Return Ticket To Euston

Today Alan Johnson (the academic and editor of Democratiya, not the Government Minister) has this pro-Euston Manifesto article in "Comment Is Free". I don't go all the way with Alan and stand by the letter I had published in the "New Stateman" on 8 May, 2006 just after the launch of the Euston Manifesto. It was used as the tester when my son set up this blog for me. It went -

"Would it be possible to be categorised as a Euston fellow-traveller? After all I was active in the socialist Campaign Group for 17 years while being semi-detached from the main activists on Northern Ireland, the EU and, eventually, Iraq.

I can't sign up to the full Euston Manifesto because I have reservations on two important matters. First, it could do with recognising that when America steps over the mark, this is more serious than when other western nations make blunders. C Wright Mills's "Power Elite" is still relevant 50 years on.

Second, the manifesto must seek to find a democratic and humanitarian formula to determine which acts of military intervention are acceptable when seeking to liberate people from mass acts of internal oppression. In the meantime, interventions can be argued for only case by case, and should be accepted only in the most exceptional circumstances.

If my concerns had been met, I would have signed up - but then fellow-travellers are much more reliable than signatories. They don't resign; they only fade away."