Thursday, March 04, 2004

Sentinel of Liberty

"Deserve to die? I daresay he does."

1

I do not believe in the Marvel Comics view of morality. If Captain America had socked Hitler on the jaw, it would have made no difference. It would be nice to think that Nazism was the fault of one super villain, but it wasn't.

A school teacher who boasts that he never raises a hand to a child but sends brats to the headmaster to be thumped is no different from one that administers clips round the ear with his own chalk stained hands.
A headmaster who says truthfully that this hurts me far more than it hurts you is no different from a sadistic flogger.
Albert Pierrpoint claimed to oppose the death penalty, but not to be morally responsible for all the trap doors he sprung, because they would have been sprung anyway, by someone else. He was a hypocritical mass-murderer. (The judges, lawyers, editors and voters who allowed him to continue his trade were more or less sincere accessories to mass murder.)

Shit happens.
Shit is going to carry on happening whoever is prime minister, and who ever is president. Shit is going to carry on happening regardless of how many super villains we defeat.
However good the health service becomes, people will carry on getting sick and dying.
However efficient the police become, houses will carry on getting burgled, and innocents will carry on getting murdered.
 However draconian our prison system becomes, crimes will still carry on being committed.
However enlightened our social workers become, crimes will carry on being committed.
However strong our army becomes, and however clever our foreign policy becomes, there will still be tyrants and unjust regimes.
Sickness, death, robbery, murder, tyranicalism and injustice are not the aberrant results of the machinations of a small number of super-villains. They are just the way things are.
Anyone who tells you differently should be laughed at loudly, or tarred and feathered, according to taste.

This doesn't mean that we couldn't be doing a lot better than we are at the moment, of course.

2

When people use the term 'evil', I do not understand what they mean.
Is it being used in an analytic sense: 'Murderers are evil because 'evil' is the word we use to describe people who have committed murder'? But then 'He[1] is evil' means no more than 'He is a murderer.'
Is it being used as an explanatory sense? 'Why did he kill the child? Because he was evil.'? But this means no more than 'He killed the child because he was the sort of person who kills children.'
Is it being used to propose a solution? But if we don't already believe that evil people should be killed, then 'He should be killed because he is evil' says no more than 'He should be killed because he is a murderer.'
Is 'He is evil' a riposte to people who think that criminals can reform or be rehabilitated? But why say 'He is evil?' instead of 'He is incapable of reform.'?
Does 'evil' mean 'One who enjoys hurting others'? Then why not say 'sadist'?
Does 'evil' means 'One who acts without conscience or remorse'? Then why not just say 'psychopath'?
It might mean 'One who is pre-destined to go to Hell', I suppose, but the people who use the term are not Calvinists.
It might mean 'One who is possessed by Satan', I suppose, but the people who use the term are not pentecostalists.
It might mean 'he is genetically programmed to behave badly' or 'he is psychologically damaged and cannot chose but behave badly'; but the term is not widely used by geneticists or psychologists.

Tolkien said that the opposite of goodness would not be 'evil', but non-existence.
The Bible mainly uses the term descriptively, as 'He did evil in the eyes of the LORD' or 'Anyone who does evil deeds hates the pure light and will not come to the light'. It is more interested in 'sin', a technical term understood to mean 'a flaw in our nature caused by our separation from the Ground of Our Being, which inclines us to do bad things.' Sin, by definition, is not something which infects a few super villains, but something which we all suffer from.[2]

A man who invites two children into his house and kills them in the bathroom has done wrong.
A man who invites dozens of children into his mansion and touches them 'in ways which don't seem right or feel good' has done wrong.
A man who, under orders from a democratically appointed leader, drops a bomb which destroys a school, a village or an entire city, has done wrong.
A man who, because of his fanatical devotion to a cause, explodes a bomb which destroys a hotel, a plane or a shopping center, has done wrong.
A man who, as part of his business sells land-mines and torture implements which he knows will be used to kill civilians, including children, has done wrong.
There are different kinds and degrees of wrongdoing. The warrior has caused more grief than the murderer. The terrorist believes that he acts for a higher cause. The soldier is obeying orders. The murderer may be mentally ill, or not fully understand that what he is doing is wrong. The molester may not be able to help himself, or may sincerely believe that his victims enjoy what he is doing to them. The arms dealer acts in cold blood, with no higher cause apart from his shareholders wallets, and knows perfectly well what he is doing.
I wouldn't let any of them baby-sit my kids. Or feed my sea-monkeys, come to that.

3

If Harold Shipman had been executed by the state, this would have been a good thing since it would have provided closure for the families of his victims. But if he were to commit suicide while under a life sentence, this would be a bad thing because it robs the families of his victims of the chance of knowing how they died.
I trust this is clear.

4

Punishment is sexy. If it wasn't, there wouldn't be nightclubs called 'Spank' and the York Dungeon would go out of business.
There is nothing particularly wrong with this.
However, fetish clubs and Dirty Harry movies are not a particularly useful template for international diplomacy or social policy.

When a nasty crime happens, we feel outrage. Very often we express this outrage by imagining ourselves inflicting pain on the person who committed it.
There is nothing particularly wrong with this.
However, when we start to say that because we feel like hurting the murderer, we ought to be allowed to really hurt the murderer, we are making a category mistake. 'I feel like whipping that criminal' should not lead us to think 'Criminals should be whipped' any more than 'Windows 2000 is a bastard' should lead us to check its birth certificate.

We often link the degree of outrage which we feel to the amount of torture which we can imagine inflicting. We are inclined to express the badness of the crime in terms of the severity of the punishment. 'How bad is this crime? Oh, it's hanging, drawing and quartering bad.'
The more value we attach to a person, or the more love we feel for them, the more outraged we are inclined to feel when they are harmed. By a circumlocution, we express the value of the victim in terms of the amount of cruelty we can imagine inflicting on the person who harmed them. 'How valuable was that little girl?' 'She was burning at the stake valuable.'
There is nothing particularly wrong with any of this.
However, anyone who argues that if you don't think that murderers really should be tortured then you don't think that little girls are really valuable is making a logical error; at the same level as the priest who didn't like sex because he thought it might lead to dancing.

It is natural for superstitious peasants to punish the flower-pot which fell on the king's head; or for Basil Fawlty to want to thrash his car. But it isn't sensible to actually do it; or to create fantasy worlds in which actually doing it will make some kind of difference.

5

I can imagine what it would be like to be a super-villain, surrounded by powerful yes-men.
If I were in such a position, I can imagine that I might be tempted to do bad things. I might acquiesce in the assassination, first of political opponents, then of people who speak against me, finally of anyone I didn't like the look of.
(Please, Mr. Red Skull: Eric Spratling called your column 'stupid' and then changed it to 'foolish'. And he's a conservative, a class traitor. Would you like him to meet with an unfortunate deliberate? I could arrange it. Just say the word, boss. Just say the word.)
 I cannot imagine what it would be like to be a private citizen who gives his child a toy noose and takes him to stand outside a courthouse or a prison. Such people are alien beings who I happen to share a planet with. I can no more imagine their minds than I can imagine the mind of a bat or a spider or a one-year-old baby.
I find myself, therefore, more able to sympathize with the captive monster than with the crowds calling for his dismemberment. I found myself hoping that it would turn out that Huntley really was the victim of an horrific accident, not because I really thought he was, but because I wanted to deprive the multitude of its entertainment.

6

A theory:
What differentiates liberals from conservatives is the degree to which they believe that other human beings have minds which are the centers of their own universes; the degree to which they believe that other human beings have subjective experiences and an internal mental life.
The liberal believes that nearly everybody is a human being in their own right, and therefore, that almost nobody should be killed or tortured. The conservative believes that some people are not human beings and that it doesn't really matter what you do to them.

At the extreme end of the liberal spectrum are people who believes that everyone—yes, even people serving life sentences, yes, even people under sentence of death, yes, even war criminals, yes even her—have minds and personalities of their own. They believe that a comprehensible series of steps brought them to a place where they did terrible things, and that there is a possible route back for them.
At the extreme end of the conservative spectrum are people who believe that large numbers of human beings don't really have personalities or feelings. Death-penalty enthusiasts perceive condemned criminals as objects to which things can be done which benefit society. ('We have to have capital punishment. How else can we get rid of the trash?') Some white supremacists cite quasi-theological or quasi-Darwinian evidence that black men don't have souls or rational minds[3]. The climactic moment of the post-Soham sacrifice narrative was when Carr announced to the court that Huntley was not a person, but athing. (It is practically certain that Huntley told himself the same lie about the two little girls he killed.) It is not hard to end up writing off whole categories: foreign soldiers, communists, pedophiles, Jews, asylum seekers, ramblers, tenants.
It is possible to fall of the end of liberalism and start attributing human feelings to things which are not really human at all: animals and even plants. You start to imagine that the welfare of foxes is the great, burning issue of the day. You watch live sheep being loaded on lorries for slaughter and claim to feel as you would if you were watching Jews being taken to concentration camps.
It is equally possible to fall of the end of conservatism, and doubt the humanity of almost everybody. The perfect 'fascist' and the perfect 'fundamentalist' seeks to deny even his own humanity. I do not exist, only the party exists. Jesus wants me for a zombie. There is no love but the love of Big Tony.

