[blair in iraq] entrenched position killed debate
Entrenched positions kill debate and produce a chin-thrust-forward, pugnacious stance which brooks no criticism or question. Take Blair in Iraq, for example. Louise Radnovsky, at Cherwell 24 Jan 28, 2005, wrote:
Palestinian children are brought up with such an indoctrinated and institutional hatred of Israel and Israelis that there is an infinite supply of suicide bombers and martyrs. Israel will never kill them all, and the longer it tries the more horrifying the scale of the death in the region will become.
There ’s no possibility of an answer to the conflict, because the only people with the power to produce and enforce such an answer have buried themselves up to the neck in racial hatred and enmity, on both sides. A ’genuine and lasting peace’ , wonderfully impossible clich that it is, requires first and foremost a change of attitude. That, unfortunately, is harder to effect than withdrawal from any territory. Once a person, or a culture, becomes stuck in an entrenched position, they are almost impossible to shift. Witness Blair and Bush in the run up to the war in Iraq.
Everybody knew, from the moment Blair started singling out the Iraqi regime in speeches nine months or so after September 11, that war was inevitable. A decision was made somewhere between London and Texas, and all the logical, fact-based analysis in the ensuing period was irrelevant. The democratic checks and balances were invoked, and proven irrelevant. Cabinet ministers resigned, and were ignored.
Millions took to the streets, then went home. The true reason? Not that Blair was particularly stubborn, or arrogant, or any of the other labels the nationals stuck to him. The real reason that we went to war in spite of the absence of any sort of mandate or rational motivation, was that Blair had dug himself in, and was politically trapped. Backing down simply wasn ’t an option, however strong the consensus or the evidence.
It’s easy to have the courage of your convictions. It’s a lot harder to look beyond the trench in which you find yourself, and see the situation as it really is. Until our world leaders and people in the countries they lead stop fighting their own corners, we are unlikely to find solutions to such complicated problems.
You can call this simplistic but look around the blogrolls and see people grouped according to affiliation. That’s where the problem lies in embryonic form, that's why Iain Dale needed to create a non-aligned section in his lists and that's why a pro-Worstall critique was possible when the politics differed on certain points. My question is where are you more likely to get reasoned debate along party political lines or amongst a loose confederation of the non-aligned?
Palestinian children are brought up with such an indoctrinated and institutional hatred of Israel and Israelis that there is an infinite supply of suicide bombers and martyrs. Israel will never kill them all, and the longer it tries the more horrifying the scale of the death in the region will become.
There ’s no possibility of an answer to the conflict, because the only people with the power to produce and enforce such an answer have buried themselves up to the neck in racial hatred and enmity, on both sides. A ’genuine and lasting peace’ , wonderfully impossible clich that it is, requires first and foremost a change of attitude. That, unfortunately, is harder to effect than withdrawal from any territory. Once a person, or a culture, becomes stuck in an entrenched position, they are almost impossible to shift. Witness Blair and Bush in the run up to the war in Iraq.
Everybody knew, from the moment Blair started singling out the Iraqi regime in speeches nine months or so after September 11, that war was inevitable. A decision was made somewhere between London and Texas, and all the logical, fact-based analysis in the ensuing period was irrelevant. The democratic checks and balances were invoked, and proven irrelevant. Cabinet ministers resigned, and were ignored.
Millions took to the streets, then went home. The true reason? Not that Blair was particularly stubborn, or arrogant, or any of the other labels the nationals stuck to him. The real reason that we went to war in spite of the absence of any sort of mandate or rational motivation, was that Blair had dug himself in, and was politically trapped. Backing down simply wasn ’t an option, however strong the consensus or the evidence.
It’s easy to have the courage of your convictions. It’s a lot harder to look beyond the trench in which you find yourself, and see the situation as it really is. Until our world leaders and people in the countries they lead stop fighting their own corners, we are unlikely to find solutions to such complicated problems.
You can call this simplistic but look around the blogrolls and see people grouped according to affiliation. That’s where the problem lies in embryonic form, that's why Iain Dale needed to create a non-aligned section in his lists and that's why a pro-Worstall critique was possible when the politics differed on certain points. My question is where are you more likely to get reasoned debate along party political lines or amongst a loose confederation of the non-aligned?
posted by James Higham @ 04:14
0 Comments
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home