We publish here an open letter from Darrall Cozens, President of the Coventry TUC and lifelong member of the Labour Party, who responds to the Labour leader, Ed Miliband’s, justification for supporting the recent vote in Parliament backing military action in Iraq.
We publish here an open letter from Darrall Cozens, President of the Coventry TUC and lifelong member of the Labour Party, who responds to the Labour leader, Ed Miliband’s, justification for supporting the recent vote in Parliament backing military action in Iraq.
Dear Ed,
I thank you sincerely for your email of September 26th explaining why you and most of the Labour Party MPs voted for the bombing of ISIL positions in Iraq. At least you had the courtesy to write and explain, unlike previous leaders of our Party.
Having said that I believe that you have made a serious mistake in supporting the bombing and what is worse is that your arguments used to justify your actions do not hold water.
Contradictions
You state that ISIL is a murderous organisation. That is true. However, many of the other organisations fighting Bashar al-Assad in Syria, such as al-Nusra, are also “murderous organisations”. Yet al-Nusra receives support from Qatar which is part of the “Coalition” against ISIL. It goes further. Al-Nusra has now decided to support ISIL so you have the contradiction of one of your Coalition partners, Qatar, about to bomb an organisation it supports.
You state that ISIL is murdering Muslims. That is true. But it is also true that the Iraqi government under al-Maliki also murdered Muslims in state-sponsored sectarian killings of non-Shias. And while the Israeli state machine was murdering more than 2,000 Muslims in Gaza, where were Coalition bombs and planes to stop this happening?
Furthermore, ISIL has been condemned for public beheadings of hostages and anyone who opposes them. Yet you are supporting a Coalition against ISIL that includes Saudi Arabia which has carried out at least 30 public beheadings this year alone.
It would seem that in your quest to get rid of ISIL you are prepared to sup with the devil and ignore the human rights records of numerous Middle East states; and what do they say about those who sup with the devil?
Supporting “democracy”?
You accuse ISIL of wanting to undermine the “democratic state” of Iraq and establish its own state, a Caliphate. Let us look at the “democratic” credentials of the Iraqi state. Elections took place in April of this year (2014) to a 328-member Council of Representatives. The turnout was 62%. The State of Law coalition headed by al-Maliki won 92 seats with 24% of the votes cast, or 15% of the electorate, with most of its votes coming from the Shia majority south east areas of Iraq. This Coalition then formed a government which carried out the systematic persecution of non-Shias, in particular Sunnis, as it sought revenge for Sunni domination under Saddam Hussein.
In fact the al-Maliki government earned so much hatred from its actions that huge swathes of the population turned against it, including the Kurds. The only support that it got was from Western governments, including the USA and the UK. As history shows, Imperialism will support anyone who defends the status quo, and therefore western oil and geo-political interests, no matter how dictatorial that regime is.
Internally, the al-Maliki government’s weakness was shown when its own army melted away when faced with ISIL attacks. Even the forces of the state, the Armed Forces, would not fight to defend their own state headed by al-Maliki. That was why the USA in particular, with support from the UK, had to cajole al-Maliki to reluctantly step aside in favour of a “national unity” government of Shias, Sunnis and Kurds headed by the Shia al-Abadi.
You also state that ISIL threatens minority communities such as the Yazidi who sought escape from ISIL on Mount Sinjar. You say nothing of the 5,000 Yazidis, mainly old and infirm, who were left on Mount Sinjar after the majority had been evacuated by mainly Kurdish Peshmerga forces. The USA washed its hands of those remaining whilst claiming victory in breaking the ISIL siege (see The Guardian, August 27th 2014).
And while we talk of the Peshmerga, what absolute cynicism from the “Coalition” forces, including the UK and the USA, that are prepared to supply the Peshmerga forces with small arms to confront ISIL as nobody wants western “boots on the ground”, yet when the Kurds ask for heavy weapons to confront the US material captured by ISIL, there is a deafening silence. This is not accidental. The West says that ISIL threatens western “national interests” but the West is also fearful of a well-armed Peshmerga force that could form the backbone of Kurdish demands for a separate state that would, from a western point of view, destabilise the Middle East even further as Kurdistan would include not only Iraq, but also Syria, Iran and Turkey. The West is therefore prepared to use Kurdish forces for its own ends and you have lent the support of our Party for that purpose.
