Extraordinary Obfuscation

"The papers we have uncovered so far suggest that there could be more than the two cases referred to in the House by the foreign secretary"

"We now cannot say that we have received no such requests for the use of UK territory or air space for 'extraordinary rendition'

"We should try to avoid getting drawn on detail" and "try to move the debate on... underlining all the time the strong counter-terrorist rationale for close co-operation with the US".

A leaked memo finally confirms that Jack Straw looks like he's lying because he is actually lying.

Channel 4 News [and Newsnight - see below] says the memo also warns that the transfer of suspects to US territories outside the normal judicial process, and transfers to a third country, are "probably usually illegal in international law".

It also explains why he is lying. Two for one. Now that's value.

The memo's not up the New Statesman yet. (Hope they don't put it behind a paywall. Ave a art, guv...)

There's something for the Foreign Affairs Select Committee to investigate. My advice would be to start by asking Straw why he didn't feel the need to come to the House to correct the written statement he made in December. Or ask when it was that the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary discovered that "[w]e now cannot say that we have received no such requests for the use of UK territory or air space for 'extraordinary rendition' ". Just a couple of suggestions.

For anyone who didn't see Newsnight (Wednesday), it had a report on the memo and it'll be available online for 24 hours.

More on this to follow, I expect. Much more.

Update

The Guardian:

The document says that in the most common use of the term - namely, involving real risk of torture - rendition could never be legal. It also says that the US emphasised torture but not "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment", which binds Britain under the European convention on human rights.

The Independent:

Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, told Parliament on 12 December last year that checks had uncovered no occasion since the attacks of 11 September 2001 when the US had asked to use British airspace for rendition flights. But in a briefing note to Tony Blair's office five days earlier - obtained by the New Statesman magazine - the Foreign Office admitted it had no idea how many times the UK had allowed such flights to cross its skies.

Tags: News, Politics, Extraordinary Rendition, Jack Straw, Tony Blair

Reality Alert

It seems that one US government department has not been able to ignore the realities of daily life in Iraq. Originally reported in the Washington Post and covered today in the Guardina, USAID, the official US foreign aid agency, has published its assessment of the security situation in Iraq. The analysis was in an annex attached to a document inviting contractors to bid for reconstruction projects in Iraqi cities. This assessment was published on 2nd January this year.

Selected quotes from the WP article:

• Although President Bush and senior administration officials tend to see the enemy primarily as Saddam Hussein loyalists and foreign terrorists, the USAID analysis also places emphasis on "internecine conflict," which includes "religious-sectarian, ethnic, tribal, criminal and politically based" violence.
• "It is increasingly common for tribesmen to 'turn in' to the authorities enemies as insurgents, this as a form of tribal revenge," the paper says.
• The paper describes how in the southern part of Iraq, which is dominated by Shiites, "social liberties have been curtailed dramatically by roving bands of self-appointed religious-moral police." In cities, women's dress codes are enforced and barbers who remove facial hair have been killed, and liquor stores and clubs have been bombed.
• The breakdown of Iraqi society and "the absence of state control and an effective police force" have let "criminal elements within Iraqi society have almost free rein," the paper states. Iraqi criminals in some cases "have aligned themselves with most of the combating groups and factions to further their aims" and Baghdad "is reportedly divided into zones controlled by organized criminal groups-clans," it states.
• "As political parties regain importance in the emerging democracy, there is an increased risk they may devolve into conflict groups," the paper warns.

That this should be a US government department's assessment is quite extraordinary. The liberal media have been all over this. Right?

An unscientific test courtesy of Google News appears to suggest that the Washington Post, the Guardian, and about five or six other organisations worldwide have bothered to mention this analysis at the time of writing. Yes, those evil media types just can't pass up an opportunity to have a go at President Bush and his administration. All 8 of them.

The Guardian do give voice to an alternative explanation for this report:

Judith Yaphe, a former CIA expert on Iraq now teaching at the National Defence University in Washington, said... USAid could have published the document to pressure the White House to increase its funding.

Because we know that publicly questioning the US administration's fictitious version of the situation is a great way to get the President on your side. Oh yes, that's very convincing.

Tags: News, Politics, Iraq, USAid, President Bush

Food Blogging

A recipe for humble pie

Take one Prime Ministerial Respect agenda, add one Chancellor's British Day proposal, and then stir in a British Lion egg*. Bake in an opinion poll until ready then serve hot to newpaper journalists:

THE Royal Family and the Prime Minister have come bottom in a poll of what makes people proud to be British. Two-thirds of those questioned in a survey exploring patriotism said they were proud to be British because of British history; 63 per cent found pride in the countryside and 54 per cent were proud of the British people.

British comedy scored 52 per cent, and the country's inventions 44 per cent. But the Royals inspired pride in only 31 per cent of people, while politics in general and Tony Blair in particular did so in just 11 per cent.

Mmm... embarrassing (to paraphrase Homer).

Opinion polls can obviously be misleading and they can be designed to steer people towards confirming whatever it was that those who commissioned them wanted 'find out'. In this case, it's hard to believe that the people at British Lion Eggs were intending to make a political point.

Eleven per cent. It seems that Blair and Brown are hardly likely to be on the first choice list when it comes to promoting respect and national pride in this country.

We didn't really need an opinion poll to tell us that. They obviously do though. I wonder if they've seen it?

* The poll was conducted for a "So Very British" British Lion egg promotion. Not that I've got inside information - this was reported in a Press and Journal article but it's not online.

Tags: News, Politics, Respect, Britishness, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown

More Cheers for Peers

Lords-a-leaping. Two days in a row. Remarkable.

