We’ll have any United Left, as long as it’s ours!

An interesting post on IrishElection by Cian [here] raises some very useful questions. Just what is happening on the further left at the moment and how are the various campaigns for a United Left going?

Well if we look at the last twelve months a neutral observer might think the answer to that question is quite a lot. But if we dig deeper…well hey, why spoil the fun? Here are some random reports from the frontline.

A little over a year ago there was the announcement by Independent TD Seamus Healy of the Workers’ and Unemployed Action Group and Dublin Anti-Bin Tax Cllr. Joan Collins of a campaign for a new left-wing party pre-empting Labour’s decision to enter an electoral alliance with Fine Gael. Other worthies in attendence were Dermot Connolly of the CWAG (Community & Workers Action Group) and Colm Breathnach of the ISN (Independent Socialist Network). For those of you unfamiliar with the terrain of the Further Left Joan Collins was once a figure of some significance within the Socialist Party, but sadly there was a parting of the ways and Joan went onto win a Council seat in Crumlin Kimmage as an Independent with a not-disreputable 13.78% of the vote.

A significant plank of the new campaign was an absolute aversion to coalition.

In November this was formalised at a meeting in the Teachers Club where there was agreement on various issues including the following:

1. That a joint campaign to build a new party of working people would be launched by all those involved.
2. That this campaign would be known as the Campaign for an Independent Left.
3. The campaign would be based on eleven points of political agreement (see below).
4. That a steering committee would organise this campaign with two representatives of each organisation involved and a number of independent representatives.
5. That a series of public meetings would be held to open out a public debate on the need for a new party of working people.
6. That this initiative was not about setting up yet another small left organisation or exclusive grouping to rival already existing bodies and that the CIL would engage in discussions with other left groups/parties/individuals to advance this project.

Meanwhile the SWP that September, never far behind on the issue of a United Left, declared in Socialist Worker that it was creating the Davitt League described as ‘an exciting development which could be the basis for the emergence of a new left movement in Ireland. Labour, the Greens and Sinn Fein refuse to rule out coalition with right-wing, privatising, pro-war parties. A new left movement of people-power can give a political voice to campaigns and help to build a movement to defeat neoliberalism and war’. The SWP, perhaps confusingly already had their People Before Profit, or more ‘youthful’ PB4P, alliance which worked for much the same as the Davitt League.

Perhaps coincidentally, at the same time, in England and Wales the Socialist Party declared itself in favour of a campaign for a ‘New Workers Party’. Note the declaration was in favour of a ‘campaign for’ rather than an actual party. There’s a reason for this, general opinion within the SP, following a rigorous analysis of the objective political circumstances within which they labour, believe that the conditions are not yet right for a mass party of the working class. Some elements outside tend to agree, but not necessarily for the same reason.

Not to be outdone Caoimhghin O Caolain of SF called for a ‘New Left Project’ between the more popular…I mean of course less principled elements of the left…Sinn Féin and Labour! Simultaneously Mick O’Reilly of the ATGWU called for Labour to ditch the Mullingar Accord and build a ‘new project’ of the left. His definition of the left was “Labour, Sinn Féin, the left independents, and a lot of the social groups outside that and the trade union movement”. Now while O Caolain’s intervention was almost certainly mischief-making that of O’Reilly was deadly serious.

Interestingly in March this year Joe Higgins at the Socialist Party conference in Maynooth himself called for a ‘new left’ party. The platform for such a party would be a socialist alternative to mainstream parties, or as he put it, “There is no real choice here for working-class people as all these parties share similar economic and political positions. All they fight over, in reality, is which cabal should have its hands on the loot”.

On a slightly different tangent Republicanism, perhaps influenced by this outbreak of fraternal cameraderie on the further left, held a meeting in the ATGWU hall on Abbey Street, “Where next for Republicans” which brought together most strands of Republican and Republican Socialist thinking.

