In this week’s episode of London Calling, James Delingpole and I ask how Dan Andrew’s became such a bug-eyed authoritarian zealot, whether Afghanistan is America’s worst foreign policy disaster since 1975 and why the Orwell Foundation didn’t stand up for author Kate Clanchy when she was targeted for cancellation last week, in spite of awarding her the Orwell Prize for political writing in 2020.
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Worth it for Toby’s recounting of the rather shocking (even for old woke- and woke-kowtower watchers like myself) Clanchy story, with its appalling parade of pathetic apologisers – Et tu, Orwell Foundation!?
Nice to see Delingpole has recovered from what I seem to recall was a particularly nasty bout of neocon-ery in his youth. Young, rather pathetically, is apparently still falling for the old nonsense about a supposed “duty to honour the promises” of the very liars who manipulate us into these wars, or the fantasy “debt to the sacrifices of those in our military who have died” in their wars.
If we owe anything to the dead of our military in these interventionist wars of aggression, it’s to bring justice to the liars who manipulate us into them. And likewise, if the false promises of those who took us to war create any debt to the target countries, it’s to deliver them up for justice in those countries.
The absurdity of Young’s positions, so commonly held, is that they necessarily mean that once the elite have successfully manipulated us into a wrongful war, we can never get out of that war. We are stuck fighting a wrongful war that it would be (supposedly) wrongful for us to leave. You can imagine, then, why the power elites love to hear that sentiment expressed endlessly on their radio, TV, newspaper and social media channels.
You would think the inherent problems in that position would be apparent to someone as sensible as Young.
As I said yesterday, the idea of helping others is very appealing to many (especially when your personal sacrifice is limited to your taxes going up by a tiny amount to pay someone else to do the helping, at immense risk). Once you’ve decided that people ought to be helped, and that our great nation can do it, it’s hard to accept that actually everyone is better off standing by and doing very little. The parallels with the coronamadness – the desire to help others, manipulated in the populace by the elites to provide cover – are striking.
As you say, there clearly are parallels. There is surely an underlying cultural malaise at work. Probably a sentimentality in the culture that creates vulnerability to manipulation by means of emotional heart-string tugging followed by “something must be done”.
The urge to kindness is not properly tempered by wisdom, alertness and restraint.
But this is only the way one section of the population is manipulate to support interventionism. There are others who are manipulated by anger and the urge to revenge.
Indeed the initial intervention in Afghanistan was for revenge and done in anger. The populations of rich western countries however seem more easily manipulated by their urge to “do good” (and of course fear). Liberals whose continued support for military interventions is needed in largely liberal countries need to be kept on board by pointing to us enabling young girls to get an education or whatever. Again, parallels with covid.
Underlying cultural malaise, yes. Covid is just riding on that, and has at the same time probably accelerated it.
I’m happy the groups harbouring the “Alky-Ada” group were smashed, the mistake was the try and build a nation in a tribal culture infected with islam.
Quarantine the qu’ran obsessed and bounce the rubble.
I assume you’ve read the Qu’ran and are speaking from a position of knowledge? If Islam is an infection then so are Judaism and Christianity, indeed all faiths. Not all who profess a faith follow it’s tenets.
That sentimentality manifested itself on a large-scale following the death of Diana – and New Labour appeared to encourage it. I recall Blair’s outrageous speech in which he said something along the lines of ‘..they [the Royal family] share our grief’!
Since then, emotion has trumped logic in so many policy decisions (esp in regards to the ‘Green’ agenda).
Yes, a lot of people (myself included) have observed that the nauseating response to that death was something new and significant in our nation. In hindsight it was even more culturally and politically significant than we realised at the time, perhaps.
I’m more than happy to slag off Blair, Thatcher and Murdoch’s bastard son. And, undoubtedly, he rode on the back of that weird saccharine emotion.
But let’s be clear. This was 1997, the government had only just been elected, and the tendencies had been building for some time. It wasn’t a sudden eruption of something new, but built on existing foundations, some very old – like fairy-tale princess stories built around long-standing royalist propaganda.
I remember the time well, because my partner also died that year, and I had two children to raise – so I saw the events from a particularly personal perspective. And was gob-smacked at what I saw. But, clearly, these strange behaviours and projections were growing from deep roots, joined to more modern and emergent fantasies. I haven’t yet found a fully coherent explanation of the mass psycho-drama.
One aspect is for sure : the growth of media-based entertainment has shown a continuing growth in the opportunity to live in artificial fantasy worlds, and such occupies much more time in children’s lives as they grow. Have a look at the variety of different fantasies (ironically some pretending to real-world situations and labelled ‘reality television’) that occupy much of the TV schedules.
