Big Sticks and Small Carrots

An interesting topic has been raised over at the Sharpener (interesting for bloggers anyway). The top US blogs exert far more influence over political debate than their counterparts on this side of the water. The question is why?

To my mind, there are a number of reasons.

1. The US has an established blogging culture. That, of course, doesn’t explain why the UK does not have such a culture.
2. The UK media provides a wider range of views than the US media. This does, I think, partly explain the lack of a political blogging culture in the UK. The UK media fills many of the niches which might otherwise be occupied by bloggers.
3. The UK is not undergoing a clash of ideologies in the way that the US currently is. I believe this clash generates greater interest in political matters and thus, an interest in political blogs.

I’ll expand on that last one a little (alert: poor attempt intellectual elitism approaching at considerable speed). Currently, the great British public are generally just not that interested in politics. OK, that’s a massive generalisation but I think it’s basically true. The UK public is hugely dissaffected by the political process as it is currently practised. Joe Public just doesn’t care. This is partly because there is no clash of ideologies, it’s partly frustration at the evasion of modern politicians, and it’s partly because of the broken promises of the past and present. How often do you hear this vox pox: “It doesn’t matter to me. Well, they’re all as bad as each other.”? It’s a widely held view. The splendid people at NotApathetic had a good idea but I suspect they misjudged the depth of apathy which exists in the country. Of course, most of those people are unlikely to have bothered to give their opinion on the site because, well, it’s politics and they just can’t be arsed with it. Not that some didn’t but by definition their opinions are unlikely to have been fully represented.

The turnout at the UK general election tells its own story. 61.3% of those eligible actually voted. There are undoubtedly many people who are very interested in politic but who still didn’t vote, but I suspect they are very much a minority. In fact, most of the 38.7% of people who didn’t vote were probably totally apathetic about politics. And, perhaps counter-intuitively, I also suspect that a considerable number of people who did vote also don’t have any great interest in politics. They voted because they always vote, or because the family has always been Labour, or what have you. Ask them to take part in a discussion about policy and they’d be off down the pub before you had time to finish the question.

I certainly know a huge number of people (mostly but not exclusively 18 - 30 year olds) who fall into the category of just not being interested. They find my political interests to be extremely peculiar, not to mention mind numbingly boring. They’d prefer to watch the next episode of Lost, or go out for a lovely binge drink (with maybe a pill and a dance to go with it), or play GTA Violence City or something. Anything which isn’t politics really. There’s a debate to be had about how this has happened but I don’t think the fact that it has is debatable.

So, basically, UK political bloggers don’t get high readerships because they are concerned with a minority interest. The question is akin to asking why “Noodle Knitting Magazine” doesn’t have a wider circulation; very few people want to know about knitting with noodles. Likewise with politics. In the UK, very few people care.

We know, from the arguments presented to support the invasion of Iraq, that the US and UK government’s consider reality to be an inconvenience which can be manipulated into more useful forms. Their approach to reality is that it is somehow intangible and can be controlled by statements rather than actions. This is, by any measure, a seriously worrying delusion.

Yesterday, I wrote about the US military figures which show a steady increase in casualties caused by the insurgency over the last 20 months or so. As a contrast to reality, I had intended to quote Dick Cheney from a few months back but didn’t get round to it in the end. Here’s the quotation in question:

The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.
Dick Cheney, June 2005

Well, Mr Vice President, *I think* you’re an idiot who can’t tell his arse from his elbow. Last throes? It’s normally customary to base your opinions on some sort of supporting evidence rather than just hoping that saying something makes it true. Last night, given the US casualty statistics, I found myself wondering whether Dick stands by that comment. I suspect he’d say the same today but I can’t be certain.

