Peter Hitchens's Blog, page 180

Bert Agonistes - an Automatic Opponent Confronted

Bert is a hard man to argue with, because he just ignores the points that give him most trouble, and twists the rest. I���ve yet to see him attempt to defend his gratuitous ad hominem swipe at my friend Christopher Booker, a distinguished and courageous journalist of vast experience whom Bert dismisses as ��� a bit of a loon���. Yet he has also not apologised for it.

 

This is why I ceaselessly remind him of his absurd posturing some years ago about the incontestable role of the EU and its Landfill Directive in forcing this country to change the way it collects rubbish. This is important because it is an example of the EU���s penetration into every aspect of life here, often unrecognised by those who are affected. The point about this is that Britain, unlike the EU sponsors of the Directive, could perfectly well continue to use landfill to dispose of garbage without any problem or environmental harm. But it faces huge fines if it does so, because it is governed by laws made elsewhere and in the interests of others. Bert has for some years avoided admitting that he was mistaken in claiming this change did not originate in the EU. This is because he never admits he was mistaken. He is now reduced to claiming that the matter is trivial. In which case, why did he engage in arguing about it in the first place, and very vigorously at that?

 

The truth is that he contradicts me for the sake of it.

 

Take the issue of Islamist terrorists all being habitual consumers of powerful mind-altering drugs.

Rather than address this interesting fact with an open mind, my automatic opponents, and the cannabis comment warriors, immediately create straw men, claiming or at least implying that I have declared unequivocally that drugs are the only reason for these outrages.

 

I have not said this and do not believe it.

 

I do not even *know* how drugs affect the brains of those who take them. This is mainly because so much about mental illness and the action of drugs upon the brain is unknowable in the current state of scientific understanding. Correlation is our main means of making this link.

 

Big Dope Comment warriors and other contrary persons immediately say such things as ���Correlation is not causation���. Indeed it is not. I am well aware of it, hence the caution of my argument.

 

But they omit to mention that it is, even so, the foundation of epidemiology and that correlation is not necessarily *not* causation. They also put up another destructive and irresponsible argument : all these killers also ate bread or consumed mother���s milk. This correlation is just as strong. Both are therefore equally meaningless.

 

This argument is plainly false. But how do we demonstrate that?

 

I sought to do so thus: ��� Without an established causal link, [the connection between cannabis use and mental illness] remains a matter of conjecture, though the strong and plausible correlation between the persistent habitual use of powerful mind-altering drugs and irrational behaviour is not much less indicative, in my view, than a correlation between a hammer blow and the dent on the surface struck by the hammer. It is surely persuasive to anyone with an open mind.���

 

I should have added that, unless you have actually observed that particular hammer striking that particular surface, the evidence remains just that ��� a persuasive correlation, not a proven hypothesis. But I thought this was clear to any fair-minded person, as I was still consciously and deliberately using the word ���persuasive��� rather than any expression suggesting certainty.

 

The parallel is, however, quite clear. It is not exactly surprising to find that the use of powerful mind-altering drugs, which observably affect brain function (we know that they do. We just don���t know how)  is associated with subsequent mental illness. It would be surprising if , say, foot massage, carpentry or a love of flowers were associated with such an outcome, there being no similarly obvious connection between the two.  

 

This passage followed one in which I pointed out that I was not ���convinced��� of this link. This is not because I don���t myself find it persuasive (for I obviously do) , but because I treat, as far as I can, my own arguments with the same rigour I apply to those of my opponents.

 

I have often found that caution, modesty and honesty in argument does not produce a comparable response in some opponents. Bert is one of these. Rather than recognise that I was treating him as a fair-minded adult, Bert responded thus:

 

���Mr Hitchens is attempting to have his cake and eat it. He writes that ���Without an established causal link, [the link between cannabis and terrorism] remains a matter of conjecture��� ��� a cautious and sensible position. He goes on, though, to compare the ���strong and plausible correlation��� between the two with the correlation between a hammer blow and the dent on the surface struck by the hammer ��� ie not a matter of conjecture at all. He concludes that to ���anyone with an open mind��� ��� ie good people like him ��� this is ���surely persuasive���. I disagree.���

 

But with what is he disagreeing?  The fact that it is *persuasive* does not mean that it is *conclusive*. What is the point of using precise and careful English if one���s opponent ignores the distinctions between such words? Nor do I say that it is conclusive.

 

I readily agree that I wish it were, for then we would not be in such danger of legalising the very drugs which I suspect of causing this danger.

 

But I recognise that it is not. Nobody is compelled to agree with me by the available facts and the process of logic. All that I ask is that they recognise that this is a reasonable and sustainable contention, about a matter of some urgency, which ought to be explored by an inquiry. Bert offers no arguments against such an inquiry, or against taking the matter seriously as a possibility. Despite strong evidence that this *might* be important, Bert has concluded that it is not important. His only real argument for this, it seems to me, is that I say it is important and that therefore it is not.

 

In face of my caution and admission that my argument is incomplete and needs further evidence, Bert does not respond with a civilised and open-minded  ���Yes, let���s agree it needs to be looked into��� he just concludes (without adducing any reason) that I am wrong.

