The Economist’s anonymous writer  tells of how his break came with Hitchens came over the latter’s  support for the Iraq war and notes that the words “casualties”, “torture”, and “dollars” don’t appear in one of The Dude’s latter justifications of his view.

You’d find it hard to come across a publication at a greater ideological remove from the The Economist than the The Cedar Lounge Revolution, a blog that’s resolutely old left on domestic issues and Third Worldist on all matters that occur beyond Ireland’s borders. For the CLR’s writer, Hitchens and those who agreed with him on Iraq and the war on terror

 … were always wrong of course, but 5-6 years ago there was, at least, an argument.  Now it’s clear, even to them, just how wrong they are….

Now of course there were good reasons to oppose the invasion of Iraq, I did so myself at the time, but I think it’s noteworthy that two such ideologically diverse sources should regard it as such a clear dividing line between the righteous (themselves) and the damned, those who think that the Iraq War, in spite of everything, has a couple of things to be said for it:

1. Iraq’s Kurds are free and safe as never before in their history. They have their own country in all but the legal technicalities. They’re certainly better off than their brethren who enjoy the dubious benefits of Turkish democracy.
2. The people of Iraq are now governed by representatives they chose themselves. Iraqi politics is a bit of a mess of course but there’s been no lurch to a new dictatorship and the Iraqi government proved resolute enough to resist (foolish) American pressure to leave a residual garrison. In this latter regard the Iraqis have shown themselves to enjoy greater freedom of action than was permitted to the defeated Axis powers after WWII. So much for the American empire arguments.
3. Iraq controls its own natural resources. Time has proved the oil argument to be complete bullshit.
4. The Shiites of Iraq can now worship freely in accordance with the demands of their faith and have a role in their nation’s life in accordance with their numbers.
5. The chances of Iraq seeking to invade any of its neighbors or develop WMDs seem slight.

These don’t seem like slight gains to me. Of course they don’t excuse what can’t be excused about the war, but who believes that there can be war without horror? No one except pacifists, among whose ranks neither The Economist nor The Cedar Lounge Revolution would count themselves.  Furthermore,  while  both The Economist’s man and the CLR’s writer would say that they didn’t support Saddam’s regime they seem  quite unconcerned about the fate of the Iraqi people had it endured.

It just seems that there’s a certain class of commentator who can’t stand the notion that the use of Western military power could have brought at least some good with it and that class cuts across traditional political divisions.

PD: sí, por ser extranjero no entiendo nada, no entiendo el espíritu de país, el peronismo, la democracia real, no la democracia neoliberal  etc. etc. Es normalmente lo que escucho a esta altura de la conversación.

Filed under: Argentina, politics Tagged: Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Quintín ]]> http://eamonnmcdonagh.wordpress.com/2011/11/25/en-respuesta-a-un-interlocutor-en-facebook/feed/ 0 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 eamonnmcdonagh http://eamonnmcdonagh.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/atilio-boron-intelectual-de-izquierda/ http://eamonnmcdonagh.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/atilio-boron-intelectual-de-izquierda/#comments Tue, 15 Nov 2011 17:44:17 +0000 eamonnmcdonagh http://eamonnmcdonagh.wordpress.com/?p=1541 ]]> Lamentablemente no hay nada novedoso en leer un intelectual de izquierda reciclar viejos estereotipos antisemitas apenas disfrazados con un poco de maquillaje “anti-sionista”. Atilio Borón es un practicante experto y veterano de este tipo de discurso.  En esta nota logra agregarle un nuevo elemento: un leve toque de racismo anti-negro. Dice que,

… cuando Obama habla no puede decir la verdad. Sus constantes apelaciones morales, propias de un predicador de baratos sermones dominicales, son un taparrabos de lo indecible: la completa supeditación de la magistratura más importante del mundo a las conveniencias e intereses de quienes pagan para ser servidos.

Cuando habla Obama, al menos en sus discursos frente a grades multitudes,  cualquiera con un poco de sensibilidad histórica y cultural escucha ecos de predicadores negros como Martin Luther King. Es un efecto seguramente buscado por Obama mismo, que quiere inscribirse en la gran  tradición de predicador-liberador de su pueblo,  además de ser el resultado de su profesado cristianismo y años de escuchar predicadores mitad políticos, mitad religiosos en la ciudad de Chicago donde se forjó como político.

