…a nice little radio interview with Hitchens on YouTube from February, making it more available is all good.

Two parts — about 12 minutes in total.

Enjoy the dulcet tones comrades!

Let’s start with Foley:

“The liberal-left tradition to which I belong never equivocated on fundamental human rights. Torture is always wrong and can never be justified. Violations should always be condemned, even when they are committed by political friends and allies”

Going back a few years — Foley wasn’t so unequivocal re the IRA.

He was very pro republican and “Troops out” as a student and worked for such positions across the main three blocs in NOLS. He would often be seen and heard singing sectarian songs. One of the favourites in his repertoire was the song about “15 shoppers down in Knightsbridge” - a glorification of the Harrods bombing for instance (it might not have been fifteen btw).

To present himself now as being in some long tradition of HR tolerance is a bit cheeky really. Is it not?

Would it be worth asking him how he squares his current ‘decentist/centralist’ views with his previous vocal support for Irish republicanism/fascism? I can hear Foley sharpening up his degree certificate and Amnesty credentials as I type…

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And Hundal — what a smug piece of London metrosexual, over-manicured-goatee-having, trendy self-regarding, sanctimonious shit.

But no - I am letting him off too lightly. Misrepresenting a book he clearly hasn’t read (Husain) and misunderstanding a book he may have read an extract from is not the acme of journalistic achievement.

I blame the editors!

This heavy political activism narf tires me oot! But what larks I tell ya!

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Back to Foley:

The centre is a comfortable political space to occupy, but it is often the extremists who define where this should be.

Nice play with words there — except — the sentence is based on the idea that political positions can be measured on a spectrum, as if a slide-rule and mathematics is all that would be needed to identify a position; in reality we use the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ as short-hand descriptions. Political ideas overlap and emerge from within and without each other. The ‘Centre’ is defined by those who define themselves as centrists. That and nothing else. Next up we read…

There was…a social agenda, based on liberal compassion

Was it fuck. It was based on a concept of rights. That is what I despise about an aspect of New Labour — making rights conditional and using the language of charity – ‘generous’ benefits etc.

Rights do confer responsibilities – the responsibility on others not to impinge on those rights and to uphold them. Labour have been saying that those rights are conditional on good behaviour. Which is utter fucking balls of course.

Wait — it gets even worse over at CiF towers…

The obvious reposts (sic) to this are that the invasion was not to stop an ongoing act of genocide and that it led to more, rather than fewer, people dying.

This whole section is flawed (and ignorant). The invasion was the way taken to resolve a conflict that had been going on since the first Gulf war. It was the way to end the failed sanctions regime and the immoral policy of containment without strengthening the regime. Foley clearly does not understand historical materialism — the best method yet devised for understanding history and society — and quite plainly is a stupid liberal idealist dick.

However, since the invasion of Iraq was a clear violation of international law, its supporters now argue that the existing legal system should be scrapped, or dramatically altered, and that multilateral institutions, such as the UN, should be sidelined from the debate about when resort to armed force is justified.

Who the fuck says that? The argument is that law should not be used to prevent you doing something right. It means that there are times when it is right to break the law, and it means that law should be changed. It doesn’t mean that the whole system needs scrapping. Norm has done some good posts on this but he needs a search facility on his blog, so find the fuckers yourself. Also — see the Fat Gadgie on the same point.

And now he’s lonely…

Sadly, in the last few years, this has become a lonely political space to occupy.

Oh — just go and fuck off to some cave you precious little munchkin. Better still — a political corpse like Foley should just confine his activity to searching for a decent burial plot.

Then this is the crowning pigging glory — who does he attack for compromising their principles? Bunting? Milne? Numerous other tosspots? Nope — Kamm and Cohen. At least he clobbers Neil Clark but that is far, far too easy.

Ignore just for one moment the piddling cost of munitions such as the “improvised explosive devices” that have taken the lives of many coalition soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Let’s instead consider prices that western military forces pay for their ordnance.

A single 500lb bomb of the type that has killed thousands of civilians and enemy combatants, and a number of our own soldiers in “friendly fire” incidents, costs around £10,000. Contrast this with a British soldier maimed for life who is awarded just over £150,000 in compensation. This was whittled down from the £300,000 maximum payable under current rules.

Following a public outcry the government yields to demands for a review of injury compensation paid to the 23-year-old, legless Lance Bombardier Ben Parkinson, but refuses to acknowledge that there is a problem across the board.

We are governed by moral pygmies who have the nerve to claim that the military covenant is intact.

Further to yesterday’s post…

Someone has been busy:

11 more clips coming up according to the YouTube provider so check back for the rest.