Should we talk to the Taliban? How about Al Queda? How about any terrorist group anywhere? The BBC was kind enough to provide arch-appeaser Jonathan Powell the prime 8.10am platform this morning. Powell is clear enough – YES, let’s talk to terrorists and see if we can find out things we can “give them” in exchange for them easing off onthe killing.
If you listen to the interview, Powell vapidly speculates about the Taliban position “on women’s rights” and he worries about the amorphous nature of Al Queda, harder to negotiate with don’t you know? Powell keeps using Northern Ireland style appeasement as the template for all of this and the BBC fully approves. In this regard we can see that Powell is actually articulating the BBC in-house position on how to appease terrorists.
At a time when British soldiers lose life and limb fighting terrorist vermin around the world, the BBC sees fit to provide a spotlight to Jonathan Powell’s naked appeasement of all terrorists. Truly disgraceful, Naturally Powell has a new series on the BBC on this topic.
Here’s the link.
The Oslo talks:
“so you had an agreement, you had an outpouring of joy on the Palestinian side – but no-one sold it to the Israeli people “
Intefada anyone?
I’ve just been listening to part two of the World Service documentary Useful Idiots. I was surprised that it was quite good, giving Galloway and Tony Benn as examples.
On the topic of appeasement there’s a gem from Benn who when asked how one can talk to somebody like Saddam Hussein who had murdered thousands Benn replies that “you have to talk to everyone”.
Thanks for the link, Bio. Very interesting, but with one massive flaw: the whole first segment is all about Stalin and not Communism itself. The second segment also misses the point that useful idiots believed in their cause long before they ever visited the regimes in question.
Lessing renounced “Marxist theory” after Stalin rolled into Hungary (why she waited until the Soviets had taken over half of Europe and not before is, I’m sure, unimportant), but that’s a minor step back and not the same thing as admitting that Communism is wrong and harmful. While she acknowledges her regret for being a useful idiot, it’s clear that she meant she was a fool for Stalinism and the Soviet Union, not Communism itself.
All the ominous…brooding…grim…depictions of “Stalinist concentration camps” and whatnot emphasizes that this is about Stalin and his world, and not Communism.
Here’s a fascinating excerpt from the NY Times article about Lessing winning the Nobel.
Ms. Lessing, who joined the Communist Party in Africa, repudiated Marxist theory during the Hungarian crisis of 1956, a view for which she was criticized by some British academics.
Charming, no?
Pete Seeger, the lionized US folk singer, was another of Stalin’s useful idiots. He admitted his error not so long ago, but also denounced Stalin rather than Communism. He’s still a proud Communist (they call it “Socialism” in the US when the lights are on), and like all the rest of these useful idiots regret the fact that a beautiful ideology was ruined by a few bad apples.
There’s a smaller flaw in the first segment, which gets worse at the start of the second: the idea that this only happens to intellectuals who are sweet-talked by charismatic leaders into supporting their cause. This doesn’t really explain anything, because – without exception – all these useful idiots already agreed with how great the Soviet Union (or whichever nasty regime we’re talking about) was before they ever went there.
These people would all have steadfastly supported Stalin even if they had never visited, never been “flattered” or anything of the sort. Why does this Beeboid think they even went there in the first place? They were already sold. So it is with today’s useful idiots.
Like at the BBC, for example. How many of them were, or are, Communists, or think Communism isn’t so bad? None of them has ever vistied the gulags, none of them was ever flattered by Soviet agents, none of them got caught up in it only after visiting some Communist paradise. Did any of these dopey useful idiots at the BBC suddenly start respecting Castro and Communist Cuba only after visiting the place? Of course not. They all bought into the fantasy as students long ago. “Intellectual” Oliver Kamm’s premise is wrong, as is the premise for this entire documentary.
Unless the BBC does a documentary talkng about that, they’re failing to uncover the truth.
As for the loathesome Benn, when was the US going to permanently occupy China? I forget. Why is this maniac allowed to explain the historical context of anything? He was dishonest even in this interview.
At least the BBC stopped at South Africa and didn’t continue on to Israel. I was worried for a moment.
It’s worth knowing what an opponent’s objectives are – since when facing a popular movement, it may be possible to cleave their support base by conceding objectives that at least some of their followers want that are less important to you.
What if their only objective is your annihilation?
This provides an excellent example of how the sinister BBC works.
First decide on your lefty political message, get a useful idiot to articulate that message, provide him/her/it with a good space on something like Today (I believe the Great Appeaser got the 8.10 slot?), use that slot to promote both the item itself and of course… the series that follows. And Hey Presto – you’ve just effectively stifled true debate to get your hopeychangey lefty message over (neatly eliminating other political and moral choices). Simples!
This is the true danger of the stinking BBC. It leads debate. Fortunately they’re so bad at what they purport to do nowadays – and have so little credibility – that people of sense either distrust or ignore them.
But my God how much damage have they caused to Britain and the British way of life since the war? Incalculable, I’d say.
Since the war? The bratocracy only started to seep in during the early 60’s. Prior to that, it was a Great British Institution.
And the “peace process” in Northern Ireland was sooo succesful…NOT. Bombs are still being planted and two terrorists are in the Assembly. The only way to talk to terrorists is through the barrel of a large gun.
I can appreciate the concept that a number of so-called Taliban or Al Qaeda fighters are not really part of the organizations or caught up in their worldview but are just local thugs hiring themselves out to the highest bidder. As far as I’m concerned, they should just be offered more money, then locked up when they come back. Problem solved.
Screw talking to the Taliban who pay them, though. That’s just silly, and won’t lead to any kind of peace process except one in which a section of Afghanistan is turned over to them, in which case we’lll be back where we started before 9/11. No thanks.
Note too that the same people claiming that, sure, the Taliban may have a few wacky ideas and may be a little heavy handed, but hey, you got to go along to get along, are also the self-same people generating banner headlines everytime NATO forces are rumoured to have accidentally killed someone’s goat.
I remember in some BBC documentary on the Belfast Agreement David Trimble recounting how when the UUP adjourned to consider a key proposal by Tony Blair, Jonathan Powell kept knocking on their door every half hour or so to see if they’d finished. Somehow, I can’t imagine him doing this with the Taliban or Al Qa’eda. (Nor with PIRA for that matter – not that he needed to with what was given away to them, and the confidence that gave them they wouldn’t be kept to their side of the Agreement). Thank goodness Mr Powell’s older brother has a lot more sense.
excellent post @ 15:57 David. Thanks for the insights.