Outlawing the glorification of terrorism is a stupid, unworkable idea. I started to explain why, but can't quite nail it down to my satisfaction. Honestly though, it's a stupid idea. It's comes down to that old problem of defining terrorism again. I'm going to write a post on the underlying reasons why it's so difficult to define at some point. In the meantime, the challenge* is always open to doubters

You can be sure that this won't put the government off though. Tony Blair doesn't think it's a problem at all - "I mean, it is the, it’s the, killing of innocent people, um, deliberately, innocent civilians". As Justin pointed out over at Europhobia, "It's back to the old question: is it incompetence or mendacity that drives New Labour?" They were discussing the government's attitude towards the cost of ID cards but the question seems to apply equally well here.

* Navel Gaving again - Having read that post back, it seems that I was slighly irritated when I wrote it. I think it was the disovery that the comments had gone from the post linked in that post. It was my favourite (and longest) thread on this blog and I thought it did a really job job of explaining why terrorism can't easily be defined. I was pretty hacked off to discover that the comment were no longer there. Sigh.

Anyhoo, please don't let the irritated tone of the post put you off.

Tags: News, Politics, Terrorism, Tony Blair

Son, we live in a world that has walls...

Blairwatch has more on the al Jazeera memo.

When it was first alleged that Bush and Blair had discussed bombing al Jazeera, many people noted that Blair did not actually issue an official denial. Blair said "[l]ook, there's a limit to what I can say - it's all sub judice, but honestly, I mean, conspiracy theories..." That's as fine an example of speaking while not actually saying anything as you're ever likely to find. The Prime Minister's official Spokesman refused to comment on the matter.

Today, for the first time, Tony Blair's official spokesman has issued an outright denial. The memo in quesion apparently does not contain any reference to discussions concerning bombing any Al Jazeera bureaux anywhere. Amusingly, the PMOS insisted that the claim had already been firmly denied. Er, when?

Anyway, this does raise the question as to why it is possible to issue this denial today when it was not possible to do so in November. The court case is still pending. Is increasing pressure being brought to bear on Blair to make this story disappear? Has this pressure forced him to issue this denial at this time? He has strenously avoided doing so up till now, after all.

Given the evidence available so far, today's statement appears to be highly questionable (I could have been a politician you know). Are the government going to publish the memo and give all of us suspicious blogger types red faces? *waits*

Alternatively, in the real world, the memo could be leaked by a whistleblower. There are around 350 bloggers standing by their desks and ready for action. If what the PMOS said today was a lie, the public definitely have a right to know. We just want to know the truth. Where's the harm in that?

Tags: News, Politics, Aljazeera Memo, President Bush, Tony Blair

TTOAST

A while back, my interwebs friend Good Blair and I discussed posting random acts of kindness on our blogs.* We've decided to try again. Blair has already posted the first one here.

This is my first post in what will hopefully be a series of Tuesday Tokens of Altruistic Subjective Thoughtfulness. A TTOAST to human kindness if you will.

A couple of days ago, I was in a supermarket. I wasn't really paying attention as I walked round the end of an aisle and very nearly collided with a small elderly lady.

To fully understand the scene it's necessary to indulge in a little self-description. I'm 6 feet, four inches tall and no-one's suggested I'm thin since I was at school. It had been maybe three or four days since I'd had a shave and I've never quite grown out of a tendency towards wearing skaterboy clothes (a penchant for which I developed about 10 years before it was fashionable which says something about something most probably concerning the fact that I'm too old to dress that way now). My profile photo is a caricature , I don't ever wear a baseball cap under a hood, but it's not a long way from how I was dressed at the time that this happened.

So, 6 feet, four inches of scruffiness is stood directly in front of this small elderly woman;I'm a lot closer than would normally be considered acceptable. I'm having one of those frozen moments when my brain is just trying to get into gear to offer an apology and take a step or two back. While that process struggles towards some sort of outcome, the lady looks up and just smiles the most friendly smile. By the time I'd managed to splutter out my apology, I was smiling too. "No, no, I wasn't looking where I was going either" she said and off she went, still smiling.

It was the smallest thing but it made me smile for much of the rest of the day. And it's made me smile again while writing this post.

What token of thoughtfulness have you observed recently?

* I know that some cynical types will feel that this is all a bit cliched. Maybe it is. There is, however, nothing wrong with celebrating the fact that human beings are capable of being nice to each other, cliche or not. Let's celebrate good stuff, hurray!!!

Tags: TTOAST

Via lot's of people, there's a live webchat with the head of the governent's respect taskforce today at 3pm. Ms Casey is going to discuss the respect agenda and you can submit a question in advance. I put in a short bland one in the faint hope that it might increase the chances of it being raised.

Louise, I fear that giving the proposed summary powers to the police will damage their standing in the eyes of local communities. This will surely undermine the respect which these proposals are designed to foster.

See you on the interwebs at 3.

Update - 3.48pm
I may be losing the will to live. Not so much becuae of anything writen but because the moderated format makes the whole thing terminally dull. I nominate this for most likely astroturfed sentence -
Now that ASBOs and other such measures are being used effectively in areas which have previously been out-of-control...
No mention of the potential pitfalls of summary powers yet.

Update - After the dust settles
Nosemonkey agrees on the artificial grass question and summarises the whole affair rather accurately. No questions on worries over the lack of respect engendered by summary powers. How very surprising.

Tags: News, Politics, Respect

Absolute Assurances Priority

My MP, Anne Begg, asked a sensible question in the House yesterday. She asked Charles Clarke what assurances he could give to those constituents concerned about the security of the National Identity Register. Safety's reply is telling:

I hear absolute assurances—[Interruption.]

I hear? Anne didn't ask what you hear Charlie boy. I presume the interuption was to point this out.

