Drugs are a class issue

There's been lots of stuff in the press recently about the use of illegal narcotics. Most commentators dismissed Sir Ian Blair's remarks about getting tough with middle-class cocaine users as impractical and silly but, while largely agreeing with this, his remarks were refreshing in one respect: drugs are too often like pornography, gambling, cars, and government money - the middle-classes only get worked up into a lather over these when the working class get their hands on them.

This can be seen, I think, in the reaction to the research published by the "Cally" recently, which showed what all of us with even a passing acquaintance with the drug culture knew already; not all heroin users become destitute house-breakers with HIV but that "results also showed that some heroin users can maintain occupations and achieve educational qualifications, which are comparable with the general UK population".

Shona Robinson of the SNP criticised the research - not on the grounds of its veracity - but because it was published at all. It seems here that it's just too risky to give the plebs information because quicker than you can say "moral panic", deranged neds from our housing estates - armed with the Cally's latest research - will then rush out to buy a half gramme bag and promptly kill themselves.

The patronising approach is done for the best of motives no doubt - but I agree with Matthew Parris, who argued that while drugs are certainly dangerous - so is the mendacious piety of so many politicians and pundits, and I speak - not as some naive libertarian - but as someone who has seen two of his contemporaries die as a result of the heroin explosion that hit Glasgow in the 1980s.

Both conservatives and libertarians need to grow up: the former have to accept that all societies from time immemorial have had consciousness-altering substances in some form; the latter that all societies have felt the need to control the use of these in some form or other. We're talking harm-reduction here - and the harm that needs to be reduced is not so much to do with the impact of the particular chemical on the health of the consumer but it's social effect. For example, following the Caledonian University's research, a number of people have pointed to the link between drugs and crime but depressingly, they tend to focus on how this affects middle-class neighbourhoods, rather than those Glasgow estates where the rule of law is but a faint rumour. I'm not one of those who pretends to know the solution but it has to be understood that the most significant criminal activity associated with drugs has to do with the fact that it's a multi-million pound illegal industry - rather than junkies stealing cars or shoplifting.

I'll close with a lyric from the great John Martyn (who's done a considerable amount of personal research of his own) that kept floating around in my head from the song Dealer while I was writing this: whether you're rich or poor, if you take any kind of drugs, "you're just the spit and polish on a fat man's shiny shoe. I believe they hate me for it; I believe I hate them too".

Iraqi trade union leader kidnapped

Got this e-mail from Gary Kent from Labour Friends of Iraq; the main content is as follows:

"The Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) denounced yesterday further attacks on one of its key leading elected officials. At 9:30am on Thursday 27 January 2005 a group of six gunmen using two cars broke into the main building of the Carton Board Manufacturing Company in Al Zafarania District of Baghdad and kidnapped Mr. Talib Khadim Al Tayee, President of the Iraqi Mechanics, Metalworkers & Printworkers Union(IMM&PU), after attacking him violently in front of workers.

Mr Talib Khadim was on union business with workers of the company when the gunmen attacked him, hitting him repeatedly on the head using the butts of their guns. They tied his hands and legs and kidnapped him, taking him to an unknown location. All this happened in front of workers, after locking away the company security guards in an office.

Mr Talib Khadim lives in Al Zafarania district. He is very well known there as a good community activist and a champion of workers' rights. Mr Talib is a brave patriotic Iraqi who put himself forward and was elected as President of the IMM&PU at the union's first open Conference on 31 May 2004 in Baghdad.

This latest criminal act, which targets trade union leaders and especially leading figures of the IFTU, was instigated by extremists who want to stop Iraq moving forward to embrace a new politics of tolerance, peace and democracy.

This criminal act is closely linked in its methods and its intentions to the recent brutal assassination of Hadi Saleh, the IFTU International Secretary.

The Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) declares that this criminal attack will not intimidate our workers' federation continuing its struggle to build an independent, democratic and open trade union movement.

The IFTU Executive Committee condemned the attack on a trade union official, declaring: "Disgrace and shame on the terrorists! Glory to the Iraqi working class!" and demanded the release of Talib Khadim and an end to terrorism against those brave patriotic working class fighters who are working to organise Iraqi workers.

The IFTU calls on all legal and labour movement bodies to urgently use all their means to demand the release of Talib Khadim our comrade."

Whether a trade unionist or not, ask yourself whose side are you on - then, if you want to send a message in support, click here.

Third Avenue

Can I heartily recommend this blog from an eminently civilised and gracious ex-pat in New York? For those of you familiar with the pro-war, anti-war ding-dong will find this a rare life-raft of reasonableness on the sea of invenctive that sloshes around the blogsphere - and those teaching the USA will find useful articles and links salient to that section of the course.

Iraqi Elections

In my previous post, I wrote: "I'm not overly optimistic but I'll dispense with my customary agnosticism and pray to god that on Sunday, more goes right with this election than not." Praise god - but I'm still agnostic, so I'll keep my fingers crossed as well.

The trashing of the election by the opponents of the war have been entirely predictable: turnout low; process not entirely free and fair etc. I've been off ill for a few days and, frankly, I'm too weary to deal with such tired cynicism in any detail. They do, of course, entirely miss the significance of this: despite opposing the occupation and in many cases, opposing the invasion; despite the chaos that is the post-war situation; despite the chillingly simple slogans, "you vote - you die" - it seems clear a majority of Iraqis have said no to the insurgency and yes to the possibility of democracy. With no such dangers, only a pathetic 59% turned out at the last election here and I won't even tell you what it was in the last elections for the Scottish Parliament because, frankly, I'm embarrassed.

Do you think George Galloway et al will drop their "support the resistance" line now that it's clear their rosy view of the "resistance" isn't shared by the Iraqi people?

Neither do I.

