If in doubt, bomb something? Or, What A Difference A Year Makes…

Way back in February 2011, Vogue ran a grovelling interview and photoshoot of Asma Al-Assad entitled A Rose in the Desert, which went out of its way to praise her 'wildly democratic' family and enlightened views (as well as her exquisite taste in designer clothes), pausing only to gently chide her country for not being as secular as Vogue might like (Vogue has a theological position: who knew?) while describing the murderous regime's state as 'the safest in the middle east'.

The first impression of Asma al-Assad is movement—a determined swath cut through space with a flash of red soles. Dark-brown eyes, wavy chin-length brown hair, long neck, an energetic grace. No watch, no jewelry apart from Chanel agates around her neck, not even a wedding ring, but fingernails lacquered a dark blue-green. She’s breezy, conspiratorial, and fun. Her accent is English but not plummy. Despite what must be a killer IQ, she sometimes uses urban shorthand: “I was, like. . . .”

The article has – amazingly – vanished without trace from that magazine's history (insert gag about make-up remover), but you can read a summary here and the whole thing here. Astonishingly, it turns out that a PR agency was paid lots of money to arrange the Vogue article. And there was me thinking that we could at least rely on the fashion press to uphold basic journalistic standards of integrity and incorruptibility…I'm not sure I can take many more of these disappointments.

The 35-year-old first lady’s central mission is to change the mind-set of six million Syrians under eighteen, encourage them to engage in what she calls “active citizenship.” “It’s about everyone taking shared responsibility in moving this country forward, about empowerment in a civil society. We all have a stake in this country; it will be what we make it.”

Well, I guess you could say that she achieved her goal: one way or another, millions of young compatriots are very actively engaged, often at the point of a gun. Things didn't work out quite so well for Asma and her husband Bashar. As well as being the other half of a seriously well-dressed woman, he was hereditary President of Syria, and for various complicated reasons connected with trying to look vaguely in favour of the Arab Spring at least when it turned on our enemies, the West decided to support the various rebel groups calling for (it appeared) freedom and democracy. Supporters of the aforesaid fighters for freedom and democracy included utopian, freedom-loving countries such as Saudi Arabia, so there was no doubt at all that this was a principled war of liberation. Anyway, it was about time for another little war in the area. Those countries have had it too easy for too long and besides, the West has spent a lot of money on desert camouflage in recent decades and we need to get full use out of it. Alright, some of those bearded Johnnies in the queue for guns and cash sounded a bit earnest about the old prayers-and-beheadings, but it was nothing that couldn't be sorted out by placating them with planeloads of hard currency and heavy weaponry. And in any case, we'd lined up Turkey and those lovely Kurds to help out. We know they've had their differences now and then but that nice Mr Erdogan could be relied on to do the decent thing in a tight spot, rather than take the chance to fix an election, murder his own Kurds and bomb the blazes out of our Syrian Kurdish pals. Couldn't he?

So there we were in August 2013, all set for another spot of dictator-biffing, having triumphantly brought about a soporific peace from Afghanistan to Iraq, when those damned conchie traitors in the Labour Party and their allies in the Conservatives conspired to vote against the government's plan to bomb Syria. Hard words were bandied around about Mr Miliband. 'Playing politics'. 'Giving succour' to a brutal dictator. Paddy Ashdown said he was 'sad' and 'a little ashamed' by Parliament's decision not to bomb Assad's forces.

And yet today, we have another chance. Parliament is voting today whether or not to bomb Syria. Hard words are once more being applied to the leader of the Labour Party. For opposing the bombing, Mr Cameron described Jeremy Corbyn (and any doubtful Conservatives by implication) as 'terrorist-sympathising'. That's right: bombing Assad's enemies now isn't giving succour to a dictator, while opposing Assad is 'terrorist sympathising'. What a difference a year or two makes…

There's one crucial difference: this time we're going to be bombing the rebels in support of Bashar Al-Assad's regime. That's right, the brutal one that uses chemical weapons, barrel bombs and torture on its freedom-loving people. Mr Cameron and his friends have suddenly discovered – only a few decades late – that not all the enemies of Western-backed dictatorships are members of the WI or the Liberal Democrats. Coming around very late to the policies of vultures like Henry Kissinger and Henry Jackson, he's decided that we're actually in favour of brutally repressive dictatorships because they keep the lid on millenarian fundamentalists who take the weapons we give them and use them on the streets of our capitals.