I apologise, Mr. Speaker. I give assurances that the security of the database will be our absolute priority in all circumstances.

What happened to the "absolute" assurances? Absolute priority is something quite different. It's a splendid example of politician speak though. Charlie cannot offer an absolute assurance that the register will be secure because he knows such an assurance would come back to haunt him. His carefully worded reply seeks to obscure that fact.

The last question in the debate, asked by John Bercow, sums up the problems with the scheme. (I really must try to stop agreeing with Conservatives.) Safety's reply is laughably ridiculous. You're wrong, so there! How very grown-up.

Tags: News, Politics, ID Cards

Don't touch it...

Blairwatch has the latest news on attempts to get the al Jazeera memo into the public domain. The memo has reared its head in a rare outing in the 'proper' media.

This saga doesn't reflect that badly on Blair; it portrays him as a restraining hand rather than a docile sidekick. The possibility that Blair is actually milking this for all it's worth has been raised by more than one cynical blogger. It's certainly something to consider.

Having thought about it, I'm not convinced. The media, for the most part, have been treating this story like an oversized chicken with a runny nose and a bit of a fever. They can see it, they might mention it on occassion, but they're not prepared to get too close to the potentially dangerous bird.

Behind this is, I think, an overwhelming desire not to contribute to the possible embarrassment of President Bush. To do so would be to risk inclusion in the mythical 'blacklist' of denied access journalism. By my reckoning, Newsnight are on that non-existent list.

Paxman: "Tonight, in an exclusive Newsnight interview, I'll be speaking to President George W. Bush. I'll be asking him whether the war in Iraq has failed and what it all means for the war on terror."

Won't be holding my breath for that one. But I digress.

The memo. It does appear to exist. Al Jazeera are trying to have it made public. Pressure is mounting on the government. The media needs to stop walking on eggshells.

Given that this memo is alleged to contain evidence of incitement to perpetrate an illegal act of violence against non-combatants, it is in the public interest that its contents be released. As I said, Blairwatch has the details.

Tags: News, Politics, Aljazeera Memo, President Bush

Three Cheers for the Peers

The Lords have done the decent thing. Unsurprisingly, the government are refusing to buckle and continue to insist that all opposition to their scheme is not credible in some unspecified manner. With luck, the Lords will have slowed the bill down enough for someone in the Labour Party to come to their senses and realise just what a shambles this'll be if they go ahead.

This has nothing to do with principles. Many people, myself included, have principled objections to the National Identity Register but finding a Labour politician who understands principles isn't easy these days (there are still a few).

New Labour does at least claim to understand pragmatism though. I honestly don't think it's an exaggeration to say that it's political suicide for the party. When the bills start arriving on people's doorsteps, when the scanners refuse to recognise that you exist, when the fines start going out, when you've got to spend your precious time trying to get your details corrected or your fingerprints taken, and when the register is shown to have been seriously compromised for the first time, the political discourse is really going to hit the fan.

Blair used to have a nose for these things. As far as many in the Labour Party were concerned, it was his only redeeming feature; it was this instinct which made him bearable in a party desperate for power. Now that he's lost that instinct, it's only a matter of time before they show the mendacious one the door. (For me, unsurprisingly it'll be too little too late. Any respect I once had for the Labour Party has long since evaporated.) Let's hope they get round to it before this midden becomes law.

Today, the full costs of the National Identity Register, or estimates thereof, are still not being revealed to the public, the Lords, or indeed parliament. Even academics involved in the scheme don't have the necessary information.

In a new report, the LSE sticks by its claims that the scheme would cost between £10bn and £19bn over 10 years if the government followed its original plans.

Simon Davies, one of the academics involved in the scheme, said it was impossible to updates the costs because the government was "changing the goal posts", including making it less secure.

He complained there was a "culture of secrecy".

Laugh or cry? The choice is yours.

Tags: News, Politics, ID Cards, Authoritarianism

Who owns your identity?

Yet again the House of Lords have called into question the wisdom of supporting the Elect the Lords campaign. The rate at which Blair is currently shipping his cronies into the other place however, makes reform even more necessary in my view. (Obviously a very different voting system would need to be put in place but that's for another time.)

Today, though, the Lords have their sights set on the ID Card and National Identity Register bill. Let's hope they give in the kicking it deserves.

Last week, I received a reply to my letter to Andy "I don't hear too many people questioning the principle of whether we should have an ID card scheme" Burnham. The central question was this:

I believe that my personal information, my fingerprints, iris patterns, the shape of my head and so forth are my own private property. I am not a criminal and cannot see any reason why the government should be able to demand that I supply this information for storage in a national identity database. It seems to me that this would fundamentally change the relationship between the government and the people they represent. Leaving aside the many questions as to the potential problems with the proposed scheme, I cannot see how the government has provided any argument which overcomes this objection. I would be most interested to know whether such an argument exists.

I'll be updating this post with my thoughts on whether the reply has answered this question shortly. Bet you can't guess which way I'll go...

Update
The reply is from a member of the Identity Cards Programme Team at the Home Office and a scan can be found here. I've really tried to be as objective as possible in this assessment. It seems that there are two possible ways to counter my objection to the scheme. You could demonstrate that the benefits of the scheme outweigh the costs to civil liberties or you could dispute that the scheme impacts on these civil liberties.

Benefits
In practice, it is sometimes necessary to trade liberty for some other benefit. We are all happy to be searched before boarding an aircraft because we know it reduces the risk that we'll be blown up or hijacked. It is an infringment of our privacy, we've done nothing to warrant such a search, but the benefits outweigh the costs. Perfectly sensible.

So what benefits does the National Identity Register (NIC) offer? Well, I've read the letter through a number of times and the author provides only one.

