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Dizzy Double Thinks: On the Saudi Dictatorship
I don't think Vincent Cable is proposing military action to topple the regime in Saudi. Apart from that Dizzy - blogging geekily hands free from the M25 - has a cracking analogy going with Iraq. He's certainly caught the two-faced Liberal Democrat curmudgeon out good and proper. Apart from that one thing.
No doubt Dizzy will apologise in person when they meet up at The Saudi Embassy - near Green Park tube - on Wednesday 31 October. From 18:00 - 20:00h. I don't see any neocons or Tories on the platform. Not sure if there are any Libdems. Possibly Peter Tatchell, or is he now Green again?
Facebook Group. And there's a John McDonnell EDM here.
Following Dizzy's blessing this motion can now expect a flood of signatures from freedom loving Tories?
12 comments:
Sorry Chris, where is my doublethink on this? In fact, reading the EDM and the Facebook Group it looks to me like the exactly the same bizarre argument being played out. The protest is against the Saudis yet is supported by quite a large number of people who opposed the overthrow of an even worse dictator in Iraq and chose to ignore his fascism when it was convenient to do so.
P.S. You don't seem to have understood my analogy with Iraq. The point was that Cable, and in fact the likes of McDonnell, on the one hand cry moral outrage over Saudi because Saudi is a dictatorship, and yet, when it came to Iraq they ignored the same moral outrage and in fact said they were happy for the population of Iraq to remain under a tyrant's control - most notable citing law as their reasoning suggesting that their morality on such matter sis entirely fluid, as to I imagine yours is somehow.
I think you're obviously wrong here Dizzy. Neither Cable nor McDonnell is calling for invasion or bombing or Saudi Arabia. They are calling for the most simple of distance to be put between the UK government and the Saudi government; they are not happy about state visits; they are not happy about arms sales to and other trade with this dictatorship. And neither Cable nor McDonnell called for Saddam to be sainted. You're thinking of Galloway.
"I think you're obviously wrong here Dizzy. Neither Cable nor McDonnell is calling for invasion or bombing or Saudi Arabia."
Well if I had said that they were I would be, but I didn't say that, you said I said it. This is a common thing that happens on blog and forum. It's called a straw man argument where you say someone said the opposite of what they did in order to destroy the argument that was made but make it look like you have. Try harder.
The point I am making is that you and others that marched against the Iraq War totally turned your back on the population of Iraq that had been living under a totalitarian regime for over thirty years. It was morally disgusting and entirely nihilistic and complete betrayal of the Left wing principles you so proudly claim to wear on your arm. You are now protesting against the dictatorship of Saudi Arabia, but here's a question, if the West was planning to bomb them what would you be doing? I bet you would turn your back on the Saudi people and say that bringing down the dictatorship by force was wrong. That was the point I was making in relation to Cable et al. Your foundation of your morals are little more than diarrheoa.
Ridiculous Dizzy, and disgusting.
I cannot speak for Mr Cable or indeed for many in the Labour Party and likely at least some in the Tory Party who aren't happy with this state visit. But I can speak for myself:
I would not support bombing Saudi anymore than I did bombing Iraq.
I would not endorse the Saud's for their beneficent governance any more than I would Saddam for his.
Regime change by reform or otherwise would obviously be a good thing in this case. I'll take reform.
I understand the way of the world, UK's need for allies, UK's need for energy security and so on.
I do not however either see the need for or the desirability of feting these people with a state visit or specifically accepting an invitation to banquet with them.
I do not see any great benefit in selling them military equipment such as Eurofighters either.
This is not having morals founded on little more than diarrheoa.
Are you actually proposing an attack on Saudi Arabia having been happy enough with attacking Iraq?
No you are not. But logically you seem to provide the foundation for supporting that if it happened.
Calling me ridiculous and disgusting when you have just done exactly what I predicted you would makes you look ridiculous and disgusting Chris, not me.
You say that you denounce the disgusting nature of the Saudi regime (or any regime) because you care about the oppressed masses and despise dictatorship. Yet you do not care for the oppressed masses enough to bring about their freedom by force if it were necessary and would instead sit on your hands and not act against totalitarianism and fascism. I'm sure they're really glad you're on their side Chris - well on their side until it might be us that tries to save them from fascism and then it becomes us that is wrong instead.
And to think I thought you were a man of principle, not a moral relativist that's happy to denounce those that wish to uphold the values you claim to believe in when it really comes down to it. I strongly suggest that you leave the Labour party and go and join the other Left wing traitors in the SWP - sorry, RESPECT.
Are you actually proposing an attack on Saudi Arabia having been happy enough with attacking Iraq?
Chris, I'm not proposing anything. You keep throwing these straw men up. I am merely pointing out that you're position, Vince Cable's, McDonnell's etc betray the very principles and values you claim to believe in and many of the people you've aligned yourself with in your protest would happily cut your head off and spit down your neck at the first opportunity. But it's a free country and it's your choice.
Thanks for proving my point about Saudi though. It's good to know that you care about Saudi civilians being free from torture so much that you won't actually do anything about it and were Britain to decide too, you would actively oppose it and would effectively condemn those Saudi civilians to living in hell for a while longer.
Note Above two posts that were deleted were the same as these two but with horrible typos.
Horrible typos! That would have been unbearable my friend.
I didn't support war on Iraq not because I liked Saddam or because I like fascist dictators. Obviously I do not like Saddam or fascist dictators. Don't tell LAtW this will you but I'd have been very happy to have sniped the bastard myself given the opportunity. (I may be joking, who knows?)
My position was I think principled and thought through and was because of lack of WMDs, lack of threat to UK interests, likely brunt of modern war on innocents, lack of forward planning, lack of contribution to war aim of reducing terror threat, no faith in might makes right meme, unpersuaded re energy security as he would sell us what we wanted, regional instability issues, lives of our troops, Bush is clearly a maniac on a revenge mission for daddy etc etc
Where this started was your pounding of Cable for being agin a state visit yet against a war on Iraq.
I do not see this as a problematic combination. You do. I still don't really see why.
Extending this conversation to talk manically of moral diarrheoa or whatever it was seems rather disproportionate. Calling me hurtful trot names seems a bit silly too.
Probably the way you have extended the charges against me to being an islamofascist myself (or whatever it is) is more silly than my treating your posts as a declaration of war by Tories on the House of Saud.
But it is admittedly a close run thing as your man C Wellesley once said in the heat of battle.
Dizzy - just leave it. He's not worth it!
If Dizzt wants to be constant can we have him condeming the fraudulent claims on travel costs by leading members of the Tories, or shall we hear a defening silence on this ?
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