It is impossible to call for the death or torture of another person if you can imagine what it is like to be that person. Most torturers have not themselves been tortured; hardly any executioners have themselves been executed.
Evil is a word which we use to stop ourselves from feeling empathy towards people we intend to kill.

7

Execution enthusiasts used to say: 'We have to hang murderers in order to deter crime. If we abolished hanging half the physicians in the country would be bumping off old ladies. '
When this turned out not to be true, they said 'Did I say deterrence? No, sorry, what I meant was, we have to kill murderers because they are psychologically damaged and can't possibly be reformed or cured. And even if they aren't, we need to do something drastic to express the idea that murder is a very bad idea. And even if we don't, it's cheaper to hang murderers than to keep them in gaol for life, which is the only alternative. And if it isn't, then watching someone being asphyxiated is a good form of therapy for the families of murder victims.' (Other bereaved persons, sadly, have to make do with a bunch of flowers and a plate of cucumber sandwiches.)
In the end they gave up, and said 'We don't support hanging because we think it will do some good. We support hanging because we think that it is a good thing in itself. Bad people have to be executed. They just do.'

Execution is a modern, secular form of human sacrifice.
Most people will not experience their own deaths. They will be senile, or sick, or snuffed out unexpectedly by a heart attack or a drunken driver. Therefore, we have a deep desire to witness the exact moment of someone else's death. It's a sort of rehearsal. (Hence, all those death-bed scenes in bad Victorian novels. Hence Greek tragedy. Hence Princess Diana. Hence the centrality of the Crucifixion in Western culture. Even secular western culture. Hi, Mel.)
A sacrificial victim knows precisely when and how he is going to be killed, and has weeks or months to prepare for it. With or without the help of drugs, he goes calmly, even willingly; saying goodbye to his friends and family, making peace with God or the gods.
Many people plan their own funeral: a sacrificial victim is the only person who actually gets to attend it. This is why we somewhat envy them. The deaths of Iphigenia or Socrates or Timothy McVeigh represent exactly the kind of deaths we would like to die—although we would much rather not die at all, so we'll let them do it for us, if you don't mind.

Conservatives want an all-powerful state to make them feel more secure. There is no more powerful thing which the state can do than decide the moment and manner of someone's death. So conservatives feel safer in a state which occasionally sacrifices its citizens. It’s the ultimate symbol that Nanny is in charge.
And of course human sacrifice is thrilling and dramatic, like a boxing match or horror movie, or that frisson of nervous laughter which went round Assembly when the headmaster said that someone other than you was going to get slapped.
If the execution lobby were completely honest, I think that it would say, 'We do not specifically desire the execution of murderers. We just want they're to be executions, and murderers provide a convenient candidate. Jews, blacks, witches, Christians and volunteer sacrificial victims would do the job just as well.'

8

It once seemed as if society was weaning itself off punishment. It seemed as we had given up on the idea that cold bloodedly killing and hurting people was part of the role of the state. It was a gradual process, of course. The last Frenchman to have his head chopped off could, in theory, have asked to see Star Wars as a last request.
(Last public execution, eighteen sixty something. Last execution, nineteen sixty something. Formal abolition of the death penalty, nineteen ninety something. Abolition of whipping of criminals, nineteen twenty something; abolition of whipping of juvenile delinquents on the mainland, nineteen fifty something, abolition of whipping of juveniles delinquents on the Isle of Mann, nineteen seventy something. )
We'd even stopped thinking of prisons as places where we gave bad people a bad time. They were more of a service that took care of people who the rest of society really couldn't cope with; or helped and re-trained people who were incredibly messed up. The rhetoric of Tory conference and the barbarian press was still 'let 'em rot' 'string 'em up' and 'bring back the birch'. but there was a consensus that we simply didn't do things like that any more.
That consensus is breaking down. We are a democracy; and the demos desires punishment and sacrifice and personal satisfaction, and politicians increasingly think that it should be give what it wants.
The press—even the supposedly leftist press—continue to promote the urban myth that even the worst murderers do not get sent to gaol. Speaking of a prominent war criminal, one contributor to the Daily Mirror's letter page explained "At least we can reassure ourselves that if his own people deal with him he will not be given a slap on the wrist and a community service order." In the next column, another letter-writer (or, dare we suppose, the same sub) repeated the same lie in the same words"Let's hope they can hold onto to him because in their country, the punishment reflects the crime. If he manages to escape to Britain, he will plead that he comes from a broken home and that he only killed all those people because he was seeking attention. I reckon he would get about 180 hours community service."
Blunkett shamelessly courts the popularity of these soft-spoken demagogues. He changed the laws on parole to give Maxine Carr another few weeks behind bars, not because she was exceptionally dangerous—she's been convicted of a relatively minor offence—but specifically because she was a 'high profile case'. The law allows criminals who are not dangerous to be released from prison early. The mob demands its pound of flesh, especially if the criminal is female, and scary-looking, and has had her picture in the paper. So change the law to satisfy the mob. He had previously fought the European Human Rights court specifically to keep Myra Hindley in prison, not because anyone supposed that she was a threat, but because the mob wanted it. He made this very explicit in trying to justify his farcical idea of mandatory sentence of life-without-parole for some murderers.[4] Apparently, hanging was abolished in 1965 only on condition that murderessees would serve actual life sentences. If we had known that some of them would be paroled, we would have carried on strangling them. We have to keep up this 'contract' with the British people in order that they retain confidence in the criminal justice system.[5]
We can't become more liberal than we were in the 1960s. The mob wouldn't like it.

9

We are excited by the capture of Saddam Hussein because we believe in the Marvel comics view of morality. Sock Saddam on the jaw, and the world will become a safer place.
We are excited by the capture of Saddam Hussein because we have bought into the theory that the wrongs of the world can be blamed on individual super-villains.
We are excited by the capture of Saddam Hussein because the political class have sold us a comic-strip narrative about 'evil' as a substitute for informed debate.
But above all, we are excited by the capture of Saddam Hussein because it provides us with a pretext to inflict the death penalty, and we love the idea of seeing someone being killed in cold blood.

'President' Bush will have no shame or embarrassment about welcoming and celebrating the forthcoming Iraqi human sacrifice. The British Press will do so as well. The Sun treated the death of Shipman as a joke, and dared Huntley to do the same; even providing a diagram to help him. (The 'Labour' home secretary said that his first impulse on hearing the news was to open a bottle of champagne. Truly, we are only ever one headline away from barbarism.)
Blair will not engage in this kind of bloodsucking morbidity—that's not his style—but he has already conceded that if the Iraqis decide to top him, he will go along with it. This places him on exactly the same moral level. Either you oppose all executions, or you support capital punishment. Either you plead for clemency, or you support the death penalty. You are either with us liberals, or on the side of the barbarians.
If you are not with us, you are against us. George Bush said that. Or was it Jesus? I lose track.

If New Labour fails to oppose an execution, even this one, then the liberal movement in the UK will be effectively dead. If we allow or support or refuse to oppose the ritual slaughter of one particularly heinous war criminal, then we have conceded the point that there are some circumstances—at least one—under which capital punishment is justified.
If we concede this point, the mob will not forget it. If you are prepared to make an exception for Saddam, Tony, they will say, why not Huntley? Why not all child killers? Why not all killers? Why not consider the possibility that it might be a very real and very practical deterrent to use against drugs pushers? They are already starting to say it. And the Tories already have in place a leader who, as home secretary, supported strangulation and popularized the ludicrous slogan that 'prison works'; and a shadow Home Secretary who is prepared to openly admit that he likes the idea of killing people, albeit 'humanely'. And while the mob starts to dance around Saddam's corpse, the best Tony can manage is 'We oppose the death penalty on principle, but we will abide by the decision of the Iraqi people.'
Kill the pig! Cut her throat! Spill her blood!
Society must not give into to the dark, atavistic impulse to ritually and ceremonially kill an already helpless prisoner. Not Shipman, not Huntley, not Saddam. Our hard won liberal society must not be sacrificed for the mob's pleasure.

'We have already established what sort of a woman you are. We are now simply haggling about the price'


[1] Or usually, she.
[2] To my slight surprise, Jesus occasionally uses 'evil' to mean 'ordinary human sinfulness'. "If you, who are evil, know how to give good things to your children…" is directed, not at serial killers, nor even Pharisees, but to the disciples.
[3] There exists a comic-book artist who sincerely believes that women do not have rational minds.
[4] Note for the benefit of Americans: the British system of justice has never had a concept of 'Second Degree Murder': all murderers are given an indeterminate 'life' sentence, and the amount of time actually served is determined on a case by case basis. (This is what lies behind the tabloid lie that life 'means' ten years: that's the average term served; some serve a lot less; some a great deal more.) The idea that the length of time actually served would be determined in advance, at the trial, and that it is based on the nature and seriousness of the crime - not, say, the degree to which the criminal responds to treatment or education over the next thirty years—is a complete novelty.
[5] For the avoidance of doubt: I think it most unlikely, that Harold Shipman, had he lived, would ever have been a safe prospect for parole; and even if he had been released, it would probably have been a bad idea to let him practice medicine again. I merely think that this decision should be made by a judge or a parole board: I do not think that a politician should be allowed to pre-empt a decision that will probably me made when he is long since retired, or even dead.

