Jorg Haider is dead

Haider, age 58, was killed today when his car went off a road in Austria. This was just weeks after his small political party, which he had formed in 2005 after leaving the Freedom Party of which he had been the leader, tripled its representation. Here is an obit at the BBC.

In earlier years, Haider’s anti-statist, anti-EU, anti-immigration stand had made him one of the few hopeful figures of Europe. I met him and talked with him about the immigration issue in the mid to late 1990s when he was the speaker at a respectable establishment luncheon in New York City, and I later sent him my writings on immigration. In his talk that day, he somewhat disappointed me by sounding more like a U.S. Republican than a European nationalist and Western patriot. But then he disappointed me in a different and much worse way. Years before he drove off a road and died, he figuratively drove off the road by becoming an ally of Saddam Hussein’s against the United States.

Here is an item I posted on Haider in April 2003:

Haider is pro-Saddam

A once-promising white nationalist slips down the anti-West, anti-American, pro-terrorist rathole.

Austria’s Haider Offers Iraqi Minister Asylum

Thu April 03, 2003 08:17 AM ET

VIENNA (Reuters)—Austrian far-right leader Joerg Haider, a vocal backer of Iraq against the United States, offered asylum in his Alpine province to Iraq’s foreign minister in an interview published on Thursday.

Haider, a long-time friend of Foreign Minister Naji Sabri and a harsh critic of U.S. policy in the Middle East, was asked if Sabri could count on refuge in Carinthia, where Haider is governor, if the Iraqi leadership is forced to flee.

“There is always room in my home for a friend,” Haider told the Austrian magazine News. The two have been friends since Sabri was ambassador in Vienna in the 1990s.

Haider last month praised Iraqi President Saddam Hussein as an Arab visionary. He was forced to quit national politics last year amid uproar after he met Saddam in Baghdad and expressed support for the Iraqi leader.

Haider accused the United States of going to war for Iraq’s oil. “I personally would be delighted if the Iraqis succeed in defending themselves from this aggression,” Haider told News.

- end of initial entry -

October 12

A European blog called Pitbull utan lappstift quotes this post and shows a photo of Haider chatting amicably with Saddam Hussein.

In case anyone missed it in the initial entry, here’s what Haider said in April 2003:

“I personally would be delighted if the Iraqis succeed in defending themselves from this aggression,”

What was he thinking? After all his efforts over so many years to make himself respectable, including the lunchean I had attended a few years earlier, what did he think would be the effect on his political career and effectiveness of aligning with Saddam Hussein against the U.S.-led Coalition, and actually wishing for an Iraqi victory over the U.S.?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 11, 2008 12:29 PM | Send