Y Safle

Photo by
Jonathon D Colman

Selahv mentioned in a comment the disdain of the world for America - but there are in fact two distinct types of anti-Americanism. There is one kind which is just prejudice. There are people who disdain Americans simply because they are in a different “in group”, and it is fallen human nature to disdain out groups. Therefore every bad thing from America (fast food and sugary drinks for instance) is held against them. Every good thing (Clam chowder for instance) is ignored.

Such prejudice is hard to battle against, but it really is not Americans that need worry about this. The same people that hate Americans because of this prejudice probably have similar prejudices about any out group they care to consider.

However, there is another kind of anti-Americanism which is really anti-American policy, rather than the nation or its people. This is the feeling expressed in surveys that suggest people across the world believe that America is the biggest threat to world peace. This feeling comes around because of the gun boat diplomacy of one or other American administrations.

The Opium Wars

Note that America is no different from other nations here. In the 19th Century, the UK fought two wars against China to force them to accept the trade in opium. The drug was legal in the UK at the time - used as a seditive - particularly for gripey babies! But China banned the drug, citing public morals as the reason. After an incident when Chinese authorities boarded British ships and confiscated smuggled opium, a contingent of the British navy, including the new “iron clads” steamed into China. The fleet was larger than anything the Chinese had expected, and the first opium war was quickly lost. The peace treaty opened up a number of Chinese ports and ceded a lease on Hong Kong island to the British.

If you asked at that time who was the biggest threat to world piece, the answer in Shanghai would no doubt have been “the British”.

All countries act out of self interest most of the time. The thing that people dislike about American policy is its willingness to flout international law and order to pursue its self interest. Failure to become signatories to the ICC, arming of Israel as they kill people in Lebanon, The invasion of Iraq, support of regimes that persecute their own people, the arms trade, sidelining the UN and excessive use of the veto when the issue concerns client states, failure to ratify the Kyoto protocol - the list goes on (and these are just the recent examples).

But whilst I personally have a problem with all of these policies, I am not personally against Americans. (Indeed I am opposed to much UK policy for very similar reasons, but I am not anti-British).

Iraq

Selahv was speaking about Iraq, so the question is: how does this help Iraq?

We are where we are, and Iraq is suffering. What can we do? Cut and run? That would cause the disintegration of the nation. Stay the course? There is no sign that this strategy will ever succeed.

We pray for peace in Iraq - and we pray for wisdom and humility in our leaders. Particularly the humility to go to the United Nations and ask for help. If the occupying force could be replaced with a peace keeping force, and if we gave up our claims to Iraqi assets, just as we forced Russia and France to give up their claims, then there may yet be a hope for this country.

It would take a miracle for the US to willingly humble themselves and pursue this problem through the UN. It would take another miracle to see the policy succeed, and peace finally come to the nation of Iraq.

But fortunately, I believe in miracles.

if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

2 Chronicles 7:14

Juan Cole gives some perspective on the recent Virginia Tech tragedy.

I keep hearing from US politicians and the US mass media that the “situation is improving” in Iraq. The profound sorrow and alarm produced in the American public by the horrific shootings at Virginia Tech should give us a baseline for what the Iraqis are actually living through. They have two Virginia Tech-style attacks every single day. Virginia Tech will be gone from the headlines and the air waves by next week this time in the US, though the families of the victims will grieve for a lifetime. But next Tuesday I will come out here and report to you that 64 Iraqis have been killed in political violence. And those will mainly be the ones killed by bombs and mortars. They are only 13% of the total; most Iraqis killed violently, perhaps 500 a day throughout the country if you count criminal and tribal violence, are just shot down. Shot down, like the college students and professors at Blacksburg. We Americans can so easily, with a shudder, imagine the college student trying to barricade himself behind a door against the armed madman without. But can we put ourselves in the place of Iraqi students?

We must not downplay the very real tragedy that happened on Monday in Blacksburg. We do not excuse it, or ignore it. But how much more should we not excuse or ignore the daily tragedy of Iraq? We pray for the people of Blacksburg, and those touched by the tragedy. But let us not forget the people of Iraq, who are daily and routinely touched by tragedy.

A coalition of charities, faith groups and unions has warned Tony Blair that any military action against Iran would have “unthinkable” consequences. The organisations are urging the prime minister to put pressure on the US to enter talks with Tehran. The US has refused to rule out military action if Iran does not halt its nuclear activities.

Here we go again. As we are warned of the very real dangers of nuclear proliferation in the repressive state of Iran (which does terrible things, such as hanging 16 year old boys for homosexuality, and women for killing in self defence people who are raping them), we are enjoined to demonise that state so that we can then invade it with impunity.

