Here’s today’s Call Clegg. There were some lively exchanges about the rights and wrongs of air strikes in Iraq against ISIL.
I was quite surprised that so many people thought that everyone should just sit down and talk to ISIL. They have shown no sign so far of being “get round the table” sort of people. There will eventually have to be a political and diplomatic solution, but is that really feasible right now? And how best to help the people who are being so brutally tortured and murdered by them. Nick explained that as he saw it, we were part of a broad international project to tackle ISIL in several ways and we were just one part of the jigsaw.
Asked whether he’d have notes when he made his conference speech, he said he would “be speaking with the trapeze safety of an auto cue system.” That has conjured up a mental image I don’t think I’m going to get rid of very quickly.
He was pretty robust on the NHS too, having a good go at Labour’s financial efficacy. You needed a strong economy, he said, to support the NHS and all Labour had to offer was a list of slogans.
The last question was about whether murderers from across the EU should be allowed into Britain. Nick’s reply was that freedom of movement shouldn’t be stopped, but police forces needed to be better at sharing information.
You can watch the whole thing below:
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
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11 Comments
Can someone explain How ISIL is a direct threat to us as the PM keeps saying and Nick??????????
Clearly it is legal to use force in Iraq as the Iraqi Government has requested it under Article 51 of the UN Charter. Given the awful record of ISIL, I welcome Nick Clegg’s position.
The strongest argument against airstrikes is civilian casualties. This needs to be addressed tomorrow. I would add that ISIS have no qualms about civilian casualties, but it still needs to be addressed.
” I was quite surprised that so many people thought that everyone should just sit down and talk to ISIL. They have shown no sign so far of being “get round the table” sort of people.”
I agree with Caron on this. These thugs and murderers will not sit around a negotiating table with anyone from “The West “. Fighting and murdering people from “The West” is a key part of their Wahhabi war on modernity and anyone who does not follow their strange mixture of religion, politics and violence that originates from Saudi Arabia. Although I do not think that the only alternative is to send in the RAF for,twenty years to bomb these murders into submission.
It is possible that they would talk to other Wahhabis, their sponsors and funders in Saudi Arabia for example.
Those who support the rush to war might ask themselves why Saudi Arabia which is armed to he teeth with all the latest modern weapons has been so backward in coming forward in military conflicts in this region. Could it be that they prefer to sit back and watch US and UK military forces get into a third war in twenty five years? This fantastically rich autocracy which beheads its citizens on an industrial scale and treats women like dirt is supposedly our great ally in the region. Maybe they could talk to their fellow Wahhabis?
BTW — could LDV take a lead in the UK and stop using the initials IS, ISIS, ISIL. Muslims in the UK have asked for this so as to stop,Islamophobia. The French Government has seen the sense of not confusing wider Islam with this Wahhabi sect —
from the website of the Embassy of France, in London
http://www.ambafrance-uk.org/Why-we-no-longer-refer-to-the
Why we no longer refer to the Daesh terrorists as “Islamic State”
Since early September 2014, the French government has been arguing for the term “Islamic State” to be replaced by the word “Daesh” when referring to the terrorist group operating in Syria and Iraq. As Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius explained in the National Assembly on 10 September,
“The terrorist group we’re talking about isn’t a state; it would like to be, but it’s not, and to call it a state is to do it a favour. Likewise, I recommend not using the expression “Islamic State”, because it leads to confusion between “Islam”, “Islamism” and “Muslim”. We’re talking about what the Arabs call “Daesh” and what I, for my part, would call the cut-throats of Daesh.”
At the International Conference on Peace and Security in Paris on 15 September, M. Fabius added:
“The Daesh movement (…) is neither a state nor representative of Islam [but] an extremely dangerous movement which everyone there [in Syria and Iraq] believes must be driven back and eliminated.”
In an effort to prevent the barbaric acts committed in Syria and Iraq from being conflated with Islam or statehood, we will no longer refer to “Islamic State” in our translated statements, but “Daesh (ISIL)” instead.
