2015 exchange with a Green Party apparatchik 📂 Archived Message Posted by Ian M on May 23, 2021, 2:28 pm, in reply to "Caroline Lucas does the 'both sides' routine, flirts with the 'a' word" Speaking of the right to resist, I held off from posting this revealing, rather odd exchange at the time because the green party forum guidelines said content shouldn't be posted externally, but I think it's in the public interest and I'm getting sick of the GP anyway so they can cancel my membership and £12 per year over it if they want. The person argued that Palestinians didn't have the right to resist unless they had a proper, uniformed army adhering to international norms of warfare. But then said that we should be starving Hamas of funds precisely to limit their capacity to resist Israeli aggression (eg: with missiles that have an actual targeting system) with any kind of effectiveness(!) I'll redact their name as a courtesy: ***** Evaluation of green manifesto position on foreign policy Submitted by Ian M on Thu, 16/04/2015 - 19:27 Hello all, first post here so be nice Thought you would be interested to read this review of the foreign policy positions taken in the manifesto: http://interventionswatch.wordpress.com/2015/04/16/a-brief-review-of-some-of-the-foreign-policy-pledges-in-the-green-partys-2015-general-election-manifesto/ It's broadly supportive but contains some salient points, to my mind at least. For example on the 'fragile gains' in Afghanistan he writes: 'The reason i�€™m not keen on this nod to ‘fragile gains’ in the manifesto is because these ‘fragile gains’ are frequently used as an argument in favour of the invasion and occupation. Less children are dying before their 5th birthday, more children are enrolled in school, there has been an increase in life expectancy, and some progress on women’s rights. How can you, then, possibly oppose this war? It’s been a humanitarian success! But this argument â€" and i’m not saying The Green Party themselves are making it â€" totally ignores the immense human suffering that has accompanied those ‘gains’. A recent study by the Nobel prize winning group Physicians for Social Responsibility found that the war has ‘directly or indirectly, killed around . . . 220,000 in Afghanistan’ (p.15). Amnesty International reported in 2012 on how Afghanistan was undergoing ‘a largely hidden but horrific humanitarian and human rights crisis’. And Amnesty International again reported in 2014 on how: Thousands of Afghan civilians have been killed since 2001 by international forces, and thousands more have been injured’, adding that ‘even where the available evidence suggests that killings were unlawful, family members of the victims have no means whatsoever of accessing justice’ https://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ASA11/006/2014/en/c628b1a4-821f... â€" (p.8) Nor is there any real prospect of a genuinely democratic system emerging in Afghanistan while it remains under the occupation of the U.S. et al, in conjunction with their handpicked warlords who in some cases are little better than their Taliban predecessors. As Noam Chomsky once pointed out, just because there was rising standards of living in slave societies, that doesn’t mean slavery was justified. And as an aside, it is also true to say that there were gains in life expectancy, child mortality and women’s rights under the Soviet occupation.' [continues with evidence...] I have to say the wording stuck in my craw too, and I don't think it's nitpicking either - using the Soviet example would the manifesto authors be comfortable justifying +their+ invasion/occupation of Afghanistan on the grounds of 'fragile gains' in child mortality, life expectancy, equality for women etc? Otherwise I agree that the manifesto about a million times better than any of the other parties' offerings, on foreign policy at least. Just could be sharper is all. cheers, Ian Peacekeeping Permalink Submitted by X on Fri, 17/04/2015 - 11:39 The article you reference goes on to talk about the manifesto's commitments to peacekeeping under R2P, and suggests 2 things: firstly that this necessarily involves "power projection", which I don't believe is the case if we act only as part of UN joint operations (since other UN peacekeeping donor states can hardly be accused of this - http://www.futureforeignpolicy.com/peacekeeping-united-nations-unequal-burden/ ), and secondly that this runs a serious risk of mission creep as we saw in the case of the bombing of the Serbian state TV station in 1999. The latter is characterised as a war crime, although as I recall the UK invoked its reservations to the 4th Geneva Convention - https://www.eda.admin.ch/content/dam/eda/fr/documents/mt_060328_gennotif021101e.pdf - in this case. The defence working group's draft policy explains our position on the second question in no uncertain terms. We will commit to a strong interpretation of international humanitarian law, and we will remove these