 

What���s more, he has his own explanation, untroubled by any modesty or diffidence:

 

He says : ���To my open mind ��� I do not have any interest, financial or otherwise in illegal drugs ��� the main motivator for these acts of terrorism seems to be religion ��� a horribly perverted interpretation of religion thankfully shared by very few.���

 

Well, the openness of Bert���s mind seems to me to be a matter for dispute and further detailed discussion elsewhere. But, leaving that aside, what does he mean by ���main motivator���? How does one measure precisely what the ���main��� motivation is at any given time? Are we even discussing motivation? A political motivation may express itself in loyalty to our cause, passionate public declaration, emotional engagement, but yet not take the shape of organised or individual violence.

 

In my experience, most normal human beings are strongly predisposed against violence, and need to have their inhibitions removed before they will contemplate it. Military discipline, often combined in combat with issues of rum, overcomes these inhibitions in many, as does the noise and fighting madness of war. But these forces don���t operate on individual living in advanced urban societies. There are, I should calculate, many thousands of young men in this country who have been wooed by Wahhabi preachers and have in whole or part accepted their stern and puritanical message. Yet there is no evidence that most of them have ever considered, let alone involved themselves in, homicidal violence.

 

Those who have taken violent action (with very few exceptions) turn out, for much of their lives to have been alienated petty criminals, usually unable to hold down jobs, often gang members and abusers of mind-altering drugs. In the recent Paris outrages, the killers seem to have continued this way of life right up to the moment when they chose to murder their fellow-creatures in circumstances of great cruelty.

 

I really don���t see how this squares with Bert���s contention that Islamist fervour (which frowns on this way of life) is the *main motivator*. Were it so, then surely it would be self-disciplined and abstemious young men known for their piety and puritanism who would be the main actors. It isn���t.

 

Yet the response of Bert to this point is simultaneously to ignore and to twist it (he ignores it *by* twisting it,  a technique in which he is expert. Thus he appears to be responsive without actually responding)

 

���I���m struggling to understand the final paragraph of your response. Is it that these terrorists cannot have been real Muslims if they drank etc (the ���no true Scotsman��� fallacy), and so their faith cannot have been any motive for their behaviour. That seems to be an attempt to ascribe rational thinking to people who are clearly not rational, and you don���t need drugs to think and behave irrationally. I have not seen any reports that any of these Islamic terrorists have not genuinely believed that they were acting for their faith ��� however sick and twisted we think that this sort of reasoning is.���

 

I don���t know what his struggle is, except to avoid engaging with arguments he cannot answer. He says that Islamist fervour is the main motivation for these murders. Yet the culprits of the murders are , in most cases, demonstrably not devout Muslims. They are the opposite. This has nothing whatever to do with the ���no true Scotsman��� fallacy. It is a statement of fact which flatly contradicts his claim about motivation ( ���the main motivator for these acts of terrorism seems to be religion��� ) As for 'I have not seen any reports that any of these Islamic terrorists have not genuinely believed that they were acting for their faith', nor have I. But I have seen plenty of reports suggesting that, in practice, they are not especially devout individuals. This is demonstrable. 

An Interesting Essay on the Rapid Approach of the Brave New World

Some of you may be interested in this interesting essay on the Quadrapheme social conservative site, about Aldous Huxley's prophetic book 'Brave New World' and the ways in which it is coming true. 

 

http://www.quadrapheme.com/aldous-huxleys-twenty-first-century-utopia/

 

 

An interview on the Syria War panic, on LBC

This morning I was interviewed by James O' Brien on LBC about the rush to war. Some of you may like to listen to it

 

https://audioboom.com/boos/3859052-peter-hitchens-on-cameron-s-delusional-case-for-war?utm_campaign=embed&utm_content=retweet&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

 

 

 

David Cameron's Rush to War CAN be Halted ....if we try

I really don���t think anyone has any business being more pessimistic than I am. And while I���m grateful to, and cheered by, those of you have heeded my call to write to your MPs urging them to oppose British bombing of Syria, I am exasperated by those who have said (and many have)

 

���It���s a foregone conclusion, and acting against it is a waste of time.���

 

 I even gather that some MPs who oppose the bombing have replied in this defeatist tone to letters from constituents.

 

May I remind those who say this that I was told exactly the same thing in 2013 when I also tried to mobilise opinion against Mr Cameron���s last attempt to go to war(on the opposite side) in Syria?

 

And then the votes were counted and lo! , Mr Cameron had lost his vote .

 

I believe he has been peeved about this ever since. Whenever he struts about at any international conference, he feels the other leaders are whispering ���That���s David Cameron, the man whose Parliament won���t allow him to use his air force���, and sneering.

 

I believe he thinks this makes him a second-class statesman, that he���s not a proper leader unless he can order bombers to pound foreign places whenever he feels like it.  He clearly felt that Ed Miliband had wrongly robbed him of an opportunity to bomb, and he clearly resents it, as he shows every time he speaks about it.

 

I do wonder how that picture of him strolling past an RAF Typhoon  jet at Northolt on his return from Paris came to be taken.  As far as I know, Typhoons, a more or less useless type of air superiority fighter built at great expense some years too late for World War Three, in which they would supposedly have tangled with Soviet Mig-29s and Su-27s over Germany in ultra-modern dogfights. I gather they���re now to be modified for some other purpose, utterly unsuited to their design and capabilities, but that���s another story.

 

As well as Churchill syndrome, he seems also be suffering from a galloping case of Blair���s disorder, a desire to be seen alongside and among fighting men.

