the Taliban rather than trying more subtle tactics (bribery) has radicalised what was a nationalist fundamentalist movement with only local ambitions. The real terrorism threat is next door in Pakistan and is being inflamed by the continued operations in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is twice the land area of the whole of Vietnam, which the Americans occupied in part with 500,000 troops. In Afghanistan, twice the size, there are 50,000 troops: a force equivalent to one-twentieth the size. Most US operations in Vietnam were successful but they still lost to an insurgency….as is the case in Afghanistan.

Something has to be done – more troops, a change in strategy, withdrawal. The status quo is not an option.

And, wanna know the funny thing? The Taliban are already here. It’s like I said on the Torchwood entry. There are surely plenty of people who could be carrying out terrorist acts in this country, and not necessarily anything so obvious as bombs. While our enemies can kill soldiers ‘over there’, and call it the defence of their homeland, it looks better than murdering civilians over here. Once British forces pull out of Afghanistan, though, the latter might look like a more appealing prospect. Or, they might just start throwing their weight around, spreading fundamentalist Islam so it looks like they might as well be bombing off-licenses and night clubs.

Get me. I’m sounding like quite the islamophobe. But I’m quite tolerant of religion, certainly a lot more than I used to be. I just see a more virulent form making it’s presence know, and I want to put down a marker and say, ‘Sodom and Gomorrah? This is London, guv…’