Finally the ATGWU hosted a conference, the one Cian refers to, on June 17th 2006 which called for A New Left Alternative. Various groups including the SWP, Joan Collins and various socialist and Trade Union activists. No particular set of agreements came out of the meeting but the mood was said to be reasonably good, which is a little victory.

So as can be seen there’s a lot going on, but does it add up to anything?

The answer as usual is, yes and no.

As ever, the prospects for a mass left party, or even a new left party, seem poor. Simply put the differences of outlook between the players is too great. It’s not just ideology, although that is a part of it, it’s personality, history, development and context. Indeed the very fact there are so many players is one of the problems.

It’s almost inconceivable that organisations as disparate ideologically as the ISN (former WP/DL activists), the Workers Action Group (various independent and Republican socialists), the CWAG i.e. Joan Collins’ people, the WUAG, the SP, the SWP and so on and so forth could agree a single platform. A single slate might be more tenable with groups agreeing to support agreed candidates (somewhat along the lines of the Scottish Socialist Party). Even then the picture breaks down when we contemplate this latest bit of news from June 26th where it was agreed at a PB4P meeting that Brid Smith of the SWP would be nominated to contest the next general election in the same constituency as Joan Collins (should she decide to make a run). Not entirely inexplicable from a party political point of view, since Smith did reasonably well during the local elections, but hard to square with the new unity drive. Worse again there appears to be some concern that Joan Collins had the temerity to vote for the FF Mayor of Dublin. As might have been expected people are wondering where that fits in with the Campaign for an Independent Left.

Yet, there is the possibility on a certain level that (some of) these groups could, in concert, lock into a general disenchantment with mainstream politics. There are already TDs in the Dáil who in part reflect that view, most notably Finian McGrath, Seamus Healy and, of course, Joe Higgins. The first two will be fighting hard to protect their seats and perhaps linkages to nebulous broad further left campaigns will do them no good, and possibly some harm. Joe Higgins is representative of a party which to some degree appears to believe it has a favourable wind at it’s back and perhaps they too are unlikely to want their message diluted or distorted by the more vociferous class warriors (although to be fair they do class war rather well themselves). The other left-independents, such as Tony Gregory and Catherine Murphy, come from a somewhat different political background and less interested in such entanglements.

Will it work? Gut instinct knowing people involved in at least six of the organisations mentioned above (not in itself an achievement – trust me)? No it won’t.

But the fact that so many of these groups are talking about unity, and meeting about unity and planning unity seems to me to indicate that there is a genuine appetite for a structured organisation on the further left.

Perhaps it is because they feel there ‘should’ be a further left vote (arguably because they’ve never come to terms with the fact that Republicanism has mopped up much of the radical vote and also that Irish society is politically rather centrist), or perhaps it’s the example of Joe Higgins that makes them believe that ‘there but for the grace of God go we’. I don’t think so though, I think it’s both illusory, and delusory.

I certainly don’t see the votes there to support such an organisation of the left. Labour will sweep up mainstream centre left. The Green’s will take their niche vote with them. Sinn Féin as I’ve argued at the Cedar Lounge Revolution are doing quite well with the hard-edged non-further-left left vote (the old WP/republican left) vote, which leaves a couple of percentage points to be prised away from Independents.

But that hardly makes for much of a party of the independent left, or indeed a mass party of the left. Two TDs, perhaps three would be the best that could be expected and their future trajectory would probably follow that of previous Independent left TDs, kings of much they survey in their geographical fiefdoms but of marginal significance outside of them.
Anyhow, for those of us interested in such things further details and discussions can be found at [indymedia.ie]

Bitter Times…

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As we move into the third week of the Israeli-Hizbullah, or should that be Israeli-Lebanon conflict, for those who consider themselves sympathetic to Israel and to a viable two-state solution for Israel/Palestine it has to be admitted that the current events are massively disappointing. In fact the past six years or so have been massively disappointing. I’ve avoided posting about this up until now because to be honest there is a sort of tragic futility to the entire situation.