It's all rather Orwellian. In the space of two years the same Prime Minister has gone from wanting to bomb Assad to support the rebels, to wanting to bomb the rebels in support of Assad. The Russian role has moved from being reckless interventionism to principled foresight, and the Turks' genocidal treatment of the Kurds has quietly been forgotten about (this, at least, is continuity cynicism). In 1984, George Orwell wrote of the condition of unending war conducted between the great power blocs. I don't think he meant it literally, but history has a funny sense of humour and 'we have always been at war with Eastasia' has come true. In the novel, enemies become allies and allies become enemies over the course of Hate Week: the two years its taken to turn Assad from enemy to friend and Isis and co from friend to enemy isn't much less shocking. While we're at it, here's another ironic snipped from 1984 which you may find thought-provoking.

If he were allowed contact with foreigners he would discover that they are creatures similar to himself and that most of what he has been told about them is lies. The sealed world in which he lives would be broken, and the fear, hatred, and self-righteousness on which his morale depends might evaporate. It is therefore realized on all sides that however ofter Persia, or Egypt, or Java, or Ceylon may change hands, the main frontiers must never be crossed by anything except bombs.

 So here we are. Multiple murders in Belgium, Paris and less recently the UK have contributed to the feeling that we must Do Something. Or as Steve Bell put it:

Obviously I have it easy: I'm not my MP, wondering how to vote this time, nor a minister or security official. It's tempting, surveying recent history, to put my head in my hands and reply to 'what would you do?' with 'I wouldn't start from here'. It's the telescoped nature of this volte-face that really gets to me: two years from 'brutal dictator who must go' to 'essential bulwark against terrorism'. 

However, that's a more philosophical perspective. What about the 'something must be done' argument? Those in favour of bombing say that attacking ISIS isn't like the meaningless 'war on terror' because ISIS is effectively a state: it has territory, supply lines, administrators, an economy and so on.  I don't really buy it. For starters, Afghanistan is a country of sorts, and allied pacification seemed to involve an awful lot of bombing wedding parties, cattle-herders and other 'collateral damage' alongside driving out the Taliban. ISIS territory is packed with captive populations who didn't meet the requirements for genocide (i.e. being in a different ethnic and sectarian category to ISIS) but who aren't supporters. I saw the British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon explaining that British weapons can actually distinguish between terrrorists and innocent people and RAF bombing hasn't killed a single Iraqi civilian over the past years campaign and just wanted to weep at the cynicism fuelling that kind of blatant untruth. Let's not forget that the British police couldn't distinguish from a Brazilian man who was late for work and an Islamic terrorist with a bomb from a couple of yards away, let alone from 35000 feet or 3000 miles away.

I think the argument that bombing ISIS is a good plan fails for the obvious reason demonstrated by Iraq and Afghanistan – that repressing enemies requires long-term occupation alongside nation-building of a kind that we certainly haven't mastered – but also because the Brussels bombings can't be stopped by crushing head office. While ISIS has an administration in Raqqa and no doubt helps operatives commit crimes across the globe, defeating it in Syria/Iraq doesn't defeat the ideas and techniques which lead to bombings on the street. I tend to agree with the argument that ISIS is eagerly awaiting the drones and bombers. It will confirm to its supporters everywhere that they're fighting the war they want to fight: one to the death between its own religious purists and the West/Christians/enemies of its version of Islam. Bombing ISIS will simply encourage more disaffected people in the miserable slums to which they've been confined that an existential and theological confrontation is to be welcomed, and the result will be more, not fewer, atrocities. While not every bomber will be familiar with the very specific doctrines ISIS espouse, they will concur with the argument that the answer applied by the West to every outrage is to bomb brown people. 