The Government's proposals are designed to safeguard, not erode, civil liberties by protecting people's true identity against fraud and by enabling them to prove their identity more easily when accessing public or private services.

Leave aside the denial for now and consider that this is the only sentence in the letter which puts forward a possible benefit provided by the register. The many other claims which have been bandied about by the government, stopping terrorism, illegal immigration control and so on, have all been abandoned after they were shown to be easily disproved. What about this one?

The Guardina article Nosemonkey linked to points out that "[a]s to slashing welfare state misuse, the works and pensions minister Chris Pond accepted that more than 90% of it involves lying about circumstances rather than identity". So identity fraud isn't a major problem when it comes to abuses of the welfare system, ie "when accessing public services". I personally have no difficult proving my identity to those private services I chose to use so a benefit which makes this "easier" doesn't really impact me. Perhaps most people in the UK do find this difficult?

It seems to me that the benefits of this scheme, if they exist at all, are extremely limited in scope. It is very hard to see how the benefit offered by the Home Office would outweigh the cost in terms of civil liberties.

Denials
The second option is to dispute that the proposals have a negative impact on civil liberties. As can be seen from the one sentence which did offer a possible benefit, this is now the main thrust of the government's defence of the scheme. To many people, this tactic is all the proof they need to demonstrate just how unjustified the scheme is. It is, to many, patently absurd to suggest that the government could keep detailed records about every person in the country without a negative effect on civil liberties. I'm trying to be objective so I'll try to understand the claim. Feel free to scroll down though. This is, in many ways, a pointless exercise.

Denial number 1:

I assure you that the information that may be held in the Identity Cards Scheme is strictly limited by the Identity Cards Bill. This is listed in Schedule 1 of the Bill and included personal information such as name, address, date and place of birth.

I assume the author doesn't think I'll have checked what Schedule 1 actually says and that I will somehow be reassured that they won't be storing the details mentioned in my letter.
Schedule 1 - Information that may be recorded in the register

Section 2 - Identifying information
The following may be recorded in an individual’s entry in the Register—
(a) a photograph of his head and shoulders;
(b) his signature;
(c) his fingerprints;
(d) other biometric information about him.

Strictly limited by means of the restrictive, tightly defined "other biometric information"? These are the very people who want us to trust them. Er, no. If you're prepared to use such disingenuous methods to "debate" the issue, I'm afraid I wouldn't trust you to get pissed in barrel of whisky. An attempt to reassure me based on an implicit denial that "my fingerprints, iris patterns, the shape of my head" will be included in the register doesn't inspire me with any great confidence. Fingerprints will be. Iris patterns probably will be too. Ignoring that reality isn't very useful in trying to address my point.

And what of Section 4 (l) which allows the register to include "the number of any designated document which is held by him and is a document the number of which does not fall within any of the preceding sub-paragraphs"? That sound just so very strictly limited.

So far, one misleading and utterly meaningless denial. The government are going to take possession of my fingerprints and other identifying features.

Denial number 2

This strict control can be contrasted with the vast amount of data that the public is happy to give voluntarily to private sector organisations such as mobile phone operators, credit reference agencies, and supermarkets. For example, according to surveys, as at 27 August last year, 60% of UK consumers - 26.8m people - held 'loyalty cards'.

The letter goes on to outline just what sorts of information we give to these private sector companies. It's a strawman so weak, I can barely be bothered... *Takes deep breath* I don't have any loyalty cards. I chose not to use them because I don't want my details on their poxy databases. Can I do the same for the ID card? There's no denial in the letter of my assertion that the government will "be able to demand" these details from me. Sainsbury's can't fine me up to £2,500 if their chief executive decides that I should apply for their card and I continue to refuse to do so. And I though Blair understood that there are significant differences between the public and private sectors?

What we have in denial 2 is an argument as to why the government thinks it can get away with implementing this scheme. It says nothing about it's effect on civil liberties. "They do it (sort of, if you volunteer your info) so we should be allowed to do it too"? The rallying cry of three year olds all over the country.

Denial number 3

This information [the info voluntarily supplied to the private sector] goes far beyond anything that the National Identity Register would be allowed by law to hold.

The Government's proposals are designed to safeguard, not erode, civil liberties by protecting people's true identity against fraud and by enabling them to prove their identity more easily when accessing public or private services.

It's the one with the "benefit" in it. I'm lost. The implication appears to be that the private sector will stop asking for this information once the bill comes into force. That is, as far as I can see, the only way that the bill could come close to being able to "safeguard" our civil liberties. Unless I've missed something, no-one is suggesting that this'll happen. Safeguard civil liberties by building an enormous extra government database on top of all those which already exist?

It occurs to me, not for the first time, that the Blair government probably don't understand the concept of civil liberty. They might find it useful to consult the very the first sentence of Wikipedia on the subject:

Civil liberties are protections from the power of governments.

Unless it's government who are busy stealing people's identities then I'm afraid they're hopelessly confused when they claim that the NIR will "safeguard" civil liberties. Blair doesn't seem to understand that power can be abused and that the government, as the ultimate power in the country, has more power to abuse than any other body. He is, in short, in denial.

That's it. That's the reply. (There's also a paragragh on the quantities of letters received by the Home Office concerning the scheme, I asked, but I'll leave that for another post as this one is already far too long.) Does it address my "principled objection" to the NIR? My best attempt at an objective analysis leads me to conclude that it does not.

My instinctive reaction is to yet again question Blair's ability to understand the most basic concepts. Is he, in fact, intellectually challenged?

As a postscript, treating people like idiots doesn't really do much to foster respect. It does very little to encourage participation in the political process either. A cynic would suggest that that is the point, it'd be a good way to silence dissent after all. That possibility is all the motivation I need to keep on trying to hassle the manipulative, disingenuous, downright idiotic toerags.

