Britain's Prime Minister, David Cameron said some pretty odd things in his speech (2 December). He was one of many MPs to rehearse his Churchilian side in the debate in the House of Commons about whether to send a handful of jets to join in the bombing of ISIS.
'ISIL is a terrorist organisation unlike those we have dealt with before' he listed some of the the murderous depravity committed by ISIS. Then he said
'In the space of a few months, ISIL has taken control of territory that is greater than the size of Britain...It is not a threat on the far side of the world. We will face a Caliphate on the shores of the Mediterranean and bordering a NATO member ... This is not the stuff of fantasy; it is happening in front of us, and we need to face up to it.'
The UN had sanctioned it. International 'partners' were falling over themselves to get stuck in. Britain's immediate local best friends, the French, had begged for UK support.
But, Cameron (tried to) thunder, there is absolutely no commitment to ground troops in Syria!
Why not?
Anti - fascist Hilary Benn, son of the main leader of Labour's left (1979 - 2008) who quips 'I am a Benn and not a Bennite' to the media, decided that ISIS are the new fascists. He listed the honourable history of European Socialist parties against fascism (muddling them up, on at least one occasion, with European rank and file socialists, when he praised the volunteers who joined the International Brigade during Spain's civil war.) He ended by calling on his comrades in the Labour Party not to walk by, but to
'Do our bit in Syria', and was clapped for his pains by both Tory and Labour MPs who want to bomb it. BBC commentators were convulsed by this extraordinary show (?) of bi-partisanship. Parliamentary speeches had risen from third to second rate.
But the mental pictures of Dad's Army evoked by the junior Benn's oratory, putting on their helmets at the end of a LP Constituency meeting and, after a sit-down and a cup of tea, ready to strike the foe, can be put aside. He, just like the Tory MP who was voting 'yes'
'For the refugees and for the security of Twickenham', insisted on - no ground troops.
Why not?
The ISIS horror, everybody in the debate apparently agreed, would not disappear until a war on the ground was waged. Well, it was part of Britain's 'strategy' the PM told the House, for locals to do this particular 'bit.' There were 70,000 of them rearing to go according to the PM's military advisers. Nobody, not in Syria, nor in the US, nor Russia, nor the French, nobody in the whole world (except Hilary Benn, Labour's Shadow Foreign Secretary) believes this. So what is the point of all the hollow hyperbole and rhetoric designed to allow 6 or 8 British bombers to add their little slice of death to tens of thousands of 'sorties' already crowding the skies of Iraq and Syria?
Starting with ISIS; they have joined that dishonourable band of new Nazis that the British establishment have identified at various points since 1945. ISIS joins the Mau Mau that fought the Brits for Independence in Kenya (1952 - 1960). Nasser, of Egypt was he new Hitler when he nationalised the Suez Canal. Idi Amin, a Ugandan leader set up by the Brits but who turned and was then accused by Britain's media of eating the hearts of his opponents, was another new Hitler. The Palestine Liberation organisation were fascists when they kidnapped aeroplanes and killed Israeli athletes. Saddam Hussain, brought to power by the West also turned into a new Hitler, with his terrible tortures and murders, which, before he was Hitler, he never did. On the other hand, fighting the ISIS fascists today includes the Saudis, who have a whole judicial system dedicated to murder and torture. The new Benn however is absolutely nothing like the old Benn. Dragging out the standard bullshit about the latest version of the fascists who alarm the British establishment as a way of legitimising the latest piece of British warmongering means he should be ashamed of himself.
ISIS may not be the latest incarnation of Hitler's fascists, although they are certainly murderers and torturers. But they have much bigger brothers when it comes to murdering and torturing, some of which Britain's 'intervention' is actually designed to defend.
If, for a moment Cameron or the junior Benn believed their own statements, then they would immediately embrace the Russian call for a grand alliance against the terrorists. A new Caliphate in the Med? A new rise of fascism in the Middle east? Everything, including Assad's immediate future in Syria, would be utterly subordinated to the main threat of the rise of ISIS. A new, united UN led army would be built, with large battalions recruited from surrounding states. The Kurdish Peshmerga fighters would stop getting their supply of western arms through an eyedropper.
Benn minor maybe an over-enthusiastic fool, with his eyes diverted by the prospect of the Labour leadership, but Cameron's military boys (and they are boys) are not. The aim of the West, a goal that is completely tied hand and foot to the Saudis, is the removal of the old Syria which offered its own brand of leadership to the Middle East. Indeed the Saudis helped set up ISIS as a means to weaken Syria. Their frankenstein has got out of hand. They need to kill it off or at least neutralise it, but the West and the Saudi's main problem now are the Russians. That's why the Typhoons and Tornadoes are flying tonight. Britain's political and military leadership are fighting, together with their allies, for influence over the future of Syria and that contest is with Russia.
McDonnel, Labour's shadow Chancellor, astutely commented that Blair had 'risen to the occasion' when he made his great speech in favour of war in Iraq. It was the best he ever gave in Parliament (where he was judged as a mediocre speaker.) Fine words do not always equate to solid truth.
Next: will Labour split?
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