I would take a different, perhaps harder tack. I would separate dealing with violence at home from global politics. Rather than bombing Syrians for the crimes of Belgians, French and British people, and tacitly elevating the perpetrators to the status of combatants, I would relentlessly pursue them through the criminal law. Very very sadly (I'm not sure yet) I'd be tempted to do nothing about ISIS where it is. We've tried bombing people into peace, freedom and democracy, and it hasn't worked. We've a long and shameful history of supporting brutal torture states: Israel and Egypt are only the most recent examples of the West deciding that stability is more important than human rights, so perhaps ISIS should be the next beneficiary of this familiar rejection of universal values. The problem here, though, is that al-Sisi wants to be left alone to murder his opponents while Netanyahu will be satisfied with crushing the Palestinians and taking their lands: they have specific, limited aims, whereas ISIS is expansionist, fuelled by the theological drive to impose their version of religion on everyone. Much like capitalism, actually. 

So in the end, I don't have an answer and don't know what to do. But I do know that bombing for the sake of it is no answer either. 

Our Spain?

Imagine the scene. Overseas, a country has spiralled into civil war. Some very unpleasant neighbouring countries are illegally intervening, as are more distant ones, in support of 'their' sides and in pursuit of a proxy war of beliefs. The British government makes a few noises of distress but essentially washes its hands of the suffering civilians.

Outraged, young men make their way by illicit routes to the war zone where they take up arms in defence of their people and their principles. Back home, they're feted as heroes by a minority, and considered potential seditionaries by the state. They are 'extremists' and terrorists in the eyes of many. On their return, the security services track and harass them using every means possible.

This could be Syria of course – I've just watched an earnest Channel 4 News piece about how why these young men become radicalised and feel the need to slip across Europe, cross the Turkish border and fight. But it isn't. Although the piece appeared to have no historical context at all, we've seen this before: in Ireland of course, but most obviously in Spain, 1936. When a socialist government was elected, General Francisco Franco (with logistical support from the UK government) attempted a coup which became a long and bloody civil war. The Nazis and Mussolini's Fascists joined in to help Franco, honing their skills for the upcoming world war. Stalin's Russia armed and trained the Loyalists, though at a cost: the arms were old, the costs high and the Republican forces were splintered by the activities of the Russian espionage machine.

Cities became killing fields, where the front line moved back and forwards by inches. Communities and sometimes families were split down the middle. Religious and ideological figures preached hatred and encouraged barbaric behaviour.

When the European governments decided to abandon the legitimate Spanish state to its fate, Communists and socialists across the world volunteered to fight in the International Brigades: from the UK, Ireland, the United States, France and many, many other countries. Getting there was hard: volunteers were liable to arrest before they reached the border in the Pyrenees, and the costs were high. Many volunteers had no military experience, hoping that enthusiasm and ideological zeal would be enough. Many were caught up in the factionalisation of the Republican side, particularly as the Communist Party tried to exterminate its Trotskyist and Anarchist 'allies' (read Orwell on this, but don't believe every word of this). Others' lives were wasted through military incompetence, poor supply lines and logistical blunders. Civilians were massacred in their thousands by both sides, though mostly by the Francoist forces.

Despite their determination and often heroism, the Spanish Civil War was lost: Franco's fascists won in April 1939, unleashed a wave of terror and blood-letting, then established a fascist state which endured until 1975. The International Brigadiers and other foreigners (some of whom had been thrill-seekers) went home: some like Orwell were disillusioned, others damaged, others reinforced in their belief that fascism should be challenged wherever it reared its head. Many of them went on to join the Allied forces to defeat the Nazis, though plenty remained under suspicion. During the Cold War, the Americans even had a term for such volunteers: 'premature anti-fascists'. It was, it seemed, OK to fight the Nazis for freedom, but suspicious and disloyal to fight them before 1939 (or 1941 for the Americans). Many of the volunteers returned to what they saw as cynical, complacent or degraded societies blind to the issues of the day, and remained alienated from their previous existences, never settling or exhausting themselves in legitimate or illicit political activity.