Tuesday, April 01, 2003

Gandalf's Ring


1: The author describes how he received an e-mail from the Prime Minister, and why he didn't bother to reply. 

Oh, the First World War, boys,  served out its fate
The reasons for fightin'  I never got straight..
 Bob Dylan, Lyrics 1962-85
                                              
Tony and George wanted their war; Tony and George got their war.
The papers, even the ones who started out opposing it, went through their 'Falklands factor' rhetoric and convinced themselves that the good old days of the Blitz and the Queen Mum had come again. The news programmes were double their usual length; students sat down in front of busses in the center of Bristol. A rather chic boutique on Park Street hastily put up a window display saying 'Buy clothes, not bombs'; and swear to god, there was a poster saying 'Ocean Estate Agents Say No To War.'
I saw two school-girls bunking off for the afternoon carrying 'Not in my name' placards. There were two lads behind them, chanting, 'We want war', provocatively. Well, obviously. 'War' and 'Not War' are now two tribal orientations, like Gareth and Wil or Arsenal and Spurs. It's another big media event. More interesting than Celebrity Fame Academy, but less interesting than 24.
I'm doing my very best to feel angry with Tony, but I can't manage it. I didn't go on the March. 'Tony is an irritating sanctimonious toad and George Bush is obviously certifiable, but nevertheless there are good arguments on both sides'won't fit on a placard.
It's not that I love the Empire; I hate it, but there's nothing I can do about it right now.
Tony Blair once sent me an e-mail. No, honestly, he did.

To: web@aslan.demon.co.uk
From: tony_blair@10downingstreet.gov.uk
Subject: Your Web Site
Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 23:07:38 GMT
X-Mailer: Endymion MailMan Professional Edition v3.0.26
Hi,
I came accross your site, I don't understand why you don't like me and New Labour.
If you look at our record on Schools, The Economy, and jobs, you'll see that things are a lot better than under the Tories.
Yours Faithfully,
Tony Blair
For More Information on The Prime Minister visit
http://www.10downingstreet.gov.u

For More Information on New Labour visit
http://www.labour.co.uk

I never replied. I realize that it was probably written by a Milbank minion. I looked it up now because reading it does almost generate a real twinge of anger.
'Our record is better than the Tories.' Well, yes. In the sense that cancer is nicer than AIDS. I voted Liberal, but I would have voted Labour (wearing rubber gloves and with a clothes peg on my nose) if I thought that was the only way to stop the Tories winning Bristol West. I would vote Monster Raving Loony if I thought it was the only way to stop the Tories winning Bristol West. (I'm voting Bristolian in the local elections, as are all decent folks.) Is 'not as bad as Mrs. Thatcher' really something that I am supposed to feel good about?
'If you look at our record on schools, The Economy and jobs....' Do you really suppose that Schools and the Economy are such binary, black and white areas that one can say that they are 'better', and not need to comment any further? I have no doubt that, according to his own lights, Tony believes that he has made schools 'better'. New Labour is doing better than the Tories at taking the country in a particular direction but it is always possible that that's not a direction I want to go in.
So, Tony: if you are still a reader—and you did once claim Lord of the Rings was you favorite book—I can just hear that wounded, Dead Ringers, sincere hand-gesture voice. 'Considering that Saddam Hussein was a dangerous madman who used weapons of mass destruction against his own people, how can you possibly talk about being angry at me?'
A just question, my liege.

2: The author describes his reasons for thinking that war is a bad thing, and possible reasons for dissenting from that view. De-ontological and teleological ethical systems contrasted.

Sarah, if someone who knew the future pointed out a child to you, and told you that that child would grow up totally evil, to become a ruthless dictator who would destroy millions of lives, could you then kill that child?
'Genesis of the Daleks'
What is so terrible about 'war' that it can make young people stir themselves from their Gameboys and demonstrate against it? People die all the time. 3,000 people die every year in road accidents but we regard 3,000 deaths as a suitable blood price to pay for quick travel.
Did John Logie Baird mention this when he proposed the internal combustion engine, I wonder? 'Good news: I have a wonderful new machine that will enable you to go from London to Edinburgh in 12 hours rather than three days. Bad news: It will kill 3,000 people a year.' We could reduce the road-death-toll to zero by banning private cars; but we aren't going to do this. We even protest about the idea of putting up speed cameras, because, dammit, we have the right to drive faster than the speed limit. (Imposing the law? Why does the government have this vendetta against motorists?)
So: peaceniks will march against George-and-tony because they are going to take action which will result in the deaths of many Iraqi civilians but they won't do so because they are failing to take action which would prevent the deaths of many English civilians. Morally, the road-deaths are on Blair's hands just as much as the collateral war causalities.
The more I think, the more convinced I become that people believe war to be wrong because it generates ritual impurity. That is: the death I cause directly will desecrate me, put blood on my hands; whereas the death I fail to prevent, (reprehensible as that might be) will leave me relatively unpolluted. Many moral issues become clear when you have grasped this idea.
1: . The more directly I cause the death, the more polluted I become. Killing a single child with my bare hands is as bad or worse, in terms of ritual impurity, as ordering the deaths of hundreds or standing by and permitting the deaths of thousands. We hate Myra Hindley more than we hate General Pinochet, not because she did more harm, but because she incurred greater defilement.
2: I am more desecrated when the blood is literally on my hands than when the killing is at one remove: it's worse to strangle someone, looking them in the eye, than it is to pull a lever and drop them through at trap door. Not worse for them, and arguable not worse for the society which lets it happen, but worse for you. To kill someone who you can see, and who is begging you not to is to desecrate yourself. To knock a kid over in a car because you had too much to drink is merely to be a moron.
3: As a townie, I am always slightly shocked by the way in which farm people can give pet names to cattle and eat them anyway. Jokes about eating pets, even if it's only at the level of Homer Simpson's lobster, make me mildly nauseous. It's clear what is happening: I have an irrational fear that if I think of a creature as a person and then kill and eat it anyway I will defile myself much as if I had really killed a human being. (My own sub-urbanite solution, to let working-class slaughter-house workers become ritually impure while I buy my sausages hygienically packed from Sainsburys is the worst one possible. To be consistent, we need a society entirely made up either of hunters or of vegans.)
4: Opponents of blood-sports can't logically be worried about the welfare of the fox. They aren't trying to save the life of the small mammal that was probably going to be hit by a car in any case; they are trying to prevent the hunter from ritual pollution.
5: Pro-lifers know perfectly well that many fetuses are spontaneously aborted in the normal human reproductive process: but they feel that the cold-blooded murder of a baby is wrong in any case. This was particularly clear in the grotesque case in which pair of conjoined twins were almost certain to die; but an operation which killed one of them would give the second a very good shot at life. A body of Roman Catholic opinion held that it was morally better to let both die naturally than to kill one deliberately. This is incomprehensible without recourse to a theory of blood-guilt.
Once you've recognized the ritual-pollution theory, it becomes very clear that all those World War II conscientious objector tribunals were arguing completely at cross purposes. The pacifist sat there and said 'Killing is wrong', and the magistrate came up with complicated circumstances under which killing one person might save many lives in the long run. If the pacifist accepted any of these, then this was held to prove that 'pacifism' wasn't true, and the CO went to prison.
'What would you do if you were attacked in the street by a rabid dog?'
'I would try to reason with it.'
'What would you do if a German officer was trying to rape your Grandmother?:'
'I would suggest that he re-buried afterwards'
What the CO should have said is 'I believe that if kill someone; then the ritual pollution which I would incur—the harm that it would do my soul— is so dreadful that it outweighs the deaths of any number of Kurds or Jews—even, in the last analysis, than the deaths of the whole human race.' He might have extended the argument '...and a society which is full of people who are ritually impure, a society of damaged souls, would not be worth living in.'
'But Andrew: this is a magical theory—fine for Ancient Greeks and Jews, but not something that anyone in the real world believes in.?'
Well, no. Obviously not.
The only alternative on offer is to say that we judge our actions by looking at their long term results: the killing of a child might be justified if the end result was that the lives of many children were saved. If you told Tony that his war would certainly result in the deaths of many civilians at the hands of badly aimed Coalition missiles, he replied that not having a war would also result in the deaths of many civilians at the hands of Saddam. There are other considerations to look at as well as 'number of lives lost'; because most people think that some things are more important than human life. It might be valid to kill a very large number of people in order to prevent, say, the British Museum from being blown up, depending on the value you place on art and knowledge and history. It might be worth allowing the whole of America to be turned into a nuclear wasteland in order to save the world from communism, depending on how evil you think communism is and how precious you think democracy is. If you sincerely believe that America is a Great Satan, then it might be morally valid to...well, anyway.
The idea of defilement—of 'sin' as a kind of filth—is quite central to the Old Testament view of morality. (That, I assume, is why quite so much of the Torah is taken up with laws about literal cleanliness.) The Old Testament model of defilement and cleansing underlies the New Testament view of Salvation and Atonement. The Bible is quite deeply rooted in our culture, and still fairly important in some forms of Christianity. So maybe there is something to be said for it.
Try this:
I am a human being. All my programming, biological and social, tells me not to kill other people—and especially, not to cut them up, not to eat them, and not to kill my own offspring. If I do so, then I first have to overcome that programming. In fact, I have to make several quite specific shifts to my mental attitude: either to think that the person I am killing is not really a person, just a slab of meat; or that he is so evil that he really deserves it; or that I am actually only blowing up a machine, not the person in it, or that the bitch loves it, really. Military indoctrination works hard to create this mind-set, which is why civilians avoid pubs in Aldershot on a Friday night. But having once made that mind-shift then a part of myself has been killed—at any rate, changed beyond recognition—and I have become a different person. No longer quite human.
'But Andrew: up until, say, 1792, there can't have been many people who had not killed an animal, fought in a war, or witnessed an execution. All your heroes had 'killed part of themselves': by your arguments, there haven't been many 'real human beings' in history. The veggies, peaceniks and pro-lifers are clinging to a sort of sentimentalism that is an historically recent invention.'
Yes, maybe. Or maybe that 'sentimentalism' is part of what we mean by 'civilization' .

