Big Sticks and Small Carrots

Yes, it’s another post about the Archbishop. This is instead of the update I had intended to make to my previous post.

I should say that I don’t have particularly strong opinions as to what Williams said; that’s not what motivates this atheist to post about this. Williams’ view, a carefully considered examination of the relationship between law in a secular society and religious conviction, is complex, interesting and worthy of debate. If you like that sort of thing. I can’t say I know the answers to the questions he raised.

I do, however, have strong opinions on the reaction the Acrchbishop’s comments have provoked. As Jim Bliss comments on an excellent post by Justin, it “smacks of anti-intellectualism”. You could argue, as some have, that Williams is a fool for not anticipating the reaction and misrepresentations his comments would provoke. It is true that he isn’t what you’d call a great communicator. Greater clarity might have helped avoid some of the worst hysterical misrepresentations of what was said but British society at large is not well equipped to deal with nuance, especially when in comes to issues like this. Politicians and the media have to take a large share of the the blame for this state of affairs.

So, given that reality, should the Archbishop have kept quiet? No. The logic behind that suggestion, the idea that those in the public eye can’t make a nuanced argument because that argument is likely to be misrepresented, leads down a dark and stupid path. Reactionary hysteria, ignorant conviction and unthinking condemnation should not be accepted and accomodated in our society but challenged whenever possible. That is what Williams has tried to do and I’ll not be joining those laying into him for it. He would benefit from communicating with greater clarity, yes, but he absolutely should not be condemned for speaking about the issues he did.

For those reasons, I have made some attempts to defend Williams from knee jerk criticisms levelled at him. Specifically, I have done so on a couple of posts over at Iain Dale’s. I won’t do a “long and boring” analysis of the conversation because there is no need. (Also, despite knowing it to be futile, I found myself drawn into a conversation with “verity”. Not recommended.)

I wanted to establish a couple of things. Importantly I wanted to know whether Iain had actually taken the time to try to understand what the Archbishop actually said before launching into his condemnation of the man. Here’s the answer.

I asked Iain if he’d read Williams’ speech. He replied:

I didnt know he had made a speech until today [the day after the speech was delivered]. I heard his interview on the BBC and quoted from it in my original post.

That’ll be the interview about the speech then?  The interview in which he said “I noted in the lecture…”. (Transcript from the Wardman Wire.) Iain listened to an interview about a speech but didn’t actually notice that the interview was about a speech.  I think that’s useful guide as to the level of understanding Iain achieved before he started laying into Williams. This, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the UK’s top political bloggers.

The other thing I wanted to establish was whether Iain applied his principles consistently. Williams made it clear in his speech and interview that he was talking about already established principles. It was in this context that he used the word “unavoidable”. From the interview:

Interviewer: To begin with you’ve given this vision of if as a nation Britain wants to achieve social cohesion, that challenge is how to accommodate those of religious faith in relation to the law; and you’re words are that the application of Sharia in certain circumstances if we want to achieve this cohesion and take seriously peoples’ religion seems unavoidable?

Archbishop: It seem unavoidable and indeed as a matter of fact certain provision of Sharia are already recognised in our society and under our law; so it’s not as if we’re bringing in an alien and rival system; we already have in this country a number of situations in which the internal law of religious communities is recognised by the law of the land as justified conscientious objections in certain circumstances in providing certain kinds of social relations, so I think we need to look at this with a clearer eye and not imagine either we know exactly what we mean by Sharia and not just associate it with what we read about Saudi Arabia or wherever.

I tried asking Iain about the fact that “we already have in this country a number of situations in which the internal law of religious communities is recognised by the law of the land”. I asked specifically with regard to Jewish customs as Williams himself made several references to the Jewish situation in his speech and made it clear that he was talking about similar proposals for Muslim communities.

His response:

Garry, I disagree with so much of what you said. I have seen Dr William’s comments as reported on the World at One and they do not match your interpretation.

I also do not accept your analogy with what you reckon is a Jewish equivalent. While not being an expert in this, my jewish friends tell me there is no similarity at all.

