Big Sticks and Small Carrots

This Spiked article is worth reading (via).

This is a particularly insightful analysis.

As each of these moral arguments has crumbled in the face of reality, the war’s supporters have had to reach a little lower into the barrel to find a new one. Each time, the result has been further to expose the lack of a coherent case for the war. Now, after all the dodgy dossiers and dubious claims, they have touched the bottom. ‘Look at Galloway making an idiot of himself!’, they say. ‘How could he be right about Iraq?’

Sound familiar? Here’s the clincher:

[T]he fact that the self-styled leader of the anti-war movement is self-evidently a pillock is not in itself a justification for the invasion of a sovereign state.

I wonder if anyone at Harry’s Place has read that? It could well have been written especially for those guys and their apparent obsession with the Gorgeous one. Lot’s of people who opposed the invasion agree that Galloway is a self-obsessed arse. So what? Play the ball, not the arse.

But they’re struggling with that. Their last post actually on the subject of Iraq was this from January 20th.

Secularists will hold the balance of power in the Iraqi parliament if the initial election results are correct: Read the whole story here.

Er? I’ve read that article. After some consideration, I’m guessing that the claim in the post relates to this paragraph:

Despite Sunni accusations of widespread electoral fraud, informal talks have already begun between the main Sunni block and the Kurds over the formation of a consensus government. Many observers believe the Sunnis could be offered the important defence portfolio to secure their collaboration.

The main Sunni block is the Iraqi Accordance Front ( 44 seats). They are Sunni Islamists. They are not a secular party. Unless some sort of miracle occurs, the secular parties are going to be on the outside looking in. Despite my objections to the war, I genuinely wish that Marcus was right. But I’m afraid he’s not. If I was being unkind, I’d say he’s talking out of his galloway.

What we really need now is an honest debate about what we’re going to do next in Iraq. What are we going to do about the fact that Shiite Islamic fundies are the dominant force in the new Iraq? How will we react if, as seems likely, the new Iraqi government is generally supportive of Iran’s nuclear ambitions? These are very serious questions and we desperately need a competant prime minister to deal with them. What we don’t need is more of the fairytale optimism which characterised so many “pro-war” views in the first place.

I’m not trying to start a flame war with HP and have no particular disagreement with them. They are the most prominent “pro-war” blog I know in the UK, so that’s why they tend to end up here on occassion. And there are a few of them so they’ve got moral support if they notice that some random blogger has been slagging them off.

Tags: News, Politics, Iraq, Georgeous George

Yesterday, Allan Douglas from Aberdeen was killed in Iraq. He was the 99th British soldier to die in Iraq since the start of the military action to disarm Saddam Hussein. He was 22 years old.

Today, the 100th British soldier has been killed (he has not yet been named). It is an arbitrary number, every unnecessary death is one too many, but it will undoubtedly generate a great deal of media coverage. It is clear that Blair and his cabal have prepared a media strategy to deal with this temporary extra coverage of the situation in Iraq.

Blair told Reuters:

Our response has got to be not to walk away from the situation but to redouble our efforts to make sure the people of Afghanistan and Iraq achieve the democracy they want. In achieving that, we enhance our own security here. We should give our thanks to the British troops and the extraordinary courage they have displayed in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places in the world. It is a tragedy when we lose any soldier but we have to understand why it’s important to see it through.

Clever words, particulary the totally unjustified suggestion that Afghanistan and Iraq were part of the same issue. Osama bin Laden was in Afghanistan. It can certainly be argued that the invasion of Afghansitan was part of the “war” on terror.

But why are our troops actually in Iraq? They went there to disarm Saddam because his WMD were a threat to our national security. In order for the Iraq debacle to “enhance our security here” it is first necessary to demonstrate that Iraq was a threat to the United Kingdom before the invasion. It was not. This is no longer in dispute as far as I’m aware. The invasion of Iraq was not part of the “war” on terror in any meaningful sense. It was a war of choice.

Blair’s attempt to conflate Afghanistan and Iraq stinks of the mendacity which has characterised the war of choice against Iraq from the very start. It is part of the poision gas of deceit, a smokescreen to hide his lies and misjudgements.

