During the Iraq War, I recall he was pretty much a fool. If I recall, a common term of insult from the right for him was "Moonbat." Nothing much has changed:
Let’s bomb the Muslim world – all of it – to save the lives of its people. Surely this is the only consistent moral course? Why stop at Islamic State (Isis), when the Syrian government has murdered and tortured so many? This, after all, was last year’s moral imperative. What’s changed?
While it is certainly an interesting question of how the West went from wanting to defeat Assad for his evil to effectively helping him by bombing ISIL (ISIS), the notion that a decision to bomb one evil means all evil in all its forms and in all its environments must logically be bombed is just idiotic. And I thought I lacked an appreciation for nuance!
So rather than stop with force some evil--and evil it is--before it harms more because failing to stop all evil with force (so all problems are a nail?) is somehow ... what? Immoral?
Monbiot must argue in an abstract notion of extending the logic of fighting ISIL to one of fighting all jihadis everywhere (indeed, he is even more extreme in saying the logic requires us to "flatten the entire Middle East"--Islamaphobe!) because he would be on extremely weak ground arguing against the morality of fighting ISIL:
Islamic State insurgents in Iraq have carried out mass executions, abducted women and girls as sex slaves, and used children as fighters in systematic violations that may amount to war crimes, the United Nations said on Thursday.
May amount to war crimes? But I quibble over a word. The point is clear.
But no, don't do anything about this--and pat yourself on the back because of your superior morality!--because according to Monbiot the logic of stopping this bunch of lunatics is that you support a policy of "kill them all and let God sort them out."
Really?
I didn't miss reading Monbiot these many happy years of him being off my radar screen. May the next interval be greater.
