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[British MP] Alan Simpson on bombing Afghanistan
Question: Why have you called for a pause in the bombing of
Afghanistan?
Alan Simpson: Partly because I think the war is wrong full stop. It's
just the wrong way of seeking to track down terrorists and bring them
to justice. The second is that I am really fearful that we're sitting
on the edge of a humanitarian catastrophe in Afghanistan for which
the West will legitimately be blamed.
The aid agencies reckon that there's maybe ten more delivery days
before the Afghan snow cuts the lorries off. They have fallen behind
the delivery rate that they needed to be able to keep people alive
through this winter. The current position, irrespective of the
numbers who are in refugee camps on the Pakistani/Iranian borders, is
that two million people have been displaced inside the country. One
million children are at the edge of starvation. When the winter snows
go and we start to count the bodies of those who didn't make it
through, I believe the Muslim or Arab countries within the region
will blame us for that catastrophe.
It won't wash that it was the Taliban that delayed things. Everyone
knows that the aid agencies have delivered food through famine or war
zones in the past. They are used to having to pay food taxation, they
are used to the delays and frustrations that they've had to face from
both the Taliban and the Northern Alliance, and in the past three
years under the Taliban governments when the droughts have still been
in place, the aid agencies have managed to get the food through.
Simpson on humanitarian efforts
Question: But the US and UK governments say that the action they are
taking is in co-ordination with humanitarian efforts. Does that not
wash with you?
Alan Simpson: It doesn't make any sense at all. You can't drop bombs
and bread in alternating consignments. The absurdity is compounded by
the fact that some of the food packages look like the cluster bombs
that have been strewn across the landscape, and children have been
sent out to collect them. This is just a wretched and stupid way of
trying to deliver humanitarian aid.
We've changed the targets this is the worst part about the
strategy. All of a sudden we talk about this war with the Taliban -
it has become a war with Afghanistan. We're not pursuing Bin Laden in
the mountains where he is, we're bombing the plains and the cities,
and we're taking out the power and the infrastructure, the fragmented
infrastructure that existed to prop the country up. And the people on
the frontline are those who are homeless, starving, or living on
grass. They are the frontline of reprisals and the rest of the world
knows this. In fact large numbers of people in Britain know this,
which is why I think that the whole momentum of public opinion has
shifted dramatically over the last couple of weeks. There is now a
majority of people who oppose bombing. They want to let the food get
through to the people of Afghanistan who really need it.
Question: What's your proof of that?
Alan Simpson: The opinion polls in last week's press found that 54
per cent of the population in Britain currently favour halting the
bombing to get the food through.
Simpson on the role the UK should be playing
Question: So how do you think the US and UK should have reacted to
the atrocities of September 11?
Alan Simpson: I think the role the UK should have played was to
rescue America from a mindset that makes it its own worst enemy. At
the moment it's almost as though if America can't bomb, it can't
think. And our own experience of terrorists' attacks and atrocities
across mainline Britain has given us definite experience of how you
deal with terrorism. It never made the outrages any more acceptable.
Never once did we say that the sensible strategic response was
saturation bombing of Dublin, or if the killings and atrocities were
committed by protestant paramilitary groups, that we should flatten
the protestant communities in the North to `smoke out' the
terrorists. We have learned that the way you tackle terrorism is by a
combination of infiltrating the networks, undermining their
credibility, attempting to close off the financial and arms supply
routes. And creating a space somewhere in that domestic agenda for a
peace dialogue between the majority sections of communities who are
looking for a solution of some sort that isn't found down the barrel
of a gun. Now we have done this with heroic patience and resilience
in relation to Northern Ireland. We are still in the process of doing
that. No one ever pretends that there is a quick fix solution to be
found just by nuking North or Southern Ireland. It is that we have
learned to deal with this in a different manner and that is what we
should have been saying to the USA. The mistake was even talking
about it as a war it was a horrendous act of terrorism that should
be pursued and tried as an international crime, but it wasn't an act
of war by one country on another. And there is nothing in human
history that ever shows that you can successfully bomb an idea or an
ideology out of existence.
Simpson on an international court
Question: But some would argue how do you manage to get hold of
suspected terrorists through an international court because the
Taliban are not going to release them?
Alan Simpson: Early on in the proceedings Pakistan made a call not
for international leaders to see the evidence against Bin Laden and
Al-Qaeda but for an independent, international panel of judges. And I
believe we should have taken them up on that offer because at the
moment it is still a question of those of us who were involved in
perpetrating the bombing response saying we have incontrovertible
evidence that proves we're right. We've now become a hanging that
dispenses with a trial.
