A certain minority on this site supported the Iraq war authorization - Jeremy Corbyn did not.

[JackRiddler]

Last edited Sat Jul 2, 2016, 02:00 PM - Edit history (2)

You may remember the U.S. version of the vote to go to war in Iraq had substantial Democratic support, although about half of the Democrats in Congress were against. To an extent this was also reflected on this site, although the majority were against the push to war and remained so in the aftermath.

Quite a few posters on this site (whom I take as indicative of the U.S. liberal-left spectrum) continue to show no problem with a bellicose line that risks new wars in a lot of places. There is a tendency among some to still see Iran as a dangerous enemy, but for some reason Saudi Arabia's even worse outrages and evident danger to "our" interests tend to be ignored.

Not as many, but a not-insignificant number celebrated the brief-lived, CIA-backed, oligarchs' coup d'etat against Chavez in 2002. You may have seen 14 years of daily slag-stories on Venezuela since then, with relatiely far fewer about U.S.-backed death-squad governments killing thousands and displacing millions in Colombia, or killing tens of thousands in Mexico with support of the Bush regime's Merida Initiative. The impeachment coup against Zelaya in Honduras in 2009 also had its backers on the liberal-left spectrum, as did the later destruction of Libyan society.

I didn't notice support for this year's impeachment coup against Dilma, since the government that emerged from that couldn't be more obviously right-wing and illegitimate, but there was plenty of uncritical slinging of the pre-coup propaganda about her supposed corruption. And of course last year's EU strangling of the leftist hopes for relief in Greece had its loud backers too.

These are some of the things I keep in mind as today we see a pretty shocking number of U.S. liberals, including a few here, deliver the UK oligarch and Blairite line in support of the ongoing party leadership coup attempt against Jeremy Corbyn. The long-standing leftist MP and committed antiwar campaigner won last year's election among Labour members overwhelmingly, and has been a big fat target ever since.

Corbyn campaigned against Brexit (but without calling for stricter limits on migration and acceptance of refugees, like many of his opponents in Labour). His constituency produced a higher turnout than in last year's election, with an overwhelming vote for Remain. But now the Brexit win is somehow his fault, say a bunch of well-connected Blairites whose own constituencies in many cases voted for Leave.

The leftovers of a dozen years of Blair and Brown's continuation of Thatcherist politics and the losers of last year's election under Milliband don't like that the Labour Party now has a leader whose power is based not in elite approval but in real popularity with the members. They see the Tories entering a potential melt-down, and yet they choose this moment to tear their own party apart. Such patriots are they.

Don't they to want to win the possible early election? Apparently not if that means a real leftist government will come to power and reverse the neoliberal course of privatizing health care and education, of letting the rich and the big corporations do always as they will.

The front-benchers' showy resignations from the shadow cabinet in the immediate wake of Brexit, and the coup attempt by a non-binding "no confidence" vote that is supposed to trump the members' will, has been in the works for months. But suddenly Hillary Benn and Co. are in a rush. They seem to have realized the Brexit pretext provides the last, best hope for ousting Corbyn before a general election, but he has stood fast so far.

Curiously, none of them seems too enthusiastic about running as the opponent to Corbyn in a new party leadership election, which would be a legitimate way of replacing him. A clear challenger has yet to emerge. Angela Eagle wants to do it, but she'd be crushed. Party deputy Tom Watson is considered a stronger candidate, but he's trying to "compromise" by getting Corbyn to chop off his own head without a vote of the members, which would have the added benefit of putting the "interim" reins of leadership in the hands of... Tom Watson.

Since Corbyn's so terrible, why don't they want to put the question to the members?

If you google Corbyn's name right now, a whole bunch of UK corporate press invective sliming him every which way appears. You can find laughable "throw the kitchen sink" stories about how his supposedly overgrown house garden exemplifies his weak leadership style, and, on the bloodthirsty side, a Daily Mail front page that announces "Labour Must Kill the Vampire Jezza Right Now," which includes a photoshop of Corbyn as Dracula in a coffin. (Interesting headline, given that a British MP was literally assassinated on the street less than two weeks ago.)

But here's the problem:

Jeremy Corbyn would easily defeat likely leadership challengers, poll shows
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-labour-leadership-election-poll-support-angela-eagle-dan-jarvis-tom-watson-2016-eu-a7113036.html

He's far ahead of all potential challengers with full party members, and that is not yet counting the trade unionists and "3-pound" members who will also get to vote and are even more overwhelmingly for him.

The smear campaign against Corbyn is partly being orchestrated by an agency associated with Alastair Campbell (whom many Americans only know as the character Malcolm Tucker from the great film "In the Loop&quot , the so-called wizard who also put together the PR for UK entry into the Iraq war coalition. In a few days, Campbell will be among those exposed when the long-awaited official "Chilcot Report" on Iraq is filed.

Chilcot is expected to provide devastating evidence on the Blair government's use of fabrications and fear-mongering to join the Bush-led unpardonable war of aggression against the nation of Iraq, which caused so much suffering, destroyed that society and set up the conditions for the present horrors of the Middle East, including the existence of an "Islamic State" actually holding territory in the ruins. Blair may actually become the first leader to be prosecuted for the associated war crimes -- a move that Corbyn unforgivably said he would support, if the evidence is there.

The potential of seeing the international fugitive Blair in the dock, potentially paying for his crimes -- something you'd think many of us would welcome for its potential that we might one day see the same treatment accorded to Bush and Cheney -- is another piece of the context for why the Labourite front-benchers (almost all of whom voted for the 2003 aggression in Iraq, insofar as they were already in Parliament) are in such a rush to behead Corbyn now, and screw democracy and what the members think.