THE CRISIS IN PAKISTAN
A Respect public meeting on “Pakistan in Crisis” at Birmingham Central Mosque attended by over 250 people reflected the strong support for Salma Yaqoob as in the area.
35% of the Audience were Muslim Women who are breaking from traditional patterns towards active involvement with local politics. There were a significant number of representatives from the local Somali community a small number of non muslim predominantly white male Labour Movement Activists.
Mohammed Ishtiaq, Birmingham Respect Councillor for Sparkbrook chaired the meeting and introduced SalmaYaqoob. Salma spoke of the recent US military operations in Pakistan that have left numerous civilian casualties and the hypocrisy of the media in the UK for failing to report these attacks “on sovereign nation”. She called for a genuine democratic Pakistan that would not tolerate US military attacks on it’s own people. Salma situated the current crisis in Pakistan in the context of a worldwide crisis which can only be resolved be ordinary people struggling for peace, justice and equality. Salma looked forward to the future where she hoped the strong support she received from the audience would be translated into the campaign at the next General Election where she is standing in Hall Green Constituency.
George Galloway Respect MP, Bethnal Green and Bow, received a rousing reception from the meeting and he spoke at length on the recent history of Pakistan and Kashmir. George Spoke of how “The Hangman [a reference to Genral Zia’s execution of Zulfigar Ali Bhutto the leader of the Pakistani Peoples Party] in April 1979] Zia Al Huq” became the USA’s favourite dictator and how they used him and Osama Bin Laden in their Jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan. George spoke of his early encounters with ‘East Pakistani [Bengali] Cooking back in the day in Dundee. He talked of the corrupt nature of General Mussaraf and how his craven support for USA policy in the region has not protected the Pakistani people and how the 4 MP’s in the British Parliament of Pakistani origins remain studiously silent on the Crisis in Pakistan. George spoke of the other silent MP Roger Godsiff of New Labour who Salma Yaqoob will challenge at the next General Election.
George drew his speech to a close with an emotional account of how the grieving mother and father of a Soldier killed in Afghanistan had approached him recently at the end of public meeting. He explained their anger and confusion how they blamed the Taliban, and with pride how their son had died with a “picture of the Queen in his breast pocket”. George said how difficult it was to tell them that the “Queen didn’t have a picture of their son, didn’t attend his funeral” and they should blame the the government that sent their son to his death not the people of Afghanistan who have a right to resist the occupation of the country.
George spoke of the Global Economic Crisis sweeping the planet and how the bailout is still allowing Banker like the Chief Executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland to receive a bonus of £600,000 on top of his £5.6million Salary. George said what we need is a “People’s Economy… where production is for people’s needs and not for the profit of a tiny, tiny minority”.
Other speakers at the meeting included Ivonne Ridley who spoke on her recent experiences of breaking the blockade of Gaza. At the end of the meeting many people gave contact details to help in future campaigning and gave money to the collection.
Once she has decided on which party she wishes to represent she will make a good, solidly bourgeois, MP.
Comment by Mike — 21 October, 2008 @ 8:48 am
Maybe, Mike, but whilst she is a member of a socialist organisation and doing excellent work, I think we should make the most of it.
Now, put your crystal ball away and sink back in your arm chair like a good chap. Don’t you know there’s a recession on- just close your eyes and ride it out then you can get back to your full-blooded passivity…
Comment by RobM — 21 October, 2008 @ 9:38 am
1# Mike …. I don’t understand what you are saying “Once she has decided on which party she wishes to represent”….. do you know something? if so spit it out.
I was at the meeting, having travelled in with a Respect Supporter and his two sons on the train from Bromsgrove. He was born not far from where the Mosque is now and remembered the post world war II poverty and austerity that affected the area. He was radicalised politically when he lived and worked in South Africa in the ’70’s developing deep anti-racist and anti-imperialist convictions… He was briefly involved in the Labour Party in the late ’80’s in Staffordshire but driven out by the combination of the sectarian manouvers of Miltant and the control freakery of the right wing Labour Bureaucracy. He supports RESPECT because he recognises it’s potential.
From my perspective I feel the meeting had an atmosphere which reflected many ordinary people’s current feelings…most people at the event were subdued. I feel that the Global Economic Crisis was hanging over this event like a cloud. It wasn’t “the elephant in the room” as both Salma and George addressed it head on. However, people seem to be shellshocked, overwhelmed and in limbo at the moment.
30 years Ago many of the older blokes at the meeting would have been part of the mass mobilisations that occurred in B’ham protesting at the execution of the PPP leader Bhutto. Three decades later these chaps are breaking from support for New Labour and being pushed by their increasingly radical and politically engaged female family members towards RESPECT.
The size of the meeting, [despite what I understand was difficulties in publicising it] was encouraging for Salma’s campaign. The task that needs to be addressed is how to build up a base for RESPECT in the white community which is concentrated in the Kings Heath and Hall Green Wards.
#1 Mike… you say Salma will “make a good, solidly bourgeois MP”. I beg to differ I feel that the election of Salma Yaqoob to parliament would represent a profound break in the framework of bourgeois parliamentary democracy established throughout the 20th Century…Salma would break the mould. Unlike the election of Dianne Abbot through the LP riding on the back of the Bennite wave and via the Campaign for Labour Party Black Sections… this would be different. Unlike George Galloway’s Breakthrough in Bethnal Green and Bow it which a Maverick MP breaks with Labour and rides a wave of Anti War sentiment.
The election of Salma would be tremendously significant and be based on the hard work of building a new party under very adverse conditions and with the sniping and nay saying of left, right and centre.
Comment by mark anthony france — 21 October, 2008 @ 10:01 am
Just wondering, why are all the women at the back?
if as Abu Jamal asserts; “35% of the Audience were Muslim Women who are breaking from traditional patterns towards active involvement with local politics.” then presumably at least one would have been found in the first 6 rows of the audience?
instead a sea of head scarfs are crammed at the back of the hall.
the sheer gall of respect to describe this as “socialist organisation”.
Comment by darren redstar — 21 October, 2008 @ 10:05 am
Darren
I ave myself organised meetings for the Stop the War Coalition where there is seperate seating for women; at the request of Muslim women themselves
The point being that by so doing more women are involved, who otherwise wouldn’t have come to the meetings, and would have been excluded by the sectarian secularism of those who prefer to reject women’s choices to be involved on their own terms, and insist that Muslim woomen should only take part in politics on terms acceptable to white atheists.
Comment by Andy Newman — 21 October, 2008 @ 10:20 am
2# Respect is not even remotely a socialist organisation its leader supports aspects of New Labour and admires war leader Winston S Churchill and his part in humanity’s deadliest war, causing tens of millions of deaths. The deadliest and most destructive war in human history. The civilian toll was around 47 million, including 20 million deaths due to war-related famine and disease.
Comment by Jim — 21 October, 2008 @ 10:20 am
Jim
Don’t you think that some of the blame for WW2 could be placed at the door of Hitler and the Nazis?
And therefore those who fought to get rid of the Nazis were doing a good thing?
Comment by Andy Newman — 21 October, 2008 @ 10:26 am
#4 and #5 Darren….Andy is making a point you should think about…
the meeting was held in a Mosque… the topic under discussion of particular interest to the muslim community of pakistani origins in inner city birmingham…
some people attending the mosque who are not familiar with the culture that surrounds this environment where a bit confused when I asked them to remove there shoes before they entered the meeting….For two young white kids aged 8 and 9 who attended with their father it was a bit of adventure… they never asked me why all the women sat at the back… they seemed to accept far more easily than many white socialists the cultural framework within which the event was held.
In novemeber Moseley and Kings Heath RESPECT Branch is holding a meeting on Climate Change…. that meeting will held in a different cultural context. I will attend and won’t be asking anyone to take their shoes off…. I will not be telling anyone where they can or can not sit.
Comment by abu jamal — 21 October, 2008 @ 10:53 am
6# Jim…A friend of mine who is a RESPECT supporter recently wrote a letter to the local paper arguing for withdrawl from Afghanistan and negociations for a cease fire with the Taliban… they ‘quoted’ Winston Churchill… you know Jaw Jaw better than War War… George Galloway and Salma Yaqoob are socialists and in favour of the socialisation of the economy under democratic control….they also are actually confronting New Labour and under difficult circumstances attempting to build a Party to do that. What is more unlike much of the white socialist left… they are building alliances on the basis of anti-imperialism and anti-racism that are gaining a foot hold electorally… That’s quite an achievement don’t you think?
Comment by abu jamal — 21 October, 2008 @ 11:00 am
“the sheer gall of respect to describe this as “socialist organisation”.”
Thanks for saving me the trouble of asking what socialist organisation she’s supposed to be a member of.
“Unlike George Galloway’s Breakthrough in Bethnal Green and Bow it which a Maverick MP breaks with Labour”
John McCain keeps claiming to be a maverick who is thoroughly distinct from the politics of his party.
“The election of Salma would be tremendously significant and be based on the hard work of building a new party under very adverse conditions and with the sniping and nay saying of left, right and centre.”
She’s not going to get elected standing under the Respect banner now that its only real appeal is a communal one. She might get elected if she follows the bulk of Respect’s supporters back into one of the conventional bourgeois parties when her current vehicle crashes terminally at the next election, in which case her election would be tremendously insignificant.
“And therefore those who fought to get rid of the Nazis were doing a good thing?”
Once again you confuse the fight against the Nazis in the thirties in which your stalinist forebears popular front policy were no help, with the imperialist war that followed.
The other night I heard Galloway (you might want to insert the word “for” next to the picture, he is not “Bethnal Green and Bow”) say on his radio show that many Serbo-Croats
had come over here who knew nothing of our culture and never supported us in any war. I hope I misheard him and he was simply quoting someone else an isn’t so ignorant as not to know that these people came over because of a horrific civil war. He did say “We are human beings. We feel pride in our country” which certainly suggests that he considers those who don’t feel such pride to be untermenschen.
Comment by skidmarx — 21 October, 2008 @ 11:16 am
Its a bit strange being lectured by Darren Redstar about ’socialism’. Not so long ago, he was ranting on Harry’s Place (the pro-war, anti-Muslim hate blog) that Israel should execute its Lebanese prisoners because a couple of its soldiers who were returned by Hizbullah in an exchange turned out to be dead. Funny idea of ’socialism’ that.
Take his criticism in the same way as similar criticism from ‘terryfitz’, who thinks Israel should nuke Gaza. Its funny how so many of Respect’s ’socialist’ critics turn out to be deeply unpleasant bigots who can’t uphold basic norms of human rights and decency where Muslims are concerned.
Comment by ID — 21 October, 2008 @ 11:17 am
7# Well yes Andy if you like some blame can be but at the door of the Hitler and the Nazis along with the capitalist crises and world depression of the 1930s. However many ordinary solders who were not Nazis but conscripted into fighting a war that had nothing to do with them like my own grandfather a German killed at point blank range in Russia at the age of 36. And then there is the Civilian or non-combatant persons killed or injured by military action. What about Eisenhower who told the British ambassador to Washington that the 3,500 officers of the German General staff should be ”exterminated.” He also favored the liquidation of perhaps 100,000 prominent Germans. Soon after, he wrote to his wife, Mamie: “God, I hate Germans! Why? Because the German is a beast!” Eisenhower said he was ashamed to bear a German name.
9# if you say so!
Comment by Jim — 21 October, 2008 @ 11:22 am
“supports aspects of New Labour and admires war leader Winston S Churchill and his part in humanity’s deadliest war”
I think you will find that that belief is more Old Labour than New Labour. Since ‘Old Labour’ was in a coalition with Churchill at the time. New Labour tends not to give a damn about such things.
Of course, this is an opinion that revolutionary socialists cannot agree with, but to imply that there is no socialist element to this belief is worthy of Frank Furedi’s RCP in terms of sectarian antipathy to the confused socialist consciousness that underpins left reformism, particularly manifested around WWII.
Comment by ID — 21 October, 2008 @ 11:29 am
#12…Jim… I do say so! By the way my wife’s step-father was a German Paratrooper and fought in ever European theatre of combat in World War 2. Finally, being captured by the British in a forest in Belgium in ‘45…He settled in the UK after being released from POW status… he is now ‘very british’ and can play the God Save the Queen on a mouth organ. In his ’80’s he lives in rural Lincolnshire and is distrubed by the number of polish, latvian and other east european migrants in the area… He is deeply traumatised and mentally scared by his experiences of combat… and not at all interested in joining RESPECT.
Comment by abu jamal — 21 October, 2008 @ 11:37 am
There is very little an org. can do if a group of women ask for seperate seating. But it could suggest that it be parallel rather than they sit at the back.
I welcome that involvment of this group. Progress to equality hopefully will come in dribs and drabs, probably not in an immmediate sort of way.
It has taken generations in Ireland to break the power of the Catholic Church and there is still work to do.
Comment by Jim Monaghan — 21 October, 2008 @ 11:40 am
Why are the women sitting at the back?
Comment by David T — 21 October, 2008 @ 11:50 am
16# David T…. because they wanted to.
Comment by mark anthony france — 21 October, 2008 @ 12:06 pm
16# David T… Also you may notice that two of the main speakers at the front were Muslim women, one of pakistani origins the other white [I am not sure of Ivonne Ridleys ethnic background]….So in the meeting some women were at the back and some at the front…. I myself moved around the hall a lot [ADHD]
Comment by mark anthony france — 21 October, 2008 @ 12:08 pm
19# What no one seemed to have picked up on was that Malcolm X was present keeping a beadie eye on the proceedings [see top photo] I wonder what he made of it all?
Comment by abu jamal — 21 October, 2008 @ 12:14 pm
‘Why are the women sitting at the back?’ Because that is where a number of them wanted to sit and felt most comfortable sitting. Like it or not, that is their right. They could have sat anywhere.
Feigned concern about Muslim women’s rights from a warmonger who likes nothing more than to cheerlead Israeli air strikes in Palestinian and Lebanese residential areas won’t wash on this site.
Comment by Ger Francis — 21 October, 2008 @ 12:17 pm
“I am not sure of Ivonne Ridleys ethnic background”
She is a Geordie
Comment by David T — 21 October, 2008 @ 12:27 pm
13#“Supports aspects of New Labour and admires war leader Winston S Churchill and his part in humanity’s deadliest war”
I think you will find that that belief is more Old Labour than New Labour. Since ‘Old Labour’ was in a coalition with Churchill at the time. New Labour tends not to give a damn about such things.”
The Labour Party that’s old labour to which Galloway hails and still craves for supported the last 2 world wars, Athur Henderson became the new leader of the Labour Party and in May 1915, and then became the first member of the Labour Party to hold a Cabinet post when Herbert Asquith invited him to join his coalition government. Henderson was President of the Board of Education (May, 1915 - October, 1916) and Paymaster General (October, 1916 - August, 1917).
Comment by Jim — 21 October, 2008 @ 12:30 pm
“Why are the women sitting at the back?’ Because that is where a number of them wanted to sit and felt most comfortable sitting. Like it or not, that is their right. They could have sat anywhere.”
I bet they used to say that to Rosa Parks too.
A meeting which segregates the sexes and praises the Taliban. You know, for all that the SWP are a bunch of muppets, they are well rid of you lot.
Comment by Dustin the Turkey — 21 October, 2008 @ 12:38 pm
So many illusions in Ms Yaqoob and Respect. Rather sad coming from comrades who ought to know better. I note that Respect is not a socialist organisation but has a populist program and does not place working people as the centre of its program which is the hallmark of any genuine socialist program.
Comment by Mike — 21 October, 2008 @ 12:52 pm
Why would women want to sit at the back of a meeting?
Why would ALL women want to sit at the back of a meeting?
Was it a surprise to RESPECT that women would sit at the back of the meeting?
If RESPECT believed that women (and men?) would only attend if they were gender segregated, was any provision made for segregation?
If so, why did that provision not allow women to sit on one side of the room, at the front?
Were there any women or men who chose to sit, non gender segregated, and alongside each other? Where did they sit?
Do you think that gender segregated meetings might put off those who are not supporters of gender segregation?
Do you think that the Taliban, who George Galloway regards as “the people of Afghanistan who have a right to resist the occupation of the country” would support or oppose gender segregation?
Comment by David T — 21 October, 2008 @ 12:58 pm
people may be surprised but I am pleased with the turnout and the fact that many muslim owmen attended. I would like so clarification about Galloways comments on serbo croats though..sounds like dreadful pandering to the racists to me?
Comment by ll — 21 October, 2008 @ 1:00 pm
Oh sorry - have I killed the thread by asking these questions?
Surely the socialists and progressives here know the answers?!
Comment by David T — 21 October, 2008 @ 1:15 pm
27# David T…. despite your best efforts you haven’t killed the thread….
Just displayed your lack of respect for cultural diversity and displayed your ignorance… as I explained at #8
“the meeting was held in a Mosque… the topic under discussion of particular interest to the muslim community of pakistani origins in inner city birmingham…
some people attending the mosque who are not familiar with the culture that surrounds this environment where a bit confused when I asked them to remove there shoes before they entered the meeting….For two young white kids aged 8 and 9 who attended with their father it was a bit of adventure… they never asked me why all the women sat at the back… they seemed to accept far more easily than many white socialists the cultural framework within which the event was held.
In novemeber Moseley and Kings Heath RESPECT Branch is holding a meeting on Climate Change…. that meeting will held in a different cultural context. I will attend and won’t be asking anyone to take their shoes off…. I will not be telling anyone where they can or can not sit.”
David…. People like me are very tolerant of domination of civil society in this country by people like you…. there are however limits if that torelance and respect are not reciprocated.
The Women at the front of the meeting are an inspiration to the women at the back of the meeting and soon the women at the back will be moving forward like a mighty wave and they will sweep your ignorant attitude away.
Comment by abu jamal — 21 October, 2008 @ 1:30 pm
“The Women at the front of the meeting are an inspiration to the women at the back of the meeting and soon the women at the back will be moving forward like a mighty wave and they will sweep your ignorant attitude away.”
Soon?
How soon is now?
Surely this is very simple:
- Segregation and desegregation are incompatible
- Desegregation is easy to challenge. All you need to do is to be a black person and sit in a “whites only” area, or a woman and sit in a “men only” area.
Of course, segregationists might then respond by attacking you. But at least you’ll have made your point.
Looking at this photograph, curiously, there seems to be no woman who opposes segregation sitting in the men’s section at the front.
Out of 250 people who attended, did not one of them support desegregation? Surely there’s one woman in RESPECT who doesn’t believe that men have a god given right to sit at the front of meetings? I know many Muslim and non Muslim women, and none of them would consent to being treated in this way. Surely some of these women attend RESPECT meetings?
Either this means that every woman who attended the meeting was content that men sit at the front, or that women who oppose gender apartheid did not attend.
Which was it?
Comment by David T — 21 October, 2008 @ 1:32 pm
“The Labour Party that’s old labour to which Galloway hails and still craves for supported the last 2 world wars, Athur Henderson became the new leader of the Labour Party and in May 1915, and then became the first member of the Labour Party to hold a Cabinet post when Herbert Asquith invited him to join his coalition government. Henderson was President of the Board of Education (May, 1915 - October, 1916) and Paymaster General (October, 1916 - August, 1917).”
I think you’ll find that Galloway, like many on the Labour left, thinks the first world war was wrong but the second supportable that it was a war against fascist.
Why dont you engage with the actual views of those from a left Labour background? Or are you a Spiked supporter? You certainly sound like one.
Comment by ID — 21 October, 2008 @ 1:34 pm
the ridiculous Skid marx says (10): “[Galloway] did say “We are human beings. We feel pride in our country” which certainly suggests that he considers those who don’t feel such pride to be untermenschen.”
For the tiny number of bewildered and deluded adherents of the millenarian Marxist sects clinging to the half understood slogans of another political era, anyone who loves their country is automatically regarded as dodgy. For the vast majority of the population this is considered quite normal, and completely compatible with left wing and progressive politics.
So there is no possible reasonable reading of Galloway’s reported comment that he considers people who don’t show pride in this coountry as “untermenchen”.
It is time for the far left to give up the cargo cult mentality, that if only you can repeat excatly the mantras of past perioids of sucess, and get your organisational structures exactly the same as the Bolsheviks, and talk as much as possible like someone badly translated out of Russian, then the “revolution” will come.
Comment by Andy Newman — 21 October, 2008 @ 1:37 pm
Nice one Abu. And from an ex villa supporter as well.
Comment by paul v — 21 October, 2008 @ 1:40 pm
“It is time for the far left to give up the cargo cult mentality, that if only you can repeat excatly the mantras of past perioids of sucess, and get your organisational structures exactly the same as the Bolsheviks, and talk as much as possible like someone badly translated out of Russian, then the “revolution” will come.”
Yes, that’s both funny and true.
However, what you seem to be going for, instead of Marx, is a politics in which men and women segregate and in which Mosques run local election campaigns.
I think, on balance, I prefer Marx to that.
Comment by David T — 21 October, 2008 @ 1:42 pm
Nobody here has answered why the women want to sit at the back. That is because a socialist should answer: “because they are conditioned to do so by their religion, which they must cast off to be free.” Ha ha ha. You lot are a joke.
“The Women at the front of the meeting are an inspiration to the women at the back of the meeting and soon the women at the back will be moving forward like a mighty wave and they will sweep your ignorant attitude away.”
What a load of crap. They would sit at the front today if they could. Who or what is stopping them, and what is Respect doing to remove the obstacles? Nothing, you are just reinforcing them. You can hide behind “cultural diversity” as much as you want, but I thought socialism was about tearing down these entrenched power relations, not ‘respecting’ them.
Comment by Igor — 21 October, 2008 @ 1:44 pm
Yesterday Barack Obama visited a previously segregated diner in Greensboro North Carolina.
Comment by Cultural Relativist — 21 October, 2008 @ 1:48 pm
Let’s try a different tack.
1. Do RESPECT supporters here look forward to a future in which men and women are not physically segregated in public?
2. If not, why not?
3. If so, what is RESPECT doing to combat gender segregation?
Comment by David T — 21 October, 2008 @ 1:55 pm
34# Igor…. as one of the women who was sitting at the back …. where it was easier to keep an eye on my rather boisterous and very bored 7 year old son.. I would like to say… I will be voting for Salma Yaqoob and I will be arguing with my husband for him to find the courage to vote for Salma Yaqoob.
If I had the time or the confidence to speak as Salma does I would….
When I attend other meetings that are not in the mosque I will still sit where I feel comfortabel with my sister’s.
The last Respect meeting I went too was not so ’segregated’ and the atmosphere was different but that was because it was not in the Mosque…. You have to take into account the cultural positions of people…. and Respect them.
I would imagine that when the angry white men revolutionaries attend their trade union branch meetings they ‘moderate’ their behaviour… I rarely see anyone “Tearing down entrenched power relations” when I watch TUC conference on TV.
Igor you complete misunderstand what Salma and her supporters like me are doing…. you mistake appearance for reality…. you who could probably never get more than a handful of old white men into a room…. you cannot see beyond the surface of your own prejudice….You are also rude.
Comment by shahida parveen — 21 October, 2008 @ 1:58 pm
Why don’t we just remove the screed of this racist Toube and his minions?
Comment by ID — 21 October, 2008 @ 2:00 pm
all fair enough but what did Galloway say about serbo croats?
Comment by ll — 21 October, 2008 @ 2:03 pm
Opposing segregation is racist?
Is Salma Yaqoob a supporter or opponent of gender segregation?
There are many women, both Muslim and not, who are opponents of gender segregation.
Are any of them members of RESPECT?
If so, what do they have to say about RESPECT’s gender segregation?
Does Ian Donovan think that Muslim women who oppose gender segregation are racists?
Comment by David T — 21 October, 2008 @ 2:04 pm
I dont just think, I know that David Toube is a racist sociopath. His blog has nice friendly discussions on the tactical merits of using neutron radiation to poison and wipe out the civilian population of the Gaza strip (i.e not about whether this would a terrible crime or not, but simply about whether it would work to Israel’s benefit). Which is no different in content from discussions among Nazis about the wisdom or otherwise of gassing Jews.
Any concern he sanctimoniously pretends to hold about relations between the sexes or anything like it is just shit-stirring. He regards the males and females who attend Mosques and the like as basically subhumans, to be locked up in something like Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib.
Nothing to debate. Delete delete, as the Cybermen say.
Comment by ID — 21 October, 2008 @ 2:13 pm
30#
“Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, the whole world, including the Unites States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will say, “This was their finest hour.”‘ (Churchill in his speech on June 18, 1940)
Between 1906 and 1911 Churchill served in various governmental posts, and was appointed Lord of the Admiralty in 1911. As Home Secretary (1910-11) he used troops against strikers in South Wales.
He supported the Dardanelles Campaign, an operation against the Turks. He had encouraged the development of such weapons as the tank, and was generally credited with the British Fleet’s preparedness in August 1914. But abortive expeditions to Antwerp and Gallipoli and the failed action at the Dardanelles did great harm to Churchill’s reputation and career. Reduced in 1915 to minor office as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, he resigned. Churchill rejoined the Army, and rose to the rank of colonel. In 1917 he was appointed Lloyd George’s minister of munitions, subsequently becoming the state secretary for war and air (1918-21), and colonial secretary (1921-22). During the post-war years he was active in support of the Whites (anti-Bolsheviks) in Russia.
This is the true war monger that Mr Galloway so admires that his commons office are adorned with his portrait‘s, and describes him on his radio show as a proper war leader.
Comment by Jim — 21 October, 2008 @ 2:14 pm
Girl Power!
Comment by David T — 21 October, 2008 @ 2:15 pm
#41. Ian Dudley, since you routinely describe anyone who disagrees with you as racist it’s hard to take you seriously, but I’ll give it a try.