3: A short digression, in which the author uses a trivial incident to illustrate the proposition that the desire for retribution is not necessarily ignoble.

If you strike a child take care that you strike it in anger, even at the risk of maiming it for life. A blow in cold blood neither can nor should be forgiven
G.B.S
In February, there was a news item about a school strike. A young man had shot a teacher. This had been regarded as very naughty, and he had been expelled from school. Under a complicated appeals procedure based on the ludicrous idea that schoolchildren have legal rights, the kid was re-instated. The teachers, not unnaturally, were a little perturbed.
Granted, we are talking more Dennis the Menace than Columbine: the weapon in question was a more than usually vicious pop-gun, but they still felt that pointing guns at teachers was not an acceptable way of expressing dissent in the modern education system. I believe in the end there was some kind of very complicated compromise, whereby the kid stayed technically expelled but was allowed to go to school and be educated in a separate classroom. (Like when Di was allowed to stay a Princess but stop being a member of the Royal Family.)
When I was at school, back in the Paleolithic the offending youngster would have been struck repeatedly on the palm of the hand with a blunt instrument, and the matter would have been forgotten until he appeared on Trisha blaming childhood trauma for his failed marriage and/or weight problem.[1]
I don't advocate beatings (except between consenting adults in the privacy of their own homes) but this may not have been the worst possible way of handling the situation. There seems to be a powerful emotional feeling that when someone has done something wrong, something ought to be done about it. A humiliating punishment might be a rough-and-ready way of taking the youngster down a peg and act out a little drama which says 'Shooting teachers is one of the worst things we can think of.' As it is, the teachers had the sense that nothing had been done, and therefore the original offence hadn't been that bad.
I believe that similar arguments are sometimes put forward on behalf of the families of murder victims by members of the strangulation lobby.
Three thousand people died on September 11th, and I swear I thought of the 7-11 joke before Ali G did. There is a strong and understandable feeling that if we don't do something, really, really, really, terrible then we won't believe that September 11th was a really, really, really, really terrible event: that if the world doesn't change, then all the people who died would have died for no reason. The response has to be proportionate and dramatic. More security at airports, or better designed skyscrapers wouldn't feel apocalyptic enough even if that would guarantee that another September 11th could never happen. In any case, politicians prefer doing Big Apocalyptic things to small scale sensible ones. It makes them feel important.
We are in danger of constructing international policy not in terms of what is sensible or practical, but in terms of what makes dramatic sense.

4: The author describes the use and misuse of stories as a guide to reality, and ruminates on the growing tendency of a post-religious society to see politics in mythological terms. 

'It's like in the great stories, Mr Frodo; the ones which really matter...'
Peter Jackson, after Tolkien.
'Fundamentalist' is a big word. These days, it rarely means anything other than 'Someone whose religion I disapprove of.' Its official meaning is 'one who believes in the literal truth of the Bible' but that's not very helpful. Most of our grandparents believed in the literal truth of the Bible, in the sense that they accepted Jonah's Ass or Jacob and the Whale in the same uncritical spirit as King Alfred's Cakes and George Washington's Cherry Pie—but this didn't mean that they treated the Bible as the Only Authority In All Matters of Doctrine and Conduct. Indeed, most Christians who actually call themselves 'fundamentalist' to themselves are perfectly well aware that Ecclesiastes says something different from St John. They are prone to mutter 'whole counsel of scripture' while waving their hands furiously.
George would probably claim that he believed in the literal truth of the Bible; Tony would probably say he didn't—or at any rate, squirm and say that that wasn't the real question.
A working definition of 'fundamentalist' might be 'someone who confuses stories with reality'. A relatively benign form of the complaint involves treating a story as if was an historical event. You or I read a wonderful story about a good man, the last good man in the whole world, and how God told him that he was going to destroy the whole world, everyone apart from him, and so to hurry and build a special boat....and ask 'what does it mean?'
'It's an answer to the question 'If the world is so terrible, why does god allow it to carry on?'
'No, it's about ecology; if God has promised not to destroy the world, then neither should we.'
'No, its about which laws apply to the whole world, and which apply only to Jews'
'No, the point of the story is what happened after Ham accidentally caught a glimpse of  his father's willy''
The fundamentalist, on the other hand, starts looking for the boat.
But there is a more malign version of the complaint. It is one thing to mistake a story with something to say about the real world with a piece of history which happened in the real world. It is quite another to start to think that the real world functions like a story. .
People call Wagner a Nazi, and ban 'Ride of the Valkyrie' from Israeli mobile phones. But there is nothing remotely nasty inThe Ring. The story of an heroic teenager being raised by a cynical deformed miser, and eventually discovering his true identity as a son of the gods is one that speaks to everyone's psychology and emotions. It only becomes dangerous when someone identifies the Nieblung with a particular racial group and sets about wiping them out. The British National Party attempted to appropriate Jackson's Two Towers as a metaphor for the white race's resistance to black immigration. This works perfectly well, so long as you already know that Afro-Caribbean's are just as sub-human as the orcs. Timothy McVeigh claimed that his killing of civilians Okalahoma city was no worse than Heroic Luke Skywalker's slaughter of all the millions of people in the Death Star; which is quite fair, granted that you already know that the US government is as evil as Darth Vader. Tempting, under George Bush, I admit, but hardly axiomatic.
There is no story which cannot become cancerous if used in this way. Somewhere, at this moment, a fat kid with lower middle class parents is being duffed up behind the gym on the grounds that he is a muggle.
In Jackson's desecration of Lord of the Rings, there is a scene in which the Hobbits try to persuade the French, sorry, the Ents to join the coalition against Isengard. Treebeard says gravely that this is Not His War. Merry (or possibly Pippin) agrees with him, and says that the Hobbits should go back to the Shire which they love. But Pippin (or possibly Merry) says that there will be no neutral ground in the coming war.
The fires of Isengard will spread. And the woods of Tuckburough and Buckland will burn. And all that was once green and good in this world will be gone. There won’t be a Shire, Pippin.
This is a very moving scene. If there really were an enemy as destructive as Saruman; a race of people as innocent as the halflings, and an ally as wise but cautious as Treebeard, then the moral choice really would be that simple, and I would rally to the colours along with the CGI trees. But of course, life isn't like that: Jackson-Tolkien has left out all the specific messy details which make reality so complicated. As Tolkien might have said, had he thought of it: he has cut away the foliage of reality to enable us to see the shape of the Tree of story.
Confronted by Darth Vader or Saruman, it's easy to know what the Right Thing to do is. The trouble, in the real world, is deciding where they are.
This is why I find Tonygeorge's war rhetoric so frightening. They have found their Darth Vaders, and think that it's now just a matter of blowing them up It's a bit unclear as to whether Darth is Saddam, or Osama, or Iraq, or something broader like 'terrorism' or the 'axis of evil', but they've jolly well found it, and this gives them the moral authority and moral certainty which only someone in a fantasy story can ever have. A perfectly good pragmatic case for the current adventure can be made out, but the rhetoric of 'you are either with us or against us' belongs in Middle-earth rather than the Middle East.
Not that I don't feel sorry for the politicos. It must be very galling when you get the keys of Number 10 to discover that you are not in fact going to spend your days and nights establishing brilliant stratagems to make the world a better place; but merely bickering about the minutiae of a bill about making the trains run on time. It must be very tempting to start inventing stories in which you really can Save The World; or to see the tiny little nuance of government by bureaucracy in apocalyptic terms. So when someone disagrees with you about a minor point regarding public health policy, don't worry about the issues; just recast the argument in terms of a great battle between Good (you) and Evil (The Forces of Conservatism.) If there is a terrible terrorist outrage, then don't worry about boring little details about who did it and why: announce that this our opportunity to Re-Order The World.
The most extreme version of seeing reality as a story is the one which believes that we are in the Last Days, and that modern history (whenever you happen to be living) is the last few pages of a narrative which started out in Genesis Chapter One. How much influence the pre-millennial tradition has on George Bush, I don't know. Does he, like Ronald Reagan, believe that nuclear war is inevitable, Because The Bible Says So? Is he one of those who thinks that, when John the Divine talks about Israel, he doesn't mean 'the Christian church and (by extension all of God's people in history)' but 'the modern state of Israel'? Or that when he mentions 'Babylon' he means, not 'the Roman empire, (and by extension all the oppressors of God's people throughout history)' but 'the actual city of Babylon, and the country around it, namely, er, Iraq.' Certainly, an equation of Saddam with Babylon/Satan would go some way to explain why the western conscience has fixed on this nutty dictator in particular, and left so many other nutty dictators alone.
To be fair to Tony Blair, and that is not an expression you will often read in this column, he rarely sets out to make political capital out of his religious allegiance. It was unfair, although very funny, for Paxman to ask him if he and George pray together. Tony is in the tradition of British folk-Anglicanism, a strong social conscience, nice hymns, and a firm conviction that you shouldn't bring God into religion. It's a safe bet that Tony doesn't think that he's going to literally inaugurate the Book of Revelation. However, England has its own apocalyptic mythology to which Tony is perfectly prepared to appeal. The Second World War occupies a special place in the story that England likes to tell itself about itself, because it was almost the last time it got anything right.[2] In that story, Hitler (not to be confused with the German politician of the same name) is a signifier for 'evil', scarcely less legendary Darth Vader.

