Nick Clegg has made the following statement about David Haines’ murder:
The barbaric murder of David Haines is a crime of the most horrendous kind.
My thoughts at this time are with the family of David Haines who have experienced something no family should ever have to go through.
This murderous organisation calls itself Islamic State.
But it is not a state, it is a brutal terrorist outfit whose actions are an affront to every peace loving Muslim around the world.
No religion could possibly justify such grotesque acts.
The British Government will not rest until these killers face justice.
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42 Comments
Whereas everyone must feel great sorrow for the family and friends of David Haines – however,things would not have got to this level of barbarianism if it were not for the illegal invasion of Iraq. Something in excess of 130,000 Iraqi civilians have lost their lives in Iraq as a result the invasion by the US, ably supported by the UK,
Whereas it is impossible to condone this act – it is only when a people get to a level of desperation as a result of the injustices committed against them do they resort to such behaviour.
As is the case in Libya and Gaza – it is not for the UK government, or members of it, to make statements like this. An admission of guilt and a preparedness to help make amends for the wrongs done is what is required.
What party is NC leader of?
Surely Cameron would have excused him if he had refused to be associated with this statement since the Parliamentary Party voted against Blair’s plans to invade Iraq!
@ John Roffey,
It is inexcusable behaviour.
December 2013
A new Pew poll of 11 Muslim countries shows that Islamist terrorist groups still command double-digit support, with Hamas being looked upon favorably by about one-third of respondents. About one-fourth do not have an opinion of the terrorists, leaving them up for grabs in the ideological war.
The poll found that overall Muslim support for acts of violence against civilians in the name of Islam has dropped over the last decade, while concern about Islamic extremism has risen. About 67% are concerned about extremism in their faith and 27% are unconcerned.
The 11 countries surveyed are: Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestinian Territories, Senegal, Tunisia and Turkey.
Source: http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/new-poll-muslim-countries-finds-large-support-terrorists
My amateur thoughts are that we need to deal with the fundamental issue of oppression. Pacifism won’t deal with issues of oppression, but neither will trying to bomb countries into democracy.
If I had more faith in political leaders I wouldn’t feel the need to intervene, but the Iraq war and its aftermath was such a disaster and people still haven’t learnt from its mistakes, which one was going in in the first place and two leaving before the country was stabilised. Pacifism leads to anarchy, as we have seen in the aftermath of Iraq.
“No religion could possibly justify such grotesque acts.”
Mr Clegg should read the bible, it’s full of such grotesque acts.
I don’t think I’ve made myself clear. How is arming the Kurds alone going to bring peace? Do we have a peace plan? We need to deal with this issue of oppression that the extremists stand on, but also tell them that saying “everyone can live in peace under Sharia” isn’t good enough.
We need a peace plan and then we need to implement is with all our force. Going in half-hearted will lead to defeat and prolonged violence. Airstrikes are now a must, preferably drones too.
Eddie Sammon 14th Sep ’14 – 2:27pm
Pacifism won’t deal with issues of oppression,
Eddie, I think Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Lither King might disagree although I accept that this is a quite different context.
I entirely agree with you that trying to bomb countries into democracy will not work. The Bush-Blair invasion of Iraq followed 13 years of US/UK bombing of Sadam’s Iraq which followed on from the first Bush invasion in 1990. Which if you recall was going to bring democracy to Kuwait. Here we are twenty four years later and there is no democracy in Kuwait, Iraq or anywhere else in the region.
What legal justification is there for airstrikes in Syria, Eddie?
Hi Jayne, well now they have killed one of our citizens and effectively declared war on us I think we now have the legal go-ahead. However, thanks for reminding me that we need to consider international law.
@ Eddie Sammon
What you say might be the solution – but my comment was directed at NC’s statement – as leader of the Party.
Surely it should have been at least prefaced with a reminder that the Party did vote against the invasion in the first place – and that the mistaken invasion has led to the almost impossible circumstances now faced by the country and its people.
By the way Jayne, I am not interested in war with Assad, it is ISIS I am interested in.
Nick’s statement is fine, but we do need to understand a lot more. How is it that experts didn’t see this coming? What really is the motivation? Who really are the leaders? What really is the structure of its organization? What really is the purpose and meaning of the beheadings? Are they just criminal attempts at extortion, recruiting tools, indications of the naïve vision of IS? Does IS need the West’s hostility to survive? Why has the so-called Islamic State has it so easy so far – do more of the local populations support them than has been suggested in the media?