Are these young Muslims so different to the International Brigades? They have an ideology which transcends national differences, just like the Communists and socialists. They are loyal to Muslims anywhere, just as communists profess that they have more in common with overseas workers than other classes at home. They see an international community which is indifferent to injustice, and they see a conflict fuelled by realpolitik and the cynicism of neighbouring states. They're radicalised by firebrand speakers, appeals for help, speeches and literature calling on them to sacrifice themselves for a noble cause. Where the Syrian factions use Youtube, Aid for Spain and the Communist Party held mass meetings and fundraisers. Lewis Jones, the Communist novelist and activist died in 1939 of a heart attack after addressing tens of thousands of supporters in a series of street meetings, despite his reluctance to send young men to die in a now lost cause.

We might disagree over the root cause, but the pattern of idealistic young men and women taking up a cause is hardly unfamiliar.

Top Gun…

Very tediously, the US state department accused the Russians of selling attack helicopters to Syria. Obviously, it's revolting that any country should be helping that regime kill its civilians.

But let's not think for a second that Hillary Clinton has suddenly become some kind of peacenik. This isn't about principle: it's about realpolitik and tactics. It's a sales dispute. Let's just have a look at the countries to which the UK sells arms in the area.

This is the 2011 report. It involves £500m sales to Iran. £200m to Saudia Arabia (which used UK military equipment to help the Bahrainis to crush the democracy movement), £70m to Israel, which ruthlessly crushes dissent in the occupied territories, lots to the previous dictatorships in Egypt, ammunition to the Syrian regime, and lots of other sales to the whole panoply of vicious dictatorships which sell us oil.

Talking of Bahrain, I wonder why the US had nothing to say about 70% of its population being denied any kind of political or economic freedom. Oh yes, it's because it's the main port for the US Navy fleet in the area. Which is why the US is still selling the regime weapons.

Like the UK, the US sells (and often just gives) weaponry to all these deeply unpleasant states. It's partly to keep the oil flowing. It's partly Keynesian economics: even US-funded weapons keep Americans in employment. It's also an economic trade-off which makes the flow of oil money to the East look slightly less imbalanced, and it's to some extent a trade-off for persuading these countries not to invade Israel… another recipient of American military largesse. The economic case is becoming more and more important, as these arms lobbyists and analysts demonstrate:

"US defence companies are definitely looking overseas as a market opportunity that may offset some of the reductions in the US military budget that almost everybody expects to be coming down the pipe. The supply is there coming from the companies, but that doesn't change the fact that there is also demand."
Brian Finlay, the director of the Managing Across Boundaries programme at the Stimson Centre in Washington, noted that US defence companies had formed a powerful lobby that has risen in prominence during the economic downturn.
"We're seeing arms producers across the country, and interests across the country really coalescing to form a pretty significant lobbying bloc, and to complete the perfect storm this is also happening at a time of fiscal restraint and a wider economic downturn here in the United States."
"Jobs are pretty hard to come by, and jobs that are available in these industries pay pretty well. They're good jobs. It makes it even a more potent political issue for the administration."

When nobody's buying cars, sporting goods or whatever else keeps an economy afloat, death's the only expanding market. There's always demand for things with which to kill people, and if demand does drop, you can always stoke up a little regional tension. Look at Greece, a country with no enemies but a vicious rivalry with Turkey, and spend over 4% of its budget on weaponry, the highest percentage in Europe. If they stop spending, you can expect Labour, Tory and Lib Dem MPs with military factories in their constituencies to start begging for Greece to be bailed out. Peace is very bad for the economy.

Arabs: our country needs YOU to go out and die for our marginal constituencies.

Everyone's a winner. Yay for democracy. When convenient.

Is the worm turning?

I've always thought that the UK has been a puppet/client state of the US, since 1945. However, according to Seymour Hersh, David Miliband and the head of MI6 visited Syria without permission from the Americans. This really is a shocker. Reagan of course invaded the former British territory of Grenada without mentioning it to his friend Thatcher, but the British haven't done anything without clearing it with Uncle Sam since Suez, which was a disaster.

The way Hersh tells it, Cheney was furious. How dare the Brits use their initiative?