Thursday night
On Thursday evening, extracts from Jeremy Corbyn's Friday speech were released. Andrew Sparrow of the Guardian presented them for the record."On fighting terror threats generally
"This is my commitment to our country.
"I want the solidarity, humanity and compassion that we have seen on the streets of Manchester this week to be the values that guide our government. There can be no love of country if there is neglect or disregard for its people.
"No government can prevent every terrorist attack. If an individual is determined enough and callous enough sometimes they will get through.
"But the responsibility of government is to minimise that chance - to ensure the police have the resources they need, that our foreign policy reduces rather than increases the threat to this country and that at home we never surrender the freedoms we have won and that terrorists are so determined to take away.
"On domestic policy and terror threats
"To keep you and your family safe, our approach will involve change at home and change abroad.
"At home, Labour will reverse the cuts to our emergency services and police. Once again in Manchester, they have proved to be the best of us.
"Austerity has to stop at the A&E ward and at the police station door. We cannot be protected and cared for on the cheap.
"There will be more police on the streets under a Labour Government. And if the security services need more resources to keep track of those who wish to murder and maim, then they should get them.
"On foreign policy and terror threats
"We will also change what we do abroad. Many experts, including professionals in our intelligence and security services, have pointed to the connections between wars our government has supported or fought in other countries and terrorism here at home.
"That assessment in no way reduces the guilt of those who attack our children. Those terrorists will forever be reviled and held to account for their actions.
"But an informed understanding of the causes of terrorism is an essential part of an effective response that will protect the security of our people that fights rather than fuels terrorism.
"We must be brave enough to admit the ‘war on terror’ is simply not working. We need a smarter way to reduce the threat from countries that nurture terrorists and generate terrorism."
More police on the streets, no austerity in A&E, hardly got a word of acknowledgement. In the late evening programmes, and again in the morning, it was as if the third section was all that we knew about.
The argument
And then at 11:00 on Friday morning came the actual speech - 1644 words, of which about 300 concerned foreign policy. What were the media interviews about? Foreign policy.
The speech doesn't contain the word "Iraq". What were many minutes of intemperate criticism based on? Iraq.
The speech said "Those terrorists will forever be reviled and implacably held to account for their actions". What were the criticisms? Corbyn was apparently offering excuses for horrendous cruelty.
Tom Harris, ex-Labour ex-MP, now writing for the Telegraph, at least admitted that he hadn't read or heard the speech but poured scorn on the idea of any link between terrorism and UK foreign policy. Charles Clarke, once a home secretary under Tony Blair observed gruffly that he hadn't consulted Corbyn on security matters for many decades (I think he might have meant about three), though he neglected to mention that he had commissioned a report in 2006 which observed that "the war in Iraq contributed to the radicalisation of the July 7 London bombers and is likely to continue to provoke extremism among British Muslims".
Johnny Mercer (Conservative, Plymouth Moor View, majority 1,026), Tory backbench pin-up who saw action in Afghanistan took any suggestion of a link as a personal slight and Michael Fallon (Conservative, Sevenoaks, majority 19,561, currently Secretary of State for Defence) joined his voice to those who hadn't read the speech, only remembered a bit of it, or were quite happy to criticise Corbyn for something they knew he hadn't said.
Perhaps Nigel Dodds (Democratic Unionist, Belfast North, majority 5,326) distilled it best: "Jeremy Corbyn is entirely wrong. Responsibility for terrorism lies where it always does: with those who carry it out... Those who excuse, justify or celebrate terrorists only make the job of the security forces harder."
Nothing in Corbyn's speech does any of those things ("That assessment in no way reduces the guilt of those who attack our children. Those terrorists will forever be reviled and implacably held to account for their actions"). His history might lead some to doubt the sincerity of his words but they should say that, instead of pretending that the speech says something it doesn't.
That link
Corbyn might have been teasing when he said, "Protecting this country requires us to be both strong against terrorism and strong against the causes of terrorism." So, is there a link between foreign policy and terrorism? And what do we mean by foreign policy anyway? Attitudes to countries and their activities? Things done as a result of policy? Or is it just choosing friends (and customers) - yes to Saudi Arabia and rather less so to Iran for example?
Let's start with the big stuff. Did George Bush create ISIS or was it Barack Obama? Spoiler: not quite and definitely not.
As we've known for years, disbanding the Iraqi army left a couple of hundred thousand armed and mightily pissed off men with military training, many of whom "formed the foundation of the insurgency". That insurgency (Islamic State in Iraq at that point) was largely neutralised by 2011, when Obama withdrew US troops (at the demand of the Iraqi government), but ISI seized the option of the chaos just opening up in Syria to rebuild.
ISIS and al Qaeda have both claimed that attacks were in response to attacks, by France, UK, USA... on Iraq, Syria, Libya... We've heard that link made in claims of responsibility after outrages and in at least one suicide video. This might be opportunistic rather than the result of a plan - they'll claim anything they think they can away with, even if they had nothing to do with it - and they have other motives and objectives as well but it's said and it sticks. It's part of the "West v Islam", "why are they attacking Muslim countries?", "war between civilisations" story.