Defence Secretary John Reid has also been engaging in damage control. He said:

The morale among our troops is fantastic. I only wish some of the commentators at home had the same moral courage and morale.

Fuck you, you fucking fuck. Sorry but that is the most cowardly pile of shite. Anyone who points out the fact that our troops were sent there based on an exaggerated threat, which was itself based on exaggerated intelligence, is a coward? Fuck you Reid. You’re the one hiding the shitty decisions of your government behind the dead bodies of British soldiers. Fuck you.

Sorry but that really makes me angry. The Gulf region today is far more unstable than it was at the start of 2003. It is almost certain that the new Islamic Shiite government of Iraq will oppose any attempts to confront Iran over the nuclear issue. Iran, a country which genuinely could build a nuclear weapon reasonably quickly if it wishes, undoubtedly feels emboldened and free to pursue its goals due to the quagmire we’re stuck in in Iraq. It is unlikely that the new Iraqi government will deal with Israel and there’s every chance that they will refuse to recognise its right to exist. And we are supporting and enabling this new government in order to “enhance our own security here”? Pointing out that this situation is a total farce isn’t something I do because of a lack of “moral courage”. Hiding bad decisions behind the dead bodies of people you’ve sent to fight and die in Iraq, on the other hand, is about as cowardly an act as I can think of.

Today, the situation in Iraq is dire. Today, after Blair and Bush decided to attack a country which had nothing to do with the “war” on terror, it is part of that “war”. It is very difficult to recommend a course of action which will improve the situation. But, I say again, the idea that Tony Blair is the best person to make these decisions is ridiculous in the extreme.

Tags: News, Politics, Iraq, Tony Blair

Here’s a link to a sensible article in the Daily Mail. Really.

[T]he moment may be fast approaching when the Premier is forced to explain the curious sequence of events that ended with Britain committing a huge part of its Armed Forces to a war whose justification weakens by the day, and which does not seem to have been in the interests of this country.

Indeed. But what’s new?

A book by human rights lawyer Philippe Sands is said to claim that Mr Blair had committed this country to war in private discussions with President George W. Bush well before the final attempt was made to obtain a UN Security Council Resolution specifically authorising it - and well before Parliament was allowed to vote on the matter.

This happened on January 31st 2003 apparently. Here’s the BBC report of the press conference after that meeting.

Some of the greyness outside seemed to carry over in the sombre and even tense mood of the joint press conference, which was first delayed, and then abruptly ended by President Bush after only 15 minutes.

I wonder what was causing the tension? Could it be that Blair, after failing to persuade the President of the absolute necessity of a second resolution, had just fully committed himself and the country to an illegal war of choice with regime change as it’s objective? As I recall, it was around that time that Blair suddenly started to emphasise his desperation to help the long suffering people of Iraq.

When Chirac refused to agree to a second UN resolution under any circumstances, any chance of agreement in the Security Council was dashed of course. Blair was off the hook and the French were nothing but ungrateful cheese eating surrender monkeys. Except Chirac didn’t say that at all. He said “There is no need for a second resolution today, which France would have no choice but to oppose”. He did not rule out a second resolution in any circumstances as Blair claimed at the time. Just one more lie to add to the mix then.

How have Downing Street reacted to the allegation made by Sands? Bet you can’t guess. Well, maybe you can.

Downing Street yesterday dismissed the new claims as Prof Sands “simply trying to get more publicity” for his book.

Because nothing written in a book is ever true, you see.* It’s simply impossible.

* This is something it’d be good to mention to Blair when he’s desperately trying to flog his fictional revisionist attempt to rescue his all but destroyed reputation memoirs to pay for that massive mortgage. “You don’t seriously expect us to believe that, do you Tony? You’re just trying to get more publicity for your book…”

Tags: News, Politics, Iraq, Tony Blair

Iran is the new black apparently. Here are some facts about Iran which might come in handy this year. I’ve written this mostly for my own benefit to be honest.