Tags: News, Politics, ID Cards, Tony Blair, Authoritarianism

Another sensible, not in any way deeping worrying, security measure from our ever so trustworthy government. They really are considering tapping MPs phones. How many suspected terrorists are actually working in the House of Commons? Are there just a few isolated cases or has terrorism become endemic? The nation has a right to know.

Tags: News, Politics, Tony Blair, Respect

Reach for the stars

NASA have been in the news today. For someone who worries about the influence of the the military-industrial complex*, there's a lot to dislike about NASA. Some people will no doubt be shocked that I've raised that leftie conspiracy theory nonsense. The military-industrial complex? Grow up man. That's a boogieman invented by that famous wishy-washy-liberal-leftie peacenik and, er, former Rebublican president, General Dwight D. Eisenhower...

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.
- General Eisenhower 1961

Yes, anyway, NASA. It is fully connected to the MIC. You might hear mention of Lockheed Martin, the largest defence contractor in the US and therefore, the largest in the world, in today's coverage. As they themselves say, "Lockheed Martin supports virtually every NASA mission that leaves planet Earth, including those that explore deep space and other planets in our solar system".

NASA will be the primary means by which space becomes militarised, should the US government choose to continue down that path. It seems clear such a decision would be a breach, in spirit and potentially also materially (depending on the weapons used), of the Outer Space Treaty.The US government has ratified this treaty and is theoretically bound by its terms. In reality, that's unlikely to limit the actions of the current US administration who seem to feel that international agreements are a great idea for other countries.

According to reports, Donald Rumsfeld is a key player in this new urge towards militarising space. There's a line from Lester Lyles (Commander, Air Force Material Command) in that report which unintentionally asks the salient question:

We cannot afford to loose [sic] this battle of technological dominance, and we will not loose [sic] that battle.

Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!

But just who are they fighting this battle for technological dominance with, exactly? The Russians? The Chinese? The ESA? The possibility that the US could lose this battle for technological dominance is, let's be kind, unlikely to happen in the short to medium term.

And the money? NASA has a budget of $16.4 billion for 2006. That's a lot of money.

So there a lot to dislike about NASA for someone with my political outlook. With that in mind, I can only say that today's successful mission was, like, totally cool.

"We travelled about three billion miles in space, we visited a comet, grabbed a piece of it and it landed here on Earth this morning," Dr Don Brownlee, Stardust principal investigator, told reporters at a news briefing in Utah.

Seriously, credit where it's due, that is utterly, amazingly, unbelievably cool. I wanna be an astronaut.

* This is a favourite story from my time at university and I have no found reason to disbelieve the tutor since he related it to us in 1996. In a small tutorial, we were dicussing the pervasive nature of the MIC in the US (it exists in the UK too mind). The tutor had spoken at a conference on the Cold War in the US during the Reagan years. He had shared a platform with one of the top brass from the Pentagon who was to present the US military's judgement of Soviet military capabilities to the conference. The General was sitting next to the tutor on the platform when he pulled some papers from his attache case. He glanced at them, then quickly put them back in his case. Without apparently realising that the man sitting next to him was a respected British academic, he said "Jesus, those were the real figures, can't have this lot hearing those". He then retrieved the correct papers from his case, with suitably inflated judgements, and delivered his speech.

For someone with a leftie streak, it's sometimes difficult to accept that civil servants could deliberately exaggerate the needs of their department in order to persuade government to increase their budgets. It's particularly hard to ignore in the US military though, perhaps because they genuinely believe they need to do it more than most other government departments - "You want answers?" "I want the truth!" "You can't handle the truth!" Never quite understood why so many "right-wingers" in the US don't seem to be able to see it. Small government, big military? Doublethink, Orwell, etc, etc...

Tags: News, NASA, Stardust, US Foreign Policy, Military Industrial Complex

The good fight

The Pakistan government has complained to the US government due to an alleged unauthorised military attack conducted inside its borders. It appears that the CIA have tried to kill Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's "second-in-command", but have instead killed at least 18 other people. The US government are currently denying knowledge of the attack.

The Sunday Telegraph:

American television networks initially reported the attack as a successful CIA strike, citing unnamed American intelligence officials who claimed that al-Zawahiri was likely to have been at the compound.

No doubt the media just made up these mystery intelligence officials. Or perhaps the United States government is just not prepared to admit that it has killed children in their homes this week.

The CIA discovers that a high profile al-Qaeda leader is secretly visiting the UK. An informant learns of his location, he's in Lemmington Spa (but is expected to be leaving soon), and passes this information on to the spooks. The CIA contacts the US airforce and are pleased to hear that a fully armed aircraft can be there in eight minutes. They give the go ahead. Three houses are destroyed in Lemmington Spa. Eighteen people are killed including five women and five children. Legitimate use of violence? For most people, whether they'd killed al-Zawahiri or not would be an irrelevance. For the record, it appears that they did not.

But perhaps these foreign people's lives are not worth quite so much as those of the residents of Lemmington Spa? Maybe it doesn't matter if the US military kills a few foreign people in the "war" on terror. After all, the terrorists take the lives of important people, not just some random Muslims in some shitty village no-one's ever heard of.

The moral high ground occupied by the Bush administration is a strange and mystifying place. Masters of the understatement, the Sunday Times opine that "to miss him [al-Zawahiri] again is an embarrassment for Washington". An embarrassment? Yeah, I hate killing children, it's just soooooooo embarrassing.