Confessions of a pro-war skeptic

I've avoided writing about Iraq up to now for mainly professional reasons; this is not what this blog is supposed to be for and the blogsphere is already replete with the various shades of pro and anti-war opinion and commentary.

But there was a more melancholy reason: I didn't want to be involved in a debate that I've found profoundly depressing at times; lots of jeering and sneering and a really quite unpleasant tendency to impute moral and/or intellectual failure to one's opponents. Often, both camps have carried out what could only be described as a sort of intellectual scorched-earth policy towards the middle ground.

However, this neutral pose - I thought - was looking increasingly silly, not least because of the forthcoming elections. Despite a number of very profound misgivings - most of which had to do with the nature of the Bush Administration - I reluctantly supported this war (it might be more accurate to say I found myself unable to oppose it).

On the reasons why, I have no particularly novel insights; they were much the same as those expounded by most of the "pro-war left". The Ba'athist regime in Iraq was, in my view, accurately described as a fascist regime of exceptional depravity and in a country where literally every other mechanism for regime-change had been attempted and failed. I would add, however, that I understood the arguments against the invasion perfectly well; I'd used most of them myself when in 1991, some of my contemporaries argued that the US-led force that expelled Saddam from Kuwait should press on to Baghdad to topple the regime.

However, while having the same reasons as them, I don't know if I could claim to be a member of the pro-war left; I'm of a skeptical disposition and, on the whole, theirs is the politics of faith. I could never agree, for example, with the extraordinary statement by Oliver Kamm of the Times who said, "the supporters of war have a monopoly of morality on the subject. There is no reputable anti-war position." I thought in my simple fashion that those who opposed the war did so for the same reason that I supported it - because they considered it the lesser evil.

I didn't doubt that I'd made the right decision when I saw the mass graves being opened - or when I saw the jubilant crowd celebrating Saddam's capture, but I can't claim that this has been the case when confronted with the mess that is the post-war occupation: the pulverisation of Fallujah; the stand-off in Najav; and the shame and disgrace of Abu Ghraib. Again, to elaborate would only be to repeat what has been ably and amply covered elsewhere, except to add that I consider the dissolution of the army to have been a catastrophic decision, the implications of which have been under-acknowledged by both sides in this debate.

And I've been astonished that up to now, Johann Hari of the Independent has, to my knowledge, been alone (in public, anyway) amongst the pro-war left in candidly acknowledging exactly how disastrous the conduct of the post-war occupation has been.

However, I fundamentally haven't changed my position because it wasn't, at base, a consequentialist one. It is, for example, an unhistorical and pointless question to ask whether the Russian people would have fared better had the Tsarist regime survived. The same with apartheid South Africa: before the collapse of that degraded and corrupt regime, everyone on the centre-left understood that the only position one could take was to desire its overthrow - and nobody would have dreamed of using the subsequent post-regime change difficulties this country undoubtedly had as evidence that the National Party's regime should not, after all, have been opposed.

Also, if I was coming from a consequentialist position, while I'd have no problem admitting I was wrong (I've had plenty of practice) - in the case of Iraq, I think people are being premature. It's probably apocryphal but I like the quote attributed to Mao Zedong: on being asked what he thought about the French Revolution, he was supposed to have replied, "it's too early to tell".

This is why I've been unwilling to give the Stop the War Coalition the benefit of any doubts I may have. One might have expected, for example, that if it were really believed that opposing the war was the lesser evil, those who went marching would have done so with a heavy heart, knowing that the position they'd adopted was a Hobbesian one more severe than anything found on the pages of Leviathan.

I don't think much of this was in evidence on the peace marches. Like the novelist Ian McEwan, I too was troubled by the "sheer level of happiness on the street." Many of the good, well-meaning people probably weren't aware of what they were asking "more time" for - but I do think that there were others who really should have known better and these tend to be the ones who are now suggesting that we back the "resistance". Now, if I thought this would do any good, I would - because I too want the occupation to end. But these are not like the resistance in Vichy France, as the gruesome alliance of Ba'athists and jihadis have been (absurdly) compared to. Historical analogies are always dodgy but to me a better comparison would be with the Afrikaaner AWB in post-apartheid South Africa.

Some members of the anti-war left have argued that, while they don't support the agenda of the opposition, one has to understand that compromises have to be made if the objective of ending the occupation is to be achieved. But that doesn't appear to be the case if the compromise that is made is with the Americans, in which case you find yourself (noisily) put beyond the pale by the likes of George Galloway who disgracefully described those co-operating with the provisional government and the election plans as "quislings". This from a man who has spent most of the 1990s with his lips pressed firmly against Saddam Hussein's ring-piece. Most critics of the war/occupation have avoided being so crass but it's difficult to avoid the impression that those groups in Iraq, such as the IFTU and the ICP, who opposed the invasion but support the moves to democracy, have at best had their voices ignored by a large swathe of the left in Britain and the United States.

I do think the critics of the occupation have been right to say that the Bremner administration have been far too slow in a process that should have begun during the first year of the occupation - and I suspect the key reason for this was the fear of a pro-Iranian, Shia theocracy - the main reason why Bush Snr left the Shias and the Kurds to twist in the wind after the first Gulf War.

But the elections represent a hope, not that a fully functioning democracy will suddenly appear, but the more circumspect prospect that, in the short run, mechanisms and institutions will be established that allow future successions to take place without resort to military coups, wars, assassinations, and outside interferrence.

As for the long-term, one would hope that the occupation will end as soon as possible and some kind of real democracy will eventually emerge; this would have a significance for the region, which I think tends to be under-estimated even by a number of supporters of this war. I'm not overly optimistic but I'll dispense with my customary agnosticism and pray to god that on Sunday, more goes right with this election than not. After all - this was done in my name.