Basics
So, Iran is predominantly populated by Shiite Persians (not Arabs). Their Shia fundamentalist Islam is not the same as the Sunni Wahhabism of the Taliban or bin Laden. In fact, Wahhabi’s believe that the Shia are not “proper” Muslims at all (the Taliban viciously oppressed Shiites in Afghanistan). The idea that bin Laden would form an alliance with Iranian fundamentalists is a bit like believing that Ian Paisley would form one with the Pope. Not hugely likely, in other words. The Iranian government does have strong connections to the Shiites in the new Iraqi government though (via). The Iranian government are also strongly linked to Hezbollah, a Shia group. The spiritual leader of Hezbollah, Sheikh Fadlallah, has said that the September 11th attacks on the US were un-Islamic and “barbaric”. Hezbollah does, however, support suicide bombings directed against Israel.

That Coup
In 1953, the Shah was reinstalled after the sort of successful conclusion of Operation Ajax. The operation involved the CIA, with British support, orchestrating a coup against the nationalist Prime Minister of Iran (who had nationalised the British owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company). This CIA article analyses the after effects of that operation.

TPAJAX got the CIA into the regime-change business for good—similar efforts would soon follow in Guatemala, Indonesia, and Cuba—but [] the Agency has had little success at that enterprise, while bringing itself and the United States more political ill will, and breeding more untoward results, than any other of its activities. Most of the CIA’s acknowledged efforts of this sort have shown that Washington has been more interested in strongman rule in the Middle East and elsewhere than in encouraging democracy. The result is a credibility problem that accompanied American troops into Iraq and continues to plague them…

The question is, has anyone told President Bush?

They hate what we see right here in this chamber — a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms…

Perhaps, in the case of Iran, they hate the fact that the US government took away that very freedom and reappointed and supported a Western friendly government while disregarding the sovereignty of Iran. Bush can’t be blamed for that, it happened in 1953. But it did happen. This led to the first use of the term blowback.

That Revolution
The regime of the Shah was highly corrupt and used brutal methods to maintain power. Nevertheless, the government continued to be supported by the West, particularly by the US, as it was thought to provide an effective barrier to Soviet entry into the strategically important Middle East region. Growing discontentment with the Shah created the conditions which led to the revolution and brought the Shiite Islamists to power. The United States government had assured the Shah that they would “back him to the hilt“, but in the end they decided not to. The revolution, after the twists and turns common to many revolutions, brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power in 1979.

That Mad President
Today, President Ahmadinejad is in charge. Sort of. The Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, is Comander in Chief of Iran’s armed forces, including the revolutionary guard, and has the exclusive power to declare war. Last year, Khamenei issued a Fatwa against production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons (though I doubt that’s very reassuring to most people). He is a staunch religious conservative and strongly opposed to reform. The Guardian Council further complicates the issue as does the Assembly of Experts. How this all fits together is demonstrated by this handy BBC graphic. Sort of.

Anyway, the point is that Ahmadinejad does not have the same powers as President Bush for example. Ahmadinejad cannot simply impose his will on foreign policy issues.

That Nuclear Issue
This is the big issue and, of course, the reason why Iran is the new black. The latest news is that there has been no progress in talks between the EU and the Iranians. There’ll be much more on this in the coming months, no doubt.

And Finally
From that BBC report:

Many Western powers and also Israel distrust Iran, partly because it had kept its nuclear research secret for 18 years before it was revealed in 2002.

I wonder what Mordechai Vanunu would say to that?

Tags: Iran, Politics

Thanks to Talk Politics, I can now say with confidence that my opposition to the idea of intelligent design can be summed up by describing it as a reductio ad absurdum. In the article linked in that post, ID flag waver Stephen Meyer says:

Whenever we encounter complex systems - whether integrated circuits or internal combustion engines - and we know how they arose, invariably a designing intelligence played a role.*

So, is the intelligent designer a “complex system”? Complex entities cannot form spontaneously according to the “theory”. If we accept that a designer must be a complex entity, and it seems impossible to avoid in this “theory”, who designed him/her/it? And who designed the designer? And who designed the designer of the designer? And so on ad infinitum.