Tags: News, US Foreign Policy, Terrorism

Fly Your Flag

This is a sort of follow up to this post. The starting point is the attitudes prevalent among some US conservatives and neo-conservatives. Here's a quiz on that very subject.* The dehumanising comparison is quite startling.** Words like vermin, sub-human, genocide, and sterilisation are all used by the LGF crowd, particularly with reference to Palestinians. It is, according to many LGF commentors, perfectly OK to kill these sub-humans and in large numbers if possible. There's no middle ground, if you're a Palestinian, you deserve to die. There's also a distinct impression, sometimes openly expressed, that many of them actually think the same about all Muslims (these observations are obviously generalisations based on the beliefs of a particular group of people).

Concerning the stampede at the Hajj, I saw this earlier today:

We could do a lot better than 345...
[just daydreamin']

Any idea how they'd react to a Muslim commenting on the September 11th attacks in that way? Outrage? Yes. Justified outrage? Yes. Apply the same principles to themselves? No. There are obvious differences but can you say the people at the Hajj deserved to die any more than the victims of that day? File under "it'd be funny if it wasn't so very, very disturbing".

An "us and them" ideology which dehumanises a race, religion or nationality based soley on that criteria is obviously an extremely distorted one. Innocent until proven guilty? No thanks, he's a Palestinian, he must be guilty. It is frighteningly hateful stuff.

Nationalism plays a part in this and US nationalism is a powerful force. That, of itself, isn't necessarily a bad thing. There are very many proud, flag respecting Americans who are horrified by these attitudes. The problem occurs when strong nationalistic feelings are hijacked and manipulated by extremists in order to fuel a belief in their ideology. When this happens, it tends to propagate a simplistic black and white world view and an ideology whose supporters maintain that their beliefs cannot be legitimately questioned. To question is to be a traitor, a heretic, or simply a non-person. Islamic fundamentalists use religion as the main method of instilling, nurturing and fortifying their extremist ideology. For the US Christian Right, religion plays a strong part but nationalism is also a driving force. Respect for the flag has itself become an almost religious ceremonial tradition. As a not at all scientific guide, you might want to compare those guidlines to the same for the Union Jack. (Again, I must stress that respect for the flag of your country is not necessarily a bad thing. See proviso earlier in the paragraph. It's the hijackers which are the concern.)

None of this is news; many governments, at various times throughout history, have attempted to unite their populations by instilling a strong sense of nationalism and patriotic duty in their citizens. That these convictions have sometimes been exploited by governments for their own ends is not news. The fact that this sort of stoking and manipulation of nationalism can develop into jingoism, and worse, is also not news.

As such, it would seem likely that the neo-con intelligentsia, obligatory oxymoron joke, know that they are playing with fire by co-opting and exploiting US nationalism in the way they do. It may well be an effective method of maintaining support for their short term goals but they take the risk that it will spiral out of their control. How do they put the hate back in the box when they're finished with it? Do they even want to? How long do they say the "war" on terror will last again? These questions are a serious concern.

It was with those questions in mind that I happened to read an article earlier today and then took to writing what turned out to be the longest introduction to a story I've ever written. Nearly there.

Gordon - I've got ideas and stuff and its my turn now - Brown was speaking today about Britishness. He wants the government to encourage more of it. He seems to be suggesting some sort of national British day where we all take the day off to wave our Union Jack in the streets or something. He said:

Instead of the BNP using it as a symbol of racial division, the flag should be a symbol of unity and part of a modern expression of patriotism too. All the United Kingdom should honour it, not ignore it. We should assert that the Union flag by definition is a flag for tolerance and inclusion.

A cynic would have highlighted the "by definition" (I'm a cynic, don't pretend you're shocked). As in "we can do no wrong"? The British, and by implication the government, are by definition tolerant and inclusive, no matter what they actually do? No thanks, if it's all the same to you. I prefer to judge tolerance and inclusiveness on the amount of tolerance and inclusiveness you display, not on whether you are displaying a flag which "by definition" represents it.

He also said:

And what is our equivalent of the national symbolism of a flag in the United States in every garden?

Not a hugely appealing prospect to be honest, Gordon. It'd probably make your job a whole lot easier though. Unite behind the flag and keep us great unwashed from asking too many awkward questions about the actions of the government? I can just imagine it actually: "I cannot believe that you would disrespect the flag of this great country by asking me that question. Perhaps you'd like to emmigrate if your opinion of your own country is so low. You might try Iran or North Korea, I'm sure they would be most welcoming."

Britishness Gordon? Arse off. How about earning some respect for yourself? You could start by not remaining silent when Blair took us to war based on an exaggerated threat to our own security. Robin Cook knew that at the time so I'm fairly sure you did too. Oh, too late, you let it happen without a single word of protest. That's a big hit to your respectometer rating.

How about kicking the lying toerag out of the house next door then? You can evict people with a lack of respect for their communities now, you know. Perhaps you should leave along with him, silent one.

* I looked up a few of the comments from this quiz to make sure they really are on LGF. One I couldn't find because the post had been removed. I found some of the others though and there's no doubt that comments like these are frequently made. Here's a screenshot of one of them (Qu. 10) for anyone who hasn't yet become aqainted with the LGF comment swarm.** I suspect that comment would be illegal in this country under the new religious hatred/incitement laws which are, ironically, being introduced to combat Islamic extremism.

** No links, no trolls. See post directly under this one if interested.

Tags: Politics, Neo-Cons, Nationalism, Gordon Brown

This is not a love song

It's a test to see if a template edit to reinstall blogger comments has worked. Please ignore. (Good song though.)

Update
OK, that sort of worked. It was supposed to leave the Haloscan comments for old posts though. I'll see if I can retrieve them. I hate conditionality tags, just so you know. Hmm?