various reservations from our ratification of the convention. The reservations are really only there to attempt to justify us retaining nuclear weapons, which of course we we intend to get rid of, but they actually water down our commitment to the convention significantly with respect to indiscriminate attacks. The changes we want to make in policy remove all these legal get out clauses and just sign us up to the convention as is with no reservations. This will draw some very clear lines that we can show we will not cross, such as the kind of "peacekeeping gone bad" described in the article. Hi X, thanks for that and Permalink Submitted by Ian M on Mon, 20/04/2015 - 19:50 Hi X, thanks for that and sorry for the slow response. I had a look at the reservations link and I'm not seeing any reference to Serbia, unless in an oblique way. How did the govt. of the time invoke the reservations over the TV station bombing and to what effect? Was it simply to deny that it was a war crime? Interesting point about using the UN joint forces. As I understand it the worst of the crimes committed under the guise of 'humanitarian intervention' were done under the preserve of NATO and/or the individual armed forces of Britain, France, Italy etc. as in Libya. I've heard various critiques of the peacekeepers, but none alleging direct responsibility for atrocities, so maybe there's a case for maintaining that arrangement. Otherwise it seems to me that all kinds of western intervention in the middle east, Africa and elsewhere in the 3rd world have deleterious effects, and are mostly (if not invariably) purposed at base to maintain the flow of resources, especially oil & gas, from those regions to the major industrialised economies. With Libya, the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and potentially Ukraine, I don't think you could say it's been a case of 'peacekeeping gone bad' - peacekeeping was the +pretence+, and the real goal was regime change, expansion, neocolonialism, privatisation via western corporations and IMF loans etc. See: 'The Shock Doctrine' and histories by Mark Curtis for example (if you haven't already). Pretty shocking about the UK basically reserving the right to use nuclear weapons when it saw fit... Probably a good idea to expose and push for scrapping those reservations IMO. cheers, Ian Muddying the waters Permalink Submitted by X on Mon, 20/04/2015 - 20:20 If I recall correctly it was less about arguing that it wasn't a war crime and more about arguing that we weren't bound by the convention under some specific terms since the TV station was a military objective - more just muddying the waters legally. I can't remember any more precisely than that, I'm afraid. I think you're overstating the intent behind each of the situations you describe, they were all quite distinct and different interventions and it's not as simple as saying that the goal was neoimperialism. Especially in Yugoslavia, although there were some bad decisions I believe the overall goal was just and we spent a lot more in post conflict reconstruction than we ever gained out of it. You are correct that especially Iraq (and Afghanistan somewhat less so) had political goals beyond establishing a peace and our actions were deeply misguided. I don't know what you're saying about Syria - we haven't intervened militarily there (yet), only armed native factions against Assad (which is as far as I can see for all the right reasons, even if our intelligence wasn't as good as it could have been). In the Ukraine we haven't even gone that far (although aligning ourselves as we're doing is unwise). I'm glad you agree about the reservations. There's another nasty little treaty clause hidden away in our ratification of the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions, which was introduced by David Miliband. You know that the US has not signed this treaty? We have, but the clause states that we will allow cluster munitions to be kept on US bases on our territory. Something else I want to push for removing in the interests of a properly ethical defence policy (cluster bombs are strictly incompatible with indiscriminate weapons provisions of international humanitarian law). Ah yes, I remember now that Permalink Submitted by Ian M on Tue, 21/04/2015 - 21:09 Ah yes, I remember now that Chomsky mentioned it in an article comparing media reactions to the Serbian TV bombing vs. the Charlie Hebdo killings: 'There was an official justification. “NATO and American officials defended the attack,” Erlanger reports, “as an effort to undermine the regime of President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia.” Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon told a briefing in Washington that “Serb TV is as much a part of Milosevic's murder machine as his military is,” hence a legitimate target of attack. The Yugoslavian government said that “The entire nation is with our President, Slobodan Milosevic,” Erlanger reports, adding that “How the Government knows that with such precision was not clear.” ' ( http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/We-Are-All---Fill-in-the-Blank-20150110-0021.html ) You think I'm overstating my case. Maybe. I was just stringing together the countries that sprang to mind as having recently suffered attack by western militaries based on phoney justifications of protecting Worthy Victims: anti-govt. rebels in Libya, Kosovo Albanians in the former Yugoslavia, Kurds in Iraq (a bit too late), and more recently Yazidis and Christian groups, women in Afghanistan (hahaha, that one always cracks me up!), the collection of Islamic extremists that go under the banner of the FSA in Syria, and the Yatsenyuk supporters with their strong neo-nazi contigent in Ukraine after the US-sponsored coup. The double standards, hypocrisy and cynicism of this approach is easily exposed in one word: Palestine. Where is the R2P crowd every time Israel moves to brutalise the populations in Gaza and the West Bank? No imposed no-fly zones, no training of resistance fighters, no military or diplomatic aid worth speaking of. It sounds ridiculous to even mention it as a possibility, doesn't it? Same goes for other client states where 3rd world leaders are doing what the West wants, eg: Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen. No problem when +they+ massacre protestors and violate human rights norms left, right and center. You say: 'they were all quite distinct and different interventions and it's not as simple as saying that the goal was neoimperialism'. Well, I said neocolonialism but would accept neoimperialism as a broad-brush description of the overall effect. I'm not too hot on the Yugoslavia conflict, but have seen it argued persuasively in various places that the real goal was expansionism after the breakup of the Soviet Union. The bombardment targeted a lot of civil society infrastructure - electricity, water, sewage, etc. - which seems to be a hallmark of this kind of intervention. Naomi Klein argued in 'Shock Doctrine' that in a number of cases this was deliberate policy to create a 'blank slate' for western organisations to pick up the lucrative reconstruction contracts. I don't know if that happened in the Yugo war or not. When you say 'we spent a lot more in post conflict reconstruction than we ever gained out of it' who do you mean by 'we'? Was it aid money, were there conditions attached or were profit-seeking companies involved? As to the gains, was there a subsequent marketisation of the post-Yugo economies (alongside raprochement to the EU states) that outweighed bombardment/reconstruction costs? I should take another look at that conflict really... But it sounds like I would have my work cut out to convince you of these alternative interpretations! I see from your comment below that you accept the stated aims of the Libya intervention as 'necessary to avoid a massacre' in Benghazi. Perhaps for now I could introduce you to an element of doubt over that story. Apparently the book to check out is 'Slouching Towards Sirte' by Maximilian Forte. Media Lens excerpted the relevant bits here (scroll down to the Libya section): http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/alerts-2013/735-limited-but-persuasive-evidence-syria-sarin-libya-lies.html and provided this quote from Professor Alan J. Kuperman, professor of public affairs at the University of Texas: 'The best evidence that Khadafy did not plan genocide in Benghazi is that he did not perpetrate it in the other cities he had recaptured either fully or partially — including Zawiya, Misurata, and Ajdabiya, which together have a population greater than Benghazi. 'Libyan forces did kill hundreds as they regained control of cities. Collateral damage is inevitable in counter-insurgency. And strict laws of war may have been exceeded. 'But Khadafy's acts were a far cry from Rwanda, Darfur, Congo, Bosnia, and other killing fields. Libya's air force, prior to imposition of a UN-authorized no-fly zone, targeted rebel positions, not civilian concentrations. Despite ubiquitous cellphones equipped with cameras and video, there is no graphic evidence of deliberate massacre. Images abound of victims killed or wounded in crossfire — each one a tragedy — but that is urban warfare, not genocide. 