 

But since then things haven���t gone entirely to plan. People have noticed that the Defence Review was mainly notable for trying to undo stupid mistakes made by the Cameron-led Coalition a few years ago (the worst being the crazy scrapping of Nimrod maritime patrol planes, now to be replaced by expensive American equivalents) ��� but also for seeking to conceal the bad mess we have got into over Trident replacement, now badly delayed (like almost every major capital infrastructure project in the country) and overrunning its costs (like almost every major capital infrastructure project in the country). Not to mention trying to find something to do with Gordon Brown���s vast and unusable aircraft carriers (HMS White Elephant I, and HMS White Elephant II) which are as suited to the shrunken coastal defence force now known as the Royal Navy as a ten-gallon Texan hat would be to the actor Toby Jones.

 

They also fail to conceal the pitifully small Army which limps on after the dreadful cuts Mr Cameron himself imposed upon it.

 

Our national defence, truth to tell, is in a dreadful mess, hopelessly unbalanced by the ludicrous machismo of the unusable Trident, which frightens nobody and which we don���t even control, and poorly placed to respond quickly to the sudden dangers which are the main concern of any serious defence planner.

 

And in the midst of this Mr  Cameron wants to get us into another war. People have asked why our involvement in Syria is worth opposing, since it is likely to be politically and militarily ineffectual - see Patrick Cockburn���s superb article in today���s  (25/11/2015)���Independent��� for a discussion of the uselessness of the plan here

 

http://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-independent/20151125/281522224998772/TextView

 

 

It is mainly because these interventions are often the beginning of something much bigger and longer-lasting ( as those of us who can recall British troops being welcomed to Londonderry in 1969 by Roman Catholic Irish families can recall) .

 

There is also grave danger of unintended consequences, as the Turkish destruction of a Russian jet on Wednesday showed. Which sides are we really on in this five-sided war of almost everyone against almost everyone?

Turkey and Russia are both ostensibly attacking Islamic State. Yet Turkey has shot down a Russian plane, and Turkish-backed militias claim (appallingly) to have killed the pilots as they parachuted to earth. Since neither Russia nor Turkey seems to have been wholly frank about their intentions, can we be sure Mr Cameron (whose selective loathing of President Assad is great and unassuaged) is being wholly frank about his aims? Has anyone really asked him what they are, in a place where he has to answer? I hope they do.

 

And to encourage those who have yet to write to their MPs asking them to vote against this adventure, I reproduce below the Monday article in which I explained the strong case against war :

 

Please Act Now to Oppose Irrational Intervention in Syria

Right. I have decided what to do about the Paris atrocities and ISIS, assuming (as everyone does, though evidence for this is so far scanty) that they are directly connected.

 

I would like to do something else, but I can���t. My influence on British foreign policy is non-existent, so that arguing for co-operation with Russia, Iran, Bashar Assad and the Kurds, and for serious action to bring about a peaceful settlement in Syria,  will make no difference.

 

So instead I have decided to concentrate on the urgent task of trying to prevent David Cameron getting a majority for British military involvement in Syria. This would undoubtedly make matters worse, has no good reasoning behind it, and may well contain long-term dangers we can barely conceive.

 

So I must ask all my readers in the United Kingdom to write or e-mail their MPs, as soon as possible, politely, concisely and cogently,  urging them to vote against any such intervention. This may conceivably affect events. I believe similar action may have done so the last time David Cameron wanted to go to war in Syria (apparently for the opposite reason for which the seeks to do the same now, but this is not wholly clear) , in September 2013.

 

I offer the arguments below, in case they wish to link to them in their e-mails, as a summary of the case against.

 

Why Change our Minds Now?

Emotion is a poor guide to strategy. Recent events in France, Sinai and elsewhere have rightly angered and distressed civilised people. But our emotions don���t excuse is from thinking. Some of the worst decisions in history have been taken on the basis of emotion. What is for certain is that there is no good reason for Parliament to change its mind on the subject.

 

Indeed, action was opposed by a recent (2nd November 2015) report by the House of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, the only up-to-date dispassionate examination of the matter in this country. You may read it here

 

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmselect/cmfaff/457/45702.htm

 

 

The Committee argued only a few weeks ago that such an intervention would be legally questionable, militarily marginal, politically unpredictable, diplomatically complex and perhaps incoherent.

 

Some may argue that last week���s UN Security Council resolution changes this to some extent. However, the resolution was vague, not operational, and did not authorise military force.

 

As the New York Times pointed out here���.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/21/world/europe/un-security-council-approves-resolution-urging-countries-to-combat-islamic-state.html?_r=0

 

���..the resolution offers ���no legal basis for military action. Nor does it cite Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter, which authorizes the use of force.���

 

 

Downing Street briefings have not directly contradicted this, but have somehow managed to give a rather different impression, suggesting that the new resolution changes the legal position when in fact it does not. This, er, confusion about the legality of action and the meaning of UN resolutions gives me a strange sense of d��j�� vu. Perhaps someone should ask Lord Goldsmith about it.

 

The full text of the resolution may be found here (scroll down to reach it) :

 http://www.un.org/press/en/2015/sc12132.doc.htm

 

Those who genuinely think that British participation in the bombing of Syria would instantly change the balance are living in a world of fantasy. Our forces are small, and will make little difference ( assuming they share the same aim) to the efforts of the US and France already under way.

