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Comment at end
19th January, 2009
David Miliband has said that the phrase “war on terror” was a mistake. Arguable, I suppose. But not quite as big a mistake as the terror itself, Mr Miliband.
Since Mr Miliband is known to be close to Tony Blair I wonder if their present beliefs coincide on this? It would seem not if this part of Blair’s final speech to conference is to be believed: Blair: “This terrorism isn’t OUR fault. We didn’t cause it. It’s not the consequence of foreign policy …”
And I believe that he believed and still believes this “passionately”.
Below Mr Blair mentions the Kashmir situation as PART of the problem. At no time does he describe it as a little local difficulty. Instead he points out that the Islamist terror ideology will “latch on” to any cause or grievance it can. Quite different from Mr Miliband’s words.
After a lead in from President Bush, Tony Blair NAILS why the war against terror is so necessary. The video is almost 6 minutes long, but this is the best explanation of why the free world must stay the course that I have ever seen.
Phewww! What more is there to say?
Don’t you miss his clarity of thinking and articulacy? Let’s see if the great orator, President Obama can match this. Sadly, I doubt it.
They say you become more right-wing as you get older. I used to think this was a silly idea. Now, I’m not so sure. I still think of myself as pretty much left-of-centre on (most) social matters, but I have to admit that I have moved to the right on international, defence and security issues.
So, I was interested in this Melanie Phillips article on the “shallowness” of David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, when he spoke and wrote on the Mumbai atrocity recently. Ms Phillips clearly has no regard for the Foreign Secretary’s disowning of the “war on terror” phrase. On Miliband’s seeming assertion that Kashmir and other terror hotspots are merely local issues and not a WAR confronting the west, she concludes:
“Britain is currently the weakest link in the war to defend civilisation. And that most certainly is a war.”
Excerpt:
With his article in the Guardian today arguing that the ‘war on terror’ was a mistake, Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Miliband displays a deeply alarming level of shallowness and ignorance. While there is indeed a valid criticism to be made of the phrase ‘war on terror’ for the simple reason that terror is merely a mechanism and that therefore the phrase is absurd, Miliband’s error lies in the deeper point he is making that the military approach to dealing with global Islamist terrorism is wrong. He reveals in this a profound failure to understand the nature of this global threat. He thinks it’s all about local ‘grievances’ and therefore can be dealt with by negotiation, compromise and arresting people and bringing them to justice rather than waging war upon them. Although his argument is a general one, he specifically mentions Mumbai and Gaza; indeed, I guess that it is Gaza that is really on his mind.
[Miliband]: The reality is that the motivations and identities of terrorist groups are disparate. Lashkar-e-Taiba has roots in Pakistan and says its cause is Kashmir. Hezbollah says it stands for resistance to occupation of the Golan Heights. The Shia and Sunni insurgent groups in Iraq have myriad demands. They are as diverse as the 1970s European movements of the IRA, Baader-Meinhof, and Eta. All used terrorism and sometimes they supported each other, but their causes were not unified and their cooperation was opportunistic. So it is today.
This is an astounding error for the British Foreign Secretary to make. There is indeed a unified transnational enemy and it is the Islamic global jihad. Yes, the specific causes which carry the jihad are many and various around the globe. But they are unified by one common goal which transcends all divisions, including those between Sunni and Shia, and that is to conquer all unbelievers and spread Islamic theocracy around the world. The roots of this modern phenomenon lie in post-colonial thinkers such as Syed Qutb, Abu ala Maududi and Ali Shariati, and before them in Ibn Tamiyya, and before him in a line of ideologues and clerics going back to early Islamic history and the Koran. Its goal is global domination and it is unalterable.
For what it’s worth I too baulked when I first heard President Bush use the phrase “war on terror”, simply because that is a war which by its very nature cannot be won. However, I believe the aim in its usage was to raise the issue, and to help people understand what was being done in the name of a “religion”. We need to always remember that the HUGE majority of terror attacks are “in the name of Islam”.
Over the last several years, I have become more ready to understand, and thus better able to accept the phrase – “war on terror”.
If you think of it, what ELSE could Bush have said after 9/11?
War against Islamists/Islamism/Muslims?
Battle for the survival of western civilisation/secularism/democracy/culture/heritage/liberalism/Christianity/non-Islamic faiths?
Any and all of these terms are loaded, and none of them puts it so succinctly as a ‘War On Terror’.
WHY NOW?
So WHY has Mr Miliband raised this NOW and not several years ago? To make it easier to appease any Obama appeasement of terror states and groups?
If Mr Miliband was hoping to get the Guardian Cif-ers onside in the run-up to a general election I have to tell him it hasn’t worked. He will already know that by reading the Cif-ers’ comments.