Pero nada de eso cuenta para Borón. Para nuestro  politólogo marxista  los judíos, perdón quise decir “sionistas”, tienen comprado a Obama.  Y una cosa más, Página/12 es un órgano de propaganda gubernamental, así que pagamos todos para que salga a la luz basura como esta nota.

as it happens, i don’t support a withdrawal from the West Bank because I think it will “bring peace”. I am almost certain it won’t and may well make the lives of ordinary Palestinians worse, if the record of Palestinian self government in Gaza is anything to go by. The Palestinians however, must have a state whether it brings peace or not, because they want it, deem themselves to be a people and have fought for it. The exact same went for the Jews and goes for them still. With regard to the western activists and their fellow travellers, even if I-P peace comes it won’t be enough for them. Jewish self determination is what bugs them. They won’t be happy while it still exists. Also, by refusing to look at the level of violence in the conflict within a comparitive framework you yourself hypostatize “the brutal Zionist occupation regime” and, nolens volens, hypocritically demonize Israel as a uniquely evil state. A final point, when I argue about politics and my interlocutor and I discover that we agree on the basic measures that need to be taken then we usually set aside relatively minor differences and effectively become allies. I notice that, in spite of the stuff about being glad about me in favor of a peaceful solution, you are still, it seems, not at all happy about my position. You’ll have a long wait to hear the kind of language you are itching to hear from me. Oh and wrt to CiF, they can be a bit (ok, very) dogmatic and I’ve had more than one run in with them myself (though we are now friends again), however, they are excellent at doing what they set out to do, exposing the sewer of Jew hatred that a once great newspaper has become and vindicating the right of Jews to self-determination. As Terry G. himself might say, unconditional support for democracy and self-determination for the Is and Ps. and a knee in the groin to the BDSers, flotillistas, whack job WB rabbis, azzaJews, +972 imbecile hipsters, Hamas (the sooner its brought down the bettter and no it was’t elected to rule gaza by the Pal people) the religious Jews eating away at the rights of the secular in Israel, Israeli Arabs like Hanin Zuabi who are pleased to use Israeli democracy to attempt to destroy democracy etc etc etc sorry bout the long unbroken para. blame FB. Oh and long live the Druze !

Profundizar el modelo, cagarse en el vecino boliviano que tiene una verdulería y subsidiar todavía  más a la clase media alta porteña.

Contrast that behavior with their actions regarding the AMIA massacre, which killed dozens of Argentine citizens, mainly Jews. 17 years after the massacre Argentina continues to have diplomatic relations with the country, Iran, whose agents are accused of being responsible for it and trade relations with Iran are booming. Argentina lifts not a finger to inconvenience Iran  with regard to this matter on the international stage.   No lobbying local allies with excellent relations with Tehran, no nothing. There’s the ritual annual request for the extradition of the suspects at the UN General Assembly and that’s it.  At the most recent of these farces the Argentine Ambassador had instructions to sit in his seat as Iran’s President spouted his customary stream of antisemitic filth.

And now there is to be dialogue with Iran. Dialogue with the probable executioners of Argentine citizens on the basis of a tout court Iranian rejection of the bona fides of Argentina’s investigation and request to extradite the Iranian suspects. “Not an inch” says Iran, and on that basis we will hold a dialogue with them. Some dialogue.

The slaughterers of Argentine Jews whose deaths can be inscribed in a narrative of revolutionary social and political struggle are being prosecuted and sentenced by the courts of Argentina, thanks in good measure to the efforts of this government and its predecessor. And how proper and righteous that is. The likely slaughters of the Jews who were killed just for being Jewish in Buenos Aires, in 1994, are receiving nod, after wink, after direct indication that this government will never seriously pursue justice for those Jews and indeed is dying to sweep the matter under the carpet.

Sokurov: That’s ok. First I’d like to make it clear that I am Russian.

McDonagh: I’m not in any doubt about that. Your film “And Nothing More”, deals with Russia and the Second World War. Stalin comes pretty well out of it.

Sokurov: But I make it very clear that he was responsible for murdering the cream of the Red Army’s officer corps before the war.

McDonagh: And his other crimes…???

Sokurov: What other crimes?

McDonagh: The extermination of millions of Russian citizens, the persecution of religious and national minorities, the enslavement of millions in Eastern Europe after the war. I could go on..

Sokurov: Look, Stalin was a great leader, all  great leaders make mistakes.

Mc Donagh: And the Molotov – Ribbentrop pact, which made Germany and Russia allies all the way up to June 22^nd 1941 – that’s almost the first two years of the war – and resulted in the division of Poland between the two countries. It’s not even mentioned…

Sokurov: I’m an artist, a Russian artist, not a historian.