Iran’s culture is foreign to us, and the people there cannot be said to be free in the way that we might say that Canadians or Norwegians are free. There is much wrong with the state, and much we can criticise.

But on the other hand, it is a state that is now surrounded by an aggressive United States military, which has a reputation of acting violently and aggressively against those who do not fall in line with it. From the Iranian point of view, there is much to fear from the US, and there would be good reasons of self preservation in seeking to create a nuclear weapon. That is what currently safeguards North Korea, after all.

Look at this map of Iran. Notice that to the east it has a long land border with US occupied Iraq. To its south are arab states friendly to the US, where there are many thousands of US combat soldiers stationed. To its west are US friendly Pakistan and American occupied Afghanistan. To the north east is Turkey, a Nato country, and the only relief is to the North where former soviet states border Iran. It is not surprising they feel surrounded.

But what if Iran were given security guarantees?

In 2004, as Noam Chomsky reports, the European Union and Iran struck a bargain: Iran would temporarily suspend uranium enrichment, and in return Europe would provide assurances that the United States and Israel would not attack Iran. Under US pressure, Europe backed off, and Iran renewed its enrichment processes.

So are the political options exhausted? Certainly not. The US is precipitating this crisis, and the disasterous results of an illegal invasion of yet another sovereign state will be more death, misery and a huge store of ill feeling that can only be expressed in further terrorism, murder and violence, lasting for generations.

US President George W Bush is warning Iran that America will “respond firmly” if the country increases what he calls its “interference” in Iraq.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200701/s1835861.htm

Quite right.

We would not want foreign countries interfering in Iraqi affairs!

It is common for defenders of the invasion of Iraq to say that Saddam Hussein was an evil man who was killing his people, and it was right to put a stop to this.

Even assuming that invasion was the only way to stop this (a case that is far from proven), we arrive at an interesting moral dilemma.

I expect it is possible to build a moral case that one may intervene militarily where the objective is to defend those who would be victims of the intended target, although this immediately suffers from this objection: as we know that non combatants (civilians) will die, then who are we to choose which civilians to die? In saving Jones do I kill Smith? If so, then will not the family of Smith be tempted to say that it would have been better that no intervention had occurred? And will not we have to say that Saddam (or whoever) would have been responsible for the death of Jones, but we are responsible for the death of Smith?

What if we save Lewis and Jones, but kill Smith? Are two lives worth more than one? Can we weigh up pros and cons of a military action in terms of the lives of others?

And here is an interesting point from human psychology: imagine that there is a run away train hurtling down a track. You can control the points and send the train down a branch where it will crash and kill one person or a branch where it will crash and kill 10. Which way will you send the train?

Most people reply that they will send it down the branch where one person dies. But recast the scenario: There is a runaway train with 10 people on board heading for a precipice and a very large man standing on an overlooking bridge. you can save the people by pushing the man off the bridge into the path of the train.

In this example, people hesitate - because they must specifically kill the one to save the many. They must act to push the man from the bridge. We recognise in the latter scenario that the life of the onlooker is not ours to give.

So too in Iraq and elsewhere. The lives of the people of other countries are not ours to spend on political aims - however noble.

Tony Blair has finally (probably involuntarily) admitted that the war in Iraq has been a disaster. It has been a disaster for American and British foreign policy, and it has been a far worse disaster for the hundreds of thousands who have died at our hands.

But those who voted for this nasty war are rushing for cover, saying that they were misinformed and that they could not have predicted this outcome in Iraq.

Yet these people who claim to be competent to govern our country are apparently much less able to predict the outcome of their actions than the people they serve. Many people (including many politicians such as Douglas Hogg, Robin Cook and Menzies Campbell, knew that there were no weapons of mass destruction. Those who knew most about Iraq were most likely to say that there was no credible threat from the country).

Below is a message I wrote in March 2003, just after the war started. I will highlight in bold the parts where I, a mere bystander, was able to predict the disaster that we have now. If I could do it, politicians should be ashamed that they did not. They certainly have lost my vote.

The question was asked by someone:

What and where is this beast “international law”?

Someone else had answered:

The process by which we try to ensure that we never return to the concept of ‘might is right’, which caused two world wars and goodness knows how many smaller ones.

And the original writers reply:

So we give up our right to use force when it is correct?

When is it correct?

No I don’t think so, we fought and won two world wars against aggression started from outwith these borders.

Hmm… yes we got involved in the first world war, but how just was the cause? The fight was over empire building versus nationalism, a struggle between Russia and Austria over the Balkans, a series of alliances that inevitably led to large scale war, distrust amongst the colonial powers after the carving up of Africa, a struggle for naval supremacy and a belief by many parties that they could make a war short and swift.