What you say about Sharia Law having supremacy over English law is, I think, exactly what Williams was aluding to - maybe not immediately but it would be a slippery slope.

I am sure there are parts of Sharia Law which are fine, but there are also parts which are not, and fundemantally at odds with British values.

So there you are then. The Archbishop’s careful thoughts and comparisons are not accepted by Iain because his Jewish friend told him so. I tried asking for clarification but that’s all I got. This, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the UK’s top political bloggers.

Does he even know that the Archbishop specifically pointed out that there are some parts of Sharia law as interpreted in some countries which are fundamentally at odds with British values and explicitly said that these could never be adopted in this country? I doubt it.

In a sense, it’s not fair to single out Iain because he is just one of many who’ve condemned Williams without bothering to try to understand what he said. This is, however, a good illustration of the way in which Iain is able to isolate his opinions from proper debate and scrutiny on his blog while presenting the fiction that it is possible. Oh, and did I mention that I got a fair amount of idiocy thrown my way from some of Iain’s regulars and from anonymous commenters? It wasn’t unexpected but does make any attempt to question Iain’s opinions just that little bit more difficult. This sort of thing is, of course, common in parts of the US blogosphere and Iain and friends seem determined to build similar unchallengeable edifices in this country too. It only damages our ability to have reasoned and rational debate on issues which affect us all.

I don’t intend to press Iain further as we should all be aware by now that my attempting to do so will only lead to him calling me obsessive, a stalker, or a figment of Tim Ireland’s imagination.

To conclude, I just want to say something about the wider implications of the reaction we have seen over the last few days. Democracy, although far from perfect, is clearly the best system of government ever devised by human beings. In order for it to work effectively, citizens need to be able to make informed judgements on the issues of the day. In the modern world there are, sadly, an increasing number of barriers to this process.

The reaction to the Archbishop’s remarks have been a perfect case in point. We’ve had politicians and their supporters making misleading statements for their own ends and media outlets using misrepresentation to generate outrage as a means to boost sales, all, ironically enough, in supposed defence of “British values”. They do not seem to be aware of, or perhaps do not care about, the extent to which they are actually damaging the best of our values.

… What I think he said is an OUTRAGE!!!

If you felt a slight tremor sometime yesterday afternoon, it’ll have been caused by an enormous number of knees all jerking at the same time. Just the mention of the word Sharia is enough to cause many people to disengage their critical faculties and become subsumed by righteous indignation.

The BBC’s Have Your Say has been inundated with outraged comments (over 11,000 comments since yesterday afternoon, most still in moderation) and demands for the Archbishop’s resignation. There, and on blogs, a common theme is “I can’t believe he said that”. Unfortunately, this thought does not seem to have provoked any great desire to find out exactly what he did say. How many of those 11,000 people actually listened to the Archbishop’s 10 minute interview or read his speech? (Both available from the BBC article above.) How many bloggers offered their opinion based on nothing more than a badly written news summary of Williams’ views and their own deeply felt misunderstanding of the concept Sharia law? Too many to count.

But it wasn’t just Joe Bloggs. Here’s a quick analysis of some of the responses detailed in this morning’s BBC report.

The prime minister’s spokesman said Sharia law could never be used to justify a breach of English law.

Indeed. Williams never suggested otherwise.

Home Office Minister Tony McNulty said: “To ask us to fundamentally change the rule of law and to adopt Sharia law, I think, is fundamentally wrong.”

He didn’t say that either. Nice double use of fundamental there though.

For the Conservatives, shadow community cohesion minister Baroness Warsi said the archbishop’s comments were “unhelpful”.

She told BBC News 24: “Dr Williams seems to be suggesting that there should be two systems of law, running alongside each other, almost parallel, and for people to be offered the choice of opting into one or the other. That is unacceptable.”

Slightly different problem here. This already happens to some extent as the Baroness would have know if she’d read Williams’ speech. Is it Conservative policy that Jewish Beth Din courts are unacceptable and should be closed down?

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg said he had “an enormous amount of respect” for Dr Williams, but could not agree with him on this issue. He said: “Equality before the law is part of the glue that binds our society together. We cannot have a situation where there is one law for one person and different laws for another.

