Keir Starmer has tried to distance himself from America's war and yet Britain is certainly the junior and subservient partner in the Atlanticist Anglo-American Empire. His government is struggling and he didn't want to risk alienating more Labour voters by supporting the Trump-Netanyahu war and so he tried to side-step the issue by suggesting that UK bases would only be used for 'defensive' purposes.
Given that the US is the aggressor in this war and that the justifications for it are continually changing, there's no possible way to delineate 'defensive' from offensive action.
And the absurdity of this is on full display for the media - or rather for those few media outlets that even bother to look. The Al Jazeera reporter is able to see the bombs being loaded on B-1 and B-52 bombers. One would be hard pressed to describe the role of these aircraft as defensive - all the more given we can all see what they're doing in Iran.
Starmer has obviously chosen to look the other way. American media has ignored this story and the BBC has covered it but then quickly moved on. It should be something of a scandal.
For my part seeing the trailers with bombs brings back memories and the crisis of conscience I experienced in the 1990's during the US bombing campaign against the Bosnian Serbs. To unload those bombs off C-5's, C-141's, and C-130's and then to see them mounted to the wings of F-15's and F-16's bound for the Balkans was troubling - all the more when you would see them come back empty. I was acutely aware that people were being killed by the bombs that sometimes just a day or even hours earlier I had personally handled. I was a cog in the machine and though insignificant, I was part of the larger murder mechanism that is the US Empire. It troubled me and I was very disturbed over the fact that no one I worked with was bothered in the least. This is not because they were clear on the morality and propriety of what the military was doing. Not at all. I never ran into a single person who could give an account of the war or explain its context. The bottom line was this - they didn't care. Most just wanted to follow orders and do nothing that would jeopardize their status in the American forces. Those who intended to stay 20+ years and collect a pension, had no interest in being challenged. They were counting down the days and bouts of conscience would only make those days more difficult or lead to an unwanted and unlooked for crisis.
In other words to do these sorts of jobs, one must turn off one's conscience - that is completely unacceptable for Christians. And given the magnitude of slaughter at the hand of the US military machine, I remain utterly baffled as to why any servant of Christ would want to be part of that blood-soaked apparatus. Obviously there are many are not only eager to play their part but are filled with excitement and zeal and believe they are serving God along the way.
My biggest regret was that I didn't simply walk away and go AWOL. It would have meant a very different life and never returning to the United States but in hindsight, it would have been no great loss and I think it would have been the right thing to do.
The other option would be to refuse to participate and face an extended jail term.
Instead utilizing a multi-faceted argument (which included issues of conscience) I petitioned for an early release, fought the Pentagon bureaucracy for many months, and won - to a point. I had to finish my term at that base (about a year) and then was granted an early release. Looking back, it was (to my mind) a compromise. It was doing something (as I saw it at the time) without destroying my life in the process. For many the question would be wrestling with the honour and shame, facing family and the like. Those were not concerns I shared. As I have previously mentioned in other writings, I was ashamed to be wearing the uniform and regret having ever worn it.
Returning to Starmer, he's obviously unwilling to challenge the Imperator in Washington and now is also scrambling to find a compromise solution to Trump's call for NATO aid in the Strait of Hormuz. He's not likely to get many takers but Starmer is desperate to stay in Washington's good graces and seems ready to try and come up with some solution that will warrant Trumpian accolade rather than reminders that he's no Winston Churchill. For my part, Churchill is overrated as a strategist and moral leader and not someone to be looked up to. That said, Starmer is something of snake and his rise to power and prominence has been as a result of his duplicity.
But for modern Britain, Churchill is a seminal figure. As Britain has had to distance itself (to some degree) from its crumbled Empire and the moral questions it still generates, the essential post-war narrative is wed to liberalism and the war. Britain stood for the liberal values of democracy and freedom - even as modern Britain is turning into a police state.
But Britain has to find its identity in this set of ideals as it cannot rest on its history. This is the crisis of the monarchy and yet for some its great benefit. It helps to span the old and new - all the more as the monarchy tries to appear dynamic and may prove so when William becomes king. Though in the process of modernisation he may in fact undermine it - even while many hope he and his wife and children will be the very ones to save it.
Britain is struggling with its identity. Brexit testifies to this as does its place in Trump's NATO. This is is no small part the crisis that overshadows Starmer as well as his recent predecessors. Starmer's politics are forward-looking but there's not a great deal of confidence or hope that what is coming will be better. This is why the politics which look to the past (even if disingenuous) are able to strike such a chord. Each nation in the European orbit has its ghosts and narratives about itself. Some (like Hungary) have their sources of historical rage. Britain has spent several decades adhering to a narrative that isn't exactly true and now under stress it's clearly starting to crack.
One wonders given the tide of growing anti-immigrant sentiment if in fact a fair number of the British would be keen to support Trump's war on Iran? There have been conservative voices (including Farage) and even some liberals who (though undoubtedly despising Trump) are nevertheless eager to see the Ayatollahs overthrown. The number of supporters represents a minority but in numbers greater than might have been imagined.
I have yet to see much in the way of commentary being offered by the Christian community in the UK, but I imagine there's a fair bit of support for the war. There will certainly be some who oppose it (on both Biblical and liberal-humanistic grounds), and yet given the rise of Right-wing sentiment in British non-conformity, there's bound to be not a few who not only support the notion, but are eager to champion it. And in the case of this war, the fact that quite a few Evangelicals are affected by Dispensational doctrine must also be taken into account.
But for the most part as a result of my certainly unscientific survey of British Evangelical websites, I think most are trying to avoid the issue altogether.
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