McDonagh: The fate of Russia’s Jews isn’t mentioned either

Sokurov: The Jews? How are they relevant in all this? I’m interested in Russia and Russians.

McDonagh: Turning now to your Leningrad Retrospective series, what would your response be if I said that it was  no more than a shameless, uncritical regurgitation of Soviet propaganda.

Sokurov:  There are things to be ashamed or critical about in the history of Russia?

McDonagh: I’m going to see your film about Shostakovich on Thursday.  Anything I should know about it?

Sokurov:   He was a great Russian artist, unlike you.

McDonagh: Aleksandr Sokurov, thank you.

2. Tom believes that Premier League football is a bad business in its entirety. He thinks that it has corrupted the true sporting ideals of fans and players alike and argues for its abolition and replacement with neighborhood-based amateur leagues instead.  With regard to the Manchester conflict he favors, as an interim measure, the forming of a single team to represent the whole city. This team would be equally respectful of the rights and customs of City and United fans and would be quite distinct from the “one team model” favored by Bill and his friends, which is nothing but a politely expressed recipe for the destruction of Manchester United.

3. Eric is a defender of the cause of Manchester United. Not surprisingly, he calls Bill and his many friends on their blatant anti-United prejudice. While recognizing that United is a prone to error as any other Premier League and that the League itself isn’t above criticism either he demands that the existence of United be respected in the same way as that of its competitors.

While Eric’s hostility to Bill and his friends is to be expected, his hostility to Tom and those who think like him is rather more surprising. His arguments go like this:

(i) The Premier League is a reality. Anybody who advocates the end of Manchester United, even if they also advocate the end of all the other clubs and the Premier League itself, is an enemy of Manchester United and its followers.

(ii) Tom is a hypocrite. His views would be more credible if he gave up his Everton season ticket; calling for an end to Premier League football from the comfort of the stand at Goodison Park cannot be right.

Speaking on behalf of Tom I’d respond by saying that the first argument is an example of the naturalistic fallacy. The fact that English football is currently dominated by the Premier League doesn’t prove that it should be so dominated or that it is illegitimate to call for English football to be organized in a different manner. The argument that Tom and his friends are few in number falls into the same trap from the opposite side; the fact that an argument has few supporters does not, in itself, make it illegitimate.

Furthermore, while the implementing of Tom’s ambitions for English football would certainly mean the end of Manchester United and its traditions, he can’t be accused of suffering from the kind of anti- United prejudice that has stained football for so long as he doesn’t just want United to be dissolved, he wants every other team in the league to go too.

To this Eric might respond that there is only a popular campaign for the abolition of one club, Manchester United, and that no one at all is calling for the end of the Premier League. That’s true and Tom and those like him would do well to remember it when they express their views but they can’t be held responsible for a campaign the opinions and aim of which they do not share.

The charge of hypocrisy isn’t very convincing either. If Tom and his friends all abandoned their season tickets for other clubs the effect would be too small for the Premier League authorities to notice and, in the absence of any alternative, the Premier League remains the only option for those who want to watch top class football in the UK.

In this context I now turn to a detailed examination of those of her remarks to the UN General Assembly in New York yesterday that  concerned Argentina’s attempts to have several Iranian suspects extradited so that the Argentine courts can prosecute them for their role in the 1994 bomb attack on the AMIA Jewish community center, an atrocity which killed dozens and wounded hundreds.

I don’t want to finish without referring to a question that has been included in all the speeches made here since 2003 both by President Néstor Kirchner and myself.

A few minutes ago, when I mentioned the question of Palestine, I talked of the authority – if it’s authority it gives us, so to speak – given to us by  the fact of  having been one of the only two countries  in the Americas to have suffered the aggression of international terrorism. This occurred on two occasions, in 1992 with the bombing of the Israeli embassy and in 1994 with the AMIA bombing, the AMIA being one of Argentina’s most important social organizations. And note that I say nothing of it being of the Jewish community but rather that it is an Argentine organization, because it was clearly an attack on Argentina.

The President clearly identifies the AMIA massacre as an attack on Argentina, as a national issue, not one relevant only to a specific community. This is excellent.  She also speaks of Argentina as having been endowed with some sort of moral authority by the Israeli Embassy and AMIA attacks.   She says nothing about having been the victim of terrorism imposing any duties or obligations on the Argentine state and nation.

