Comments on: Neo-cons, Muslims and “Last Men”

By: Chris Williams

Chris Williams — Thu, 04 May 2006 12:14:19 +0000

“It should also be remembered that Britain
disarmed after the first world war.”

No. Not even slightly true. In the 1920s
the British Empireh ad the best navy in
the world, the second biggest air force,
and a half-decent army as well. Britain
demobilised after 1918, yes, but that’s
what you do at the end of total wars
(unless you’re Kim Il Sung).

By: Neil W

Neil W — Wed, 03 May 2006 10:16:31 +0000

In 1938 if Britain and France had had some guts to stand up to Hitler, the German Army and Airforce weren’t at
that point much better then ours – if we had threatened Germanies western border and the Czechs would have fought in the east – the Czechs
had a rather well equipped and trained army (sat in very good defences) then in all likelihood the Germans would have backed down, Hitler would have looked an ass and Nazism would have had a short shelf life.

Instead the Tory establishment chose to suck up to the facists. Quell suprise.

By: soru

soru — Wed, 03 May 2006 09:22:02 +0000

Relativism is, of course, what has made Europe and the societies it has spawned in the Americas and Oceania what they are today. Absolutism is what preceded it: the era when the church ruled, when heretics were burned at the stake and control was maintained over the people by refusing to allow them to read the scriptures in their own language.

And there is the point at which I stopped reading, filed the author in the category ‘needs to read a book (any book)’, and moved on.

By: Laurence

Laurence — Mon, 01 May 2006 16:37:35 +0000

I have read the article you describe at length, and though I think some of what Murray says is a little intemperate, this is because he (like me and a lot of other people) are very angry at the incredible degree of appeasement towards Islamic extremism in Britain and other western countries. I think you are extremely disingenuous – verging on dishonest – in your depiction of Mosques and other Muslim centres in Britain as being completely innocent of extremist teaching. Perhaps you should read some of the writings by Afshin Ellian on the SAU website about the violent tendencies of Islam from its very foundation? Also some of his suggestions, such as stopping Muslim immigration to the UK, are probably impractical, even though I think the principle is correct, as Islam as a religion and culture is deeply inimical to everything that liberal democracy represents, and a majority of Muslims either currently resist integration with our democracy and values, or active wish to institute the horrendous medieval ‘sharia’ code of law. Otherwise I agree totally with the sentiments expressed in Murray’s article, and only hope a lot more people will read it as a result of this.

By: George Carty

George Carty — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 13:26:23 +0000

Shamil: It seems more likely that the neo-cons are against multi-culturalism for everyone except the jews. I don't understand this statement. Jewish neocons are very well assimilated into Western society. I think it is more likely that they view Islam as uniquely threatening - because it is a prosetylizing religion, which hasn't been defanged like Christianity or Judaism (ie the Christian and Jewish equivalents of the Islamist movement have negligible popular support), and which most importantly is tenacious in the extreme.

By: Steve Thursby

Steve Thursby — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 11:33:54 +0000

It should also be remembered that Britain disarmed after the first world war. The planning was that there would be no war in Europe for at least ten yeras, so no need to be armed now. This continued until about 1933, and even then it only started the process of re arming from about 1936. E.G. This was when Britain started the development of modern figthers (Spitfire and Hurricane) it took four years to develop them and they were only just starting to be produced in numbers in time for the battle of Britain, certainly not available in 1938.
The other point was that Czechoslavakia was an artificial nation created just 19 years previously, I wonder if people just saw this an ongoing part of the process of amending boundaries after the first world war (still ongoing in the middle east, where the break up of the Ottoman empire is still being sorted out, and only recently the cause of mass murder in the former yugoslavoia, another artificial construct after WWI (just like Iraq))

By: George Carty

George Carty — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 17:27:32 +0000

What do you view as the root cause of the demographic deficit? I would suggest a need for two incomes per household, in order to pay ever-rising mortgage costs, is the key issue…

By: constablesavage

constablesavage — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 10:12:58 +0000

I agree there wasn’t a lot else Chamberlain could have, Britain wasn’t ready for war before 1939, and wasn’t very keen on it at first even then – see the ‘phony war’ period.

Indeed you can make the case that the trouble with the policy of appeasement was it wasn’t persisted in for long enough: if WWII had started a couple of years later, after the French Army reforms had gone through, then things could have gone very differently.

Also without Chamberlain’s support in Cabinet Churchill could have been defeated by those who wanted to negotiate with Hitler: the man deserves better then being constantly portrayed as history’s archetypical wimp.

By: Phil E

Phil E — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 22:18:55 +0000

He feared that a war between the Western democracies and the Nazis would devastate both, leaving the Soviets as the master of Europe (which is exactly what would have happened, had the United States not entered World War II). I think it's more likely that he hoped that a war between the USSR and the Nazis would devastate both, leaving Britain the leading European power. As for the clause in brackets, it's so far adrift of anything I'd recognise as an account of WWII that I don't know where to start. Who do you think the main combatants were at the beginning of December 1941? (Sorry to go off on a tangent, Yusuf, but if people are going to invoke Chamberlain I think they should at least have a clear idea of what they're invoking.)

By: Wolfie

Wolfie — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 18:01:15 +0000

How quickly everyone forgot how broken Broken Britain was following WW1. My Grandfather recalled the mid-30’s as a Britain blighted by depression where it was still common to see men on the street hideously disfigured by war dying by degrees from their injuries or emotionally shattered alcoholism. There was no taste for more war.

Got to agree with you Shamil on the Neo-con hypocrisy.