 

See paragraphs 22  and 23 of the Foreign Affairs Committee report:

 

���In military terms, we noted that although our witnesses believed that a decision to extend airstrikes into Syria would be welcomed by Coalition allies, some said that it would not have anything other than a marginal effect. The experts told us that it would not be likely to involve extra aircraft but would simply re-focus existing assets; that the UK was already contributing valuable surveillance in Syria; and that the ability to conduct airstrikes as well would not have a decisive effect. Sir Simon Mayall concurred, adding:

 

���There are not that many of them, actually. This is not an air campaign anything remotely like the scale of 1991 or 2003. We need to be very clear about this. This is not a war-winning air campaign, by any stretch of the imagination.���

 

���23.As a result, several witnesses concluded that there was little reason for the UK to change its policy. Julien Barnes-Dacey was strongly against the proposal and told us that the airstrikes make the threat from ISIS worse (my emphasis, PH) because they ���feed a sense of radicalisation���:

 

���Sunnis say, ���Look, the West is not helping us against Assad, but they are fighting ISIS.��� [���] We become direct parties, all the while contributing nothing meaningful, in terms of military numbers or capability. I really fail to see how air strikes against ISIS will not do more harm than good.���

 

In paragraph 33, the reasoning of the select committee is quite clear: ������we believe that there should be no extension of British military action into Syria unless there is a coherent international strategy that has a realistic chance of defeating ISIL and of ending the civil war in Syria. In the absence of such a strategy, taking action to meet the desire to do something is still incoherent.���

 

In paragraph 35 it seeks the answer to several important questions, which I think the government will have some difficulty in answering if there is any sort of coherent questioning and debate in the Commons.

 

Enabling the House to reach a decision

 

35.The Government should explain the following points before asking the House of Commons to approve a substantive motion authorising military action:

 

a)On an international strategy:

 

i)How the proposal would improve the chances of success of the international coalition���s campaign against ISIL;

 

ii)How the proposed action would contribute to the formation and agreement of a transition plan for Syria;

 

iii)In the absence of a UN Security Council Resolution, how the Government would address the political, legal, and military risks arising from not having such a resolution;

 

iv)Whether the proposed action has the agreement of the key regional players (Turkey; Iran; Saudi Arabia; Iraq); if not, whether the Government will seek this before any intervention;

 

v)Which ground forces will take, hold, and administer territories captured from ISIL in Syria.

 

b)On the military imperative:

 

i)What the overall objective is of the military campaign; whether it expects that it will be a ���war-winning��� campaign; if so, who would provide war-winning capabilities for the forces; and what the Government expects will be the result of extending airstrikes to Syria.

 

ii)What extra capacity the UK would contribute to the Coalition���s actions in Syria.

 

36.We are persuaded that it is not yet possible for the Government to give a satisfactory explanation on the points listed above. Until it is possible for the Government to address these points we recommend that it does not bring to the House a motion seeking the extension of British military action to Syria.���

 

Whether your MP is Tory, Labour or SNP, she or he really ought to be aware of these arguments, and able to explain why she or he plans to ignore them if she or intends to support the new rush to war.

 

There is no excuse, if you write to your MP, for any of these politicians to claim afterwards that they were unaware of opposition to the plan, or misunderstood the effect of the UN resolution, or were unaware of the severe political and military drawbacks listed so recently by the Foreign Affairs Committee.

 

The recent atrocities have not in fact changed the material position. So why would a responsible, informed or thoughtful MP, whose decisions can in the end lead to the dropping of bombs, the drawing of this country into yet another endless and insoluble foreign conflict in which its aims are, to put it kindly, unclear, suddenly switch to supporting intervention? Bullying by the government whips or a desire to please Mr Rupert Murdoch and his media should play no part in such matters of life and death.

 

Please act now. For all the government���s claims that it is still pondering the matter, I believe there is a strong chance that it will ambush the Commons with a vote soon before it rises for Christmas on 17th December. That gives those who oppose this hasty and ill-considered action only a very little time to mobilise the forces of truth and reason against those of emotionalism, bombast and irrational panic.

 

I note that Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill are already being invoked, a clear sign that Munich Syndrome is raging in Whitehall, and especially fiercely in Downing Street itself. This is the delusional and historically illiterate belief that all crises are identical to the Czech crisis of 1938,  that all this country���s enemies are identical to Hitler,  that the sufferer is Winston Churchill reincarnated (he tends to growl in the later stages of the complaint) and that anyone who criticises him is Neville Chamberlain resurrected.

 

There is no known cure, but lying down in a darkened room with a cold compress on the brow and an umbrella to hand can relieve the symptoms.  

Please Act Now to Oppose Irrational Intervention in Syria

Right. I have decided what to do about the Paris atrocities and ISIS, assuming (as everyone does, though evidence for this is so far scanty) that they are directly connected.

 

I would like to do something else, but I can���t. My influence on British foreign policy is non-existent, so that arguing for co-operation with Russia, Iran, Bashar Assad and the Kurds, and for serious action to bring about a peaceful settlement in Syria,  will make no difference.

 

So instead I have decided to concentrate on the urgent task of trying to prevent David Cameron getting a majority for British military involvement in Syria. This would undoubtedly make matters worse, has no good reasoning behind it, and may well contain long-term dangers we can barely conceive.

 

So I must ask all my readers in the United Kingdom to write or e-mail their MPs, as soon as possible, politely, concisely and cogently,  urging them to vote against any such intervention. This may conceivably affect events. I believe similar action may have done so the last time David Cameron wanted to go to war in Syria (apparently for the opposite reason for which the seeks to do the same now, but this is not wholly clear) , in September 2013.