This has grown now to the point where the public discourse of the news media has now moved from viewpoints on reality to the manufacture of fantasies about events. Which brings us back to Covid.
Yes, I am, frequently, reminded of one of Reagan’s comments: don’t just do something, stand there!
Not heard that one before, love it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhYJS80MgYA
“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
There’s something about the plans of Mice and Men going horribly wrong in a Burns poem.
I like Toby’s analysis of governments. As far as I understand he maintains they couldn’t organise a fvck in a br0thel. This particular instance provides ample evidence of that.
Afghanistan is yet another example of the west protecting itself from communism, and in the process providing communists and religious fanatics the means by which to wage war on the west.
Had the west not pumped billions of dollars/pounds into enriching politicians and warlords, where would the country be now?
“Had the west not pumped billions of dollars/pounds into enriching politicians and warlords, where would the country be now?“
Probably where it always was before – poor, violent, quarrelsome, squabbled over by stronger neighbours and powers..But at least our tax money and the lives of our military would not be being squandered there, but elsewhere instead.
Afghanistan’s neighbours know better than to interfere there. It’s only pompous western countries (I include Russia), who make the mistake of setting foot in the country. The Afghans are tribal, fiercely independent, and have a long standing warrior tradition. The geography of the country is almost tailor made for guerrilla warfare. The Taliban might not be their rulers of choice but it’s clear a lot believe they’re better than any current alternative, hence the total capitulation of the Afghan military. There will now be a period of regional horse trading between local War Lords with their militias and the Taliban. Deals will be struck. Bribes, ransoms and blood monies will be paid. They are best left to their own devices.
The government may or may not be incompetent in many things, but they have managed to sell the Big Lie that covid was exceptional to enough of the people to get away with all the other nonsense they’ve done. They have also been competent enough to bully the MHRA into authorising all the vaccines, and to bully most of the population into getting jabbed, and they are now jabbing children and advocating vaccine passports when they know full well that they are useless and children don’t need to vaccine. They know exactly what they are doing. They have spent hundreds of billions to little effect – but there wasn’t meant to be any useful effect, just political theatre – which has been a roaring success.
The MHRA doesn’t need bullying – lots of links to Big Pharma there!
Yes, fair point!
You cannot hope to bribe or twist, thank God! the British
journalistregulationist. But, seeing what the man will do unbribed, there’s no occasion to.Humbert Wolfe, “Over the Fire”, inThe Uncelestial City(1930).TLAWL 2021 comments
“They have spent hundreds of billions to little effect”
They have transferred billions of taxpayer’s earnings to their chums.
Indeed, little useful effect in public health terms. But if your goal is self enrichment and grabbing power for yourself and your mates, they have been highly competent.
“Afghanistan is yet another example of the west protecting itself from communism”
Not as simple as that. Remember the ‘Great Game’ of the 19th century, when the country was a focus for conflict with Imperial Russia?
Then, prior to 9/11, the Taliban were engaged in turfing Russia out out of Afghanistan, backed by the West.
Then, the West became the hostile occupiers … an so it goes.
Very true. Afghanistan was seen as the ‘back door’ into India. Attempts were made to create a buffer zone. All ended in tears.
They could have organised a more orderly withdrawal, but the US government is run by ideologues who care little about anyone else but themselves:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/08/appalled-former-cia-analyst-blasts-joe-bidens-speech-sent-biden-plan-plan-evacuate-people-nobody-listened-video/?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=the-gateway-pundit&utm_campaign=dailyam&utm_content=daily
“I Was Appalled” – Former CIA Analyst Blasts Joe Biden’s Speech – ‘We Sent Biden Plan After Plan on How to Evacuate These People – NOBODY LISTENED!’
And the US hasn’t protected itself from communism, as that’s pretty much what the radical Left within the US government is imposing upon America.
I’m afraid Delingpole has lost the plot and Toby should stick to his excellent FSU work and Lockdown Sceptics. Hardly a mention of the people – especially but not only the Afghan women and girls – who have been let down by the west’s capitulation and failure to implement the withdrawal plan set out by Trump.
This isn’t some jolly public school jape.
How can the Western alliance be trusted in the future?
Anyone who trusted the “Western Alliance” was making a mistake. But I think we need to reassess what the “Western Alliance” is for and what it’s not for, and stick to achievable, useful actions.
The Afghans were in a position where they had to rely on the West. Therefore we had a responsibility to them. You can’t just write it off by saying they shouldn’t have trusted us in the first place, or shouldn’t trust us again. Don’t do Biden’s work for him.
Why did they need to rely on us? I suppose we invaded them. I’m not at all sure that we should have done. If anything, action should have been limited to destroying terror training camps. But we chose to stay and try to fix the country – a big mistake. But we can’t stay there forever, nor should we.