But a number of thoughts strike me about the events there. Firstly there is the issue of sovereignty. Then there is the issue of proportionality. Thirdly there is the issue of outcomes. Finally there is the issue of intervention.

Let’s take these one at a time.

Sovereignty, which in some respects is also synonymous with security. Israel asserts it’s right to maintain the integrity of it’s sovereignty from Hezbullah attack. That’s seems entirely reasonable. Lebanon, clearly has an equal sovereign right, although the argument appears to be that this is diluted because a) It is unable to impose it’s will upon Hezbullah militarily and b) it allows Hezbullah representatives to sit within government. That seems tricky. Bringing extenuating circumstances to the debate is always dubious, but one has to note that Lebanon has had a dismal history and due to the sectarian nature of the state (I mean that in a descriptive rather than a perjorative sense) there has been a necessity to establish power-sharing government. This is before we even get to the nature of Hizbullah which while it clearly operates as a terrorist group in some respects also has features of a standing army. So we have competing rights. The right of Israel to safeguard her territory, and the equal right of the Lebanon to safeguard her territory. Israel believes it’s right to self-defence trumps the Lebanese argument to self-defense which is to some degree questionable.

Proportionality, which develops from sovereignty. The trigger event for the crisis was the attack on an Israeli unit which left five soldiers dead and two kidnapped and taken, presumably, to the Lebanon. What was the most obvious response to such an outrage? Well, a number of scenarios suggest themselves. The targeting of Hezbullah units on the border. The targetting of Hezbullah camps elsewhere. These would be reasonably proportionate, in the sense that they would send a clear message and the weight of the response would be greater than the initial event. Instead we have seen a wildly disproportionate response where the IDF and IAF has attacked far beyond Hezbullah controlled areas and attacked Lebanese infrastructure, which has taken a remarkable degree of skill on the part of Israeli government and military spokespeople to paint as legitimate military targets. Again this feeds into the sense that the Israeli, and US, concept of proportionality is wildly different from that of most other nations. The attack on a UN position is simply inexplicable. Even were one to accept the, frankly self-serving statements from those spokespeople, even any sympathetic observer would question the wisdom of such a wildly unbalanced response and ponder the long-term result of it.

Which leads us to outcomes. Let’s start with the primary incident, the Hezbullah incursion. What was the desired outcome? Obviously to up the ante and/or use the soldiers as a bargaining chip. Perhaps to kick off a shooting war on a large scale. And what did Israel do, it started upping and it didn’t stop. Indeed it’s upping is now off the scale in general terms. The outcomes desired on the Israeli side? Well presumably the return of the two soldiers, yet it’s difficult to believe that the actions of the past two weeks could be anything other than counterproductive on that score. Which is where proportion comes in since arguably after a certain point the likelihood of the two soldiers remaining alive would be low. Although Hezbullah have held soldiers captive for lengthy periods of time. A further outcome would be the – natural – wish to inflict the greatest possible harm on Hizbullah during this period. That’s more achievable. Yet, as with Hamas, Hizbullah (possibly a more intransigient adversary) isn’t a Baader-Meinhof, or even Al-Quaida, groups which have no particularly strong organic linkage to the societies within which they operate and this is where the talk of this being a part of the global ‘war on terror’ break down. Hizbullah is an organisation which has strong organic roots in Lebanese society. But the nature of those roots, and the nature of Lebanese society are such that it is impossible to pull them out without effectively destroying the society. And the current destruction of the infrastructure is an incredibly dangerous, and to my mind essentially immoral, strategy. Again, I’m not saying that the initial event demanded no response. What I’m saying is that Israel had a duty to position that response in a logical and proportionate manner. And of course if we’re talking about Hizbullah we’re talking about Syria and Iran. Syria seems difficult to read. Much of the time it appears to want to be loved by the west, or at least noticed. Iran, by contrast, seems to want respect. Hizbullah as a proxy for the two, which it is and it isn’t insofar as it has it’s own agenda and dynamic, allows them to power project in a way they wouldn’t otherwise be able to. Yet neither Syria nor Israel wish to engage in direct confrontation as an interesting report on KCRW’s excellent To the Point podcast 27/07/2006 available [here] indicates.