The lessons of history
You also talk about the need to “learn the lessons of the past” and therefore the need for a “comprehensive strategy, humanitarian and political as well as military; rooted in the region” and that “some of this is underway, but more needs to be done.”
I could not agree more. What are the lessons of the past? Ever since the decline of direct colonial domination in the Middle East by western powers, and the rise of Arab nationalism headed by Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt, western powers have used all means to protect their “national interests”. These means include coups, often bloody, organised and funded by the CIA with UK support, that include the overthrow of Mosaddegh in Iran in 1953 and Qasim in Iraq in 1963. And what was the crime of those ousted by these coups. They dared to nationalise western oil interests in order to pay for social programmes of the Irani and Iraqi people to raise their standards of living. To do his meant threatening western “national interests”, that is oil.
It gets worse. By their imperialist actions since the end of WWII, the USA and the UK have helped to create the conditions in which the mullahs came to power in Iran in 1979, as well as Saddam Hussein’s rise in Iraq. And how do western “national interests” respond? They support with arms and advice the very same Saddam in the Iraq-Iran war that claimed a million lives on each side. But the Frankenstein monster that you create, Saddam Hussein, gets too big for his boots and threatens western oil interests by invading Kuwait. So he is toppled and hundreds of thousands are killed and continue to be killed, Iraq as a state is effectively dismembered, and the whole region is further destabilised.
What are the lessons that need to be learned? Is it not obvious? Each time that the West intervenes in the name of “democracy” or “humanitarian assistance”, the end result is always whatever suits the geopolitical and strategic interests of western companies and the governments that represent and defend those interests.
“War is the continuation of politics by other means”
Carl von Clausewitz once said correctly that “war is the continuation of politics by other means”. I would also add that foreign policy is only a continuation of home policy. If you carry out measures at home to try and save the capitalist system from its own internal contradictions, that means protecting the social and political status quo where a tiny minority own all the wealth and power and the majority, the 99%, pay the price for an economic collapse in 2008 that they did not cause.
So you protect the rights of giant multinational companies to exploit the peoples and resources of the world in the name of profit. You help to increase that profit by driving down living standards domestically, both directly by supporting wage freezes or indirectly by supporting the cutting of the social wage of public services. And all this is done in the name of austerity and balancing the budget. Oh, I nearly forgot the King Knut of our Party, Gordon Brown, who once proclaimed in the name of “Prudence” that he had solved the problems of boom and bust.
What you do Ed at home, you also do abroad by protecting the same interests of the giant monopolies. If you seek to resolve the problems of humankind within the confines of capitalism, you end up penalising those at the bottom of society and rewarding those at the top.
That is why when you talk of a comprehensive humanitarian, political and military strategy, I reach for the sick bucket. With your background and intellect do you actually believe what you are saying? Do you not realise that there is only one strategy and that is to protect western oil and financial interests, as well as geopolitical strategic interests. After all, there are other powers in the world who will pose a threat to “our national interests”, powers such as Russia and China, as they too seek access to resources to bolster their own economies. So to avoid losing advantage to these rivals, and to ensure that western interests are protected, we inflict on the peoples of the Middle East the nightmare of war and destruction without end.
And then you say that more needs to be done in the way of a humanitarian and political strategy and that some of this is underway. So more of the same there then! As human beings and therefore thinking animals, are we not supposed to learn that if we keep doing the same thing over and over again and keep getting the same results each time, it is perhaps time to change what we do?
Supporting capitalism at home and abroad
This week domestically we have learned that the budget deficit is far larger than thought as the Tory plan was to eliminate the deficit in the lifetime of this parliament. They now celebrate the fact that the deficit has been reduced by one third, so Osborne announces a further £25bn of cuts on top of those already in the pipeline. This will mean the utter and complete devastation of local government and the services provided. But it does not matter as the financial markets will be satisfied and more tax cuts for the wealthy can be implemented. After all a smaller state back to the levels of 1948 won’t need such a great income from taxation!
And what prospect do we in the LP hold out for the electorate in 2015? The wise sage Gordon Brown stated the obvious in the Scottish referendum campaign. He said that many of our loyal supporters, working class people in Scotland, were flocking to the Yes campaign as it would mean an end to austerity and cuts in public services. Yet the LP was in a Better Together campaign with the very parties, the Tories and their pale shadows the Lib Dems, who are carrying out austerity. Even worse, during the campaign you and Ed Balls did everything possible to reassure the money markets that capitalism would be safe in your hands by stating that if we win the election in 2015, we will eliminate the deficit by 2020.