'Nor did Khadafy ever threaten civilian massacre in Benghazi, as Obama alleged. The "no mercy" warning, of March 17, targeted rebels only, as reported by The New York Times, which noted that Libya's leader promised amnesty for those "who throw their weapons away." Khadafy even offered the rebels an escape route and open border to Egypt, to avoid a fight "to the bitter end."' Otherwise I again recommend Mark Curtis, who looked through declassified UK govt. files in the post-WW2 period and found that: [H]umanitarian concerns do not figure at all in the rationale behind British foreign policy. In the thousands of government files I have looked through [...] I have barely seen any reference to human rights at all. Where such concerns are invoked, they are only for public-relations purposes. ('Unpeople', p.3) cheers, I PS: thanks for the further info on cluster munitions, which I wasn't aware of either. I'd fully support your efforts to scrap that clause and the servility to barbaric American military interests it indicates. Balance Permalink Submitted by X on Wed, 22/04/2015 - 08:39 I was just stringing together the countries that sprang to mind as having recently suffered attack by western militaries As I said Syria and Ukraine do not fall into that category. And "suffered attack" is a deliberately polarising phrase which does not take into account any of the complex reasons for intervention. I'm not justifying anything here, simply stating that it's more complex than some people would have it appear. Where is the R2P crowd every time Israel moves to brutalise the populations in Gaza and the West Bank? No imposed no-fly zones, no training of resistance fighters I would tentatively be in favour of establishing no-fly zones over the Palestinian territories and certainly for pursuing an international accord that breaks the Israeli naval blockade, but training of resistance fighters? You want to arm Hamas? This is not a peaceful or sustainable solution. We should be working to disarm Hamas just as we should refuse to arm the IDF. Regarding state aid and reconstruction, the situation is that these things happen post conflict and once a state has been established, which is not the case. Mark Curtis is probably right when it comes to the ordering of military intervention by British governments, and this certainly needs rectifying. He is certainly not correct when it comes to diplomatic measures. We tend to concentrate on the short periods of violence and forget the long periods of peacetime. If you look through FCO documentation you will find a huge number of initiatives entirely based on humanitarian concerns. Thanks for that X, a few Permalink Submitted by Ian M on Wed, 22/04/2015 - 19:31 Thanks for that X, a few comebacks... 'As I said Syria and Ukraine do not fall into that category.' Well Syria +has+ been bombed by the Americans starting last September with the stated aim of defeating IS: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/23/world/middleeast/us-and-allies-hit-isis-targets-in-syria.html?_r=0 That's on top of arming and training the Syrian rebels, which incidentally fueled the rise of IS in the first place. On Ukraine, I did say 'potentially' in my original list, thinking of the recent announcement that UK troops were going to be sent there. But yes, no direct attack as of yet. 'And "suffered attack" is a deliberately polarising phrase which does not take into account any of the complex reasons for intervention. Really? To me it just describes the reality on the ground: the people of these countries have been attacked by western militaries (or by factions in a civil war supported by the west) and they have suffered as a result. No? I'm not justifying anything here, simply stating that it's more complex than some people would have it appear.' Glad to hear it I agree it's more complex than I've made it out to be above, but ... that was just the abridged version! re: Israel/Palestine my point was about the hypocrisy of R2P advocates, not a recommendation of policy towards that particular conflict. If they were to follow the same principles, as with Official Enemies like Gaddafi in Libya, when Israel decided to once again 'mow the lawn' (their description not mine) in Palestine they would be urging a no-fly zone, preventive attacks on Israeli offensive forces, sanctions or even regime change in Tel Aviv, and Palestinian fighters would be swimming in funding, arms and warm nods of approval for any number of atrocities they committed. Instead, silence. Or even blaming the victim. Which to me indicates they're puppets, or worse, active shills for western foreign policy goals rather than the principled moral agents they make themselves out to be. We should be working to disarm Hamas just as we should refuse to arm the IDF. Not working to disarm the IDF? That leaves them with a considerable arsenal as you know... Why shouldn't the elected government of Palestine have a military? And what gives us outsiders the right to decide that they shouldn't have one when they so obviously need it? FWIW I wouldn't argue in favour of supplying them with arms, when there is so much good Britain could do by +not doing anything+ for a change (ie: stop supporting Israel). Mark Curtis is probably right when it comes to the ordering of military intervention by British governments, and this certainly needs rectifying. He is certainly not correct when it comes to diplomatic measures. We tend to concentrate on the short periods of violence and forget the long periods of peacetime. If you look through FCO documentation you will find a huge number of