Update 2 - me and my blog - ie navel gazing
And now I've gone back to Haloscan. I think that because I've generally had the blogger comments hidden, every post is set to have but not show them. I added the conditionality tags and select show blogger comments on this post but they still show up on all posts instead of just this one. Ah well, it seems it's one or the other or both. Or go back and select hide blogger comments on every individual post with Haloscan comments. That way madness lies. Also, some discrepancy between main page and individual page layouts has caused confusion.

Haloscan it is then. I just wish they didn't delete older comments... just looked it up and they don't delete them, they "archive" them (after 4 months). You can apparently stop it happening and get old ones back by giving them money. I'm not complaining mind, their free service is pretty impressive.

Anyway, the reason I was going to reinstall blogger is because I wanted to link to sites known to have some "intemperate" readers (primarily LGF if you must know). I though non-anonymous blogger comments might deter trolls. I flatter myself that the LGF people would care or even notice alink from here of course. Still, very small risk, very big swarm. Why take the chance of having it coming my way and then have to deal with their aggressive bullying nonsense? Does raise the question as to whether it'd just be better to be totally honest and link the link. Otherwise, I'm speaking about people behind their backs. I've done this a couple of times recently and it's not really the way I like to do things.

That was the thinking behind it (as well as not losing older comments to the great archive in the sky). Link, but with a comment system which is less inviting for trolls than Haloscan's. Haloscan does, of course, record limited information about each commentor. Crosschecking that with Statcounter would give some more info on any trolls (not that I normally do this; I don't usually have a problem). Perhaps a "privacy policy" politely pointing this out would deter abusive comments. On the other hand, perhaps that's just really arsy. Can't really make up my mind on that or on whether it would actually have the desired effect.

I used to be indecisive, you know.

Tags: Interwebs, Blogging

Outsourcing

To torture or not to torture, that is the question asked by people with a broken moral compass. It is becoming increasingly clear where the US government stands on this matter.

Last year, the Council of Europe initiated an investigation into claims of secret prisons and other illegal activities. Dick Marty, the Swiss senator conducting the investigation, is to announce his preliminary findings later this month. Mr Marty does not seem willing to turn a blind eye as so many other have.

It's not possible to transport people from one place to another in such a manner without the secret services knowing about it. What was shocking was the passivity with which we all, in Europe, have welcomed these things. Europeans should be less hypocritical and not turn a blind eye. There are those who do the dirty work abroad but there are also those who know when they should close their eyes when that dirty work is being done
- Dick Marty, Council of Europe investigator

Blair will, of course, issue what will sound like an outright denial of any involvement in this. It will actually be another very carefully worded exercise in misdirection. As more and more evidence emerges, these "denials" become less and less credible. As a consequence, they are likely to become louder and be repeated endlessly in an attempt to drown out the realities of the situation. Isn't our government great?

Tags: News, Politics, Dick Marty, Torture

We're in a field of mushrooms?

Here's a commercial which really was banned in the US. It's what you might call "hard hitting". (Thanks to michael the tubthumper in the comments to the previous post).

The commercial wasn't actually banned at such. The "liberal" media just decided not to air it on their stations. Self-censorship you see. The US public don't want to see that sort of thing when they're relaxing in front of their TVs. It might upset them.

Of course people who live in heavily landmined countries cannot use self-censorship to protect themselves from the harsh realities of their daily lives. Self-censorship is fairly difficult to apply to a missing limb.

There seems to have been a collective conservative misunderstanding of the point the video was trying to make (more on that below). For the record, the US military have used landmines but they have certainly not been the worst culprits. Nevertheless, there is one country which is conspicuous by its absence on this list. If you're interested to know why one NATO country has not signed the treaty but the other 43 have, this might help.

Conservative reaction in the US
While looking up links, I read a blog post (and about 80 comments) on this on a conservative US website.* The most common reaction was that the UN was blaming the US for planting all these landmines all over the world, a classic case of prejudice leading to a misinterpretation of what the video actually says. The UN is attacking the US again, this is disgusting UN propaganda, the UN continues to blame everything on us, etc etc. It appears that anything done by the UN automatically generates what can only be described as hatred from people of a certain political persuasion in the US. The commercial clearly does nothing of the sort, of course. It is designed to encourage support for a worldwide ban on landmines, and, yes, to raise money for de-mining.

One comment for your consideration (a mild one):

Landmines just don't exist in the US. The ad just doesn't work. The place. The people. The situation... Of course, we know they are really wanting American dollars. Otherwise, the ad would have been played in areas where landmines are common.

Misses the point to such a degree that you've got to wonder whether the author is even on the same planet. Utterly bizarre. There's also talk of the despicable shock tactics of the UN. On the same post, a commentor uses close-up photos of the September 11th attacks to criticise the UN with the caption "what happens when we have too much UN and too many leftwingers and sand-nazis". So using actors to simulate an explosion in a campaign to rid the world of landmines is a bullying UN shock tactic. Using photos of real people jumping to their deaths to support of your own political beliefs on an unrelated matter is quite alright though. And the fact that the post itself is headlined "UN 'explodes' American kids" (with a bracketed explanation) isn't in any way an attempt to shock.

It's actually quite chilling. Opposition to their own opinions are simply unacceptable; any such opposition is automatically assumed to indicate either sympathy for or collaboration with "the evildoers". Their own opinions cannot be questioned because they have an absolute, unquestioning conviction that they are right in all senses of the word, and right all the time. In the real world, people who believe they are fundamentally incapable of doing wrong can be very dangerous people indeed. (A philosopher probably said that, or something like it, but I've no idea who it might have been.)

