There are few entities throughout history that qualify to be equated with ISIS and its behavior.

I agree. He seems to hate all US-UK armed forces.

...Jeremy Corbyn has built his support on the back of his work opposing the Iraq war, and as you might expect for a senior person in the Stop The War Coalition, his views haven't changed since I first saw him speak in 2002.

I also doubt that this "shocking revelation" will have any effect on his performance in the leadership contest. If anything, having John McTernan (one of the key people in Labour's Scottish destruction) being trotted out to condemn Corbyn will only serve to drive more people towards the beardy one.

the more they think foreign policy is just war or Iraq and nothing else.

I think that Iraq is the thing that holds back the Blairites from attacking him over foreign policy. The moment that Iraq comes up Corbyn has a huge advantage over people like Andy Burnham who were very enthusiastic about invading Iraq.

Iraq was a tragic mistake, that i agree. But what's stopping them from touting other pluses--revamped development agenda, addressing some human rights concerns, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, trade, etc... Iraq, iraq, iraq yes it's was a mistake. Doesnt mean you can say you did some other good.

But of course if you want the extremes which Corbyn touts, then just good luck. No interventions, no Trident (that's good but Corbyn's approach towards it--defence diversifiation--just isnt viable), no NATO, no linking or partnership with the US, negotiate every conflict...the last one is probably the most extreme of all.

Even though it wasn't why Labour lost the general election this year, it goes to the very heart of why the ruling Blairite faction of Labour lost its way.

one foreign policy mistake out of many other foreign policy initiative? Please.

Blair wasn't just about Iraq.

If it's always about Iraq then better re-draw the maps for Geography in Corbyn's National Education Service.

All that nonsense about WMD's to get us into the Iraq war is something that really did a lot of damage to Labour in terms of credibility and integrity. What Blair did to get us into that war has left people increasingly less inclined to trust Labour. The Tories were in opposition and are therefore in a position to at least claim that they were mislead by the government.

Blame also those Tory MPs who voted for the war as well. There was a vote. In some other wars there weren't even votes.

but the point is that this is about the kind of direction a Labour leader would take the party, and so the past Iraq policy is relevant. You're saying 'what about other bits of foreign policy, like Sierra Leone?', but, as far as I can tell, Corbyn is not saying "everything Blair did abroad was always wrong", nor can I find a specific criticism by him of Blair's Sierra Leone policy.

I've found one speech in parliament (about possible intervention in Syria), when he was talking about the importance of discussing intervention in parliament, and Peter Hain interrupted to ask him whether he agreed that there was contention about Syria, which made it different from when the overall support is very obvious, such as Sierra Leone, and Corbyn said he agreed with Hain. So it would seem that Corbyn didn't have a problem with intervention in Sierra Leone.

He said that what the Americans did in Fallujah and other places is appalling, and that explains why Sunni Iraqis didn't automatically reject ISIS - because they had awful things done to them by Maliki's allies too.

"The long term stability of the country is now in doubt, because you have two broadly religious sectarian forces fighting each other. That was never the narrative in Iraq before the United States and Britain and others invaded. It was then a relatively secular country in the sense that the constitution was relatively secular, and there wasn't this huge religious division between Sunni and Shia which of course is being exacerbated. One has to look at the role of Saudi Arabia in promoting Sunni forces around the region, a particular form of Islam, and at the same time at the role played by the Maliki government, and I think the outlook is very, very grim indeed, and this is a consequence of western meddling.

"Jeremy, what could shift the balance of forces here? What would it take for the Iraqi troops to regain control?"

"Well, I think it requires a sense of unity amongst people in Iraq that would want to remain part of Iraq, and also an acceptance and understanding of why so many people in some of the cities in the north have apparently been prepared to accept the ISIS forces. Yes they are brutal, yes some of what they have done is quite appalling. Likewise, what the Americans did in Fallujah and other places is appalling, but there has to be seen to be an acceptance of a much wider view of the world than is apparent at the present time by the Malaki government.

Whilst the US has not yet sent in large numbers of troops, the danger is that in this sort of perilous civil war that's going on, Western forces will once again be dragged in, and the war will just go on for a long time, with awful consequences for the people of Iraq. I think there has to be a political solution. All wars have to end in some kind of political compromise - why not start with a political compromise now, rather than fuelling the war by putting more weapons, more arms and more money into the conflict."

Also consider when he said this - late June 2014 (at the time they took the Baiki refinery). What he's saying is pretty much like the comments on DU:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014822372
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025083159
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014823308
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025085898
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014832193
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014834435

ISIS's brutal fighting tactics were apparent by then, but their genocide of Yazidis, the reports of their LGBT persecution, killings of Christians, and so on, were still in the future.

And as for what DU thought of what the USA army did in Fallujah - just look up 'Fallujah' and 'war crime' on the site.

nt

get back to the topic?

How true is it that the US Army= ISIS?