Already, we see the same split as over Ukraine, between an "international community" that agrees with the United States, and the huge global majority that does not. Interestingly, Israel is in the latter camp on Ukraine. It was not all that keen on the Iraq War, either.
The media are still peddling the hallucination that this attack "came as a surprise". That is the "weapons of mass destruction" of this war, with the nuance that it was particularly surprising on the fiftieth anniversary of the Yom Kippur War.
But now, all sorts of things are going to be set off. If America can pay to defend Israel's southern border, then why is it incapable of defending its own? If America should stop sending billions of dollars to Ukraine, then why should it send billions of dollars to Israel? If Ukrainians have the right to resist occupation, then why do Palestinians not have the same right? And so on.
The Republicans in the Senate voted against any further funding for Ukraine. As with Kosovo which the GOP voted against, they’re waking up to the fact this is a leftwing war.
ReplyDeleteThe Republicans oppose the Democrats' wars, but they are no different in office.
DeleteHe says today to vote Tory. You have lost even him.
Read him properly. He says the Tories remain useless but that Keir Starmer is as secretly revolutionary as Blair was. He’s also right that John Major would have been better for the country than 13 years of revolutionary Blairism.
ReplyDeleteHitchens writes: “you genuinely have no idea of what a Starmer government will be like, just as you had no idea of the Cromwellian destruction the Blair government was planning to unleash after 1997. Idiots saw cheap slogans such as ‘tough on crime’ and ‘education, education, education’ and believed them. The real thing was quite different, as it will be with Sir Keir.
Blair broke up the Union, lost control of our borders, shrivelled our armed forces, politicised the judges and the police, tried to abolish sterling, surrendered to the IRA, wrecked our economy, our constitution, our civil service, our defences and much of our education system, and wounded the monarchy, too. He raised the rainbow flag, so we now all live under its frowning speech codes, its fierce intolerance of Christian ideas and traditional family life. And he engaged in vast public spending and redistribution of wealth.
Gosh, yes, John Major was awful, but surely he would have been better than that. “””
Amen to that.
He says "Vote Tory". It is as simple as that. Probably to save his job.
DeleteThey’re beginning to understand they are the Democrats wars in every sense.
ReplyDeleteI hope that that made some sense to you.
DeleteHitchens has never in his life expressed a view he doesn’t hold. He just can’t be false, it isn’t in him. Even I, confronted with the Red-Green Remain party opposite, am tempted to cast a vote for the government. Brexit would certainly only be safe with the Tories, if nothing else. Sometimes there really is a lesser evil, though it remains a shame there’s never anything better to vote for in British politics. If Blue Labour had taken control of the Labour Party, I’d have gladly voted Labour.
ReplyDeleteUnder the Tories, Rejoin is approaching two thirds support. It will be there by the time of the General Election. Such a thing it is to have a Thatcherite rather than a Bennite Government.
DeleteThe man couldn’t give a stuff about his job, he’s in his 70’s and gave up on this country a long time ago. He means it when he says even Rishi Sunak is better than Keir Starmer as John Major would have been better than Blair.
ReplyDeleteI can’t disagree even though that’s hardly an endorsement of either, nor is it meant to be.
He values the platform, and he puts it to good use. I am told that he can be prickly if anyone mentions retirement. The Mail just would not have him for yet another General Election advocating non-voting. So to keep fighting on everything from drugs to Ukraine, he has done what he has had to do.
DeleteYou’re talking nonsense because you just can’t comprehend that sometimes there is a lesser of two evils. I can tell you now he’s never written a word he didn’t believe. The Mail has had him advocating non voting for a few decades, it wouldn’t make a jot of difference by the way.
ReplyDeleteHe does not explain how a Sunak Government would be different from a Starmer one, or vice versa. He will be 72 by the time of the next Election, so they can now say that if he does not fall into line at least on this, then it is time for his gold clock.
DeleteOne always impugns the motives of others when one can’t comprehend their argument. He’s actually right. Sunak is better than Starmer and Major would have been far better than Blair.
ReplyDeleteIn what specific way? The change from Major to Blair was imperceptible unless you were an hereditary peer or a fox, and barely so even then.
DeleteThe true case against Kosovo (and the wars for which it was the prototype) was always rightwing, as Mr Hitchens knows.
ReplyDeleteRead the late great Alan Clark’s glorious denunciation of it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/341713.stm
He did nothing about it. There was a vote.
Delete“The proper Right has always been sceptical of Israel (Pat Buchanan called US Congress “Israeli-occupied territory”).”
ReplyDeleteIndeed as Noam Chomsky points out James Baker’s threat to end loan aid for Jewish settlements under George Bush Senior’s government remains the only time the US has ever stood up to Israel. The only real opposition has always come from the Right.
Middle East Eye (Peter Oborne’s new home) says: “Baker was brutal with Benjamin Netanyahu in a way that the Clinton and Obama administrations never dared to be”
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/us-israel-james-baker-man-ran-washington-book
I think you pressed publish before you had reread your second paragraph.
DeleteAnd Baker was many things, but he was not a paleocon.