You’re right – reading this, I’m not quite sure what Alan’s position actually is on the issue. I still don’t think he was lying, though – perhaps he’s just wrong.

“It’s simply not possible to be that dumb. You’d have to think that he simply hasn’t got a clue that the UN exists or that wars of aggression are wrong. That means he’d have no idea why Saddam’s attack on Kuwait was suppose to be bad.”

There are some people on the Left – the ‘Euston Left’, as we’ve discussed before – in Britain who believe it is right to invade another country for the purposes of ‘humanitarian intervention’. (New) Labour MPs like Alan Keen are very likely to be in that group of people.

“I mean to try and folow him is like pretzel logic. Saddam’s bad because he goes to war and disobeys the UN but it’s fine for the UK to do both those things because…? Oh because we had a good reason like… oh right… we thought Saddam had weapons… like we have weapons… but his weapons weren’t anywhere near as bad…, but Saddam was bad because… he attacks people… like we do… only nowhere near as much…

We beleive in democracy and the rule of law… unless we don’t want to… we think the countries should work together… unless they disagree with us. Countries should obey the law… except us… we need a global police force to enforce the law… on other people only… we’re the global police force… so we don’t need to obey the law.

“It’s not as if he’s an American who’s been brainwashed. The UK had a big anti-war component and especially within the labor party. It’s not possible that he is unfamiliar with these arguments. He surely knows the issues.”

I guess he does now, but didn’t then (I’m sure MPs have a natural tendency to believe what the leader of their party is saying – again, this ignorance is not an excuse, but it is an explanation..).

“Racism is another solution because it would be an explanation for why he thinks its fine for the UK to break the rules but not nigger countries like Iraq. Maybe he sees the UN as a way to control all the darkies? At least that explanation makes some sense. The old White Man’s Burden.”

I very much doubt it’s racism. In the second part of the interview, for example, he talks about his experience of meeting Nelson Mandela – you can be sure he doesn’t think of him as a ‘darky’. I really do think, as unbelievable as it is, he was just being wrong. I put him on the spot (he wasn’t expecting me to ask such questions, I don’t think) and he obviously hadn’t got his thinking straight. You can tell with all the stumbling and hesitation. I don’t want to be in the position of trying to defend someone who voted us to an illegal war, but I can honestly tell you that, from our conversation, I really don’t think he was being racist or deceitful.

Either way, I’m voting Lib Dem or Green next election..

Beaman: Thanks!

Izzy: “I liked what he said about the world police, and that the UN needs to reform.”

I like the fact that he seems, in principle, for a world government in the first place, and that the UN needs reform. After all, currently we have Blair who simply dismisses the UN whenever it becomes inconvenient. However, he then went on to say that he thought a world police force would, if it existed, have chosen to invade Iraq. This is, as David points out, baffling.

“Did they honestly launch a war on Iraq based on presumptions, that Iraq would be democratized by now? What kind of excuse is this that they misread the Iraqi people? And if Blair mislead them, shouldn’t him and Bush be held accountable and trailed, because this war caused the death of a crazy amount of people! You would think a war would entice them to research a little about the schisms in religion that a dictator like Sadam barely held in check… they is so baffling to me, I could not reason with this part of the interview and I was not convinced with his excuse at all.”

I think fear is a very effective tool for getting people to stop thinking critically and to fall in line and obey. Blair employed that tool well, for example with the 45-minute claim. However, you are of course right – ignorance is no excuse, since all the information was out there.

“Oh Jamie, the inaudible part here almost drove me nuts…” I think the U.S. is so committed to maintaining Israel that they are unable to go back and..so it’s..until the U.S. says ‘look, we’ve got to have peace’…(inaudible)…I mean, it’s got to be a negotiated peace, obviously. It’s got to be by negotiations, and the US really has to accept that it’s…(inaudible)…probably the money that the politicians get there.. –“ can’t tells us the bits you missed out in your own words?”

I wish I could! I spent so long playing and rewinding those bits on the Dictaphone, trying to decipher what he was saying…I even slowed it down so he was speaking in slo-mo, but that didn’t help. Just sounded like one long moan.

“Lovely debate about the press…”

Yeah, although he didn’t get what I was driving at..either that or he simply disagreed. When he talks of a biased press, he’s talking about newspapers making up scandals about politicians. I, on the other hand, was talking about the structural bias of the mainstream media that ensures it acts essentially as a mere mouthpiece of corporate propaganda. In fact, it is in the interests of the establishment for the media to keep inventing and/or focusing on sex scandals and the like, because it diverts peoples’ attention from what’s really going on.

“As for BA, on a lighter note, seriously, the last time my chair was broken, it would tilt way backwards during take off… and they really should clean up the plane before they board a new flight…”

And they should show a decent film once in a while…!

As for BA, on a lighter note, seriously, the last time my chair was broken, it would tilt way backwards during take off… and they really should clean up the plane before they board a new flight…

That’s not a possible answer consistent with assuming he is not lying because if he beleives in a democratic system then he knows that you cannot just decide to break all the laws simply because you don’t like what the rest of the people said. That attitude is the exact opposite of democratic.

No, this interview just makes no sense whatsoever on this question (and some others but on the UN charter question it’s just totally incoherent).

Everyone has the responsibility to do their research before consenting to waging war on another country. Ignorance is therefore no excuse for Alan Keen voting for war. I do think, however, that that is the explanation. He said himself that he believed at the time that Saddam did pose a threat which is why he voted the way he did, and I believe him.

It’s simply not possible to be that dumb. You’d have to think that he simply hasn’t got a clue that the UN exists or that wars of aggression are wrong. That means he’d have no idea why Saddam’s attack on Kuwait was suppose to be bad.