If you had organised a meeting, would you have enforced segregation like the birmingham respect people did? Do you have any comment to make on the sexist practices of your comrades in the west midlands?
Comment by martin ohr — 21 October, 2008 @ 2:18 pm
#32 Paul v…. I didn’t say I was an “ex villa supporter” on another thread…. I just said I can’t real be bothered to go anymore …. it is also a problem with money….Helping out Salma Yaqoob to get into Parliament does give me more satifaction than attending Villa home games.
#40 David T…. you should know that Salma has led the way in empowering muslim women and for that matter non-muslim women to take a more active role in politics… In her recent campaign to oppose the way Postal Voting operates in Birmingham she has shown herself as a champion of extending democratic rights.
In her campaign to save the local buildings for community use she has empowered people both male and female who have learning disabilities to stand up publicly for their rights….
The meeting was a “Public Meeting”…. most of the white men who came stood at the back a few sat in the middle of the hall…. the three ‘white’ non muslim women who came decided to sit at the back….. No one was segregated… anyone could sit where ever they wanted…..
What is significant about this meeting was that people male, female, muslim, non muslim, white, black, arab, somali, irish, jewish all of them overwhelmingly working class… very few of them who ever had the privaledge of attending university…. came together to protest Imperialist Military Actions that have left innocent people dead in Pakistan … with barely a wisper of protest from bourgeios Pakistani politicians or their counterparts in New Labour.
This was done under the banner of RESPECT….a word which you do not understand.
Comment by abu jamal — 21 October, 2008 @ 2:19 pm
Where David T goes wrong is his pro-imperialism. He simply cannot recognise that the neo-Taliban are fighting to kick imperialist forces out of what is their own country. Such ‘love’ of their country is rather different from the amour felt by Andy for his imperialist country. It is progressive whilst the love of Britain or Engerland is deeply reactionary and best left to the BNP. Strange company for erstwhile ‘Marxists’ such as the renegade Grr Francis.
As for women sitting at the rear of meetings we must allow this while bearing in mind that it is part of a reactionary set of ideas that liberals cover with pious phrases about cultural diversity. Sod diversity what we need is a truly human culture that rids us of nonsensical ideas that allow systematic discriination on grounds of false diversity the warcry of imperialists such as Brown and Obarmy.
Comment by Mike — 21 October, 2008 @ 2:19 pm
btw: which party or organization in Pakistan does RESPECT support? MMA? PPP? PML? LPP - http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article977 (no gender separation on their demonstration)?
Comment by Entdinglichung — 21 October, 2008 @ 2:20 pm
“Where David T goes wrong is his pro-imperialism.”
Just a minor flaw, eh? How revealing!!
Comment by ID — 21 October, 2008 @ 2:23 pm
#47
Bearing in mind that in the last by-election in Glasgow East, different members of Respect expressed support for four different parties: Labour, SSP, Solidarity and the SNP, I think unanimity over pakistan is unlikely.
Comment by Andy Newman — 21 October, 2008 @ 2:24 pm
46# Mike …”As for women sitting at the rear of meetings we must allow this….”
I do agree that we must allow… people to sit where they want at meetings.
I myself am very, very reluctant to go along with the whole RALLY format that most meetings take with a top table and little time for contributions from the floor… Moving towards “a truly human culture that rids us of nonsensical ideas…” is exactly the trajectory that Salma Yaqoob and Birmingham RESPECT are on.
If any woman at the meeting had chosen to move to the front … no one would have stopped her… one or two more backward men may have taken some offence…out of notions of sticking to Mosque Protocol…. that would have been it… end of story.
The reality is that until the emergence of Salma Yaqoob in Birmingham the participation of working class, muslim women of pakistani orgins in any public meeting of any kind was virtually unheard of.
Comment by abu jamal — 21 October, 2008 @ 2:33 pm
Post #51 “Moving towards “a truly human culture that rids us of nonsensical ideas…” is exactly the trajectory that Salma Yaqoob and Birmingham RESPECT are on.”
I was unaware that Respect had developed a critique of religion. Or, for that matter, had adopted a clear position in favour of a rupture with all aspects of class society. It is certainly the case that its proprietor, one George Galloway MP, is a well known spokesperson for various forms of bourgeois society.
Comment by Mike — 21 October, 2008 @ 2:41 pm
“If any woman at the meeting had chosen to move to the front … no one would have stopped her… ”
Oh right, that’s it. It just happens that none of the women in the audience wanted to go to the front! Nothing to do with peer pressure at all!
As for Mike’s nonsense about the quote-neo-unquote Taliban being “progressive” - I presume he includes in this the tearing apart of teachers limb from limb using motorcycles. Perhaps we could get some nice T-shirts done up for the next meeting:
WE ARE ALL TEACHER-QUARTERING PROGRESSIVES NOW
This is your fucking progressive heroes, you utter utter scum:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/disembowelled-then-torn-apart-the-price-of-daring-to-teach-girls-426241.html
Comment by Dustin the Turkey — 21 October, 2008 @ 2:49 pm
42, What on earth is this Churchill quote from June 1940 supposed to prove? A year after the outbreak of world war, the fall of Poland, France and much of the rest of Europe to the Nazis, it is a bit bizarre to cite a rabble-rousing, defiant speech as evidence of ‘war-mongering’.
Besides which, it wasn’t Churchill who prosecuted the war, gun in hand, it was my grandad’s, and their brothers and workmates and friends. And by and large, they did this willingly because they knew what was at stake.
Comment by RobM — 21 October, 2008 @ 2:57 pm
#49 Andy…. I agree unaminity [is that the right spelling?] is unlikely over which political force to support inside Pakistan…. or Cornwall?
Comment by mark anthony france — 21 October, 2008 @ 3:01 pm
The teacher was killed by the people of Afghanistan who have a right to resist the occupation of the country.
Comment by David T — 21 October, 2008 @ 3:01 pm
“anyone who loves their country is automatically regarded as dodgy”
Again you attack a straw man. Anyone who identifies their country with their state and identifies pride in their country with being a human being is well dodgy. Seems like a perfectly reasonable reading to me.
” talk as much as possible like someone badly translated out of Russian”
I see you are following Galloway’s lead in attacking the quality of the English of others when you have so little command over the language yourself. Time to look for the splinter in your own eye before you look for splinters elsewhere.
Comment by skidmarx — 21 October, 2008 @ 3:02 pm
I hope none of the ladies were mensurating.
Comment by Sue R — 21 October, 2008 @ 3:23 pm
Doesn’t mensurating mean taking measurements or making up your mind?
Comment by Andy Newman — 21 October, 2008 @ 3:24 pm
Sorry, that should be menstruating.
Comment by Sue R — 21 October, 2008 @ 3:25 pm
#51 and 52# Mike and Dustin the Turkey…. I attended several HungerStrikers Funerals in 1981…. standing within spitting distance of nationalist colour parties holding automatic weapons and with the 50mm Calibre Machine Guns of British Army Helicopters directly above me…. The atmosphere was tense… and despite the protection of my well honed Dialectical Materialism… I joined in the prayers in Irish gaelic… and looked at the huddled groups of women with their headscarfes on with admiration and respect..
The muslim community in Birmingham may not be as beisieged as the nationalist community in the 6 Counties were and instead of armalites they only have a ’slightly built, psychotherapist’ to defend them. But in Salma Yaqoob the whole of the working class in Birmingha do have a hegemonic, essentially secular, class struggle, human rights defender.
If she chooses to hold a meeting in a mosque and muslim women choose to attend [and choose to sit at the back]…. I fail to see what the big deal is.
Any genuine socialist should see that in firming up the electoral base amougst the muslim community RESPECT is doing well. What RESPECT needs is the support of ‘white’ socialists to build a base in the other areas of Hall Green constituency to get the vote out for RESPECT from the ‘white’ working class being hammered by the crisis…. Instead people seem to prefer to pander to islamphobic sentiment..
I was at the meeting with my wife….[who choose to sit at the back] We’re socialists were white and we were respected and welcomed…. The only awkwardness palbable at the event was the unspoken awareness that “a storm is coming”…. and that RESPECT as it is currently constituted is not strong enought to protect us from the coming bourgeois offensive…. Building RESPECT strenghening RESPECT is the task of the day.
Dustin…. No one at the meeting expressed support for the TALIBAN… Georges main contribution was to talk of the grief of the families of the British Military who are getting killed in Afghanistan… The issue of “peer pressure” don’t really come into it….. If you attended any mosques or large scale predominantly muslim events you would understand. This is the way it is. From my perspective it was a shame that the meeting didn’t attract any younger brummie muslims…. but like most leftie events these days … we see to only attract middle aged types…
I attended a meeting in the ’70s in the early stages of the campaign to free the Birmingham 6…. the meeting [although billed as public] was essentially an Irish Catholic event… and priest ridden…. Present were International Marxist Group, Workers League[old split from the IS], Socialist Workers Party, International Communist League , Big Flame [libertarian Maoists]….. not one…. nobody from any of these marxist groups saw fit to critise the framework of the meeting.
Comment by mark anthony france — 21 October, 2008 @ 3:30 pm
57# Sue R …. I was!
Comment by shahida parveen — 21 October, 2008 @ 3:36 pm
55# Dear Mr T…. I feel very sorry for the christian teacher who was killed in Kabul….. my heart go out to her family…. But Mr T…. over 3,000 Afghan men have lost their lives this year alone in the fight against foreign soldiers…[no matter what you or I think about there action… they will continue to fight… just as Afghan men have fought against every invader for many, many generations] and Mr T over 1000 innocent women and children have been killed by british and US forces in the past year…. and now the USA are killing innocent civilians in Wasiristan in Pakistan…. You seem not to care about these deaths…. do you have no heart Mr T??
Comment by shahida parveen — 21 October, 2008 @ 3:51 pm
Shahida: Does your branch of Islam think a menstruating woman is not unclean or don’t you mind sullying the mosque?
Comment by Sue R — 21 October, 2008 @ 4:01 pm
The muslim community in Birmingham may not be as beisieged as the nationalist community in the 6 Counties were
They are not besieged at all.
In fact, the greatest effort is being made by the Government to counter the lies of Islamists and those on the furthest reaches of the far Left, that Muslims are under attack, in this country and globally.
In fact, the overwhelming majority of Muslims who are being attacked and killed today “the people of Afghanistan who have a right to resist the occupation of the country”, and their ideological ilk.
However, you seem to have a bit of a problem in telling your Muslim constituency this truth. You’d rather lie to them.
What RESPECT needs is the support of ‘white’ socialists to build a base in the other areas of Hall Green constituency to get the vote out for RESPECT from the ‘white’ working class being hammered by the crisis
Yeah.
Do you think that genuine socialists and progressives might have a bit of a problem with a political movement, operating out of a Mosque, praising the Taliban, and segregating men from women?
At which everybody except, perhaps, George Galloway, is associated with the loopier end of Islamism?
Working out of a mosque, at which the Chairman believes that the 7/7 bombers didn’t blow up the tube, where another Mosque worker, Adam Yosef wrote an article threatening to slap Peter Tatchell in the face? Where the Imam has been barred from Canada for incitement to religious hatred, and where a dispute over the Imam’s SECOND wife’s affair with a mosque secretary ended with a kidnapping and murder?
Yeah, fabulous.
Comment by David T — 21 October, 2008 @ 4:02 pm
Poor, poor Pakistanis and Afghanistanis. They never fire a shot at their own people. It’s all the wicked Westeners.
Comment by Sue R — 21 October, 2008 @ 4:03 pm
Don’t feed the Islamophobe trolls!
Comment by Green Socialist — 21 October, 2008 @ 4:04 pm
Shahida
“over 3,000 Afghan men have lost their lives this year alone in the fight against foreign soldiers”
I see.
A Taliban supporter.
That’s RESPECT, kids. A pro-Taliban party.
Remember: the Taliban and those parties that share the ideology of the Taliban are the greatest murderers and oppressors of Muslims, worldwide.
Is there a single socialist or progressive on this blog who is prepared to oppose the Taliban?
Or are you too afraid of offending the Taliban supporters, like this woman, whose votes you hope to harvest?
Comment by David T — 21 October, 2008 @ 4:05 pm
How long is this vicious baiting of Muslims going to be tolerated? I can assure you David T does not reciprocally tolerate anti-imperialists trolling his vile excuse for a blog.
Comment by ID — 21 October, 2008 @ 4:19 pm
“over 3,000 Afghan men have lost their lives this year alone in the fight against foreign soldiers…[no matter what you or I think about there action… they will continue to fight… just as Afghan men have fought against every invader for many, many generations]”
Shireen, in the 1930s, brave men from across Europe, including the UK and Ireland, travelled to Spain and fought Spanish men on their own soil, in opposition to a tyrannical religion-inspired women-hating ideology. I don’t think anyone on this blog, even as debased and deranged as their opinions have become, would try to argue that Franco’s fascists were progressive merely because they were fighting in their own country while the International Brigade weren’t. Yet these “progressives” - I can barely spit the word between my gritted teeth - use the same argument for Afghanistan.
Comment by Dustin the Turkey — 21 October, 2008 @ 4:20 pm
“How long is this vicious baiting of Muslims going to be tolerated?”
“Vicious baiting” = “Thinking that Muslim women should allowed to sit at the front of the room”
You really are a mouth-breather. Does Ger Francis keep you around to make him look good?
Comment by Dustin the Turkey — 21 October, 2008 @ 4:22 pm
amazing what a simple comment about the seating arrangements at a meeting can trigger. Interesting to see that ‘new’ respect is just as touchy as ‘old’ swappie respect, opposition to gender discrimination is islamophobic and probably zionist/ imperialist inspired.
Comment by darren redstar — 21 October, 2008 @ 4:22 pm
Dustin:
“I don’t think anyone on this blog, even as debased and deranged as their opinions have become, would try to argue that Franco’s fascists were progressive merely because they were fighting in their own country while the International Brigade weren’t. Yet these “progressives” - I can barely spit the word between my gritted teeth - use the same argument for Afghanistan.”
My thoughts exactly.
RESPECT today exists to cater to a constituency of Shahidas.
Jean Brodie encouraged her ‘gels’ to support the Nationalists - Franco’s lot - in the Spanish Civil War. RESPECT holds meetings in one of the most extreme-right Islamist institutions in Britain, where Galloway praises the Taliban.
And then along comes Shahida to boohoo about the Taliban shahids who have died.
This is a pro-Taliban blog and RESPECT is a pro-Taliban party.
Comment by David T — 21 October, 2008 @ 4:36 pm
I should add, for the record, that question the ritual purity laws of any religion should form no part of this argument.
Comment by David T — 21 October, 2008 @ 4:54 pm
69# Hiya… futurecast…. I am prepared to oppose the taliban… and I think I said earlier that I do not support the Taliban…. I suspect that if the Taliban got hold of me or Salma Yaqoob we would not last any longer than the christian missionary killed in Kabul at the weekend.
The war in Afghanistan is a long one… and is complicated… The intervention of the NATO in Afghanistan was not and is not to Liberate the Women of Afghanistan… it is part of the continuation of the “Great Game”.
Respect supporters like me want all the games to stop and for ordinary people to take the power back from the bullies who dominate this world.
But no matter what George, Salma, Me or you think….. Afghan men will resist and resist bravely… not all of them are what you label Taliban…. and neither are all the men who want to resist US attacks on Pakistan, Taliban….
If you were a young man in Helmand or Wasiristan perhaps you would get angry at the occupiers…. just as young irishmen resisted the english… for so long.
Comment by shahida parveen — 21 October, 2008 @ 5:04 pm
Taliban supporter.
Who do you think is fighting the Afghan government in Helmand?
Taliban
This is a blog for Taliban supporters.
Comment by David T — 21 October, 2008 @ 5:10 pm
Abu, sorry about the lighthearted villa bit.
Didn’t realise it was about to turn into this unmarxist,unmaterialist unspeakable SHIT
Comment by paul v — 21 October, 2008 @ 5:19 pm
Grow up, David T. You were yourself exposed earlier this week as an Islamofascist. First you lied about your links to an Iraqi Islamic party that set up Hezbollah. Then you said that you only teamed up with them because you were “short of cash”. Lovely.
Comment by Calvin — 21 October, 2008 @ 5:22 pm
Yes, hilarious Calvin.
Comment by David T — 21 October, 2008 @ 5:24 pm
Calm down everyone
Can I just suggest you throw a few quid these guys way
http://www.atheistcampaign.org/
You know it makes sense
Comment by The Vengence of History — 21 October, 2008 @ 5:24 pm
ID, do you support the Taliban in their “struggle” against NATO soldiers?
Comment by Jonny Mac — 21 October, 2008 @ 5:32 pm
78# Paul… it has got rather out of hand.. I must say…. nevertheless at least some muslim brummies threw their tuppence worth in!
Comment by abu jamal — 21 October, 2008 @ 5:34 pm
Toube is just trolling. He now allows death threats on his blog (against specific people, not just the usual generic threats against all Palestinians or Muslims), so I really don ‘t see any reason anymore not to ban him. His Freislerian style isn’t exactly endearing, either.
Comment by christian h. — 21 October, 2008 @ 5:35 pm
David T
What is hilarious about you being a self-confessed Islamofascist? I mean, apart from the hilarity generated by your hypocrisy.
Comment by Calvin — 21 October, 2008 @ 5:35 pm
Here’s some Aritotelian logic.
Let a be “I am a human being”
Let b be “I have pride in my country”
If a then b implies if not b then not a
Why make the human being remark if there is no implied “because” before it.
Kevin Ovenden once told me that what was distinctive about dialectical materialism was its counter-intuitive nature. But just because you’re full of contradictions doesn’t make you dialectical.
Comment by skidmarx — 21 October, 2008 @ 5:37 pm
Aristotelian
Comment by skidmarx — 21 October, 2008 @ 5:38 pm
78# Paul…. oh and some non muslim brummies as well!…. I am just a bit annoyed that my lack of funds meant I couldn’t get to Bill Anderson’s Funeral today…. A longstanding Socialist who will be saddly missed by many in Birmingham. I first met him when campaigning for Ragib Ashan as the SOCIALIST UNITY candidate in Ladywood in 1977…. over 30 years later the fragmentation, atomisation and confusion of erstwhile socialists seems such a shame.
Comment by abu jamal — 21 October, 2008 @ 5:39 pm
Anybody here want to back Shahida up?
Anybody want to argue that the dead Taliban are in fact simply “brave Afghan men”?
Or do any of you have the guts to admit that they are, in fact, Taliban supporters?
Go on.
Comment by David T — 21 October, 2008 @ 5:42 pm
87# I prefer Hegelian dialectics to Aristoelian…..”First, the two “self-consciousnesses” meet and are astounded at coming to see another person. They can choose to ignore one another, in which case no self-consciousness forms and each views the other merely as another object. Or, they become mesmerized by the mirror-like other and attempt, as they previously did with their own body, to assert themselves.
According to Hegel,
“On approaching the other it has lost its own self, since it finds itself as another being; secondly, it has thereby sublated that other, for it does not regard the other as essentially real [real in the concepts a pre-self-consciousness] , but sees its own self in the other.”
off course marx and engels developed this somewhat.
Comment by mark anthony france — 21 October, 2008 @ 5:43 pm
Just on the off chance it’ll give Toube a heart attack, let me state I of course support the fight of the Afghan people against the imperialist occupiers. Toube, on the other hand, supports the murderers, as usual.
Comment by christian h. — 21 October, 2008 @ 5:54 pm
” I of course support the fight of the Afghan people against the imperialist occupiers. ”
Good for you.
Do you have the guts to call them by their name: The Taliban?
Go on, you can do it!
Comment by David T — 21 October, 2008 @ 5:57 pm
If these chaps in Helmand opposing NATO militarily that Shahida supports are not Taliban who are they exactly ? Some new group of left aligned guerrillas ? Funny I’ve never heard of them.
What is Respect’s official policy on the Taliban btw ?
christian h. - you support the Taliban then. Are you a member of Respect ?
Comment by MoreMediaNonsense — 21 October, 2008 @ 5:58 pm
I must say that reading David T reminds me why I joined Respect in the first place.
Comment by Jon — 21 October, 2008 @ 6:06 pm
Perhaps there is a secret anti-Taliban that is fighting BOTH the Taliban AND the “imperialists”.
But obviously, they have to keep a very low profile, because if the Taliban and the “imperialists” knew who they were, they’d be killed immediately.
This is why we’ve never heard of them.
Comment by David T — 21 October, 2008 @ 6:08 pm
Toube, my friend, just because you know squat about pretty much any of the issues you pontificate about doesn’t mean everyone else is similarly uninformed. I suppose, by the way, that you supported the Soviet occupation in the eighties?
Comment by christian h. — 21 October, 2008 @ 6:09 pm
This may be inconvenient for Shahida, Christian and their friends, but all the available evidence suggests that most Afghans - in some cases by overwhelming majorities - welcomed the 2001 invasion, support their democratically elected government, want the foreign troops to stay and view the Taliban as the greatest threat to Afghanistan’s future.
See for instance http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2007/12_december/03/afghanistan.shtml or http://www.asiafoundation.org/pdf/AG-survey06.pdf.
You can question these two polls as much as you like but their findings are replicated across pretty much every other poll. There are few if any showing anything different.
They must all be suffering from false consciousness, eh?
Or perhaps Afghans have the good sense to ask themselves what the Taliban would do if they won, before deciding whether or not to support them; rather than just giving their blind support to whoever is killing British troops this week, as some of the people on this blog seem to do.
Comment by Igor — 21 October, 2008 @ 6:09 pm
“I must say that reading David T reminds me why I joined Respect in the first place.”
Because you support the Taliban?
You’re in good company Jon. You’re in the Taliban supporters party, alright. It holds gender segregated meetings in religious institutions tied to far right Islamist politics.
Comment by David T — 21 October, 2008 @ 6:09 pm
Come on Christian h
How difficult is it for you to say?
“I of course support the fight of the Taliban against the imperialist occupiers”
Comment by David T — 21 October, 2008 @ 6:10 pm
94# jon… I feel the same way!
93# I don’t think shahida is saying there is some guerilla group that is busy educating itself in between battles raging in Helmand by logging on to the internet via wind up labtops and mobiles to look for strategic quidance from SOCIALIST UNITY. I think she is just saying that imperialist aggression produces resistance….. and that we just need to understand that. I don’t think RESPECT has any formal policy on Afghanistan as such… If it does develope one it should be restricted to calling for withdrawl of NATO and support conflict resolution.
Comment by mark anthony france — 21 October, 2008 @ 6:14 pm
Someone asked earlier what I thought of the meeting.
Well it was good to see so many sisters there and I think they should sit wherever they want to.
I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those who do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the system of exploitation. I believe that there will be that kind of clash but I don’t think it will be based on the color of the skin.
I for one believe that if you give people a thorough understanding of what confronts them and the basic causes that produce it, they’ll create their own program, and when the people create a program, you get action.
I’ve had enough of someone else’s propaganda. I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it’s for or against. I’m a human being first and foremost, and as such I am for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.
Comment by malcolm x — 21 October, 2008 @ 6:19 pm
Poll evidence is inconclusive- even the one given suggested that 43% approved of US troops. This one http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/1144 from March shows that (in this poll anyway) more people oppose British troops’ involvement than support it.
It is perfectly possible to oppose the Taliban and oppose the US invading and occupying the country.
What is needed is massive aid under working class and peasant control. The Afghan people have shown many times how much they detest the rule of the Taliban- that deosn’t mean the country should be annexed by the US.
Comment by Jason — 21 October, 2008 @ 6:21 pm
“I think she is just saying that imperialist aggression produces resistance….. and that we just need to understand that”
I think you misunderstand Shahida. She supports the “Afghan men” who “resist and resist bravely”.
She claims, of course, that “not all of them are what you label Taliban”. They are, of course. However, she acknowledges that at least some of these “brave Afghan men” are Taliban.
And so does George Galloway. When confronted by the grieving parents of a hero, who died fighting fascists, he mocked them, and told them that “the people of Afghanistan who have a right to resist the occupation of the country.”
But I take it, you don’t support the Taliban.
Can I suggest, therefore, that you’re in the wrong party.
Because it does seem to attract an awful lot of Taliban supporters.
Comment by David T — 21 October, 2008 @ 6:22 pm
#98 No, I don’t support the Taliban. Your logic- one person in group x thinks y, so therefore everyone in group x must think y- is so laughably flawed that a three year old could see through it. It’s the logic of demonisation, discrimination and dehumanisation. You use it to paint all Respect members as Taliban supporters just as you use it to paint all Afghans killed by the occupying forces as Taliban.
But more to the point, I don’t support the idea that people can be ‘liberated’ by dropping high explosive ordinance on them, occupying their countries, killing them in their hundreds of thousands and displacing them in their millions. This is the line in the sand, the fundamental division which divides me from you as it divides the real left (in all it’s guises) from you and your pro-war chums. Don’t ever forget that.
Comment by Jon — 21 October, 2008 @ 6:24 pm
Does Salma Yaqoob also believe that “the people [sic] of Afghanistan”, meaning the Taliban, “have a right to resist the occupation of the country”? Did she object to that line from Galloway at the meeting, or does she agree with her leader? Birmingham voters might be rather interested in an answer to that question.
Comment by Peter — 21 October, 2008 @ 6:26 pm
How do you think the Taliban should be defeated?
Comment by David T — 21 October, 2008 @ 6:28 pm
Galloway’s comment does of course conflate “the people of Afghanistan who have a right to resist the occupation of the country” with the Taliban.
However, Galloway has inadequate politics on all sorts of things. He was a prominent anti-war MP who took a principled line on the Iraq war - soldiers shoiuld refuse ot obey illegal orders- but he is no socialist so why be surprised?