initiatives entirely based on humanitarian concerns. I'm glad you agree on the first part, and would wholeheartedly support Green Party attempts to change that state of affairs. Although good luck reversing the policy inertia of centuries! The second point is interesting. I don't remember if Curtis addressed that or not. Will bear it in mind. Thanks for a stimulating discussion. I Just one little point Permalink Submitted by X on Wed, 22/04/2015 - 20:04 Why shouldn't the elected government of Palestine have a military? They absolutely should be allowed to have a military. That is to say, designated combatants wearing insignia that follow international humanitarian law. That's not what Hamas do though. There is no military, they arm civilians and launch attacks from civilian buildings (such as the al-Arabiya building - can of worms Permalink Submitted by Ian M on Sat, 25/04/2015 - 19:09 A little point that opens a whole can of worms! Talking about the latest Israeli assault last summer the Palestine Solidarity Campaign stated that it: 'does not support the firing of rockets on civilian Israeli targets. However people living under military occupation are allowed under international law to resist that occupation, using violence under certain circumstances.' (http://www.palestinecampaign.org/faqs/) I don't know what circumstances those might be and I'm no expert on humanitarian law, but I imagine mitigating factors like the occupation, blockade, economic strangulation of Gaza coupled with the routine, often unprovoked violence by the Israeli military and settlers would figure strongly in any honest judgement of Hamas' actions (although not all militant resistance comes from them). It's important to note that, despite what the Israeli propaganda apparatus says (always faithfully relayed by the major international media platforms) rocket fire and other military actions from the Palestinians almost invariably come as a response to Israeli provocations, and the ceasefires are almost always broken by the Israeli military - see: http://antiwar.com/blog/2014/02/06/the-truth-about-cease-fire-violations-between-israel-and-gaza/ Personally I refuse to condemn desperate acts of resistance when all other options have been closed off. Surely Hamas have been +reduced+ to arming civilians and firing rockets 'indiscriminately' - because they have no guidance system - since they have no access to the kinds of resources necessary to create the kind of fighting force you would find acceptable? It seems like you're the one now suggesting that we provide them with the funds for this! I think a lot of people, and probably a majority of Palestinians view international/humanitarian law as a joke, seeing as the major powers routinely violate it when it's in their interest to do so. Some say Israel's very existence is against international law - certainly the settlements are, although debating this in public is apparently verboten - http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2015/790-when-free-speech-becomes-dead-silence-the-israel-lobby-and-a-cowed-academia.html . When a succession of US, UK and Israeli leaders are behind bars then maybe the laser-like focus on Palestinian rocket fire will be justified, as opposed to a deflection from Israel's far greater crimes. Chomsky put it this way in a recent interview: 't’s very easy to recommend to victims, “You be nice guys.” That’s cheap. Even if it’s correct, it’s cheap. What matters is what we say about ourselves. Are we going to be nice guys? That’s the important thing, particularly when it’s the United States, the country which, quite rightly, is regarded internationally as the leading threat to world peace, and the decisive threat in the Israeli case.' (http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2014/8/8/noam_chomsky_what_israel_is_doing) Anyhow, I think this all supports my original argument about double standards. Western govts had no qualms about the FSA not being an official military. Ditto the rebels in Libya and any number of other examples through recent history, eg: the contras, the mujaheddin, the death squads under Pinochet and Suharto. Hamas are routinely referred to as a religious-fundamentalist terrorist organisation, not as the elected government of Palestine; the contras were described by Reagan's speechwriters as 'the moral equivalent of our country's founding fathers' even as they were going around decapitating people they suspected of supporting the Sandinistas (the elected govt of Nicaragua). One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, and vice versa... cheers, I International law Permalink Submitted by X on Sat, 25/04/2015 - 20:09 people living under military occupation are allowed under international law to resist that occupation, using violence under certain circumstances This is very much not a standard of international law, even considering the Martens Clause - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martens_Clause , and indeed the status of those who do use violence under such circumstances is very much open to interpretation, hence the wildly different perspectives on how to justly address terrorism. If someone asserts this, ask them to point to the exact article of the convention. In any case even if there were such a right, it would still not be permitted for those using violence to target civilians (aka protected persons in the legislation) or attack indiscriminately in such a way that civilians would probably be harmed. Both of these are very definitely features of Hamas attacks, and war crimes just as much as Israel's actions that you correctly identify as such. re: international law Permalink Submitted by Ian M on Wed, 29/04/2015 - 21:37 Interesting, thanks. I've seen various writers independently assert the legality of palestinian militant resistance, but not point to a specific clause as far as I can remember. Presumably it's based on something, albeit maybe not a majority interpretation. Will query it as you suggest and/or do some more research... So it's not even legal for them to defend themselves directly against military incursions if they don't do this as part of an officially recognised military of their own? Seems like a travesty of justice to me. Thanks also for the Martens link. Was fascinating to read the history behind that and some of the related wiki articles. I enjoyed this quote on the 'Francs-tireurs' from G.K. Chesterton responding to German general Erich Ludendorff's defense of the German army's treatment of French guerrilla fighters in WW1: "It is astounding how clumsy Prussians are at this sort of thing. Ludendorff cannot be a fool, at any rate, at his own trade; for his military measures were often very effective. But without being a fool when he effects his measures, he becomes a most lurid and lamentable fool when he justifies them. For in fact he could not have chosen a more unfortunate example. A franc-tireur is emphatically not a person whose warfare is bound to disgust any soldier. He is emphatically not a type about which a general soldierly spirit feels any bitterness. He is not a perfidious or barbarous or fantastically fiendish foe. On the contrary, a "franc-tireur" is generally a man for whom any generous soldier would be sorry, as he would for an honourable prisoner of war. What is a "franc-tireur"? A "franc-tireur" is a free man, who fights to defend his own farm or family against foreign aggressors, but who does not happen to possess certain badges and articles of clothing catalogued by Prussia in 1870. In other words, a "franc-tireur" is you or I or any other healthy man who found himself, when attacked, in accidental possession of a gun or pistol, and not in accidental possession of a particular cap or a particular pair of trousers. The distinction is not a moral distinction at all, but a crude and recent official distinction made by the militarism of Potsdam." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francs-tireurs) Also interesting how dependent the legal distinctions are on indefinite notions of 'the principles of humanity' and 'the dictates of the public conscience' - these are clearly not set in stone and can change over time, whether through consciousness raising (eg: dark-skinned people recognised as fully human) or deliberate manipulation of narratives by propaganda campaigns (eg: Afghan 'freedom fighters' in the 80's when they were fighting Soviet invader-occupiers vs. Afghan 'terrorists' when they fight US/UK invader-occupiers). I'd say the 'public conscience' is v. malleable, and can be directed to feel a certain way about certain people regardless of the reality of their situation. G.K. Chesterton is at liberty to defend the Franc-tireurs because they were allies in a fight against a common enemy. Would he have been so magnanimous towards people fighting their own similar resistance battles against the British empire of the time, and as such being subject to constant vilification in the press and popular culture? Somehow I doubt it... best, I General Wesley Clark Permalink Submitted by Ian M on Wed, 22/04/2015 - 20:26 Thought this belonged here... About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. He said, "Sir, you've got to come in and talk to me a second." I said, "Well, you're too busy." He said, "No, no." He says, "We've made the decision we're going to war with Iraq." This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, "We're going to war with Iraq? Why?" He said, "I don't know." He said, "I guess they don't know what else to do." So I said, "Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda?" He said, "No, no." He says, "There's nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq." He said, "I guess it's like we don't know what to do about terrorists, but we've got a good military and we can take down governments." And he said, "I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail." So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, "Are