Intelligent design doesn’t answer the questions which it claims need to be addressed. It just moves them into the realm of the unknowable. Science? No, I think not.

And anyway, it is clear that intelligence does not always play a role in the creation of complex systems. Look, I have scientific proof and everything. Complex system but a definite lack of intelligent design. Res ipsa loquitur.

* Btw, I could be wrong but by adding the stipulation “and we know how they arose”, isn’t Meyer also being highly disingenuous? If we know how they arose, chances are we made them (as in the examples he gives) so they will by definition be designed. If we take out that clause we get “Whenever we encounter complex systems, invariably a designing intelligence played a role”. Hmm, most dubious. What about a tree? It’s pretty complex. But it wasn’t designed by an intelligence. Unless you believe in ID. And an infinite series of designers. And now, I’m getting dizzy.

Tags: Religion, Intelligent Design

It would appear that Gordon Brown has finally shown himself to be massively underqualified for the job of prime minister. I’m not talking about the way the silent one played politics with the decision to go to Iraq. That was just politics. Morally vacant, self-serving, dirty politics, but politics none the less.

No, I’m taking about a judgement so bad that it must call into question his fitness to lead a sing-song, never mind a country. Nick Robinson has already suggested that Brown may have made this spectacularly bad decision. Today, though, David Blunkett has pretty much put it on record.

My sense is that there is a new understanding — yes — and it’s good because anybody with any ounce of understanding of politics knows that when Tony Blair and Gordon Brown work together, we’re a winner — and when they’re divided, our opponents can divide us and it’s as simple as that. So, good on them, and whether it’s a year or two years it actually will be a sensible process blah blah blah…

Yes, it appear that Gordon Brown has decided to come to an understanding with the most untrustworthy man in Britain. A man who Brown said he would never trust again.

And now he has done just that. If that isn’t a clear demonstration that Brown is unfit for the job of prime minister, then I don’t know what is.

I’m not joking.

Tags: News, Politics, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, New Labour

Right, I think a proper explanation of my view of the News Corp - Liberal Democrat thing is in order.

It should be fairly obvious that newspapers report scandals in a selective way. To illustrate this at a basic level, consider that there is one group of influential, high profile people who are almost never on the receiving end of the exclusive scandal story. They are journalists. There are undoubtedly any number of journalists who’ve written hypocritical “I can’t believe he/she takes drugs” or “he/she is gay but kept it in the closet” stories. The chances of this sort of hypocrisy being exposed elsewhere in the media are slim to non-existent (unless the journalist does something really outrageously ill-advised). The reason why this is the case is simple self-interest. It’s not some great conspiracy theory; it’s just an implicit understanding that if you do it to them, there’s a very good chance that they’re going to try to do it to you too. So, although many journalists will certainly know of potentially embarrassing scandals concerning other journalists, they will not be writing an exclusive expose based on that knowledge anytime soon. It may be good for circulation figures but it isn’t a clever long term strategy. Not unless you want fellow journalists raking through your bins anyway.

There’s also another kind of selectivity in these stories. (I seem to remember watching a documentary about Max Clifford in which they discussed this sort of thing.) The “Kate Moss takes cocaine” story is a good example. I don’t take a great interest in this celebrity nonsense but this one was pretty much unavoidable. Without wishing to disparage Ms Moss, the question is, did a single hack journalist think she wasn’t taking cocaine? Everyone knows that very many celebrities take drugs. If the hacks wanted to, they could do a story like this about a different celebrity every week. They mostly don’t do this because celebrities are big business and they need to keep most of them “onside” most of the time. It’s basic financial common sense. Moss, at some point, for some reason, lost her “onside” protection and all of a sudden it’s open day on Kate. The point is, it almost certainly wasn’t the fact the journalists suddenly discovered that she’d been taking cocaine which led to these stories. The idea that this was a shock to anyone in Fleet Street is implausible to put it mildly. It might have been artibrary, or Moss might have got up the nose (sorry) of a particular editor, but someone decided that it was time for a scandal about Moss. And once one newpaper reports the story, the rest are pretty much obliged to follow suit. The result in this case was a big national story about a supermodel taking drugs. Approximately no-one in the country actually thought that this was news. It did do severe damage (at least in the short term) to Kate’s career though.