 

I offer the arguments below, in case they wish to link to them in their e-mails, as a summary of the case against.

 

Why Change our Minds Now?

Emotion is a poor guide to strategy. Recent events in France, Sinai and elsewhere have rightly angered and distressed civilised people. But our emotions don���t excuse is from thinking. Some of the worst decisions in history have been taken on the basis of emotion. What is for certain is that there is no good reason for Parliament to change its mind on the subject.

 

Indeed, action was opposed by a recent (2nd November 2015) report by the House of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, the only up-to-date dispassionate examination of the matter in this country. You may read it here

 

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmselect/cmfaff/457/45703.htmsuggested

 

The Committee argued only a few weeks ago that such an intervention would be legally questionable, militarily marginal, politically unpredictable, diplomatically complex and perhaps incoherent.

 

Some may argue that last week���s UN Security Council resolution changes this to some extent. However, the resolution was vague, not operational, and did not authorise military force.

 

As the New York Times pointed out here���.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/21/world/europe/un-security-council-approves-resolution-urging-countries-to-combat-islamic-state.html?_r=0

 

���..the resolution offers ���no legal basis for military action. Nor does it cite Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter, which authorizes the use of force.���

 

 

Downing Street briefings have not directly contradicted this, but have somehow managed to give a rather different impression, suggesting that the new resolution changes the legal position when in fact it does not. This, er, confusion about the legality of action and the meaning of UN resolutions gives me a strange sense of d��j�� vu. Perhaps someone should ask Lord Goldsmith about it.

 

The full text of the resolution may be found here (scroll down to reach it) :

 http://www.un.org/press/en/2015/sc12132.doc.htm

 

Those who genuinely think that British participation in the bombing of Syria would instantly change the balance are living in a world of fantasy. Our forces are small, and will make little difference ( assuming they share the same aim) to the efforts of the UIS and France already under way.

 

See paragraphs 22  and 23 of the Foreign Affairs Committee report:

 

���In military terms, we noted that although our witnesses believed that a decision to extend airstrikes into Syria would be welcomed by Coalition allies, some said that it would not have anything other than a marginal effect. The experts told us that it would not be likely to involve extra aircraft but would simply re-focus existing assets; that the UK was already contributing valuable surveillance in Syria; and that the ability to conduct airstrikes as well would not have a decisive effect. Sir Simon Mayall concurred, adding:

 

���There are not that many of them, actually. This is not an air campaign anything remotely like the scale of 1991 or 2003. We need to be very clear about this. This is not a war-winning air campaign, by any stretch of the imagination.���

 

���23.As a result, several witnesses concluded that there was little reason for the UK to change its policy. Julien Barnes-Dacey was strongly against the proposal and told us that the airstrikes make the threat from ISIS worse (my emphasis, PH) because they ���feed a sense of radicalisation���:

 

���Sunnis say, ���Look, the West is not helping us against Assad, but they are fighting ISIS.��� [���] We become direct parties, all the while contributing nothing meaningful, in terms of military numbers or capability. I really fail to see how air strikes against ISIS will not do more harm than good.���

 

In paragraph 33, the reasoning of the select committee is quite clear: ������we believe that there should be no extension of British military action into Syria unless there is a coherent international strategy that has a realistic chance of defeating ISIL and of ending the civil war in Syria. In the absence of such a strategy, taking action to meet the desire to do something is still incoherent.���

 

In paragraph 35 it seeks the answer to several important questions, which I think the government will have some difficulty in answering if there is any sort of coherent questioning and debate in the Commons.

 

Enabling the House to reach a decision

 

35.The Government should explain the following points before asking the House of Commons to approve a substantive motion authorising military action:

 

a)On an international strategy:

 

i)How the proposal would improve the chances of success of the international coalition���s campaign against ISIL;

 

ii)How the proposed action would contribute to the formation and agreement of a transition plan for Syria;

 

iii)In the absence of a UN Security Council Resolution, how the Government would address the political, legal, and military risks arising from not having such a resolution;

 

iv)Whether the proposed action has the agreement of the key regional players (Turkey; Iran; Saudi Arabia; Iraq); if not, whether the Government will seek this before any intervention;

 

v)Which ground forces will take, hold, and administer territories captured from ISIL in Syria.

 

b)On the military imperative:

 

i)What the overall objective is of the military campaign; whether it expects that it will be a ���war-winning��� campaign; if so, who would provide war-winning capabilities for the forces; and what the Government expects will be the result of extending airstrikes to Syria.

 

ii)What extra capacity the UK would contribute to the Coalition���s actions in Syria.

 

36.We are persuaded that it is not yet possible for the Government to give a satisfactory explanation on the points listed above. Until it is possible for the Government to address these points we recommend that it does not bring to the House a motion seeking the extension of British military action to Syria.���

 

Whether your MP is Tory, Labour or SNP,. She or he really ought to be aware of these arguments, and able to explain why she or he plans to ignore them if she or intends to support the new rush to war.

 

There is no excuse, if you write to your MP, for any of these politicians to claim afterwards that they were unaware of opposition to the plan, or misunderstood the effect of the UN resolution, or were unaware of the severe political and military drawbacks listed so recently by the Foreign Affairs Committee.