Comment by Jason — 21 October, 2008 @ 6:29 pm
How should the Taliban be defeated?
i refer you to my previous answer-” What is needed is massive aid under working class and peasant control. The Afghan people have shown many times how much they detest the rule of the Taliban”
Comment by Jason — 21 October, 2008 @ 6:31 pm
How come you get to ask all the questions? I’m not on trial here, and you’re not the judge.
Let me ask you one. How you do think the foreign armies occupying Iraq and Afghanistan should be defeated?
Comment by Jon — 21 October, 2008 @ 6:33 pm
Thank you Jason
The truth of the matter is that Galloway was a supporter of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
However, now that the Taliban is fighting the British, he’s for them.
The other thing that has changed is that Galloway’s political career depends on votes, delivered by Mosque hierarchies. He would not have won in Bethnal Green and Bow, were it not for the support of the Jamaat aligned East London Mosque. And Birmingham Central Mosque - which is similarly extreme - is central to his, and Salma Yaqoob’s electoral strategy.
Believe me, you won’t get very far attacking the Taliban with George’s core support.
You might think that you, and the rest of the handful of confused white Trots who support him, have something to do with this party. But you don’t. You just don’t count.
The truth is, Galloway has ALWAYS been consistent in two things.
- First of all, Galloway will support anybody fighting against the US and Britain. That’s why he supported the USSR and their war in Afghanistan
- Secondly, Galloway is out for himself, and whatever he can get.
That is how you lot came to be sitting in a Mosque, in a gender segregated meeting, alongside Taliban supporters.
Comment by David T — 21 October, 2008 @ 6:40 pm
Maybe George Galloway was misquoted by abu jamal?…. but no matter what he said … it is pretty certain that many who post hear would decide it was furhter proof that he wasn’t a socialist.
Comment by mark anthony france — 21 October, 2008 @ 6:41 pm
“What is needed is massive aid under working class and peasant control. The Afghan people have shown many times how much they detest the rule of the Taliban”
Yes, certainly.
Precisely how are you going to stop the Taliban from taking this aid from the working class and peasants?
Comment by David T — 21 October, 2008 @ 6:41 pm
#111…. mark anthony france and anyone who wants to see the ‘offical’ report of the Salma, George and Yvonne meeting on Pakistan can go to;
http://www.respectrenewal.org/content/view/393/1/
The report at the top of the page was just a rough draft done straight after the meeting and sent to Socialist Unity Office.
Comment by abu jamal — 21 October, 2008 @ 6:45 pm
How you do think the foreign armies occupying Iraq and Afghanistan should be defeated?
I don’t think they really need to be defeated.
They’ll leave the moment that the Taliban isn’t likely to take over.
Comment by David T — 21 October, 2008 @ 6:45 pm
Igor, my position is in no way undermined or even inconvenienced by those polls. In fact, if you’ll read Jonathan Neale in International Socialism 120 you might realize it’s your position that becomes difficult. The question you should ask is, “why, if the Afghan people originally welcomed the overthrow of the Taliban, are they now widely resisting the occupation?” Given that the imperialist occupation is going on, it is imperative to support the resistance against it. You and Toube might support murdering men, women and children from the air, but don’t expect us to follow you on that.
Toube, grow up. Your juvenile games aren’t interesting to anyone. I ask again: did you, or did you not support the Soviet occupation in the eighties?
By the way, I take you silence to mean you do allow death threats on your blog. You really are the lowest of the low, completely unhinged by now.
Comment by christian h. — 21 October, 2008 @ 6:47 pm
From the official report, Galloway says:
“I love Pakistan, all my life I have loved it, even before it became two countries,”
Yeah.
Now, this is a very telling thing to say.
Because Pakistan did not “become two countries”.
What happened is that Bangladesh fought a very long and bloody war to liberate itself from Pakistan.
Jamaat-e-Islami opposed the liberation struggle of the Bangladeshi people, and participated in the most horrendous war crimes and massacres.
So, there you have it. George Galloway gives a speech in which he praises the Taliban’s “resistance”, and in which he talks about Pakistan as “two countries”, to please his Jamaat-e-Islami allies.
You’re in a pro-Taliban pro-Jamaat party, Jason.
And it holds election rallies, at Mohammed “Dancing Cows” Naseem’s Birmingham Central Mosque, to raise money for Salma Yaqoob, who cut her political teeth campaigning for the freedom of Abu Hamza’s British Yemeni jihadis
Do you think you might be in the wrong party?
Comment by David T — 21 October, 2008 @ 6:52 pm
Toube, you really aren’t very bright, are you? Jason isn’t a member of RR. Neither are many others here (me, for example). Shockingly, your racist filth is opposed by many people.
Comment by christian h. — 21 October, 2008 @ 6:56 pm
Well, I’m not surprised.
Why would a progressive want to join RESPECT, if it means supporting the Taliban and having to refer to Bangladesh as if it were part of Pakistan!
Comment by David T — 21 October, 2008 @ 7:00 pm
Does Galloway favour the “one state solution” with respect to Bangladesh/Pakistan?
Comment by David T — 21 October, 2008 @ 7:01 pm
I think that our shared opposition to racist scum like David T is one of the few things which does unite the left. So in that respect, I suppose we have to thank him!
Comment by Jon — 21 October, 2008 @ 7:01 pm
“They’ll [Western forces]leave the moment that the Taliban isn’t likely to take over” say David T.
Tell me, my old sausage, when will that be?
Comment by Richard Farnos — 21 October, 2008 @ 7:09 pm
I see the official statement drops the “have a right to resist the occupation of the country” shout out to the Taliban.
Instead, this time, Kashmri jihadis get a cheer:
the “people of Kashmir have every right and dignity to fight for the freedom of their land.”
Same old, eh. Any jihad will do.
So does Salma support jihadis too? If not, why is she in RESPECT?
Comment by Peter — 21 October, 2008 @ 7:14 pm
But you have open racists in RESPECT.
Some are on the National Executive!
Comment by David T — 21 October, 2008 @ 7:28 pm
Some of the comments on this thread remind me of the reactionary crap we had to listen to when Muslim women first engaged with the anti-war movement in Birimngham. Salma’s comments at the time about Muslim women wanting to exercise their right to sit seperatly to men at a past meeting bear relevance to one under discussion:
‘The fact that many Muslim women expected and preferred such an arrangement [provision for separate seating] escaped the intellectual grasp of some people, who thought that this was more evidence of enforced sexism and patriarchy, just as some of them could not accept that wearing a headscarf might actually be a choice exercised by Muslim women, and not forced upon them by men and an unjust religion. The accusations of forced segregation afterwards were simply untrue. There was no coercion—if some men and women wanted to sit together no one insisted on other than their choice.
Not having interacted with Muslims as a community, the sight of some men and women sitting separately may have been an unusual one. However, instead of seeking to understand it and contextualising it in terms of other people’s experiences and culture, some people were quick to condemn and judge behaviour that was not completely their own norm.
On reflection, it seems our critics could not conceive of any notion of Islam other than an extreme one. The mere fact we were Muslims, some of us visibly so because we wore the hijab, meant that we must be extremists. Ignorance of Islam as practised by the majority of Muslims is unfortunately widespread, and most Muslims do not expect deep understanding with regard to their faith, and indeed it is a welcome surprise when people show some knowledge of it.’
http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=4
Comment by Ger Francis — 21 October, 2008 @ 7:29 pm
Did you make the decision to put women at the back of the meeting Ger?
Comment by Ray.L. — 21 October, 2008 @ 7:47 pm
David T supports a country where demanding conversion to judaism or face the mob is not racist? Acre? He thinks he’s liberal. He is a fascist. Beat up Arab drivers!
Comment by Punk — 21 October, 2008 @ 7:56 pm
Ray. L., I think it was made perfectly clear that no-one made any decision for those in attendance at the meeting. I guess we - whether its RR, or the SWP, or PR, or SP,… - like to think that oppression will be overcome by the oppressed. You can’t order anyone to be free, at least not outside the twisted minds of HP’ers. Much as I disagree with RR on many issues, I think it is brilliant there was such a good, diverse turnout for the meeting.
Comment by christian h. — 21 October, 2008 @ 8:06 pm
David, you are being tedious here.
This meeting was in a mosque, and therefor emany people will have wished to repsect the traditions of the mosque.
Had the meeting been in an orthodox syanague, then men and women would have been segregated, and the women would have been upstairs! So Islam is not unique in segregating the genders.
At the holiest pace for Jews, the Western wall in Jeruslaem, men and women cannot approach the wall together and are segregated, and indeed the space for men is about three times bigger than the space for women
Indeed if people here started calling Jews backwards because the genders are segregated, then I am sure you would be jumping up and down crying anti-Semitism.
And it is simply historically inaccurate and factually wrong and journalistically lazy to conflate everyone opposing the Western forces in Afghanistan with the Taliban. BUt you know that, you are just here trolling.
Give that a rest please.
Comment by Andy Newman — 21 October, 2008 @ 8:14 pm
There are no Left Wing Jewish groups that hold segregated meetings in Synagogues.
Right wing, yes.
David Rosenberg
21 October 2008, 7:15 pm
Been away from the computer most of the day - just a couple of comments on questions raised. Jewish socialists/communists in the East End as far as I know, like the Bundists in Eastern Europe, made no concessions to clericalism but sought to win support from the community (religious and secular) by taking a consistent stand on bread and butter issues - fighting antisemitism, unionising workplaces, fighting for better housing conditions etc.
And when the CP sought to widen its support base among Jewish workers in the 1930s in the same geographical area as Respect has been working, it didn’t go to the most reactionary religious leaders but approached the grassroots, through the trade unions and organisations like the Workers Circle. Now it is true that the Bengali community in the East end has not got the same level of involvement in trade unions (a failing of TUs and the left) but the principle of allying with the grassroots rather than clerics should still be guiding Respect. And it isn’t. Not surprising when the likes of Galloway and Ridley are still running the show. I hope the Respect Grassroots will find a way of dumping them and reorienting itself towards filing the massive vacuum left by that complete shower that is “new labour”.
In Eastern Europe the Bund often clashed with the rabbis because in disputes between workers and bosses, the rabbis, representing backward conservative views would almost invariably support the bosses.
In inter-war Poland the Bund boycotted the offical communal structure - the kehilla - for many years because it did not allow women to vote. The Bund also had a women’s section - Yiddishe arbeter froyen - ‘Jewish women workers’ - dedicated to unionising women workers, many of who were working in very low-paid work as domestic cleaners, and many women rose to prominent positions within the Bund.
Comment by Paul — 21 October, 2008 @ 8:36 pm
53#
“Besides which, it wasn’t Churchill who prosecuted the war, gun in hand, it was my granddad’s, and their brothers and workmates and friends. And by and large, they did this willingly because they knew what was at stake.”
In 1939, conscription was introduced at once. Parliament passed the Military Training Act. This act introduced conscription for men aged 20 and 21 who were now required to undertake six months’ military training. On the outbreak of the Second World War, Parliament passed the National Service (Armed Forces) Act, under which all men between 18 and 41 were made liable for conscription. It was also announced that single men were called up before married men. The registration of all men in each age group in turn began on 21st October for those aged 20 to 23. By May 1940, registration had extended only as far as men aged 27 and did not reach those aged 40 until June 1941.
Your flowery and romantic post is just that but carries no evidence that the majority were politically standing up to fascism, my own grandfather on the British side considered it as his duty to serve King and Country.
Comment by Jim — 21 October, 2008 @ 8:56 pm
He’s being more then tedious Andy, and its something more then trolling. I’ve never quite understood why your so tolerant of someone with his track record.
Comment by johng — 21 October, 2008 @ 9:21 pm
From the meeting report:
“Salma spoke of the recent US military operations in Pakistan that have left numerous civilian casualties and the hypocrisy of the media in the UK for failing to report these attacks “on sovereign nation”.
This is very strange. “Failing to report”? Try slotting “Pakistan” and “missile” in Google news and check the thousands of reports, including UK media. What papers does Salma Yaqoob read? Would RESPECT people like to provide some evidence for this assertion?
Comment by Peter — 21 October, 2008 @ 9:51 pm
David T of the pro-war website Harry’s Place has got himself all charged up about the fact that the Muslim women sat at the back of a mosque in Birmingham, when the Respect Party held a meeting there.
Now, to evaluate his point, one ought to consider what David T and his fellow cheerleaders of Western colonial warfare would have done in similar circumstances.
Possibly they would never consider holding a public meeting in a Birmingham mosque, and even if they did, possibly no Muslim women would turn up. Who knows?
But, given that David T seems to be well-connected (even if only because he is short of cash) to the Islamic Dawa Party of Iraq, it’s not beyond the imagination to consider such a thing. So let’s do what the American philosophers call a ‘thought experiment’.
Now, imagine that on the day of the HP public meeting at the mosque, arranged with the help of some cash from the Islamic Dawa Party, scores of women in headscarves turn up- eager to hear David T lecture them on the civilising benefits of modern military action. And, of course, in the traditional way, they take the seats at the back.
What would David T do? Would he order them out of their seats, and instruct them to sit at the front?
Or perhaps he would just call in an airstrike.
Comment by Noah — 21 October, 2008 @ 10:17 pm
Why would serious leftists, or any serious person of any kind for that matter, hold a political meeting in Mr Naseem’s mosque?
“We are in the 21st Century. The cows can be made to look as dancing, the horses can speak like humans, so these things can be doctored or can be produced.”
That was his response to, um, al-Jazeera’s broadcast of Mohammed Sidique Kahn’s “martyrdom” video.
Comment by Peter — 21 October, 2008 @ 10:53 pm
#135:
“Why would serious leftists, or any serious person of any kind for that matter, hold a political meeting in Mr Naseem’s mosque?”
So which mosque do you recommend as a venue for political meetings, Saint Peter?
Comment by Noah — 21 October, 2008 @ 11:08 pm
Hey Mark T- I eagerly await your list of approved places of religious observance, guaranteed safe from any association with believers in conspiracies or other bizarre theories, unsupported by scientific evidence.
If that’s not possible, perhaps you could ask your friends at HP to provide a correct list of venues, vetted on the basis that the managers believe in the only true & non-paranoid conspiracy, the combined protocols of the elders of the anti-war movement and Islamic terrorism.
Oh, and by the way, remember not to step on the cracks in the pavement.
Comment by Noah — 21 October, 2008 @ 11:54 pm
Seriously - give me a fruitloop any day:
http://www.makeandtakes.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/snake-fruit-loop-garland-050.jpg
Only please, Saint Mark, refrain from exporting the benefits of your supremely civilised warfare:
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/xml/news/2007/03/apupafghanambush070304/070304afghanboming_story.JPG
Comment by Noah — 22 October, 2008 @ 12:21 am
Andy
You are right that Orthodox synagogues are segregated for prayer, but if Respect ever actually held a public meeting in a synagogue hall (ie not the prayer room, as was the case with this mosque meeting), you would find that few would insist on gender segregation.
Not that this is the point of this thread - I’m just a pedant - the real point is the one that David Rosenberg makes: that Respect have done just as New Labour, the police and others originally did by courting clerics as a way of connecting to British Muslims.
Comment by Igor — 22 October, 2008 @ 8:39 am
David T - I have deleted your last comment due to a certaily libellous comment about george galloway.
Comment by Andy Newman — 22 October, 2008 @ 9:32 am
Post #144 “The religious are organised through religious institutions: The secular are not.”
Wrong. Many religious people are not organised in religious institutions. Are you unaware of the decline of organised religion in most European countries in recent decades?
On the other hand many ’secular’ people, whatever that means, are organised in such institutions for reasons of tradition, convenience, etc.
Given that you appear to be deeply ignorant of the topics on which you write why not take a rest…
Comment by Mike — 22 October, 2008 @ 9:36 am
Libellous?
What is libellous about suggesting that Galloway supports the Taliban? That isn’t libellous. It is clearly what he meant!
Comment by David T — 22 October, 2008 @ 9:41 am
“all fair enough but what did Galloway say about serbo croats?”
I don’t think he’s gonna try to defend that one. He only does narrow defences, a la George Osbourne.(and Tottenham Hotspur)
mark anthony france - why don’t you have a go (if you think you’re hard enough) instead of wittering on about Hegel.
David T - if you object to people writing your full name when they attack you I object just as I do when they [I think it is the same RR supporters in general] do it to SWP members [sometimes it’s Andy Newman, he certainly does nothing to discourage it]. Thanks for the support I guess, from what I’ve seen you seem to be a Zionist neo-con asshole (some offence intended). I started to wonder, would you support the establishment of non-ethnis democracy in Lebanon, given that that would almost certainly lead to a Hezbollah government?
Comment by skidmarx — 22 October, 2008 @ 9:56 am
David
I am not going to repeat what you wrote, but the libellous bit related to something else.
Clearly it is just tedious nonsense to claim that people “support the taliban” who point out that a lrage part of Afghan sosciety consider themselves invloved ina a war to expel foreign invaders. But you know that, that is why your trolling here is so boring.
Comment by Andy Newman — 22 October, 2008 @ 10:27 am
#146 Seeing as no-one except “skidmarx” knows what galoway is alleged to have said about Serbo-croats, then no one is going to “defend it”
Comment by Andy Newman — 22 October, 2008 @ 10:29 am
#147 skidmarx….. what did marx say about the Albanians?
Ok I’ll stop wittering on about Hegel …. what about Jung then?…
A philosophy like Hegel’s is a self-revelation of the psychic background and, philosophically, a presumption. Psychologically it amounts to an invasion by the Unconscious. The peculiar, high-flown language Hegel uses bears out this view — it is reminiscent of the megalomaniac language of schizophrenics, who use terrific, spellbinding words to reduce the transcendent to subjective form, to give banalities the charm of novelty, or pass off commonplaces as searching wisdom. So bombastic a terminology is a symptom of weakness, ineptitude, and lack of substance.
– Carl G. Jung, On the Nature of the Psyche, 1928
Comment by mark anthony france — 22 October, 2008 @ 10:35 am
Who are the non-Taliban resistance in Afghanistan, Andy? I don’t mean average Afghans who might prefer fewer instead of more foreign troops on their soil, but those actually killing UK soldiers like the one Galloway was referencing?
Comment by Brownie — 22 October, 2008 @ 10:46 am
My understanding is that there are various forces, including the troops of local warlords who are fighting British and American troops.
It wuld be a mistake to think of the Taliban as a sort of national liberation army with a centralised command, and consistent ideology, It is just lazy journalism to describe all those fighting as being Taliban.
Comment by Andy Newman — 22 October, 2008 @ 10:57 am
that a lrage part of Afghan sosciety consider themselves invloved ina a war to expel foreign invaders.
Do you have any evidence at all of that (ie polls that suggest a large amount of support for the Taliban) ?
The latest poll I can find at http://research.environics.net/media_room/default.asp?aID=653 says for example :
“Seven in ten (73%) believe that women in Afghanistan today are better off then five years ago (under the Taliban), a view that is equally widespread in Kandahar and among women across the country.”
“The Taliban. What is public opinion of the Taliban, who ruled the country prior to 2002? When asked, almost three quarters of Afghans nationwide have a very negative (53%) or somewhat negative (20%) opinion of the Taliban, compared with only 14 percent who hold a positive view. Opinions are marginally less critical in Kandahar (67% negative versus 20% positive), and among Pashtuns (64% negative versus 26% positive). Moreover, the public is most likely to believe that the Taliban enjoys the support of only a few Afghans (50%), rather than some (24%) or most (7%), with Kandahar opinion only slightly more positive toward the Taliban.”
Comment by MoreMediaNonsense — 22 October, 2008 @ 10:58 am
150# Brownie….The non-Taliban resistance are all sorts of people…. Like the sons of mothers killed by US Air Strikes… who decide to fight back. The political framework of the resistance is not even throughout the country…
If you can just for one moment put yourself into the shoes [or sandals] of a functionally illiterate young person in Helmand who has witnessed acts of horrendous barbarity carried out by foreigners… you might well join in a military operation against the foreigners…. In which case your life expectancy in combat in the face of overwhelming firepower and total air superiority would be measured in minutes not weeks or months…. It is Highly likely you would die long before you were able to assimilate any ideological justification for your actions. If you look at the number of insurgent casualties in Helmand alone then clearly 10,000s are actively involved in the resistance. Each one that dies in battle will have mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters….. a human tradegy on a unimaginable scale.
When 4 lads from Tipton went to investigate Afghanistan in 2001…. they experienced a nightmare one never came back the others ended up in Quantanamo. They were branded ‘enemy combatants’ tortured and imprisoned without trial…. one of them had a confession ‘extracted’ admitting being at a meeting with Osama Bin Laden when at the time he was working in Curry’s in Wednesbury…. On August 4, 2004 Iqbal, Ahmed and Rasul released a report on their abuse and humiliation while in US custody.[2] In it, according to the BBC, the three describe significant abuse, including:
They were repeatedly punched, kicked, slapped, forcibly injected with drugs, deprived of sleep, hooded, photographed naked and subjected to body cavity searches and sexual and religious humiliations.
The American guard told the inmates: “The world does not know you’re here - we would kill you and no-one would know”.
Mr Iqbal said when he arrived at Guantanamo, one of the soldiers told him: “You killed my family in the towers and now it’s time to get back at you”.
Mr Rasul said an MI5 officer had told him during an interrogation that he would be detained in Guantanamo for life.
The men said they saw the beating of mentally-ill inmates.
Another man was left brain damaged after a beating by soldiers as punishment for attempting suicide.
The Britons said an inmate told them he was shown a video of hooded men - apparently inmates - being forced to sodomise one another.
Guards threw prisoners’ Korans into toilets and tried to force them to give up their religion
The appointment of General Geoffrey Miller coincided with the introduction of new, harsher treatment, including short shackling and the forced shaving-off of beards.
In the report they allege that those who represented themselves as being from MI5, or the British Foreign Office, seemed unconcerned with their welfare.
In the end, the abusive interrogation led the three to falsely confess (under force) to being the three previously-unidentified faces in an alleged video that showed a meeting between Osama bin Laden and Mohammed Atta, even though they were in Tipton when the meeting occurred.
The three were among the first released detainees who were able to give an alternative view of conditions within the camp to that offered by
This experience of British Citizens at the hands of the US and British Military should be enough to give you an insight into the reasons why Afgans might what to take up arms against the invaders…with or without the need to operate under ‘Taliban’ discipline.
Comment by mark anthony france — 22 October, 2008 @ 11:21 am
Yeah, but at least one of the “Tipton Lads” has now confessed to being a jihadist who went to Afghanistan to fight with the Taliban.
Didn’t you know that?
Comment by David T — 22 October, 2008 @ 11:25 am
In 2007 Ruhal Ahmed participated in “Lie Lab”: a scientific programme on the United Kingdom’s Channel 4. Contrary to the account of his presence in Afghanistan to the press and as depicted in The Road to Guantanamo, Ahmed has now confessed to visiting an Islamist training camp, where he handled weapons and learned how to use an AK47. Rasul refused to take the lie detector tests. [3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shafiq_Rasul
Comment by David T — 22 October, 2008 @ 11:27 am
Andy :
My understanding is that there are various forces, including the troops of local warlords who are fighting British and American troops.
Do you have a link for that at all ?
Comment by MoreMediaNonsense — 22 October, 2008 @ 11:29 am
It wuld be a mistake to think of the Taliban as a sort of national liberation army with a centralised command, and consistent ideology, It is just lazy journalism to describe all those fighting as being Taliban.
I don’t think I’d disagree with that. But for DT’s comment to be libellous you need more than this. I don’t doubt that there are some people in Afghanistan invovled in fightng with NATO troops who are not Taliban (although I think you’re stretching this point hugely - there is nothing like the same numbers of disparate, organised, fighting forces with their own axe to grind as, say, we found in Iraq). For DT’s comment to be libellous, you’d have to believe that Galloway was referring to the Taliban-free resistance alone, and in, he supports all Afghan resistance groups to the exclusion of the Taliban. I doubt you really believe this is what Galloway means, and given the context was an encounter with the parents of a dead UK soldier killed by the ‘resistance’ in Afghanistan - and given I’m not aware of too many UK soldiers being killed by non-Taliban memebers of the generic ‘resistance’ - there is no reason to believe it.
Comment by Brownie — 22 October, 2008 @ 11:39 am
““Sevenin ten (73%) believe that women in Afghanistan today are better off then five years ago (under the Taliban), a view that is equally widespread in Kandahar and among women across the country.”
Well, what do women know anyway? Stick them at the back of the room, that’s what I say. Can’t live with ‘em, can’t shoot ‘em in the back of the head on the pitch of an internationally-funded soccer stadium, as the old Taliban saying goes.
Comment by Dustin the Turkey — 22 October, 2008 @ 11:43 am
155# …. David T. Yes I did know about Ruhal Ahmed…. So what you have to understand… IF you label him as ‘Taliban’ and if you think the ‘Taliban’ need to be fought …. what you have to understand is that the ‘Taliban’ is here… in the UK and some of them work for Amnesty International. From personal experience I understand the desire to recieve military training….. part of my own reasons for going to Cuba in 1991 was to recieve military training. What you have to understand is that in Tipton and in Bromsgrove…. people with rudimentary military training disagree with you… we do not advocate violence and seek peacful political resolution of conflicts everywhere in the world…Whereas you are an apologist for a vicious imperialism. In May 2007 a young lad also from Tipton, Daniel Probyn, was killed in Afghanistan…. he died with a gun in hand, for what exactly?
Salma Yaqoob, George Galloway clearly want the violence to stop…if you follow your logic then you have to demonise me, the tipton lads, and all the people at the Crisis in Pakistan meeting as “Taliban”….and you clearly advocate violence against us.