Not sure what this has to do with Biden. I can’t stand the man or his politics, but we should simply in general leave other countries alone barring very specific circumstances.
Exactly. We invaded them. Therefore we have a responsibility and a duty not to descend into expediency.
This is a kind of ethical “sunk costs fallacy” that results in the absurdity I described in my first post here -a wrongful war that it is wrongful to leave.
“I suppose we invaded them. I’m not at all sure that we should have done. If anything, action should have been limited to destroying terror training camps. ”
Probably the best thing would have been to do a deal with the Taliban in 2001:
U.S. Refusal of 2001 Taliban Offer Gave bin Laden a Free Pass
But the Bush regime was hurting politically after 9/11 and desperately needed to be seen to be “kicking some foreign butt” in revenge. They weren’t interested in deals.
An illegal war instigated by that devil spawn Bliar. He lied to Parliament, he lied to the British people. Our soldiers died for nothing, and he walks around free!
“The Afghans” here is like the commies talking about “the People” when they mean the part of the people that they like or find useful.
In case you didn’t notice, a lot of Afghans didn’t want “the West” to reorganise their society. A significant number of them were prepared to fight and die, against overwhelming force, to prevent it.
It’s nothing to do with Biden. Trump, like the majority of the US people, rightly wanted out of Afghanistan, and the Biden regime was right to follow through on that policy. The only issue with Biden’s involvement is that the senile old twit royally messed up the execution.
That is exactly the point – he messed up the execution. It has everything to do with Biden. I never supported intervention in Afghanistan in the first place, other than for the limited purpose of neutralising terrorist threats.
“It has everything to do with Biden. I never supported intervention in Afghanistan in the first place, other than for the limited purpose of neutralising terrorist threats.”
Ok, then I misunderstood your comment as defending ongoing intervention.
The time effort and money spent on training their army was a complete waste of resources. If they are not prepared to defend themselves against the Taliban, let them get on with it.
The “western alliance” should be seen for what it is – the US and its satellites.
People are always happy to talk in realist terms about other powers – the Soviet Union and its sphere, China and the countries it “influences”, and to analyse their actions in terms of the interests of those in power, but seem to cling to this infantile fantasy that our own side is fundamentally different, in terms of actions on the world stage. We aren’t, in this regard. We, and the US in particular, just have better PR (the US propaganda industry, starting with Hollywood, through the TV era and into the social media age, has always been exceptional, and a towering colossus bestriding the globe. It’s success has been in large part based on persuading so many that it is not a propaganda machine.) .
Yes, it is sold as being benign and democratic when it’s not, overly. In the case of Afghanistan, we seemed to lose sight of goals. Not sure why. Hard to see how staying there 20 years was in our interests, unless our interests are spending money on the military for its own sake.
You may we’ll be right, but I don’t think that it is infantile to hope that a group of nations sharing values of liberty, democracy, prosperity and individual rights would group together to support those who are suffering injustice in the world. I do not see these values as relative, they are fundamental. As soon as we see them as relative we might as well just condone anything that happens, then we will see what global instability really looks like.
“I don’t think that it is infantile to hope that a group of nations sharing values of liberty, democracy, prosperity and individual rights would group together to support those who are suffering injustice in the world.”
Clearly you are entitled to your opinion, but imo this is the interventionist fallacy.
The fallacy is that the urges you describe will drive military and other policy, when in reality they will be manipulated to ensure interventions serve the interests of the powerful. That’s what the powerful do.
“I do not see these values as relative, they are fundamental. As soon as we see them as relative we might as well just condone anything that happens.”
The need imo is to see them as fundamental, but also to concede that trying to impose them on other nations creates disaster, for them and for us. Go not abroad in search of dragons to slay.
It’s an international version of the leftist error in domestic policy – that in tying too hard to create Heaven on Earth, we are certain only to raise Hell.
“then we will see what global instability really looks like“
It might look like the Hell we created in Libya by destroying the unpleasant government that we hated, there, and leaving a bloody chaos dominated by islamist fanatics. (And no, it would not have been better if we had tried to “nation build” there. It would have been better if we had let Gaddafi restore order.)
I was not arguing for intervention. There are peaceful ways to encourage people not to impose suffering that do not involve standing by and shutting our eyes. I agree that military intervention tends to end in disaster often far worse than the situation that existed in the first place.
“I was not arguing for intervention. “
Then, again, I misunderstood your comment. In fairness to myself, given the context here, I think you should be a little more careful to caveat such comments.
“ There are peaceful ways to encourage people not to impose suffering that do not involve standing by and shutting our eyes.”