If we want other countries to sign up to a framework of international
law, we also have to be seen to be acting within it ourselves. We
should have taken up Pakistan's offer to set up a panel of judges; we
should then have set up an international court. If they'd said
there's a prima face case against Bin Laden then that case should
have been referred to an international court. It is possible for
courts to try people in their absence and that would be the worst-
case scenario but we could still do that. It wouldn't stop us
continuing to pursue Bin Laden. We already have shown on our screens
evidence of satellite photographs that have Mullah Omar talking to a
group of people, there were two clear identifications of Bin Laden
once in Sudan and once in Afghanistan, so the technology of
surveillance from space is so sophisticated today that with patience,
we could do that. We could also send special units into the mountains
of Afghanistan in pursuit of him and his guards. If we had been
serious about that, we could have gone to the UN Security Council in
the very early ages and secured an international mandate for the
international coalition to do precisely that.
Simpson on the chief whip and Paul Marsden
Question: How did MPs react to the reported `strong-arm' tactics of
the Chief Whip against Paul Marsden?
Alan Simpson: I think there were mixed feelings: about whether those
sort of strong-arm tactics were acceptable but also whether it was
sensible to report it across all the front pages of the national
newspapers.
I expected, when I came into Parliament, that it was going to be a
robust environment and if you had strong beliefs then it was your job
to stand up to them. And whatever rough housing you got from the
Whips, it was up to you to decide whether you slunk away to hide
somewhere or whether you stood your ground. I just think that the
public have a right to expect that the MPs they select and elect have
enough about them that they stand their ground.
In terms of whether this is a sensible strategy from the position of
the party, the answer has to be no. It is an extremely counter
productive one because all that that leaves the public with is the
strong belief that the issues don't count. It's a question of
enforced loyalty rather than a willingness to practise the democracy
that we say we're attempting to defend.
Simpson on the Commons vote
Question: There was a recent Commons vote on the campaign and it was
373 votes to 13 in favour of the government's approach. Therefore the
vast majority of the Parliamentary Labour Party supports it?
Alan Simpson: Let's look at that vote. The first thing you have to
say is a huge number of MPs just weren't there at all. And the second
thing you have to face is if you look at the vote, one of the issues
that makes a lot of MPs very cross, whatever position they take on
the war itself, is that Parliament has denied the right to vote on
any substantive resolution of whether you support the war, or whether
you are opposed to it. The resolution that was voted on was that the
House do now adjourn. Well what difference is that going to make to
someone sitting under the shadow of a B-52 bomber in Afghanistan?
They'll think that's great news the House of Commons has adjourned,
or tough luck it hasn't adjourned. It's a nonsense vote but it was
the only way that MPs could, in frustration, force a recognition that
genuinely does divide the House and that we are in a minority of
international Parliaments that doesn't have the right to vote on
issues of war and peace. So I think there are constitutional issues
here about whether this is a Prime Ministerial or Presidential right
to declare war in the name of the country or whether this a
Parliamentary right where we have both an opportunity and a duty to
try and represent the views of the constituents who elect us. It's a
big issue not adequately addressed on voting whether the House should
adjourn or not.
Simpson on the Prime Minister's style of leadership
Question: There have been newspaper reports describing the Prime
Minister's `presidential' style of leadership. Are there concerns
amongst the backbenchers over Tony Blair's leadership style?
Alan Simpson: It's a very easy style to support if it's a
consistently winning style, but the risk that it runs is if it all
goes pear-shaped for you, then you're pretty much out on your own.
And one of the fears that have been expressed over the last few days
is that the experience of this recent visit around the Middle East
and discussions with other European leaders has left the Prime
Minister in a fairly isolated position. There was a consistency of
outcome in the trip to the Middle East in that the Arabs didn't want
to talk to him and nor did the Jews, that he will have come back from
there having been sand bagged by almost everyone, and that really
raises some serious and ominous questions not only about the
viability of holding the coalition together but the implications for
the stability of the region after the bombing stops. And I think it's
at that point that those big international issues will become much
harder to deal with inside the House of Commons.
But in a practical sense you know, it is always the case that a
Government can only conduct a war whilst it has the support of the
population. During the Norway Debate in 1940, we saw that although
Chamberlain won a majority vote in the Commons, the scale of public
opposition to the strategy that he was pursuing meant that his tenure
as a government became impossible. Now I don't think that it is of
the same proportions because technically Britain is not centrally
involved in a war to defend our own shores. But there are going to be
very serious ramifications that run back through the way our society
works if we are seen to be responsible for (a) having polarised one
of the poorest countries on the planet, (b) having left it in a state
which is still riven by feudal conflicts, (c) having set trains of
fundamentalism loose in other countries in the region, (d) having
left ourselves with more declared enemies in the region than passive
friends. All of these issues are going to roll back into the standing
of the UK government within the international community, and will
affect domestic relations with people within the UK of different
faiths and races.
Simpson on racial tensions in the UK
Question: But do you feel that the government's involvement in the
bombing of Afghanistan has added to racial tensions in the UK?
