Posted by David on July 18, 2007, 3:27 pm http://members.boardhost.com/mediabite/msg/1184187855.html Interviewee Professor Gwyn Prins wrote: Thank you for taking the trouble to write. I feel that you are being a little unfair to Mr Davis when you accuse him of unprofessionalism by reason of not opening a wider raft of questions than those which were slated for this interview. Plainly there is a debate to be had about "legality" – it has been had at great length; plainly there are different judgements about the strategic interests of the West (of which Ireland is part) and how best to pursue them; plainly there is – as always – a judgement on greater and lesser evils. Those especially were the delicate matters that I sought to open when the interview continued after Mr Galloway chose to go away. But the agenda for that conversation was none of those: it was about the consequences of the mess made by the stubborn and arrogant Mr Rumsfeld. That is an especially painful subject for thise, like me, who believe that the removal of the Saddam regime was moral (had both ius ad bellum and in bello), legal and made strategic good sense I would have been perfectly prepared to discuss that in a triangular conversation with Mr Galloway; but he refused to do so and then behaved in the way that you heard. Calling names rarely advances understanding of anything in my experience. But Mr Davis exposed nothing of his own views – certainly not those which you ascribe to him. He did, however, observe that he (as I also) had a knowledge of irish history when accused of not have such Yours sincerely GP Dear Mr. Prins,
83.141.77.186
In response to this:
Dear Mr Manning
------------------------
Thank you for responding.
Like you I would have welcomed a debate between yourself and Mr. Galloway. Though my concern is that Mr. Davis really did relinquish all claims to professionalism for the reasons I mentioned; also pointed out by Mr. Galloway.
That Mr. Davis can, even with his extensive knowledge of Irish history, allow discussion of an event such as the invasion and occupation of a sovereign country descend in to abstract musings of mending broken china evidences much about the state of informed discussion on Irish radio. A moral case for the removal of Saddam perhaps did exist, but if it did, it existed at a time when the West fully supported the despot - and as you know indirectly encouraged his 'despotic-ness'. 'You cannot use deaths which occurred in 1988 as a post-hoc justification for invading in 2003. The only relevant statistic is what was happening in the years immediately preceding the war and on the eve of war, not what had happened fifteen or twenty years before.' According to Amnesty International Saddam was responsible for 'scores' of killings in the years leading up to the invasion - a despicable record, but not a moral case for causing the deaths of over 650,000 people.
I realise too that there was debate over the legality of the war, but this has long since been clarified. There was no legal basis for regime change, therefore the facts were 'fixed around the policy' in order for it to appear an act of defence - which I may add was not in accordance with international law and could not have been thought to have been sanctioned by previous UN resolutions.
It was self evident that Mr. Davis fully agreed with the frame imposed by Washington and London, and that the interview sought not to discuss anything outside this illogical frame. This is supported by his interjection to Mr. Galloway's, perhaps forthright, introduction. This is in direct contradiction to the weight of public opinion in both Ireland and the UK.
I co-edit a media monitoring organisation www.mediabite.org, would you object to my publishing this correspondence in full?
Yours sincerely,
David Manning
1. http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization-institutions_government/blair_ignorance_3718.jsp
No response as yet. Sent 5 days ago.
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