The best encouragement almost always is to set an example. In this case an example of prospering by minding your own business and running your society on the basis you described earlier. And maintaining strong defences, but not letting them be abused by the powerful in supposedly noble or “humanitarian” interventions.
Even if you could justify intervention in other countries’ of the kind that we’ve tried in various places, it has always failed.
“a group of nations sharing values of liberty, democracy, prosperity and individual rights “
The hope isn’t ‘infantile’, but most of the attempts are – simply self-interest hiding behind protestations of brotherhood.
… and where, in 2021, do you find a grouping that actually holds to those principles, when ‘The West’ is characterised by nations adopting the Taliban’s policy of enforcing face coverings?
How much do we know about Trump’s withdrawal plan, apart from the date? OffGuardian speculates that the American arms left behind at the airbase, the 5000 prisoners “accidentally” let free etc may actually have been parts of the agreement. https://off-guardian.org/2021/08/17/6-questions-we-need-to-ask-about-afghanistan/
Funny how the issue for some is still “how can we blame this on Trump”.
It doesn’t matter what Trump’s plan might have been. The Biden regime has been in office for months and has shown no reluctance to throw away Trump policies where it’s important to them – usually in areas of woke tomfoolery.
But t[‘;s pretty clear that while the Trump regime was a fairly typical US government, in competence terms, handicapped by obsessively dishonest, dogged political scorched earth resistance from well placed and funded elites, the Biden regime is spectacularly incompetent or corrupt, on a scale probably not seen since Carter (and that means more incompetent or corrupt than the Bush II regime- quite an achievement!) The fact that Biden himself is a senile figurehead strongly suggests the incompetence reaches very deep.
I don’t think it’s a case of “blaming” anything on Trump, it’s just that some of the otherwise puzzling things that have happened (which are not necessarily even “bad” things, except in the eyes of the Western media) may be easiest to explain as part of the withdrawal agreement. Trump did the right thing in ending a pointless war.
A long response to the short comments about Western Australia and secession.
When I arrived here thirty years ago I was told several times about WA’s referendum and unsuccessful attempt to secede from the Federation. Every telling was told with such vividness that I assumed it must have happened during fairly recently. Maybe during the 1970s, when eastern Australia was still more likely to concern itself with London or New York than Perth.
In fact the referendum was held in – wait for it – 1933. Some people can carry a chip on their shoulder until it grows into a plank.
Talk about secession in WA is like talk about Australia becoming a republic. It comes around every five years or so and then goes away. Sounds great, but with a population of a few million spread across an area about the same size as western Europe, and with thousands of miles of coastline to defend, an independent Western Australia is a happy daydream that is simply unworkable in reality.
As for bedwetters – it’s not so much fear as parochial pride. Premier Mark McGowan aka Chairman Mark aka Mask McClown is seen as standing tough against the eastern states with his hard border control. He’s exploiting long standing resentment against ‘the wise men from the east’ aka ‘t’othersiders’. Until the discovery of iron ore WA relied heavily on support from the other states; currently we can give them the two fingered salute. Big bucks are rolling in as we sell our high-grade ore to China. This situation will of course be perpetual and unchanging until China’s mining developments in Africa begin to deliver, at which time there will be the usual wailing and gnashing of teeth at this unforeseen injustice.
The comments about WA being a ‘bastion of freedom’ had me shaking my head in disbelief. McGowan loves nothing more than the drama of calling a lockdown. Does the same for him as a week’s worth of Viagra if Twitter can be believed. During a post-lockdown week earlier this year, when masks were mandatory, buses were stopping just outside the CBD so that police could hop aboard and check that no rebel commuters had lowered their shield.
Unfortunately Masky Mark won the March election with a colossal majority and we seem to be stuck with him for the next four years. Covid or no covid.
For anyone interested in the situation on the ground in Afghanistan, this is very good reportage – an interview of a CNN reporter in Kabul by Unherd. Sayers is a good interviewer, generally.
Clarissa Ward in Kabul: what the Taliban are really like
It’s not “what the Taliban are really like”, of course, but it is a snapshot of events recently and now in Afghanistan and in Kabul that gives useful insights.
US sphere mainstream media sources are in general not to be trusted on the subject of enemy organisations – you are getting a prejudiced and often outright dishonest view based on western assumptions, generally. But in this case, barring a few comments, this seems brief and urgent enough to be basically quite straightforwardly descriptive, mostly.
Ardern in NZ is after Desperate Dan’s title I think based on her recent lockdown of the whole country initially on the basis of one suspected case. She is losing the plot. Here’s an excellent video compilation showing her astonishing U turn regarding masks over the last year. She gives zero explanation. Please watch and share if you agree the hypocrisy is stunning.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/Gav0O0CHbwR9/