The British do not come out of that period covered in glory - it was a time of change as the colonial period began to disintegrate and the assumptions of the colonial powers were savaged.

We are now in a new colonial period, with the U.S. acting as the colonial power. It is interesting to see that at least some of the same mistakes as were made leading up to the great war are being repeated again - in particular a belief that a war will be swift and that the colonial control thus established will lead to a more settled region.

One can but hope it will be so, but I doubt that the fighting will be over in the expected 30 days (although I suspect Saddam’s regime will have fallen in that time). I also have no idea whether Iraq will be a better place for having Saddam deposed. What will take the place of his regime? A puppet of the U.S? An interim government that will be replaced with an elected regime (following the imposition of a political system upon Iraq by the west)? Another dictator? The fragmentation of the country?

No one can be certain what will happen next, nor can we be certain that the result will be any better than the regime the U.S. ousted (except that the treaties with Russia and France over the oil will be up for grabs again!)

Swallow your appeasing pride and accept the fact that Britain wasn’t and isn’t wrong.

Your attitude appears to be that Britain may not always be right, but it is never wrong! The Great War was a failure of diplomacy following a colonial period that allowed cultural assumptions to blind European nations to the precipice that they were approaching. Britain honoured alliances and fought a war with a nation that was challenging its naval supremacy, but were we right to do so? Who can say! But the settlement following the war more or less guaranteed the coming of the second world war, so again lack of thought led to failure and loss.

Saddam was warned, he’s resorted to type and is being shown as a tyrant,

Which we knew anyway, especially those who protested against him through the 80s while certain governments regarded him as their favourite tyrant.

Well I would say Iran was more dangerous then, so that policy worked.

Did it? The U.S. and U.K were complicit in the murder of Iraqi civilians. Innocent people in their thousands died for our policy which was all about preventing the spread of a form of Islam that western business interests found distasteful - and even then Iraq was the aggressor, not Iran!

Does that give you an excuse to now support Saddam?

Wake up! You are not thinking man! Where does anyone say they support Saddam?

You want to seriously question why you hate your country so much.

You want to drop this fallacious line and start addressing the comments put to you in a rational manner, with the assumption that the people to whom you speak might be capable of joined up reasoning. Why does a suggestion that war is illegal suggest that one hates one’s country?

We live in a democracy - in such a system it is the duty of every individual to make informed decisions about the issues at hand, and it is therefore inevitable that differences of opinion will emerge. The only people who hate their democratic countries are those who suggest that disagreement should be villified.

I therefore put it to you that you hate democracy.

The protestors [are] now in the minority

It is always the case that during the conflict dispassionate thought gives way to baser motivations as we watch pictures of our mighty forces killing Iraqis as they shop for food and clothing.

How many people being killed have you watched from the comfortable safety of your living room since this conflict started? Those flashes that light up the Baghdad skyline are people being killed for your entertainment.

The question, of course, will be how many people think that the action was justified in a year’s time? How many in ten years? How will history judge this bloody episode?

feel they missed out on the ‘Nam protests.

That would be the Vietnam war that George W carefully avoided?

If you can’t go to war, protest against it, it will give you a feeling of importance. Where in actual fact they’re fools.

Why? Saying it is so does not make it so.

remind me [who sold Scuds to Iraq], it certainly wasn’t Britain,

No, I think Nigel will find that the Russians sold the scuds, but the British sold them plenty of armour. The U.S. sold them armour and even provided them with their chemical weapons!

but do avoid the point. “I don’t have Scud missiles” says Saddam. “See - he doesn’t have missiles” says leftie protestors.

Lefty? If Douglas Hogg can take a stand against going to war then those who have misgivings are clearly taken from all sides of the political divide, and include some of our most knowledgeable people with respect to Iraq - people who would not shie away from a fight if it were truly necessary.

Let me quote. “Thank you, Saddam bad, Bush OK”.

You are watching too much propoganda. It is addling your mind!

Let me quote an ordinary citizen and resident of Baghdad today:

“We will turn Baghdad into a graveyard for the Americans “

As I pointed out to you before: don’t think that all Iraqis are going to be happy at the replacement of Saddam in Iraq with an American viceroy.

You want us to be beaten,

No, he doesn’t want our forces there at all. As they are there, it would be much worse if they are beaten, so one can hope that they get in and out as quickly as possible with as few casualties as possible - that does not make their action right!

