Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Flirting With Bombers

Plenty of politicians spend their lives missing bandwagons, but in its own way it's quite impressive how David Cameron not only manages to miss every time, but manages to time his jump so as to get run over by the wagon coming back the other way.

Take events in South Zimbabwe. Just as even hardened Libs are admitting that, actually, it's kind of falling apart, Dave suddenly goes all weak at the knees over the Rainbow Nation.

Needless to say, the quality of thought is as good as ever. He's thinks the Conservative Party was wrong to call the ANC a terrorist organisation. So what does he think we should call an organisation that bombs supermarkets, bar and sports crowds ? Extreme demonstrators ? The ANC occasionally roused itself to attack people who actually worked for the South African state, but many of the targets seem to have been attacked for no reason other than they offered the opportunity to slaughter people, both white and black - and that's before considering the ANC's reign of terror in the townships.

See, this is the flip-side of the Mandela myth. True, Mandela is part of the reason why the transition to (sort of) democracy went better than almost anyone on the right thought it would, but then part of the reason so many expected disaster was Mandela himself. As the puffy-faced reptile's smarter namesake reminds us, Mandela embraced the ideology that helped make North Korea what it is today. Add in the effect of the ANC's bloodlust and gangsterism, and it's an open question whether they helped or hindered the end of Apartheid.

That's the other thing. The peaceful transition couldn't have happened without the agreement of the whites. So how exactly does Cameron get that Lady Thatcher's policy of constructive engagement was the one proven wrong ? It was the Liberals with all their talk of the need for bloody revolution who were left watching history pass them by.

If nothing else, can we get some agreement here ? Liberals claim Lady Thatcher was evil for trying to engage with South Africa rather than supporting sanctions, meanwhile the US is evil for supporting sanctions against Cuba, instead of engaging with its thuggish government. So which is it ?

For that matter, if we're not allowed to call people who leave bombs on the bread counter 'terrorists' - or at least, not if they're 'oppressed', just how much more latitude do we have to give to people who are fighting against genocidal fanatics, and still bend over backwards to try and avoid killing civilians ? A lot less, apparently.

That's the bottom line here. It's not about Africa in the 1980s, it's about Britain right now. As Prime Minister, David Cameron will have to deal with the threat of terrorism, yet here he is buying into exactly the kind of idiotic moral relativism previously the exclusive property of the Left. Blowing up shoppers is OK if you're oppressed - and never mind whether or not your homicidal interlude actually has any connection with the alleged opression. Just what crimes can't be justified by this argument ? Rape ? Piracy ? Slave trading ? Hey - you know the Conservative Party is in low water when it sounds more outraged by people driving 4x4s than by mass slaughter.

Instead of terrorists being assured that violence will gain them nothing except certain death, they now know that Cameron thinks terrorism is kind of OK if you think you're being oppressed, so why not cobble together a semi-plausible claim to victimhood, kill a few Brits and see PM Cameron roll over ? He's sticking a giant 'Kill Me!' sign on the back of every British citizen, post-dated until his election. The first duty of any government - a Conservative one most of all - is the defence of the realm. Cameron's idiotic posturing has strengthened the forces of chaos and made it infinitly more likely that this country will be attacked under his government. This is the very definition of unfitness to govern.

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