Published on 17/09/2014top of the page
I agree with John Tilley (and Laurent Fabius) in this. Daesh is used in Arabic, using pejorative words. An organisation which, as mentioned above, would not countenance talking to other nations, international bodies with anything but the narrowest ideology. The idea that their practices relate to anything other than fundamental Wahabi Islam is obviously flawed, and I think the wider Muslim world are absolutely right to ask the international community not to glorify it in any way. I would add that the sudden conversion of our political establishment to calling it ISIL (in the manner of the White House) looks absolutely craven. The L standing for Levant, a colonial construct we all thouht had disappeared with the creation of Israel, and , we all hoped, a Palestinian state, together with Jordan.
As a PS, what a long-lived statesman is Laurent Fabius – he became PM of France under Mitterrand at the age of 38. And here he is, back as Foreign Minister 30 years later!
If Daesh is so bad, then why are our politicians so keen to participate in using our military to participate in a marketing campaign for it?
Hatred begets hatred and ‘The West’ using its significant military power to wipe out tyranny will lead to further hatred against us.
Yes, ISIS is an abomination, but it is an abomination that potemtially cannot be beaten by conventional military means as this may well lead to encouraging even greater support for it is civilian casualties numbers that will disproportionally account amongst the fallen.
If we wish to create even more so called martyrs who are willing to commit acts of barbarism and terrorism on our streets and to our fellow citizens then we only need to maim and kill innocent civilians and specifically children and women. I would sooner that we adopted a ‘hearts and minds’ policy than ‘precision bombing’ which seems to kill more innocent people than the name seems to imply that it should.
I for one cannot condone the taking of life to resolve this situation, but I accept that this may not be considered as realistic by the majority, but I do wish to promote some caution and I pray that those debating this matter today do so from an ethical and principled position and a desire for genuine peace and not with how ‘tough’ they may appear to the electorate come May 2015.
Those voting for bombing, and those supporting doing nothing will be responsible for the subsequent deaths that result! Action is required, but I question whether further killing is the answer.
Ruwan Uduwerage-Perea
Ruwan above asks pointed and relevant questions. It is so so sad that a society that has lived with, essentially, secular, governments, in both Iraq and Syria (both, unfortunately absolutely brutal) has now been forced to choose between groups of varying degrees of fundamentalist religion. The West has not helped, but I do think something should be done to slow the menace of Daesh down, before it just leaves devastated and fleeing communities in its wake. Bombing is not a good answer, but what else should be tried…?
From Craig Murray’s blog —
Between 4 and 20 August the Saudi Arabian government beheaded 19 people. Saudi Arabia, which has funded and armed ISIS from inception (initially with CIA support), is now bombing alongside the USA in Iraq and Syria.
Forget the war technology porn regularly being broadcast by western media, with those spectacular photos of missiles erupting from ships into the night sky. Those missiles and bombs eviscerate and maim innocents as well as combatants, children as well as terrorists. The West always first denies, then regrets, “collateral damage”. The propaganda can be laughable. During the invasion of Iraq I remember a news propaganda item about how a cruise missile can enter a specific window, being followed by the next item – the US had apologised to Syria for two missiles aimed at Iraq which had hit Syria by accident.
If we can accidentally bomb the Chinese Embassy in Serbia, we can – and do – hit civilian homes near the proposed target. Being eviscerated by a piece of flying shrapnel is no less terrible than being beheaded by a jihadist. Let us not pretend that our violence is somehow nicer. Children will be dying under our bombs soon.
I largely agree with him on this occasion, but it would be nice ‘differentiation’ if he pointed out the necessity for a UN resolution before attacking ISIL in Syria. Sadly, I can’t see him having the balls to say this, though, since our allies have already done it without one!
Perhaps he could make a robust statement of how he thinks this should apply to Britain. And (if asked) a diplomatic evasiveness about whether he thought that should apply to the US and France, et al.
Hell, it’s in Assad’s interest for ISIL to be attacked, so it may even be possible to get his Russian allies to support a resolution, if it were suitably carefully worded.
Ruwan, with the best of intentions, says hate begets hate so we should not respond with killing, but this situation is so extreme that doing nothing will beget hate too. Those with the power have a responsibility to act.
I’m still not sold on the need to bomb Syria too, but that might change. Assad, Russia and Iran are capable of defeating IS there and they don’t want our help.