There are certain things that seem to me to be essential if we are to live in a liberal democracy.
One, of course, is a democratic process intended to deliver representative government.
Another is the rule of law, accessible to all.
A third is mutual respect. In practical terms, that comes down to upholding human rights.
A fourth is accountability for all, whoever they are.
A fifth is the extension of these objectives beyond the boundaries of the state.
Trump seems to have violated the second to fifth of these with his murder (for that is what it was) of Qassem Suleimani.
I am not discussing the rights or wrongs of Suleimani's actions.
I am saying that killing him in the way in which it as done was not just a common and war crime; it was also an act that, coming from a president undermined the whole philosophy that his office and the state that he represents supposedly stands for.
There is no doubt that US capitalism has run out of ideas and so purpose. But the evidence is that the US politics it has driven and funded has done so as well. The result is an existential threat to liberal democracy.
I condemn the killing.
The immediate consequences worry me. But so too do those for our society. How can we have reached the point where this is tolerated as if we'd learned nothing at all about how we need to cooperate to live together on an ever more vulnerable planet?
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If a member of the Security Council decides it is not bound by international law, then we should not be surprised if other states or non-state actors decide to do likewise.
Ian Robert Stevenson says:
“If a member of the Security Council decides it is not bound by international law,…..”
…..it has no reasonable claim to included in the Security Council. The US is a rogue state. Has been for a while now.
Unfortunately the UK siding with the devil here and Brexit means we will not be able to afford to do otherwise.
The world of media and politics have lost their minds. Suleimani is dead, murdered by US technology while ahem working abroad if you can call it work, could have been justly or unjustly, I’m not sure. But the guy is famous, a minor celebrity in his home country, and close to the Iranian President.
Is there similar mention of the other soldiers killed in the same attack? They had families who now have no father. Was there similar concern or alarm for those murdered in drone strikes last month, or all of last year, or when President Obama was giving the orders. Some, but not much.
So what’s different in this case, it’s just one more man who was a military target murdered. The difference is that Suleimani was famous and Iran is threatening retaliation.
Celebrity culture has infected the media, politics, and now the blogosphere.
Tremayne Davis says:
“So what’s different in this case, it’s just one more man who was a military target murdered……”
The US claims that this ‘target’ was a terrorist. The ‘War on Terror’ is a nonsense and always was. This assassination of a ‘military target’ is an act of open warfare.
The US did this because they can. That totally ignores all the rules of international behaviour and to suggest it is in any way a matter of celebrity culture is a bit thin I suggest. It’s also not new. Nelson’s Column in the Heart of our capital suggests that military celebrity has been with us for a while. If all of Nelson’s dead fighting sailors had a column Trafalgar square would be a plateau.
Richard,
I agree entirely with your post. I would also argue that the first essential requirement for liberal democracy has largely been lost in the US and most of the rest of the “western democracies”. The subordination of the media and the inability of candidates not backed by huge wealth or party machines to even gain the smallest foothold on power, now leaves us in what are essentially oligarchies by another name.
You’re right. Execution without trial to the drivers and security people too was murder. Cameron did similar to a British subject claiming threat to security as his easel word defence. We should never have got to this absence of a moral compass where anti-terrorism laws have encouraged the brutal mindset in many countries.
There is a long history of extra-judicial killing by governments. This not the first or last, unfortunately, when certain powers, like the USA and the UK consider themselves to be above international law. These illegal acts are frequently applauded in the west by the usual suspects as ethical, bolstering democracy and saving lives. I think that 75% of the world’s population probably disagrees. It also makes further violence likely and makes our claim to be the “good guys with a drone” utterly hypocritical.
Graham says:
“There is a long history of extra-judicial killing by governments. ”
In a very real sense warfare is inherently the legitimisation of ‘extra-judicial killing by governments’. The ancient ‘chivalric code’ and its more recent relative the Geneva Convention have never been enforceable and are more notable in their breach than in their observance.
The bogus ‘War on Terror’ was a shallow set of skirts for the US government to hide behind. So far with the intensive backing of media propaganda it has proved very effective. It is never difficult for media to find highly supportive voices for their approving vox pop’s from belligerent non-combatants.
One really infuriating aspect of this is that Obama and other leaders established a workable peace agreement with Iran in 2015 and Trump abandoned it to spite Obama (FFS) and now its come to this – on the basis of that reason?
Its hard to find words to (printable) words to describe that.
https://www.axios.com/trump-abandoned-iran-nuclear-deal-to-spite-obama-uk-leak-claims-eecb02c0-1db6-4bd4-8de1-1ef98791c8d8.html
https://apnews.com/7894d6dc1d1c4a3b9747558553ddcdbf
I think unprintable ones can be imagined
Trump wanted this….
I was a literary festival and attended a talk by Jack Straw on his book about Iran. he said he agreed with people who said Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal because it was signed by Obama.
…… and now Trump is threatening to attack cultural sites in Iran which is a War Crime, or at least it was it was when ISIS were destroying cultural sites in Syria and Iraq. Have the rules changed now that the USA are the perpetrators.
SteveH says:
” Have the rules changed now that the USA are the perpetrators.”
Yes. Naturally the rules have changed. That is what exceptionalism is all about.
Craig Murray has an excellent analysis where he explains the Bethlehem doctrine of “imminent”.
I read this. I can take or leave people’s opinions. It’s the facts on which they are based which is important. Sometimes I am not sure about Murray’s facts.
However, i do find him interesting.
It’s coming up to an election year……. I’m the great defender of the USA, world stability, ……..