Rumsfeld on the other hand, for all his peculiarities, is a different beast altogether. His comments are generally more ambiguous with his meaning implied rather than explicitly stated. Here’s a recent Rumsfelt statement on Iraq:

The pressure applied on terrorists and insurgents is having an effect.
Donald Rumsfeld, October 2005

Y’see what he did there? He only implied that the pressure was having a *positive* effect. He’s a wily old fox if nothing else. It’s his department which produced the figures so he knows that the insurgency is actually causing more casualties as time passes and not less. He knows that to say the pressure is having a positive effect would to bend reality a long way past breaking point. So, he implies it. It’s a clever strategy, but it’s no less detestable than Cheney’s outright denial of the truth.

The reality is that the insurgency in Iraq is getting worse, not better. Even the US military’s own statistics support this statement. It is a statement clearly grounded in the harsh reality of daily life in Iraq. Unfortunately, our leaders do not show any sign that they can acknowledge, never mind find solutions for, that reality.

First of all, it must be acknowledge that Iraq is only part of the “war” on terror because Bush and Blair decided that it should be. Iraq before the invasion was not a hotbed of terrorism and there has never been a single piece of credible evidence to even suggest that Saddam was colluding with Al-Qaeda (to my knowledge anyway). Today, Iraq is a hotbed of terrorism and those two men are almost exclusively to blame for creating the situation which allowed this to happen. Arrogance and incompetance have been driving our foreign policy and it has driven us into a very deep hole.*

The US military, after insisting for more than two years that it kept no records of Iraqi casualties, has released casualty figures for Iraqi civilians from January 2004 up until September 2005. The NYT seems to have broken the story after finding the figures buried in a report to Congress entitled “Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq”, a report delivered on 13th October.** The figures are available on page 23 of this PQF of the report. I’ve taken the liberty of taking a screen grab of the graph for those with an aversion to PDF’s. Click here to view (updated as the image didn’t fit into the post properly).

The figures refer to the total of both killed and wounded coalition (blue) and Iraqi (green) casualties. They are far from complete as the US military has confirmed in response to questions put by the NYT :

“These incident reports are not intended to provide - and do not provide - a comprehensive account of Iraqi casualties,” Colonel Venable said in his e-mail message. The information in the reports shows “trends in casualties resulting from insurgent attacks.”

That would explain why the figures are significantly lower than all other available esimates. And the figures do not include civilians killed or wounded by the “coalition” but only by insurgents. So this is undoubtedly an incomplete picture of the true cost of the war.

Nevertheless, if we take Colonel Venable’s advice and use these figures to look for “trends in casualties resulting from insurgent attacks”, what conclusions can be drawn? Casualties suffered by the coalition have levelled off at around 18 per day. This has been stable for the last 10 months or so and is lower than the higher rate of 26 per day experienced from April - November ‘04. That’s not totally bad news but it’s not really good news either. The figures for Iraqi casualties tell a much grimmer picture. Iraqi casualty rates have risen steadily since January 2004 (with one blip), going from 26 per day then to 63 per day now. According to the US military’s own figures, the insurgency is causing more than twice as many Iraqi casualties now as it did in January 2004. And if you add the two columns together for each period, you’ll see that total casualty rates are also steadily increasing.

The. Strategy. Is. Not. Working.

How much more evidence will it take to convince these people that they’re on the wrong path? Pardon me but what in the name of fuck is wrong with these fucking idiots? People are dying every day, lots of people. “We must complete the mission”? Fuck off, your mission’s been a fatal disaster from start to finish (exceptfor the fact that it shows no signs of ever having a finish as such).

And it is important not to forget that each of these numbers represents a real person with their own family and their own friends and their own favourite TV programmes and their own hopes and dreams for the future. Each of these statistics represents a real person dead or injured. The limbs of real people are being blown off, the skin of real people is being burned off their bones. Families are being torn apart. These things are happening in Iraq every day. The situation is desperate and it’s getting worse by the week. Something has to be done.