 

The recent atrocities have not in fact changed the material position. So why would a responsible, informed or thoughtful MP, whose decisions can in the end lead to the dropping of bombs, the drawing of this country into yet another endless and insoluble foreign conflict in which its aims are, to put it kindly, unclear, suddenly switch to supporting intervention? Bullying by the government whips or a desire to please Mr Rupert Murdoch and his media should play no part in such matters of life and death.

 

Please act now. For all the government���s claims that it is still pondering the matter, I believe there is a strong chance that it will ambush the Commons with a vote soon before it rises for Christmas on 17th December. That gives those who oppose this hasty and ill-considered action only a very little time to mobilise the forces of truth and reason against those of emotionalism, bombast and irrational panic.

 

I note that Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill are already being invoked, a clear sign that Munich Syndrome is raging in Whitehall, and especially fiercely in Downing Street itself. This is the delusional and historically illiterate belief that all crises are identical to the Czech crisis of 1938,  that all this country���s enemies are identical to Hitler,  that the sufferer is Winston Churchill reincarnated (he tends to growl in the later stages of the complaint) and that anyone who criticises him is Neville Chamberlain resurrected.

 

There is no known cure, but lying down in a darkened room with a cold compress on the brow and an umbrella to hand can relieve the symptoms.  

Justice for the Chichester One! My article in the Chichester Observer

Here is a link to the article I wrote for the Chichester Observer about the Bell controversy

 

http://www.chichester.co.uk/news/local/peter-hitchens-my-defence-of-former-bishop-of-chichester-george-bell-1-7079081

 

 

 

 

Please Pray for Jason Rezaian, Unjustly Imprisoned in Iran

The Iranian State, after a secret 'trial' which was of course no such thing, has now 'sentenced' (the word is absurd, and gives dignity to a state kidnapping)  my friend Jason Rezaian to an unspecified period in prison on absurd allegations of spying.

Once again, we see a man condemned on the basis of allegations made in secret , denied due process or the right to defend himself, and in this case unscrutinised by a free press or any of the defences of a free and law-governed society. And in this case alive, and compelled to ensure the miseries and humiliations of prison, cut off by force from those he loves. 

Jason is a thoroughly decent,  kind and gentle man who loves Iran and would never do it harm. he needs your prayers (if you are able) and thoughts, as do his family who have endured this awful process now for many months. 

I can think of no practical action to take, save to keep it in the public mind here. But I believe that our concern for him will in some way become known to him in his confinement, and give him strength to endure the ordeal he now faces.  

 

You may read the latest bulletin on his plight here|:

 

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/nov/22/jason-rezaian-iran-jails-washington-post-reporter?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Media+Briefing+new+v2&utm_term=138953&subid=9170964&CMP=ema_546

 

 

Details of latest Criticisms of the Treatment of George Bell

Once again the Church Times has most generously lowered its pay wall to allow a direct link to important correspondence about the George Bell case. This is the latest in full, which I summarised on Friday:

 

http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2015/20-november/comment/letters-to-the-editor/church-of-england-media-statement-on-bishop-bell-further-comment

 

 

Cameron has guns, bombs and a plane - and not one good idea

This is Peter Hitchens's Mail on Sunday Column

So far there is little sign of serious thought about the Paris atrocities. We are to have more spooks, though spooks failed to see it coming, and failed to see most of the other outrages coming, and the new ones will be no more clairvoyant than the old ones.

 

France and Belgium are reaching for emergency laws, surveillance, pre-trial detention, more humiliation of innocent travellers and all the other rubbish that has never worked in the past and won���t work again.

 

David Cameron (in a nifty bit of news management) takes the opportunity to announce that he will henceforth be spared from flying like a normal human being, in an ego-stroking Blaircraft paid for by you and me. Austerity must have been having a day off.

 

Actually, if grand personages like him had to shuffle through the security screens, belts off, shoes off, shampoo humourlessly confiscated, like the rest of us, these daft and illogical rules would have been reviewed long ago.

 

British police officers dress up like Starship Troopers, something they���ve obviously been itching to do for ages and now have an excuse to do, the masked women involved looking oddly like Muslim women in niquabs.

 

It���s not the police���s job to do this. If things are so bad that we need armed people on the streets, then we have an Army and should deploy it. If not, then spare us these theatricals, which must delight the leaders of ISIS, who long for us to panic and wreck our own societies in fear of them.

 

Next comes the growing demand for us to bomb Syria. Well, if you want to. Only a couple of weeks ago all the establishment experts were saying that the Russian Airbus massacre was obviously the result of Vladimir Putin���s bombing of Syria.

 

Now the same experts say it���s ridiculous to suggest that our planned bombing of Syria might bring murder to the streets of London or to a British aircraft.

 

Perhaps it���s relevant to this that Pierre Janaszak, a radio presenter who survived the Bataclan massacre in Paris, said he heard one fanatic in the theatre say to his victims, ���It's the fault of Hollande, it's the fault of your President, he should not have intervened in Syria.���

 

There may be (I personally doubt it) a good case for what���s left of the RAF to drop what���s left of our bombs on Syria. It may be so good that it justifies risking a retaliation in our capital, and that we should brace ourselves for such a war.

 

But I think those who support such bombing should accept that there might be such a connection, and explain to the British people why it is worth it.

 

I am wholly confused by the Cameron government���s position on Syria. It presents its desire to bomb that country as a rerun of the Parliamentary vote it lost in 2013.

