The Bell tolls for Oliver Kamm!

I have been pondering a recent post by Oliver Kamm in which he reported a surprise attack (well, a bit of a surprise to him, I suspect) from Martin Bell, a close friend(*) and political supporter.  I haven't read Bell's original essay but from Oliver's summary I gather that it contained a call for a sort of 'Inquiry of All Inquiries' into the background of the second Iraq war.  It claimed precedent for such a 'Grand Inquiry' on the Esher Report following the Boer war.  Oliver dismisses that fairly easily by pointing out that it was an investigation into what might be summarised as 'command and control' problems in the British army of the time, not the political background into a decision over war or peace.  Bell also brings forward in support of his proposition the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Bosnian Serb Commission of Inquiry into the Srebrenica massacre, thus neatly tarring the invasion of Iraq with the same black iniquity as apartheid and mass murder - hardly a good start for a detached, neutral investigation!  Anyway, Oliver refutes the whole proposal, quite rightly, as being against the grain of our parliamentary democracy in which the purely (or even, impurely) political is settled at the time in the political arena and there-after is left to the historians to snap and snarl over.

All of this is great fun for those of us who like nothing better than to watch a pub fight, and even better, a pub fight between old mates! However, there is also a depressing tinge to it.  Bearing in mind that I have never actually met him, I like Oliver Kamm.  We have exchanged the occasional e-mail which is why I presume to use his Christian name, I have been an avid reader of his blog almost since its inception, I admire his learning and I just love the way he slices and dices his opposition, and yet ... and yet ...  Watching him pursue the chimera of his dreams that somehow, in some way, Tony Blair was , in Oliver's words "a powerful influence for good at home and in the international order" is like watching your eldest son fall in love with the village 'bicycle'.  Both he and I were deceived by the WMD scenario that was foisted upon us.  There is no shame in that.  He was an ardent Blair man and I was of a generation which tended to give prime ministers the benefit of the doubt when it came to matters of war and peace despite, in my case, having lived through the chicanery of the 1956 Suez fiasco.  I really had no excuse because I had already decided that Blair was a liar when he uttered his immortal phrase, "Hey, I'm a pretty straight sort of a guy", and I knew from years previously what a mendacious shit Campbell was particularly as a High Court judge had said so.  Even so, I simply could not bring myself to believe that a prime minister would corrupt and subvert the Intelligence Services.  Anyway, the WMD scare was rubbish and in my mind, at any rate, that was the end of any sensible reason for invading Iraq.  But Oliver persists in his support for Blair's action.  He complains that Martin Bell's analogy of the wickedness in S. Africa and Bosnia could not under any circumstances be compared to the cruel disaster visited on our forces, to say nothing of the people of Iraq because, and this is his main, indeed, his only justification for the war once the WMD con trick was exposed, that Saddam's Iraq was "a bellicose, genocidal, lawless gangster regime ".  I am reminded of one of the greatest songs performed by the incomparable Peggy Lee, "If that's all there is"! I feel an uncommon rush of anger toward Oliver. I demand to know from him how many regimes there are in the world that fit that description and I also demand to know if we are required to go to war with all of them?  If not, why not, if we are operating under his premise?

I couldn't care less if dimwits like 'Teabag' and 'Ratty' get it wrong, but to watch a highly intelligent, articulate and learn-ed man not just fall head first into the mire but actually hurl himself into it crying the equivalent of "Blair saves!" is too, too, distressing.

(*) Actually his uncle, as 'Ratty' reminded me in the comments.

Comments

[Flying Rodent]

Are you aware that Martin Bell is Oliver Kamm's uncle?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Kamm

Maybe you are, and are merely teasing us.

[David Duff]

I vaguely remembered that they might have been related but being unsure of the relationship I decided not to mention it. And not that it alters the main point of my post.

[Larry Teabag]

To be clear David, dimwits like me and the FR got it right. You and Kamm got it wrong, and at least you have had the honesty to admit it.

As for Kamm, given that even someone as feeble-minded as yourself is able to spot the hopelessness of his argument is, that rather throws into doubt his status as "highly intelligent, articulate and learn-ed", wouldn't you say?

[David Duff]

Larry, no one enjoys our knockabout act more than me but in retrospect my remark concerning you and 'Ratty' was not so much a cheap shot as a bargain-basement, clearance sale shot, and I apologise for it. I like to think that my insults are of a slightly higher standard than that!

As to your main point, let me put it in a mathematical context which might assist you. Were I to solve a quadratic equation (which would have to be *after* you had explained to me what a quadratic equation is!) you would rightly dismiss it as a bit of a fluke and a proof that no-one is entirely stupid all the time. However, were you to catch out, say, Paul Dirac putting a decimal point in the wrong place you would be slightly shocked but if he went on to defend the error, you would be distressed that a man worthy of admiration was persisting in folly. Of course, in my post I was writing of politics so the ultra exact world of mathematics is not, perhaps, an ideal analogy, but I'm sure you take my point.

[Larry Teabag]

I apologise for it

Cor, bloody hell - that's totally disarmed me. Well, there's a first time for everything... Accepted I guess.

I'm sure you take my point

Not really David, no. You seem to be drawing an analogy in which I am compared to you, Oliver Kamm is compared to Paul Dirac, and the invasion of Iraq is compared to a typographical error. I can't decide which of these I object to the most.

[David Duff]

That's always the trouble with analogies - never exact, are they?