This situation has been created by Bush and Blair. They chose to launch this war and they chose to ignore the warnings that the situation we currently face would be the most probable outcome. They are not doing the killing but they have created the environment in which it prospers, as they were warned they would. For that, and for the incompetance which has beset the occupation and which has made the situation even worse than it would otherwise be, history will be the final judge. What is certain now is that they cannot resolve the problems they have caused. New leaders, competant intelligent ones, are required like never before.

* As was noted by Max Hastings recently.

** Possibly the most Orwellian title for a report that I’ve ever has the misfortune to encounter.

On Wednesday, I wrote that signs were starting to appear which would suggest that Blair is losing his grip on power.

What interests me is that there were difficulties in finding an agreement acceptable to the Cabinet concerning the English ban [on smoking]. When did you last hear of policy announcements being delayed for this reason? As far as I remember, you’d probably have to go back to the Major years to find the last time it happened.

Well, it looks like the Observer might agree.

Whatever mystique the government retained was certainly punctured last week, as disputes over a ban on smoking in pubs and ‘parent power’ reforms to education spilled into the open. While they have occasionally quarrelled in private, the difference is ministers are now squabbling publicly.

The Observer goes into some detail concerning the Blair is having with his education reforms. I’d recommend reading the whole article if you’re at all interested in these machinations. The Observer says:

Comparisons with John Major’s bickering Cabinet are being made.

Hey, do you think the Observer staff often take their lead from my blog? I demand that I be properly credited (and given money)!*

The good news is that there’s more. This time it’s Blunkett who’s causing Blair problems. Now there’s a man I’m glad I don’t have as a friend. Significantly, it looks like even those who have every reason to be loyal to our great leader are prepared to say no to him now. I do officially declare that lame duck syndrome has arrived in earnest. Yay and stuff. The fact that this is being motivated by self-interest rather than principle is a sad reflection on Labour MPs but at this stage anything which loosens Blair’s grip on power has to be welcomed. He can’t promise to further careers in the way that he once could and he’s going to find it increasing difficult to keep control without his favourite method of persuasion. Get rid.

Oh, and Blunkett. What else can you say about the man? He’s not content with having “been found guilty of the offence” of intervening to speed up a visa application on behalf of his mistress.** Now, I’d say that this alone means it’s astonishing and just wrong to have him back in government again, but our David can’t leave it at that. Instead, he seems intent on rubbing our noses in it. I remember when I used to dispair of the blatant revolving door corruption of the US govenment (both Parties are guilty of this I’m afraid). These days though, I don’t need to look accross the water for my daily dose of dispair. Get rid.

* Just to clarify, this is an attempt at humour. I was going to say that I doubt if anyone at the Observer had even heard of this blog but if I think about it, Rafael, from the now sadly retired Observer Blog, might have visited once or twice. Anyway, I am 100% not serious about this.

** John Prescott, 22/12/04

Just a quick one and it’s Good News!

Several Sunni political groups are going to participate in the December elections. I had feared that they would not. Well, I can say that I’m very glad that to find that my fears were unfounded. I’m afraid I still can’t how it will help end to violence but it might at least prevent it from intensifying.

Devil’s Kitchen has written about my previous post on this. Head on over there if you’re looking for another perspective on the situation (something I always find healthy and stimulating) and my response.

The NO2ID campaign have started a new pledge for people who wish to refuse to register for an ID card. Their first pledge was signed by over 11,000 people (including me). This second one is for those who didn’t get round to signing first time round.

I will refuse to register for an ID card and will donate £10 to a legal defence fund but only if 15,000 other people will also make this same pledge.

It’s stating the obvious but every person who publicly opposes this Bill will help to create a little more doubt in the minds of Ministers as to the wisdom of the plans. I’d strongly recommend being one of those people. If this passes into law, it is never, ever, going to go away. Even if the system ends up riddled with faults and inaccuracies and even if it goes vastly over budget, as is widely predicted by most security and IT experts (those with no vested interest in the scheme anyway) , it will be too late to abolish it. Once the government starts spending money in earnest, it will become a permanent fixture of life in the UK. There’ll be no turning back.