And so we arrive at intervention. Who would intervene? Why would they intervene? When would they intervene?

The answers are precious few, there are no good reasons (from the point of view of states being asked to), and they won’t for as long as they can afford not to. It pains me to say this, but as an example of the bankruptcy of current US foreign policy in the region and beyond this could hardly be more stark. The current government of the Lebanon was one of the few bright spots in the Middle East, and was in some respects sponsored by the US. The US is being asked by Israel to provide troops, but one wonders whether the Pentagon feels it necessary to place yet more soldiers in the line of fire of Islamists, particularly Islamists with short to medium range surface to surface rockets. The current noises from the US and the UK calling for an intervention force prior to a ceasefire strikes me as a bizarre message to send out to the world and Blairs role in this is worse again and entirely contradictory to his approach to other conflict resolution issues.

Let’s talk a little bit more about Israel. Many years ago I was in Israel and I was impressed by the place and the people(s). I was also very impressed by how small it is as a geographic entity. The concept of it being ‘pushed into the sea’ was not without foundation in the past. Even today one suspects that a strong enough conventional force might well do the job. On the other hand, and particularly since it acquired nuclear weapons it is difficult to see what circumstances would lead to such an outcome.

What disturbs me about Israel at the moment is the way in which it appears wedded to massive retaliations. Therefore operations aren’t simply organised to a specific military goal, but rather to have an exemplar effect. We’ve seen this in Gaza, we’ve seen it in the West Bank and now we’re seeing this in Lebanon.

And it doesn’t work. On the micro level the inability of technological armies to easily counter low level guerilla warfare, as demonstrated in Iraq, is being played out again in Southern Lebanon. There is an unhinged quality to this, in so far as it is clear no existential threat exists to the state of Israel – not in a world where even EU criticism of the current events is muted and US support is steadfast. But that’s the trap. US support is steadfast now because the US suffered 9/11 and therefore itself began to push back the boundaries of what was acceptable in international relations. This has given Israel an example it has been, unfortunately, all too willing to emulate. I don’t want to slide into anti-US rhetoric, I largely supported the overthrow of Saddam, but it’s difficult to see that as anything approaching a good in the current situation. The reports from Iraq are appalling, US prestige has taken a body-blow, their resources are woefully overstretched. The situation is near disastrous.

I think it is a dreadful error on the part of Israel to align itself too closely to the US either in word or deed. Bush will be gone within two years. it is difficult to see the US military remaining in any serious form in Iraq after that. Short of a further successful Al-Quada attack on the US it is unlikely that there will be an appetite for further adventurism on the part of the political elites in Washington. In the world which may exist in five, ten or twenty years the level of support Israel currently enjoys from Washington may be a thing of the past.

That’s why I think it’s vital that those who do care about the continued existence of Israel as an even nominally liberal and democratic state have a duty to express just why the current strategies employed by that state are appallingly counterproductive for it and for the security of the region. Inevitably, sooner or later Israel will have to come to terms with those around it and those closest to it. The events of the last two and half weeks have not brought that prospect any closer.

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Cradle Will Rock

Following in the tradition of extremely last minute recommendations, I’ve noticed that Tim Robbins’ film Cradle Will Rock is being shown tonight on RTE1 at 12.20am – all good pinkos take note (if you see it in time!).

This underrated and virtually unknown film (I remember it was shown at the Dublin Film Festival several years ago, but I don’t know if it ever received a general release here) is one of the few films of this scale to come out of the U.S. in the 1990s and actually engage with politics, or political ideas.

