Neo conservative | ukwatch.net

War and Lies

Ellie Keen — Mon, 12 May 2008 23:15:02 +0000

“We are going to war, the world be damned.” This was the clear message from the White House, backed strongly by 10 Downing Street. It was evident to the world that the war on Iraq was illegal and was not waged for a just cause. September 11 was the only reason Tony Blair would use to defend both his support for the war and the White House. In the unfolding of this catastrophic drama, the world saw no commitment to the United Nations charter. The international will to find a peaceful solution was ignored outright. Imperialist politics, hungry for oil and geared for political hegemony, was the chief concern of the Western alliance. Iraqi pride and right to self-determination were brushed ruthlessly under the carpet.

Imperial history is replete with revelations about the evil capabilities of the human race, as is evident in the genocide of the natives in Africa and America, the holocaust accompanied by unimaginable fascist brutalities, the two World Wars and now the violence unleashed in West Asia. This crisis in late capital society is stubbornly located in the structures of technological dominance, military violence and ideological legitimation.

European violence is evident in its political and economic adventures, in the very savagery that lies under the veneer of civilisation as is apparent in the art of Picasso and Gauguin, who reflect the dark side of the European man. The wars waged by the West are an example of this deep-seated aggressive behaviour in the Western psyche wherein lies the supremacist attitude of setting goals for the world. If not Pax Britannica, then it is Pax Americana.

In the last days of his tenure, Blair would look back and rationalise his alliance with Bush: “And then came the utterly unanticipated and dramatic September 11th, 2001, and the death of 3,000 or more on the streets of New York, and I decided we should stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our oldest ally, and I did so out of belief. And so, Afghanistan and then Iraq, the latter bitterly controversial. And removing Saddam [Hussein] and his sons from power, as with removing the Taliban, was over with relative ease. But the blowback since from global terrorism and those elements that support it has been fierce and unrelenting and costly. And for many, it simply isn’t and can’t be worth it. For me, I think we must see it through. They, the terrorists who threaten us here and around the world, will never give up, if we give up. It is a test of will and of belief, and we can’t fail it.”

This expression of Blair’s foreign policy has been critiqued by Tariq Ali in his book Rough Music. In the sustained opposition to the Western alliance by the Iraqis he sees heroism justified by Herman Melville’s statement about Lucifer: “Milton’s Satan is morally very superior to his God, as whoever perseveres despite adversity and torture is superior to whoever, in cold vengeance, takes the most horrible revenge on his enemies.”

Undoubtedly, the American giant stood injured after 9/11. If it was Pearl Harbour that awakened it in the Second World War, it is the attack on the twin towers that provoked it to take on the Muslim world. But this time, it was without some of its allies, except Britain, who were not in a mood to back its military ambitions. Whereas the United States regards the U.N. more of a constraint, the dissenting nations in Europe regard it as one chief controlling factor in international politics.

Though we witnessed demonstrations on both sides of the Atlantic against the war in Iraq, we cannot deny the wedge that slowly crept in down the Atlantic. However, the tremendous bonding between Blair and Bush, the two seemingly delinquent school buddies with their arms around each other, superseded the public wrath in both countries, while in Iraq it gave rise to deep public despair and an inspiration to die for one’s faith.

The situation was indeed alarming. Bush and Blair failed to build a broad international coalition against Saddam to bring about disarmament through peaceful means. The ensuing war only exacerbated tension, millions died and suffered, and future generations will question why we allowed it. The turbulent social, political and philosophical movements of our time will interrogate the ethical quandaries of our positions regarding peace and unjustified political interference in the sovereignty of other independent nations.

The preponderance of force over diplomacy; contemptuous double standards in foreign affairs; clandestine nuclear proliferation in nations such as Israel, which the U.S. totally ignores on the one hand and bludgeons Iraq on the other for possessing weapons of mass destruction: these are some of the issues that are passionately taken up in his honest and revelatory book. It is a fuming account of the devastation caused by the war and its aftermath that far exceeded the threat posed by Saddam.

As Tariq elaborates, his motives are to “lay bare the vengeful platitudes of Blair’s war on civil liberties, mount a scorching attack on the cozy falsehoods of the government’s consensus on what the threat amounts to, and how to respond, and denounces the corruption of the political-media bubble which allows it to go unchallenged”. For him, it is imperative that overseas interventions have to be governed by a new instrument of international law. Indeed, Tariq has the uncommon ability to evoke common yet very intense emotions of anger. The book is candid and precise, sure to speak to anyone who has passed through the anguish of this war-torn period.

