I have little direct evidence about the atrocities in the Spanish civil war. I know that some were committed by the Republicans, and far more (they are still continuing) by the Fascists. But what impressed me then, and has impressed me ever since, is that atrocities are believed in or disbelieved in solely on grounds of political predilection. Everyone believes in the atrocities of the enemy and disbelieves in those of his own side, without ever bothering to examine the evidence.
– George Orwell
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Samizdata quote of the dayJune 23rd, 2006 |
 19 comments to Samizdata quote of the day |
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Well, aren’t you always right……………………….mostly?
Quite right. There’s no difference between the two sides in the current ‘war on terror’ for example, is there?
The poor prisoners at Gitmo get tortured with 3 halal meals a day, prayer mats, Korans, big medical teams and ‘spiritual adverisers’ by the evil American neo-cons while those two crusaders had their eyes gouged out, their genitals cut off and stuffed into their mouths while they were still alive and were then beheaded and disemboweled by the glorious freedom fighters.
Exactly the same thing.
Nick Mallory: you illustrate the point exactly.
Terrorists have comitted terrible atrocities, as have the Taliban and groups in Iraq.
That does not mean that the ‘west’ hasn’t behaved badly in some cases, Camp X-ray being one of them. I agree, the ‘west’ behaves better most of the time, but mistakes are and have been made and we should recognise them rather than getting self-righteous.
The same goes for the Israeli/Palestinian situation. Israel has comitted some atrocities, as have palestinians. People seem to forget this and side with one or the other.
The right sinks to the same level as the left when it comes to this sort of thing. The left seem to be consumed by self-hatred, the right by hatred of the left and both make equally stupid pronouncements.
A plague on both their houses.
I’d like to thank Nick Mallory for giving us a splendid example of the point Orwell was making.
Orwell was not ‘neutral’ in the Spanish Civil War, he was a staunch anti-fascists, just as I am a staunch anti-Jihadi who supported the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet that did not prevent Orwell from seeing that ‘his side’ were also quite capable of committing atrocities and my position does not prevent me from seeing that soldiers from the UK, US and Israel occasionally also commit atrocities.
Just because I abominate the people on our side who do terrible things in contravention of our laws, that does not mean I regard the west as the moral equivilent of Al Qaeda, who are people who do terrible thing as a matter of policy. That you cannot understand that is exactly the point Orwell was making.
Orwell’s quote does not apply to situations where the evidence does clearly show, as Nick said, who is and who isn’t committing atrocities. The difference between beheading combatants, as the enemy does and treating them as prisoners, as US forces do, when all the laws of war and even common sense dictate that they should immediately have been executed on the battlefield, is not a matter of political predilection. It is a matter of fact, reluctantly reported by a bitter and traitorous press. And it is also a matter of fact that the US military, and the “right”, have always accepted the necessity to investigate and punish the extremely rare and exaggerated instances of illegitimate violence by US forces.
The West has never denied that we have done or are capable of doing terrible and even criminal things during this war. However, those of us who are partisans of the West refuse to accept any implication that the difference betwen us and them is a matter of degree. I personally do not believe the Coalition forces have committed any “atrocities”. Use of that word is very clever but not very enlightening.
Still waiting for the MSM outrage over the murder of the two US soldiers who fell into Jihadi hands. Crickets.
“But what impressed me then, and has impressed me ever since, is that atrocities are believed in or disbelieved in solely on grounds of political predilection. ”
We had a good example of that here on Samizdata, on the topic of the explosion on the Gaza beach.
By the way – seems to me, that the atrocities in the Spanish Civil war were evenly distributed on both sides – the Republican and the Franco side. At least I read that somwhere…
Why? Because I treat Israel, Britain and the USA as just another nation state? Given that I am a supporter of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and have always said Israel is entitled to defend itself, and have stated many times my less than flattering views of Islamic culture…clearly I am NOT predicating my views of people’s actions on my of political predilections. As a supporter of said wars, unlike many Guardianistas, I do not want to hear of allied soldiers doing bad things.
Nick Mallory: Absolutely. As I have mentioned many times as a guest here, we are in mortal danger from a very patient & implacable enemy (which seems to include a swathe of our atrocious MSM & other traitors in our administration).
I am repulsed by atrocities commited by whomever but also believe that fire must be etc. Collateral damage is a price one pays in any war…and we are in one. Those in Gitmo were caught in the wrong place & it’s their own bloody fault. As previously stated here, they should have been shot in situ……leaving the Graundian with not too much to talk about. I vaguely recall that many years ago in Beirut a Russian diplomat was taken by ‘Islamists’. The Russians let loose an emasculating NKVD hit-squad & ensured that the kidnapping was a one-off job.
We suffer, I fear, from “QUALMS”.
Josef Goebbels once (in)famously said: “……und so lasst uns also total Krieg führen, um total zu siegen.”
He was, of course, absolutely right….and our liberal idiots have been beating their callow breasts ever since, because we took him at his word & did the right thing. Collateral damage was unbelievably horrendous but it was a war we had to win. Our current showing in this one is fraught with “QUALMS”….even with the enemy inside the gates.
“The same goes for the Israeli/Palestinian situation. Israel has comitted some atrocities, as have palestinians.”
Well this phraseology doesnt capture the diference isnt it?
Attrocities by individual/grupal malevolence and attrocities by political decision.
About the so called MSM think it was the real disgrace of the XX century – how is that possible that Communism and Nazism hapened when supposedely information was much better? How we had many Maoists in 1970’s Europe ?
Idiot.
I am not so easily excited by the accusations of atrocities of Coalition Forces. First off, the usual suspects have all but convicted these guys, which should immediately cause one’s BS meters to head into the red.
Also, it should not be news that the hapless western MSM has consistently allowed itself to be manipulated by terrorists and their extremely capable media wing.
I think I’ll just withold judgement until the military investigations play out.
permanent expat wrote:
Collateral damage is a price one pays in any war…and we are in one.
A war which could safely be ignored and simply stopped if there weren’t so much irrational paranoia around.
Oops, I guess there is no such thing as ‘rational paranoia’. Anyway, what I wanted to say is ‘the whole terrorist thing is overrated’.
” .. the whole terrorist thing is overrated…”
Seems we already tried ignoring them in the 1980-90’s and it didn’t work.
Another good example of this sort of thing at Samizdata (although i also wish to point out that i am a regular reader and like the site…) was the post about the 3 prisoners committing suicide in gitmo.
Sure we should do whatever we can to strangle violent islamism in its cradle but we should be suspious by default if our govts are locking people up without following the correct procedure.
Sure we should do whatever we can to strangle violent islamism in its cradle but we should be suspious by default if our govts are locking people up without following the correct procedure.
Exactly what would the correct procedure be?
Please cite historical examples showing that whatever procedure you propose has some precedent behind it.
The “correct procedure” for dealing with enemies captured in war who are not in uniform is to shoot them.
But would not the same people who complain about Gitmo also complain about that?
Some of the people who have been let out of Gitmo have been found on the field of battle again and have been sent back there. This puts pay to the idea that “if they are let out they must be innocent”.
As for the Spanish Civil War:
As Orwell was to discover the “Fascists” (actually many different groups supported the Nationalist side in the Civil War) did not tend to kill each other – whereas the “Republicans” did.
That is one of the reasons the Nationalists won the Civil War – they concentrated on killing the enemy, whereas the various Republican factions (especially but not just the Marxists) also liked killing each other.
Orwell also found that the peasants (contrary to his expectations) tended to get on better with the Nationalists than with Republicans.
He never understood why. That it might have had something to do with the price controls and outright food theft by the Republicans never (to my knowledge) occured to him.