 

But in 2013, Mr Cameron wanted (wrongly, as it turned out) to bomb President Assad���s forces and installations, to help the Islamist sectarian fanatics who are fighting to overthrow the secular Assad state.

 

This is more or less the exact opposite of what he seems to want now. Far from being a rerun, it is one of the most embarrassing diplomatic U-turns in modern British history.

 

Or is it? Does Mr Cameron in fact intend, somehow, to return to his original purpose, and to use the RAF to aid the anti-Assad rebels ��� who are the sort of people he would arrest if they turned up here?

 

If ISIS was our real target, then this would be absurd. But is ISIS our real target? If so, we would abandon all scruple, and side with the Syrian Kurds, the Iranians, Hezbollah, Russia and Assad to defeat it. For they are by far its most effective opponents.

 

After all, when we fought the Hitler menace, we allied with another monster, Stalin, to do so.

 

Mr Cameron also called ISIS ���the head of the snake���, and the origin of  all these horrors. But again, is this true? Or is ISIS in fact an outgrowth of the burgeoning, richly-funded spread of extreme, puritanical, intolerant, violent Islamism, whose head is not in Raqqa but rather further south?

 

I hope that if Mr Cameron brings a plan for war to Parliament, there will be enough informed and wise men and women there to question him thoroughly on these points, and vote against him if they are not convinced.

 

Trickery and propaganda do not invariably arrive in the same shape. Just because we all now know that Anthony Blair defrauded us into a dangerous war with WMD, we shouldn���t be too sure that we won���t be just as easily fooled by his equally smooth and persuasive heir.

 

The Terror Link Nobody Wants to Talk About

 

What do modern terrorists have in common? Yes, they are fanatical Islamists, usually (but not always) from ethnic minorities.

 

But there���s something else very interesting. They are invariably on mind-altering drugs, usually cannabis. The Bombay killers took cocaine and steroids. Anders Breivik took steroids. At least one of the Boston bombers , the Tsarnaev brothers smoked cannabis (one heard voices in his head, one of them was without doubt a dope dealer) , Lee Rigby���s killers. Michael Adebowale and Michael Adebolajo,  smoked (a lot of ) cannabis. Omar El-Hussein, the Copenhagen killer, had twice been arrested for cannabis offences. Seifeddine Rezgui, the Tunisian beach killer, was a cannabis user. Ayoub el-Khazzani, who tried to kill passengers on the Amsterdam Paris train, is a convicted dope user. The Charlie Hebdo killers, the Kouachi brothers and Amedy Coulibaly,  were known cannabis users. The killers of two Canadian soldiers, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau and Martin Couture-Rouleau, were cannabis users.

 

And now we know that the same is true of the November 13 killers, Ibrahim and Salah Abdeslam,were heavy users of marijuana. Abdelhamid Abaaoud had likewise ���drifted into a life of thievery and drugs���. Omar Ismail Mostefai was on police records for buying illegal drugs. As for Hasna Aitboulahcen, who was blown to pieces in the St Denis siege, she ���hung around with drug dealers���.

 

Don���t try to avoid the significance of this information by accusing me of saying things I don���t.  The point here is that drug abuse appears to be a common factor. So why completely ignore it?  If the police of North America and Western Europe stopped turning a blind eye to it, they might be a lot more use in the struggle to defend us all from terror.

 

An exquisite skyline swamped by concrete

Approval has now been given for the building of a vast new concrete slab in the heart of London, 22 Bishopsgate. You may like this sort of thing or not.  But once it is built it will be hard to tell London���s skyline from that of Chicago. This doesn���t seem to me to be a gain. In a generation, Christopher Wren���s lovely forest of spires and domes, which belonged to Britain and the world, has been shouldered aside by temples of greed. I am astonished that this has happened with so little protest.

 

What's so funny about this unpleasant story?

Alan Bennett has for many years dug into the darker side of suburban Britain, giving a faintly tragic, even sordid,  tinge to what most of us think is normal and reasonably happy. How strange, then, that the new film by and about him ���The Lady in the Van��� , makes an oddly cheerful comedy about what looks to me like a rather unpleasant story. Did none of his rich, left-wing north London neighbours shun him for allowing a smelly, bad-tempered nuisance to park in his front garden for years?  If so, they aren���t in the film.

Cameron has guns, bombs and a plane - and not one good idea

This is Peter Hitchens' Mail on Sunday  column

So far there is little sign of serious thought about the Paris atrocities. We are to have more spooks, though spooks failed to see it coming, and failed to see most of the other outrages coming, and the new ones will be no more clairvoyant than the old ones.

France and Belgium are reaching for emergency laws, surveillance, pre-trial detention, more humiliation of innocent travellers and all the other rubbish that has never worked in the past and won���t work again.

David Cameron (in a nifty bit of news management) takes the opportunity to announce that he will henceforth be spared from flying like a normal human being, using instead an ego-stroking Blaircraft paid for by you and me. Austerity must have been having a day off.

Actually, if grand personages like him had to shuffle through the security screens, belts off, shoes off, shampoo humourlessly confiscated, like the rest of us, these daft and illogical rules would have been reviewed long ago.

British police officers dress up like Starship Troopers, something they���ve obviously been itching to do for ages and now have an excuse to do, the masked women involved looking oddly like Muslim women in niqabs.