It is clear that foreign policy, in essence, is all about protecting, sustaining and furthering national interests. And these can be broadly categorised as economic and security interests that could well present contradictory choices at times. The Iraqi threat had been simply exaggerated and Blair went headlong into the war. Tariq examines Blair’s folly as well as the mounting anger at hoodwinking the public into believing the seriousness of Saddam’s military might.

He is livid at the propaganda techniques and doctoring abilities that the government employs in its information war to be in command of information at home. The media controlled by Rupert Murdoch comes under furious criticism.

As he elaborated, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was apparently pulled up for its honest report of the massive February 15 demonstration by over a million people who stood up against the war on Iraq. Alistair Campbell, Blair’s public watchdog, would ring up Greg Dyke, the head of the BBC, for its “exaggerated” response to the demonstration. All those who stood up against the regime would have to quit or die. Notwithstanding it, the public outrage became so visible that Blair himself finally had to exit.

Tariq writes provocatively: “The fact that he’s leaving is because he’s so hated. And the reason he’s hated is because he joined the neocons in Washington and went to war against Iraq, which now 78 per cent of the population in this country opposes. And when people are being asked what will Blair’s legacy be, a large majority is saying Iraq. And I think that’s what he will be remembered for, as a Prime Minister who took a reluctant and sceptical country into a war designed by Washington and its neoconservative strategists, all of whom are in crisis.” However, until the end he refused to recognise public anger and asserted, “Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right.”

After Tariq Ali’s two discerning books, The Clash of Fundamentalisms and Bush in Babylon: The Recolonisation of Iraq, Rough Music shows his deep concern for democracy, preservation of civil society and the role of the media, which had gone blatantly silent at the hypocrisy of the government. He envisions an end to the war and a day when a united party to the left of New Labour could mark a return to the robust position of the traditional socialist world view.

In such a scenario there would be a more democratic parliament in Britain where the demise of leaders like Blair would be the logical corollary.

The title Rough Music is, therefore, apt. A term borrowed from E.P. Thompson’s book Customs in Common, “it has generally been used in England since the end of the seventeenth century to denote a rude cacophony, with or without more elaborate ritual, which usually directed mockery or hostility against individuals who offended against certain community norms.”

Implicit in it is the notion of dissent and true democracy which are the early casualties of such policies.

Seething public anger is another fallout of the July 7, 2007, suicide bombings in London and the police callousness towards people of Third World origin. The shooting of a Brazilian, Jean Charles de Menezes, at the Stockwell Underground station on July 22, 2005, was the sad event behind Tariq’s provocation and response to the infringement of civil liberties and human rights. His rejoinder is intrinsic to his Left orientation and to his ideological motives to arouse dissent against the moral depravity of a regime that has pretensions of the rule of justice and egalitarianism. For him, security has to be preserved but not at the cost of legality.

Tariq’s plea is aimed at the immediate withdrawal of British troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and with the claim that Britain “quit its role as automated adjutant to Washington’s neoimperialism and develop a rational, independent foreign policy”. War against Islamism has to discontinue and Britain must realise that Anglo-American experiments to forge expansionism in West Asia has been a downright failure.

The defence of civil liberties, opposition to the corporatisation of the state, doing away with religious bias in the British education system and the replacement of the House of Lords by an elected chamber are some of the other steps that he says will revolutionise Britain in the wake of Blair’s disastrous regime.

He succinctly and ironically concludes his book by castigating state authoritarianism: “This new authority is fundamentally opposed to mass-democratic political activity. To be a good and loyal citizen you should be an individualist to the core, motivated primarily by competitiveness and personal greed. You must learn calmly to accept the unjust structures that institutionalise inequality. And, yes, it would be helpful if you understood that all the wars fought by your state are designed to protect your interests.” In such a utilitarian state the loudest slogan could be ‘Long live Milton’s Satan!’

The 'enfant terrible' of British neoconservatism

tim — Mon, 12 May 2008 10:25:41 +0000

Douglas Murray could justly be described as the enfant terrible of British neoconservatism. He has been a prominent advocate of the application of neoconservative ideas to Europe.

Influenced by the authoritarian philosophy of Leo Strauss, and the concept of ‘dhimmitude’ put forward by Baat Ye’or, Murray has argued that the ‘innate flaws of liberal democracy’ leave Europe vulnerable to domination by Muslim immigrants.

As head of the Centre for Social Cohesion, he has been a central figure in a wider neoconservative propaganda offensive against Islamist movements in Britain. He claims to have influenced Government policy, and his ideas have been influential in some NATO circles.