 

5: The authors concedes that Saddam was a very nasty person, and wonders out loud whether it is necessary for us to go to war against all nasty people, without reaching any very clear conclusion

Tony, Georgie won't you say
How many kids did you kill today?
Trad.
Dreadful things were done in Iraq. Whether it's you favorite form of torture (tongue amputation, dropping people into vats of acid, pushing them through paper shredders); use of poisoned gas ; lack of freedom of speech and internal repression. Iraq had it all.
No-one, to my knowledge, ever denied any of this. One of the most pathetic things about the pre-war 'debate' was the way in which some 'hawks' responded to the 'doves' re-iterating, slowly, how many atrocities Saddam had committed.[3] The implication was that the pacifists didn't realize this, and would instantly become war-mongers when it was explained to them. The buried assumption was 'if a regime is nasty, then it is axiomatic that you want to go to war with it; the only reason for not wanting to go to war with it is that you don't know how nasty it is.'
It's the oldest and most dishonest political trick in the book: 'if you question my proposed means, then you obviously don't agree with the end that I'm trying to reach.' When Labour didn't approve of some dot or comma in the Tory education policy, Mrs Thatcher said that it was because socialists didn't approve of learning; Michael Howard responded to some sub-clause of Labour law and order policy which he didn't think would work by arguing that the Labour party liked criminals more than law abiding folk.
Saddam has a nasty, repressive regime. Not, according to Amnesty International, the worst in the world, but pretty bad. If Agent Jack Bauer had Saddam's head in the sights of his rifle and we knew in advance that the death of Saddam would instantly and of itself bring the torture and oppression to an end then everyone, except the most muddle-headed kind of pacifist, would agree that pulling the trigger was a good idea. Most of us would be prepared to go further: if the US attempt to assassinate Saddam on Day Zero of the war had taken out him, his cronies, and as many collateral citizens as your heart desires, then (granted that we know that the death of Saddam will instantly and of itself bring the torture to end) then everyone (except the most muddle-headed kind of pacifist) would think that they had done a Good Thing.
However, this is a scenario only marginally further removed from reality than the exemplum of Merry and the Ents. We can't simply vaporize Saddam; and we don't know that if we did so, his regime would instantly vanish and be replaced by a pastel shaded happy valley where ponies happily cavorted in the meadows.
In practice, when we say that 'we' are going to defeat 'Saddam' because 'Saddam' is 'evil', what we actually mean is that some of our soldiers are going to kill some of his soldiers, and some of his civilians as well. We think that, the process of bombing installations and taking Baghdad will probably end the current Iraqi regime; and we think that whatever comes afterwards willprobably be better than what existed before; and we think that the deaths of servicemen on both sides and civilians on their side will probably amount to a lesser evil than the deaths which would have occurred had Saddam been left in power. We may, in fact, agree with all the 'probablies'; but it is a far, far greyer shade of black and white then the rhetoric of the politicians would have us believe.
Presumably, different individuals are benefited by this process to different degrees. If I was about to have my hands chopped off by one of Saddam's gangsters, and a Coalition serviceman came in and rescued me, I would be extremely pleased. If I was living in a suburban housing estate in Baghdad, knowing that if I criticized the government I might be killed, and the news came over the radio that Saddam was dead and I could now buy the Guardian, I might be quite pleased; not as pleased as the guy being tortured, but pleased nonetheless. On the other hand, if I (like the majority of citizens in Iraq and elsewhere) was minding my own business, not annoying the government, turning a blind eye to injustices being committed on my behalf by my leaders, and therefore not in any danger of having any part of me chopped off, and a bomb dropped on my house and blew me into a million pieces, then I might be quite annoyed. The fact that the bomb was a smart bomb that was actually aimed at the military installation next door would only be a small consolation to me.
Granted that torture is a bad thing (something apparently no longer universally agreed about, particularly when the torturer is a western government and the torturee a terrorist suspect) how was the judgment that Saddam is especially and uniquely 'evil' arrived at? Hussein tortured people and gassed them; granted. But then China shoots people for trivial crimes and sells their internal organs; Saudi Arabia chops peoples hands off and stones them; Malaysia and Singapore whip people for trivial offences; parts of the United States seal people in air tight rooms and force them to inhale cyanide.
Is a country where some very terrible cruelty is inflicted on a very small number of citizens more or less evil than one where moderate cruelty is inflicted relatively frequently?
If one person lives in a country where he knows that political dissidents are killed; and another lives in a country where nearly everybody wears shoes that were made by slave labour, how do we quantify the degree of evil involved?
Do we tolerate Saudi beheadings because they come at the end of a judicial process? Or is the problem that Saddam appears to enjoy torturing people; would we put up with it if it was carried out by disinterested executioners?
Is there a limit to the number of servicemen we are prepared to kill in order to save one person from being tortured?
Which would you rather: be dropped into a vat of acid and die, or see your wife and all your children blown to bits by a friendly bomb?
I would be more inclined to support the rhetoric of war if it was clear to me that Tonygeorge had woken up one morning and said 'I have £75,000,0000,0000 in my pocket: where could it do the most good? AIDS in Africa? A cure for Cancer? Freeing Tibet? Freeing the Kurds—let's make a shortlist.'
I would be more inclined to support the rhetoric of war if it was clear to me that there had been a process by which the international community had determined that Iraq was the worst and nastiest regime on earth; if there were a supreme court, a Jedi council, a united nations which determined these things according to set of principals which everyone had signed up to in advance.
I would be more inclined to believe in the rhetoric of a war against evil if Tony hadn't said that he was quite happy for Saddam to say in power, and therefore, presumably, to continue to chop off as many hands as he wanted, provided he gave up his nukes and his anthrax.
I would be more inclined to believe that we are motivated by the suffering of the Iraqi people if, when they arrive in the UK and claim asylum, we weren't so keen to send them back. Tony stated his willingness to consider re-writing the human rights convention to allow him to send immigrants back to countries where they might be tortured.

 

6: The author considers various ideas about just wars, both from the point of view of just causes and just conduct, with particular reference to the works of Mr Shakespeare and Mr Chaucer. Mr Lewis alluded to, without ever quite being quoted.