“There is a huge difference between respecting people’s right to follow their own beliefs and allowing them to excuse themselves from the rule of law.”

Williams did not suggest that anyone should be allowed to excuse themselves from the rule of law. In fact, he made a point of saying, in his customarily confusing way, that this shouldn’t be allowed to happen.

All in all, not an edifying sight. And I’ve not even touched on the idiotic “they’ll be trying to behead you next” stuff.

In reality, as the Global Dashboard rightly notes, the Archbishop’s view is “thoughtful, considered and nuanced” (via another good post over at The Wardman Wire). The same certainly cannot be said for the majority of reactions to his comments.

An update is likely later this afternoon.

Over the last few days, there has been much said about Dean Godson, Policy Exchange’s “Research Director”. His appearance on Newsnight to defend P.E.’s report into extremist literature was quite extraordinary. Here are some interesting facts about Mr Godson.

Most notably, he holds the extraordinary distinction of having lost his position at the Daily Telegraph because of his political views. Back in 2004, Martin Newland, former Telegraph editor, explained to the Guardian:

It’s OK to be pro-Israel, but not to be unbelievably pro-Likud Israel, it’s OK to be pro-American but not look as if you’re taking instructions from Washington. Dean Godson and Barbara Amiel were key departures.

Dean Godson was too pro-Likud and too subservient to the US government for the Telegraph. Given the writers they happily still employ, you’ve got to wonder just how extreme his own views must be.

Mr Godson has also been reasonably open about the need for the US and UK government’s to deploy covert propaganda techniques. In an article for the Times in 2006, he wrote that:

During the Cold War, organisations such as the Information Research Department of the Foreign Office would assert the superiority of the West over its totalitarian rivals. And magazines such as Encounter did hand-to-hand combat with Soviet fellow travellers. For any kind of truly moderate Islam to flourish, we need first to recapture our own self-confidence. At the moment, the extremists largely have the field to themselves.

The Information Research Department was a secret Foreign Office propaganda organisation which operated mostly in the developing world during the Cold War. It’s practices were modelled on psychological warfare operations. Typically, it covertly spoon fed “slanted” anti-communist stories to journalists to achieve the desired effect

Encounter magazine, on the other hand, was funded by the CIA. Based in London and initially edited by Irving Kristol, it too was a covert Cold War propaganda tool. It’s primary function seems to have been to attempt to steer European left wing intellectuals down the “right” path (no pun intended). The “right” path was the path deemed most acceptable by right wingers in the CIA. The CIA funding was kept secret in order that readers wouldn’t know that attempts were being made to manipulate their views from across the pond.

Neither of the government funded organisations operated in a transparent manner. Quite the opposite in fact. Mr Godson, who worked for the Reagan administration, will almost certainly be aware of the covert nature of these organisations. In true neo-conservative style, this does not seem to bother him in the slightest.

This suggests rather strongly that Mr Godson is a believer in the idea of the political noble lie as a means to achieve social cohesion and national security.

And he is the “Research Director” of Policy Exchange, an organisation which purports to be “an independent think tank… committed to an evidence-based approach to policy development”.

Right…

I’m no expert but I’m not sure that Dean Godson is the best man for the job.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith appeared on the Today programme this morning. She tried to defend the suggestion that there is a need to increase the maximum period of detention without charge and allow suspects to continue to be questioned after charge.

Can you imagine a situation where we knew that there was a trend of growing complexity where somebody had to be released because in an exceptional case… they had come up against the buffers, they hadn’t been able to be brought to justice, where they had subsequently committed a terrorist act?

What now?

Humphrys asked her about the rather convenient timing of the head of MI5’s speech on Monday. Are we really to believe that that was a coincidence?

Smith: Um, well, yes, it was a complete coincidence.

Humphrys: It wasn’t. It was a spinning exercise, wasn’t it?

Smith: I think that’s a pretty outrageous charge to make against the independent director general of the security services…

Humphrys: Did he tell you that he was going to do it?