We have been requesting that, in accordance with the demands of our courts [la justicia argentina], the Islamic Republic of Iran allow those suspected of some degree of participation in the AMIA attack to be placed at the disposition of our legal system [la justicia].

While the AMIA bombing is seen as an attack on the Argentine nation, the response to that attack is here seen as coming from Argentina’s legal system and not from the nation, which, personified in the President herself, only acts as a mouthpiece for that response.

The polysemy of the Spanish word justicia also leaves a notable degree of wiggle room. The President first speaks of la justicia argentina and there’s no doubt about what that means, but she finishes by using the term la justicia, which I have charitably translated as “our legal system” but which might also be uncharitably understood as referring to some  philosophical notion of justice, something different from that administered by judges and courts.  I would not have mentioned this ambiguity were it not for the fact that it fits well with the  notion of “dialogue” that comes later.

Of course, if the President had said something like “Argentina has been demanding and will continue to demand the extradition of the AMIA suspects”, none of my cavilling here would be viable.

 Last year we proposed that if they [the government of Iran] lacked confidence in our legal system then we could follow the Lockerbie model and choose a court in a third country, to be agreed between us, in which to seek the only thing that we have been demanding and that is justice.

Here the President is ill-informed. The Lockerbie trial was carried by a Scottish court under Scottish law. The only thing that was changed to satisfy Libya was the location where the trial was held; the Scottish court sat in the Netherlands.

We focus on this because it is a universal demand with no political aspect and the word “justice” can be found in the Talmud, the Bible and the Koran, and for those who don’t believe in anything, also in the Constitutions of their countries.

And here we’re back to justice as a religious or philosophical idea, not something mundanely administered by courts and lawyers,  and note the dig at agnostics and atheists, “those who don’t believe in anything”.

On the  16^th of July, the Argentine government received a message from the Iranian Foreign Ministry which expressed its desire to cooperate and initiate a constructive dialogue with Argentina in order to arrive at the truth regarding what happened with regard to the brutal attack on the Jewish community center [mutual israelita]  on July 18^th, 1994.

The message received from Iran, while it represents a change in the attitude of that government, does not in itself constitute an adequate response to our demands which, as I have said with complete clarity, are for justice. Nevertheless it represents an offer of dialogue which Argentina cannot and will not reject.

So what exactly did the Iranian offer consist of? If you search the July 18^th edition of the Tehran Times you’ll find the full statement. It completely rejects the validity of Argentina’s investigation into the attack, says that there are no circumstances in which it will extradite its citizens and that it wants to help Argentina find the “real culprits”. That’s the offer of dialogue which the President thinks Argentina “cannot and will not reject”.   Note also that the President only sees the dialogue as not being an adequate response “in itself” to Argentina’s demands, she doesn’t rule out it forming part of, or leading to such a response.

And why the use of the word israelita, which can mean either “Jewish” or “Israeli”?  Wasn’t the AMIA atrocity an attack on Argentina?

We are here demanding dialogue with the United Kingdom and dialogue between all those who make up this organization. Argentina does so in the context of complying with its obligation to settle disputes by peaceful means, an attitude which has characterized it throughout its history.

While the President, with certain reservations, accepts Iran’s offer of dialogue, an offer based on a flat Iranian rejection of Argentina’s demands, in the same speech she threatened to interrupt civil aviation links with the Falkland Islands/Islas Malvinas and take further unspecified measures if Britain continues to refuse to discuss the question of sovereignty.  The contrast with her supine attitude to Iran is noteworthy.

None of this should be taken to mean that the Republic of Argentina is setting the requirements of its courts to one side with regard to the prosecution of those suspected of committing that outrage.

Excellent, but the Iranian offer of dialogue is based on a root and branch rejection of the Argentine courts’ investigation into the atrocity. So what exactly will there be to talk about? Note also the demands are seen as coming from Argentine courts, rather than from Argentina itself.

 In any case that is not something we can do as it is the responsibility of the judges and prosecutors.

Either the President is affirming her belief in the separation of powers or she is providing herself with further wiggle room in the dialogue with Iran.

What we do say is that the dialogue ought to be constructive and sincere and have credible results and, thus, not be understood simply as a delaying or distracting tactic.

 Given the nature of the Iranian offer, it would be interesting to know exactly what the President means by “credible results”. An inter-faith dialogue on the meaning of justice in the Catholic, Jewish and Shiite traditions, perhaps? Or maybe a sort of truth and reconciliation commission in which the families of the victims and the killers can show that they have overcome old resentments and  conclude by issuing a joint statement emphasising the value of cross-cultural and inter- religious dialogue?