You mean, I'll put down my sword, and you'll put down your rock, and we'll try to kill each other like civilized people?
 The Princess Bride
The children lying down in front of the busses think that war is wrong under all circumstances. They think that the willingness to make war creates a moral equivalence between Saddam, George Bush, Tony Blair, and Adolph Hitler. At any rate, that is what they chant and what their posters say.
If nothing else I feel that this represents a pretty extreme degree of cultural dissociation. These kids apparently feel no connection with any part of our historical or legendary past. They exist in a world in which the Bible, Greek and Roman civilization, and the works of Shakespeare are evil texts; glorifying war and coming from a world as dark and alien as the Third Reich. Henry V's as bad as Hitler; Winston Churchill's a crazy man who wanted to get us involved in killing. There was little to choose between English servicemen and the Gestapo. They both killed people. (One wonders who the video games industry sells its products to; presumably, these kids look at Halo and Ghost Recon and say 'This is horrid! It's about war!')
If we were allowed to know about the past beyond Horrid History cartoon books, then we would know that civilized people have generally thought that 'war' is something that you can, as a last resort, get involved in; and that when you do so the solders can rightly be regarded as heroic.
I find the spectacle of churches with 'No war' posters outside rather eccentric, considering quite how much killing God seems to approve of in the Bible. The venerable Methodist peace campaigner Lord Soper was inclined to get round this by advising audiences at Speakers' Corner to simply disregard the Old Testament. ('I was taught to regard David as a hero, but all my sympathies should have been with Goliath'). But that doesn't really help: that well-known hippy Jesus Christ claimed to have twelve armed legions of angels under his command; and happily used military scenarios to re-enforce points about the Kingdom of God. It would be an odd way to behave if war was always and all times a great evil: put on the gasmask of faith, the flak-jacket of truth and arm yourself with the scud missile of the Spirit.
Christians warriors haven't even necessarily seen themselves as fighting 'holy wars' on behalf of God against a demonic enemy. They've simply believed that they were on the right side in a particular conflict. Henry V's question before the French campaign is not 'Is the Dauphin part of an axis of evil' but 'May I with right an conscience make this claim?' Since it is obviously the case that France belongs to England, than it's quite all right for me to use an army to take it back off them. .
The Medieval Law of Arms said that you could only make war on the grounds of treason: people rebelling against their rightful monarch; one monarch taking back land that had been unjustly taken from him by another monarch; one monarch defending himself against invasion by another. We could go to war against Turk because they had taken Jerusalem, which obviously belonged, by rights, to the King of Cyprus: we could not go to war against Islam just because they were infidels.
I find this kind of war very easy to defend.
Imagine the Iraqis have invaded Wales. (It isn't hard to do.) At this moment they are massing on the Severn Bridge, about to march into Bristol. Tony Blair is standing there in his kilt, rallying the troops.
'Fight, and you may die' he is saying 'Run away, and you'll, you know, live: at least for a while. But dying in your bed, many years from now, would you trade all the days from that to this, for, your know, we few, we happy few, this sceptred isle?'
Under those circumstances, half a dozen pacifists would say that killing is wrong under all circumstance and that Saddam ought to be allowed to rampage all over Swansea if that's really what wants, and the rest of us would grab the nearest rifle and rally to the colours.
Or imagine that Saddam has invaded the Falkland Islands. The Falklands are under our protection; and our citizens there definitely don't want to be forced to speak Arabic and drink mint tea. The only possible moral question is one about proportionality; given the numbered of citizens on the island, and given the number of servicemen likely to die, and given (a not irrelevant consideration) the cost of the war, wouldn't it be better to come to some sort of teems with the aggressor.
Or, suppose that he has invaded, say, Kuwait. Kuwait isn't specifically under our protection, but the principal that countries should not invade either countries is a good one, one we all agree with.
So: a war fought to protect ourselves, or to protect someone we have a treaty with; or to protect someone who is being bullied and we just feel morally needs our help, would classify as 'Just wars'. In neither case does a politician have to 'make the case for war' and admit that there are good and sincere arguments on the other side: the circumstance has been forced on you, and the options are 'have a war' or 'do nothing'. If War is a last resort, then if you have to 'make the case for war' then by definition, there isn't one.
Modern wars are bigger and nastier than the ones which Henry V was involved with. We aren't talking about solders killing each other with swords and guns; but with tanks, aeroplanes, and terrible weapons of mass destruction, (which are a good thing when we have them and a bad thing when the other side have them.) Medieval knights nominally followed rules of conduct: they didn't kill an enemy who had surrendered; or a person with a safe conduct, or a civilian who wasn't actively supporting the enemy; or a woman or child under any circumstances. This works well when you have a sword; less well when you have a machine-gun, and not at all when you are dropping weapons out of an aeroplane. It would be tempting, although not very realistic, to say: 'Just wars must be conducted according to the laws of chivalry. The aeroplane is an intrinsically unchivalrous weapon, therefore, all modern wars are unjust.'
When wars are very big and very nasty, we need very big and very nasty justifications for them. Hitler was, it is generally agreed, quite nasty, so the Second World War entered our mythology as a battle against a force of pure evil. This made up for the national trauma of the First World War, which wasn't about anything in particular. Then we spent fifty years engaged in something called Cold War, the whole strategy of which was based on our willingness to destroy civilization rather than nationalize the means of production. People could only reconcile themselves to the idea that we were paying taxes in order that we were better able to destroy the world than the other side was by convincing themselves that the Russians really were an evil empire.
This has left us with a polarized world view; only a force of Evil is worth going to war against. So we have to up our rhetoric and imagine that the enemy are Forces of Evil, rather than just people we happen to be at war with right now. You can't imagine Coalition troops having a quick game of soccer with the Iraqis before killing them, or giving the enemy commander a funeral with military honors, or saluting the honorable foe after they have surrendered. (You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din.)
Once you have convinced yourself that you are fighting the battle of Armageddon, then old questions about justice and chivalry and the conduct of the war can safely be discarded. There are limits to the number of losses you are prepared to take in liberating the islands of Falk. There is no limit to the number of dusky skinned children who can legitimately be slaughtered in the attempt to rid the world of Sauron Hussein.
The idea of 'just war' doesn't apply to the present adventure. War is not being used as a last resort against an invader. It's an instrument of policy; one of a number of surgical procedures which we think may have a positive outcome.
A good pragmatic case can be made out. We want to defeat 'International Terrorism.' We can't do this by arresting individual terrorists, even by killing Mr Bin Laden. (So far as I can see, Al Quaeda is not an organization like the Klu Klux Klan or the Boys Brigade, with membership cards, initiations ceremonies and a uniform. Its much more a description of an ideology and a life style, like 'pirate', 'Mafiosi' or 'liberal democrat'.) The only way we can defeat 'terrorism' by making it too damned hard to be a terrorist. We don't want nutters to get their hands on anthrax or nukes; so we surgically cut out nations which are run by lunatics which would be likely to give nukes to terrorists. And since Saddam is both weak and unpopular, he is an obvious place to start. In terms of a game of Risk or Civilization it makes perfect sense. It does rather require you take on board the notion that it is the right and duty of the USA to act as Grey Lensmen, blowing up a planet here and there in order to safeguard their vision of Civilization.
'We have decided that an action which will involve the deaths of many of your civilians is necessary because it will probablysave the lives of many of our civilian' is an arguable case. It's when the corolorary 'And in the process we will liberate the surviving civilians from a nasty regime, so in fact, this isn't about our own self-interest after all, its an altruistic war about knocking down statues' is added that I start to feel nauseous. It feels horribly as if Tony has convinced himself that he has a moral duty to do what he was going to do for selfish reasons in any case.

7: By means of an extended and mixed metaphor drawn from cowboy films, the author demonstrates to his own satisfaction, if no-one else's, that International Law is a contradiction in terms. A brief swipe at Euro-scepticism.