Early career

Murray began his literary career as a 16-year-old Etonian, when he persuaded the Home Office to give him access to papers relating to Lord Alfred Douglas, which had been embargoed until 2043.[1] He reportedly completed his biography of Douglas, Oscar Wilde’s lover, before progressing to Magdalen College, Oxford where he read English. The book was published to critical acclaim in 2000 when he was still an undergraduate.[2]

Murray also began writing for The Spectator during this period, initially concentrating on reviews related to his literary interests. He has said that the attacks on the World Trade Center, which he visited in 2000, contributed to his increasing political focus.[3] Murray’s strong neo-conservative views became evident in his subsequent early writings as a freelance journalist.

In a September 2002 piece for openDemocracy, he criticised CND and the Stop the War Coalition for organising an anti-war march together with the Muslim Association of Britain, An early example of one of the most persistent themes of British neo-conservatism.[4]

In February 2003, he described the many first-time demonstrators who had joined the anti-war marches as “mainly ignorant (by choice or chance) of the machinations of international weapons inspections, oil and the rest of it”.[5]

Murray spent much of that year attending the Saville Inquiry into the 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre, which had moved to London from Derry to hear the evidence of military witnesses.[6] He condemned Richard Norton Taylor’s play based on the hearings as ‘no-strings-attached, neatly packaged, moral tourism.’ He intends to publish a book on the inquiry once it reports.[7]

In 2004, Murray attended the Hutton Inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly. He suggested that a full inquiry into the Iraq War was impossible because it would impinge upon the work of the intelligence services.

The security services are answerable to the government, but they must not be compromised and agents’ lives put at risk to satiate public appetite, nor must they (as I trust the Blair government has now learnt) ever be politicised. National security in Britain, as in all nations, goes beyond today or tomorrow’s government.[8]

Social Affairs Unit

Murray joined the Social Affairs Unit as a regular contributor in 2004.[9] In 2005, the Unit published his book, Neoconservatism: Why We Need It, which argued for the introduction of neoconservative ideas into British politics.

In October that year, he outlined his philosophy in a talk to the Manhattan Institute

The practice of equivalence in our national politics leads governments not to listen to, but to fear minority opinion, concerned lest anyone get the impression that the government knows what’s right for the majority who have elected it. Not only does it make politics a glorified (though not glorious) pursuit of the personal – it makes the notion of fixed or natural right a nonsense. Because of course if everything is equal then everything is right: which means nothing is good or true.[10]

This ambiguous approach to equality may owe something to the authoritarian philosopher Leo Strauss, of whom Murray is a professed admirer.[11] Strauss’s critics argue that his idea of ‘natural right’ meant the right of the superior to dominate the inferior.[12]

Murray went on to present a picture of Europe on the verge of being outbred by Muslims, a common neoconservative trope reminiscent of the fears of early Twentieth Century eugenicists.

Europe has used up its peace dividend. The holiday from reality it had for half a century during which it spent money on welfare whilst America protected its security, is now over – comprehensively so. Europe not only has unsustainable demographic issues which – if un-addressed – will eradicate the continent as we know it within three or four generations. It also has security issues, not least those associated with its unameliorated populations and its increasingly inefficient armies.

Murray developed this idea further in a February 2006 speech to the Pim Fortuyn Memorial Conference on Europe and Islam, which embraced Baat Ye’or’s concept of Dhimmitude:

It is late in the day, but Europe still has time to turn around the demographic time-bomb which will soon see a number of our largest cities fall to Muslim majorities. It has to. All immigration into Europe from Muslim countries must stop. In the case of a further genocide such as that in the Balkans, sanctuary would be given on a strictly temporary basis. This should also be enacted retrospectively… Conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board: Europe must look like a less attractive proposition.[13]

The Hague speech also revisited Straussian themes:

Our enemies are aware of these weaknesses in our set-up – weaknesses which Leo Strauss, like Tocqueville would have pointed out as among the innate flaws of liberal democracy on which we must keep a concerned and wary eye… We must remind the malignant that this war and this era will be dictated on our terms – on the terms of the strong and the right, not the weak and the wrong.

Murray returned to these twin themes, suspicion of democracy and fear of Muslim population growth, when he and Daniel Pipes debated Ken Livingstone in January 2007:

just a few months ago, the Justice Minister of the Netherlands Piet Hein Donner announced that, when a majority of people wanted it, he was willing to institute Sharia law across the Netherlands. Now, on current demographics, that majority isn’t too far away. What will the Netherlands look like when that happens?[14]

Centre for Social Cohesion

Murray was appointed director the Centre for Social Cohesion when it was founded by the conservative think-tank Civitas in 2007. [15] The centre shares a Westminster building with Policy Exchange, the think-tank accused by the BBC of using fabricated evidence in a report on extremism in British mosques.[16] The author of that report, Denis MacEoin, is a member of the centre’s advisory council.[17]

Like Policy Exchange, the Centre for Social Cohesion has claimed success in influencing British Government policy towards Muslims. If anything, its focus has been even more single-minded.