From interviews with potential travellers to Syria to preachers like Anjem Choudary, who blamed Lee Rigby's murder on British foreign policy (the killers themselves "said they had attacked the off-duty soldier to avenge the deaths of Muslims at the hands of British troops" - we hear that "Western" involvement in wars in the middle east and north Africa is a motivating factor in recruitment and support.
Among the more respectable subscribers to the idea of a link are
- Lawrence Freedman, Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King's College, London and member, lest we forget, of the Chilcot inquiry panel
- The House of Commons foreign affairs select committee who said that David Cameron, through his decisions, was "ultimately responsible" for the collapse of Libya and the rise of Daesh in that country
- Richard Dalton, UK ambassador to Libya 1999-2000 (who also suggested that the UK needs a moral-strategic foreign policy but is likely to go mainly for commercial interest post-Brexit)
- Marc Sageman, former CIA case officer, who said "Iraq [was] the moment when British jihadists started focusing on attacks inside the UK, because the British government had invaded an Arab country".
- and many others
It is self-evident that anger with Western policies in the Middle East is one – though not the only - factor behind Islamist terrorism./1— Lawrence Freedman (@LawDavF) May 26, 2017
In 2005, when he was a mere back bench MP (and recently sacked (for lying) shadow minister) one Boris Johnson wrote a colourful but reasonably well considered piece, arguing:
"It is difficult to deny that they have a point, the Told-You-So brigade. As the Butler report revealed, the Joint Intelligence Committee assessment in 2003 was that a war in Iraq would increase the terror threat to Britain.
"The threat from Islamicist nutters preceded 9/11; they bombed the Paris Métro in the 1990s; and it is evident that the threat to British lives pre-dates the Iraq war, when you think that roughly the same number of Britons died in the World Trade Center as died in last week’s bombings. In other words, the Iraq war did not create the problem of murderous Islamic fundamentalists, though the war has unquestionably sharpened the resentments felt by such people in this country, and given them a new pretext. The Iraq war did not introduce the poison into our bloodstream but, yes, the war did help to potentiate that poison. And whatever the defenders of the war may say, it has not solved the problem of Islamic terror, or even come close to providing the beginnings of a solution. You can’t claim to be draining the swamp in the Middle East when the mosquitoes are breeding quite happily in Yorkshire."
This week Johnson (now a supposedly responsible minister) condemned Corbyn's speech for seeking to link terror in the UK to the country's military interventions as "absolutely monstrous". It was "extraordinary" that "there should be any attempt to justify or to legitimate the actions of terrorists in this way" and such comments were "inexplicable in this week of all weeks".
son
has condemned a speech by Jeremy Corbyn which sought to link terror in
the UK to the country's military interventions as 'absolutely
monstrous'. - See more at:
http://www.skynews.com.au/news/politics/international/2017/05/27/boris-johnson-slams--monstrous--corbyn-speech.html#sthash.uMbaCT1r.dpuf
There seem to be a number of logical errors in the critics' arguments:- If it can't explain everything it explains nothing - how can you claim that terrorists commit these crimes as a result of our decisions and actions when they have other motivations and objectives (as well)?
- There were terrorist attacks before [insert foreign policy decision] so terrorism is nothing to do with foreign policy. Michael Fallon makes a particularly bad attempt at this in his Channel 4 interview ("7/7 came before Libya." "But it came after Iraq." "Yes, but it came before Libya.")
- Words are being confused. A link is not an explanation is not an excuse is not a justification. John Major once said, "Society needs to condemn a little more and understand a little less", perhaps using "understand" to mean "condone" rather than the normal meaning. Surely "understanding less" should never be an option, and understanding can still lead to condemnation.
Saboteurs department
For your delectation, here is the full interview with Michael Fallon.
can sense about half way in @krishgm wanted to shout 'oh FFS FALLON GIVE IT UP!'. https://t.co/ofY05IlLuU— AJBaker (@CartesianDevil) May 27, 2017
said they had attacked the off-duty soldier to avenge the deaths of Muslims at the hands of British troops.
Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/02/michael-adebolajo-adebowale-killers-of-british-soldier-get-life-sentence/
Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/02/michael-adebolajo-adebowale-killers-of-british-soldier-get-life-sentence/
said they had attacked the off-duty soldier to avenge the deaths of Muslims at the hands of British troops.
Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/02/michael-adebolajo-adebowale-killers-of-british-soldier-get-life-sentence/
Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/02/michael-adebolajo-adebowale-killers-of-british-soldier-get-life-sentence/
said they had attacked the off-duty soldier to avenge the deaths of Muslims at the hands of British troops.
Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/02/michael-adebolajo-adebowale-killers-of-british-soldier-get-life-sentence/
Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/02/michael-adebolajo-adebowale-killers-of-british-soldier-get-life-sentence/