In brightest day, in blackest night
No evil shall escape my sight
Let those who worship evil's might
Beware my power: Green Lantern's light!
The Oath of the Green Lantern corps.
Where do laws come from? I don't think that the stork leaves them under the gooseberry bush. Someone thinks them up. In democracies, this is done democratically. For example, in the United States, everyone has a vote, and the person who gets the second most votes becomes President.
I don't think that it follows from this that laws are just what the  majority of people in a particular country happen to want. If that was true, you could never have 'just' or 'unjust' laws; laws would simply be what everyone agreed with.
'Why are you lynching that black man?'
'We took a vote first'
'Oh, well, that's perfectly all right then. Carry on.'
'Laws' which governments invent are in fact a rough and ready approximations of Natural Law, which God or Gene Roddenbury or someone decided on. Most of the time, a country's laws represents the government's best guess at doing the right thing. You look at the law and say 'Is that just? Is that fair? Is that moral?' and if it isn't you change it. Democracies seem to be quite good at this, although I've never quite managed to convince myself that this is the only valid approach. A wise autocratic surrounded by advisers might also work quite nicely. 
So: if the law is just our best guess at writing down Natural Law, then if I ignore the law and just do what's right, I can't go wrong, can I? When someone makes a bad law, or applies a good law in such a way as to produce counter intuitive results, then I should just ignore the law and go with my conscience, shouldn't I?
Of course, if I do this, the Police and the State come down on me like a ton of bricks. They don't care if I had a good reason, or if I knew in my heart it was right: if I killed someone, then I am no different from any other murderer. In civil societies, the forces of Law always win because they are infinitely stronger than private citizens doing what they 'know' is 'right'. In the last resort, the state can send in the army. This rarely happens, because most citizens think that it is better to have laws (even when we don't personally agree with them) than for each man to be a law unto himself.
It sometimes happens, especially in John Wayne movies, that the believers in What's Right are stronger than the enforcers of the Law. So when the Judge decides to let the bad guy go for some silly reason like there's not enough evidence to convict them, they all get together and kill the bad guy without reference to the judge. (This is known as "having a democratic element in sentencing policy.")
The 'natural justice' mob start off by lynching a really nasty felon who no-one wants to defend. When the Sheriff tells them not to, they say 'This man just killed three people. He's evil, goddammit. How can you object to us lynching him. You aren't saying he should have got off scott free, are you? The law is only there to defend murderers. The law is the villain's friend. You are either with the lynch mob, or you are with the murderers.' Once the Sheriff concedes this point—that a result consistent with natural justice is more important than the strict application of the written law—then it is easier, next time around, for the vigilantes to pick a less clear cut victim. Before very long, people are being lynched 'because we didn't like the look on their face' or 'because they are black' or 'to encourage the others.'
The Sheriff can only rein in the vigilantes by being stronger than they are; and that can only happen if the majority of the townsfolk think a system if law is better than mob justice.
We can talk about 'international law' until we are red, white and blue in the face, but unless there is an international policeman capable of enforcing it, it doesn't mean anything. If the United Nations had an army that was capable of enforcing its will on any country in the world, then 'International Law' might mean something. If it had moral authority such that every country in the world feared being censured by the UN so much that it obeyed its rules and mandates, then 'International Law' might exist. But right now, the UN is like an un-armed police officer, blowing his whistle and shouting 'Stop! Or else I'll shout 'Stop' again'. Neither the criminals nor the vigilantes pay very much attention.
It is just conceivable that at some future time, every county in the world might decide that international law is such a good idea that it would put a substantial body of its own armed forces under UN control, making the UN stronger than any single country on earth. It is even possible that a future US administration might contribute to a force whose objective is to remove its own power. (After all: I pay my taxes partly in order to pay for police officers who will come and arrest me if I don't pay my taxes.)
But in the real world we ought to accept that no such thing as 'international law' exists and that in fact, foreign policy will be dictated by strength. Right now, Vigilante Bush has picked Bad, Mad Saddam as his first lynch victim; and since everyone agrees that Saddam needed to be Got, few people are going to speak out against him. Heck, I don't care about international law, lets just do what's right. But once you start doing things 'just because its right', its a very small slide to 'just because I can' and 'just because its in the interests of my family and my nation' and 'just because I feel like it.'
The power of the American vigilante could be restrained if there were another superpower, one capable of influencing it both economically and militarily. Say, if there was a balkanized continent that much of the world had historical links to; a cultural center of civilization; one that had been moving closer and closer together after a series of costly civil wars; one that was already amalgamating its currency. If it unified its foreign policy and its military, became a new Confederacy of nations. Two superpowers, both democratic, both broadly allies, but both able to restrain the worst excess of the other.
But Tony Blair has largely given up on that one. At crunch time, his instincts were to honour the Last Alliance with the US, and tell the European Union and the UN to bugger off and eat cheese somewhere.
I am writing this on a Microsoft computer in a Starbucks coffee shop. There will be very much worse places for an educated white man to spend the 21st century than an American hegemony.

8: The author describes how, on the first day of the recent middle-eastern adventure, he experienced his own personal 'voila' moment, and after confessing a moment of moral cowardice, humbly takes his leave.

Gandalf as Ring-lord would have been far worse than Sauron....While Sauron multiplied evil, he left good clearly distinguishable from it. Gandalf would have made good detestable and seem evil
 JRRT, September 1963
Sometimes, I think: 'Tony really believes that Saddam is just as bad as Hitler, and that it is his moral duty to oust him. George Bush is using this sincere, charismatic Englishman to give a veneer of moral authority to his political war. '
Sometimes I think: 'No: Tony believes that a surgical removal of the Hussein regime is necessary to make England safe from International Terrorism The nastiness of Saddam provides a pretext for him to do this. '
But then I think: 'No: he has made a long term decision that the future of the International Order is with an American hegemony, not with Europe, and has made a pragmatic decision to back America, so that he can be a small voice in the new order, instead of a large voice in the old one: the threat of terrorism provides a pretext for him to do this.'
But then I think: 'No: however you cut it, this boils down to vengeance against the Arabs for 11.09.01, and Blair wants to write himself into the grand narrative of what is basically a racist war.'
But then I think: 'No: its an act of policy in the Middle East; to establish a base to use against the Saudis if the Saudis ever went awol; or as part of a long term domino scheme to 'infect' the middle east with democracy. The popular thirst for Arab blood is being harnessed to support a sort of benign imperialism.'
But however I look at it, when Blair puts on his sincere, furrowed brow, and says that he really and sincerely believes in this war because he wants so much to liberate the Iraqis and bring democracy to the region and over throw an evil dictator, then I am convinced that he is Not Telling The Truth. Morality and sincerity and human rights are being used as a political tactic, to galvanize people behind a military action which he supports for purely pragmatic reasons.
All through the build-up, my contempt for Tony was running off the scale; and every time George and his keepers or some bellicose 'nuke em til they glow' U.S vox pop polluted the air waves, I have to physically remind myself that I have really likedevery single American who I have ever actually met. Clair Short comes up with reasons why saying that she is going to resign and then not resigning is actually the path of integrity. The Archbishop of Canterbury, who I've had such high hopes for ever since he took The Incredible String Band to his desert island makes long wise statements saying absolutely bugger all. Throughout, I maintain my 'good arguments on both sides' pitch.
But then the missiles start flying, and everyone reverts to type. Falklands Blitz rhetoric clicks in; even to question the Prime Minister implies a Lack of Support for Our Brave Boys. ('Boys' is very ironic, considering how often the UK has been taken to task for sending under age solders into the front line and discriminating against female service people.) And the Sun runs a headline:
Show them no mercy. They have tainted souls.
Doing a double take, I check to see if this was something that Evil Saddam is saying about the Infidel. But no indeed. This is the opinion of the editor of the Sun.
Actually, it was a misquote from Air Marshall Brian Burridge, the total and utter chief of staff of the British Army. I've rather liked him ever since the press conference where some fool asked him if it was true that the British soldiers didn't have enough toilet paper and he replied 'I don't want to get bogged down in minutiae.' The text of his speech was rather in the tradition of old fashioned chivalry and human decency in the face of mass slaughter. Look here, chaps. There's going to be spot of bother now, and I'm pretty sure you'll do a good job. This being a war, I'm afraid some you might get killed; and you may have to kill some of the enemy. But look here: Johnny Iraqi is quite a decent sort of cove, and if he surrenders to you, treat him with jolly decent English courtesy; our fight isn't with him. But one or two of them are all round bad eggs who support Saddam and do dreadful things. And if we jolly well have to kill some of that kind them don't shed any tears, oh no, they have tainted souls.
But translate it through what for want of a better word I will call the mind of Rupert Murdoch, and it comes out as unadulterated fascism. Kill the sub-human enemy. Tainted souls. Orcs. Niggers. Stormtroopers of the US government who we can vaporize with our little proton torpedo. To save this village, we had to destroy it.
And then, of course, the pro-war graffiti started to appear around town. The small 'No war' poster outside the Wesley Chapel had the words 'Why not? Nuke the bastards' added, probably in crayon. There was one near Ikea that said 'Wham, bam, fuck Saddam.' (Bristol is a world center of political graffiti, but this wasn't a good example, in my opinion. )
I experienced what I believe is referred to as a voila moment.
No longer was I collateral damage caught in the friendly fire between the competing narratives of war, patriotism, international law, liberation, Dad's Army and the Book of Revelation. There was a clear demarcation, between the Axis of Jingoism and the Forces of Humanity. Blair has aligned himself on one side, with Bush and Murdoch and against Nelson Mandela and Jimmy Carter and Europe and the United Nations and...er...everybody else, basically. I was required to pick sides.
Whatever Blair thinks he is doing; and his policy relies on the good old jingoism of the British public. If the British public couldn't be relied on to hate Arabs and French and Asylum seekers, then this war could never be prosecuted. Blair can put on a serious, worried, more in sorrow than in anger face because he knows that Murdoch will whip people up into a racist fervor anyway. 'I honestly and sincerely believe that it is our moral duty to defeat this terrible evil' and 'You're shi'ite and you know you are' ultimately amount to the same thing. The one legitimizes the other. It's good and noble for us to kill Argies and Gerries and Towel heads and Frogs because that nice religious Tony Blair says so.
You are either with us, or you are against us: either aligned with the 'nuke the bastards' racists or with the hopelessly naive peace campaigners, who think that 'war solves nothing' but that holding up the traffic for ten minutes solves all sorts of things. Everything is black and white and we have to make a choice. Either 'They have tainted souls' or else 'Don't attack Iraq!'
It would have given this article a nice, punchy conclusion if I could say 'So I went and joined the sit down protest in Millennium square' but unfortunately my commitment to this column doesn't run to getting arrested. But I did smile at the protestors as I walked past.
Not in my name, Tony. Not in my name





[1]I saw footage of a US tank in the gulf with the legend 'Attitude Adjuster' written on its barrel. I believe that this is how American school -teachers traditionally label their canes.
[2] The other time was a football match in 1968; and we tend to get the two events confused.
[3] Julie Burchall, a totally round the bend columnist in the Guardian describes the peace campaigners as "pro-Saddam" and argues that they oppose the war because they are are sexually attracted to Saddam Hussien. 