It���s not the police���s job to do this. If things are so bad that we need armed people on the streets, then we have an Army and should deploy it. If not, then spare us these theatricals, which must delight the leaders of Islamic State, who long for us to panic and wreck our own societies in fear of them.

Next comes the growing demand for us to bomb Syria. Well, if you want to. Only a couple of weeks ago all the establishment experts were saying that the Russian Airbus massacre was obviously the result of Vladimir Putin���s bombing of Syria.

Now the same experts say it���s ridiculous to suggest that our planned bombing of Syria might bring murder to the streets of London or to a British aircraft.

Perhaps it���s relevant to this that Pierre Janaszak, a radio presenter who survived the Bataclan massacre in Paris, said he heard one fanatic in the theatre say to his victims: ���It���s the fault of Hollande, it���s the fault of your President, he should not have intervened in Syria.���

There may be (I personally doubt it) a good case for what���s left of the RAF to drop what���s left of our bombs on Syria. It may be so good that it justifies risking a retaliation in our capital, and that we should brace ourselves for such a war.

But I think those who support such bombing should accept that there might be such a connection, and explain to the British people why it is worth it.

I am wholly confused by the Cameron Government���s position on Syria. It presents its desire to bomb that country as a rerun of the parliamentary vote it lost in 2013. But then Mr Cameron wanted (wrongly, as it turned out) to bomb President Assad���s forces and installations, to help the Islamist sectarian fanatics who are fighting to overthrow the secular Assad state.

This is more or less the exact opposite of what he seems to want now.

Far from being a rerun, it is one of the most embarrassing diplomatic U-turns in modern British history.

Or is it? Does Mr Cameron in fact intend, somehow, to return to his original purpose, and to use the RAF to aid the anti-Assad rebels ��� who are the sort of people he would arrest if they turned up here?

If IS were our real target, then this would be absurd. But is IS our real target? If so, we would abandon all scruple, and side with the Syrian Kurds, the Iranians, Hezbollah, Russia and Assad to defeat it. For they are by far its most effective opponents.

After all, when we fought the Hitler menace, we allied with another monster, Stalin, to do so.

Mr Cameron also called IS ���the head of the snake���, and the origin of all these horrors. But again, is this true? Or is IS in fact an outgrowth of the burgeoning, richly funded spread of extreme, puritanical, intolerant, violent Islamism, whose head is not in Raqqa but rather further south?

I hope that if Mr Cameron brings a plan for war to Parliament, there will be enough informed and wise men and women there to question him thoroughly on these points, and vote against him if they are not convinced.

Trickery and propaganda do not invariably arrive in the same shape.

Just because we all now know that Blair defrauded us into a dangerous war with WMD, we shouldn���t be too sure that we won���t be just as easily fooled by his equally smooth and persuasive heir.

What���s so funny about this unpleasant story?

Alan Bennett has for many years dug into the darker side of suburban Britain, giving a faintly tragic, even sordid tinge to what most of us think is normal and reasonably happy. How strange, then, that the new film by and about him, The Lady In The Van, makes an oddly cheerful comedy about what looks to me like a rather unpleasant story. Did none of his rich, Left-wing North London neighbours shun him for allowing a smelly, bad-tempered nuisance to park in his front garden for years? If so, they aren���t in the film.

The secret evil lurking behind terror

What do modern terrorists have in common? Yes, they are fanatical, and usually (but not always) from ethnic minorities.

But there���s something else very interesting. They are invariably on mind-altering drugs, usually cannabis. The Bombay killers took cocaine and steroids. Anders Breivik took steroids. At least one of the Boston bombers, the Tsarnaev brothers, smoked cannabis (one heard voices in his head, one of them was without doubt a dope dealer). Lee Rigby���s killers, Michael Adebowale and Michael Adebolajo, smoked (a lot of) cannabis. Omar El-Hussein, the Copenhagen killer, had twice been arrested for cannabis offences. Seifeddine Rezgui, the Tunisian beach killer, was a cannabis user. Ayoub el-Khazzani, who tried to kill passengers on the Amsterdam to Paris train, is a convicted dope user. The Charlie Hebdo killers, the Kouachi brothers and Amedy Coulibaly were known cannabis users. The killers of two Canadian soldiers, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau and Martin Couture-Rouleau, were cannabis users.

And now we know that the same is true of the November 13 killers: Ibrahim and Salah Abdeslam were heavy users of marijuana. Abdelhamid Abaaoud had likewise ���drifted into a life of thievery and drugs���. Omar Ismail Mostefai was on police records for buying illegal drugs. As for Hasna Aitboulahcen, who was blown to pieces in the St Denis siege, she ���hung around with drug dealers���.

Don���t try to avoid the significance of this information by accusing me of saying things I don���t.

The point here is that drug abuse appears to be a common factor. So why completely ignore it? If the police of North America and Western Europe stopped turning a blind eye to it, they might be a lot more use in the struggle to defend us all from terror.

An exquisite skyline swamped by concrete

Approval has now been given for the building of a vast new concrete slab in the heart of London, 22 Bishopsgate. You may like this sort of thing or not. But once it is built, it will be hard to tell London���s skyline from that of Chicago. This doesn���t seem to me to be a gain. In a generation, Christopher Wren���s lovely forest of spires and domes, which belonged to Britain and the world, has been shouldered aside by temples of greed. I am astonished that this has happened with so little protest.

If you wish to comment, please click and scroll down