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The Economist and Blair's Morals

Source: "Bagehot | The Moral Imperative" - The Economist - 01/03/03

Is The Economist being extroardinarily naive or cynically sycophantic when in this recent article, it states: "...it is difficult to see how Mr Blair can be faulted. In foreign affairs, Mr Blair shows an extroardinary disregard for the cynical calculations of realpolitik. Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Afghanistan and now Iraq have convinced him that there are circumstances in which the use of military force to achieve a noble end is not just an option, but a moral obligation."

The article argues that Tony Blair has the moral high ground over his critics in the Church, because his motivations and concerns are purely humanitarian. Certainly, the British Sierra Leone peacekeeping mission was relatively successful and may have succeeded in ending a bitter civil war. But the Sierra Leone operation loses a bit of its shine when we remember that the Labour government has been happy to sell arms to other potential zones of conflict around the world, including Pakistan. Particularly "moral" were the attempts by Blair´s government to sell a 28 million pound military air defence system to Tanzania, a country desperately in need of food and development aid. Worse, Blair´s Labour government, keen to show off its "humanitarian" credentials, repeatedly allowed British arms sales to the repressive regime in Indonesia. These arms were subsequently used to terrorise pro-democracy demonstrators and the East Timorese population, with the full knowledge of Tony Blair´s "ethical" government.

In Kosovo, Tony Blair and other NATO leaders were responsible for a bombing campaign which deliberately targeted civilian installations (factories, power stations, and the Serbian TV station), and which caused some extensive ecological damage. Worse, the bombing campaign resulted in a massive exodus of Kosovars from the region (thus causing the very catastrophe that the NATO allies claimed to be intent on preventing). The subsequent NATO occupation of Kosovo helped the terrorists of the KLA to purge the region of its Serbian inhabitants. So much for a "humanitarian intervention". Chomsky's book Lessons from Kosovo presents well-documented evidence which in any reasonable court of law would see Blair and Clinton accused of war crimes.

In Afghanistan, the population had suffered at the hands of the Soviet Union, and then of the warlords and finally of the Taleban. None of this disturbed Britain until 11th of September. It is curious that Tony Blair's "humanitarian" impulses towards the people of Afghanistan were only awakened after his close allies in the USA had come under terrorist attack. Now that Al Qaeda is gone, after a bloody bombing campaign which claimed many civilian lives (more than were killed in the World Trade Centre), Afghanistan has been handed back to the warlords who destroyed it in the first place. Apart from the capital Kabul, the condition of women has not improved, and the civilians still live in terror of private armies. But as far as the "moral" Prime Minister is concerned, Afghanistan has been saved. In neighbouring Pakistan, a military dictator is firmly in power. Tony Blair showed an "extroardinary disregard for the cynical calculations of realpolitik" by treating the tyrant Musharaf as a favoured ally in the "war against terror".

In Iraq, Tony Blair and his master George Bush have waged continuous economic warfare against the people of that impoverished country by imposing sanctions which according to UNICEF have led to the deaths of 500,000 children in the last decade. So obviously the Prime Minister has a clear conscience with respect to Iraq. There is no talk of liberating the people of Saudi Arabia, however, even though they are submitted to a dictatorship almost as brutal as Saddam Hussein's.

But of course, as The Economist points out, other European leaders are acting out of cynical self-interest, such as the Mugabe-feting, anti-war president of France. Fair enough (even though one wonders if Mugabe would be seen by the British establishment as such a monster if his victims were not relics from the British colonial era), but in what way does that exonerate Blair? To paraphrase Gore Vidal in a recent CNN interview about the "hypocrisy" of the anti-war camp, it's not because one guy is a hypocrit that the other guy can't be one too. To see war as a "moral obligation" is perverse, and the logical flaws in the Economist's reasoning are all too clear.