As any competent historian will know, the level of barbarism in the so-called Islamic State, which is neither Islamic nor a state, has been present in the Middle East for a long time, and has got nothing to do with any Western influence. That level reflects a severe alienation of the people who are doing it. Alienation is also present at many social levels in modern Western societies, which is perhaps one reason why the so-called Islamic State can recruit from us. https://www.libdemvoice.org/an-email-on-counterterrorism-measures-from-a-liberal-democrat-should-not-make-me-despair-42253.html#comment-313774
‘What legal justification is there for airstrikes in Syria’
So if there was some nice resolution somewhere, that would make bombing all OK? Or at the very least it would allow some people to sleep a bit more comfortably?
Ms Mansfield, I opposed war in Iraq and I would have opposed bombing Iraq even if there had been WMD and even if the UN had all said A-OK. But let’s not elevate legal nicety to some hallowed status above stark reality. Self-determination, sovereignty, human rights, democracy are all wonderful things but they are not things that can be neatly optimised and reified in some statute decided upon by (foreign) judges. People’s lives are at stake when one man’s sovereignty is another man’s violation of self-determination. The law can be an ass and so too can international law. And this is before we get to the nonsense of R2P.
Unless you think ISIS are going to sit around admiring our fine legal principles let’s at least leave the nicety aside.
Richard Dean, you ask a lot of the right questions. For some of the answers you need look no further than Saudi Arabia and Qatar and the religious beliefs of the ruling elites, who have funded and supported the Jihadis in Syria and Iraq.
Nick Clegg’s statement contains the line —” No religion could possibly justify such grotesque acts. ”
Yet the religious beliefs of the Saudi Royal family justify the act of beheading every month of the year. The Saudi government beheads its citizens. But the Saudis have lots of oil and a Royal famiy close to the UK Royal Family and the UK sells them lots of military equipment so I guess our Deputy Prime Minister thinks it is better to turn a blind eye to Saudi atrocities
“The Saudi government beheads its citizens.”
Indeed. And lest we forget, it can be for a “crime” like “witchcraft”.
@ John roffey- which illegal war would that be?
@ Little Jackie Paper,
No Mr Paper, it would not.
I like you was opposed to the Iraq war, but I seem to remember that Nick Clegg declared it illegal. Indeed, If one returns to Charles Kennedy’s reasoning at the time, I seem to remember him saying that without a second resolution there could be no support for the war in Iraq. As I remember it, the Liberal Democrats never ruled out the idea that under the correct conditions , support would be given for the war. I stand to be corrected on this, but the point I was making was, if as a Liberal Democrat one has argued for remaining within international law for one thing, can one then argue that remaining within international law is unimportant when it suits, I would call that hypocrisy.
I was opposed to any intervention in Libya and I am opposed to intervention in Syria. I would however, like to point out that some of the thousands of foreign fighters who have joined Isis have travelled from countries that played no part in the Iraq war. Whilst I accept that we have behaved in terrible ways towards the people of the Middle East,in my opinion, the enduring problem is one of sectarianism. Isis and its backers want to wipe out the Shias. This is something that cannot be solved by outsiders.
It’s really a remarkable misconception that beheadings are justified by religion, in any state including Saudi. Religion is used as a tool to control populations in many places, including Saudi. But beheadings are just the tip of the iceberg as far as the (Un)Islamic State is concerned. https://www.libdemvoice.org/liblink-maajid-nawaz-why-islamists-beat-liberals-in-the-middle-east-42189.html#comment-312956
Jayne Mansfield –
‘in my opinion, the enduring problem is one of sectarianism. …This is something that cannot be solved by outsiders.’
This is probably true. Although I would have to say that international law and its agents clearly falls into the category of, ‘outsiders.’ At least in this situation.
‘the point I was making was, if as a Liberal Democrat one has argued for remaining within international law for one thing, can one then argue that remaining within international law is unimportant when it suits, I would call that hypocrisy.’
That’s fair enough. I would simply observe that international law has nothing like the support, consistency, financing or enforcement (judicial and political) to be meaningful. Looking to international law is like chasing a phantom. I for example broadly supported international action in ex-Yugoslavia which didn’t have much international legal standing. I can’t honestly reconcile that in my head. But then ex-Yugoslavia at the very least was European business.
@ Jedibeeftrix
‘which illegal war would that be’
I was relying on Kofi Annan’s judgement of the invasion of Iraq. However, seeing the matter was hotly disputed on LDV at the time:
https://www.libdemvoice.org/in-depth-was-the-2003-invasion-of-iraq-illegal-30149.html
I will redefine it as an ‘unwise war’ [to avoid a further lengthy debate] – since my purpose was to highlight the fact that NC had failed to raise the important point that the Party’s MPs had voted against Blair’s plan and in not doing so allowed the implication that the Party had some responsibility for the current impossible mess in country is now in.