In July 2007, the Centre issued its first published work, an A-Z of Muslim Organisations in Britain, which claimed to be the fullest analysis yet published of the major Muslim organisations in Britain.[18]

In August 2007 Murray and James Brandon co-authored the Centre’s first pamphlet, Hate on the State, How British Libraries Encourage Islamic Extremism.[19] The Centre later claimed credit when the Prime Minister announced that the “Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport is working with the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council to agree a common approach to deal with the inflammatory and extremist material that some seek to distribute through public libraries, while also of course protecting freedom of speech.”[20]

Murray has been a frequent guest on BBC current affairs programmes such as Hardtalk, Question Time and Newsnight.[21]

NATO

Murray ‘assisted in the writing process’ for the 2007 pamphlet Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World: Renewing Transatlantic Partnership.[22] Written by five former NATO generals, the paper clearly owed much to Murray’s distinctive philosophy:

In every country, and at all times, we like to rely on certainty. Certainty about the past, the present and even the future. Yet certainty is based not on inevitability, but rather on social and intellectual needs. We seek to uphold a common and stable experience, shunning the arbitrary in favour of closure in debate.

The pamphlet proposed a new UN/EU/NATO directorate to ‘co-ordinate all co-operation in the transatlantic sphere of interest.’ It suggested that if this prescription were followed ”we might, in the medium to long term, thus be capable of restoring certainty –something which we see as the most important prerequisite for functioning societies.”

The plan was reportedly a topic for discussion at the NATO summit in Bucharest in April 2008.[23] However, according to one senior NATO figure the paper’s call for the alliance to develop a first-strike nuclear capability had ‘no traction whatsoever.’[24]

Notes

[1] Amazon.com: Bosie: The Man, The Poet, The Lover of Oscar Wilde: Douglas Murray: Books, accessed 24 March 2008.

[2] Knitting Circle Alfred Douglas, accessed 21 March 2008.

[3] Neoconservatism: why we need it – a talk to the Manhattan Institute by Douglas Murray, Social Affairs Unit, 26 October 2005

[4] An Unholy Alliance, by Douglas Murray, openDemocracy, 22 October 2002.

[5] Marching to hell, by Douglas Murray, openDemocracy 20 February 2003.

[6] Neoconservatism: Why We Need It (Hardcover), Amazon.co.uk, accessed 21 March 2008

[7] Bloody Sunday, or the theatre of moral corruption,by Douglas Murray, openDemocracy, 11 May 2005.

[8] Hutton – the wrong inquiry, by Douglas Murray, openDemocracy, 29 January 2004..

[9] Neoconservatism: Why We Need It (Hardcover), Amazon.co.uk, accessed 21 March 2008.

[10] Neoconservatism: why we need it – a talk to the Manhattan Institute by Douglas Murray, Social Affairs Unit, 26 October 2005

[11] Profound insights of Leo Strauss, Douglas Murray, The Guardian, 30 December 2005.

[12] Leo Strauss’ Philosophy of Deception, by Jim Lobe, Alternet, 19 May 2003.

[13] What are we to do about Islam? A speech to the Pim Fortuyn Memorial Conference on Europe and Islam, by Douglas Murray, Social Affairs Unit, 3 March 2006.

[14] Douglas Murray’s speech, Conference: A World Civilization or a Clash of Civilisations, Greater London Authority, 20 January 2007.

[15] Centre for Social Cohesion: Press Release, accessed 22 March 2008.

[16] Clutha House, 10 Storey’s Gate, Westminster, London, SW1, Keningtons Chartered Surveyors, accessed 5 April 2008. BBC News, Talk about Newsnight, BBC Response to Policy Exchange statement, 14 December 2007.

[17] The Centre for Social Cohesion, About Us, accessed 5 April 2008.

[18] Centre for Social Cohesion: Press Release, 1 July 2007, accessed 22 March 2008.

[19] Hate on the State, How British Libraries Encourage Islamic Extremism, Centre for Social Cohesion, August 2007, accessed 22 March 2008

[20] PM uses Centre’s ‘Hate on the State’ report to tackle stocking of pro-jihadist books by libraries, Blog, The Centre for Social Cohesion, 28 November 2007.

[21] BBC search results for “Douglas Murray”, accessed 6 April 2008.

[22] Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World: Renewing Transatlantic Partnership, Noaber Foundation, 2007

[23] Pre-emptive nuclear strike a key option NATO told, by Ian Traynor, The Guardian, 22 January 2008.

[24] Russia’s problems nudge Afghanistan off the map, by Doug Saunders, Globe and Mail, 2 April 2008.