The Values and Interests of Anthony Blair, Esq.

The BBC web site reported Tony Blair's latest major speech under the headline "UK 'must continue to fight wars'". Later, the headline was changed to "Blair defends intervention policy", wording presumably more palatable to the sensitive public.

The speech itself (or 'lecture' as Blair called it) was illuminating in many ways. Recall, for instance, some Blair quotes from 2001, in the aftermath of 9/11:

"Our fight is not with Islam. Our fight is with a terrorist network and a regime (the Taliban) that sustains them in mutual support. The vast majority of Muslims, as I've said many times before, condemn the attacks as unreservedly as we do." - 25 Sept 2001

"It cannot be said too often: this atrocity appalled decent Muslims everywhere and is wholly contrary to the true teaching of Islam."
"Since 11 September intensive efforts have taken place here and elsewhere to investigate these attacks and determine who is responsible. Our findings have been shared and co-ordinated with those of our allies, and are clear ... it was Usama Bin Laden and Al Qaida, the terrorist network which he heads, that planned and carried out the atrocities on 11 September" - 4 Oct 2001

" ...more swiftly than we had dared imagine, the Taliban fell. The joy with which their fall was greeted nailed the lie that ours is a war against Islam. It showed, on the contrary, that the long-suffering people of Afghanistan also wanted rid of the Taliban and the terrorists they harboured for so long." - 30 Dec 2001

It seems clear enough. The war was against the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks, a particular group of terrorists. But as all things evolve and grow, given a dash of commercial fertiliser, so indeed has the prime minister's view:

"What was unclear then but is very clear now is that what we were and are confronted with, is of a far more fundamental character than we supposed. September 11 wasn't the incredible action of an isolated group, a one-off strike masterminded by Osama Bin Laden. It was the product rather of a world-wide movement, with an ideology based on a misreading of Islam, whose roots were deep, which had been growing for years and with the ability to mount a radically different type of warfare requiring a radically different type of response. What we face is not a criminal conspiracy or even a fanatical but fringe terrorist organisation. We face something more akin to revolutionary Communism in its early and most militant phase. It is global. It has a narrative about the world and Islam's place within it that has a reach into most Muslim societies and countries."

In the updated version, 9/11 was the product of a global movement akin to revolutionary Communism, and was not a "one-off strike masterminded by Osama Bin Laden". Blair's choice of revolutionary communism as a comparison is no accident, not-so-subtly invoking the Cold War and positioning "most Muslim societies and countries" as the new enemy.

Among other benefits for western democracy, the new enemy solves a major sales problem for the military-industrial complex. Even better, the enemy's seemingly nebulous nature provides a reason to reach far and wide, as Blair explains:

"The frontiers of our security no longer stop at the Channel. What happens in the Middle East affects us. What happens in Pakistan; or Indonesia; or in the attenuated struggles for territory and supremacy in Africa for example, in Sudan or Somalia. The new frontiers for our security are global. Our Armed Forces will be deployed in the lands of other nations far from home, with no immediate threat to our territory, in environments and in ways unfamiliar to them. They will usually fight alongside other nations, in alliance with them; notably, but probably not exclusively with the USA."

Note "our Armed Forces will be deployed in the lands of other nations far from home, with no immediate threat to our territory". With a wave of the Bush doctrine, international law is set aside, as is the troublesome need to come up with dossiers of 'intelligence' concerning attacks with or without 45 minute warnings. It is now official: Britain's forces will go anywhere and attack anyone for any reason we choose. (Well, provided the USA says so. And if the USA attacks too.)

Interests and Values

Britain's foreign policy, said Blair, has been "governed as much by values as interests; indeed has attempted to suggest that it is by furthering our values that we further our interests in the modern era of globalisation and interdependence".

As the recent BAe bribery scandal demonstrates, we are governed more by these values and interests than by law. We need not dwell on the 'interests' aspect, since these interests are overwhelmingly commercial. More interesting is the vague and undefined idea of 'values' as presented by Blair, and his easy presumption that 'our' values are superior to 'theirs'. So superior, in fact, that we are justified in killing 'them' if they don't voluntarily adopt our values. Blair gives one example:

"When the Taleban murder a teacher in front of his class, as they did recently, for daring to teach girls; that is an act not just of cruelty but of ideology. Using force against them to prevent such an act is not "defence" in the traditional territorial sense of that word, but "security" in the broadest sense, an assertion of our values against theirs."

If the destruction of large numbers of innocent men, women and children in Afghanistan is a values-based response to the murder of a teacher, then the values concerned have little if any connection with morality. Similarly, the wholesale killing of Iraqis is sold as a values-based response to a single murderous dictator. One supposes that the sell-off and outright theft of Iraqi assets is an application of values and interests combined.

And what of the Israeli apartheid wall, and the grotesque oppression and slaughter of Palestinians that is also 'an act not just of cruelty but of ideology'? Our values apparently do not demand the use of force to prevent it. Economic sanctions against Israel? No, hardly even a murmur of disapproval.

Countless examples exist throughout the world of this selective application of values. Misdeeds are loudly condemned if they are committed by a current or potential target, otherwise they are supported, excused, or not mentioned.

It would be difficult not to conclude that the claimed 'values' are spurious, dredged up in support of associated interests which are morally repugnant and indefensible. The interests are those of the rapacious corporate multinational and the war profiteer, thinly disguised.

Blair, ever the craven servant of wealth and power, restates the Bush doctrine without deviation.