Thursday, August 01, 2002

Masters of War


Tis' said that countless thousands should die through cruel war
But let us hope most fervently that soon it will be o're
Let them be warned old England, Is brave old England still
We've proved our might, we've claimed our right, and ever ever will
Should we have to draw the sword our way to victory we'll forge
With the battle cry of Britons, Old England and St George.

Mr. Blair wants there to be a war against Nasser Hussein.
I know that Mr. Blair is a truly great and good man, for he told me so himself. So I am sure that there must be some very good reason why he wants to have a war.
I'm just not quite sure what it is.
Mr. Blair has a special relationship with Mr. Bush. Mr. Bush agrees with Mr. Blair that we should have a War on Nasser Hussein.
Last year, on September the Eleventh, the Eleventh of September happened. This was a terrible tragedy, almost as bad as Holly and Jessica. So obviously, it would be bad manners to disagree with Mr. Bush about anything, at least for a while, in the same way you have to be extra-nice to Granny after Granpa's funeral. Anyone rude enough to not agree with Mr. Bush about Nasser Hussein must be anti-American, in the same way that anyone who doesn't think that Jewish people are always right about everything must be anti-Semitic against the Jews because Hitler was so horrid to them.
I'm not anti-American. I've found out that if you ask for "Americano", Starbucks will give you something very much like a cup of coffee. I even had a poster of Captain America on my wall when I was a kid.
There are three reasons why Mr. Blair wants us to have a war against Nasser Hussein.
1: Because he is a baddy (Mr. Hussein, I mean)
2: Because he might have an atom bomb.
3: Because he probably supports some of the people who almost certain support the people who probably bombed the Eleventh of September.
I think he is telling a big fat whopper. I don't think that these are the real reasons at all.
I understand that nowadays you don't have to say why you are having a war before you have it. You are allowed to have the war first, and decide what it was about afterwards. So when we went to war against Afghanistan, everyone thought that it was because the Bert from Sesame Street (the bad man who very nearly definitely bombed September the Eleventh) was probably hiding there and the Afghanistanis wouldn't give him to us so we had to go in and capture him. But after the war was all over, we decided that the real reason for having the war was because the people running Afghanistan were baddies. They were such baddies that when we liberated them all the Afghanistanis stopped being Muslims and shaved in the street, which proved that we were right to have the war. So I suppose we shall have to wait until after we have had the war against Nasser Hussein to find out what it's about.
I don't think that it will turn out that the real reason for having the war was that Nasser Hussein is a baddy. He's been a baddy for a long time, and we haven't had a war against him before, except once. In fact, he was a baddy even in the very olden days when the Ayatollah was the baddy and Nasser Hussein was the goody. And anyway there are lots and lots of baddies in the world, and we aren't having wars against all of them.
I don't think that it will turn out that the reason for having the war is that Nasser Hussein has an atom bomb, either. In the olden days, Russia were the baddies, and they had lots and lots of atom bombs; but they never used them, because the Americans, who were the goodies, also had lots and lots of atom bombs. So Russia was too scared to use them. It was like "there's no point in you killing lots of us, because we can kill just as many as you, so its better to play nicely," which in the end they did. But Nasser Hussein doesn't have nearly as many atom bombs as the Russians, and hardly any aeroplanes and missiles. So there isn't much chance of him bombing New York or London or even Slough. I reckon that if an aeroplane with a bomb on it flew out of Iraq, then Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair would shoot it down before it got to us.
Everyone agrees that Bert from Sesame Street, who very nearly definitely bombed September the Eleventh, is the biggest baddy in the world, as bad as Myra Hindley and Hitler and Jeffrey Archer put together. But I don't think it will turn out that we had the war just because Nasser Hussein probably supports Bert from Sesame Street. There are people in Pakistan and Bradford who think that bombing September the Eleventh was quite a good idea (though not most of them, because not all people with corner shops are Muslims, and not all Muslims support bombing people, anymore than just because you drink Guinness on St Patrick's day you agree with blowing up policemen with car bombs, and most Muslims are nice friendly people who run the good curry houses in Tooting Bec.) But even if there were lots of people who supported him, that wouldn't be a reason for going to war against Bradford. And anyway, I don't think Mr. Blair has any evidence that Nasser Hussein supports Bert from Sesame Street because if he did have he would have shown it to us by now.
So I don't think that any of the reasons that Mr. Blair has told us are the real reasons for the war. I think that he has a secret reason, which he keeps in secret room in 10 Downing Street in a file marked Secret.
I think that if we read the secret file, we would find out that Mr. Blair has picked up some crazy idea that his job as Prime Minister of England is to do things in the world which will be good for England, and America, and also Scotland. I think that he is silly enough to think that as Prime Minister, he ought to be looking out for our interests. I think that he has picked up some wild notion that we use quite a lot of petrol in this country, and that if we couldn't get any, or it was too expensive, everything would grind to a halt, and we would all be very poor and very miserable. I think that Mr. Blair is such a cynic that he wants to stop us all from being very poor and very miserable.
Most people, apart from hippies, think it is all right to have a war against someone who is hurting you. But wars in the old days were easier. When Hitler landed at Hastings, to invade England in 1966, we all got together in lots of little ships and sent him homeward to think again. When the Argies invaded the Falklands, we killed all the Argies and freed the Falkland Islanders, which was a good thing, apart from encouraging Jim Davidson.
It's like this. If in the old days, Mr. Hitler had put lots of U Boats in the English channel and blew up all the oil tankers bringing oil to England (and also Scotland), it would have been all right for us to send out Spitfires to blow up the U Boats and let the oil tankers through. Of course, some of the evil jerry scum who we drowned would probably have been nice Germans who liked Beethoven and sausages and didn't deserve to be killed. But everyone agrees that it was still all right for us to kill them (except hippies).
But nowadays, because of the Internet and Starbucks coffee, the world is more complicated and wars can happen by remote control. Nasser Hussein doesn't need to send out boats to stop us getting any oil. He can lob a Weapons Of Massive Destruction at Kuwait, or Israel; or even do something awful (I'm not sure what) to Saudi Arabia. (Saudi Arabians chop peoples heads off and don't allow beer or vicars or homosexuals, but that doesn't make them baddies it just means that we tell their ambassador that we have very real concerns about their record on human rights from time to time.) And this would still mean that we wouldn't get any oil, and that other bad things (I'm not sure what) would happen. So having a war against Nasser Hussein is really just like bombing Hitler's U-Boats, and if some people get killed as well, then that's just the same as killing German sailors. We're still making sure the oil gets through. Okay, Nasser Hussein hasn't actually done anything yet, we just think that he probably will. But that makes sense too. It's like as if you bombed the U-Boats before they got to the channel; or even better, bombed the dockyards before they built the U-Boats, or even better, bombed Berlin before Hitler even gets into power so the situation doesn't arise. We are sort of saying "We think that if he makes an Atom Bomb, which he hasn't, Nasser Hussein might do something horrid in Israel, or Saudi Arabia, or Kuwait, or Slough in which case we'd have to have a war against him, so it makes sense to have a war against him now, before he even gets to do the things that would have forced us to have a war."
Which makes sense to me.
So, when the war is over, it will turn out that it was really about petrol. But if you say that to nice Mr. Blair and clever Mr. Bush, they say: "Oh no. It's not about oil. It's about an important moral principle. Nasser Hussein is a very bad man, and Mr. Blair thinks we should smack his bottom, and Mr. Bush thinks we should kick his ass, which I think means more or less the same."
But I think wars about moral principles are much worse and more scary than wars about your country's good. If we had to go to war every time Mr. Blair had a moral principle then we would never get a moment's peace. Bert from Sesame Street bombed The Eleventh of September because he had moral principle, because he thought that America is bad and decadent and that Moslemism is the best religion in the world. Lots of people think that, but that doesn't mean they can kill people over it. So Mr. Blair shouldn't kill people because Nasser Hussein is bad and decadent and New Labour is the best religion in the world.
Maybe, just maybe, it would be all right to kill Nasser Hussein and Bert from Sesame Street if we could catch them. In America you are allowed to kill very bad people, provided you give them lots of ice cream to eat first. In England, we stopped hanging people just before the first ever episode of Doctor Who went out. But in both England and America we all agree that they should have fair trials first (apart from the person who almost definitely didn't tell the police about the man who probably had something to do with killing Holly and Jessica, who should be lynched on her way to court, obviously.)
In conclusion: I think that the safeguarding of British strategic and economic interests in the Middle East is legitimate grounds for military intervention in Iraq. I think that it is incumbent on Mr. Blair to explain to Parliament what those strategic and economic interests are; and that if he did so honestly, the campaign would meet with widespread political and public support. But I think that he should immediately abandon the mendacious, sanctimonious propaganda about there being a moral imperative to secure a regime change because of some nebulous quality called "evil" supposedly attributable to the Iraqi leadership. 
Our leaders should trust us with the real reasons for the forthcoming war. Saying over and over again that we have to have a war against Hussein because he is such a naughty, bad, wicked man make us feel that we are being treated like children.