Smith: Yes he did tell us that he was going to do it…
Humphrys: And did you say to him perhaps the timing of this might look a bit suspicious, a bit odd?

Smith: No I didn’t. If they choose to make a speech… actually that’s a decision for them.

Humphrys: We’re not questioning his right or entitlement to make a speech, we’re talking about the timing of it. Could you not have said to him, look this is all pretty delicate stuff, politically quite apart from anything else … it might make sense if you left it for a week afterwards or something… Why that particular timing? A bit extraordinary?

Smith: John, blah blah, blah… blah, blah, blah, blah… blah, blah… blah… Frankly there are conspiracy theories and there are conspiracy theories and I really do think you’re pushing it on this one.

So that’s us told then.

Some sort of humorous summing up of the situation probably ought to go here but it just isn’t funny.

Check out these two, ahem, unrelated, ahem, pieces of news today.

Terror limit ‘could be doubled’

The 28-day limit on holding terror suspects without charge is likely to be doubled by the government.

Home Office Minister Tony McNulty said the government wanted to extend the limit, “probably” to 56 days.

‘Thousands’ pose UK terror threat

There are at least 2,000 people in the UK who pose a threat to national security because of their support for terrorism, the head of MI5 has said.

Jonathan Evans said there had been a rise of 400 since November 2006.

Hmm.

It appears that the new head of MI5 is participating in a co-ordinated attempt to set the news agenda in preparation for Gordon Brown’s first Queen’s speech tomorrow. And, if the news bulletins I’ve heard this evening are anything to go by, he has succeeded.

Because using the secret services to disseminate fear in order to generate support for a proposed government policy is a hallmark of a truly democratic country…

The Policy Exchange report into extremist literature in British Mosques certainly got plenty of coverage in the media this week (as was the intention, no doubt).

Before looking at the report itself, it is worth taking a moment to highlight the general attitude of its author, Dr. Denis MacEoin.

Elsewhere, he has said:

Just as our parents and grandparents fought the dark ideology of Nazism in the 1930s and 40s, so I believe this generation has the heaviest of responsibilities face to face with this growing threat to all civilized values. Not just the West, but the peoples of the Islamic world too may see their way of life changed for ever should the totalitarian spectre impose itself and its deadening hatred of life on all we and they hold dear.

I don’t like to speak in terms of historic moments or symbolic conflicts, but I’m afraid that, as this struggle intensifies, I am bound to do so.

Civilization itself is at stake. The values of democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and the open society are as much or more at risk today than in the decades when we confronted, first German fascism and then Soviet communism.

He has also said:

I do not hold a brief for Islam. On the contrary, I have very negative feelings about it… I am pro-Israeli and involve myself in the defence of Israel…

To be fair, I should also mention that that second quotation was taken from a complaint Dr MacEoin made to Dhimmi Watch concerning the “gung-ho ignorance masquerading as informed comment” which appears in their comment threads.

Dr MacEoin’s attitude towards Muslims and his lack of any sort of ability to maintain perspective* is no reason to dismiss the findings of his report out of hand, of course. I include this merely as a context.

So let’s look at the report. Policy Exchange says:

The report is the most comprehensive academic survey of its kind ever produced in the UK and is based on a year-long investigation by several teams of specialist researchers into the availability of extremist literature and covers more than a hundred mosques and Islamic centres throughout the UK.

A comprehensive academic survey, they say.

Well, I’ve had a look at it (pdf) and I’m not sure that’s the description you’d want to use for it. For a start, can anyone direct me to the peer reviewed journal which published this “comprehensive academic survey”? I’m no scientist but I believe that’s the standard way in which academic surveys gain legitimacy. No?

As far as I can tell, it’s been published exclusively by Policy Exchange themselves, the same organisation which commissioned and funded the “research”.

And what of the methodology used in the report?

Methodology

In November 2006 four research teams (each comprising two people) were dispatched over a six month period to 100 Islamic institutions in a variety of locations across Britain… The focus for their research was on sites of religious instruction – which for the most part meant mosques… The teams’ brief was to investigate the extent to which literature inculcating Muslim separatism and hatred for the ‘non-believer’ was accessible in those institutions – both in terms of being openly available and also being obtainable ‘under the counter’.