The other notable feature is the extraordinary rage expressed by many commentors. Part of it is this hatred of the UN, a feeling which leading neo-conservatives have gone out of their way to encourage. This is, of itself, a worrying state of affairs. The United States government was instramental in establishing the UN in an attempt to provide a peaceful framework for relations between nation-states. The institution has many flaws, there's no denying it. To discard it, however, is to plunge the international community back into an effective state of anarchy. This is likely to make the world a more dangerous place for most people in most countries.

The strongest member of any community, however, will always have a motivation to promote a system where power is the sole arbiter of right and wrong. This, I'm afraid, is certainly the motivation behind the neo-conservative atttacks on the UN. The PNAC has been reasonably open about this. In effect, their goal is to retain and expand the position of the US as "the world's pre-eminent power". Whether the rest of the world is happy for that to be the case is irrelevant - they're either with us or against us - because they're going to do it anyway. Complain and you must be a supporter of terrorism, a "bad guy". So it is with the UN. It has become a bad guy. As one commentor put it "after Saddam and Assad....is there any other evil such as the UN?" An extreme comparison by all accounts.

Another part of the rage directed towards this video was, I think, related to the randomness of the violence it portrays. In neo-conservativeland, everything is black and white. People are killed either because they are bad guys, or because they are fighting against the bad guys. Only the bad guys ever kill innocent people. As such, the indescriminate violence of an old but still active landmine is an affront to their belief system. It hints at the existence of shades of grey beyond their black and white world. Something is obviously wrong because their view is right, it's always right - this suggestion of greyness must be an evil plot by the bad guys. The result is comments like the Saddam/UN comparison above.

The UN
The UN needs to be reformed. The member states must do this; indeed the UN does not have the authority to restructure its own affairs. The UN is an institution which exists to serve its members and has no powers but those its members give it. The irony of criticising the UN is that it actually criticising its most powerful members (ie. the US and UK along with France, China, and Russia) who, more than any other actor, have the ability to reform the organisation.

It must be remembered that the UN is, first and foremost, a forum where disputes between members should be settled peacefully and where international norms of behaviour are agreed. It has a long way to go to be effective in that task. What does not help is to be ridiculed and marginalised by the government and supporters of the self-proclaimed leaders of the free world.

* No link, no trolls. You should be able to find it by googling un landmine video, it was on the first page, which is how I found it earlier this evening, except it seems to have stopped showing up since then. I've got the link saved so email me if you want to read it.

Tags: Politics, US Foreign Policy, Neo-Cons, UN

The commercial they tried to ban is available here on google video. Humour possibly not suitable for work. I guess it'd depend on how PC your work environment is.

Thanks BeANeR.

Tags: Humour, Interwebs

Pragmatism over Principle

There's been a lot of fuss in the blogosphere (sorry, there must be a better word) about Neil's defence of Tony Blair's planned extension of summary powers, much of it expressed in rather heated language. The comments to Neil's post are worth reading to get a flavour of it. I strongly disagree with Neil's view but I'll attempt to keep this polite. We are British, for goodness sake.

Neil argues, perhaps not surprisingly for a New Labour supporter, that we should abandon principle in favour of what works. In his hypothetical example, this means confiscating £10,000 from anyone who can't prove that they have a legitimate reason for carrying it. They are probably a criminal after all. This figure is, in fact, slightly misleading as it's actually £1,000 or more which Blair wants to confiscate in this way.

The principled objections to this approach have been well covered. Neil, alas, doesn't seem to get it. My hypotheticals probaby won't help but here they are anyway.

Number 1
Black, hoody wearing 20-something approaches police officers.

"Would you mind emptying your pockets please sir?"
"On what grounds?"
"Empty your pockets. What are you hiding?"
"Nothing. Look for yourself."
"What's are you doing with £1,000 on your possession?"
"I was going to buy a second hand car but I decided I didn't like it, not that it's any of your business."
"Can you prove that?"
"I've got the sellers telephone number."
"Very good sir. And you expect us to believe that, do you? We'll be having that money thank you very much."
"But, but I've just passed my test and that's the money for my new car..."
"Tell that to the judge when your appeal gets heard, sunshine."

You can always appeal against this summary justice, you see. Most comforting.

Number 2
White smartly dressed 20-something approaches police officers.

"Evening officers."
"Evening sir. Mind how you go, won't you? There are dangerous people about tonight."
"Thanks officers, I will."

That's justice in action.

Anyway, leaving aside the principles (I know, I know, but just for the purposes of this rather odd debate), will it actually work? In what way will confiscating money in this way actually reduce the number of drug deals being done on our streets? The confiscatee is not detained and is free to go about his business, whatever that might be. If he is a drug dealer, will the loss of this money make him say "you know what, this is a mugs game"? Or will it make him say "crap, I'm a bit strapped now, I'd better get a big stock in for next month to make up the shortfall"? Be serious for a minute, for crying out loud. Of course they're not going to be deterred. They'll just consider it another part of the "risk" to their business and try to compensate for it to the best of their twisted abilities.

Of course, the police might catch them at it at some later day and put a proper stop to it but doesn't that negate the whole point of this "pragmatic" new proposal? Why not just do it properly the first time round and get the guy off the street?

Confiscating money in this way might have some small financial advantage for the government but it won't reduce anti-social behaviour. To do that, you need proper, thought through policies, not cheap gimmicks designed to "reassure" the public that something is being done. And when those gimmicks also undermine the fundamental principles of the rule of law, well, the fact that they are even being considered is extremely worrying.

Tags: News, Politics, Tony Blair, Respect, Authoritarian Maniacs*

* This tag is the one I use to categorise many New Labour policies. It's not a reference to Neil. I'm big on politeness to real people, even if I strongly disagree with their opinions. Politicians, on the other hand, deserve everything they get.