The tyrant's best friend

[Lincoln]

The tyrant's best friend
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Lorne Gunter, National Post
Published: Monday, March 27, 2006

George Orwell detested tyrants, Communist and fascist alike. But he reserved a special contempt for pacifists.

"Those who 'abjure' violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf."

Orwell saw pacifists as self-superior freeloaders capable of indulging their naive beliefs only because brave men and women were prepared to lay down their lives to defend them.

And Orwell didn't even know the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) whose members had to be rescued in Iraq last week by daring British, Canadian, American and Iraqi commandos.

He knew their type, though.

In his 1945 essay Notes on Nationalism, Orwell explains, "The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to taking life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority ... whose real though unadmitted motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writing ... they do not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only violence used in defence of the western countries."

He certainly had the CPT pegged.

They are not in Iraq to stop war. They are there, instead, to thwart what they call the "illegal occupation" by Western forces.

By their use of words, they have chosen sides. CPT volunteers may not take up arms in support of the Iraqi insurgency -- their shallow thinking is at least consistent on that point -- but war is not their enemy, nor peace their sole objective.

They do not condemn the violence on both sides equally, even though that is what real pacifists would do.

The trio released last week claimed they had been in Iraq to uncover human rights abuses. Yet before their abduction, they had canvassed only Iraqis opposed to the coalition for lists of grievances. They weren't seeking to convince both sides of the futility of battle. Rather, they were looking to make a case against American and British action -- only.

And since being released, Canadians Harmeet Sooden and Jim Loney, and Brit Norman Kember, have made only excuses for their abductors. They have charged that the presence of foreign troops in Iraq created the conditions that led to their kidnapping, but never once disparaged their abductors' motives.

They haven't even been able to condemn those who murdered their colleague Tom Fox, the American CPT member kidnapped along with them last Nov. 26, whose bullet-riddled corpse was found near a railway line earlier this month.

But you can bet had Fox been killed or even merely injured during the rescue attempt, the CPT would have screeched indignantly about the brutality of coalition forces and demanded Congressional and Parliamentary inquiries, so great is their hypocritical commitment to non-violence.

There have even been reports in London's Daily Telegraph that CPT leaders back home were vaguely aware of ongoing intelligence and special forces efforts to free Sooden, Loney and Kember, but had demanded no action be taken until the rescuers could be certain no one -- not even a kidnapper -- would be killed.
How arrogant.

Not only were rescuers expected to put their lives on the line to free idealists who blamed the rescuers for their abduction (even though it was the idealists' own silly actions had gotten them kidnapped in the first place), the idealists' colleagues back in the West were demanding the brave soldiers, spies and informants double their risk just so their mission would be carried out in a way that didn't offend the idealists' beliefs.

Writing in Partisan Review in 1942, Orwell explained "This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help out that of the other." That is why "Pacifists are the objective allies of tyrants," rather than crusaders or martyrs for peace, as they like to see themselves.

Because free countries tolerate pacifists' views and actions -- just look at the extraordinary efforts coalition countries took to locate and save the CPT hostages -- "pacifism can act more effectively against democracy than for it."

The smug moralists of the CPT may fool themselves by thinking they are making the world freer and more peaceful. In truth, they are likely achieving the opposite.
© National Post 2006

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/editorialsletters/story.html?id=e0d757cb-a57a-4807-9b20-2995486e2205&p=2

[TraceOneInfinite Flat Earther 96']

So how do you feel about that whole issue Lincoln?

[Lincoln]

So how do you feel about that whole issue Lincoln?

Somewhere in the middle. Of course the Iraqis have been put into a situation where they are violent due in large part to the occupation but this was a good point:
"They do not condemn the violence on both sides equally, even though that is what real pacifists would do.

The trio released last week claimed they had been in Iraq to uncover human rights abuses. Yet before their abduction, they had canvassed only Iraqis opposed to the coalition for lists of grievances. They weren't seeking to convince both sides of the futility of battle. Rather, they were looking to make a case against American and British action -- only."

Although the US and the Brits were agressors that gives no right to Iraquis to kidnap them and commit violence against innocents.

I also agree with this:

"How arrogant.

Not only were rescuers expected to put their lives on the line to free idealists who blamed the rescuers for their abduction (even though it was the idealists' own silly actions had gotten them kidnapped in the first place), the idealists' colleagues back in the West were demanding the brave soldiers, spies and informants double their risk just so their mission would be carried out in a way that didn't offend the idealists' beliefs."

And I agree with the basic premise that the pacifists are only that way because others will fight for them, that is not new at all.