Absolutely gobsmacked by Boris Johnson's Spectator leader on the Bombings

[non sociopath skin]

... Would certainly not agree with every word of it, but much of it displays a rationality and a comparative generosity of spirit not usually associated with the Tousle-Headed One.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php?id=6366&page=5

Could it be that some sort of consensus on the basis that the Neocons have got it badly wrong is possible?

The Skin

[Peace Patriot]

1. It's for registered users only! Could you give us some sense of what he

says, and some quotes?

[non sociopath skin]

4. You can become a registered user free. You don't get access to everything

... but you do get the Op-Eds.

Here's a sample:

In groping to understand, the pundits and the politicians have clutched first at Iraq, and the idea that this is ‘blowback’, the inevitable punishment for Britain’s part in the Pentagon’s fiasco. George Galloway began it in Parliament; he was followed by Sir Max Hastings, with the Lib Dems limping in the rear. It is difficult to deny that they have a point, the Told-You-So brigade. As the Butler report revealed, the Joint Intelligence Committee assessment in 2003 was that a war in Iraq would increase the terror threat to Britain. Anyone who has been to Iraq since the war would agree that the position is very far from ideal; and if any anti-Western mullah wanted a text with which to berate Britain and America for their callousness, it is amply provided by Fallujah, or the mere fact that Tony Blair cannot even tell you how many Iraqis have been killed since their liberation — only that the number is somewhere between ten and twenty thousand.

Supporters of the war have retorted that Iraq cannot be said to be a whole and sufficient explanation for the existence of suicidal Islamic cells in the West, and they, too, have a point. The threat from Islamicist nutters preceded 9/11; they bombed the Paris Métro in the 1990s; and it is evident that the threat to British lives pre-dates the Iraq war, when you think that roughly the same number of Britons died in the World Trade Center as died in last week’s bombings.

In other words, the Iraq war did not create the problem of murderous Islamic fundamentalists, though the war has unquestionably sharpened the resentments felt by such people in this country, and given them a new pretext. The Iraq war did not introduce the poison into our bloodstream but, yes, the war did help to potentiate that poison. And whatever the defenders of the war may say, it has not solved the problem of Islamic terror, or even come close to providing the beginnings of a solution. You can’t claim to be draining the swamp in the Middle East when the mosquitoes are breeding quite happily in Yorkshire.

For an influential Tory, that's quite a learning curve.

The Skin

[bennywhale]

2. Can't get in

[LondonAmerican]

3. I agree with statement of what the problem is - nt.

[Taxloss]

5. Ouch. Mark Steyn's not going to like that.

What was the Steve Bell "If ..." cartoon on Friday?

"FOOK A DOOK!"

[non sociopath skin]

6. Anything Mark the Wonker Steyn doesn't like, I like!

Go, Boris! :kick:

The Skin

[T_i_B]

9. Mark Steyn doesn't like a lot of things

I think he even threatened to quit the Spectator after they published an editorial defending the UN!

The man is just such an insanely pro-Bush ideologue. You do wonder why Hollinger group keep on publishing him. He'd be much better off writing for the dittohead crowd in the US then the Torygraph in the UK.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. He's published in the Chicago Sun-Times too

Maybe his contract, signed under Black, would cost too much to break just for "you're an insane Bush arselicker" - while true, an employment tribunal probably wouldn't accept it as a valid grounds for sacking. And the Barclay brothers aren't exactly left wing themselves - even if they don't hold the views that Steyn does, they may not see them as quite as extremist as we do.

[T_i_B]

7. Despite his many faults, Boris is actually a very good writer.

Here is a very good example of what I mean, an article published on the morning of the bombings which I would have posted had terrorists not set off bombs in London that morning before I could post on DU.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/07/07/do0701.xml

"It has been a common assumption around the world for at least two years that France was due to get the Olympic games in 2012. Paris has a fantastic stadium, and it seems only fair, given that the French last hosted the Olympics in 1924 and the British in 1948. Simple justice should surely have given the prize to Chirac, rather than Blair.

So what does he do, this magnificent prangmeister, on the eve of the crucial vote? He is caught making some crass remarks about haggis and mad cow disease, and asserting that British food is second only in filthiness to Finland's.

I have no idea how Finland voted in the final rubber of the negotiations, but we cannot exclude the possibility that the Finnish delegate had a mild sense of humour failure and decided to vindicate the honour of the national dish (deep-fried reindeer sweetbreads and honey), by anti-voting Paris.

It was buffoonery, and whatever words Jacques Tati, né Chirac, uses to congratulate London and Tony Blair on their success, it would take a heart of stone not to laugh. The whole Chirac experience is becoming comic, except for one thing: he is still President of France, and he still believes - against all the evidence - that France has somehow done all of us a favour by creating the Common Agricultural Policy."

Read on as Boris proceeds to lay into the Common Agricultural Policy.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

8. Good article

I'm not particularly a fan of the CAP either.

[cheeseit]

11. Excellent article. The Tories really need to wake up and realise-

-that only one man, one slightly baffled knight can bring them back to power now....