I mean to try and folow him is like pretzel logic. Saddam’s bad because he goes to war and disobeys the UN but it’s fine for the UK to do both those things because…? Oh because we had a good reason like… oh right… we thought Saddam had weapons… like we have weapons… but his weapons weren’t anywhere near as bad…, but Saddam was bad because… he attacks people… like we do… only nowhere near as much…

We beleive in democracy and the rule of law… unless we don’t want to… we think the countries should work together… unless they disagree with us. Countries should obey the law… except us… we need a global police force to enforce the law… on other people only… we’re the global police force… so we don’t need to obey the law.

A six year old could think better.
I think he’s just got to be lying. If you can tie your own shoelaces and certainly if you can get elected… how can you not see how badly wrong that “logic” is?

It’s not as if he’s an American who’s been brainwashed. The UK had a big anti-war component and especially within the labor party. It’s not possible that he is unfamiliar with these arguments. He surely knows the issues. Unlike in the US the question of legality without a UN resolution was discussed at the highest levels. But for this guy it’s as if the entire issue simply doesn’t exist.

Racism is another solution because it would be an explanation for why he thinks its fine for the UK to break the rules but not nigger countries like Iraq. Maybe he sees the UN as a way to control all the darkies? At least that explanation makes some sense. The old White Man’s Burden.
————————

I don’t know. But I do think it’s important to find out.

“He claims to think their ought to be a democratic system a sort of “police force”, but he doesn’t recognise the existence of the UN charter which is that very force — the same charter that the UK breached.”

Right. He said something like, if there was an international police force, he thinks it would have invaded Iraq to get rid of Saddam Hussein. This seems an odd statement, because police forces are supposed to uphold the law, not break it.

“Does he really not know that the UK said “fuck you” to the very democratic process he pretends he supports? Does he not know that the UK is the world criminal side-kick not the world police?”

Perhaps he is writing off the current international democratic process (the U.N.) because he doesn’t think it is working. He said himself that the UN would need radical reform before getting anywhere near being a democratic, effective organisation. Of course, I disagree with this completely – yes, the UN is flawed, and we should certainly do our best to improve it. We should most definitely not go around undermining and ignoring it.

“He goes on about the 45 minutes claim as if it made any difference at all to anything.”

Well, I think it did make a difference. Both Bush and Blair managed to get support for the war because they convinced the public and its elected representatives that Saddam truly did pose a threat to national security. They did this by deceiving people about his WMD capability – in Britain, partly by using the 45-minute claim. I think what Alan Keen said is interesting because it illustrates exactly how crucial that claim – that false claim – was for gathering support for the war.

“Some questions that come to mind to ask him”

Those questions (the one’s above this quotation) are certainly important ones, and I wish I had pressed him more on the topic.

“He’s completely incoherent. And I wonder if it is from stupidity or racism or because he’s lying or what is it?”

Well, I’m not a mind-reader and I can’t see into his head, but I think I’m pretty good at reading people. He seemed like a really nice man, who cares about people. I know this seems impossible to reconcile with his voting record on Iraq, but that’s my impression. He’s certainly not racist and I’m sure he wasn’t lying (after all, he was very candid about everything, even on sensitive topics like corporate influence on government).

Everyone has the responsibility to do their research before consenting to waging war on another country. Ignorance is therefore no excuse for Alan Keen voting for war. I do think, however, that that is the explanation. He said himself that he believed at the time that Saddam did pose a threat which is why he voted the way he did, and I believe him. That, as I say, is no excuse – there was plenty of evidence contradicting such a view available at the time – but it is an explanation.

What I find interesting is that Alan accepts that Blair decieved the country into going to war, and yet he still serves as a Labour MP under Tony Blair. A similar thing occurs with the general public: even though most people believe Tony Blair lied us into war, Labour (under the leadership of Blair’s Chancellor) is still likely to win the next elections. Trust in politics and politicians was already so low that the scandal of Blair lying the country into war is treated as if its nothing exceptional, just the average run-of-the-mill political scandal. That, I think, speaks volumes about the current state of British democracy.

He claims to think their ought to be a democratic system a sort of “police force”, but he doesn’t recognise the existence of the UN charter which is that very force — the same charter that the UK breached. He doesn’t appear to have a clue what he is talking about, but he could be lying. Is he really just that dumb? Does he really not know that the UK said “fuck you” to the very democratic process he pretends he supports? Does he not know that the UK is the world criminal side-kick not the world police?

He goes on about the 45 minutes claim as if it made any difference at all to anything. Some questions that come to mind to ask him:

Do you beleive that the UK had the right to violate the UN charter and decide to wage a war of aggression against Iraq on the basis of claiming to have some sort of evidence that Saddam was some sort of bad guy? If so on what basis? Do you just think might makes right?

Do you think the fact that the US and UK have definately got such weapons means other countries should be bombing us, or would be completely justified in bombing us? Or would be acting legally if they chose to bomb us? if not, what’s the difference?

Do you think when they UK makes a solemn promise to 191 other countries to not go to war or use war to solve problems — that we should keep our promise? If there was a world “police force” do you think that it ought to punish countries like the UK that breach the UN charter so badly?

He’s completely incoherent. And I wonder if it is from stupidity or racism or because he’s lying or what is it?

>

Something like the UN Charter you mean? So you think Saddam Hussein was right to ignore it when he attacked Kuwait? How would you re-write the UN charter so it was of a form where you would find abiding by that treaty acceptable? And do you think if you did re-write it that you would expect signatories to keep their promises or would you expect them to treat it with the contempt you do the current treaty?