There’s more but it really doesn’t get any more enlightening. It seems that this “comprehensive academic survey” specifically set out to find as many offensive pieces of literature as possible and that’s all it attempted to do.

The report claims to have found offensive material in 26% of the Mosques they investigated. Did the teams investigate the context in which this literature was available or the prominence given to these publications? Did they attempt to build a clear understanding of the situation by recording the number of publications containing counter-arguments available from the same institutions?

No, they did not.

In Edinburgh Central Mosque, for example, the report found one publication they deemed objectionable and that was enough for the Mosque to be included in the list of distributors of hate. Was that one publication sitting overlooked on a dusty bottom shelf while more moderate literature was widely available, prominently displayed and actively promoted? I suspect that’s the reality, as does Osama Saaed, but this is not something which Policy Exchange’s “comprehensive academic survey” concerns itself with.

If you were to visit libraries in the UK, you could find similar literature and get a very high headline figure indeed. Without context, this finding, while true, would be essentially meaningless.

It seems then that the survey was designed so as to allow as many Mosques as possible to be included in the headline grabbing figures. No attempt was made to investigate the full picture of the literature available at British Mosques or the way it is used and distributed. It was instead cherry picking on a grand scale; a comprehensive academic study into the literature being promoted in British Mosques, it most certainly was not.

None of the above is to deny that there is extremist literature to be found in some British Mosques, of course. Nor is it to deny that the Saudi government actively seeks to promote its intolerant version of Islam in other countries including the UK. The point is merely that headlines generated by flawed reports masquerading as academic surveys should not be taken at face value.

* If you agree with MacEoin’s contention that “the values of democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and the open society are as much or more at risk today… “, I’ve got three words for you: Battle of Britain. And another three: Cuban missile crisis.

When the Prince of Darkness starts talking about “serious consequences” for Iran, it provokes a troubling sense of deja vu. When Little Tony Blair joins in with a textbook evocation of the Nazis, that feeling is only reinforced.

There are differences between Iran and Iraq however. We should not lose sight of the fact that the Iranians actually could develop geopolitically significant weapons of mass destruction in a matter of years if they so desire. The IAEA does have real concerns regarding the purposes of Iran’s nuclear programme and Larijani’s resignation and his replacement with an Ahmadniejad ally suggests that Iran’s Supreme Leader is inclined to favour the President’s hardline approach. The Iranians insist that their programme is for exclusively peaceful purposes and it may well be but questions undoubtedly remain.

In truth, it is perfectly possible that the Iranians want nuclear weapons or, more likely perhaps, the capacity to build nuclear weapons if the regime is threatened. Given what has happened to Iraq and given also the constant belligerent “axis of evil” rhetoric, it would hardly be surprising if the Iranian regime was seeking to acquire a means of defending itself. Indeed, it can be argued that this would be the most rational strategy it could adopt. There are not many government’s in the world who would not attempt to defend themselves and their countries from a perceived threat.

The Iranian nuclear programme pre-dates the invasion of Iraq of course but it isn’t a huge leap to suggest that it is that unprovoked attack on their neighbour along with an essentially explicit suggestion that they’d be next which has made them so unwilling to compromise on this issue.

If (and it is still if) they are attempting to acquire the means to build nuclear weapons, what could be done to stop them? The answer is not a lot, especially if you’re the government’s of the US and UK.

For a start, moral authority on this issue isn’t helped by the fact that these countries have no genuine intention of abiding by the disarmament pillar of the NPT. Indeed, the UK, by adopting the precautionary principle in renewing its Trident capability, has implicitly admitted that it has no intention of abiding by the disarmament pillar at any point in the foreseeable future. The UK government will still insist that the rest of the treaty is fully implemented by other countries but the bits they consider to be detrimental to the UK’s national interest will simply be ignored. Not the loftiest of positions then.

