I fear you've rather missed the point. This is what Corbyn himself said in the wake of the Syrian bombing:
"I doubt many, if any, in this room would have questioned the legitimacy, ultimately, of the Second World War. Because of the catastrophe that had approached by the rise of the Nazis all across Europe to that point. And so I think there has to be, ultimately, that preparedness to use military force."
Yet Labour party policy at the time had been disarmament, which wouldn't exactly have helped the country be ready for such a response, would it?
You perhaps missed the bit in bold, which was the point of the article. Corbyn is fine with military action providing it fits his ideology. The problem is that his ideology nearly always sides against Britain and its traditional allies.
A similar article was published back in 2015 when Corbyn was elected leader of the party -
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2015/11/jeremy-corbyn-isnt-anti-war-hes-just-anti-west/ (I trust given the debate about RT that it will be treated on its merits rather than discounted due to its source)
The bold bit was related to the bit about Pacifism in the Labour Party and how that aided Hitler. Hilter was assisted and supported in his rise to power by the Nazi loving King in waiting, who became the eventual King and was forced to abdicate. Hilter was hailed on by the Rothmere's.
"Let's get the undisputed facts out of the way first. At the beginning of the 1930s, the then
Viscount Rothermere (Harold Harmsworth) owned the Mail and the Mirror.
In January 1934, he wrote - under his own byline - articles that appeared in both the Mail and the Mirror. The former was headlined "Hurrah for the Blackshirts". The latter was headlined "Give the Blackshirts a helping hand."
Within a year, he had removed his support for Mosley's party, though he remained an admirer of both Hitler and Mussolini. Indeed, he met and corresponded with Hitler,
even congratulating him on his annexation of Czechoslovakia.
Rothermere I (Harold Harmsworth) with Hitler
So we can be under no illusion that Rothermere the First was a supporter of the Nazis. And he had the power to say so through his Mail ownership - at least until the declaration of war.'
This is what helped Hitler along with British and US banks financing his economy and re-armament programme, not the Labour Party's pacifism.
The writer mentions the 1930s and pacifism to lead on to Corbyn. No to re-armament was popular, not only Britain, but the rest of Europe. Labour won a by election on that platform.
"
Guilty Men was a British
polemical book written under the pseudonym "Cato" and published in July 1940. It attacked fifteen public figures for their failed policies towards Germany and for their failure to equip the British armed forces adequately. It is the classic denunciation of appeasement, which it defined as the "deliberate surrender of small nations in the face of Hitler's blatant bullying".
[1]
The book's slogan, "Let the guilty men retire", was an attack on members of the
National Government before
Winston Churchill became
Prime Minister in May 1940. Most were
Conservatives, although some were
National Liberals and one was
Ramsay MacDonald, the late leader of the
Labour Party. Several were current members of Churchill's government. The book shaped popular thinking about appeasement for twenty years; it effectively destroyed the reputation of former Prime Ministers
Stanley Baldwin and
Neville Chamberlain, and contributed to the defeat of the
Conservative Party at the
1945 general election. According to historian David Dutton, "its impact upon Chamberlain's reputation, both among the general public and within the academic world, was profound indeed".
[2][3][4]
The "guilty men" were:
Note Lansbury's name is not there. 'Yet Labour party policy at the time had been disarmament, which wouldn't exactly have helped the country be ready for such a response, would it? You ask.
The artcile by Bagehot, whoever that is, "Enter Jeremy Corbyn. Today’s world has more than a whiff of the 1930s about it. The old order is shaky. Strongmen are on the march. Wars on the periphery are threatening to spread. And the leader of the Labour Party is talking about peace. The big difference this time is that Mr Corbyn is much more powerful than Lansbury ever was. He has a tight grip on his party apparatus and is the most likely winner of the next general election.
Mr Corbyn says that he is not a pacifist. He is willing to sanction the use of force in certain circumstances—“under international law and as a genuine last resort”—and gives the second world war as an example of a conflict he would have been willing to support. It is true that he is not a pacifist, but not for the high-minded reasons that he gives. He has spent his life opposing the use of force by Western governments. He not only objected to the Iraq war, and acted as chairman of the Stop the War Coalition in 2011-15. He also opposed the West’s decision to strike against Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic in 1999. He not only spent his youth campaigning against the Vietnam war and nuclear weapons. He has also been a longtime critic of NATO.
