Though Cowards Flinch

I was quite perplexed to read an article from the Young Fabians the other day, which was supposed to outline the reasons fellow Fabians should support Tony Blair for his actions in Iraq. Instead of leaving the impression of a strong case for his defence, I was left rather confused, mainly at what seemed to be a list of questions (for all those lunatics who didn’t support the war), questions I would like to try and answer. The arguments used, seemed to me, to embody common tactics used by those who wish to justify the actions of Blair and Bush. The raison d’etre is usually to paint those voicing dissent as enemies of freedom, de facto supporters of a tyrannical dictator and of the continued oppression of an entire people. Liberal pacifists who are perfectly happy to defend their own freedoms but not so willing to support the same freedoms of those in far away lands.

There was a familiar methodology present here, employed during previous arguments on the subject. That is the distortion of the various, often complex, legal arguments involved. This usually results in vital questions being left unasked, instead following a line of questioning that can justify the pre prepared conclusion of the author. My main question in approach to this topic would be, how do we determine whether the invasion was justified? Are we essentially discussing a question of legality? Is it an issue of morality and humanitarian compassion? Should any analysis be based solely on the intentions of those involved? Potentially disregarding the erroneous actions of the imperfect human participants, who after all, had good intentions, so they say.

For me the legal and institutional aspects of this argument are of utmost importance. For all its faults, I am a true believer in the UN; it is there for a reason, a very good one at that. Perhaps the prevention of future atrocities and perpetual world peace was an over ambitious project for the founders of the UN, an idealistic endeavour that was bound to fail. Indeed, during debates over Iraq I have repeatedly been dismissed as a “dreamer”, of not taking account of the complex realities of the modern world. So is that it? Peace is difficult, so we’ll just fight our way to “justice” and “democracy”, forget the UN, that was a pipe dream, how can we be expected to bring democracy to the world whilst shackled with ridiculous principles such as crimes of aggression, and security council resolutions?!

My problem with this particular article, was that from the outset (as the title clearly implies) it seeks to justify Blair and his course of action, as if accusations of illegality aren’t even worthy of discussion. Instead it sets about detailing a set of rather pedantic arguments, quite like those a defence lawyer with a clearly guilty client would use. This is exactly how Blair himself operated, feeling no need to justify what he has done in any legal context, because he honestly believes what he is doing is right, that he is merely a pawn in the broader battle between good and evil.

It is in the spirit of open discussion that I wish to go over some of these points the author has raised. As seen as they have phrased the latter half of the piece as a set of questions it only seems fair to offer up some answers, as seen as I am one of those who staunchly opposed the war, one of the many critics to who the questions are aimed.

Q1, ”Had WMDs been discovered, would that have made the war legal, despite the lack of a second resolution?” - The answer to that would have to be no, not unless any military action was an act of defence against the deployment of these weapons and as seen as these weapons are hypothetical weapons, I think that pretty much disqualifies them being used in defence of Blair. We now know that the WMD claims were a ”sexed up” version of intelligence that was already flimsy at best.

Q2/3, “Had they been discovered, would the aftermath have been any less bloody? If the UN had passed a second resolution, would that have made the aftermath any less bloody?” - This I think, was one of the most pointless pieces of  argument the author has used and I am still quite puzzled as to why it was employed, but it was and I wouldnt want to be rude and ignore it so here we go. The amount of violence, in this instance at least, depends on the wishes of the invading force, who very clearly had the upper hand militarily. The interim factors are of no interest, again we would be being distracted by a hypothetical possibility. The proper line of questioning should be, “is there any way the invasion could have been less bloody?” If this was indeed the question then we could have a lengthy discussion about the excessive use of force on civilian locations, the use of cluster bombs, the shooting of unarmed civilians. Again, all important parts of the discussion on legality, but it seems the author would rather try and focus on speculation rather than address any faults in the tactics of invasion. It is one of the key concerns of those who opposed the war, that the amount of force used was both indiscriminate and unnecessary.

Q4, “Had the aftermath not been as bloody, would the question of legality had been so important?” This one is easy, yes, your damn right it would! International law is about a little more than the body count at the end of it, though of course that is a contributing factor. This point basically seems to be heading towards the question, as long as nobody dies, is it ok to invade a sovereign state overthrow its government and steer it on the path towards your vision of Democracy? No it isn’t, and international law explicitly states that a State enforcing regime change within another is illegal. These are the vital points of the argument missed by those blinded by a black and white world of Blair’s moral crusade, “us and them”, “good and evil”.

Q5, “If Britain had not joined the war, would America have gone ahead regardless, and would the resulting aftermath have been any different?” Now this one really takes the biscuit, of course they would have! Bush was hell bent on war, as was Blair, is the author seriously trying to make the point that just because America was going to do it anyway that makes it ok? A comparison with a school yard bollocking would not be unjust, “but miss, the bigger boys made me do it”. Even if, through withdrawal of support, the UK couldn’t have prevented the war, then we would now be talking of the potential crimes of US President Bush, not of Bush and Prime Minister Blair. If you walked into a room where someone was pointing a gun at someone, and after some attempts at reason the person could not be dissuaded, should you just help them pull the trigger?

So what I would really like to ask is, have the writers over at the Young Fabians blog committed themselves to having a discussion on what many experts now view as an illegal war of aggression? Or have they, like the Anticipations editorial board seemed to, settled on cheer-leading for man and his movement who has openly professed his desire to flaunt international law in pursuance of his own political agenda? I would really like to think that it is not the latter, I have a lot of respect for most of the work done by those in the Fabian Society, and would not like to see defence of the indefensible become a common occurrence upon their pages.