Any hopes of a return to sanity on the Guardian’s comments pages were dashed by a masterpiece from John Laughland today.

“It is no accident that those who advocate war for humanitarian reasons end up justifying torture”

Hmm … let’s try an empirical test. Here is one notable advocate of humanitarian intervention on waterboarding:

“That such a thing can be a matter for discussion is appalling and contemptible. It inspires disgust. It shames those who prevaricate about it. It is a stain upon a great democracy”.

Ah. A slight problem with the thesis. Never mind, because “Torture and ‘humanitarian war’ are similar in many ways“. Eh? How? Oh I see. It is because, “Both involve the inflicting of violence in order to force a change of behaviour“. Actually I thought torture was the use of violence to extract information or as a disgusting form of punishment, used as intimidation and to create fear. And as for humanitarian war, isn’t it supposed to rescue people from, er … torture as well as murder, oppression, and crimes against humanity. I am really having difficulty finding the similarities here.

To be fair he does admit that some advocates of humanitarian intervention do oppose torture, but, in making the case for war, they advance “the same argument as that advocated by the torturer who says he is trying to save lives“. Yikes.

Sorry, there is a limit to the amount of non sequitors a humble fat chap can cope with. So let’s cut to the conclusion; Laughland’s humanitarian pacifism.

“We need instead to renew the deep conviction that seized the collective conscience of mankind in 1945 that the international system, and the ideas that underpin it, should be structured so as to ensure peace at any price”.

Any price? The return of Fascism to power? Genocide?

Not for the first time, I am left wondering what on earth the editors were thinking of.

Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters

Via wor Mikey ower here

This is, what I believe the young folk call a ‘heads up’.

In case you missed it, or don’t live in the UK so couldn’t watch it last night, the latest Panorama was worth watching for an insight into the Afghanistan front line.

Outline of the programme here.

The whole thing can be viewed from the link here (available for the next 7 days).

One view of the broadcast from the Panorama ‘comment board’ …

As a serving soldier who was in Afghanistan and served alongside some of the Grenadier Guards in tonight’s Panorama ‘Taking On The Taliban - The Soldiers’ Story’ I would like to thank you for the excellent programme.
The delivery was accurate and impartial and, for the first time I can remember, gave an accurate representation of the Afghan peoples’ desire for us to remain in their Country and help them.
I just hope that this programme makes more people in this country aware of what we face over there, and of that fact that we are there to help a Nation regain control of their own country.
I was especially pleased that attention was drawn to the injured soldiers, and not just those who died. Thank you.
Graeme Tennick, York, United Kingdom

A new website has been launched called Liberal Conspiracy. The website name alludes to the liberal conspiracy that some right-wing moonbats think dominates politics, and hopes to create a “conspiracy” out of the somewhat fractured and argumentative left. It appears to be an attempt to create a better, perhaps more leftish, Comment is Free. Liberal Conspiracy certainly has a comment policy that holds the potential to avoid creating the mess that The Guardian have on their hands. Their contributors are an interesting enough mix, although at least one of them is only left in-so-far as opposing humanitarian interventions is a stock leftist position these days. That said I have a high regard for many of the others. Good luck to it.

Which does lead on to the potential problem with the site. The splits on the left are of a more fundamental nature to those on the right in the UK. The differences between Michael Gove’s foreign policy and that of Malcolm Rifkind are as big as some of the differences on the left on issues such as Iraq and Israel. However, the right don’t fight those arguments out in the often highly personal way the left does. It may, in part, be due to the fact that the left is in power (leaving aside arguments about whether Brown’s government is truly of the left), but foreign policy has always been a central preoccupation of the left.

The right has interests in foreign affairs, the left has firm idealogical stances with regard to foreign policy (even if they are contradictory - Euston humanitarians versus leftist anti-imperialists for instance). Scrapping over issues of foreign policy is one of the main activities of both contributors and commentators at Comment is Free for a good reason. Even excluding such detritus as the cadaver from Lenin’s Tomb, there is enough space for disagreement within the left-of-centre for fundamental and bitter splits. Many of the most twisted critics of the Euston Manifesto, for example, are centre-left liberals; their timbre is unlikely to change.

In Sunny Hundal’s interview on Radio 4’s PM programme he seems to suggest that the site is attempting to re-create the success of blogs like Guido, Conservative Home and Iain Dale.

Not many [left wing websites] on the left focus on Westminster, and that’s where the crucial difference lies, because they are more focused on issues like the environment, like feminism, like civil liberties, current affairs, you know world politics, because a lot of politicians, and even a lot of the media, are focused on bloggers who talk especially about Westminster, you know the usual suspects like Iain Dale, Conservative Home etc. It just means they forget there is a whole blogosphere out there on the left which is focused on other issues, and I just want to bring them together and say let’s be a little bit more pro-active and talk to each other a bit more.

While not wishing to pour cold water on Liberal Conspiracy, I doubt that a bunch of lefties discussing policy matters, even if they stay off foreign policy, will be able to compete with the right wing blogosphere. It isn’t the fact that leftist websites fight like a bag of ferrets that is the main problem. The pulling power of right wing websites is due to the fact that they more readily deal in the amateur Kremlinology that the media are so focused on, and for which there is apparently a large obsessive audience. They also specialize in pouring venom on the the current left-wing government (words like authoritarian and nanny-state are common) in a much more entertaining way than left wing websites. Hopefully, Liberal Conspiracy will avoid going down the intellectual dead end of Westminster tittle-tattle.

However, heavy activity on left wing websites, and a progressive consensus, may have to wait until David Cameron is Prime minister.