Three years on!
Posted by Christine Bampton-Smith
Monday, March 20, 2006
The third anniversary of New Labour's disasterous war with Iraq has just passed. Is there anyone left who thinks the government is doing a good job?
Posted by Rev Tony Buglass
Monday, March 20, 2006
Iraq is a mess. To be fair, it was going to be a mess whether there was a war or not. However, it does illustrate the fact that war never actually solves a problem: it simply replaces it with a set of different problems.
Having said that, just as food for thought - if Chamberlain had dealt with Hitler in the same way in 1938 or even 1936, how different would European history have been?
Posted by Pat McCarthy
Monday, March 20, 2006
Tony, had we gone to war against Hitler in 1936 or 1938, we'd have probably lost. We needed time to rearm. Hitler posed an immediate and terrible threat to our neighbours and allies in Europe. The only reason we have gone to war against Iraq is because of oil not principles. Many of us on the left were saying thoughout the 80s that Sadam Hussein was a tyrant and a monster. But the UK and US were more interested in selling him arms and buying his oil. If there was any case for taking military action against Iraq we should have done this together with the rest of the world community; not to supports 21st century US imperialism.
Posted by Rev Tony Buglass
Monday, March 20, 2006
What you've just quoted, Pat, is the common received wisdom - Munich gained us time to rearm so we could fight with a chance of winning. I'm not so sure. What is not generally known is that when the Germans marched into the Rhineland in 1936, they had orders to turn around if the French raised so much as a query. Hitler was so afraid of war at that point. Their (our) eagerness to avoid conflict at any cost gave him the courage to take Czechoslovakia - if we had stood with the Czechs, true we would have had a few squadrons of Hurricanes and no Spitfires yet, but we would have had the whole of the Czech army and air force, which were almost as modern as Germany's and certainly as modern as France's, and quite large. Perhaps if we'd stood up to him earlier, WW2 might have been avoided, and with it the consequences of Iron Curtain and Cold War, to say nothing of the Final Solution.
OK, I know, hindsight is a wonderful thing, and for better or worse we are where we are. I have more than a suspicion that part of the reason for tackling Saddam when we did was because of past experiences of appeasement. Only part - I think a bigger bit was that George Dubya wanted to tidy up his Daddy's unfinished business.
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