The Bill is to be debated in the House of Lords on Monday. It’s widely expected that their Lordships will set about sticking the boot in with no little enthusiasm. Give it a kick for me please, my Lords.

£910,000,000

That’s how much the occupation of Iraq cost the UK taxpayer in the last financial year (April ‘04 - March ‘05). It’s very nearly one billion pounds. It’s also an increase on last years figures but it’s still less than was spent during the first year of the invasion. When a number is that large, I tend to find it difficult to get a proper perspective as to what it really means. What I normally do in these circumstance is try to break the number down into more something a bit more managable.

The cost per year is just too big to understand, so how much did the invasion cost per month?

£75, 830,000

That’s still not really comprehensible. How much did it cost per week?

£17,500,000

No, still to big. How much did it cost per day then?

£2,493,000

What does that buy? Difficult to say really. It looks like hours might be required. How much did it cost per hour?

£103,800

That’s a lot better. I can just about understand that. But it’s still more money than I’ve ever seen (and by quite some margin). You see where I’m going. How much did the occupation of Iraq cost the UK government last year per minute?

£1,730

And relax. That’s a number I can get my head round. It cost £1,730 per minute to occupy Iraq last year. That really is an extraordinarily large amount of money. Hands up anyone who can suggest better ways for a country to spend more than one and a half thousand pound a minute.

All figures are approximate

When Patricia Hewitt makes an appearance on our TV screens, I usually end up wondering if there’s ever been a more patronising politician in the entire history of democracy. I’ve certainly yet to think of anyone worse.

Tonight she was on the panel for Any Questions and her usually condescending tone totally deserted her. First, she struggled to avoid commenting on the recent critisisms of G.W. Bush , het boss’s most trusted ally. Then, asked whether it was still “inconceivable” that there would be military action against Iran as Jack Straw has claimed, she completely lost the plot. Given Blair’s hints of possible action yesterday, she just didn’t know how to respond. She got so flustered that she ended up calling Jonathan by his brother’s name (and more than once before he corrected her). Normally it’s only Joe Public who fall into this trap and regular listeners of Any Answers will know that Jonathan is not what you’d call hugely tolerant of this error.

Although the question is undoubted a very serious one, I couldn’t help but feel a tremendous sense of pleasure at her lack of composure. To be absolutely honest, it warmed the cockles of my cynical black heart. No wonder she’s got nothing useful to say though. It can’t be easy trying to defend what may well be the worst foreign policy decisions taken by any government in living memory. Hewitt’s floundering brings us another tiny step closer to the day when that fact is fully recognised.

You should be able to listen to it online for about a week if you’re so inclined. I’d recommend listening to it from the beginning but the floundering starts in earnest about 8 or 9 minutes in.

Update/Correction
Oh dear, I’m afraid I got a bit confused. Patricia Howett didn’t sound as patronsing as she usually does because it wasn’t her at all, it was Tessa Jowell. Thanks to Paul for pointing that out in the comments below. Er, [insert suitable excuse here]. We all make mistakes I suppose. It’s still worth listening to the broadcast just to hear a Neo-Labour Minister struggling so badly. It isn’t quite as satisfying when you understand it’s Jowell and not Hewitt though.

And here was me slagging Ms Hewitt/Jowell for mixing up the names of the Dimbleby brothers. Dear, oh dear…
*slopes off sheepishly*

As you may be aware, Friday afternoons are normally the best time to be on the prowl for bad news concerning the Bush administration. In this case, if I’m honest, I suspect it’s just a coincidence. In fact, in this case, I don’t think there’s any strategy which is going to limit the damage done to the Whitehouse.

Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson: A potted history

Here’s a quick roundup of what this is all about. Before the invasion of Iraq, the US government made strenuous efforts to collect as much evidence concerning Saddam’s WMD as was humanly possible. This proved to be extremely difficult and a lesser man than George Bush might have been forced to question their own conviction that they existed. Dubya is made of sterner stuff though.