[ad hominem argument directed at Nigel deleted]

Yes they are. The UK/US would have been in, fought and won the bloody war by now

What utter twaddle! How would they have done that without their armour and equipment pray tell? This action began precisely when George W had always planned for it to begin. There was no delay (beyond perhaps a few days - but even then I am not convinced).

if you appeasing [vulgarity deleted]

What a vulgar ad hominem that is. Especially as it has already been demonstrated to you that it is fallacious.

hadn’t dragged it all out, dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s.

Um… what i’s are dotted? What t’s are crossed? It was failure to achieve a majority view in the U.N. that makes this war illegal.

[more silly ad hominems against Nigel deleted]

[Nigel wrote:]

Ah, so to fight for freedom, democracy, and all that stuff, you want to label all those who disagree with your opinion “appeasers” and “traitors”.

In this instance they are traitors.

You do not know the meaning of the word. There is no treason on the part of the protestors. They object but they do not aid the enemy or betray the sovereign or her people.

You would already know this if you had bothered read my last message to you.

When I know my fellow countrymen are fighting Iraqi forces and some appeasing traitors wave Iraqi flags in George Square, Glasgow, what am I supposed to make of it.

Make of it what you will - protest is not treachery. Denial and suppression of protest is.

Don’t be such a hypocrite.

No hypocrite,

All evidence to the contrary.

I know what’s what.

All evidence to the contrary.

You can’t find it in yourself to admit you’re a traitor.

More such evidence.

Regards, Stephen

Since Alan Dershowitz has been brought up as an authority in the comments in this blog, I thought perhaps we should look at this more closely, as it is instructive with respect to my post on dealing with an appeal to authority in debate.

To recap, I have argued that Israel have repaid the evil of Hezbollah terrorism with war criminality, by targetting civilians (and the U.N., and the Red Cross and indeed, the whole nation of Lebanon). I have defended my argument with the facts as we have them, but David commented that I was not competent to present the analysis because of lack of training in International Law, and then he quoted this piece, making much of his credentials as a Harvard academic:

When terrorists use civilians as human shields, it is the terrorists who are criminally responsible for the “foreseeable” deaths of the civilian shields Military targets located in cities can be attacked so long as reasonable efforts are made to minimize civilian casualties. Indiscriminate carpet bombing of cities with no military targets is prohibited, except possibly in instances of belligerent reprisal for attacks on one’s own cities Alan Dershowitz, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Harvard

This then is a classic appeal to authority. Yesterday, I proposed some tests that may be applied to an appeal to authority, so let us analyse this case:

1. Has the argument of that authority been properly quoted and represented? If not, we reject it.

The quoted argument comes from Dershowitz’s opinion piece which has been widely quoted. Some parts that David did not quote are “International law, and those who administer it, must understand that the old rules … are now being used as shields”. Also the piece opens with “The absurdity and counterproductive nature of current international law was proven…”

Dershowitz is complaining in his opinion piece that International Law is inflexible and being used as a shield, and that we should revise it (recognising a new sliding scale of civilianity! Although I presume even Dershowitz would acknowledge the civilianity of the one third of Lebanese casualties who are children). What he is not denying is that Israel have broken International Law as it stands - his thesis is that the law should be changed to accommodate his understanding.

So he has not been quoted correctly as an authority, although there are arguments in his piece that seem to pertain (even if they are easily refuted. His argument that a policeman is innocent if he kills a hostage in preventing the hostage taker shooting anyone else is relevant if Israel kills civilians near active terrorists - say when launching or preparing to launch missiles. It is irrelevent if Israel bomb the people in their beds because Hezbollah terrorists may be present. That is akin to a policeman knowing his criminal is asleep in a residence, and so bombing the house. In such a case, the police most certainly would be guilty of murder).

So whilst we should reject the appeal to authority at this step, we will let it proceed (primarily because it is instructive to do so).

1. Do we need the appeal to authority, or can we decide on this issue without it? If we can, we should.

We have the facts before us, and the ability to understand International Law. If we want to be competent thinkers, it is incumbent on us to examine the issues carefully in face of the facts, and not someone’s opinion.

However, we can argue that Dershowitz’s opinion is instructive. We reject the appeal per se at this point but acknowledge the benefit of considering Dershowitz’s views alongside the views of other commentators.

So to proceed.

1. Is the authority actually an expert on the matter at hand?

Dershowitz often weighs in on this subject, but his area of expertise is civil liberties, and American criminal law. However, we acknowledge that this is a good basis from which to have an understanding in International Law. We should give him a pass on this point.

