Egypt's "Red" Livingstone

Those of us in the West who have not had the icepick of multiculturalism inserted through our eyesockets and swirled around a bit in our brains can only look at the pronouncements of politicians like "Red" Ken Livingstone with amazement.

Last week, London's mayor, "Red" Ken Livingstone, said, "I don't just denounce the suicide bombers. I denounce those governments that use indiscriminate slaughter to advance their foreign policy" -- which presumably means Israel and the U.S. "The bombings would never have happened if the West had simply left the Arab nations alone in the wake of the First World War, rather than trying to control the flow of oil." You only have to imagine Rudolph Giuliani uttering these words to see the gap between British and American politics.

This statement exemplifies a stunning papering-over not only of the moral difference between the Islamofascists (as initiators of the use of force) and the West (as using force only in self-defense), but also of the past half-century of the relationship between the West and the Middle East, and particularly with regard to the matter of oil. As Leonard Peikoff puts it in "End States Who Sponsor Terrorism" when describing the beginning of our downward spiral of appeasement of the Islamic world:

Fifty years of increasing American appeasement in the Mideast have led to fifty years of increasing contempt in the Muslim world for the U.S. The climax was September 11, 2001.

Fifty years ago, Truman and Eisenhower surrendered the West's property rights in oil, although that oil rightfully belonged to those in the West whose science, technology, and capital made its discovery and use possible. The first country to nationalize Western oil, in 1951, was Iran. The rest, observing our frightened silence, hurried to grab their piece of the newly available loot.

If one is looking for a reason, if not a motive, for "Red" Livingstone's willingness to spatter the West with rhetorical buckets of blood, one need only note the underlying similarity between his views as a socialist and those of the Islamists.

The cause of the U.S. silence was not practical, but philosophical. The Mideast's dictators were denouncing wealthy egotistical capitalism. They were crying that their poor needed our sacrifice; that oil, like all property, is owned collectively, by virtue of birth; and that they knew their viewpoint was true by means of otherworldly emotion. Our Presidents had no answer. Implicitly, they were ashamed of the Declaration of Independence. They did not dare to answer that Americans, properly, were motivated by the selfish desire to achieve personal happiness in a rich, secular, individualist society.

If the West is in fact guilty of anything, it is of doing exactly what Livingstone says it should have done for a little too long. The West has not been doing enough, loosely speaking, to "control the flow of oil", which would have remained uninterrupted as a beneficial side-effect of what the West should have been fighting fiercely for from the start: individual rights. These rights include those of the stockholders and employees of the petrochemical companies.

But to a committed anti-capitalist like Livingstone, any action that might promote capitalism, regardless of its stated motivation is tainted. So Livingstone sees what is at best a battle between killers and thieves. Hence his amazing ability to continue insisting on moral equivalence between the West and the Islamofascists.

Via MEMRI I learned that Egypt has its own "Red" Livingstone as well, Egyptian MP (member of parliament) Hamadein Sabahi. Here is what he said during a television interview that would have made Michael Moore blush, about the recent killing of an Egyptian ambassador in Iraq. (This interview occurred before the resort bombing.)

Hamadein Sabahi: "The responsibility for the slaughter of [the Egyptian ambassador in Iraq] lies, first and foremost, with George Bush, his administration, and his military forces, occupying Iraq."

Host: "And who else is responsible?"

Sabahi: "The Egyptian government. It's directly responsible.

[…]

"Since the beginning of the crisis in Iraq, the Egyptian government's position was submissive, meek and contemptible. This position did not reflect the will of the Egyptian people, or the interests of the Arab nation. Rather, it has reflected submission to the American interests."

Host: "And who was the third killer?"

Sabahi: "The third killer is the collaborating puppet government, which has no legitimacy in Iraq.

[…]

Sabahi: "When the conflict is directed against the Americans, it is good. Any weapon that kills an American is good. Any gun aiming at the Marines is good. Any kidnapping or slaughtering of an American in Iraq is good."

Now remember: This is a government official talking. And rather than having to compare his beliefs with those of the Islamists (as we did with "Red" Livingstone) to understand his position, we need only listen, dumbfounded, as he explicitly states his ill-will towards America.

This MP didn't show up in a news search concerning the recent bombing, but I'd love to hear what he had to say about it. Based on the above, he should sound like Livingstone, saying that Egypt brought it on itself. When even government officials -- the guys who are supposed to work to prevent terrorism -- are spouting off such nonsense, is it any wonder that their societies get attacked?

I have said before that the only significant obstacle to defeating the Islamofascists is a willingness to fight them. It is crucial that we in the West must stop supporting politicians like Livingstone, while working for democratization of the Middle East so the people there can reject his brothers-in-spirit.

-- CAV

Updates

7-27-05: Removed one parenthetical remark on the wider conflict between Islamofasicm and the West. Not correct on my part: The Egyptian MP was speaking here only of Iraq.