A huge, sprawling, Altman-esque mess of a film, it tells the story of the production of Marc Blitztein’s Brechtian musical ‘Cradle Will Rock’ in 1936.  The show was directed by Orson Welles and supported by the Works Programme Administration’s Federal Theatre Project (one of Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ schemes introduced during the Depression) but was forced to close following ideologically-motivated cuts in the Project’s budget.

The play itself, however, forms only the core of the story, which juggles a number of different subplots dealing broadly with the relationship between art and politics, or political commitment, with appearances by various notable historical figures including William Randolph Hearst, Welles himself and his colleague John Houseman (of The Paper Chase fame), Nelson Rockefeller and Diego Rivera and Frieda Kahlo.  Indeed, the film also tells the infamous story of Rockefeller’s commissioning and destruction of Rivera’s mural ‘Man at the Crossroads’ for his centre in Manhattan.

For a film so unknown, it contains a pretty illustrious cast – a virtual ‘Who’s Who’ of pinko lefty Hollywood – the kind of people who formed the butt of the jokes in Team America: World Police.  Among others, it features John and Joan Cusak, Susan Sarandon, Hank Azaria, Jamey Sheridan, John Turturro, Emily Watson and Vanessa Redgrave (if you can stomach her overplayed gurning), among others.

The outstanding performance of the entire film, however, comes from Bill Murray, playing a cynical anti-leftist ventriloquist reluctantly teaches his skills to a couple of incompetent apprentices as part of the Works Project.  It’s arguably in this film that he first showed his true versatility as an actor, coming as it did between his early Stripes/Ghostbusters films and his later triumphs in the likes of Rushmore or Lost in Translation.

The film is no masterpiece, it must be admitted.  It can be pretty heavy-handed in places, and descends into rather syrupy sentimentality at times.  But it’s worth watching for no other reason than to remind ourselves that unapologetic political films can be made on this kind of scale, and encompassing these kind of broad themes, and which aren’t about the Middle East, or the Bush administration or aren’t laden down with rather satirical irony.

And if, like me, you’re probably going to fall asleep before it comes on and aren’t sure about working the timer on the video recorder, it’s released on DVD next week.

Speaking of which, when are we going to see Reds on DVD?

 

 

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Are you now, or have you ever played, the Dane?

With the wall-to-wall coverage of the crisis in Lebanon, it would be easy to overlook this obscure little story about the US Army discharge of a sergeant under the ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ rule.

The soldier, who goes by the bizarre name of Bleu Copas, was forced to leave after an eight-month investigation prompted by anonymous e-mails to his superiors alleging that he was gay and demanding that action be taken against him.

Leaving aside the absurdity of the anti-gay position of the military to begin with, an important fact to note in this particular case is that Copas was a specialist in Arabic, a skill which the US military and intelligence services are crying out for. And it’s not just Copas; according to the AP article, over 800 servicemen and women with what are termed ‘critical abilities’ have been dismissed under this rule in the last ten years or so, with a replacement cost of $369 million. The fact that someone’s sexuality can be considered so abhorrent that the effectiveness of the forces is less important than the need for their removal suggests, at best, a rather warped set of priorities.

The best bit of the article, though, is the description of the questions put to Copas to ascertain whether he was gay or not:

On December 2, investigators formally interviewed Copas and asked if he understood the military’s policy on homosexuals, if he had any close acquaintances who were gay, and if he was involved in community theater. He answered affirmatively.

“Community theater”? It’s nice to know that old stereotypes die hard, and that apparently Captain Over from Airplane now works for the US military. Perhaps the next question put was “Do you like films about Gladiators, Bleu”?

US and them…Stem Cell Research on both sides of the Atlantic and why we might be a little more similar than we think.

