Internationalist or pacifist, you can't be both

Also, some people might question his contention that because Blair was an internationalist he did Iraq the big favour of invading it.

Actually, as I now see thatbags has clarified, it's not an article but a lot of tweets put together. I didn't find them enlightening or persuasive.

All that I can find out about Peter Hurst is that he is one of the contributors to a site called Middle Vision which states its aim is to promote:

"Politics from the centre ground ... The group consists primarily (though not exclusively), of Labour members who are not convinced that Corbyn's extremist Labour Party is capable of winning a general election".

So, we can immediately see that it is a site whose contributors seem peculiarly fixated on Corbyn. This is borne out when looking at some of the articles on the site "Britain Deserves Better than Corbyn The Destroyer"; "Charisma and Corbyn"; "Election Without Leadership" (which is highlty critical of Miliband as well as Corbyn).

Anyway, even if you overlook the bias, his argument is not coherent.

Hmm..Anya I tried searching twitter for 'Peter Hurst' This is what he says on his profile:

Idealistic realist. Retweet not necessarily endorsement

He has a website which appears to be a blog. It has a 'profile' tab which refuses to reveal a profile. So we're none the wiser.
I'd prefer the opinion of someone who is willing to disclose their 'qualifications'.

"Please don't turn this into another love/hate JC (character assassination or praisefest) thread. I'm interested in the facts about JC's stances on national defence, on internationalism, and on pacifism. Other people's interpretation of those things too."

It is an anti-Corbyn hatefest. He's actually saying how May should behave to counter what Corbyn says. If that's not anti-Corbyn, I don't know what is.

Blair and Bush didn't think about the long term - not for one minute. It was all about the here and now war mongering glory

Who is Peter Hurst?

So who is he that we are supposed to think he knows what he is talking about?

As Thatbags said in her first post, there wasn't an original article. He wrote a series of shorthand-type tweets, which she has pinned together to post.

Good post Monica ??

Would it be possible to have a link to the original article?

Who is this guy. He can't actually write (which appears to be his job) so why would we listen to him.

I am puzzled by Corbyn's statement about only committing soldiers to a cause if we know it is going to lead to a long term solution to a problem.

How can you know in advance that an intervention will lead to a long term solution? Surely if you do know a long term solution can be found the problem can be solved by diplomacy anyway.

Does it mean that we will not have anything to do with peace keeping operations, the famous 'blue berets' of UN peace keeping forces, because they are only a temporary expediency while a solution is looked for?

Surely Blair and Bush both believed that their interventions in both Afghanistan and Iraq would provide permanent solutions to the problems they perceived.

How many military operations have been initiated by parties who either knew it would not solve the problem or did not see it as an action of last resort.

Bear in mind that just because an individual/party/government thinks that the military action initiated by another individual/party/government is not an action of last resort or likely to solve the problem does not mean that the initiator is not themselves entirely convinced that the military intervention is unavoidable and essential, so if Jeremy Corbyn were prime Minister he could still commit our forces to another Afghanistan or Iraq because he believed it was unavoidable and would provide a permanent solution, even though most of the country disagreed.

The argument that you can't be an Internationalist and a pacifist is completely flawed. It only works if you assume that all Germans supported Hitler and there was therefore no means of removing him except by going to war. There was of course considerable anti- Hitler feeling in Germany way before war even became an option and had anyone been willing to work with this opposition the war might never have happened. In fact of course there were elements in this country who believed much the same as Hitler and who failed to recognise the danger before it was too late. A true Internationalist would be sharing information and offering help so Internationalism and pacifism could have prevented the war. The problem is that people regard pacifists as being unable and unwilling to take action to deal with problems. This is completely wrong of course. They are willing to act but do not believe war can solve any problems.

You mean 'jaw jaw not war war'. That didn't work well last time.
Both parties have to want to talk. I can't see Kim Jun Ill wanting to chat any more than Hitler or any other dictator would.

Well bags I must put my hand up and say that I only know what JC stands for by his rhetoric.
So what I think he stands for may not be entirely correct.
So I get that he is for multi-lateral disarmament.
I understand that he sees military intervention as a last resort.
I understand that he has learned that war and violence almost always has to end in dialogue, so his logic is why not start from that point if at all possible.

That's a start!!

I don't care two hoots about JC. I care about what he stands for.

i.e. about the ideas that drive his voting behaviour, not the man who holds the ideas.

Please don't turn this into another love/hate JC (character assassination or praisefest) thread. I'm interested in the facts about JC's stances on national defence, on internationalism, and on pacifism. Other people's interpretation of those things too.

Dodgy, I'll accept. Immoral, no.

The nuclear deterrence stance is not immoral. I accept that it is in your opinion but that doesn't make it so per se.

Priti Patel is tweeting that Jeremy Corbyn voted against every anti-terrorism since 1983. She claims he 'boasted' about this in 2011. Boasting aside (opposing party claptrap), is it true that he said what she claims and that he voted as she claims? And if so, why?

I'm asking for information if anyone has it, or even links to accessible information. Cheers.

And an example of lunatic (for a lack of evidence to the contrary) is the North Korean leader... I also think Trump might be tempted to hit the button just to prove a point.

The argument for trident being a deterrent is dodgy. If we have them how can we stop unstable regimes from having them. Wouldn't it be better if we all stepped back rather than challenge? I wonder how things would be if women were in total charge?

There lies the conundrum. There may be an argument that it holds back aggressive nations for fear of retaliation, but not sure that argument would stand up when considering lunatics.

I take the moral stance as I feel that they should be on a par at the very least with chemical and biological weapons. They simply shouldn't exist.

It would seem that Hurst does think Corbyn is a pacifist or at least not as much of a "defencist" as he would like. He also does not regard Corbyn as an internationalist. That is problematic.

The argument of people in favour of Trident is that is our best defence: the knowledge that it exists is all the 'threat' that is needed to hold back lunatic attackers. Which, I believe, is the whole idea. I don't think anyone wants to use nuclear weapons.

Thank you.