Beating up on Gary Younge can be a bit unsatisfying, because his columns are so flabbily written it's difficult to find a point of purchase in the stream of vacuities. But I can't resist commenting on his latest, about why the Labour leadership candidates ought to be apologising for Iraq, or talking about it more, or something.
Gary hails the release of Goldsmith's initial note to Blair on the legal necessity of a second resolution as "irrefutable proof that the British prime minister was willing to flout international law". It is, of course, nothing of the sort, but let's not be detained by that. What I really want to get to is this minature epic of self-congratulation:
That many of us who opposed the war and still oppose the occupation find this problematic is no surprise. It was the most defining personal political choice of the decade and, ethically speaking, not a remotely tough call. The fact that it was illegal adds judicial finality to a moment of moral clarity; but even within the law, it would have been wrong.
Let's note in passing Gary's casual assumption that the best thing for Iraq would be an immediate withdrawal of American forces, and thus in all likelihood a steep rise in the Iraqi death rate, something he claims to be concerned about.
More to the point - how can a "defining personal political choice" be "not remotely a tough call"? It's like me saying that my opposition to paedophilia is "a defining personal political choice". The sloppiness of the phrasing reflects a laziness of thought, and massive moral complacency. Even if you accept the invasion of Iraq was a terrible blunder, you might not consider the choice faced by Britain in 2003 to be as simple as Gary pretends. On the one hand, the myriad horrors of war and its aftermath. On the other, the removal of a murderous dictator presiding over a country being strangled to death by sanctions - and with no happy ending in sight. A terrible choice. But to Gary, apparently, it was a cinch, a no-brainer, and not something to waste a moment's doubt over. In this, he's closer to George Bush than he'd like to think.
The bottom line is I don't trust anyone who applauds their own moral clarity, whether they're a president or a pundit.
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