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Re: Tim Wall's Ukraine Resolutions
Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2022 8:05 pm
by Gerard Killoran
A reminder that after the invasion of Afghanistan, Kasparov agitated for more wars against Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia (!) and Iran.
The War Is Not Yet Won
By Garry Kasparov
Aug. 5, 2002 12:01 am ET
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1028501135694580560
There will be moaning about a new colonialism. Yet ask if the people of Afghanistan are better off now. It is in our interests that others too are freed.
But offense comes first. Baghdad remains the next stop but not the last. We must also have plans for Tehran and Damascus, not to mention Riyadh. The tactics will vary, but the goal -- total defeat of terrorism -- is clear. Once American ground troops are in Iraq, the message must go out to all terrorist sponsors that this game is up.
There will be no peace in Gaza, no freedom from fear in Jerusalem, until we have prosecuted the war on terror in Baghdad, Tehran, Damascus and elsewhere.
Peter Heine Nielsen has been retweeting Kasparov in favour of his own campaign. It seems that some wars and invasions are OK after all.
Re: Tim Wall's Ukraine Resolutions
Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2022 8:42 pm
by Angus French
Gerard Killoran wrote: ↑Fri Jul 29, 2022 8:05 pm
A reminder that after the invasion of Afghanistan, Kasparov agitated for more wars against Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia (!) and Iran.
The War Is Not Yet Won
By Garry Kasparov
Aug. 5, 2002 12:01 am ET
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1028501135694580560
There will be moaning about a new colonialism. Yet ask if the people of Afghanistan are better off now. It is in our interests that others too are freed.
But offense comes first. Baghdad remains the next stop but not the last. We must also have plans for Tehran and Damascus, not to mention Riyadh. The tactics will vary, but the goal -- total defeat of terrorism -- is clear. Once American ground troops are in Iraq, the message must go out to all terrorist sponsors that this game is up.
There will be no peace in Gaza, no freedom from fear in Jerusalem, until we have prosecuted the war on terror in Baghdad, Tehran, Damascus and elsewhere.
Peter Heine Nielsen has been retweeting Kasparov in favour of his own campaign. It seems that some wars and invasions are OK after all.
Like! (Just to be clear, the thing I'm liking is Gerard's post.)
Re: Tim Wall's Ukraine Resolutions
Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2022 10:18 pm
by Matt Mackenzie
Kasparov completely swallowed the cranky Neocon agenda just as easily as he did the similarly cranky New Chronology.
Re: Tim Wall's Ukraine Resolutions
Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2022 10:27 pm
by JustinHorton
I don't really have a problem with people wanting to attach Kasparov to their cause abd of course some of the people Kasparov says are bad people are indeed bad people, but I would prefer that people encountered the real Kasparov, with all his faults and iffy past statements and dubious associations. And I would like to see him interviewed properly once in a while rather than once in a blue moon.
Re: Tim Wall's Ukraine Resolutions
Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2022 12:23 pm
by Chris Goodall
That a person supports some invasions and not others is hardly a gotcha. Any fool can support every invasion, and any fool can put a minus sign in front and oppose every invasion. Opposing some invasions and not others means that, even if you're wrong, you've at least applied some moral discernment.
Re: Tim Wall's Ukraine Resolutions
Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2022 4:06 pm
by Matt Mackenzie
It is possible to think the "discerning" outlook is to believe invading another country's territory requires a pretty sound rationale.
Re: Tim Wall's Ukraine Resolutions
Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2022 5:21 pm
by Gerard Killoran
Chris Goodall wrote: ↑Sat Jul 30, 2022 12:23 pm
That a person supports some invasions and not others is hardly a gotcha. Any fool can support every invasion, and any fool can put a minus sign in front and oppose every invasion. Opposing some invasions and not others means that, even if you're wrong, you've at least applied some moral discernment.
In the case of Kasparov, supporting the occupation and suppression of the Palestinians, advocating war and destruction on a series of muslim countries and then opposing the invasion of Ukraine shows something other than 'moral discernment' whatever that's supposed to mean.