I’ve been reading in the Irish Times and the Guardian about the stem cell controversy [subscription required], and what is striking is how in the US the approach taken by Bush, where he has vetoed state funding for such research despite overwhelming Congressional support, is trumpeted as an example of the backwardness of his government, whereas to date there has been hardly a peep about the attitude of our colleagues in Europe. Until this week, that is.
Let’s consider the way the issue stacks up on this side of the Atlantic. The basic outlines of it are as follows. The EU also voted on a €50 billion science investment programme. So far so non-contentious. The problem being that as part of the programme there is explicit funding provided for embryonic stem-cell research. Generally this sort of research is limited in Europe as the IT notes ‘under strict conditions on surplus embryos created as part of the in-vitro fertilisation process’.

The Irish position, as articulated by Micheál Martin was that ‘ethical subsidiarity’ should be maintained, which means effectively that while such research would not be permitted here and no funding would go to it, it would be allowed and funded within European states which allow such research to be conducted. One aspect of government thinking according to the IT report is ‘that it is concerned that a protracted disagreement or the emergence of a group of states holding a blocking veto could result in the entire science investment package being stalled”. And the investment isn’t inconsiderable. Irish researchers received €200 million from the last investment package – they’re hoping for more this time.

So how does the rest of Europe see it? Well, the lines were fairly clearly drawn between two camps. On the pro-embryonic stem cell research side we had the UK, Scandinavia, Spain and Portugal. On the opposing side we had Germany, Poland, Austria and Malta (Slovenia defected to the other side). I find this latter camp very interesting. Germany has some of the most restrictive IVF laws in Europe, to the extent that German nationals (as quoted in the Sunday Business Post at the weekend [here]) are voting with their feet in order to avail of more liberal services abroad. Indeed it’s entire approach to such issues appears cautious in the extreme – yet it is a relatively liberal society. Nor is this some sort of Catholic/Protestant or more likely Catholic/non-Religious divide. Spain was, last time I looked, at least nominally Catholic.

Anyhow, to assuage German feeling, a fudge was done and the EU Commission stated that EU money won’t be used to fund any research that destroys human embryo’s Individual countries would retain their right to ban or permit such research according to their own preference, and it was decided that new “EU rules mean that this part of the process will have to be funded from outside the EU budget”. [here]

Germany gets a stronger restatement of already existing EU rules, but everyone is allowed to go their own way. Which curiously is not that different to the US position – although the financial slack will be made up from private, rather than national funding in the US.

The point being that there are within Europe, as within the US, genuine and significant differences of opinion. The Irish view, weirdly seems to me to almost ‘federalist’ in the US sense of the word, and none the worse for that. In a context where interstate travel is relatively easy I don’t think that it’s a bad idea for different European states to have different approaches to ethical issues as determined by their populations. Is that mealy-mouthed? Is Martin, and indeed myself, attempting to make a virtue of necessity? Perhaps, but we know to our cost how destructive protracted arguments about such issues can be. A plurality along the lines suggested in the terms ‘ethical subsidiarity’ is realistic.

I wonder, though on a different level, if any of this means anything or is it just gesture politics writ large. In the US although federal funds won’t be available, private funding is available. Those supporting such research include such luminaries as Nancy Reagan amongst others. When issues cut across parties in that way you can be certain that there will be further fudges so that everyone walks away with something.

Above and beyond that one doesn’t have to believe in the onset of some sort of genetic Singularity to see that biology is going to be a major area of change over the course of this century. What interests me is, that rather like fusion, the introduction of new techniques and processes in this field is taking much longer than was originally thought. That may well change.

In the long run…and after all, there’s always a long run, I imagine that such research within strict guidelines will become normalised. How do I feel about that? I honestly don’t know. The old arguments about maximisation of good seem to me to be fairly strong in this instance. I don’t personally buy into the idea that the embryo per se is necessarily the absolute defining point at which life starts. The body itself in it’s almost profligate shedding of embryo’s (six to eight out of every ten never implant under ‘natural’ conditions) seems to me to indicate that more is required if we are to have a meaningful definition. But that’s just me, and I’m open to alternative interpretations.