Comment by mark anthony france — 22 October, 2008 @ 11:52 am
“what you have to understand is that the ‘Taliban’ is here… in the UK and some of them work for Amnesty International. From personal experience I understand the desire to recieve military training….. part of my own reasons for going to Cuba in 1991 was to recieve military training. What you have to understand is that in Tipton and in Bromsgrove…. people with rudimentary military training disagree with you”
Well, I think you and they should be investigated and kept under surveillance. If such a person gets themselves involved in terrorism in the UK, they should be arrested and convicted.
I think that most people would agree.
In fact, our courts are chock a block with defendants and convicts, to whom precisely this has happened.
Comment by David T — 22 October, 2008 @ 12:02 pm
Of course, claiming the Taliban is “not my enemy”, as GG famously did on Question Time, is not quite the same as explicit support for the Taliban, but I’d say expressing ambivalence about them is more evidence for the prosecution and still makes him a piece of shit.
Ambivalent about the Taliban? What next?
Franco’s fascists? - not my problem
White supremacists in South Africa? - go tell the marines.
Charming.
Comment by Brownie — 22 October, 2008 @ 12:04 pm
They most certainly did not receive death threats on my blog.
In any case, I do not critizise Andy Newman - who commendably keeps an open comment policy - for allowing those like France to post.
I think it is particularly poor form for you to do so to me.
Comment by David T — 22 October, 2008 @ 12:09 pm
#148 “#146 Seeing as no-one except “skidmarx” knows what galoway is alleged to have said about Serbo-croats, then no one is going to “defend it””
Then why don’t you check out the clodpast? I think it’s from about 10.30 last Saturday. Or has the digital recording gone South like much of the weekend’s broadcasts when TalkSport Towers was non-operational (are they going bust? At least Stan Collymore’s £1.5m richer) and the AM signal was intermittent and the digital one largely non-existent. And I don’t see you doing much of a job defending his other remark. You didn’t seem to have such trouble finding words to defend David Ellis when he said “The SWP are indistinguishable from the Khmer Rouge”. You lot remind me of Charles Manson. Your obsessed with ethnic identity, you probably don’t surf,you’ve probably never killed anyone and oh yeah, he’s a psychotic nutcase.[ll- don’t bother. I listen to this Shite so you don’t have to]
mark anthony france- I meant try and answer the questions raised by Galloway’s latest outrageous comments, not witter on about an even more idealist philosopher.
Comment by skidmarx — 22 October, 2008 @ 12:31 pm
163# David T..I have to go to pick up my son from school.. I do not understand your reasons for contributing to this site… it is clearly a desire to witchunt and be destructive…. you are a proud agent of reaction…seeking to dehumanise those you disagree with. I feel sorry for you. One day your sentiments will be seen by all humanity as a form of barbarianism from the distant past.
Comment by mark anthony france — 22 October, 2008 @ 12:39 pm
No, I’m just opposed to murderous totalitarian political movements.
That’s all.
Comment by David T — 22 October, 2008 @ 12:45 pm
Oh, and I don’t think that to be a socialist, liberal or progressive you need to support murderous totalitarian political movements.
Comment by David T — 22 October, 2008 @ 12:47 pm
Like Zionism?
Comment by Trotsky was a Menshevik — 22 October, 2008 @ 12:53 pm
No, Zionism isn’t a totalitarian political movement.
Like any other nationalism, it requires only force to be used to protect its citizens.
Comment by David T — 22 October, 2008 @ 1:01 pm
I have to go to pick up my son from school
Al Qaeda training camp, more like.
Comment by Brownie — 22 October, 2008 @ 1:04 pm
I’m just opposed to murderous totalitarian political movements - says David T
In which case why does your website run campaigns on behalf of those who overthrew democracy in Venezuela in the 2002 coup?
Comment by Calvin — 22 October, 2008 @ 1:06 pm
Oh, and Dumbo is a liar. The not very nice comment to which he refers is here and reads:
In less forgiving times [Tony Greenstein and Roland Rance] would be receiving a necklace for hanukah!
A death threat it isn’t. But then, the liar’s name is “Dumbo”, so expectations are low.
Comment by Brownie — 22 October, 2008 @ 1:09 pm
#162 “Toube is scum. He, and others like him - I am thinking in particular of Martin Ohr who also deserves to be treated in the same way - should be treated in the manner of police agents.”
I’m not quite sure what I’ve done to deserve this. Apart from being jewish I’m not sure what I’ve got in common with David T, certainly not politically. Perhaps you can explain, or withdraw the suggestion that I should be treated in the manner of a police agent.
It’s a shame this blog can’t just discuss politics without childish name calling.
Comment by martin ohr — 22 October, 2008 @ 1:15 pm
I feel I have top repeat myself
People - first principles please
“Calm down everyone
Can I just suggest you throw a few quid these guys way
http://www.atheistcampaign.org/
You know it makes sense”
I don’t want to sound rude but you are making fools of yourselves
Comment by The Vengence of History — 22 October, 2008 @ 1:16 pm
Who do we mean when we talk of the taliban?
In the sense of being those people who formed the previous givernment under Mullah Omar, then the current insurgency is NOT “the Taliban”
Worth checking Antonio Giustozzi’s book, “Koran, Kalashnikov and Laptop: the Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan”, London 2007.
Specifically, as tariq Ali explains: http://www.newleftreview.org/?view=2713#_edn20
What supporters of the war do is use a very broad definition of “the Taliban” to include everyone who is currently fighting against Western troops in Afghanistan; and then associate it with a very narrow definition of the taliban, to mean the supporters of the Mullah Omar government.
What they also do is imply that supporters of the Karzai government are some sort of Western liberals, when in fact Karzai’s suporters also include Wah-habis, drug barons, war lords, and the dross of the mujhaidin who were wrose than the taliban.
Comment by Andy Newman — 22 October, 2008 @ 1:19 pm
167# David T… back from school…. Ruhal Amed…. is a progressive who work for perhaps the most well known international organisation that stands up to ‘totalitarian’ forms of injustice and for political prisoners and prisoners of conscience. You brand him and me as potential terrorists
As you said earlier “I think you and they should be investigated and kept under surveillance. If such a person gets themselves involved in terrorism in the UK, they should be arrested and convicted.”
Well you be pleased to know that we have been kept under surveillance and some of us have had our chances of employment or of leading any form of normal life curtailed by the paranoid application of the tactics of the “War on Terror”.
We haven’t hurt anyone… we burn with a desire to see peace, justice and equality implemented on a global scale…. we try to promote understanding and conflict resolution…. you are the warrior in this debate.
Your demonisation of islam, the islam of abu jamal[the villa fan and author of the article on the Crisis in Pakistan meeting] the islam of shahida parveen and salma yaqoob… your demonisation of those who work with them like George Galloway only serves to promote misunderstanding and aggression.
Salma Yaqoob has been excluded from meetings around the governments Preventing Extemism Agenda… She has probably put more effort than anyone else in concretely drawing young muslims towards activity in democratic politics than anyone else in the West Midlands.
Yet you brand us as Taliban supporters…. and urge the state to keep us under surveilance.
Comment by mark anthony france — 22 October, 2008 @ 1:21 pm
“A death threat it isn’t.”
I wonder if those named agree? I suspect not.
Love the way our witchhunting friends smear others with phoney ‘terrorism’ calumunies while excusing death threats.
Comment by Dumbo — 22 October, 2008 @ 1:24 pm
Salma Yaqoob has been excluded from meetings around the governments Preventing Extemism Agenda… She has probably put more effort than anyone else in concretely drawing young muslims towards activity in democratic politics than anyone else in the West Midlands.
That is excellent news.
A woman who began her political career campaigning for Abu Hamza’s British Jihadis in Yemen clearly has nothing to contribute to opposing extremism.
Comment by David T — 22 October, 2008 @ 1:27 pm
Those named did take it seriously. here is a piece by Tony Greenstein that he sibmitted to me, but that I originally decided not to publish because I felt it would be inflaming the situation, but seeing that some are now defending the comment by Herman, here goes
Comment by Andy Newman — 22 October, 2008 @ 1:28 pm
Yet you brand us as Taliban supporters…. and urge the state to keep us under surveilance.
But the state would be failing in its duty if it did not keep you under surveillance!
Taliban supporters have been extremly active in trying to murder the citizens of this country, indiscriminately.
I mean, if you found out that somebody was training to be a burglar, surely they should be investigated?
Comment by David T — 22 October, 2008 @ 1:30 pm
Oh I see now that’s the new line - its OK to support the “new-model Taliban” now because they’re not as bad as the old Taliban. Even though they brutally and deliberately murdered an NGO worker this week for “promoting Christianity”.
the new-model Taliban have relaxed their religious strictures, for males at least
Wow that’s alright then. Do they support the education of women as well ? I very much doubt it.
Andy - do you in all honesty deny the facts that the situation for women in Afghanistan has improved a great deal since the Taliban were kicked out and that a large majority of Afghans do not want the Taliban to defeat the NATO forces ?
Comment by MoreMediaNonsense — 22 October, 2008 @ 1:42 pm
The point being made by Herman in this post is very clear, and it is the polar opposite of the point being made by Greenstein. That is why he says “in less enlightened times”.
This is a post in a discussion about the benefits of political engagement v violent confrontation. To suggest that David Herman is suggesting that Greenstein be necklaced is ludicrous. Herman’s point - as he makes clear - is that it is a good thing we live in a society in which people can say what they want without being necklaced. By contrast, Greenstein supports the politics of terrorism and violence. To think otherwise would require Herman to be arguing for a return to “less enlightened times”.
This is part of a zany dispute between Greenstein and Mikey, over Mikey having met Atzmon.
However, Greenstein himself is a cheerful correspondent of Atzmon. Before Atzmon started attacking Greenstein, that is!
Greenstein was quite happy to praise Atzmon - an obvious anti-semite - right up to the point that Atzmon turned his anti-semitism on Greenstein.
Well, what a surprise!
Comment by David T — 22 October, 2008 @ 1:47 pm
I wonder if those named agree? I suspect not.
Unless you’ve set up those named as the sole arbiters of how written English should be comprehended, it doesn’t matter a rat’s ass what Rance and Greenstein think. Those named might simultaneously believe that a stilton cheese is in fact a lump of kryptonite. So bloody what?
Same applies to Andy’s invocation of Greenstein’s written thoughts on the comment. As for:
but seeing that some are now defending the comment by Herman
this is pure misrepresentation. The only defence of Herman’s comment I’m making is that it isn’t a death threat. And it isn’t, as Andy and everyone else with a reading age over 8 knows perfectly well (so “Dumbo” is again excused).
Comment by Brownie — 22 October, 2008 @ 1:51 pm
According to David T, he is “…just opposed to murderous totalitarian political movements. That’s all”
And yet he wants to one of the commenters here to be be “investigated and kept under surveillance”.
He organised a witchhunt against a 17 year girl who was appointed to government youth panel - her “crime” was to belong to the SWP.
His website, Harry’s Place, runs campaigns on behalf of those who organised the 2002 coup in Venezuela and abolished parliament.
And he alligned himself with the Islamic Dawa Party (which founded Hezbollah) because he “was short of cash” - and then lied about the relationship.
Comment by Calvin — 22 October, 2008 @ 1:55 pm
#181
It is very debatable whether women’s rights have improved outside the immediate environs of Kabul. It is worth recalling that Karzai reinstated the misogynist Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice in 2003, under a wah-habi, Chief Justice Shinwari; and the last time i reserached this, the proportion of girl sin education had actually gone down (becasue girls eductaed in the area ruled by General Dostum independent of the Taliban control were now being excluded)
Many of the attacks on schools and efforts to drive firls out of education have been done by militias allied to the government. Indeed one of the problems in stabilising Afghanistan has been the alliance between US forces and regional warlords, where the Americans have placed obstacles in the way of militias being disbanded.
OK – first of all, Human Rights Watch is explict that the insurgency is wider than the Taliban: http://hrw.org/reports/2006/afghanistan0706/4.htm#_Toc139263889
Schools have certainly been attacked by the non-Taliban warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who issued a press statement in 2006 vowing to continue jihad against foreign forces and stating that “now the infidel forces had been forming education system and syllabus for Afghans to divert our youth from Islam to Christianity.”
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/01/29/afghan15223.htm
Human Rights Watch voiced concern over the slow progress on the program to disband illegal militias as stipulated in the Afghanistan Compact. The United Nations estimates that hundreds of illegally armed groups, many of them ostensibly allied with the government, continue to exercise power throughout Afghanistan. In many parts of the country, warlords and their militias have perpetrated serious human rights abuses such as illegal land grabs, intimidation of journalists, and factional and ethnic violence.
“Afghans are abused by both the Taliban and pro-government warlords,” said Zarifi. “Insecurity is not just confined to the south; it’s a serious problem for Afghans who live in the north and the west, away from the hotbeds of the insurgency.”
Human Rights Watch said the Afghan government also failed to meet the benchmarks for governance, rule of law and human rights. The slow progress toward establishing accountability strengthened the insurgency and undermined implementation of the compact, Human Rights Watch said.
“After three decades of suffering abuses, Afghans have repeatedly called for accountability for those responsible for serious human rights abuses, whether communists, warlords, or the Taliban,” Zarifi said. “There can be no sustainable peace and security in Afghanistan without respect for the rule of law.”
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/07/18/afghan13759.htm
Comment by Andy Newman — 22 October, 2008 @ 1:58 pm
“I’m not quite sure what I’ve done to deserve this. Apart from being jewish I’m not sure what I’ve got in common with David T,”
This comment seems to contain the glimmer of a dawning light.
Comment by John Meredith — 22 October, 2008 @ 2:00 pm
180# david T …. how do you ‘train to be a burglar’ can you get an NVQ in it?
Some “citzens” of this country have had their democratic rights abused for a long time… The Saville Inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday in 1972 was set up 10 years ago… has yet to report….. Hundereds of Solicitors have got old and fat on £millions of tax payers money.
As a solicitor yourself you must view this a a criminal waste of public funds.
Especially as everyone knows what happened. 2 Para Massacred 14 civil rights protestors in cold blood.
You probable believe the demonstrators against internment had it coming to them?
Many of the people at the Pakistan in Crisis meeting feel as marginalised and excluded from any meaningful defintion of ‘citizenship’ as the Nationalist community in Northern Ireland felt in the late 60’s and Early 70’s….Your response to them daring to express their political views is to declare them ‘beyond the pale’.
Sparkbrook and ladywood the two areas either side of the Birmingham Central Mosque have over 3 out of every 4 kids living in poverty…. RESPECT campaigns on this and promotes political engagement as a response to poverty and social exclusion…. yet you say of Salma Yaqoob
“A woman who began her political career campaigning for Abu Hamza’s British Jihadis in Yemen clearly has nothing to contribute to opposing extremism.”
Do you think Martin Mcquiness has nothing to contribute to opposing extremism in Ireland?? he was as you know the provisional IRA Derry Commander at the time of Bloody Sunday… yet for the past ten years he has played a key role in the peace process.
Salma Yaqoob…. has never shouldered a weapon unless you include the “core conditions for therapuetic engagement” as something that should be decommissioned before you’ll talk to her.
Comment by mark anthony france — 22 October, 2008 @ 2:10 pm
Human Rights Watch said the Afghan government also failed to meet the benchmarks for governance, rule of law and human rights.
Afghanistan not quite Belgium, shocker.
Comment by Brownie — 22 October, 2008 @ 2:11 pm
“it doesn’t matter a rat’s ass what Rance and Greenstein think.”
Remarkable. But of course, if you believe Rance and Greenstein deserve to be burned alive, then it makes perfect logical sense that “it doesn’t matter a rat’s ass what Rance and Greenstein think.”
“And it isn’t, as Andy and everyone else with a reading age over 8 knows”
Its Brownie’s reading age that’s open to question. Like the person who made the threat, he is a fascist thug and moron. He belongs in a cage.
Comment by Dumbo — 22 October, 2008 @ 2:11 pm
David T at #182:
“The point being made by Herman in this post is very clear, and it is the polar opposite of the point being made by Greenstein. That is why he says “in less enlightened times” […] Herman’s point - as he makes clear - is that it is a good thing we live in a society in which people can say what they want without being necklaced […] To think otherwise would require Herman to be arguing for a return to “less enlightened times”. ”
Nice attempt at disinformation, Mr T, but that just won’t wash- because what Herman actually said can still be read on the pages of your own blog, at:
http://www.hurryupharry.org/2008/10/16/roland-rance-exposed/
This is the full text of the post in question:
***************************
david Herman
16 October 2008, 2:13 pm
To cut through the nonsense - both Greenstien and Rance are long term anti-zionists who want to see Israel destroyed/disappear/be no more (take your pick) for some reason they believe the fact that they’re Jewish adds some moral weight to their position.
I believe they’re psychologically flawed fools who collaborate with the enemies of the Jewish people.
They should remember that in the Nazi ghettos of Europe and the townships of South Africa the first people that the resistance targeted were collaborators.
In less forgiving times they would be recei ving a necklace for hanukah!
***************
Not “less enlightened times” but “less forgiving times”. And Mr Herman doesn’t sound like a very forgiving kind of guy!
Comment by Noah — 22 October, 2008 @ 2:11 pm
Post #161 “claiming the Taliban is “not my enemy”, as GG famously did on Question Time, is not quite the same as explicit support for the Taliban.”
The real enemy is the ruling class of this country. Nothing wrong with ’supporting’ the neo-Taliban as long as they fight against our common enemy the British Boss Class. They are the real criminals.
Post #181 “Taliban supporters have been extremly active in trying to murder the citizens of this country, indiscriminately.”
Not at all the neo-Taliban have been very clear why they have been killing pawns of the British bosses who occupy their country without a mandate from the people of Afghanistan.
Comment by Mike — 22 October, 2008 @ 2:17 pm
David
I deleted a comment from you that coontained a clearly libellous inferecne about Salma Yaqqoob
Please don#t overstep the mark again.
Comment by Andy Newman — 22 October, 2008 @ 2:18 pm
Incidently, I would be interested in hearing how those who claim that only the Taliban are fighting Western forces in Afghaistan explain this press story from Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of the very anti-Taliban Hezb-e-Islami, as recently as two weeks ago:
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008\10\07\story_7-10-2008_pg7_60
So far this year HIB atempted an assaination of karzai, that left a member of parliamant dead, blown up a police station in Kabul, and many other high profile incidents.
These were attacks clearly outsdie the sphere of infleunce of the taliban.
Incidently, the period when Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was prime minister of Afghanistan was far worse than the rule of the Taliban in tersm of human rights, and oppression of women, and at that time he was backed by the USA - and from the B52 liberals in the West, not a squeak of protest.
Comment by Andy Newman — 22 October, 2008 @ 2:22 pm
“Andy - do you in all honesty deny the facts that the situation for women in Afghanistan has improved a great deal since the Taliban were kicked out and that a large majority of Afghans do not want the Taliban to defeat the NATO forces ?”
I suppose you think that your bitter tears of hypocrisy will wash away Zionist guilt for its subjugation of Palestinian women. This is especially ironic considering you Zionists cheered on the US funding of the Taliban to oust the Russians. Where were your crocodile tears for all those Afghan women then? It’s no good supporting diplomacy via the bullet and then crying that it hasn’t brought democracy.
But I bet you’ll claim that you’re not a Zionist and you just care passionately about Afghanistan. This is standard practice for Zionists who use duplicitous tactics in order to make their propaganda appear more popular than it is.
Comment by Ray — 22 October, 2008 @ 2:25 pm
Ray: “US funding of the Taliban to oust the Russians. ”
hate to be pedantic, but the taliban were not formed until some four years after the Russians left, but we know what you mean
:o)
Comment by Andy Newman — 22 October, 2008 @ 2:26 pm
I wrote this in 2006
http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=386
It quotes human rights watch on the conditionof women in Afghanistan under American occupation:
Comment by Andy Newman — 22 October, 2008 @ 2:29 pm
Andy - the other groups (warlords and criminal gangs) engaged in resistance mentioned by HRW sound as unpleasant and reasctionary as the Taliban. Which of these does GG and RR support as a valid resistance ?
As for the situation of women you say things have improved only in Kabul. How does that match with this poll finding (as I mentioned above) :
“Seven in ten (73%) believe that women in Afghanistan today are better off then five years ago (under the Taliban), a view that is equally widespread in Kandahar and among women across the country.”
Comment by MoreMediaNonsense — 22 October, 2008 @ 2:30 pm
Sorry Andy
What I meant to say was that Salma Yaqoob, unlike Martin McGuinness is NOT personally involved in terrorism.
For that reason, unlike Martin McGuinness, she does not need to be paid off, in order to prevent terrorist attacks. That is because she is not a terrorist.
PS: I do not sue for defamation.
However, if you are in the business of deleting defamatory material from your site, would you please:
- delete or edit all the posts on this thread that call me a racist
- keep an eye out for people making that defamatory statement in the future.
Thank you.
Comment by David T — 22 October, 2008 @ 2:30 pm
David
the difference is that you are qilling and able to come here and defednd yourself, and when people have called you a racist you have been able to reply and make your won case.
Salma yaqoob and George galloway, as people holding elected office cannot really decsend into the bear-pit and defend themselves here; which is whay Ii uphold a differnt standard
Comment by Andy Newman — 22 October, 2008 @ 2:34 pm
Remarkable. But of course, if you believe Rance and Greenstein deserve to be burned alive…
You want WHAT to happen to Rance and Greenstein?!?
Seriously Dumbo, wear a hat in the sun next time.
Nice attempt at disinformation, Mr T, but that just won’t wash- because what Herman actually said can still be read on the pages of your own blog
Er, yes, as cited by me a couple of hours ago.
Thanks for posting the full comment here, though. I mean, it’s normal in these sorts of exchange for people to cite evidence that supports rather than destroys the point they are trying to make, but we’re indebted to your selflessness on this occasion.
Keep up the good work.
Comment by Brownie — 22 October, 2008 @ 2:35 pm
“Salma yaqoob and George galloway, as people holding elected office cannot really decsend into the bear-pit and defend themselves here; which is whay Ii uphold a differnt standard”
Uh huh.
Fair enough.
Not that they don’t have their fair share of defenders here…
But this is your blog and I am your guest, so your rules at the ones that count.
Comment by David T — 22 October, 2008 @ 2:40 pm
Zionist complaints about human rights abuses in Afghanistan are just a diversion for their own human rights abuses. They think that if they latch onto someone else’s abuses it will assuage their own. The selective historical amnesia of Zionists when it comes to Afghanistan is truly colossal. As usual, they endeavour to re-write history in the region in order to justify their lap dog status with the US. US foreign policy is Zionist foreign policy. And the lies and propaganda of Bush and co. are the lies and propaganda of the Zionists. So whether a woman is stoned to death in Afghanistan or is shot by an Israeli soldier makes no difference. The culprits live by the same code of oppression.
The difference between Israel and Afghanistan is that the Taliban are fighting against US imperialism while Israel is aiding and abetting it.
Comment by Ray — 22 October, 2008 @ 2:41 pm
Salma yaqoob and George galloway, as people holding elected office cannot really decsend into the bear-pit and defend themselves here; which is whay Ii uphold a differnt standard
…for Salma Yaqoob and George Galloway, at least. When Tony Blair was Prime Minister, I’m guessing you didn’t take this line with similarly “defamatory” comments made against him on SU?
Still, that’s your discretion at work. These multi-millionaire, internationally-renowned media whores need all the assistance they can get from two-bit bloggers like us.
Comment by Brownie — 22 October, 2008 @ 2:42 pm
Hekmatyar sounds very unpleasant indeed and should be opposed. I presume GG and RR don’t support him either.
So we’re still back to looking for the brave and authentic resistance in Afghanistan that GG lauds in his speech quoted above.
That bit of the speech seems to have disappered from the official RR version of the meeting BTW, even though it was the “emotional” end to the speech according to the account above. Any ideas why Andy ?
Comment by MoreMediaNonsense — 22 October, 2008 @ 2:44 pm
#197
yes - socially regresive.
But the point is that the USA armed and supported the likes of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in overthrowing a genuinely progressive government that was promoting women’s rights, encouraging women to go to university, etc.
http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=797
It was the USA who paid for and trained Osama Bin Ladein and the other Saudi Jihadis to go to Afghanistan.
At the time, the Western liberals who are now so exercised aboout women’s rights in Afghanistan were absolutely silent, or gave some romanticised support for the Mujhadin.
It is absurd to think that the Western focres in Afganistan are currently fighting to liberate women, or improve human rights, when the US are preventing militias from being disarmed, and pro-government militias have just as bad a record on human rights and oppression of women as the insurgents; and specifically when the USA created the forces who smashed women’s rights in Afghanistan in the first place!
There can be no progress in Afghanistan while Western troops are there fighting a bizarre shadow war with Islamists.
What is needed is the full withdrawl of Western troops, and a regional solution involving bordering countries, including Iran, pakistan and China; the disarming of the militias, and an international plan to rebuild the economy.
With regard to the polls, there are certain situations and certain cultural tradiatins where people will tell polsters what the person being polled thinks the polster wants to hear. It certainly contradicts what the highly repspected (yet generally pro-USA,and pro-Zionist) HRW report.
Comment by Andy Newman — 22 October, 2008 @ 2:46 pm
The US was wrong in the past to help remove a liberal regime in Afghanistan and encourage jihadis, I agree.
The US and NATO was right subsequently to remove the Taliban and set up some hope for a better government for Afghanistan. Even you do not disagree that things in Kabul have got better for women since the Taliban were removed.
Countries (like people) do not always do the right thing. But when they do they should be supported.
Do you really in all honesty think that things would get better in Afghanistan if NATO troops pulled out immediately ?
