Mazzer2:
The idea that in this case diplomacy will work and the normal rule of law will sort it out cannot be achieved while you have Russia and China vetoing any suggestion put forward to try to resolve this situation. Should Assad end up being forced from power he will end up seeking refuge in Russia where he will stay until his death.
But the veto that various countries have is an element of the settled international law. The US uses it consistently when it comes to Israel, for example. And you’re right that if powerful countries basically offer safe havens to war criminals, then international law is finished - or at least, it is another form of veto, and the law will apply only to those countries whom no other powerful country is willing to protect.
It is the hard and unfortunate reality that the entire world is not a lawful and settled place, but our foreign policy in recent times is being shown to create that very lawlessness and upset more often than it creates peace and stability. It is in this respect that we look down the wrong end of the telescope when we insist, for example, that something must be done about chemical weapons, and that “something” always ends up inflicting more damage.
The UN is passed it’s sell by date it has stood over more atrocities than it has solved, in the same way the Europeans did nothing over the Balkans, to many people with interests that do not necessarily benefit those who are enduring the slaughter. The Balkans was an ideal opportunity for Europe to show the world that it could solve problems in it’s own backyard yet it took the intervention of Clinton and the American military to put an end to the killing.
This idea that it is our “back yard” is a perception that I think ought to be strongly challenged. These places are not our “back yards” - they are completely separate societies with completely separate traditions and histories. The last time the Balkans had a common political history with Western Europe was in Ancient Rome! They are not, in general, our responsibility to govern or regulate, and we do not, by default, have any right to do so either.
That is not to say we should not try to project the best values of our societies around the world, and it does not mean that interference on genuine humanitarian grounds is never justified, but Western nations (in their own capacity, rather than as members of international organisations) are not the legitimate authority over these areas of the world. There is a big difference between on the one hand turning up at your neighbour’s house with a well-timed bucket of water when the house has unexpectedly caught fire, and on the other hand jemmying open the door uninvited every couple of months, and proceeding to rough up the family and ransack the house, because you don’t like the terms on which the family relate to each other or conduct their lives. Western nations, and particularly (but not just) the US, have by now a well-formed habit of doing the latter, and pretending that it is the former.
And of course “roughing up the family and ransacking the house” is an understatement of what the West keeps doing in the Middle East. In actual fact, millions are being killed with bombs and bullets (some directly, written off as “collateral damage” to the blind fury of the people who are supposed to be assisted by our actions, and many more indirectly on account of the ensuing chaos caused), and homes, commercial premises, and civil infrastructure are being turned into rubble.
This latest missile strike, far from being any decisive intervention against (or effective deterrent to) the use of chemical weapons, is yet another demonstration of the untellable arrogance of Western governments and politicians. Not just utter contempt for the legitimate international institutions that exist to deal with these problems so far as they can be dealt with, but talking about Britain specifically, utter contempt even for their own democracies and the iron will to disregard the catastrophes and the blowback created by these repeated Middle Eastern interventions in recent times.
On the Labour party the reason you do not think they are loons is because you agree with what they are saying, to me that doesn’t make you a loon just someone with a different opinion something that it is increasingly difficult to hold in the current Labour unless you agree with the leadership.
I don’t call people loons simply because I disagree with them. As I say, there are plenty of Tories I quite like to listen to.
As for Labour, it’s nonsense to suggest that you can’t have an opinion in the party, but some differences would be so fundamental that you belong in a different party, and if (like most current Labour MPs) you are out of touch with the members and the section of the electorate whom the party is supposed to represent, and if you keep pushing an opinion that has already been thoroughly considered and decisively rejected (and do so in a particular manner, and to the extent, that people start to believe that causing detriment to the party is the intention), then soon you’re going to feel out of place.
Blairism has not just had a full and thorough hearing in the Labour party, but has actually had the benefit of being put into practice, and it has caused disaster in the fortunes of the working class, and that is why the MPs who retain those views now have so few political subscribers amongst the masses.