Stephen Pollard lays into the left for its self-contradictory position with regards to Sudan in light of their Iraq policy.
The revolting truth is that such sentiments are shared by most of the liberal Left, who rank their belief in humanitarian action below their antipathy towards President Bush and, more generally, the United States.
So much for the fabled internationalism of the Left. So much for the idea that human beings are what count. To the anti-war liberal mindset, human misery is less important than hatred of America.
Ouch.
It has to be said that whilst he savages the left with a vitriol that stings, he’s right in a number of ways. The left that I’ve left behind doesn’t seem to know what the hell it believes anymore. There is no underlying fundamental core of beliefs anymore, liberal interventionism as a principle died in Iraq when much of those who professed to hold its principles to heart ignored it in favour of giving George Bush a notional bloody nose (they missed).
Much of the left has disgraced itself by failing to provide a coherent policy on the war on terror and humanitarian intervention in general - for a few years they paid lip service to the only practitioner of Liberal Interventionism in power today and now are content to drift back towards some reactionary creed that grates against everything I was taught the left stood for.
Too much of the left’s edifice has been built on the lunacy of the 80’s ineffectual liberal policy and when presented with a new foundation to build on by the centre-left many have instead elected to return to the quicksand of their former ideals. Watching such beasts today, like Sir Menzies Campbell is a tragically comic ordeal, they stand tall and self-puffed whilst their shins slowly sink.
Later
John
Posted by John Swaine at August 17, 2004 11:23 PM | TrackBack