As the Party’s leader he is not joined at the hip with Cameron because the two parties are in coalition and, therefore, has an obligation to raise the point that the Party’s approach was far wiser than those voting for the invasion – as wisdom is a far more important quality – when it comes to governing a nation.
John Roffey
Whilst I hesitate to defend Nick Clegg even slightly, I think that if he had used a situation like this to play party politics by implying that other parties were a bit more responsible for this man’s death than the Lib Dems, he would have been rightly excoriated both on this site and in the wider world. It wasn’t the right occasion to make that point.
When it comes to Clegg’s statement, I think it was fine, but I’m getting impatient by talk about hunting down the killers – we know who the killers are: ISIS. It is dangerous to speak openly about these things, so I want to make clear that I think we should talk to ISIS about what we can do to help them, so that they don’t feel oppressed, but we want to preserve our way of life too.
@ Malcolm Todd
“I think that if he had used a situation like this to play party politics by implying that other parties were a bit more responsible for this man’s death than the Lib Dems, he would have been rightly excoriated both on this site and in the wider world. It wasn’t the right occasion to make that point.”
A bit more responsible?
In excess of 130,000 Iraqi innocent civilians have lost their lives as a result of the ‘unwise’ decision to invade?
I do accept that beheading is a particularly barbaric form of execution – but it is certain that many of the innocent Iraqi’s who died suffered far more painful deaths. Does the execution of one Brit outweigh the killing of 130,000 Iraqis.
I think what John Roffey wishes us to believe is that 130,000 Iraqi deaths excuses the beheading of one Brit and some Americans. Personally I don’t agree, either with the excuse John offers, or with the link between the events that he suggests.
@John Roffey
“things would not have got to this level of barbarianism if it were not for the illegal invasion of Iraq… Whereas it is impossible to condone this act – it is only when a people get to a level of desperation as a result of the injustices committed against them do they resort to such behaviour.”
Let’s get this straight. You believe IS are invading Iraq and brutalising large numbers of the Iraqi population because they are upset about the injustice of the US/UK invasion of Iraq? Well that makes a whole lot of sense.
Of the 130,000 Iraqi civilians you say have lost their lives “as a result the invasion by the US”, do you have a figure for what proportion of them were killed by fellow Iraqis for religious\sectarian reasons?
@ Richard Dean
What I am suggesting is that NC’s statement is inflammatory which will lead to even more deaths when what is required is the start of a process of reconciliation.
Liberal Democrats are well placed to start, or at least participate, in this process because they were against the ‘unwise’ invasion – so NC’s statement, after expressing the greatest sympathy towards David Haines’ family and friends could have ended with, something like – and let us not forget the 130,000 innocent Iraqis who have also died unnecessarily because of the foolish decision to invade Iraq. Let us hope that his death will begin a process of reconciliation so that the killing can end.
There’s a kind of simple explanation for IS which experts should have been able to predict, simply in terms of how military power changed.
A benefit of Assad was that his regime kept religious intolerance under control in Syria. Similarly, a perhaps-unplanned collateral benefit of the presence of Western troops in Iraq and Afghanistan was that they did the same there. But once Assad was weakened and Western troops were mostly gone, there was no one capable of preventing a thing like IS from developing. So it did.
As Joe Bourke pointed out, military overthrows are kind of traditional in the Middle East. https://www.libdemvoice.org/liblink-maajid-nawaz-why-islamists-beat-liberals-in-the-middle-east-42189.html#comment-312956
The short-term answer is to defeat IS militarily and in terms of its propaganda. The medium-term answer is that we are likely to need to support regimes we don’t approve of, simply because the alternative is worse. The long-term solution is to work to change those regimes by persuasion rather than force.
You don’t think that David Haines’ family would be pleased if his death marked the start of a peace process – rather than him being just another statistic in a pointless war?
If anyone wants to see a real life member of ISIS in Britain here is a youtube channel with a name too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaUJ0FbEIio&feature=youtu.be
I’ve been watching him for a few weeks. He talks about how the UK government has taken his passport away from him, but that doesn’t seem good enough for me. He says he isn’t a terrorist, but then plays ISIS music at the end.
The point is that we need to act, but liberal leftists are always trying to obstruct action. Sometimes obstruction is necessary, but not all the time.
Richard Dean
There is something in your last comment. But there are some elephants in the room which you seem reluctant to acknowledge. For example —
1 The part played by the Saudi religious/political elite since 1970. That will not disappear if the West defeat IS militarily. It will just pop up somewhere else in the region such as when the Egyptian Arab spring elected government was ndermined by the Saudis and Qataris.