BTW Richard, presume you’ll not be applying for a post in Whitehall…?
I promise you, I am not applying for a post in Whitehall….
Oh Guid…….
“….I am not applying for a post in Whitehall….”
Not weird enough I guess…. 🙂
But you’d be standout-weird in the toxic mix of specialists Mr Cummings is seeking.
Seriously it is worrying that he’s after the ‘hard’ scientists with apparently no respect of social sciences. That’s a mindset I distrust. Where is the moral compass of social purpose to come from ?
Cummings’ “hard scientist” bullshit is a piece of classic self-delusion born straight out of his Brexit referendum scams.
The Leave campaign’s “successful” use of data and computers to identify susceptible propaganda targets (Cambridge Analytica style) was Cummings pea-brained version of a grand epiphany. It allegedly proved that traditional campaigning, based on social sciences, was obsolete and that dodgy micro-marketing was the future of politics.
We know this because he trumpeted the idea loud and clear on his blog. The fact that this notion only covers one narrow aspect of politics doesn’t occur to Dominic no matter how much you tell him. The inherent legal and ethical problems don’t seem to bother him much either.
For many he may have the image of a great svengali but the closer you look at Cummings the more you get to realise that he is a vacuous, one-trick pony with the intellect of an irritated blowfly. He thinks that politics is all about marketing and his world of one-inch thoughts is in constant search of single-purpose formulae (regardless of wider outcomes). To that end it is reminiscent of the initially successful but inevitably disastrous mentalities that gave us Long Term Capital Management, Northern Rock, Bernie Madoff and the GFC generally. He is the political equivalent.
Which why I’m kind of glad that he’s got the job that he has. To his credit he has evolved to a point where he recognises his shortcomings (pun intended) but don’t be fooled by that. Its marketing. Deep down he thinks that he is truly brilliant and he won’t take contradiction.
Dave Penman of the FDA union said:
“It would be ironic if, in an attempt to bring in radical new thinking, Cummings was to surround himself with like-minded individuals — recruited for what they believe, not what they can do — and less able to provide the robust advice a minister may need, rather than simply the advice they want.”
You can bet on that happening.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/dominic-cummings-weirdos-job-civil-service-boris-johnson-brexit-government-a9268371.html
@Marco Fante :
Thankyou, Marco. That articulates some of what I find ‘instinctively’ worrying.
It has the makings of a team to hatch a final solution. I wonder what problem they will be seeking the final solution to. ?
A final solution to democracy in the UK (or what remains of it).
Given the mixed blessing of their incompetence in any realm outside of propaganda and PR they will probably end up losing the UK while the democracy somehow survives.
Richard, You state correctly IMO that among the essentials if we are to live in a liberal democracy is ‘is a democratic process intended to deliver representative government.’
Before we all launch into an extensive soul searching and blame gaming concerning Labours election defeat to what extent if any has that democratic process failed?
My concerns are principally over two issues. Firstly, over the past four general elections, the postal votes rose by fairly small increases from approximately 15% of all votes cast in 2010 to around 18% in 2017. In the latest 2019, the postal votes jumped to an amazing 38% of all the votes cast. I don’t recall any national campaign that would account for this large increase.
Both Laura Kuensberg and Domonic Raab stated on polling day that the postal vote situation looked good for the Tories. It is a criminal offence for anyone to obtain this information in advance of the official count.
Are any postal votes subject to mechanical or automatic verification and if so is a third party involved?
Secondly, new voter registrations were approximately 3.1Million in the few weeks preceding the 12th of December. I would expect that the majority of these new registrations were for young people. The young voted overwhelmingly for Labour.
There may be perfectly good explanations for the concerns raised, but the democratic process should be subject to verification and audit. None of its processes should be oblique.
Unfortunately, the company involved cannot be contacted to answer questions directly; it dissolved three days after the election.
The fact that the MSM and all the usual broadcasting suspects are silent on these concerns may indicate that suspicions of electoral fraud on an industrial scale may be well-founded.
Where did you get that postal vote data from?
It is very bizarre…..
Richard, I am trying to verify; so until I can locate a reliable source I must withdraw that statistic.
It is staggeringly big…
Agree completely
Of course this was a multiple murder – as well as a crime against peace and a flagrant abuse of the supposed rules of international law and order. The world has been headed in this direction with increasing celerity and contemptuous abandonment of the hard-won legal limitations on the state sponsored use of lethal force for many years. Every reader here will have their own sense of turning points perhaps from Iraq on but, for me, especially since the air campaigns of bombing and missile attacks on Serbia, which Alex Salmond so memorably condemned as “an act of unpardonable folly”. Little good has followed and much that is evil – for what else should we call the premeditated killing of whomever has displeased the owners of unsanctionable lethal power?
George Kerevan’s piece in today’s National is worth a look on this. https://www.thenational.scot/news/18139090.political-murder-one-product-americas-psychotic-culture/
On a totally different (but maybe not?) matter…. if your continued blogging, maintained in the current discursive form, needs financial support – on the volutnarty contribution model – I’d think a suggested ‘norm’ of £5 a month entirely reasonable. Just let us all know.
I am looking at platforms…
This is surprisingly comlicated
Thanks
Should have thought of that myself – THANK YOU Nigel….
If you need financial support to continue Richard … all you have to do is say so…. You would be missed…!
I may/do not contribute much but, facebook permitting – which it currently isn’t! until 01/02, you are spread far and wide (inc Europe & all indy groups wherever world-wide)
Thanks