The US and UK government’s had alleged that Saddam had been trying to purchase yellowcake uranium from Niger. The office of the Vice President asked the CIA to conduct an investigation into this affair. The CIA appointed an investigator to travel to Niger to conduct that investigation. The person they chose for this task was Jo Wilson, a former US ambassador to Gabon. One assumes that they were convinced that he had the necessary qualifications to carry out this task in a professional manner. Mr Wilson carried out his investigation into the claims and found them to be completely unfounded. He concluded that the small yellowcake industry (only two mines) in Niger is too tightly monitored (including by the IAEA) for these sales to have been feasible. As is now common knowledge, Mr Wilson was undisputably correct in his conclusion. The initial allegations were baed on obviously false ducuments.

He reported his conclusions to the US government but these conclusions were not what the administration wanted to hear. The response of the Whitehouse was to do what any responsible organisation would do in similar circumstances; they ignored Mr Wilson’s report completely. It didn’t fit with the narrative they were attempting to present so they discarded it as irrelevant. The “smoking gun of a mushroom cloud” continued to be used as an argument in favour of the imminent invasion.

Mr Wilson was, as you might imagine, somewhat concerned about this state of affairs and attempted to use normal procedures to correct the erroneous information being presented by the Whitehouse. These attempts were unsuccessful and Mr Wilson, now frustrated and angry at the deception being perpetrated by his government, and with the invasion now underway, went public with his conclusions. In his article, he presents the facts of the case and they are undeniably damning.

The Whitehouse obviously felt it had to respond in some way. Eight days after Mr Wilson’s article appeared, a column written by Robert Novak revealed details about Mr Wilson which appear to have been designed to cast doubts on his ability and judgement.

Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson’s wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. “I will not answer any question about my wife,” Wilson told me.

It is claimed that the Whitehouse had a hand in this column. The clear implication is that Mr Wilson was given the job on the advice of his wife but that he was not actually qualified for the task.* The tone of the article is clearly very much one of support for the position of the Whitehouse. The controversy concerns Novak’s knowledge of the fact that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA; this is highly confidential information and not normally something journalist would reveal. It is considered to be a threat to national security to reveal details about the identity of CIA agents. It is alleged that this information was supplied to Novak by someone working at the Whitehouse. It is further alleged that this was a deliberate attempt to discredit Mr Wilson and to extract revenge on him and his family for speaking out against the government. A US grand jury has been investigating these allegations.

Latest Development
Today, Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, has been charged with several offences in relation to the investigation. He faces the possibility of up to thirty years in prison if found guilty. In response, he immediately resigned from his position. Karl Rove, the President’s chief of staff, who was also under investigation, has not been charged (although he remains under investigation by the grand jury).

It’s tempting to jump to conclusions, but until the trial is completed it isn’t possible to say conclusively that “Scooter” Libby is guilty. I’ll stick to “innocent until proven guilty” even if the Whitehouse does not. So, at this stage this is still only an alleged case of appalling, unscrupulous, bullying behaviour from someone at the heart of the US administration.

If true though, it will prove what many people have long thought: that this US administration is incompetant, corrupt, and completely without morals. Bush, like Blair, is a man who likes to express his deeply held convictions. Bush, like Blair, used those convictions as a means to persuade the people they represent of the need to invade Iraq. Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but if someone refuses to reconsider their convictions in the face of substantial evidence that they are incorrect, then they’re either an idiot or a liar (or both).

* Accusations of cronyism from the Whitehouse? What’s that you say about pots and kettles?

Holiday advice:

Why not liven up your Guy Fawkes celebration with this excellent idea. Personally, I’m not sure if I’ve got the front to try getting a Blair effigy onto a public bonfire. I may see if I can rope in some willing volunteers though. One or two people I know might do it after only a a little liquid persuasion. We’ll see. It’s definitely worth a go.

Regarding the title, apologies for yet another Monty Python quote. I’m a nerd. I admit it.