2 The impact in the region of Israeli expansionism which alienates people across the world and acts as a recruitment aid to the Jihadis
3. The governments in Sadam’s Iraq, Assad’s Syria and Libya were secular and relatively modern and had been in place for forty years. They were models of stabilityncompared with what has come after them. Military intervention by the West has made things many times worse and chaos and continuing bloodshed are the legacy . Your suggestion that the answer is military defeat of IS seems to ignore this recent history.
@John Tilly
Do you have any evidence for the claim that the rulers of Saudi Arabia supported terrorists in Iraq?
How many eyes for a British eye – how many teeth for a British tooth?
By the way, I’ve just reported his seemingly increasing radicalisation, if anyone else spots any suspicious activity and wants to report it here is the link:
https://www.gov.uk/terrorism-national-emergency/reporting-suspected-terrorism
@ Richard Dean,
In terms of propaganda, I am unsure what the British media hope to achieve by multiple showings or media reporting of the imminent beheading of human beings by the ludicrously named, obscenity ‘Jihadi John’.
I think that most of us have the imagination necessary to understand the brutality involved, and I don’t know what is achieved by giving airspace to the deranged beliefs of the murderer. It seems to me, that it is just fuelling hawkish sentiment amongst the general public that puts pressure on the government to do something, anything.
Andrew Small’s video is rather boring, and I could only get a few minutes into it. I think the Qur’an is pretty boring too, and also most of the Old and New Testaments.
Anthony seems to be an example of someone who doesn’t really see the reality of the ISIS barbarism. He doesn’t seem like a terrorist himself. Instead, he’s using ISIS as a way of discussing what he sees as problems in the British establishment or in British policies. Roffey here seems to be doing a similar thing.
So this is about using ISIS for other objectives. A problem is that this kind of thing can end up convincing people that siding with ISIS is a good thing. So, should there be some form of censorship? – a good question to ask LibDems!
Perhaps someone could engage in conversation with Anthony to try to show him why he’s mistaken and why he’s being dangerous. Though my guess is that it will be a very mind-numbing thing to do.
Green Voter 14th Sep ’14 – 6:46pm
Do you have any evidence for the claim that the rulers of Saudi Arabia supported terrorists in Iraq?
Yes – in as much as I read reports and listen to people whose knowledge is direct from the region and have been proved to be correct. For example Robert Fisk the award winning journalist who lives in The Lebanon and has written regularly in the Independent for more than twenty years. He has been writing about the Saudi religious elite for years now. Here is an example of something he wrote in June of this year —
“….So after the grotesquerie of the Deobandi terror outfit Taliban and the Salafi war-lord Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 suicide killers of 9/11, meet Saudi Arabia’s latest monstrous contribution to world history: the Islamist Salafi/Wahhabi caliphate of Iraq and the Levant, conquerors of Mosul and Tikrit – and Raqqa in Syria – and possibly Baghdad, and the ultimate humiliators of Bush and Obama. This is in addition to the Deobandi caliphate established in parts of Pakistan (Waziristan) and Afghanistan by the Taliban, who belong to Deobandi Islam, a semi-Salafi sect.
From Aleppo in northern Syria almost to the Iraqi-Iranian border, the jihadists of Isis and sundry other groupuscules paid by the Saudi Wahhabis/Salafis – and by Kuwaiti oligarchs – now rule thousands of square miles.
– See more at: http://lubpak.com/archives/314790#sthash.D6h5DKCS.dpuf
For more context as to why the West should learn the lessons of Iraq/Afghanistan and much, much more watch Paddy Ashdown in a 15 minute video clip. Currently featured on Jonathan Calder’s excellent Liberal England —
http://liberalengland.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/paddy-ashdown-on-global-power-shift.html
It is well worth devoting 15 minutes of your time to hear Paddy on the theme of changes in global power!
Eddie Sammon 14th Sep ’14 – 2:41pm
“WE NEED A PEACE PLAN.”
Will someone please give us a credible Peace Plan.
@ James Probert
Yes – I think I have read all articles in today’s papers on the matter and can find none that offers a solution with any confidence. I think the most hopeful comments I have found are from the Dalai Lama in his address to the various Muslim sects in India where he is encouraging the sects to work together and with other faiths to provide an example to the rest of the world.
People should realise that the claim that Saudi Arabia is behind ISIS is disputed.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/islamic-state-saudi-arabias-oil-wells-are-the-ultimate-goal-for-isis-30579087.html
The murder of 120 people in Paris on 13/11/2015 is horrific. The intention is clearly to make ordinary life impossible.