Iraqi employees: A different angle
I make no apology for continuing to post about the Iraqi employees of the coalition facing torture and death.
On this occasion, can I just say:
Read the comments for the full effect.
Just who is this Neil Clark cock-end? Fortunately, I’ve been previously unaware of his work. Is it always this kind of offal? What utter scum.
I have to say, any blogger who hasn’t linked to this issue so far should do so if only for the rosey glow of being on the opposite side of the argument as Clark.
(Via Alex.)
Update: Nice roundup of things so far from Dan H.
Posted on August 10th, 2007 at 6:22pm under Activism, Iraq, Iraqi interpreters and employees, UK politics
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“Neil Clark” “Tony Benn” Belgrade
I won’t spoil it for you. (And yes, you do feel lucky.)
1) He’s a cock-end
2) Being on the opposite side of the argument to him is usually a good starting point. I’m glad to point to 8 months worth of blogger form on this issue – he usually starts with a bag full of received opinions and no facts and then sounds off.
The Yorkshire Ranter refers to him today as a ‘bar-room Stalinist’, a description it’s hard to better.
[...] H/T Chicken Yoghurt. [...]
Equally loathsome are all the far-right-and-loving-it idiots pointing at him and suggesting/declaring that he represents the entire left-hand side of the spectrum.
(There’s even one glorious CiF comment that says how typical it is that us lefties are ‘leaving him out to dry’, IIRC.)
I am at two minds on this issue. They are collaborators. Hence the Clark article on CIF, which the editors at the Guardian should never have let out in it’s current state.
OTOH, these people served the British during an illegal occupation and MORALLY the British have a duty of care.
However the old Arabic saying about better to be an enemy of the British (they buy you) than a friend (they sell you) comes to mind.
I don’t agree with you all the time by any stretch of the imagination, Justin, but last I checked you weren’t a genocide denier, and you didn’t write articles with titles like “Milosevic’s only crime was still being a socialist”.
I think Neil Clark is to the left what Richard Littlejohn is to the right.
Truly appalling. I note that although the CiF article was posted today (10th Aug) the comments have already been closed with a polite yet bizarre note saying “Our policy is to close threads after three days.”
Although they unanimously attacked the central flaws in Clark’s argument, the CiF commentariat managed to miss one further irony in the piece, which was that the interpreters (and others) were probably doing one of the only stable jobs available to them in such a disturbed country. An yet Clark claims to be a champion of the working class.
“Neil Clark” “Tony Benn” Belgrade
Cheers for that, Phil. I owe you one. Bluergh.
He’s not one of the old Living Marxism crew is he?
I don’t think so – his stuff doesn’t have their slightly manic contrarianism, and he doesn’t bang on about liberal values or the Enlightenment. I think it’s just a particularly literal-minded version of Chomsky/Pilger/Pinter anti-imperialism, probably helped along by having had a lot more contact with Serbs than with anyone else in the region. (I don’t buy the old ‘ancient ethnic hatreds’ line for a second, but there are some pretty hefty grudges in that part of the world. I once mentioned the war to a Croatian friend; ten minutes later he’d very nearly convinced me that the Croats were the real victims of WWII, the Serbs were the real collaborators, etc, etc.) You’ve got to hear both sides of the story, and as far as possible ignore both of them.
Bravo,Neil Clark I say!
Having read the piece I may even reconsider buying The Guardian again.
To you Quisling petitioners I would say this:
Ask yourselves the following questions:
Why not take your argument re-our moral responsibilties to Iraqi collaborators to its (allegedly)logical conclusion?If we are morally obliged to assist resettling the translators then surely we owe a similar duty of care to the current client regimes we’ve set up in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I mean no-one gives much for their chances when we pull out,do they?
That’s right,we should take in all of them lock stock and (smoking?)barrel,shouldn’t we?Oh,and
lest we forget there’s the small matter of the 1m IDPs and the 2m Iraqis who’ve fled the country!Let’s start by discharging our civilising moral obligation to some of these people shall we?
Then,you might ask yourselves while it was certainly brave to supply the link to Neil Clark’s piece,was it wise?Regardless of the “cockstain”/”Stalinist” insults appended to it, the article thorougly demolished your case for the quislings.
Finally,instead of making complete arses of yourselves why don’t you wise up to the fact that the only moral obligation we can now honourably discharge to Iraqis now is to withdraw from their country forthwith.
Oh,and I nearly forgot the key question raised by Clark’s piece was the number of bloggers who were pro-war in 2003 who now subscribe to this moral obligation argument.Are you out there?Own up or are you in denial about that one too?
Wow, this issue is like turning on a lightbulb after dark and throwing open all the windows.
Except, of course, instead of moths banging into the bulb you wind up with a thousand knob-heads shouting “Imperialist Quisling!” at it.
Me personally, I wouldn’t wish a visit to the Black ‘n’ Decker basement on my worst enemy – I think it’s called “basic humanity” or something.
[...] these people, many of those involved are themselves opposed to the war and far from ne-cons. Unless Justin McKeating is now a neo-con? Did I miss something? I notice on reading the comments on on Neil’s own [...]
Message for Flying Rodent:
GET DOWN TO THE BLACK AND DECKER BASEMENT NOW!
WE CAN FIX THAT SCREW YOU’VE GOT LOOSE!
Oh,and that light bulb and the knobheads in the dark room that plague you…..yes,we’ve got something for that too.
While you’re out shopping pop into a bookshop and ask if they’ve got anything to help with the problems you’ve got with:
*making a constructive and rational case on a given issue
*gathering and organising evidence to support it
And while you’re in the Black and Decker basement,we can only assume you saw advertised in The Sun,ask if they’ve got any rat poison too.You might find it’ll solve all your problems.
With airheads like you to stand up for them I reckon the Iraqi collaborators would do better to stay put in Basra.
Ramp back on the invective please, Guy. My house, my rules. You want to shout, take it to a zoo like Harry’s Place.
A thousand knob-ends is 400 or so more knob-ends than your silly petition got!
Grow up!
I particularly boggle at the way that the “I’ve-got-a-cardboard-box-on-my-head-and-I’m-Lavrentiy-Beria” crowd are now implicitly claiming that the atrocities committed by the FLN in Algeria mark the paradigm of civilised and heroic behaviour.
the “I’ve-got-a-cardboard-box-on-my-head-and-I’m-Lavrentiy-Beria†crowd
“Crowd”?