Even when it was the bears, I knew it was the Stoppers …

It was almost too good to be true: Nick Cohen, writing in today’s Observer, with a straightforward column making a reasonable point (in this case pointing to the contrast between pro-interventionist sentiment in the Balkans in the 1990s and the current reluctance to intervene in the crisis in Lebanon) that wasn’t just another rehash of his ‘aren’t the anti-war left so terribly terrible’ fixation.

Oh dear – let’s not celebrate just yet. The old Nick Cohen hasn’t returned.  Apparently the hesitation of Blair and others about calling for intervention is, once again, all the fault of ‘the left’. Cohen writes:

Iraq has had a further consequence that I hear echoed in every discussion about war and genocide but find harder to pin down. George W Bush so enraged mainstream opinion that liberal-minded people trashed their principles and cut the ground from under their own feet. The legacy of their failure to support Iraqi democrats is a growth of conspiracy theory and a furious indifference to the suffering of others. Intervention in Lebanon, the Sudan or anywhere else would be ‘all about oil’, an ‘illegal’ war or a neoconservative plot. However just the cause or pressing the crisis, there are plenty who are primed now to shout that most solipsistic slogan of consumerist politics: ‘Not in my name.’

It’s odd, to say the least, that Blair is in such thrall to the ‘not in my name’ lobby now, when he didn’t seem all that concerned about them three years ago when a million people marched through London. It’s even stranger when one bears in mind he’s not even reacting to anti-war sentiment (I certainly haven’t heard a non-intervention argument coming from Cohen’s old enemies) – he’s apparently afraid of the potential ‘it’s all about oil’ slogans he might face.

Cohen, once again, is completely missing the point.  The reason there isn’t any appetite for military intervention in the Lebanon is exactly the same as the reason why Western powers used military force in the Balkans, Iraq and elsewhere: not because Nick Cohen wanted them to, or even because it was the right thing to do, but because it was in their interest, or perceived interests to do so.

Unfortunately Cohen is still rather slavishly following the Paul Berman line (his references to Bernard Kouchner and the Islamist ‘love of death’ are giveaways, lifted straight from Power and the Idealists and Terror and Liberalism respectively).  Berman, like Cohen, is loathe to examine to reasons why a military action might be carried out, if he supports that action in the first place.  At the risk of sad, self-promotion, I’ve made this point about Berman before, and won’t repeat myself.  Most simply, though, Berman and Cohen fail to distinguish between the benefits of a particular action and the motivations of the actors (to be fair, this is something many opponents of the invasion of Iraq, for example, also refuse to recognise).

It takes a particularly blinkered worldview to argued that the responsibility for the current inaction in Lebanon can be laid at the door of the ‘anti-war’ movement, yet fail to mention that the United States (one of the possible agents of intervention Cohen suggests) are actually opposed to a ceasefire and support the actions of Israel (at least for the moment).  Isn’t it possible that the stated policy of the US might, at least, have as much bearing on their position as their fear of being accused of imperialism?

It’s also unclear what kind of intervention Cohen is talking about.  At one point he cites the UN forces currently stationed in Bosnia, Kosovo and East Timor (reminding us that any states which involves its troops in a humanitarian expedition to Lebanon should be prepared to stay there for the long haul).  What he doesn’t point out, though, is that those UN troops are in place to maintain an already agreed settlement, not to impose such a settlement in the first place.  There’s no point even thinking about such a solution in Lebanon for the moment – the ceasefire and agreement would have to come first.

If, on the other hand, he’s talking about an immediate military intervention then perhaps the analogy with the Kosovo action (which he and Berman seem to see as a high point of ethical foreign policy) is a interesting one.  There, as in the current situation, a large military offensive was launched in the face of provocation from a smaller, guerrilla/’terrorist’ group in a neighbouring region, bringing about a massive humanitarian crisis.