Comment by MoreMediaNonsense — 22 October, 2008 @ 2:57 pm
“With regard to the polls, there are certain situations and certain cultural tradiatins where people will tell polsters what the person being polled thinks the polster wants to hear. ”
But we need to be precise about what those are, or we can simply dismiss every poll that contradicts our preconceptions. There is no evidence that there was any coercion in this poll or that those polled felt any need to say what was expected. The poll was conducted according to accepted standards and so the people being polled would not have known what the pollster wanted to hear (because the pollster was neutral). The ida that there are ‘traditions’ whereby people will not be honest with pollsters or politicians is unsupported. If it were true in Afghanistan, it would be a reason to dismiss out of hand any representative local politics.
Comment by John Meredith — 22 October, 2008 @ 2:59 pm
“It certainly contradicts what the highly repspected (yet generally pro-USA,and pro-Zionist) HRW report.2
By the way, the poll does not contadict the HRW report. There is no contradicition in the situation being very hard for women in Afghanistan but nonetheless much improved on how it was under the Taliban. It is easy to forget how harsh conmditions were under the Taliban. When a women has been used to a situation where she can be beaten for making a noise with her feet when walking, she will see a lot of progress in things that strike us as very small advances.
Comment by John Meredith — 22 October, 2008 @ 3:02 pm
“But the point is that the USA armed and supported the likes of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in overthrowing a genuinely progressive government that was promoting women’s rights, encouraging women to go to university, etc.”
er… but I thought you were opposed to the occupation of Afghanistan by foreign forces.
Surely you’re not suggesting that the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan was a good thing?
Because this would most certainly NOT go down well at the Birmingham Central Mosque!
Comment by David T — 22 October, 2008 @ 3:04 pm
Re. comment 179
If any of you have a copy of ‘War Against The Jews’ and care to look up Greenstein’s quotes, you will find that they actually mean the opposite of what he claims they mean.
Comment by Igor — 22 October, 2008 @ 3:07 pm
“Remarkable. But of course, if you believe Rance and Greenstein deserve to be burned alive…
You want WHAT to happen to Rance and Greenstein?!?”
Oh, sorry, but I thought you were literate enough to read your own blog. Obviously Brownie is too stupid to understanding that ‘necklacing’ means death by burning.
I underestimated this bozo’s level of stupidity.
Dont go playing with matches anytime soon, sonny boy.
Comment by Dumbo — 22 October, 2008 @ 3:08 pm
…my point being, it is no surprise that he also got Herman’s comment completely wrong. Greenstein gets a lot of things wrong in that article. For instance:
The CST is behind the idea that anti-Semitism is increasing in Britain as a means of persuading British Jews to emigrate to Israel.
I thought it was antisemites who were behind the rise in antisemitism. Or perhaps Greenstein is arguing that there is no rise in antisemitism at all?
Comment by Igor — 22 October, 2008 @ 3:20 pm
The latest exploit of David T’s civilising mission:
**American aircraft have accidentally attacked an Afghan National Army (ANA) post, killing nine Afghan soldiers, in the latest in a string of “collateral damage” incidents involving Western forces in Afghanistan […] “Nine (Afghan soldiers) have been martyred, three wounded, one critically in the attack by international forces,” said General Zaher Azimi, Afghan Ministry of Defence spokesman.**
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article4992996.ece
Oh, what a lovely war!
Comment by Noah — 22 October, 2008 @ 3:20 pm
Just to get this clear, Andy
You are absolutely opposed to the UK and US in Afghanistan, removing the Taliban, assisting the holding of elections, investing in the country’s infrastructure because this is IMPERIALISM.
Therefore, RESPECT supports the Taliban’s struggle against imperialism.
However, by contrast, you are wholly supportive of the occupation by the USSR of Afghanistan, where no elections were held at all, because this is part of the heroic struggle of the international proletariat.
Do I have this right?
Comment by David T — 22 October, 2008 @ 3:24 pm
“I thought it was antisemites who were behind the rise in antisemitism. Or perhaps Greenstein is arguing that there is no rise in antisemitism at all?”
There is no antisemitism, except for the antisemitism of Atzmon to Greenstein. That is the only antisemitism that counts to Greenstein, because it happens to him.
He would DEARLY love to say that Atzmon was controlled by the CST. Perhaps he has!
That is because Greenstein is, quite frankly, a lunatic.
Comment by David T — 22 October, 2008 @ 3:26 pm
“Do I have this right?”
We all know that you make up what suits your agenda so there’s no point answering your accusative questions.
Comment by Ray — 22 October, 2008 @ 3:34 pm
Or you could just point out in what way it is wrong. I also got the impression that Andy supported the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan but not the current one.
Comment by John Meredith — 22 October, 2008 @ 3:43 pm
That was a People’s Occupation, you see.
Comment by David T — 22 October, 2008 @ 3:49 pm
David T “made up” the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan?
That’s quite a coup he pulled off.
Noah: Yes, that’s pretty horrible. But I’m not what you’re point is. War is horrible. Over 50,000 French civilians died during the D Day landing alone. Is your point that if any side in a conflict causes death, they are all equally morally at fault? Or that since wars causes death, they should never be fought, no matter what the cause?
Comment by Dustin the Turkey — 22 October, 2008 @ 3:53 pm
#206
“Do you really in all honesty think that things would get better in Afghanistan if NATO troops pulled out immediately ?”
No.
That is why I think there needs to be a regioanl solution, with a process of replacing western troops with those more acceptable to the Afghans, and disarming the militias.
Comment by Andy Newman — 22 October, 2008 @ 3:55 pm
David T
You claim to be motivated by a love for democracy and a hatred of dictatorship.
Can you therefore please explain why your website is running a campaign on behalf of the self-confessed coup plotters people who overthrew democracy in Venezuela in 2002? I have asked you about this on numerous occassions, but thus far you have chosen to exercise your right to silence.
Comment by Calvin — 22 October, 2008 @ 4:02 pm
How did you get your name, Dumbo?
Comment by Brownie — 22 October, 2008 @ 4:09 pm
Nice to be clear that Dustin the Turkey supports the Bush war in Afghanistan. Now we know where we stand with that.
Anyway, a rather informative article on the Afghan war appeared in the Daily Telegraph, of all places, recently, following off from an extended item on Channel 4 News when ‘Taliban’ were appeared somewhat inconguously to be into drinking whisky, gambling, and dancing to music in their spare time (when they were not actually fighting).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/2971811/New-breed-of-Taliban-replaces-old-guard.html
Which rather suggests that ‘Taliban’ does not mean today what it meant in 2001. Which does not mean 100% change, rather a slow mutation from something pretty monstrous (and a creation fundamentally of imperialist Cold War manipulation and meddling) into an ordinary nationalist movement. Elements of both evidently exist at present, but the direction of evolution is clear. For Islamophobes, of course, there is no difference; for the likes of Toube the only good Muslim is either a dead one or a mercenary stooge like Hassan Butt, but this should be rejected as the racist garbage it is.
Comment by ID — 22 October, 2008 @ 4:12 pm
That is why I think there needs to be a regioanl solution, with a process of replacing western troops with those more acceptable to the Afghans, and disarming the militias.
It sounds simple if you say it quickly.
Comment by Brownie — 22 October, 2008 @ 4:15 pm
“an ordinary nationalist movement. Elements of both evidently exist at present, but the direction of evolution is clear.”
Clear? Really? You see clear signs that the Taliban is becoming less extreme? Where? Have they been treating women in education more liberally, for example (just letting them go to school, perhaps)? Do you have evidence for this because all the evidence I have seen points the the other way.
Comment by John Meredith — 22 October, 2008 @ 4:21 pm
But then again, the likes of you would say that the sun rises in the West if it suited you, so argument is pointless.
Comment by ID — 22 October, 2008 @ 4:23 pm
“Nice to be clear that Dustin the Turkey supports the Bush war in Afghanistan.”
I’d be agreeable to Andy Newman’s plan of non-Western troops being used if possible. Oh, by the way, “the Bush war” is now “the Obama war”. Might as well start practising your trite sloganeering early, since it’s your only contribution to this site.
As for Channel 4’s stunning news that religious fundamentalists are happy to break the rules they impose on others… I mean, gosh. I’ve never have guessed, what with the Catholic hierarchies happy enough to condemn women to early graves, worn out from childbirth, while themselves making sure they don’t procreate by only using young boys’ anuses.
Like rape is little to do with sex, religious fundamentalism is little to with actual piety. It’s about power.
Comment by Dustin the Turkey — 22 October, 2008 @ 4:23 pm
“But then again, the likes of you would say that the sun rises in the West if it suited you, so argument is pointless.”
If this is aimed at me, I assure you that it is quite wrong. If you have evidence that the Taliban is liberalising, I would be very happy to see it and to change my views accordingly. But as Dustin says, the fact that young totalitarians will excuse themselves the exigencies they impose on others is not really news.
Comment by John Meredith — 22 October, 2008 @ 4:32 pm
“religious fundamentalists are happy to break the rules they impose on others”
And be filmed doing, knowing it would be broadcast around the world? Pull the other one….
“Like rape is little to do with sex, religious fundamentalism is little to with actual piety. It’s about power.”
Oh, so that explains the use of rape as a torture weapon by the US imperialists at Baghram Airbase.
Comment by ID — 22 October, 2008 @ 4:33 pm
Toube, I demand an answer to my question: did you, or did you not, support the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan? Your associate “moremedianonsense” has already stated that he did support that occupation. Did you?
As for the death threat, it couldn’t be more obvious that it was a death threat. Only a profoundly stupid person like Toube could claim otherwise. I am sure if a mobster told Toube that it would be a shame if something happened to his nice house, he’d point out that the wise guy only complimented him on his interior architect.
Of course, Toube and HP in general are racist thugs (Toube: truth is a defense against libel). They publish racist filth on their blog, they allow death threats to be posted while deleting other comments and banning critical posters, they run witch-hunting campaigns, they openly support NATO mass murder and massacres, and now it turns out they even approved of the Stalinist occupation of Afghanistan.
Comment by christian h. — 22 October, 2008 @ 4:44 pm
Can we get back to discussing the situation in Pakistan, rather than Tony Greenstein and Roland Rance?
I think David Toube has an unhealthy obsession with attacking Anti-Zionist Jews (he used to be one himself)
The Taliban come directly from the Mujadeen who were sponsored by the USA, as they were fighting the Communist government at the time (corrupt and Stalinist, but at least women has some rights)
Comment by Green Socialist — 22 October, 2008 @ 4:46 pm
The Taliban also had a HUGE “problem” with their members having homosexual sex. This is one of the reasons that they fixated on the whole wall toppling/stoning doctrinal issue.
Because homosexuality among all male fighting groups is like basically unheard of!
Doesn’t mean they’d have a float on Pride.
Comment by David T — 22 October, 2008 @ 4:47 pm
“Because homosexuality among all male fighting groups is like basically unheard of!”
Did they allow themselves to be filmed doing that also?
Comment by ID — 22 October, 2008 @ 4:50 pm
Ian
They had themselves photographed wearing makeup, yes:
http://www.photomonth.com/uploads/ef55c4c86e0d.jpg
Comment by David T — 22 October, 2008 @ 4:59 pm
So no answer from democracy promoting David T on why his website campaigns on behalf of those who overthrow democracy in Venezuela.
Quelle suprise!
The only rational conclusion to be drawn is that it’s not democracy that David T is promoting, but US foreign policy.
Comment by Calvin — 22 October, 2008 @ 5:02 pm
Oh, its the Chuckle Brothers again!
Give it a rest. Go and find a job for an out of work city trader or something, Calvin.
Comment by David T — 22 October, 2008 @ 5:04 pm
“They had themselves photographed wearing makeup, yes:”
Hm, that’s not quite what I asked.
Comment by ID — 22 October, 2008 @ 5:05 pm
ID, are you really claiming that the Taliban no longer opposes the consumption of alcohol? I mean, really, really?
Comment by John Meredith — 22 October, 2008 @ 5:06 pm
Note that Toube above posted what he claims to be an email from Tony Greenstein to Gilad Atzmon. I think it is quite likely he simply made it up - after all, this is the same guy who intentionally misquoted Herman’s death threat to make it sound like something different and who, on a previous thread, misquoted himself to make one of his statements sound reasonable.
However, if the email is genuine, we have to ask, where’d he get it from? Surely not from Tony. This leads to the obvious conclusion that Toube is collaborating with Atzmon in order to smear anti-Zionists. Remarkable.
Comment by christian h. — 22 October, 2008 @ 5:08 pm
Is there something terrible icky about the fact that ID refuses to accept the existence of homosexuality among the Taliban unless he is shown actual filmed footage of hot hot Pashtun action?
Comment by Dustin the Turkey — 22 October, 2008 @ 5:09 pm
“after all, this is the same guy who intentionally misquoted Herman’s death threat to make it sound like something different ”
Repeating this nonsense about a death threat just makes you look silly. We have all read the comment on this thread.
Comment by John Meredith — 22 October, 2008 @ 5:11 pm
Exactly, Meredith. Your foolishness is clear for all to see. Of course, you are the same guy who insists that identifying the Arab language as a reason why “Arabs lie so much” isn’t racist, so I’m sure nobody is surprised you’d defend death threats, either.
Comment by christian h. — 22 October, 2008 @ 5:20 pm
Brilliant rebuttal, David T! I mean, absolutely devastating.
Now back to reality. Your website campaigns on behalf of people such as Maria Corina Machado, who personally signed the ‘Carmona Decree’ that abolished parliament and all elected institutions in Venezuela.
This is an incontestable fact, and I note that you do not contest this fact.
So, I’ll ask you once again. How exactly are you promoting democracy by backing the people who abolished it?
Don’t be shy. Fire away (although preferably not with Cruise missiles).
Comment by Calvin — 22 October, 2008 @ 5:21 pm
This leads to the obvious conclusion that Toube is collaborating with Atzmon in order to smear anti-Zionists. Remarkable.
I got it off Tony Greenstein’s blog.
Comment by David T — 22 October, 2008 @ 5:27 pm
244# Calvin this chap David T …. is not very nice is he? I actually think he is a threat to democracy and appears to support violence to achieve political ends… My word! He is a terrorist! I think he should immediately be put under surveilance.
I shall relish the opportunity to assist in his re-education via labour… I’ll get him to dig over my alloment for me.
Comment by shahida parveen — 22 October, 2008 @ 5:30 pm
So David, why not give a link so readers can judge the context for themselves, then? At least I’m glad to see that you didn’t get it from Atzmon.
By the way, did you or did you not support the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan? I want an answer. Given you are the one who introduced the notion that a failure to denounce is the same as an endorsement, I have to conclude you at least are consistent and did support that brutal occupation. No doubt you were impressed by Breshnev’s democratic credentials.
Comment by christian h. — 22 October, 2008 @ 5:32 pm
I shall relish the opportunity to assist in his re-education via labour… I’ll get him to dig over my alloment for me.
V funny
You know the old joke… about the British-Pakistani lad who is working in New York. His dad sends him an email complaining about his bad back, and not being able to dig over his garden… why won’t the son fly back and give him a hand, he asks?
WHATEVER YOU DO says the son in the email in reply DO NOT DIG IN THE GARDEN!! MY PRIVATE MATERIAL IS BURIED IN THE GARDEN. SOME BROTHERS WILL COME TO TAKE IT AWAY WITHIN THE WEEK
The next day, MI5 come over and turn over every piece of earth in the garden searching for the “Private Material”. They find nothing.
Son emails dad:
“So, is your garden nicely dug over now?”
Comment by David T — 22 October, 2008 @ 5:41 pm
“By the way, did you or did you not support the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan?”
I didn’t really think much about it, to be honest.
I’m not a member of a fringe revolutionary party that fixates on the USSR
http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2008/09/kasztner-debating-with-zionist.html
In the discussion chain. Greenstein has edited the comment, but has left his email to Atzmon in.
Comment by David T — 22 October, 2008 @ 5:43 pm
My memory is getting ropey, but didn’t this place use to have a policy of respecting pen names and forbidding the use of proper names - David T doesn’t seem to mind, but it is kind of a principle thing, surely, you know, revolutionary names and all that, secret squirrel comrade….
Comment by Red Deathy — 22 October, 2008 @ 5:43 pm
246# yes Shahida … he is rather annoying.
Comment by El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz — 22 October, 2008 @ 5:45 pm
248 # Thank you for the tip annoying man I will e-mail shahida in a similar vein… you see it is possible for collaboration to have practical benifits for all… so churchill was right jaw jaw is better than war war.
Comment by El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz — 22 October, 2008 @ 5:48 pm
I also try to do the same about respecting people’s privacy, as Calvin will know.
However, I think both he and I have given up worrying about this sort of thing.
I only ever kept my surname out because my wife, for some reason, thinks that the people I have a go at are, y’know, terrorists.
Comment by David T — 22 October, 2008 @ 5:50 pm
David T
I have asked you a straightforward question about your website’s on the record support for those who overthrew democracy in Venezuela.
You refuse to answer.
Is it fair to describe you as a democracy-hating fascist?
Or is there some other explanation for your silence?
Comment by Calvin — 22 October, 2008 @ 5:58 pm
Calvin
That is because you are trying to play silly buggers again.
Comment by David T — 22 October, 2008 @ 6:01 pm
Do I support miltary coups against democracies? No.
I expect this won’t be the end of the matter, but I live in hope.
Comment by David T — 22 October, 2008 @ 6:02 pm
Do I support miltary coups against democracies? No.
Thanks for answering a question you composed for yourself.
But the one I asked was this:
Your website campaigns on behalf of people such as Maria Corina Machado, who personally signed the ‘Carmona Decree’ that abolished parliament and all elected institutions in Venezuela. This is an incontestable fact, and I note that you do not contest this fact.
QUESTION: How exactly are you promoting democracy by backing the people who abolished it?
Comment by Calvin — 22 October, 2008 @ 6:07 pm
And if, as you claim, you don’t support military coups against democracy, why do you edit a website which does?
Comment by Calvin — 22 October, 2008 @ 6:13 pm
Andy Newman in post #205 wrote “What is needed is the full withdrawl of Western troops, and a regional solution involving bordering countries, including Iran, pakistan and China; the disarming of the militias, and an international plan to rebuild the economy.”
Yeah great idea. Trouble is that the neighbouring powers arm the various militias.
Comment by Mike — 22 October, 2008 @ 6:14 pm
Frankly, I don’t have the obsessive interest in Venezuela and the knock-off Peron that you and Gene share, and so I’m sorry to say that I don’t really know who she is or what you’re talking about.
I mean, I do know that Chavez had a military coup some time ago. I probably would be opposed to that too, but frankly, I don’t really know that much about it.
My interest in Venezuela is limited to the place it holds in the hearts of old Stalinists like you, who seem determined to defend Chavez against Human Rights Watch reports, or former allies who denounce him, and that sort of stuff.
But come on - nobody takes Latin American countries seriously, do they?
Comment by David T — 22 October, 2008 @ 6:15 pm
David T’s Sarah Palin moment
QUESTION: How exactly are you promoting democracy by backing the people who abolished it?
DAVID T: Me know nothing. Harry’s Place? I’m only the editor, why you asking me? Latin America? Never heard of it. And even if I had, these aren’t serious countries like Afghanistan…
You’ve been thoroughly exposed as a hypocrite, a witchhunter, and a bullshitter.
Goodbye
Comment by Calvin — 22 October, 2008 @ 6:31 pm
Aha! Touche Calvin! The People’s Tribunal!!
I just don’t give a toss about Chavez. I think he’s a comedy figure.
I don’t follow sport either, although people do write articles about it from time to time.
Comment by David T — 22 October, 2008 @ 6:33 pm
David T when asked if he supported the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan:
“I didn’t really think much about it, to be honest.”
David T when asked why his website supports anti-democratic coup-plotters in Venezuela:
“come on - nobody takes Latin American countries seriously, do they?”
David T’s response when asked about why his website carried a disturbing threat of physical violence against non-zionist Jews:
The bare-faced lie that he posted at #180, which was immediately exposed.
If David T performs like this in his day job, I doubt if even George Osbourne would want him as his lawyer.
Comment by Noah — 22 October, 2008 @ 7:03 pm
Oh, you really are a pair of sillies!
Comment by David T — 22 October, 2008 @ 7:17 pm
All very interesting Noah/Calvin but we were talking about Afghanistan, womens rights and RR.
Have you any views on the actual matter in hand or are you just interested in slagging off David T ?
Perhaps you could put up a post on your own blog with a list of the appropriate denunciations so we can all go and discuss it there. Or ask Andy to put it up here as you think its of such interest to SU readers.
Comment by MoreMediaNonsense — 22 October, 2008 @ 7:17 pm
243 “didn’t this place use to have a policy of respecting pen names and forbidding the use of proper names ”
No - we never had that policy.
Comment by Andy Newman — 22 October, 2008 @ 7:21 pm
#253
Mike on disarming the militias as part of a regaioonall stabilisation programme: “Yeah great idea. Trouble is that the neighbouring powers arm the various militias.”
Exactly Mike, that is why the neighbouring countries would need to be involved in the solution.
Comment by Andy Newman — 22 October, 2008 @ 7:24 pm
# 255 “The Taliban come directly from the Mujadeen who were sponsored by the USA, as they were fighting the Communist government at the time (corrupt and Stalinist, but at least women has some rights)”
That isn’t strictly accurate either.
This is a very interesting article about the origin of the Taliban from 2001: http://tvnz.co.nz/view/news_story_skin/57491
Comment by Andy Newman — 22 October, 2008 @ 7:29 pm
David T’s expert refutation of the facts which prove him to be a liar and a hypocrite:
“Oh, you really are a pair of sillies!”
But hey, David- all is not lost. I hear that Joe the Plumber needs a good lawyer.
Comment by Noah — 22 October, 2008 @ 7:35 pm
On the unlikely off chance that anyone is actually interested in the lessons of history, or seriously discussing Afghanistan.
The tragedy of the Progressive Afghan government in the 1970s was their naive policy of secularisation, and their inability to patiently relate to the rural religious population.
It was an historical tragedy, and the Afghan people were not given an opportunity to resolvee this for themselves becasue the USA backed both the rural insurgency, and also promised aid to the government, trying to prise them away from Moscow’s orbit - or at leats we know for a fact that is what Soviet intelligecne believed from the now published politburo transcripts.
What was needed was a form of progressive politics that promoted the core values of emancipation and equality, but that would also patiently respect people’s deeply held religious beliefs, and try to find common ground and cmpromse rather than confrontation.
We have now had thirty years of seking confrontation between religion and secularised liberalistaion in Afghanistan, and it has left a once idylic country as a desert.
Yet the pro-war liberals argue that the last thrity years have been such a stunning success that the best option is to keep up the war indefinately, and continue to demonise all Muslims - presumably becasue they hope that the huge sucess of Afghanistan can be spread to the West in an exciting “war of civilisations”
Comment by Andy Newman — 22 October, 2008 @ 7:43 pm
Surely the problem was the occupation, Andy?
Comment by David T — 22 October, 2008 @ 7:47 pm
No David
The PDPA government repeatedly asked Moscow for assistance, and were turned down time and again.
The insurgency started before a single Russian soldier set foot in Afghanistan.
Try reading my (quite well researched (i.e using real books not just the internet!!) article:
http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=797
Comment by Andy Newman — 22 October, 2008 @ 7:51 pm
David T at #264:
“Surely the problem was the occupation”
Wow! When David T looks at the problems of Afhanistan in the 1970s & ’80s, this amazing insight occurs to him.
Now repeat after me, David:
Surely the problem IS the occupation.
Comment by Noah — 22 October, 2008 @ 8:01 pm
Andy- thanks for the link to your excellent 2007 article. Yuri Andropov’s remarks to the Soviet Communist Party Politburo in April 1979 were poignant and prophetic.
And, as you noted in the discussion:
“without the US involvement there would have been no Russian military intervention”
A tragic lesson for us all.
Comment by Noah — 22 October, 2008 @ 8:23 pm
“Is there something terrible icky about the fact that ID refuses to accept the existence of homosexuality among the Taliban unless he is shown actual filmed footage of hot hot Pashtun action?”
Very droll. But mirth aside, the allegation being made was that these ‘neo-Taliban’ Afghan tribesmen are hypocrites who preach puritanism, and impose it on others, while in private living a life of rampant debauchery (slight exageration, but you get my drift).
Being filmed by the international media boozing, gambling on the outcome of fights between animals, and dancing around to traditonal jigs at a party hardly fits into that pattern of behaviour, though, does it. Nor does it exactly enhance their credibility among the ultra-devout.
This behaviour is, however, consistent with people who care more about driving out foriegn occupation than about religious dogma.
Comment by ID — 22 October, 2008 @ 8:27 pm
Perhpas Andy’s apology again for stalinism is again misplaced. I suggest Andy refer to Jonathon Neales new article in this quarters ISJ. It is in fact from someone who actually knows a thing or two about the place. Andy however gets the order of Brezchnev for trying to justify stalinist mass murder again.
Comment by ll — 22 October, 2008 @ 8:32 pm
Stunning. David T thinks he can pontificate about Afghanistan and its occupation, but readily admits he doesn’t really think about the history of the current conflict that much. In other words, he couldn’t care less about Afghanistan. All he cares about is the use he can make of events there in his witch-hunting activities.
Red Deathy: Toube’s name is a matter of public record. In addition, he regularly posts full names and pictures of political opponents on his blog in an attempt to get them fired from their jobs. He should be glad we don’t start a letter writing campaign to his firm and clients alerting them to the fact that he now endorses death threats against his perceived enemies. Which we would do if we were “less forgiving” - like Toube, for example.