we still going to war with Iraq?" And he said, "Oh, it's worse than that." He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, "I just got this down from upstairs" -- meaning the Secretary of Defense's office -- "today." And he said, "This is a memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran." I said, "Is it classified?" He said, "Yes, sir." I said, "Well, don't show it to me." And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, "You remember that?" He said, "Sir, I didn't show you that memo! I didn't show it to you!" Foreign Affairs Debate on TV 21/04/2015 Permalink Submitted by Karpind on Mon, 20/04/2015 - 21:11 A representative from the Green party will put the case and take part in a debate, tomorrow.  I'd be interested to hear the verdict on the debate from those with some background and interest in this field. It's the Daily Politics programme with Andrew Neil, repeated later on the BBC News channel and at various times on the BBC Parliament channel. reply Do you have the right day? Permalink Submitted by X on Tue, 21/04/2015 - 09:31 The 21/04/2015 Daily Politics episode is supposedly about health policy. reply I think so Permalink Submitted by Karpind on Tue, 21/04/2015 - 12:51 Andrew Neil has just tweeted:  "In light of appalling events in the Mediterranean our foreign affairs debate at 2pm on BBC2 this afternoon takes on an especial importance." reply OK Permalink Submitted by X on Tue, 21/04/2015 - 15:20 It seems it was a different programme. In terms of how the various spokespersons came through in the debate: Conservative: solid expertise, wants to avoid taking on our share of refugees (preferring to give aid to the countries of origin), blames Labour for UK's diminishing voice in foreign affairs, good defence of targeted humanitarian aid UKIP: bit of an idiot, favours isolationism, criticised intervention in Libya which was necessary to avoid a massacre (i.e. would have let them all die), obsessed with EU, state should not give humanitarian aid since charities already serve this function Lib Dems: most cogent and broadly applicable arguments, most concrete proposals based on ethical considerations, best defence of maintaining current levels of humanitarian aid Scottish Greens: came over a bit weak and woolly, proposed mostly "compassion" rather than any concrete proposals, criticised panel for being all male Labour: blamed Conservatives for just about everything especially calling for an EU referendum, very noncommittal on receiving refugees Philip Hammond (the Conservative) is competent and sounds persuasive on the issue of the EU, but the opinion of the EU is that Cameron has dangerously distanced himself from Europe during his tenure, which Hammond doesn't seem to acknowledge. Did you have any more specific questions? reply Aid Permalink Submitted by Karpind on Tue, 21/04/2015 - 20:43 Ah yes, Philip Hammond (see below for his Road to Damascus*): I thought all the candidates were holding their own, with the exception of the UKIP bloke,  until the debate on Aid.  Philip Hammond was fluent and animated while the rest, in varying degrees, got all vague and mumblesome when it came to Aid.  Philip Hammond said that Aid was part of a diplomacy strategy, mostly.  Dougie Alexander mentioned his trip to Bangladesh and the need to assist areas affected by global warming.  (I suspect that he hadn't actually thought through a policy  beyond the "down with this sort of thing" approach)   I thought the Lib Dems and Scottish Greens were unable to get beyond the reasons for humanitarian aid.  ( The Archbishop of Canterbury sermonises on the need to help the World's Poor, and so does the Pope.  We expect a political party to go beyond the sermon to the next stage.) Andrew Neil did a fine job unpicking stock phrases like "alleviating poverty" and "investing in the education of the poorest nations". I wondered how a GPEW representative would have explained our (very long and detailed) approach to Aid, but it wasn't to be. * Philp Hammond:  "I came into the MoD with a prejudice that we have to look at the way the private sector does things to know how we should do things in Government," he said. "But the story of G4S and the military rescue is quite informative. "I'm learning that the application of the lean commercial model does have relevance in areas of the MoD but, equally, you can't look at a warship and say, 'How can I bring a lean management model to this?' – because it's doing different things with different levels of resilience that are not generally required in the private sector."  (The Independent, 14/8/2012) Message Thread: Caroline Lucas does the 'both sides' routine, flirts with the 'a' word - Ian M May 23, 2021, 2:04 pm 2015 exchange with a Green Party apparatchik - Ian M May 23, 2021, 2:28 pm Good bit of ferretting....nm - Keith-264 May 23, 2021, 2:43 pm 'ta :) (nm) - Ian M May 23, 2021, 8:10 pm « Index   Searching