The analogy shouldn’t be pushed too far.  Israel, for all its flaws, is not Serbia and the actions of the IDF in Lebanon are not comparable to the actions of the Serb military in Kosovo (although they shouldn’t be minimised with the ‘they don’t directly target civilians’ point).  What should be recalled is what military intervention in Kosovo actually involved.  Is Cohen suggesting that NATO or other Western forces target IDF troops and military installations? Or that British missiles should be launched at Tel Aviv until the IDF offensive is called off? Surely this would be the consequence of any policy which tried to impose a solution on an unwilling Israeli government?

Cohen seems to have painted himself into a corner.  He’s spent so long defending Western governments in military interventions he supports against sections of the Left he so clearly despises that he can’t seem to bring himself to criticise those governments when they are genuinely at fault.  Ironically, he’s fallen into the old fallacy of thinking that my enemy’s enemy is automatically my friend – which is just what he accuses the likes of RESPECT and the rest of the Stoppers of doing.

No greater joy in heaven than when a sinner repenteth…

Reading the latest issue of Scientific American I was drawn to the monthly column by Michael Shermer [here] where he describes ‘how the evidence for anthropogenic global warming has converged to cause this environmental skeptic to make a cognitive flip’…

Now there’s a change of heart.

Shermer is a colourful character and always writes compelling material [wiki bio]. He is a former right-libertarian and Ayn Rand follower (and author of an entertaining ‘from the inside’ critique of Objectivism [here]), and almost incredibly, was a born-again Christian during his high-school and early college years.

What’s interesting, perhaps even important, about Shermer changing his mind, is not so much the way the evidence has convincingly stacked up over the past fifteen or twenty years in favour of human exacerbated global warming, but that he, a skeptical rationalist has come so late to the party, and the reasons for his change of heart. Indeed it dovetails nicely with the points smiffy raises about relativism in Cultural Suicide – not always painless.
He notes that in 2001 he organised a debate with Bjorn Lomborg, of the Skeptical Environmentalist fame, and talking to environmentalist organisations was told none wished to participate. He went ahead with the debate and clearly remained within the Lomberg camp.

Yet what is most pertinent is the way in which stereotypical views of environmental activism prevented the data from trumping the politics, as it were, for Shermer for so long. He cites ‘activists who vandalise Hummer dealerships and destroy logging equipment’. And fair enough, I’ll always buy into a proper state led strategy to tackle environmental damage head-on over often futile gestural activism. But even so, there’s something disproportionate about citing such petty instances in the overall context of the problem of global warming.

In any case, by 2001 pretty much the entire scientific world was convinced of the data. And while it is good that a sceptic would remain sceptical of everything, there is a certain perversity to aligning with views which the best contemporaneous science had fairly comprehensively demolished. Even Lomborg, acknowledges that climate change exists to some degree, but posits that it’s only one of an array of problems and that there are better ways of spending our money, which is a clever way to intellectually evade the issue.

But, in fairness, prejudice is a thin wall to construct in the face of climatology and as Shermer notes, ‘nevertheless, data trump politics’. The intervention of the Evangelical Climate Initiative (backed by 86 leading US evangelicals) calling for carbon emission reductions, was one event that caught his attention. But it was the Technology, Entertainment, Design conference in Monterey where he saw Al Gores ‘[deliver] the finest summation of the evidence for global warming I have ever heard’. The before and after photographs of shrinking glaciers also managed to help him on his damascene conversion.

Shermer isn’t hugely confident about the future. He notes that global temperatures are likely, even in the event of reduced emission, to rise by up to 9 degrees by 2100 – a scenario that could result in the demise of the Greenland ice sheet and the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet. Now if that happens we’re in for a really rough ride and perhaps the Dáil Commission will be proven correct [here], because likely sea level rises would be up to 10 metres.

As he says, ‘Because of the complexity of the problem, environmental skepticism was once tenable. No longer, it is time to flip from skepticism to activism’.

For all his quirks, or perhaps because of them, Shermer is an interesting and thoughtful correspondant placed well within the scientific camp. His former scepticism may well be of use in pursuading those who can make policy of the necessity to do so. It will be interesting to see what he proposes by way of such activism.