Comment by christian h. — 22 October, 2008 @ 9:13 pm
ll at #268:
“Perhpas Andy’s apology again for stalinism is again misplaced […] Andy however gets the order of Brezchnev for trying to justify stalinist mass murder again.
Hmmm. I didn’t see any apologies in Andy’s article- only some very useful info and analysis.
And nor did I see any attempt to ‘justify stalinist mass murder’.
Perhpas you could elucidate.
Comment by Noah — 22 October, 2008 @ 9:13 pm
#269 Indeed Christian
David T has been pwned!
Comment by Andy Newman — 22 October, 2008 @ 9:22 pm
ll writes:
Perhpas Andy’s apology again for stalinism is again misplaced. I suggest Andy refer to Jonathon Neales new article in this quarters ISJ. It is in fact from someone who actually knows a thing or two about the place.
Reply:
Yes, I’ve read Mr Neale’s analysis of the Soviet Union’s intervention in Afghanistan. I think I recall him stating he supported the Mujahadeen.
A most interesting position for a socialist to take, supporting advocates of medieval fuedalism funded and armed by the US Govt. Revisionism certainly leads to some strange conclusions in the ranks of the SWP.
Comment by Anonymous — 22 October, 2008 @ 10:27 pm
“upporting advocates of medieval fuedalism funded and armed by the US Govt.”
yawn. This is the usual old stalinist saw. The mujahideen may have received cash and weapons from the Americans, but then, weapons have to come from somewhere and I don’t see my socialist gramma making any in the backyard. Would you suggest that liberation movements, from Vietnam to Latin America, shouldn’t have used Russian weapons because the soviet union was murdering and repressing the Chechens, the Ukrainians, Caucasian muslims, oppositionists, etc etc? Even Lenin accepted aid from the Germans in the lead up to the revolution and the Bolsheviks accepted money from factory owners. The criteria is whether a movement is fighting against imperialism - and the former USSR was imperialist.
In any case, it’s absurd that an article about a meeting on Pakistan, which should be congratulated for bringing out so many people from an oppressed community to hear a left wing analysis, has descended into the nonsense of sectariana.
Comment by redbedhead — 22 October, 2008 @ 11:42 pm
Andy #259 “Exactly Mike, that is why the neighbouring countries would need to be involved in the solution.”
It is not in the interests of the neighbouring states to disarm their clients. On the contrary they have much to lose should they carry out such a foolhardy policy. Better that Afghanistan is Balkanised for all concerned.
Only the Afghans and working people outside that poor country have anything to gain by peace descending on the region. But that is very unlikely.
Things can only get worse.
Comment by Mike — 23 October, 2008 @ 12:16 am
Toube’s an idiot, that should be taken as read. When HP is free of people casually advocating nasty things, then he can go on a witchhunt of other sites. Until then, he would be well advised to STFU.
That aside, women sitting at the back “because they felt more comfortable there” and “they might have encountered one or two people who disagreed” if they sat at the front, but they should have been strong enough to take it? Can anyone here read between lines at all?
Comment by Rusu — 23 October, 2008 @ 12:32 am
While I agree with redbedhead that Anonymous in 272. is engaging in sectarian sniping, I also think Andy’s position, as presented here, is serious. In fact, II, Andy seems fairly close to Neale (his article is really worth reading, btw) in his analysis, even though Andy draws a different conclusion (one I strongly disagree with).
I have no problem with attacking Andy & Cie. very sharply on those threads (getting rarer, I’m glad to see) consisting of sectarian attacks on the SWP, but I also think serious arguments deserve a serious response. After all, I think we have the better political arguments. And Andy isn’t someone like Toube.
Comment by christian h. — 23 October, 2008 @ 2:23 am
redbedhead at 11:42 pm:
““upporting advocates of medieval fuedalism funded and armed by the US Govt.”
yawn. This is the usual old stalinist saw. The mujahideen may have received cash and weapons from the Americans, but then, weapons have to come from somewhere and I don’t see my socialist gramma making any in the backyard…”
Hmmm. You say “The mujahideen *may* have received cash and weapons from the Americans”. But they did receive US cash and weapons- in fact the USA rushed to provide them with cash and weapons, as soon as the left-wing forces took power- months before the USSR invaded.
So why the “may”, Redbedhead? Are you implying that there is some doubt about whether this actually occurred?
Please clarify.
You continue:
“Would you suggest that liberation movements, from Vietnam to Latin America, shouldn’t have used Russian weapons because the soviet union was murdering and repressing the Chechens… etc etc etc.”
Thus you imply that the ‘mujahedeen’- who rallied against the left-wing government’s attempted land reform, promotion of education, and measures to emancipate women; and were duly armed and financed by the USA to oppose these reforms- was a ‘liberation movement’.
Liberation from what, exactly, Mr Redbedhead?
Oh, and by the way. The fact that the Cuban and Vietnamese revolutionaries were attacked by the USA, and were supported by the USSR (& to a lesser extent China) should tell you something.
Now, and for the future. When a militant cause appears which apparently can’t get weapons from a ’socialist grandma’, so the United States of America immediately offers it millions of dollars and high-tech weapons- should you not perhaps step back and re-examine your enthusiasm for that cause?
Comment by Noah — 23 October, 2008 @ 2:26 am
Noah, nonsense. If you choose to believe that the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan wasn’t oppressive, and the Afghans didn’t need liberating from it, that’s obviously your business. It only means you have a blind spot there.
The fact that the US incited rebellion against the various communist governments before 1979 (there were factions, as you may recall, going at each other violently) means nothing. Nobody has suggested these actions by the US were worthy of support. What was worthy of support, however, was the resistance by Afghans all over the country against the Soviet occupiers. It was real, and it was rooted in the population - otherwise it would not have succeeded.
It saddens me when comrades make excuses for Soviet imperialism using precisely the same arguments (the occupation was enlightened, it was to liberate women, etc.) the liberal imperialists are employing now. That, indeed, should tell you something.
Comment by christian h. — 23 October, 2008 @ 2:53 am
Noah - “So why the “may”, Redbedhead? Are you implying that there is some doubt about whether this actually occurred?”
It’s a simple question of the use of language, for instance - “I may have been paid five dollars, but Harry gave you ten.” It didn’t imply my casting doubt on the Americans contribution to mujahideen groups of their choosing. That’s a matter of very public record.
“Thus you imply that the ‘mujahedeen’- who rallied against the left-wing government’s attempted land reform, promotion of education, and measures to emancipate women; and were duly armed and financed by the USA to oppose these reforms- was a ‘liberation movement’.”
The mujahedeen - who were much more heterogenous prior to the Soviet invasion and the massive increase in US funding - were rallying against a government who they experienced as oppressive, violent and incompetent. The land reform - while good intentioned - was a poorly conceived disaster that led to hunger and the measures to emancipate women were experienced in the villages as gunpoint attacks on deeply embedded social norms. Did the US take advantage of this chaos (and the violent factional fighting between the two wings of the PDPA)? Of course they did - as the US had done previously and as the Soviets did also - at one point the Ehtiopian government was allied to the US and the Somalian government to the Soviets, only to switch overnight.
What’s more land reform and social reforms that loosen restrictions on women’s participation aren’t necessarily just the monopoly of “left-wing” governments - they were about modernizing the Afghan nation, a project that was supported by the entire urban elite, including President Daoud who was a member of the royal family and was overthrown by the PDPA. And there were other members of the royal family before him who had also attempted modernization in order to facilitate national development. Likewise, the British outlawed Sati and the marriage of women under the age of 14 in India - but we would hardly call the British occupation of India left-wing.
Comment by redbedhead — 23 October, 2008 @ 3:37 am
redbedhead:
The mujahedeen - who were much more heterogenous prior to the Soviet invasion and the massive increase in US funding - were rallying against a government who they experienced as oppressive, violent and incompetent. The land reform - while good intentioned
Reply:
This just gets better and better.
So because the Mujahadeen, who again were advocates of a form of medieval fuedalism, found oppressive a progressive govt advocating land reform, women’s liberation, literacy, and the development of productive forces, then it’s all right for socialists to have supported them?
Hmmm, so by this logic presumably the SWP should have leant their support to the thousands of anti-Chavez demonstrators who supported the attempted coup in Venezuela, because they found Chavez’s reforms oppressive? Presumably, also, the SWP would have supported the Whites, Mensheviks, and assorted other counter revolutionaries during the Russian Civil War, due to the fact they found the Bolshevik regime oppressive too? How about the contras in Nicaragua, the South Vietnamese?
The simple fact is that again and again, due to their adherence to a theory that is both intellectually unsustainable and anti-Marxist, the SWP find themselves lining up with any movement that fits their schema which holds that any state, however constituted, whatever its economic base, is bad.
This isn’t socialism, this is anarchism.
Comment by John W — 23 October, 2008 @ 8:08 am
The longest most rambling threads on this site always seem to involve either a punch up between the SWP and Respect, or a punch up between “Harry’s Place” and almost everyone else. This thread has it all!
But I did notice this comment from MAFrance quite early on
#3
“…the election of Salma Yaqoob to parliament would represent a profound break in the framework of bourgeois parliamentary democracy established throughout the 20th Century”
Bloody hell, I can tell you’re an ex IMG’er from that statement.
Typical wild exaggeration of the significance of a single left leader.
Typical bandwagon jumping and attempting to be the “best builder”.
Typical lack of programmatic clarity.
Even if Respect grew out of having Salama Yaquoob as an MP, serious political problems remain. Given a few months ago George Galloway seemed to regard Imran Khan as his favourite leader of the Pakistan opposition, I fail to see how Respect is developing a socialist postion on the crisis there.
P.S. Saklatvala was elected in the 20th century.
Comment by prianikoff — 23 October, 2008 @ 8:14 am
281# prianikoff…. please forgive me for my enthusiasms! Rather than the IMG being the source of my “lack of programmatic clarity” I would situate my “wild exageration” in a form of Guevaraist Voluntarism…. The meeting I attended on Pakistan in Crisis was an important indication that RESPECT does have a base in an impoverished working class constituency in Birmingham… this base has been consistently built [not by be as I live 13 miles to the south west, am on the dole and can’t afford the bus fare to intervene in inner city politics in Brum] by Salma Yaqoob.
Shapurki Saklatvala’s Election in Battersea in 1922 was a huge breakthrough. Internationally the working class movement was on the offensive and opposition to colonialism growing and the Soviet Union had survived the Civil War and was beacon of hope for millions.
Salma Yaqoob is a person a human being, with a young family and I imagine it must be extremely difficult to build RESPECT in a environment where she is the target of so many attacks… whether from the likes of David Troube or from various brands of marxism. Salma’s attempt to build in Birmigham in the context of a weakened working class movement, in the context of a prolonged international bouqeois offensive, in the context of a burgeoning economic recession which has further confused and demoralised ordinary people, is an indication of an inner determination. Beset by enemies Salma Yaqoob still maintains her dignity.
Respect is not developing a socialist position on the crisis in Pakistan… In Birmingham alone amoungst any political tendancy in the Pakistani community Respect provides a public forum to discuss what is happening in Pakistan… What Salma said is simple…
“We care about every single human being, whether they’re in Birmingham, Baghdad or Pakistan. We do not have the double standards of the British government and media,” she said.
She called for a genuine democratic Pakistan that would not tolerate US military attacks on its own people and explained the current crisis in Pakistan could only be resolved by ordinary people struggling for peace, justice and equality.
“I want to see a democratic Pakistan, a peaceful Pakistan, free of all corrupt influences. We need a Pakistan without religious intolerance, that’s what most Pakistanis want. They don’t need Western leaders lecturing them on religion.”
This statement may not seem a ’socialist position’ but 250 people liked it and a few of them are now engaged in political project aimed at changing things for the better. Salma Yaqoob is about engagement, establishing a rapport, listening to what people say, empowering them to become active in developing a way forward for themselves their families and the world.
Prianikoff… you said “The longest most rambling threads on this site always seem to involve either a punch up between the SWP and Respect, or a punch up between “Harry’s Place” and almost everyone else. This thread has it all!”
I agree! We should be gratefull to Salma, George and Abu for posting this account of a meeting to enable the discussion to take place…. However, rambling…. just as Churchill said Jaw Jaw is better than War War.
Comment by mark anthony france — 23 October, 2008 @ 9:20 am
Christian h #278
“What was worthy of support, however, was the resistance by Afghans all over the country against the Soviet occupiers. It was real, and it was rooted in the population - otherwise it would not have succeeded”
Comrades should really read “The war in afghanistan” brigot and Roy, [1988] and “The Soviet Withdrawl from Afghanistan” Saikal and maley [1989]. Two very detailed and solid academic accounts, that look not only at Afghanistan, but also the USSR.
Firstly, the war in Afghanistan had very little impact in wider society in the USSR - in that sense it was not “Russia’s Vietnam”, and Russian casualties were relatively light. There was little mention of the war in the Russian newspapers, and the Red Army were generally satisfied with the level of their engagement - which they regarded as useful combat hardening at relatively low cost.
It is also worth noting that for most of the period that the Russians wre in Afghanistan much of the fighhting was done by their Afghan allies loyal to the government, showing that the Russians had a wider base of support than the current NATO occupation.
Actually a far bigger crisis in the Soviet armed forces was caused by the first Israeli invasion of the Lebananon, when Syrian MIGs were shot down by US made anti-aircraft missiles.
What caused the Russian withdrawl was their inability to polictically resolve the crisis in Afghanistan, and the damage it was causing them diplomatically, especially in Africa. It is worth noting that the American intervention at this stage was about creating anarchy, not an alternative government.
I am very suprised that christian h descibes the withdrawl of the Russians as a “success” for the mujhadin.
The Russian withdrawl did not lead to a new independent Afghan government, but to a vicious battle between the formerly US funded war lords that lasted for seven years - and that killed more Afghans than the entire period of the Russian involvement, including 10000 dead in kabul, and two thirds of the city being destroyed.
What this precisely shows is that there was in fact no mass support for the mujhadin as a political movement, although there may have been even less support for the Russians. Not really a “success” at all.
But I am intrigued that Redbedhead supports the mujhadin against a socialist government on the basis that they found the government “they experienced as oppressive, violent and incompetent. “. This would of course also have led you to support the Krondstadt mutiny, and the peasant uprisings against the Bolshevik government; and indeed to have supported Kolchak and Deniken.
Comment by Andy Newman — 23 October, 2008 @ 9:26 am
280#
It’s not anarchism as most decent anarchists would understand it either!
This argument is going round and round in circles, and I think that unless there is some common ground it all becomes intelectual “willy waving” There is an huge chasm between the positions held by David Toube and the rest of the “Harrys Place” crew and the rest of us.
So why bother?
Comment by Green Socialist — 23 October, 2008 @ 9:36 am
284# green socialist….. yep it’s been hard work following this thread… and of course there has been some intellectual “willy waving” but it was an interesting discussion…..probably time to call it a day now and move on?
Comment by abu jamal — 23 October, 2008 @ 9:56 am
“Being filmed by the international media boozing, gambling on the outcome of fights between animals, and dancing around to traditonal jigs at a party hardly fits into that pattern of behaviour, though, does it. Nor does it exactly enhance their credibility among the ultra-devout.”
While true, I still don’t know what the point you are trying to make with this is. Are you really, seriously suggesting that the Taliban no longer objects to gambling and drinking alcohol? I am amazed if you do believe this. What might you find far fetched, I wonder?
Comment by John Meredith — 23 October, 2008 @ 11:07 am
I’m suggesting that the ‘Taliban’ now has been diluted by an influx of people who are less than fully committed to the original views that motivated the Taliban government of 1996-2001. Elements of the old ultra-fundamentalism co-exist with more mundane nationalism directed at foreign occupation. Even if the nationalism is expressed in the language of ‘jihad’, it is still nationalism that is being expressed.
A good many Afghans, outraged at the callousness of the occupying forces, have joined in with it simply because it is the only indigenous force fighting the imperialists and thereby modified its character. Its not the first time such things have happened in history, and it won’t be the last. This particuarly penny has dropped with the Daily Telegraph, so I don’t see why it should be so difficult for you to grasp.
Comment by ID — 23 October, 2008 @ 11:35 am
“Elements of the old ultra-fundamentalism co-exist with more mundane nationalism directed at foreign occupation. ”
It hardly matters, though, does it, if the Taliban plans to install an ultra-reactionary theocratic government. Which it does.
Comment by John Meredith — 23 October, 2008 @ 1:47 pm
The “New Model Taliban” lauded here still likes committing premeditated and deliberate war crimes like the recent murder of a Western charity worker in Kabul. They still appear to be against the education of women (unless you know better ?).
And so called “Leftists” such as RR and George Galloway STILL prefer them to the elected government.
Unbelievable.
Comment by MoreMediaNonsense — 23 October, 2008 @ 2:00 pm
289# MoreMediaNonsense …. It is not about prefering the “Taliban” to the “Elected” government in Afghanistan….. clearly there is a very nasty, very brutal war going on, this war is expanding beyond the borders of Afghanistan into Pakistan. There are dangers here that need to be understood.
RESPECT and George Galloway want NATO to withdraw and to promote a peace process…
The “war” against the “taliban” is unwinable…. Senior British Military figures understand this and have gone public record to say this.
I would like to remind you that Pakistan has Nuclear Weapons….. [which was fine when it’s dictatorial military leadership were on board with the project of the USA in the region]…. The deepening crisis in Pakistani Society is fueled by US military strikes on its territory.
What is “Unbelivable” is that you fail to recognise that a negociated peace process is the only hope for both Afghanistan and Pakistan…. You presumably prefer to support the NATO forces…. who everyday are responsible for acts of terror…RESPECT are not the warriors in this discussion… people like you are.
Is One Western Charity worker killed in Kabul “worth” more than the 1200 civilians killed by NATO forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan this year alone?
Blood is Blood… it is flowing. RESPECT wants to stop the blood letting. YOU want to continue the slaughter.
Unbelievable.
Comment by abu jamal — 23 October, 2008 @ 2:23 pm
Yes, it is odd. ID seems to believe that because not every soldier fighting under the Taliban banner is an ideologically committed Taliban, the movement has somehow liberalised (you get the idea that he thinks of it as a kind of ‘Xtreme Scouting’). When he stops to think it will probably ocur to him that not every member of the Red Army was a committed communist either, but that didn’t dilute the ideological horrors of Stalinism much (although a concerted effort of purification was called for after the war, of course).
Comment by John Meredith — 23 October, 2008 @ 2:28 pm
“Senior British Military figures understand this and have gone public record to say this.”
It is amazing the respect that senior British Army officers command among the hard left when they are saying things the hard left wants to hear. Army officers can be wrong you know. We have see just how wrong recently in Iraq. And sometimes they say things out of ulterior motives, like when they are trying to sting a weak government into increasing funding.
Comment by John Meredith — 23 October, 2008 @ 2:32 pm
abu jamal -
GG said :
“He explained their anger and confusion how they blamed the Taliban, and with pride how their son had died with a “picture of the Queen in his breast pocket”. George said how difficult it was to tell them that the “Queen didn’t have a picture of their son, didn’t attend his funeral” and they should blame the the government that sent their son to his death not the people of Afghanistan who have a right to resist the occupation of the country.”
That means he supports the Taliban in their fight against the NATO forces. He did not say - there’s a conflict in Afghanistan, both sides are bad and in the wrong and we want a truce. He blamed NATO fully for the conflict. He also disgracefully conflated the people of Afghanistan with the Taliban when all the evidence is that the Taliban are extremely unpopular with the majority of Afghanis and would bring back a reactionry clerical theocracy if they ever got back in power.
Now you individually may not agree with GG, but that is what he said and he is the leader of RR is he not ?
So - is support for the Taliban RR policy or what ?
Comment by MoreMediaNonsense — 23 October, 2008 @ 2:40 pm
292#….John Meredith… well we won’t be seeing you at RESPECT Conference will we?
Obviously “Army officers can be wrong” they are human and falable just like you me and Mullah Omar.
The Surge in Iraq has calmed things down…. at a huge price [litterally as the US has about 130,000 former insurgents on its payroll at a average of $350 Dollars per month.]
The estimated cost of US involvement so far is approximately $350,000,000,000… and rising… this expenditure has contributed to the worlds global economic meltdown.
Away from money back to flesh and blood….. The Wars stink… were wrong are wrong and have visited disaster upon us all…..
In Algeria the French thought they had finally subdued the rebellion by the FLN and beheaded its military leadership….They were wrong and they lost in the end…. in the process Algerian society was brutalised and the imprint of that trauma continues to this day.
Mr Meredith…. why not get a copy of the Battle of Algiers….. the film gives me hope …. but will give you nightmares….. sleep well while you can.
Comment by mark anthony france — 23 October, 2008 @ 2:49 pm
Whats extraordinary is the way that people like john meredith are prepared to ignore all information or detail about a land they have pretended for five years they have the faintest interest in. even when it comes from their own side.
Comment by johng — 23 October, 2008 @ 2:53 pm
“Mr Meredith…. why not get a copy of the Battle of Algiers….. the film gives me hope …. but will give you nightmares….. sleep well while you can.”
I have seen it many times. If it does not give you nightmares, your sense of humanity must be flimsy indeed. Especially knowning what we know about what came after.
Comment by John Meredith — 23 October, 2008 @ 2:59 pm
293# dear Mr Nonsense… As far as I know RESPECT has no formal policy on Afghanistan…. it’s policy on Iraq written a couple of years ago..contains the following…
“The elections and the formation of a puppet government have changed nothing. The bulk of those voting were not voting to support the occupation but were looking for a way to end it. The issue is not, as we are constantly told, one of democracy against dictatorship, it is one of resistance versus occupation. Nothing will change as long as the occupation continues. The only force which can reorganise Iraq and end the conflict are the Iraqi people themselves – and the precondition for that is the exit of the occupation forces.”
As far as I am concerned this paragraph contains some universally applicable themes that are transferable to many forms of conflict where one party seeks to impose its prefered polictical objective by the application of military force. I would be perfectly content if RESPECT were to simply insert the word Afghanistan where the word Iraq is and this would represent a workable approach to conflict resolution in that country too.
I for the life of me cannot understand what motivates you to post on this site as it seems to me that you are neither a “Socialist” or interested in “Unity”…. I agree with mark anthony france…. and offer the same advice … go and watch The Battle of Algiers…. and get some sleep if you can.
Comment by abu jamal — 23 October, 2008 @ 3:02 pm
“Whats extraordinary is the way that people like john meredith are prepared to ignore all information or detail about a land they have pretended for five years they have the faintest interest in. even when it comes from their own side.”
Unlike you, johng, I don’t view the war in Afghanistan as a kind of gient sports event so I really don’t have a side (although I notice that you implicitly concede in the way you framed the accusation that you accept the Taliban as you ’side’). Do I take it that you accept as fact whatever senior British Army figures say about the war in Afghanistan? Or are you (selectively) prepared to ignore such information or detail?
Comment by John Meredith — 23 October, 2008 @ 3:03 pm
298# ….Mr Meredith… no relation to Mark Meredith Elected Mayor of Stoke on Trent?? I don’t think johng considers the Afghan war as a ’sports event’.
This post was about a public meeting on the Crisis in Pakistan held by Birmingham RESPECT…. it has turned into a pointless discussion between people who want to carry on bombing the “taliban” and who appear to have no concern about any ‘collateral damage’ inccurred…. and other people who are broadly defined as ’socialist’ who are opposed to this War and seek to analyse Afgan society and look towards peaceful solutions to the conflict.
What you should go away and think about is that Pakistan has Nuclear Weapons.
Comment by mark anthony france — 23 October, 2008 @ 3:11 pm
Anthony, no I am not relation. And I think the rest of your post is a miracle of tendentiousness. We all oppose the war in the sense that we would rather it wasnnm’t being fought, but we disagree as to how to end it with the most justice and least suffering (and where the balance between those two things should be). There are as many or more socialists who vigorously oppose the Taliban, I believe, as there are those who wish to accomodate, appease, or even support them. A withdrawal of NATO troops would not, obviously lead to a peaceful resolution, but a violent victory for one of the armed forces.
Comment by John Meredith — 23 October, 2008 @ 3:18 pm
for the life of me cannot understand what motivates you to post on this site as it seems to me that you are neither a “Socialist” or interested in “Unity”….
On this post I’m mainly interested in seeing how RR party hacks try to justify the nonsensical and disgraceful “idiot Left” ideas of GG re the Taliban. So far they have come out with some famously bizarre stuff.
I support NATO in Afghanistan and am of the Left. The forces fighting them are criminal gangs, warlords and the clerical fascist Taliban, none of whom have any deep support in the country. Even if the Taliban had local support I would not support them as they are reactionary theocrats. That is a perfectly progressive view to hold for anyone who is not an unthinking “anti-imperialist”.
johng - what’s the SWP’s take on GG’s latest views on Afghanistan ? Bet you’re glad you don’t have to defend him anymore aren’t you ?
Comment by MoreMediaNonsense — 23 October, 2008 @ 3:20 pm
The President of Afghanistan’s brother is a smack dealer, gay’s and women are still being executed, where’s the progress?
Bring back Najibullah (if he was alive)
Comment by Green Socialist — 23 October, 2008 @ 3:30 pm
“The President of Afghanistan’s brother is a smack dealer, gay’s and women are still being executed, where’s the progress?”
The progress is in the fact, reported above, that a huge majority of Afghanstanis feel that their lives have improved. And the President, for all the failings of his family, is elected. Women are hardly liberated, but they can, at least, send their daughters to school. It is hard to explain to the pampered westerner who takes these things for granted as a right just what a huge difference this makes to a life. You may think it a meaningless difference, but they don’t.
Comment by John Meredith — 23 October, 2008 @ 3:36 pm
gay’s and women are still being executed,
Gays are being executed for being gay in Afghanistan by the government ? Are you sure ? Do you have a link ?