Naturally the claque of Argentine Jewish community leaders that accompanied the President on her trip to New York declared they were entirely satisfied with her speech.

And  Argentina’s trade relations with Iran are enjoying spectacular growth.

However, if you read the report itself you’ll get a rather more complete picture of why the men died. On page 94, in the section dealing with the question of threat assessment, it lists a series of previous incidents affecting Irish soldiers:

1. The killing of Lt Aongus Murphy by an IED on 21 August 1986.

2. The finding of the two IEDs near the Water Towers on 31 May 1988 by Comdt.  Laurence Devaney, the Ordnance Officer with the 63rd Infantry Battalion.

3. The finding of the two IEDs near Haddathah on 17 November 1988 by Comdt Ray Lane, the Ordnance Officer with the 64th Infantry Battalion.

4. The Israeli abduction of Jawad Kasfi and the reprisals or threat of reprisals against the personnel of the Irish Battalion including the kidnapping of the three members of Recce Company.

Threat assessment looks to capacity and intent.

It might be just possible to have taken the view that the killing of Lt Aongus Murphy was a tragic “one-off”.  It has to have at the very least been a cause of very considerable concern given the lethal efficacy of the IED that was deployed in the Irish Battalion Area of Operations; the role, personality, technical capacity and radical Islamist affiliations of Jawad Kasfi; and the fact that the reason that Lt Murphy was specifically targeted had to do with the vexed issue of the protection and incapacitation by soldiers serving with UNIFIL of IEDs that were regarded as assets by the Islamic resistance in their operations against the Israeli Defence Forces and the De Facto Forces.  The IEDs found near the Water Towers in May 1988 by Comdt Devaney in which Jawad Kasfi was again involved, were a further demonstration of the capability of Jawad Kasfi and others to deploy lethal devices.

While the consensus view at the time among the relevant offices of the Irish Battalion was that this device was not targeted at the Irish Battalion, it is difficult to quarrel with the opinion contemporaneously held and expressed by Comdt Lane that the location of devices of this sophistication within the Irish Battalion Area of Operations required a considered re-assessment of the threat facing the Irish Battalion.

If the three earlier episodes established capability on the part of radical armed elements, the abduction of Kasfi and the actions and threats made in response established the element of intent.

Certainly by that time,  15-17 December 1988, what I have read and heard in the course of this review persuades me that there ought to have been a formal and thorough reassessment of the threat confronting the 64 Irish Battalion and the adoption of appropriate force protection measures arising from that reassessment.

It was no longer sufficient to proceed in the wake of the Kasfi abduction on the basis that the only real or sustained threat facing the Irish Battalion was that of sustaining casualties from firings close and shelling by the Israeli Defence Forces and the De Facto Forces or as collateral victims of land mines and IEDs deployed by the armed elements against the Israelis and their Lebanese surrogates.

Even if the threat of a targeted attack on the Irish Battalion was to be discounted on the assumption that the crisis created by the abduction  of Kasfi had passed, the threat to the personnel of the Irish Battalion as “collateral victims” had reached a level that required a sustained and considered response.  The four prior episodes identified could not be treated as discrete and disconnected events that could not recur save fortuitously and the threat of which could not be mitigated.  Those “headline”  episodes moreover required to be assessed in relation to the frequency with which other landmines and IEDs were found in the Irish Battalion Area of Operations.

So, despite the killing of Lt Murphy, the finding of IEDs directed at Irish troops and the kidnapping of the three members of Recce Company, the bulk of those with command responsibility in the Irish battalion couldn’t bring themselves to believe that their men were being targeted by Hezbollah. How can this be accounted for?

I wasn’t there and don’t know the people involved but I do know something about ingrained Irish hostility towards  Jews armed and organized into a state. This, combined with the fact that Israel was indeed occupying the territory of another state at the time, may have led to some sense of identification with the struggle  against Israel and its local allies and so, by extension, with Hezbollah. Note that  I don’t for a moment think this led to any tangible cooperation with  that organization, just  that sympathy with those  they perceived as the underdog,  Hezbollah, together with a failure to understand the real nature of that organization’s ideology and level of ruthlessness, combined with cultural and political hostility to the Jewish nation state, may have made it impossible for some of the the officers  in charge of the Irish battalion to properly appreciate the mortal danger their men faced and where it was coming from.