And there’s a third kind of selectivity in these stories. Often, when a reporter finds out something scandalous, they will take it to the person concerned first. Negotiation may then lead to an agreement that the story will not go to press. The person concerned might agree to providing some exclusive interviews or some other service of benefit to the journalist and their employers. Blackmail might be too strong a word. Or it might not. Sometimes an agreement is reached whereby the story will be broken but in a sympathetic manner. Sometimes the journalist abides by that agreement but on other occassions it’s a stitch up (a friend of a friend had the Scum do this to them recently actually - “Give us your side of the story and we’ll go easy on you” lied the reporter). When a reporter gets their hands on a juicy bit of gossip, there are many options available. The idea that the scandal always get reported to the public is an eroneous one.

On some occassions though, when the target of the scandal is on the “offside” list, there’s only one way the story is going to come out; as damagingly and embarrassingly as possible. Editors will sit on the story and time it’s release in order to cause the maximum impact on the subject. They will go out of their way to dig up dirt on the “offside” in a way that they never would for the “onsiders”. Careers can be destroyed in this way. This, despite the fact that most journalists are quite aware that many on the “onside” list are just as guilty of similar indiscretions.

That is how tabloid journalism operates. It is my contention that the Liberal Democrats are now on the Scum’s “offside” list in a way that the Tory and Labour parties are not. The ability of Murdoch’s minions to influence the big two is hindered by the existence of a strong third party and a hung parliament would be a nightmare scenario for them. Their traditional claim that the Scum backed the general election winners (can anyone remember the last time they didn’t do this?) would be particularly hard if there was no clear winner. It’s about influence and patronage. They haven’t decided who to back at the next election but they know it won’t be the Lib Dems.

This doesn’t mean that the Scum will never report a scandal concerning a member of the two big parties. It’s does mean there is likely to be a difference in attitude in the way they treat such stories. At some point before the next election, Murdoch and co will decide which horse to back and either Labour or the Tories will join the Lib Dems on the “offside” list. That party can then expect to be on the receiving end of the sort of thing the Liberal Democrats are already dealing with. It is, in my view, highly likely that the scandals reported by the Scum in the run up to the next election will indicate which side they’re backing (not backing if you want to be pedantic about it) long before it is officially announced.

As for the two recent stories, I’m of two minds. In the case of Oaten, I genuinly can’t see any reason why releasing this information was in the public interest. I couldn’t care less. In the case of Hughes, his involvement in the campaign against Hatchell made him fair game. Probably not a resigning matter but he certainly deserves a bit of stick for his hypocrisy. Nevertheless, the motives of the Scum in revealing this information when they did are dubious at best. That’s not to say that Oaten and Hughes didn’t both made pretty bad decisions. They both made decisions which left them exposed to just this sort of thing.* But when you think of the bad decisions made by the current government (government decisions which affect us all mind, not personal indiscretions) and the Scum’s apparent indifference to them, it puts these bad decisions into some sort of sensible perspective.

* The classic circular argument is deployed by the hacks here in the case of Oaten. The Scum says we had to reveal this about Oaten because it shows a lack of judgement. He must have realised that we’d reveal it if we found out and the fact that he did it anyway shows he’s guilty of making bad judgements. So, you see we had to to show what a poor decision maker he is. By revealing it.

Do you have to be trained to think that way or is it a naturally occurring phenomenon, I wonder?

Tags: Media, Politics, News Corp, Liberal Democrats

A new video apparently showing Norman Kember, and the three other hostages captured with him, has been shown on al-Jazeera. It is dated 21st January. This is obviously good news. There is still hope that he will be returned to his family alive and well.

On the subject of kidnapping, and without wishing to imply a direct moral equivalence, here’s a report from AlertNet which is worth reading (via). That’s just “kidnapping light” of course. No need to worry about the morality of capturing someone’s wife to use as “leverage” against them. This is war after all. The ends justify the means. Right?

Tags: News, Iraq