To 'put a minus sign in front and oppose every invasion' might make someone a fool, but it would be a fool who would be right 99% of the time.
Re: Tim Wall's Ukraine Resolutions
Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2022 10:26 pm
by Chris Goodall
Gerard Killoran wrote: ↑Sat Jul 30, 2022 5:21 pm
Chris Goodall wrote: ↑Sat Jul 30, 2022 12:23 pm
That a person supports some invasions and not others is hardly a gotcha. Any fool can support every invasion, and any fool can put a minus sign in front and oppose every invasion. Opposing some invasions and not others means that, even if you're wrong, you've at least applied some moral discernment.
In the case of Kasparov, supporting the occupation and suppression of the Palestinians, advocating war and destruction on a series of muslim countries
and then opposing the invasion of Ukraine shows something other than 'moral discernment' whatever that's supposed to mean.
If you believe that being right about these things is important, it seems rather odd to criticise Kasparov for being right once rather than zero times. If he does indeed see it as a general rule that all invasions must be supported, which I sincerely doubt he does, then I think the Ukrainians would forgive him for making the current invasion an exception to that rule.
Re: Tim Wall's Ukraine Resolutions
Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2022 11:37 pm
by Roger Lancaster
Perhaps those who reject the case for all invasions would care to comment on the 1944 invasion of Hitler's Europe?
Re: Tim Wall's Ukraine Resolutions
Posted: Sun Jul 31, 2022 6:44 am
by JustinHorton
Perhaps if we have any more straw men on this thread it'll constitute a fire hazard
Re: Tim Wall's Ukraine Resolutions
Posted: Sun Jul 31, 2022 9:51 am
by Roger Lancaster
My point, for the hard-of-thinking, was that to reject the case for all invasions is to reject the case for undoing a wrong. A pacifist belief holds that all wars and violence are unjustified, and so might not have agreed with the 1944 invasion, but that's probably a view held by few.
Re: Tim Wall's Ukraine Resolutions
Posted: Sun Jul 31, 2022 10:54 am
by Gerard Killoran
Roger Lancaster wrote: ↑Sat Jul 30, 2022 11:37 pm
Perhaps those who reject the case for all invasions would care to comment on the 1944 invasion of Hitler's Europe?
You are clearly talking about the invasion that started the infamous 1944-45 war. I now realise how wrong I was to provoke an historian of 'Hitler's Europe'.
Re: Tim Wall's Ukraine Resolutions
Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2022 12:33 pm
by Chris Goodall
“The intelligentsia of the Left were the loudest in demanding that the Nazi aggression should be resisted at all costs. When it comes to a showdown, scarce four weeks have passed before they remember that they are pacifists and write defeatist letters to your columns, leaving the defence of freedom and civilization to Colonel Blimp and the Old School Tie, for whom Three Cheers.” - John Maynard Keynes to The Times
Re: Tim Wall's Ukraine Resolutions
Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2022 3:43 pm
by Gerard Killoran
Chris Goodall wrote: ↑Mon Aug 01, 2022 12:33 pm
“The intelligentsia of the Left were the loudest in demanding that the Nazi aggression should be resisted at all costs. When it comes to a showdown, scarce four weeks have passed before they remember that they are pacifists and write defeatist letters to your columns, leaving the defence of freedom and civilization to Colonel Blimp and the Old School Tie, for whom Three Cheers.” - John Maynard Keynes to The Times
Keynes was writing about fellow members of the Bloomsbury Group. Quite a few real Left intellectuals had been fighting Fascism (and sometimes losing their lives doing so) since the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.
As for Keynes' attitude to doing some actual fighting himself, read this:
https://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/archive-cen ... -objection
Re: Tim Wall's Ukraine Resolutions
Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2022 12:04 am
by Chris Goodall
There you go then; three more diverse conflicts than WW1, Spain and WW2 one could not hope to find, and yet you seem to consider it a character flaw to be willing to die in only one or two of them, rather than all or none.