To proceed:

1. Is the authority unbiased?

The answer here is a resounding no. Dershowitz is the son of Orthodox Jews. He frequently weighs in on issues regarding Israel, and always from the pro Israel side. He is not an impartial commentator, and he has been criticised in the past both for the positions he has taken and for the manner in which he dismisses his critics (sometimes citing anti-semitism against valid academic criticism)

That is not to say we can dismiss his point of view simply because he is a Jew. That would be ad hominem. However, we acknowledge his bias and thus rightly treat his opinions with caution. If we had not already twice rejected this appeal to authority, we would rightly reject it here.

1. Is the authority actually in sync with the consensus of expert opinion in the field?

Well it is hard to evaluate this one, as we have noted that the opinion of Dershowitz is that international law is too inflexible, not that Israel have not committed war crimes. But on the latter point, it is clear that other experts (such as the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights) are in sharp disagreement with Dershowitz - which is why he directs his attack at her.

As we have seen in the material I posted in the debate with David, there is plenty of expert opinion against Dershowitz (The International Red Cross, Human Rights Watch and the U.N. being three notables), and Dershowitz himself seems to feel that the consensus is against him (he sees this as part of the problem). There are certainly many people who have objected to Dershowitz’s whole thesis.

So this appeal to authority fails on four out of five points. The argument that because Dershowitz says it, we should believe it is fallacious.

Time and again we are being told by our political leaders that Iran and Syria are arming Hezbollah’s evil campaign (skipping over the detail that Israeli war crimes were being perpetrated by arms from America). We were quickly informed last week that abandoned militant positions held equipment that implicated Syria and probably Iran in arming Hezbollah.

Well now it turns out that British night vision equipment has turned up in such places. At yesterday’s Downing Street news conference, the following question was asked:

Asked about any concerns over British equipment found in Hezbollah strong holds the PMS said that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) were establishing the facts of exactly what had been found and as the situation was unclear the MoD would respond in due course and not before. When asked about weaponry found in Hezbollah hands from Syrian and Iranian origins and that the Government had suggested that it was the fault of those countries; therefore if the weapons found are British is it the fault of the British Government, PMS said that people should wait for the facts to be established

So we should wait for the facts to be established (or conveniently forgotten) before blaming Britain, but it is quite alright to blame Iran and Syria immediately.

The Association for Computer Machinery (ACM) tells us it is the world’s first educational and scientific computing society. This is a society of computing professionals, who have formed - among other things - the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education.

It is therefore somewhat disturbing that their web site can be hacked. Today the SIGCSE site is displaying one of those “I own your site” messages beloved of website vandals.

But just as disturbing are the images the site is portraying - of Israeli girls signing bombs shortly before they are fired at Lebanese civilian targets.

Of course, what this hacker does not mention is that this idiocy flows both ways. As long as people teach their children to hate their neighbours there can never be peace in the Middle East or anywhere else.

So the third disturbing thing about this website hacking incident is that I can see no difference between the heart attitude of the attacker and that of the girl writing on the rocket (or the soldiers who let her do so). All that is different is that one side has weapons supplied by a rogue state, and the other side has arms supplied by Syria.

I personally don’t find it particularly credible to see the hand of Iran in the current situation between Israel and Lebanon. Within a couple of decades, the Shi’ites of Lebanon will probably form a majority, and it is clear that Shi’ite Iran would wish to ally itself with Shi’ite Lebanon (just as they have managed to gain influence in Iraq). However there is no evidence I have seen that Iran is currently seeking to stir up Hezbollah to fight with Israel.

That is not to disagree that Iran is hostile to Israel, but it does not seem to be in Iran’s political interest to do so. Iran is currently able to exploit the rift in the International community caused by Bush’s foreign policy disaster in Iraq. It need not involve itself with Arab affairs (Iranians are not Arabs), and it does not have an interest in the destruction of Lebanon.

18 months ago I was in a seminar with a British government minister. The seminar was concerning technology, but he suddenly dropped in a list of three countries he felt that the international community must take in hand (on some spurious grounds of Internet fraud - despite most such fraud coming from the USA!) One of these countries was Iran.

I recount this absurd comment because it seems to me that there has been a steady programme to demonise Iran for many years now. Our media is being fed a constant drip drip of news reporting designed to convince us that Iran offers a clear and present danger that must be dealt with. The nuclear issue is part of this. Iran has every right to explore nuclear technology, as it consumes a greater and greater part of its own oil production. In order to maintain prosperity, they must remain net oil exporters (with as large exports as possible), so it is quite logical that they will seek alternative generation. It is a pity they look to nuclear power ahead of large scale solar generation, but the point remains that our media are being fed a line about Iran being bent on producing nuclear weapons, when that may not be the case at all.

If course it may be the case. Iran is boxed in by the USA, and they will have learned from North Korea that the only way they can avoid being invaded eventually is to hold a nuclear deterrent.