So here at home you carry out pro-capitalist policies and therefore risk losing the next election as we cannot motivate our own supporters except on an anti-Tory vote. And abroad too you conveniently forget whose interests you should be defending, those of the poor, the dispossessed, the down trodden, working class people, our natural supporters. Instead, domestically you side with the Tories and the Lib Dems, as well as abroad with a whole array of reactionary and oppressive regimes in the Middle East, in the name of fighting ISIL. You have the same policies at home and abroad. And in doing all of this you hide behind the fig leaf of “legality”, where private property is nine tenths of the law!
Socialism or barbarism
ISIL is the product of a social and economic system that offers no hope for the overwhelming majority of humankind. Last year we learnt that globally 85 individuals had the same wealth as 50% of humanity, 3.5bn people. This year that number is down to 69! All that capitalism can offer humankind is plunder, war, misery, life without hope and an increasing concentration of wealth: 1% against 99%. It is in these conditions that ISIL and similar movements breed and grow as capitalism uses the age-old tactics of divide and rule – on language, religion, ethnicity, and so on – to protect its rule.
Western interests offer nothing to the peoples of Iraq in terms of what we all seek, the right to work, earn a decent wage, educate our children and give them hope for the future. Life under Saddam was bleak; today, it is far worse. All we can offer is war and destruction and increasing misery, and all in the name of protecting our “national interests”.
The natural wealth of the Middle East could be used for the benefit of all its peoples, but under capitalism that is impossible as private ownership means profit for a few and misery for most. If you were really serious about removing both domestic and foreign support for ISIL, you would need a programme that can offer hope for the future. And that can only be done here at home and abroad on the basis of what used to be on our Party cards:
To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.
The Blairite counter revolution in our Party meant that we ended up with the aim of creating “a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few”. We had thirteen years in power and we could not even achieve that! And what you and Ed Balls propose after 2015 is to take us even further away from that aim.
Under capitalism it cannot be anything else. To defeat ISIL you need to offer the peoples of the region the chance to work together to put an end to capitalism and fight for a socialist future for humankind. That future holds out two possibilities – socialism or barbarism.
Letter from Ed Miliband to Labour Party members, 26th September 2014
Today, I voted for British air strikes against ISIL in Iraq. I want to share my reasons for this with you.
ISIL is a murderous organisation. It has ambitions for a state of its own — a Caliphate across the Middle East, run according to horrific values. And it is threatening to undermine the democratic state of Iraq.
We have seen its hostage-taking of innocent British citizens, but it is not just British citizens who they are threatening: they also threaten Christians, Yazidis, fellow Muslims, Sunni and Shia, from many different countries and backgrounds. They threaten anyone who does not subscribe to their deeply perverted ideology.
The truth is that ISIL is murdering Muslims. Military action against ISIL is not an attack on Islam.
We cannot stand by against the threat of ISIL in Iraq, but in acting against them we need to learn the lessons of the past.
That means a comprehensive strategy, humanitarian and political as well as military; rooted in the region. Some of this is underway, but more needs to be done.
I understand the reason for many people’s wariness about military action and I share it.
I was not in the House of Commons in 2003, but I was not in favour of that war. I understand that some will wonder if this is a repeat of that experience. In my view, it’s not.
The decision today is about supporting a democratic state, not overturning an existing regime. There is also no question of British ground troops being deployed.
There are six criteria I believe we must use to judge when military action is right and to make sure we learn the lessons of the past. These are: the action must have just cause; it must be the last resort; it must be of clear legality; it must have a reasonable prospect of success; there must be support in the region; and it must be proportionate.
I have scrutinised these six conditions and believe they are met in this case.
You can read my scrutiny of these six conditions here.
There is no debate about the legal basis for action. There is no argument about whether military action is a last resort.
There is also broad international support behind action, not a divided world. All 28 EU member states and the Arab League are providing support. Five Arab states are taking part in military action.
As always, I have huge admiration for the bravery, spirit, and the duty displayed by our armed forces, who will act on the decision taken by Parliament today.
There is no graver decision for our Parliament and our country than the one taken today. Intervention always has risks, but ISIL unchecked means more persecution of the innocent and a dismembered Iraq would be more dangerous for Britain.
I believe that taking military action against ISIL in Iraq is the right course of action in promoting our values and protecting our security.
Best,
Ed