But his conscience has been less sensitive when it comes to opposing the use of force by anti-Western regimes or by various non-state actors. He half-justified Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014, saying that the roots of the conflict lay in “belligerence” from the West and that Vladimir Putin was “not unprovoked”. He has often found time to hold meetings with left-wing groups that have sanctioned the use of violence to achieve their aims. In 1984, a few weeks after an IRA bomb nearly killed Thatcher (and did kill five others) at the Conservative Party conference in Brighton, he invited Gerry Adams, the leader of the IRA’s political wing, to Parliament for a reception. The essence of Corbynism is the rejection of one of the basic tenets of British foreign policy: that you side with the West, rather than its enemies.
He is a pacifist of ideological convenience rather than principle'.
Corbyn has never supported the IRA's armed struggle as the writer is implying, 'ideological convience rather than principle'. Corbyn never supported the ANC's military wing
Umkhonto we Sizwe. You can of course show that he did indeed support those two organisations. What is a half-justification?
'The essence of Corbynism is the rejection of one of the basic tenets of
British foreign policy: that you side with the West, rather than its enemies'.
Is that the foreign policy that tries to have the western Leader Charles Haughey assassinated?
Loyalists told Charles Haughey MI5 'asked us to execute you' '
“In 1985 we were approached by a MI5 officer attached to the NIO (Northern Ireland Office) and based in Lisburn, Alex Jones was his supposed name,” the UVF said.
“He asked us to execute you.”
The previously secret letter, on UVF headed paper, showed the loyalists told Mr Haughey that the MI5 operative gave details of his cars, photographs of his home, his island, Inishvickillane, and his yacht,
Celtic Mist.
“We refused to do it, we were asked would we accept responsibility if you were killed we refused,” the UVF said in the letter.
Signed in block capitals “Capt W Johnston”, the name used by the UVF in all its formal statements, it closed with the line: “We have no love for you but we are not going to carry out work for the Dirty Tricks Department of the British.” - PA
With MI5 supplying the UVF with chemicals to damage the Irish economy,
@The message was signed in block capitals “Capt W Johnston”, the name used by the UVF in its formal statements. The UVF said it had killed 17 men using information from British intelligence during earlier years of the Troubles.
The organisation claimed the MI5 plot was aimed at destroying the “Eire economy”. It said British intelligence planned to provide it with a spoon of “Anthras” (sic), “Foort and Mouth Disease”, “Fowl Pest, Swine Fever and Jaagsikpi” to be released in Ireland'.
I would hope Corbyn would reject this type of 'basic tenet of UK foreign policy'.
Yet another writer who claims Corbyn is anti west.
Jeremy Corbyn isn’t anti-war. He’s just anti-West
And his inability to state his true beliefs defines his leadership of the Labour party
Nick Cohen
This is the same Nick Cohen who still, even after Chilcott, is an apologist for Blair's lying dirty war. Because 'Saddam Hussein killed his own people and most definitely used chemicals'. Even after the half a million deaths since Blair's war, Nick Cohen can still justify this because Saddam Hussein 'killed people and used chemicals'. It is a pity that Nick Cohen isn't a man of principle as he was the cheer leader for Saddam Hussein's use of chemical warfare against Iran.
"As anybody who read my review is aware, my criticisms of his book do not consist of a denial that jihadis are a fascistic enemy who must be defeated. We both agree that Islamists are a monstrous foe who would kill us both given the chance. (I am gay; Cohen is ethnically Jewish.) Where we disagree is on how to defeat them. Cohen’s preferred tactic—enthusiastically supporting the Bush strategy—has actually enlarged and spread jihadism, as every major study of the phenomenon shows. One of my Iraqi friends is now living in a Basra neighborhood where Taliban-style militias beat women who walk onto the street without a veil and stone adulteresses. This is the consequence of the war Cohen still claims was necessary and worthwhile in his columns. The caveats he quotes in his response constitute literally a few hundred words out of tens of thousands backing Bush enthusiastically, as anybody who reads his book will see.
I am puzzled that Cohen will not defend his own writing, instead denying much of it exists. For example, he denies ever arguing that the West was right to back Saddam in the 1980s. Here are his words from his recent book Pretty Straight Guys: “The world had little choice but to support Saddam’s unprovoked war on Iran. A victory for the Ayatollahs would have left the Iraqi, Kuwaiti and Saudi oilfields at Iran’s mercy.” If he wants to renounce this argument, that is welcome; but he cannot claim I invented it". Taking Issue: Johann Hari Responds to Nick Cohen July 16, 2007
Cohen makes no bones about what he feels about Corbyn and will do anything to stop him getting elected. Maybe Cohen should keep peddling half truths and get on with promoting his 2006 Euston Manifesto and stand on that platform at the next general election. Maybe he has 'given up on the Left' because they take no notice of a non principled person who does convenient somersaults to suit his political agenda. Which at the moment is 'stop Corbyn'.
