and it left open the chance for people, who were so keen to have a crack at Cameron they couldn’t be bothered to consider what Corbyn actually said before they leapt to his defense, to be reduced to spouting nonsense. Further analysis ends up making him look worse and his defenders silly while all the while keeping the conversation on Corbyn and security.
You may have preferred if Cameron had taken the time to lay all this out at length and in depth. But he was making a podium speech to his troops which excuses brevity and some level of simplicity. Does it excuse lying and falsehoods? No. But I think I have demonstrated that that simply didn’t occur.
In short – Corbyn said Bin Laden’s death was a tragedy like 9-11. If he thinks it was a tragedy in the way Cameron describes 9-11 then he wasn’t being misrepresented or taken out of context, smeared, or slandered. He is guilty as hell and all the shit slung his way was well deserved.
Cycles of Violence
There is but one way in which Corbyn’s comments have a semblance of coherence. Though it isn’t one his defenders seem to acknowledge as his actual intention. I don’t blame them.
Corbyn often speaks in terms of cycles of violence. It’s the most sophisticated thought he has and he applies variations of the logic wherever he can. You know the drill, if we don’t want nuclear war the West must give up their missiles because our enemies only want theirs because of us. Peace by bending over. Our inaction will invite their inaction. If we prefer fascists to stop murdering their way through the Middle-East we must resist shooting at them so they will embrace folk guitar-music. Or something.
The U.S. attacked Bin Laden and killed him. This is an outrage which will feed the cycle, as were the attacks on September 11, 2001, the war in Iraq and the invasion of Afghanistan. He lumps them together because each to him is a missed opportunity to be unilaterally peaceful and thus spontaneously usher in multilateral peace.
Can’t we learn some lessons from this, that we’re just going to descend deeper and deeper…
…and so it will go on and this will just make the world more dangerous and worse and worse and worse…
This is Corbyn’s foreign policy mantra. The reason jihadists are a bit coarse and boorish is because of us. It’s all reaction. If we were only willing to talk, to show that we care, the death cult would start talking and we move onwards and upwards in cycles of peace. It is a coherent idea. The only problem with it is that it’s bollocks.
Jaw jaw might well be better than war war and one outrage might well begat another. But it doesn’t mean one side’s perpetual unwillingness to take military action will bring peace. I’ll spare you the full explanation of this because you know it already, it’s a triumph of slogans over experience and who but a few fringe-hippies still believe this nonsense?
It’s bollocks in general terms and as a prescription but it gets worse when you consider it in this particular context. Here it is another example of what Yasmin Alibhai-Brown ejaculated into debate.
It’s been 5 years since Bin Laden’s camouflage alarm call and how many jihadists have listed “the Sheik didn’t get his day in court” on their grievance list? Would this have made the murderously angry any the less murderous than keeping him in a U.S. prison?
I doubt even Bin Laden was offended by the manner of his death but Corbyn is on his behalf. He insists that shooting a man famous for ordering civilians killed without trial will lead to more violence and that it is part of a descent into barbarism like 9-11 was. I struggle to believe that people sawing heads off on HD video, which they publish as an advertisement for their way of life, are truly to be riled in this way.
This is such an unreasonable proposition that mere stupidity isn’t a good enough explanation. It is that squalid fetish once again. To follow it is to essentially render us powerless to take any action in our own defence which has its own immorality and, perhaps worst of all, it sets up a ready-made exculpatory analysis for future terror. If anything were to follow it the event would be our fault again and not that of the fascist thugs. This is your brain on sophistication-via masochism.
This is your brain on sophistication-via masochism.