Comment by MoreMediaNonsense — 23 October, 2008 @ 3:46 pm
John meredith: “Women are hardly liberated, but they can, at least, send their daughters to school.”
But all the evidence from - for example - Human Rights Watch says this isn’t true. In most parts of Afghanistan girls cannot go to school, and it is not only amred groups opposed to the government that prevent this, but also militias loyal to the government.
I remember reading an account a while ago of a woman in Kabul who said that under the Mujhadin (you know, the ones the USA backed to take power), she had not dared leave the house for several years due to fear of kidnap and rape and murder. This was the period when 10000 people were killed in kabul by war lords fighting out with their US funded and supplied weapons. When the Taliban came to power and restored order she was able to leave the house without fear, although admittedly wearing a Burka.
As John Meredith rightly says: “It is hard to explain to the pampered westerner who takes these things for granted as a right just what a huge difference this makes to a life. You may think it a meaningless difference, but they don’t.”
the taliban only became a political force due to the almost total break down of law and order and civil society.
What was interesting about the very rapid US victory against the taliban in the first stage of the war was becasue the USA paid huge amount of dollars and gold to the obscurantist war lords and miltias to change sides. The USA now opposes disarming those same militias where they are seen as allies in the fight against the taliban or Al Qaeda - so the misogynist, reactionary politics of the Mujhadin are still structurally embedded into the American occupation.
It is truly remarkable how the pro-NATO people arguing here have no idea at all what has gone on in Afghanistan this last thirty years.
Comment by Andy Newman — 23 October, 2008 @ 4:08 pm
“But all the evidence from - for example - Human Rights Watch says this isn’t true. ”
No it doesn’t Andy, it says it is extremely incomplete and thousands of women are still suffering, but that the improvement from the Taliban regime is evident, and this is clearly expressed in opinion polls.
Nobody is suggesting that Afghanistan has emerged, overnight, as a liberal paradise. What they are pointing out is that the Taliban regime was so extreme and repressive that even current social conditions in Afgahanistan are a vast improvement and have the potential for further advances.
I agree that the political tactics of the NATO forces have been wrong, and have served, to some extent, the interests of reactionary social forces in Afghanistan. But there is the possibility of reform which will not exist under a Taliban regime. Surely you acknowledge that. This is not a choice between paradise and perdition.
Comment by John Meredith — 23 October, 2008 @ 4:16 pm
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/pervez-death-sentence-quashed-by-afghan-court-968638.html
This guy was only just released after downloading info on women’s right on the internet!
Comment by Green Socialist — 23 October, 2008 @ 4:16 pm
How do you think he would have fared under the Taliban, Green? Are you quite sure you would prefer them to judging his case?
Comment by John Meredith — 23 October, 2008 @ 4:18 pm
I didn’t say that I’d prefer the Taliban, at least the present regime is open to some pressure, but its completely unsustainable, when the west finally leaves it will probably collapse in weeks!
Comment by Green Socialist — 23 October, 2008 @ 4:42 pm
“when the west finally leaves it will probably collapse in weeks”
Isn’t this a good enough reason for staying? Or do you depsair at the possibility of there ever being a stable non-Taliban Afghanistan without a NATO military presence?
Comment by John Meredith — 23 October, 2008 @ 4:51 pm
john meredith
you have found one opinion poll, of which we have no indendent assessment of how valid its methodolgy was, but respected human rights organisations time and again say there is little improvement; even the Afghan government says that the security situation is deterioaruing FFS - and the reason there is littele improvement is because stabilisation and progressive referom were never the Usa’s mission.
Comment by Andy Newman — 23 October, 2008 @ 5:02 pm
Andy, maybe this isn’t the right thread for a serious discussion, but I’ll quickly take issue with several of your points.
You underestimate the impact of the war in Afghanistan on the Soviet population. Every single person from the former SU I know (quite a lot of them) says that families were generally scared of their sons being drafted and sent to Afghanistan. The “slight” losses you mention were in the tens of thousands. Even though the SU was a repressive society, it did matter what the people were thinking - not only what the generals thought.
In answering the question whether the mujaheddin succeeded, it is not relevant that after the Soviet withdrawal, the country was devastated. They succeeded in their goal, to drive out the occupying power.
Of course the SU used local allies to fight. This isn’t new, NATO is doing the same. An analysis of the tactics used by the resistance, then and now, would suggest Russian control was, in fact, more tenuous than NATO control is now. By your logic, we should support NATO occupation, then.
Whatever remains of the different kinds of former communists in Afghanistan, by and large, supports the occupation now. Yes, they might want cosmetic change - replace NATO by some UN force (ie, change the name painted on the tanks), but in the end, they support foreign troops, because they know their local support is weak. This should give you some pause.
Finally, it is utter nonsense to say that supporting Afghan resistance against the Soviet occupation is comparable to supporting the Whites in the Russian civil war. If anything, the opposite is true. The Bolsheviks had the support of the majority of the population (that’s why they won), and they fought against foreign invaders. Just like the mujaheddin.
Again, I fail to see why you would use the arguments employed by Meredith and his reactionary friends to support an imperialist occupation, simply because the occupying power called itself “socialist”.
Comment by christian h. — 23 October, 2008 @ 5:09 pm
Andy
I haven’t got the poll before me but I remeber very wel that it was a thorough and respectable poll. I believe it confirms findings of other polls. That is not to say the situiation is perfect or acceptable, but there is an improvement. The deterioration of security is alarming, but hardly a reason for pulling out (FFS), rather the opposite.
If you can show that the methodology of the polls was faulty, feel free to do it and I might change my mind. But if your position is that you will only listen to evidence that confirms you in your prejudices, I think it is weak.
Stabilisation may not have been central or important enough to the USA’s mission, which was primarily aimed at defeating Al Qaeda, but it is obvious that the USA and NATO would much prefer a progressive, stable Afghanistan to what they have now. It is equally obvious that the Taliban can supply stability, but at a catastrophically high price.
Comment by John Meredith — 23 October, 2008 @ 5:10 pm
For info, ere are the results from the 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007 polls handily collated.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/03_12_07_afghanpoll2007.pdf
“Again, I fail to see why you would use the arguments employed by Meredith and his reactionary friends to support an imperialist occupation”
It is a strange world, Christian, when it is reactionary to support a fight against clerical fascists and somehow progressive to support them. But then the extreme left has made this mistake so often before. Ho hum.
Comment by John Meredith — 23 October, 2008 @ 5:20 pm
#312 christian h….. the soviet union was not “imperialist” in Afghanistan in any meaningful sense of the word… it was invited in and it’s attempts at practical development projects represented a more efficent and less corrupt process than any of the efforts of NATO and various NGO in the past 7 years…
It wasn’t just the soviet union that called itself ’socialist’
it was;
The mujahadein
Afghani socialists
The House of Saud dictatorship
Osama Bin Laden
the CIA
M15
the SAS
the White House
The European Union
and 100,000’s of working class activists across the planet.
The situation in Afghanistan in the late 70’s at the height of the ‘Cold War’ was a mess….. the real imperialists took advantage of that mess and deliberately and decisively intervened and in the process cynically used the relegious sentiments of the rural poor as a convienent stick to beat the Russians with.
The complexities of this long drawn out trauma are perhaps best illuminated from a human perspective by the novels of Khaled Hosseini…. “The Kite Runner” and “A thousand Splendid Suns”…. How the most vulnerable have been devastated by the War how the past 30 years have impacted negatively on the lives of millions of men, women and children… insight into this is provide by Khaled Hosseini.
Comment by abu jamal — 23 October, 2008 @ 5:24 pm
Oh, I forgot to mention, it is a war against fascists that has popular support,too. That should make a difference, but I fear it won’t.
Comment by John Meredith — 23 October, 2008 @ 5:25 pm
“the soviet union was not “imperialist” in Afghanistan in any meaningful sense of the word2
So the USSR invaded the country and maintained control through a massive military presence, but that wasn’t imperialist? NATO similarly invade and help set up an elected government which has the power to order them to leave, but they are imperialist?
In what way were the USSR ‘invited in’, by the way? How did the people of Afghanistan issue their invitation? I do hope you are going to express these views out loud at the conference with your islamist freinds.
Comment by John Meredith — 23 October, 2008 @ 5:30 pm
christian #312
Your comrade redbedhead who is or at least was a central committee member of the canadian IS, clearly said that he supported not only militray reistance to the Russians but that he also supprted military resistance by the islamists to the PDPA Afghan government BEFORE the russians were involved - and when that resistance was being funded and supported by the CIA.
This is the position that is similar to supporting the whites in the Russians civil war. Your canadian comrade didn’t just support “Afghan resistance against the Soviet occupation ” - he explicitly said that he supported the conservative Islamist resistance to the urban reforming regime of the PDPA - that is he took sides with the islamists against the socialists in a civil war where the only foreign involvement was CIA backing for the Islamists. An extremely right wing position - similar to backing the contras in nicaragua.
Incidently your account of the character of the Russian civil war is a bit eurocentric - a more detailed examination of the civil war in the Turkic republics around 1920 shows that the Red Army under Peter Frunze were initially mainly Russians fighting against Turkic peoples.
And removal of NATO troops and their replacement by a regional stabilisation force (or similar) is not just to “change the name painted on the tanks”, it is a necessary to solve the security problem.
NATO withdrawl and talliban victory is harddly better that NATO staying there in indefinate war with the Taliban. The Afghan people are losers in both these two outcomes. What is needed is a political solution.
Comment by Andy Newman — 23 October, 2008 @ 5:35 pm
Mark Anthony France: - “Shapurki Saklatvala’s Election in Battersea in 1922 was a huge breakthrough. Internationally the working class movement was on the offensive and opposition to colonialism growing and the Soviet Union had survived the Civil War and was beacon of hope for millions.”
Of course one point about Saklatvala, in whose constituency my former comrade Harry Wicks lived, was that he had joined membership of the CP and the Labour Party. Which at the time was quite legitimate. Now THAT would be something!
There were also a few other slightly odd Communist Party affiliated MP’s at the time too: Walton Newbold, who moved towards McDonald’s “National Labour Party” and the bizarre Cecil L’Estrange Malone who joined the CP while already an MP, after visiting Russia. John McClean regarded him as an agent of the ruling class in the workers movement and split over the issue.
One point being that electoral politics can attract a fair share of nutters and opportunists and therefore candidates and MP’s need to be kept under the tight control of the workers organisations - workers wage, mandates and all that.
Not that I’m insinuating anything about anyone in particular…..
Comment by prianikoff — 23 October, 2008 @ 5:36 pm
#319 should read “joint membership of the CP and Labour Party”
Comment by prianikoff — 23 October, 2008 @ 5:37 pm
“In what way were the USSR ‘invited in’, by the way? How did the people of Afghanistan issue their invitation? ”
Errr - the Afghan government repeatedly asked the USSR to send troops into the country.
This was an Afghan government that came to power with no Rusian involvement - yes it came to power by a coup,. but so had the pro-American government that it replaced; and the reason for the coup was a pre-emptive move by the air-force to prevent the former pro-US government from massacring its politivcal opponents.
John Meredith, do you know anything at all about Afghanistan?
Comment by Andy Newman — 23 October, 2008 @ 5:42 pm
“Errr - the Afghan government repeatedly asked the USSR to send troops into the country.”
An Afghan government whose sovreignty was based on what? What right did they have to give their country to the Soviets? Might they not have checked with the Afghans first? Oh but that was the problem, wasn’t it?
Comment by John Meredith — 23 October, 2008 @ 5:47 pm
Andy, you are incorrect. Redbedhead [by the way, I am confounded why you would always feel the need to point out someone’s role in IS or SWP - it is irrelevant] did not “explicitly say” that he supported the mujaheddin in their pre-invasion struggle against the communist government. Noah and you claimed he did. You can’t first put words into someone’s mouth and then turn around and criticize them for those words. Well, you can, but it’s not a nice thing to do.
As for the “stabilization force”, please. No foreign force will “solve the security problem”. I agree there is no good solution - that ship sailed a long time ago (about 30 years). But any day longer of foreign military presence will put off the day where a solution can be found, by the Afghan people themselves. Not by some foreign army, however well-meaning. (By the way, who do you imagine would be part of that “regional stabilization force” that’s supposed to bring security? Clearly not NATO, so who? Pakistan? India? Russia, redux?)
Comment by christian h. — 23 October, 2008 @ 5:50 pm
The soveriegnty of the PDPA government was that the Afghan Air force had intervened to prevent the previous government from massacring its political opponents.
Where has the sovereignty of any Afghan government come from ?
The previous anti-communist Daoud regime had also come to power by a coup against the king.
Comment by Andy Newman — 23 October, 2008 @ 5:52 pm
The Afghan government “asked” the Red Army to come into the country? I actually find myself agreeing with Meredith for a change. Andy, you have really lost the plot there. The military officers of that government, where were they trained? Hint: it wasn’t in Sandhurst. So to say that this military coup putting that government into power happened “without” Soviet involvement is a bit disingenuous, don’t you think? Are you really trying to claim that the SU didn’t interfere in Afghanistan’s affairs until one day in 1979, when they suddenly reluctantly decided to support their beleaguered brothers in Kabul? Come on.
Comment by christian h. — 23 October, 2008 @ 5:56 pm
#325
So christain
we are supposed to believe that a Russian plot so sophisticated took place that they not only orchestrated events in Afghanistan, but created a false paper trail of politburo and army records. you claim that all of the internal CPSU and USSR documents now published years later which prove no Russian plan are all forgeries?
Comment by Andy Newman — 23 October, 2008 @ 6:02 pm
319# prianikoff… speaking as a nutter and an opportunist! no seriously the interesting thing about RESPECT if things pick up is that perhaps it could just develope a structure that enables joint memberships and affilations in a way that the early LP did. The whole problem of the subjective factor in electoral politics and what happens to elected representatives is perhaps best illustrated by the Strange Case of Victor Grayson the Socialist MP for Colne Valley..didn’t Harry Wicks write a pamphlet about him??
Are you going to pop into RESPECT Conference if you get the opportunity or have you other fish to fry on Saturday?
Comment by mark anthony france — 23 October, 2008 @ 6:04 pm
Christain in #279 Redbedhead clearly describes the Mujhadin fight against the PDPA government as a liberation struggle against a violent and repressive government.
It is relevent that he is a leading member of an IST group, becaus this is trhe logic of the IS poluitcs, and what leads you to prefer to beleive that all the historcial evidence including trhe politburo records of the 1979 period that have now been published are forgeries!!!
Comment by Andy Newman — 23 October, 2008 @ 6:18 pm
Andy, don’t play the fool. You are well aware that there is a large gray area between a “plot […] orchestrating events” and “no Russian interference”. And you are still insisting on misrepresenting redbedhead. As you may have told people before in some other context, explaining someone’s motivation isn’t the same as endorsing their actions.
What redbedhead did write was that the mujaheddin saw their own struggle as one of liberation. This seems fairly uncontroversial to me, unless you are the conspiracy nut here and believe they were created out of a vacuum by the CIA.
By the way, I am surprised that you apparently haven’t noticed that the local forces allied to the Red Army in the eighties largely (though, obviously, not completely) coincide with the local forces now allied with NATO. Remember Dostum? Very enlightened fellow, according to you and your tankist friends. Liberated lots of women, although mostly from their bodies, I guess.
Comment by christian h. — 23 October, 2008 @ 6:53 pm
I don’t seem to recall those 500,000 afghans murdered by the soviet army in Afghanistan feeling liberated do you Andy. The whole point was the “Communist govt” ending up bombing villages and towns ………..real mass support I don’t think.
Comment by faslehood — 23 October, 2008 @ 7:00 pm
Christian writes:
What redbedhead did write was that the mujaheddin saw their own struggle as one of liberation.
Reply:
And as has already been pointed out, so did the Whites and other forces engaged against the Bolsheviks see their struggle as one of liberation. So do the anti-Chavez forces in Venezuela, so did the Contras, the S Vietnamese.
What of it?
The point is that ideologically the SWP’s adherence to the revisionist theory of state capitalism has led to them turning Marxism on its head in their support of an anti-working class, obscurantist and reactionary Mujahadeen against a progressive govt in Afghanistan that was intent on land reform, women’s emancipation, a literacy programme, and social and economic justice. That this reactionary movement was supported, funded, and armed by the US govt makes no difference in the worldview on the SWP, it seems. Neither does the fact that the defeat of the progressive govt in Afghanistan has led to the country being reduced to a parking lot.
Please clarify in what way the defeat of the PDPA govt in Afghanistan has benefited either the Afghan people or the international working class?
Comment by John W — 23 October, 2008 @ 7:07 pm
The point is, John W, that saying “John W really believes Stalinism was a good thing” isn’t the same as saying “I support Stalinism, just like John W”. Jeez people, learn to parse a sentence once in a while.
Comment by christian h. — 23 October, 2008 @ 7:12 pm
Also, John W, next time you could just link to whatever CP pamphlet it is you are quoting from. Or better yet, just copy the first couple words and the last one here, we can all fill in the rest.
Comment by christian h. — 23 October, 2008 @ 7:21 pm
Christian #332 & #333 - So I take it then you really have no answer to the simple question I posed at the end of my last post.
Perhaps you missed it. Allow me, therefore, to ask it again: Please clarify in what way the defeat of the PDPA govt in Afghanistan has benefited either the Afghan people or the international working class?
More specifically, how did it benefit the teachers, 70 percent of whom were women? How did it benefit the doctors, 40 percent of whom were women? Or what about the nation’s civil servants, 30 percent of whom were women?
How did the Mujahaddin’s victory benefit Afghan society?
It’s a simple question really.
Comment by John W — 23 October, 2008 @ 7:30 pm
#329
Christian
There is no playing the fool here from me, when i read what redbedhead wrote it clearly comes over to me as more than trying to understand their motives, and it reads to me as support for them.
And on your questioon of “russian interfernce” in the events leading up to the two coups, the first that brought the PDPA to power, and the second that brough the Amin faction to power.
Well, we have the politburo minutes, and the testimony of KGB officers to say that they were caught by suprise by the air force coup, and were actually opposed to the Amin coup. All through this period we know for a fact that Brezhnev was arguing for the PDPA to take a moderate line, and widen the base of the government. Your argument that there must have been Russian involvement in the coup is only sustainable if you think someone has falsified the politburo minutes.
Comment by Andy Newman — 23 October, 2008 @ 8:01 pm
Andy and everyone else contributing to this thread …. if you are not already aware take a look at “The Independent” today had a front page and editorial and 3 inside pages on “Pakistan stares into the Abyss”
it’s online version includes a report on the latest US War Crime in Pakistan.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/us-missiles-hit-pakistan-school-971114.html
Imran Khan was said to have estimated the number of people supporting the insurgency in North West Frontier Province as 1,000,000…. substancially larger than the numbers of supporters claimed by either Al Qaeda or the ‘Taliban’….
The number of civilian deaths from car bombings so far this year is estimated to be higher than in Iraq and Afganistan put together.
A estimated 1,000 civilians are said to have been killed in counter insurgency operations.
Pakistan is in severe crisis. Pakistan has Nuclear Weapons.
Comment by abu jamal — 23 October, 2008 @ 8:14 pm
Inceidently.
On the questioon of Russian support for the Air Force coup that gave power to the PDPA (and which wasn’t even planned by the PDPA, let alone the Russians!)
Worth quoting from the chapter “The Soviet Armed Forces and the Afghan War” in the 1989 book TThe Soviet Withdrawl from Afghanistan” where Geoffrey Jukes reports the prevailing view in the Russian military to be that: “virtually any regime in Kabul would consider it advantageous to sek a satisfactory relationship with the Soviet Union, and from that angle the seizure of power by the Afghan Communists in April 1978 was an unneeded complication. It created a regime whose fate the USSR could not view with indifference….. “
Comment by Andy Newman — 23 October, 2008 @ 8:23 pm
christian h. at #323:
“Redbedhead […] did not “explicitly say” that he supported the mujaheddin in their pre-invasion struggle against the communist government. Noah and you claimed he did. You can’t first put words into someone’s mouth and then turn around and criticize them for those words. Well, you can, but it’s not a nice thing to do.”
Well, I am not sure that I did claim that Mr Redbedhead ‘explicitly said’ that he supported the CIA-funded & equipped mujaheddin against the Afghan communists prior to the Soviet invasion. Though if you can demonstrate that I wrote this, I’ll stand corrected.
Please note, BTW, that I remarked on Yuri Andropov’s prescient speech at the CPSU Central Committee, on why the USSR should refuse the request of the Afghan Govt. for a military contingent.
If Redbedhead’s position is that he was at first against the anti-communist armed struggle by the reactionary and CIA-backed forces in Afghanistan, but then decided to support them after the USSR eventually responded to the requests of the Afghan government for military intervention, there could be a way to argue that this is a consistent position.
This could be done by proposing that- putting aside the question of the supply of money and weapons by the USA to one side in a civil war- the arrival of ‘boots on the ground’ from a foreign country means that the side in that war which is opposed by those foreign troops, thereby automatically becomes the ‘liberation movement’; which should thus be supported, however reactionary its aims, and whatever class interests it represents.
But, if you- or Mr Redbedhead- want to argue such a case, you need to apply this principle consistently and wholeheartedly, and not just to the case of Afghanistan. You need to state openly that you regard your opposition to troops crossing national borders, and support for the ‘liberation’ fighters opposing these troops, as the most high and holy principle, always over-riding international solidarity.
Let me give you just two (among many possible) examples of where the consistent application of this principle might get you into some trouble:-
Spanish Civil War & the International Brigades
Cuba’s intervention in the Congo, Bolivia etc.
Comment by Noah — 23 October, 2008 @ 9:02 pm
Andy, interference in a country’s internal affairs can take the form of fomenting action that brings a particular faction to power; but it doesn’t have to. I was being charitable by suggesting that you are “playing” the fool. Maybe you really aren’t aware of the whole scale of interference. To give another example, if, some time from now, NSC minutes show that the US was surprised by Georgia’s actions this August, will you then claim the US didn’t interfere in Georgia? Do you, by the way, support US military support for Georgia, including admittance to NATO, since the Georgian government asked for it?
I guess the answer to those questions is “no”. The reason is that you (and Noah and John W) operate under what we might call the “Soviet Meredith assumption”, namely, the assumption that Soviet military actions are as such good and progressive because they were engaged in by the Soviet Union.
Noah, Andy used the word “explicitly”. He has now, of course, back-pedaled and only says that he “understood” redbedhead a certain way.
It is telling that you think of Russian tanks as something equivalent to the international brigades in Spain. Apart from that, you are being absurd anyway, by demanding an answer in the abstract to a question that needs to be evaluated in its concrete historical context in each case.
Comment by christian h. — 23 October, 2008 @ 9:32 pm
“Your comrade redbedhead who is or at least was a central committee member of the canadian IS”
Ah, the smell of McCarthyism in the morning. Oh, but wait, there’s an explanation for “outing” me”: “It is relevent that he is a leading member of an IST group, becaus this is trhe logic of the IS poluitcs, and what leads you to prefer to beleive that all the historcial evidence including trhe politburo records of the 1979 period that have now been published are forgeries!!!”
Who claimed politburo records were forgeries. This is sheer fantasy. It’s also worth pointing out that the Canadian IS doesn’t have a central committee and that I am not a member of it, nor any other leading body. Sorry that your investigation into my identity wasn’t more fruitful.
And it is flattering that you’re devoting so much time to attacking what I supposedly said. Jeez, Noah even calls me “Mr.” Perhaps it would have saved you much time and effort to have gone back and read what I wrote:
“The mujahedeen - who were much more heterogenous prior to the Soviet invasion and the massive increase in US funding - were rallying against a government who they experienced as oppressive, violent and incompetent. ”
My point was that your surface reading of the development of the conflict in Afghanistan - Communists vs CIA-aligned, backward Islamists - is simplistic and doesn’t explain how the mujahideen had a mass base (nor the complex and heterogenous character of the rural insurgency which was largely local and specific, ie. an violent explosion in response to central state transgressions). Even Andy admitted this when he wrote above: “The tragedy of the Progressive Afghan government in the 1970s was their naive policy of secularisation, and their inability to patiently relate to the rural religious population.”
It is also simplistic to claim, as Andy does, that President Daoud, who was overthrown by the PDPA, was pro-US. It was under Daoud, after all, that the armed forces were trained in the USSR. What Daoud was trying to do was to maintain national independence from either of the empires. This was especially so after he was given a lesson in what it meant to be forced to curry favour with just the USSR, when the USSR backed Bhutto against Daoud over the question of Pashtunistan.
But, in any case, if the measure of support or not for a regime is simply modernization, Daoud was also in favour of modernization and an expansion for women’s participation, as was King Amanullah in 1919. In fact, the urban-based monarchy had been in favour of modernization for close to a century but was constantly faced with the problems imposed by Afghanistan’s strategic location between empires. In many ways the PDPA should be understood as part of the debate inside this urban elite as to how best to take modernization forward in Afghanistan - it should be noted that the PDPA had not a single member who was a worker or peasant and was drawn entirely from amongst military officers and the urban intelligentsia.
Comment by redbedhead — 23 October, 2008 @ 10:16 pm
christian h:
“if, some time from now, NSC minutes show that the US was surprised by Georgia’s actions this August, will you then claim the US didn’t interfere in Georgia?”
Unfortunately, the secret US documentation on their direct (or otherwise) role in Georgia’s attempted blitzkrieg against S. Ossetia will not be released any time soon, if ever. Possibly, some sections of the US administration were surprised. I doubt if Cheney was.
However. The Soviet Communist Party’s records re: Afghanistan are now in the public domain. If you are claiming that these are forgeries, please say so.