Of course it NEVER WILL WORK. These people are mainly liberals/peace campaigners aka fairy-land dwellers/Old Left Labourites/civil and human righters. No-one can win them over. Not you, nor anyone, Mr Miliband. They are lost to ALL argument about anything that doesn’t suit their own particular hot potato/bete noire.
It’s always possible that Mr Miliband is playing a cleverer game than it looks in his failure to link today’s terrorists to a common cause. It’ll have to be VERY clever. His friend and mentor, Mr Blair, clearly disagrees with him.
And Mr Blair I trust.
The Foreign Secretary left his e-mail address at the Guardian article, so I assume he won’t mind if I add it here: milibandd@parliament.uk
Still, some think Miliband was right in this. For instance Real Clear World:
“Words mean a lot. They create frameworks for thinking about things. They reinforce or undermine stereotypes. They spur people to action. They can inform. And mislead. Create striking clarity. Or becloud the real issues.
The “war on terror” did all these.
This single phrase evoked the successful struggles against Fascism in World War II and Communism in the Cold War and suggested that similar worldwide mobilization was required to defeat terror.
It reflected a uniquely American tendency to over-simplify and sloganize: “War on Cancer… War on Poverty… War on Drugs… War on Terror… .”
It created an environment of fear that was used to justify a broad range of actions that undermine civil liberties, from the Patriot Act to Guantanamo.
It fostered extreme oversimplification: “You’re either with us or against us.” And implied that military force is the main weapon.
It is a phrase fitting for a soundbite, but not for a thoughtful discussion or for the basis of a great nation’s policy.
There is a struggle. But it is against terrorists, who use the tactics of terror to pursue their objectives. And against the conditions that breed terrorists.
There is no single, global, over-arching enemy. Terrorists are manifold. They have many different motives. And share little in common, except for the tactics of terror.”
Now THAT last sentence I agree with. BUT, do we really have time to psychologically analyse ALL of the disparate groups who succumb to terror tactics? The whys and the wherefores, caring eyes melting … do we really feel the need to stroke the weaponed hand and furrowed brow of those who would destroy us and our children?
YOU might.
Count me out. I’m busy this evening.
Or perhaps for the rest of my life if this is the leadership and ‘real clear’ thinking we are offered on puerile, semantic and in the end worthless interpretations of THE MEANING of ‘The War on Terror’.
EXCERPT FROM MILIBAND’S STATEMENT ON GAZA/ISRAEL
“… we need a political process: a strong one. The Arab League showed in their letter to President-elect Obama in December that they were serious about their ground-breaking offer of peace embodied in the Arab Peace Initiative: the creation of a Palestinian state in return for Arab normalisation of relations with Israel. A genuine 23 state solution. It means a peace process where closed door negotiations are buttressed by Israel and the Arab world taking steps to support rather than undermine the peace process. International engagement that is full and intense includes the immediate engagement of the new American President and Administration. President-elect Obama and his Secretary of State designate Hillary Clinton have made clear that they understand the urgency and are committed to act.”
The “23 states” reference is, presumably, to these plus Israel
TWO CHEERS FOR MILIBAND FROM THE FOREIGN POLICY CENTRE
The Foreign Policy Centre finds more to cheer about from Mr Miliband’s words. They are unhappy that his remarks were treated derisively in India. But why do I feel the FPC’s article is more of a one-handed round of applause than an absolute backing for the Foreign Secretary? Perhaps because the FPC knows that no-one, from Bush to Blair, Europe to America, The Middle East to Australasia over the last 8 years, has EVER said that the battle was ONLY a Batttle of the Sword. From the beginning the hearts and minds/values arguments have been laid out by both these leaders, and by the rest of the world.
The whole Miliband case still seems like fine hair-splitting to me.
THE MEANING OF REFUSING “TO BE COWED”
FURTHER Excerpt from Miliband’s Guardian article:
“The call for a “war on terror” was a call to arms, an attempt to build solidarity for a fight against a single shared enemy. But the foundation for solidarity between peoples and nations should be based not on who we are against, but on the idea of who we are and the values we share. Terrorists succeed when they render countries fearful and vindictive; when they sow division and animosity; when they force countries to respond with violence and repression. The best response is to refuse to be cowed.”
A little like the meaning of “is”, it all depends on what we mean by “refusing to be cowed”. Mr Blair used to remind us that revealing your full offensive/defensive fall-back position was NOT a tactic to use in ANY strategy against a foe. That, after all, is the whole premise upon which nuclear deterrence has been predicated successfully for decades.
Mr Blair, as so often before, was right.
Tags: 1. Tony Blair, 23 state solution, David Miliband, Foreign Secretary in Gordon Brown's government, from June 2007, Foreign Secretary, Guardian, india, Kashmir, Melanie Phillips, Miliband statement House of Commons, Mumbai, Pakistan, terrorism local, war on terror