Alan Simpson: I've spoken to a lot of people in mosques and Muslim
communities around the country and I don't think Parliament properly
understands the nature of the divide that they are trying to prevent
from opening up. I have yet to come across any part of the Muslim
communities that are in favour of the bombing of Afghanistan. There
are substantial numbers who are fearful of where it will take us but
who wish to remain quiet for fear of making it worse. And there are
growing sections of their own communities that are openly saying what
are we doing standing around giving tacit support to the saturation
bombing of innocent people, our people, who are no closer to
terrorists than you or I, and this display of overwhelming American
military power has to be challenged, and that is the new evil. And
we're in real danger of opening up a divide where the on going
battles after the bombing of Afghanistan ceases, will end up being
fought within our own communities here.
Simpson on British Muslims fighting for the Taliban
Question: How do you deal with these British Muslims who are going
off to fight for the Taliban? Isn't there an issue of religion versus
citizenship?
Alan Simpson: I think there are two aspects of this. The first is the
great tragedy in respect of however many young Muslim men are willing
to go off to fight for Afghanistan, is that we haven't interceded in
a way that says if you're willing to put yourself into a zone of such
instability, leave the weapons to one side, why don't you drive the
lorries to deliver the food? The region is paralysed now because
there aren't enough people willing to drive the food lorries through.
And so we've had an opportunity to say to people you can be part of
the process of keeping people alive by feeding them rather than by
becoming embroiled in a war which will only produce losers.
Question: But their argument is that they have to defend a Muslim
nation that's being attacked this means they must take up arms
against the aggressor?
Alan Simpson: And that's the danger about how internationally this is
being seen. You cannot say credibly that this is a war in pursuit of
Bin Laden when the bombing is not taking place in the mountains but
in the plains and the cities where ordinary Afghan citizens live. And
if that was happening to us, we would say this isn't a war against
the IRA or the UDA, if Britain was being saturation bombed, we'd see
it as a war against us as a country. And I think there is a degree of
hypocrisy in the language that we have used, that internationally
other countries aren't going to sign up to.
The other thing that strikes me in terms of a massive contradiction,
is that we have the wretched double standards about this notion of
people willing to go and fight for other causes. We have a number of
companies openly and legally recruiting paramilitaries to go and
fight in other countries, they are based across the UK. There is one
in Aldershot which recruits mercenaries to go and train and fight
alongside the Death Squads in Colombia, and with the Colombian
Government as part of their so-called Plan Colombia, the war on
drugs. That's despite the fact that the UN in their last report made
it quite clear that the vast majority of drugs coming out of Colombia
now come either from government agencies or the Death Squads. Now
those people are UK citizens going off killing in other countries are
some how legitimate because they are doing it for money they are
part of a market economy. Forget the moral issues, forget the
constitutional ones, forget citizenship, this is different because
it's for cash. If people are willing to go and kill for conscience or
conviction, then you can brand them as traitors. Now I don't favour
either of them, I think if we're serious about taking up a moral
position that is willing to challenge terrorism, then we have to say
that doing it for cash isn't any better than doing it out of
conviction. And we tackle the notion of recruitments to kill and we
do that on a consistent basis and you don't say that killing for our
tyrants is OK, but killing for someone else's tyrants isn't.
Simpson on the Government's response and public opinion
Question: If you're right and public opinion is changing over this -
how will the government respond?
Alan Simpson: I don't know where Britain goes on this. I think the
public is moving in one direction and I think the government is
continuing in a different direction along with the US. The problem
we've seen to have got ourselves into is having tied ourselves so
tightly into America and being unable or unwilling to say that this
doesn't carry with it an endorsement of the military strategy. We
are seen as not the junior partner but the sort of front row PR
system for whatever America decides to do. And I think that is going
to take the UK government further away from the UK public with every
week that the war goes on.
Question: And what's at stake if that continues?
Alan Simpson: I think that will present real credibility problems for
the whole of the government's domestic and economic policies as well.
If there is a backlash that withdraws support for the government,
then it's likely to be of a presidential scale. If you lose faith in
what the President stands for, then you cease making excuses or
concessions for aspects of other policies that don't feel right
either. It becomes much more openly condemnatory.
So it will present us with real problems as a Labour government
getting a whole series of our domestic policies through. The other
thing though that it will almost certainly do is it will leave an
international vacuum that Britain will find it's incapable of
filling, and that is that we will have surrendered the role of
diplomats and peace makers, which arguably has been one of Britain's
greatest strengths over the last 50 years or so. We have brought a
great deal of skill in the peace brokering process, and I think you
just throw you credentials in that sphere out of the window if you're
simply seen an adjunct to American bombing policies. And if some of
the American generals and the hawks have their way and the bombing,
when it finishes in Afghanistan, fails to identify Bin Laden, and
fails to satisfy the military personnel that the whole of the Al-
Qaeda network has been destroyed, my fear is that on their way back
large numbers of the American military would quite like to stop off
in Iraq, and several other places and finish off what they regard as
unfinished business. Well the international ramifications of that
would just be catastrophic. We would have a region, if not a world,
at war with itself, for maybe the first quarter of the century. And
given that America has a number of strategic interests in access to
oil that it's going to run out of soon, to have a whole region that
is sitting on oil supplies and deep anti-American hostilities doesn't
bode well for anyone.
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