And you demand:
“Do you, by the way, support US military support for Georgia, including admittance to NATO, since the Georgian government asked for it?”
Well, I can’t speak for Andy. But I would suggest that we, as citizens of NATO, can declare that we don’t support the admission of an applicant whose entry would be a dangerously de-stabilising factor in world affairs.
Just as- & putting aside the matter of the great difference between the role of the USA & the USSR in the 20th Century- Yuri Andropov could warn that Soviet intervention in Afghanistan would be unwise.
Then, you use the full force of your imagination:
“you (and Noah and John W) operate under what we might call the “Soviet Meredith assumption”, namely, the assumption that Soviet military actions are as such good and progressive because they were engaged in by the Soviet Union.”
I have assumed no such thing. I have drawn attention twice before on this thread to Yuri Andropov’s wise remarks at the CPSU CC on the likely negative aspects of Soviet military action in Afghanistan.
Please do not mis-represent my views. Argue with what I am saying- do not make up a straw-man position and ascribe it to me.
Also, you say:
“Noah, Andy used the word “explicitly”. He has now, of course, back-pedaled…”
You included me in that allegation. So please back-pedal yourself.
And further:
“It is telling that you think of Russian tanks as something equivalent to the international brigades in Spain.”
Oh! So, if the USSR had provided tanks to the democratic Spanish government, to help it defeat the fascists- would that have made Franco’s forces into the authentic ‘liberation movement’, thereby deserving of your support?
Then, your last resort:
“Apart from that, you are being absurd anyway, by demanding an answer in the abstract to a question that needs to be evaluated in its concrete historical context in each case.”
Principles, schminciples! Suddenly, abstractions have flown out of the window- what matters is a concrete evaluation of each case!
Except that the very highest principles must be applied against the actions of the PDPA government in Afghanistan, in order to prove that the CIA-backed counter-revolutionary forces were in fact the genuine ‘liberation movement’.
Onward christian soldiers, marching off to… where?
Comment by Noah — 23 October, 2008 @ 11:02 pm
An error in my last post. The Soviet Union DID supply tanks to the democratic Spanish government, to assist in its defence against the fascist forces.
Check:
http://libraryautomation.com/nymas/soviet_tank_operations_in_the_sp.htm
Comment by Noah — 23 October, 2008 @ 11:24 pm
redbedhead at #340:
“Jeez, Noah even calls me “Mr.””
Well, Christan referred to you as “he”, and I assume you are over 18.
Or is it that you would prefer to be referred to as Comrade Redbedhead? If so, I would suggest that you re-consider your enthusiasm for US-funded and equipped reactionary movements.
Comment by Noah — 23 October, 2008 @ 11:35 pm
Possible contradiction?
christian wrote: ““you (and Noah and John W) operate under what we might call the “Soviet Meredith assumption”, namely, the assumption that Soviet military actions are as such good and progressive because they were engaged in by the Soviet Union.”
noah rebuts: “I have assumed no such thing. ”
But, then, Noah says: “So, if the USSR had provided tanks to the democratic Spanish government, to help it defeat the fascists- would that have made Franco’s forces into the authentic ‘liberation movement’, thereby deserving of your support?”
But, you see, the point wasn’t that the USSR was giving guns to the Republicans that made their struggle progressive. It was that the struggle in Spain was a struggle against fascism in which the working class was playing a prominent and sometimes leading role. And, in fact, the Republicans sought military aid from other countries but received none. Had they received guns or planes or tanks from Britain, the US or France, would that have caused you to not support the Republicans?
Clearly it is the social character of the struggle within the nation concerned and the origin of the weapons or aid it receives is a secondary factor (of greater or lesser importance). DId it change the character of the Bolsheviks that Lenin received support from the German government to pass through on his way to Russia and later, after taking power, that the Bolsheviks signed trade deals and treaties with western imperialist powers? I think not. So when you write about the “CIA-backed counter-revolutionary forces”, you ought to do so with some sense of irony. Certainly the same label could (and has) be applied to the Solidarnosc, and to the various workers’ uprisings in Eastern Europe in the post-WWII period.
Comment by redbedhead — 23 October, 2008 @ 11:36 pm
Noah, you might try sticking to the truth sometime. No-one has ever claimed that any Politburo minutes are forgeries. You seem to be laboring under the delusion that the minutes prove something conclusively - what, I honestly don’t know.
As for the ‘explicitly’ business, again you show you’re unable to parse a sentence, which is really not my problem. Andy claimed redbedhead said something “explicitly”. That was incorrect. What I pointed out was that you had interpreted redbedheads words in this way, wrongly.
I am happy to see you have retreated from your untenable contention that Soviet tanks occupying a country against the clear will of its people are comparable to international volunteers fighting to defend a country against fascism. Yet, you are still unable to process that principles are to be applied in a concrete historical situation. Or maybe you actually think the Soviet invasions of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 were also really great?
As for the further silliness you engage in - again lying by claiming I (or someone) supported Afghan rebels against the PDPA government before the Soviet invasion - there’s no need to comment on it.
Finally, your “onward Christian soldiers” remark is clearly a Freudian slip. It is you who supported the brutal occupation of an Islamic country in the name of western civilization.
John W: please point out how occupying Afghanistan and killing at least a quarter million of its people, while making millions more refugees, benefited the “international working class”. As further homework, please explain how the current resistance to NATO occupation benefits the “international working class”. then apply the lessons learned to the Soviet occupation, or admit that you don’t believe they do apply simply because Breshnev called himself “socialist”.
Comment by christian h. — 23 October, 2008 @ 11:53 pm
Noah - “Or is it that you would prefer to be referred to as Comrade Redbedhead? If so, I would suggest that you re-consider your enthusiasm for US-funded and equipped reactionary movements.”
Ah, you are a card, Noah. I don’t really care what you tack on the front of my pseudonym, it’s just that Mr. Redbedhead looks kinda silly.
As for my “enthusiasm” - I would include the Hungarian uprising in 1956, the East German in 1953, Solidarnosc (of course), Ethiopian students and Eritrean nationalists against the Derg, et al.
As for the initial countryside insurgency, if you know anything about Afghanistan you will know that the insurgency began before the US started plowing any significant money and weapons into the country. You will also know that there is a long history of insurgencies against any attempt to impose a centralized state on Afghanistan.
Comment by redbedhead — 23 October, 2008 @ 11:54 pm
christian: “Andy claimed redbedhead said something “explicitly”. ”
The funny thing is I had said almost exactly the same thing that Andy did about a dozen entries earlier. I guess it’s like Afghanistan - if the Soviets invade you and bomb the shit out of your villages and agricultural infrastructure, it’s liberation, if the Americans and NATO do it, it’s imperialism.
Comment by redbedhead — 23 October, 2008 @ 11:59 pm
Also from redbedhead at #340:
“Ah, the smell of McCarthyism in the morning.”
A rather odd remark. Especially since it comes from someone who gives his/her enthusiastic (though historical) support to an anti-communist military movement, whose main financial and military backer was the United States of America.
McCarthyism, as we all know, was the administrative and judicial aspect of the anti-communist movement in the post-WW2 USA, designed to eradicate the positive effects of the wartime alliance with the Soviet Union; and to drive out of public life & political effectiveness, the US Communist Party.
Also. The original phrase which redbedhead invokes is from the brilliant and chilling cinema epic ‘Apocalypse Now’. In the film, the aptly named Commander Kilgore boasts as he deals death and mutilation from his helicopter: “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”
McCarthyism and napalm. Both made in the USA, and used to attack the supporters of communism.
Redbedhead. With whom are you in bed?
Comment by Noah — 24 October, 2008 @ 12:49 am
Yer a very silly boy, Noah. You’ve taken a light-hearted joke in relation to Andy’s insistence on outing me for what he believes is my political pedigree and turned it into a full textual analysis. This game could be fun. We’ll call it “What an odd choice”. Let me try it:
Ah, so your name is “Noah”. What an odd choice. Clearly it is a sly reference to Noah’s ark, a story that provides an implicit reinforcement to the idea that those who stick closely to pious doctrine and not to evidence based upon experience will in fact be saved. Clearly you are secretly an anti-materialist. A fifth column in the Marxist movement.
As for “enthusiastic” support. I’d be interested to know when I used this word, other than sarcastically. However, if it makes you happy to spend your time knocking down straw men, please - feel free. If you get tired of being a silly boy and want to argue with the grown-ups, I’m happy to engage you seriously at that time.
Comment by redbedhead — 24 October, 2008 @ 1:08 am
349# redbeard…. I think Noah is called Noah…. because a ‘flood’ is coming and him and Calvin have built an ark to rescue all of us!
Did anyone [in the UK] see Imran Khan on the telly tonight opposite Dianne Abbot… very good I thought.
Comment by mark anthony france — 24 October, 2008 @ 1:20 am
“redbeard” - ah, my secret is out: I hate shaving.
Comment by redbedhead — 24 October, 2008 @ 1:33 am
351# ah ha ….. redbeard….. you don’t shave… Taliban men don’t shave….therefore logically you must be Taliban….. yes the Canadian Taliban…. the most ruthless so I have heard!
Comment by abu jamal — 24 October, 2008 @ 1:38 am
It’s true. We demand absolute fidelity to a strict moral code, which involves, uh, enthusiastically supporting armed anti-communist movements throughout the solar system. We are also heavily involved with the maple syrup trade. In fact we now supply 98% of the world’s maple syrup and use the funds towards nefarious, dogmatic ends. And we all know how addictive sugar is; much more so than heroin. We are truly bad, bad (unshaved) men.
Comment by redbedhead — 24 October, 2008 @ 1:46 am
redbedhead at#344:
“in fact, the Republicans sought military aid from other countries but received none. Had they received guns or planes or tanks from Britain, the US or France, would that have caused you to not support the Republicans?”
Let’s consider this. The democratic Spanish government, under deadly attack by fascist forces, appeals for help from all and sundry.
Yet the governments of capitalist Britain etc provide no assistance, and even via ‘non-intervention’ seek to prevent assistance to the Spanish government. Nazi Germany, of course, assists the fascists.
This should tell you something.
And who sends tanks and senior military officers to aid the democratic Spanish government? The USSR.
Now, the mere facts of the British ‘non-intervention’, and Nazi support for Franco’s forces (who, no doubt, proclaimed loudly that they were victims of foreign communist oppression) should give you a clue, at least a starting point, about which side you should be on in such a struggle.
You add:
“when you write about the “CIA-backed counter-revolutionary forces”, you ought to do so with some sense of irony. Certainly the same label could (and has) be applied to the Solidarnosc, and to the various workers’ uprisings in Eastern Europe in the post-WWII period.”
So as it appears, your guiding stars in the global struggle are:
i) anything to defeat communism, or any other enemies of the USA- whatever it takes- especially…
ii) the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy etc
iii) to put a more human & European- though slightly dinted by speculative skulduggery- face on it, George Soros.
Hmmm. As it seems you are happy to admit, you are a ‘colour revolutionist’, supporting such actions as are directed and financed by Western imperialism.
Lovely! and that’s quite up to you. But why you should suppose that anybody would regard you as a ’socialist’ is quite beyond the imagination.
Comment by Noah — 24 October, 2008 @ 1:56 am
noah - I can see you’re simply a turgid stalinist with the inability to engage honestly. You’ve proven yourself obtuse and boring. I will leave you to masturbate happily over a picture of Joe Stalin as you fantasize on your vision of gulag communism built on the corpses of workers and peasants throughout the world. After all, half of them are too stupid to know what’s good for them and the other half are simply pawns of the CIA. Stupid workers.
Comment by redbedhead — 24 October, 2008 @ 2:38 am
What a delightful post at #355!
When confronted by arguments & facts which undermine Redbedhead’s pro-US imperialist position, this is what his, or her, refutation boils down to:-
a) “you masturbate happily over a picture of Joe Stalin”
Lovely!
Though not exactly my cup of tea. But I would not deny that many people in the USSR were worthy of admiration, sexual or otherwise. Check this international representative of the Soviet Union, for example:
http://www.jamd.com/image/g/50942167
b) “the corpses of workers and peasants throughout the world”.
Oh really- so the main factor in the millions of untimely deaths in the 20th century was the communist movement?
Who says? You, Robert Conquest, Soljenitsin, the Ukrainian ultra-nationalists, and bunch of other disreputable right-wing characters.
The vast majority of avoidable deaths in the last Century were caused by capitalism; Korea and Vietnam, to take two small examples.
c) “…pawns of the CIA. Stupid workers…”
So, you imply, the CIA cannot or does not exploit working class people as its pawns? In which case, why not pay a visit to the Gdansk shipyards, such as they are today.
Comment by Noah — 24 October, 2008 @ 4:06 am
“Oh really- so the main factor in the millions of untimely deaths in the 20th century was the communist movement?”
What? See, this is your problem. You’re a liar. But it’s pathetic because people can read what was written and see that you’re simply misrepresenting at best but more often just making shit up so that you can cover up the fact that you think communism is about imposing a dictatorship on workers and peasants.
“pro-US imperialist position” - buddy, yer a laugh. I’ve organized against multiple US wars, including the first invasion of Iraq, the NATO bombing of Serbia, the present wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“So, you imply, the CIA cannot or does not exploit working class people as its pawns? In which case, why not pay a visit to the Gdansk shipyards, such as they are today.”
What are you on about? I never said or implied such a thing - the fomenting of civil war in Iraq is there for all to see the ugly manipulations of US empire. In any case, you make yourself irrelevant with your attitude of dismissing resistance wherever a government tags the word communist onto its name. You demonstrate that your politics don’t coincide with the interests of workers, peasants or the oppressed but rather with any tank that paints a red star on the side.
Comment by redbedhead — 24 October, 2008 @ 4:55 am
Noah, sober up. You are embarrassing yourself. It’s sad to see that your style of argumentation is no different from that of David T, including a penchant to write lies that are obvious to everyone.
Comment by christian h. — 24 October, 2008 @ 5:28 am
“Where has the sovereignty of any Afghan government come from ?”
Well the current government is granted its sovereignty by the people, through a popular vote. That is the only legitimate basis for sovereignty in the view of any leftist, I would have thought. Without it, no government has any right to ‘invite in’ a foreign power. Especially one that then mobilises against the people, slaughtering thousands more or less indiscriminately.
Comment by John Meredith — 24 October, 2008 @ 10:48 am
# 350
I have cousin called Noa (Female)so it might acually be his/her name.
To deny the mass exterminations under Stalin/Mao is quite absurd, but i dobn’t think people are doing so here.
The majortity of deaths have been caused by Capitalism, whether the “Free” Market style of the USA and Britain or Stalinist or Nazi State Capitalism.
The Afgan elections were held under the auspices of an occupation, which is harldy a basis for nation building. How the hell will it outlast the occupation, and when has military intervention ever worked in Afghanistan?
The occupation is a fantastic recruiter for the Taliban.
Comment by Green Socialist — 24 October, 2008 @ 11:03 am
The Afgan elections were held under the auspices of an occupation, which is harldy a basis for nation building. ”
It is hardly ideal, but the elections were deemed broadly free and fair and there was a high voter turnout, so this is a popularly mandated government and that makes a difference. Whether it will survive the withdrawal of NATO troops remains too be seen.
Comment by John Meredith — 24 October, 2008 @ 11:57 am
Green Socialist at# 350:
“To deny the mass exterminations under Stalin/Mao is quite absurd, but i dobn’t think people are doing so here.”
In respect of JV Stalin, you are absolutely correct. Probably appx 1 million people shot, and another 1.7 million deaths due to dreadful conditions in prison camps etc, according to the solid research. Appalling.
Re: Mao Zedong, the usual allegation is not that he had huge numbers of people executed, but that masses of people died in the famine which occurred during the ‘Great Leap Forward’. However- even in 1960, the worst year of food shortages in China, the death rate in the People’s Republic only barely exceeded the average, and perfectly ‘normal’ death rate in India.
One needs to balance these grim facts with the fact that socialism in the USSR and China saved scores of millions of lives- eg, the average life expectancy approximately doubled in both countries; and also with the fact that hundreds of millions of people were killed by capitalism in the 20th Century.
So, the “the corpses of workers and peasants throughout the world” argument, as per Redbedhead’s charming post at #355, just won’t wash.
PS- give my regards to your excellently-named cousin
Comment by Noah — 24 October, 2008 @ 12:57 pm
362# Noah…. how’s the ark coming along?? Did you see Imran Khan on TV last night?? What did you think of him… how big is his base in Pakistan??
Comment by mark anthony france — 24 October, 2008 @ 1:04 pm
Redbedhead at #355:
“half of them are too stupid to know what’s good for them and the other half are simply pawns of the CIA.”
Redbedhead at #357:
““So, you imply, the CIA cannot or does not exploit working class people as its pawns?” […] What are you on about? I never said or implied such a thing”
Most peculiar.
Comment by Noah — 24 October, 2008 @ 1:12 pm
@ mark anthony france- sadly, my expertise on Imran Khan is no better than by skills at carpentry! But if the ice-caps carry on melting, perhaps I should start taking woodwork lessons
Comment by Noah — 24 October, 2008 @ 1:33 pm
Imram Khan was a great Cricketer, but i don’t think he has made a big political impact in Pakistan. Very dangerous job Pakistani Politician!
Comment by Green Socialist — 24 October, 2008 @ 1:39 pm
365# and 366# ….Noah and Green Socialist…I am not bad with a chain saw and chisel so I’ll start work on the ark while Greenie can collect all the animals we fancy keeping!
Whatever Imaran is up to he did a really ace piece on Pakistan…. heavily criticising US strategy in the region and Pakistani military offensives in Warsiristan… I think he is in England for the Golbal Peace and Unity Event this weekend so maybe Salma Yaqoob can get a photo opportunity with him..
Unfortunately… Imran was wearing a typical ‘business suit and tie’ not his old trademark equistely tailored white ‘nehru suit’… Diann Abbot, Portillo, and Neil were fawning over him in the This Week studio.
CLR James would have appreciated Imran as well I think.
Pakistani Politician’s always have a sticky wicket but hey… it’s not smooth sailing over here either won’t be too long before an IED takes out a Brit politician I would quess.
Comment by mark anthony france — 24 October, 2008 @ 1:54 pm
Noah - “Most peculiar.”
Your inability to handle the most basic logic of a sentence is rather more peculiar.
Comment by redbedhead — 24 October, 2008 @ 2:25 pm
#368….. redbedhead…What happened to the ‘beard’? how is the Maple Syrup business going?
Comment by abu jamal — 24 October, 2008 @ 2:37 pm
Hey Mark- actually I do have a few practical skills- learnt when I was involved in the anti-GM direct action movement.
We’ll need to grow some vegetables on board the Ark, or we’ll all go down with scurvy!
Comment by Noah — 24 October, 2008 @ 2:44 pm
“One needs to balance these grim facts with the fact that socialism in the USSR and China saved scores of millions of lives-”
whaT bullshit. I supopose on this basis south korea is progressive!! Why do these idiots defend Stalinism. Iyt was the counter revolution, it has damaged the socialist movement in front of billions of people. It has made the lefts job much harder. Period.
Comment by ll — 24 October, 2008 @ 2:47 pm
abu - maple syrup shares have fallen sharply as a result of the general collapse of commodities. I’ve been forced to shave the beard and sell the hair to a wig maker for extra cash.
Comment by redbedhead — 24 October, 2008 @ 2:59 pm
370# I am trying to get our local Respect Supporters group in Bromsgrove to take over a derelict half acre plot of land round the corner from my house and establish a local permaculture project…. get the unemployed youth in wellies and force them with whips to dig it over and plant veg… which we can distribute in the area on a barter basis…
In Bromsgrove we are going to rename 2009 as Year Zero!
371# ll if you feel like a rest from the ranting…. and getting your hands dirty helping to feed poor people have a little holiday in bromsgrove.
Re-educate yourself through labour…..
Stalinism was a disaster …. no one says any different… But the greatest force for peace in the 20th Century was the Soviet UNion and it’s transitional socialised economy…. Noah is absolutley correct to say the exsistence of the Soviet Union saved countless millions of lives that otherwise would have been sacrificed at the alter of capital.
The JOB of work that we must do is actually being made much harder by people like you….because you are stuck… won’t move, and will probably not recognise the Revolution in England when is does happen. Please don’t call other socialists idiots… or else you’ll feel my whip.
The Biggest single step forward for Women’s Liberation was achieved with the Chinese Revolution in a few short years nearl 500,000,000 women were freed from the shackles of an ancient set of moral, social and economic restrictions…This in not about Mao or stuff this is about how the reorganisation of the economy transformed the social position of women.
ll… What do think of the prospect that Salma Yaqoob could make an alliance with that handsome cricketer chappie Imran Khan … eh. Oh I forgot he is not a ’socialist’
Comment by mark anthony france — 24 October, 2008 @ 3:13 pm
Noah… I forgot Bromsgrove is nowhere near a river or the sea…. if I build the ark here and organised the fruit and veg…. are you sure the flood will be deep enough to float our boat???
and …. are we going to let ll on straight away or will he have to beg??
Comment by mark anthony france — 24 October, 2008 @ 3:17 pm
@ ll at #371- as Green Socialist has already pointed out, nobody here is trying to ‘defend’ the dreadful repression which occurred under JV Stalin.
However, a balanced consideration needs to take into account the impressive achievements in the socialist countries.
Re: South Korea. A big factor in the improvement in the material conditions of the majority of the population during the late Cold War was the fact that the ROK was in rivalry with the DPRK. A similar factor was also at play in W. Europe between the late 1940s and 1989.
So, indirectly, the achievements in the socialist countries were very helpful to the working class in the capitalist countries.
Comment by Noah — 24 October, 2008 @ 3:33 pm
re: #374- ll should be welcome on board- so long as we can find another animal of the same species- two by two & all that
Comment by Noah — 24 October, 2008 @ 3:36 pm
@375: no, it was mainly the struggle of the workers in South Korea in the 70ies and especially in the 80ies!
Comment by Entdinglichung — 24 October, 2008 @ 3:39 pm
ll #371
No one is defending Stalin. The problem is that you and others have substituted Utopianism for Marxism and thereby fallen into the trap of metaphysics in ascribing absolute good and absolute evil to what is a process.
Stalin committed crimes and was responsible for a system of repression, yes. But he also intitated the five year plans without which human history would have entered the abyss of fascism from which no one knows how long it would have taken humanity to emerge. The SUnion was a huge step forward in terms of human progress. The neoliberal juggernaut responsible for global poverty, the war in Iraq, the rise of religious fundamentalism, etc., has wreaked havoc throughout the world in the aftermath of the SU’s collapse. This is self evident.
But what you said at the end of your post is most revealing. You assert that the existence of the SU has made the left’s job harder. Two things: 1) How can it be that you believe the mountain of anti-communist propaganda used by the West to discredit the SU, and for that matter Cuba, yet refute the lies and smears of the West when it comes to justifying the war in Iraq, Israel’s occupation of Palestine, and so on? 2) Where is the principle involved in dismissing socialist countries attempting to develop in unfavourable material conditions, and surrounded by an advanced social and economic system committed to its collapse, because it’s hard?
In the last analysis, the theory of state capitalism is the intellectual equivalent of a white flag.
Comment by John W — 24 October, 2008 @ 3:42 pm
Entdinglichung at #377:
“no, it was mainly the struggle of the workers in South Korea in the 70ies and especially in the 80ies!”
This isn’t an ‘either-or’ question. Objectively, these two factors played complimentary roles.
Comment by Noah — 24 October, 2008 @ 3:55 pm
Redbedhead
#340
“It’s also worth pointing out that the Canadian IS doesn’t have a central committee and that I am not a member of it, nor any other leading body. Sorry that your investigation into my identity wasn’t more fruitful.”
I said that you are or were a member. The following document lists you by name as being a member of the 1994 outgoinf steering committee at the time of the split with Dave McNally: http://www.etext.org/Politics/International.Socialists/95SPLIT.TXT
This is not McCathyism, I am not giving wnough info for a third party to identify you; just pointing out that your not a novive, but someone who has been around the blocks with IS politics. Given that you are using a pseudoneym anyway, why wowuls you wish to deny it?
And isn’t my assessment of your identity correct?
And I know who ll is as well.
Comment by Andy Newman — 24 October, 2008 @ 4:03 pm
376# so Noah this ark business…. assuming we allow all sort of different species on I suspect it is going to be difficult to find reproductive pairs…and if we acculmulate to0 many primitive male cadre we risk a overloading… and sinking. I would prefer to keep ll off the boat and keep an additiona pair of ring tailed lemurs… as they are more amusing.
Anyway, this post is meant to be about Pakistan…. and as usually it’s turned into degenerated workers and deformed workers argueing with lemming like Cliffites.
Comment by mark anthony france — 24 October, 2008 @ 4:11 pm
@379 … the pro-north korean “national liberation” current inside the south korean left tried to direct the workers movement towards a strategy neglecting class struggle (and social revolution)
Comment by Entdinglichung — 24 October, 2008 @ 4:14 pm
381# mark anthony france… I concur… [just like leonardo di caprio in that movie]….. people always drift to far of topics on threads… I find it rather annoying… and 381 comments seems a bit excessive…. why are people posting stuff on respect conference or climate demo stuff…???
As for this Ark…. why are you building it? surely noah and calvin are closer to a big river….. where you going to go anyway? … CUBA?
Comment by abu jamal — 24 October, 2008 @ 4:15 pm
I am closing this thread now
:o)
Comment by Andy Newman — 24 October, 2008 @ 4:17 pm
384# yes abu…. my comments in 381 were a bit excessive… I think I go for a lie down now.
Comment by mark anthony france — 24 October, 2008 @ 4:20 pm