In practical terms, the options are extremely limited. A land invasion of Iran is a non-starter. Even if the chicken hawks could create the political climate which would allow it, there simply aren’t enough troops to do the job. The Iranian regime knows this and it may well be a further reason for their refusal to compromise. They’re holding the best hand and they know it.

With an invasion ruled out, the favoured strategy of the armchair generals appears to be some form of limited strategic bombing campaign targeting Iranian nuclear facilities. There are so many problems with this approach that it’s hard to know where to start. First of all, Iraq should have been a graphic and bloody illustration of the inexplicably overlooked fact that “the other side” also has a significant say in the scope, scale, tactics and outcome of any military action. The armchair generals still don’t seem to understand this most basic rule of warfare.

A “limited” campaign will be far from limited when the Iranians respond in the ways the US military is least able to deal with. Coalition forces in Iraq would be a prime target. The notion of a “limited” military effort is a dangerous fantasy, as facile as the infamous belief in “sweets and flowers”.

And what would be the result of this “limited” bombing campaign? It may be a setback for the Iranian nuclear programme if certainly facilities are destroyed but it certainly wouldn’t provide any guarantees or offer any sort of long term solution. It would, however, create a tremendous backlash of Iranian nationalism as well as renewed support for the regime. If the Iranian government is trying to acquire the ability to build nuclear weapons, they’re not going to stop because of this. In fact, it’d only increase their determination.

Attacks like these would also create a further wave of anti-Western sentiment among (some) Muslims and give further credibility to bin Laden’s “the West hates Islam” propaganda. The long term damage will almost certainly far outweigh any potential benefits. Unfortunately, this option still looks the one most likely to be implemented by the Bush administration.

If they manage to resist the bombing, that leave sanctions or covert attempts to foster regime change. Neither looks like having a high chance of success in the current climate. If the Iranians really want to develop a nuclear weapons capability, it’s hard to see what will stop them achieving it.

There are a lot of “ifs” in all of this. After Iraq, those who continue to strip away caveats and express a certainty they can’t possibly substantiate are probably lost causes. It is certainly possible, however, that one of the most significant consequences of the Iraq war could also be an irony of truly gargantuan proportions. A war built on the lie that there was an urgent need to disarm Saddam of non-existent WMDs along with the idiotic fantasy that it would stabilise the region could result in a nuclear capable Iran in an increasingly unstable Middle East.

In a way, the most worrying thing is that many of those who were influential in the original decision to invade Iraq are still in positions of power. It’s hard to imagine a group of people who are less qualified to deal with the Iranian situation.

The actions of this terrorist have turned the spotlight on liberals, libertarians and all those others opposed to the ever expanding power of the state. It is time for them to make a choice.

Will they renounce their dangerous opposition to ID Cards and the National Database? Will they publicly support the rapid expansion of the government’s entirely secure DNA database? Will they wholeheartedly and sincerely endorse the government’s national children’s database? (And will they also support the perfectly sensible exclusion for the children of the people who made it compulsory for everyone else’s children to be included?)

Will they renounce the ridiculous idea that there could be any legitimate reason to oppose the government’s expansion of its ability to monitor its subjects in ever greater detail? And will they acknowledge that there are absolutely no legitimate grievances against the actions of the government.

At this crucial moment, it is to be hoped that these liberals will finally accept what all civilised people have always known; the government always knows best.

But I fear that many will not. A large number will continue to actively justify and support the actions of despicable terrorists. They will embrace violence rather than rejecting it. Many, brainwashed by the extremist philosophies of John Stuart Mill, will refuse to accept that their so called grievances are based on a dangerous, discredited and out-dated belief system. They will refuse to acknowledge the utter lack of credibility of their “arguments”, despite the fact that their facile nature has been proved beyond doubt by these vicious letter bomb attacks. It is impossible to see how refusal to accept this can be anything other than a wilful denial of reality fuelled by an unthinking hatred of the government.

These apologists should know this; you’re either with us or against us in the fight against terror! Anyone who refuses to actively combat this dangerous ideology will be held accountable for their inactivity.

Well liberals, what’s it to be?

