War on Terror

In comments to Nick Cohen’s Observer column this morning:

conorfoley
November 11, 2007 2:37 AM

The day that we finally meet I am going to beat the shit out of you Nick.

Hmmm, how about Euston as a venue?

Euston seems highly appropriate for the comeuppance of the beyond odious Observer hack Nick Cohen who’s long deserved a good slap. But who’s going to adminster it? Someone who’s actually been in a warzone, unlike Cohen, who merely sits on his ass and cheerleads while others do the dying.

It’s not some outraged Dave Spartalike doing the threatening – said Conor Foley is one of Cohen’s fellow Guardian/Observer columnists:

Conor Foley is a humanitarian aid worker. He has worked for a variety of human rights and humanitarian aid organizations, including Liberty, Amnesty International and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Colombia, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. He currently lives and works in Brazil, and is a research fellow at the Human Rights Law Centre at the University of Nottingham.

I can’t imagine threatening other writers with violence is a usual thing for Foley, as angrily critical as he has been of Cohen in the past.

But is it really Foley, or a sockpuppet?

Granted this is the comments section to an online newspaper but it’s there in black and white; as the comments are moderated and commenters registered and it’s been up there 7 hours or so without being deleted, I think it’s reasonable to say, without seeing his IP, that Foley is who he says he is.

But it wasn’t just that one-liner; Foley follows up an hour later:

conorfoley

November 11, 2007 3:46 AM

Incidentally moderator I think that, in context, my above comment does not breach the talk policy (or at least no more than the original article).

I have lost several friends in Afghanistan, including Bettina Goislard whose anniversary is this week. She was shot dead at point-blank range while driving in a clearly marked, but unguarded, humanitarian vehicle. Several more of my friends and colleagues have died in similar circumstances, while others have been kidnapped.

I am also likely to return to Afghanistan in the near future and so the sentiments expressed here have a direct impact on my own health and safety.

Nick Cohen ‘feels strongly about things’ and expresses his views in ways that other people ‘might find extremely offensive or threatening’. He has, for example, criticised those involved in human rights and humanitarian work in ways that are factually inaccurate and harmful.

Since this particular article is on the threats of physical danger facing those working in conflict zones, I think that the views of one such person about its author are ‘on topic’ and make a relevant contribution to a ‘hearty debate’. Let me also, again, extend an invitation to Nick to discuss this topic with me directly here, something he has, so far, been rather reluctant to do.

Cohen’s quick enough to advocate violence as long it suits his political purpose and it’s kept at a safe physical and political distance from his comfy metropolitan life. I wonder, does he have the guts to even debate Foley online or in the pages of his own paper, let alone meet him in the flesh?

Well, I don’t wonder at all really. That’s just a rhetorical device. What I do know is that Cohen, like his fellow chickenhawks and Eustonites, lacks both courage and conviction and will bottle out rather than ever riisk his precious skin putting his so-called principles into practice.

Foley’s balls are out on the table, if I may be so indelicate. Where’re Cohen’s?

UPDATE

Foley’s original comment has been deleted :

conorfoley

November 11, 2007 2:37 AM

This comment and those referring to it removed by moderator.

I guess that’s Cohen’s response then. Like I said he would, he bottled it.

Foley has followed up again:

conorfoley

November 11, 2007 11:41 AM

Darkhorse: It is an emotional subject and my guess is that the moderator’s have recognised it as such.

I spent almost a year and a half in Afghanistan. Around 40 aid and reconstruction workers were killed while I was there and I had several narrow escapes, which probably left me with mild PTSD. I turned down a job in Iraq to go there and several of my former colleagues from Kosovo were killed in the bombing of the UN compound in Baghdad. Everyone agrees that the major reason for the decline in security in Afghanistan was linked to the invasion of Iraq (diversion of troops and resources and propaganda boost for the Taliban) and that is one of the reasons I was so strongly opposed to it.

Since the invasion of Iraq Nick Cohen has written a string of extremely inflammatory articles on the issues of torture, human rights and humanitarian intervention. I have responded to some of them, but this piece just brings forth a howl of outrage.

More….

UPDATE: The entire thread seems to have disappeared or maybe it’s my crappy browser or connection, though if, as one commenter claims, Cohen moderates his own comment threads then he really did bottle it, diidn’t he?

Luckily I saved ithe whole exchange in a text file: If anyone wants it, email or drop a note in comments.