And remember, the government will know which side you choose to take. They always know…

The death of Rhys Jones is a tragic event. Sadly, the media’s almost orgasmic delight at having such an emotive story to cover during the silly season is helpful only to those looking to boost sales/viewing figures. Obsolete has written an excellent post on that.

What I’d like to do is focus on just one point from this case. There is undoubtedly a real problem in some areas with violent groups intimidating people into silence when something like this happens. The police are trying very hard to reassure the public that they will be protected if they come forward with evidence.

From the BBC:

Speaking at a press conference near the spot where Rhys was shot, Ch Supt Chris Armitt said: “We understand that people are concerned about giving information to the police, we understand that people are frightened.

“[But] what I want to say to people is, listen, they’ve got to stand up and they’ve got be counted.

“We have ways of protecting members of the public who come forward with information, we can protect their identity.”

That’s perfectly sensible.

And this is from the same report:

Police have confirmed they have spoken to a woman seen pushing a pram near the Fir Tree pub just before the shooting.

That’s utterly barking.

Apparently, these Einstein’s have not worked out that if this women has seen the perpetrators of this crime, there’s a strong possibility that they’d have seen her too and that they might know who she is. If you were that woman, how would you feel next time you had to wheel your pram past the Fir Tree pub? Or the next time you hear a funny noise in the middle of the night?

This police confirmation and the media reporting of the same must be some new form of identity protection involving double bluff and…

No, sarcasm won’t do. This is absolutely ridiculous. How many other witnesses have been put off from coming forward because of this announcement? We’ll never know now.

Many years ago my mother saw two men syphoning petrol from the row of cars in the street in front of our house. My father was away on business so she phoned a neighbour (a prison warder) and asked him to contact the police; being a young mother alone with three children in the house, she didn’t want to phone directly and have the police come to our door in sight of the men. The police came, caught the culprits in the act, locked them in the back of the car, went to the neighbour’s door, took a brief statement and them came to ours to do the same. They did this in full view of the two men in the back of the car. Although no further harm came to the family as a result of this idiocy, it did have an effect on my mother and on her attitude towards the police. She felt that they had needlessly endangered herself and, more importantly, her children.

In recent conversation with her, I’ve argued that things have improved considerably in the intervening years. Today, as we sat together watching a BBC bulletin containing the information above, I had to concede that they might not have improved that much.

Since John Bolton was ousted from his position as US ambassador to the UN, he appears have taken up permanent residence in the Newsnight studios. Last night, complaining that the IAEA under Elbaradei has refused to say exactly what the neo-cons want him to say on Iran, Bolton came out with this:

“All that Elbaradei has said, and he is an apologist for Iran, in effect, is that he doesn’t have evidence of the programme. I think the intelligence is there for all to see.”

Has a familiar ring to it, wouldn’t you say? Hands up all those who remember being called an apologist for Saddam back in the day.

Bolton was, of course, one of the cheerleaders for the war against Iraq. And he was in the lead in the Bush administration’s attempt to block Elbaradei’s reappointment as head of the IAEA in 2005. Being good at the job and displaying integrity in the face of enormous pressure is not acceptable when it exposes the extent to which political dogma overrides the facts in the Bush Whitehouse. Fortunately, Bolton lost. For the record, 34 of the 35 members of the IAEA board member countries supported Elbaradei’s reappointment. Only one was opposed.

In the now traditional ironic style, the war on Iraq which Bolton was so enthusiastic about has actually strengthened the position of the Iranian regime to unprecedented levels. Bolton should have himself shot for aiding the enemy.

And Iran, unlike Iraq, could theoretically acquire the ability to build nuclear weapons in the not too distant future. Whether they are attempting to, as Elbaradei rightly points out, remains open to doubt. Not for Bolton and chums, of course, but for rational people not blinded by ideology.

There are plenty of commentators who argue that after the monumental disaster of Iraq, the US would not possibly take military action against Iran. I disagree. It is important to realise that Bolton, and indeed the Bush regime generally, are absolutely unable to learn from their own mistakes because they are almost entirely impervious to the facts.

And if that doesn’t scare you, you’re a lot braver than me.