Rank dissension

The security dilemma redux

2011-07-21T13:28:00.000+08:00

In traditional international relations - particularly realist theory - the security dilemma was something great powers found themselves trapped by: each power built up forces for security, but every other power saw this and built up their own forces, thereby renewing the dilemma for all. Ultimately, this shows the futility of security based solely on adversarial logic and military force where there is more than one powerful actor.

Much current thinking on security, though, revolves around human security. This concept has taken off in the last decade or two - I think one of the many IR aspects given life by the post-Cold War world - and I think it's creating its own security dilemma.

The concept is contested, but basically revolves around the security of human needs rather than those of the state - things like work, physical safety, economic security, environmental security, food security, etc. Human security came about partly as a response to the fact that states often endangered the security of individuals rather than protecting it - which, ironically, was often done for reasons of 'national security'. This being the case, the concept was first applied in praxis under the rubric of 'responsibility to protect' people in weak / authoritarian states in the developing world.

I think people have applied it to their everyday lives since before it was codified, though - we all have an innate need for our own form of human security. The problem here, and I might not be the first to say this, is how to provide human security for all under the current international architecture. Forgetting Malthus and assuming that there's enough to guarantee everyone a dignified existence, that's only the beginning. We in the developed world have become used to a standard of living involving comparatively huge levels of resource consumption, and we cannot deny that part of that has come from depriving others of those resources in what is a zero-sum game.

Of course, we naturally want to protect our lifestyle from being eroded - this is the innate need for human security. But here's the kicker: in a world with a) such competition for resources, and b) the engineered inequality of their distribution, what we are protecting is deprivation. Deprivation breeds - and in fact incentivises - behaviours like illegal immigration and revisionist (i.e. anti-status quo) violence. These in turn provoke actions related to the symptoms more than the causes, like military action, which reduce human security further and perpetuate the cycle.

Therefore, there is no such thing as security for some - everybody has it or nobody does.

So there you have it: a genuine paradox wherein the ultimate political 'good' is unachievable under the current political system. This is our own security dilemma, and it is one shared by every individual who benefits from this inequality.

When constructivists attack

2011-03-13T16:35:00.023+08:00

(Have to preface this with a bit of international relations (IR) theory – I hope I don’t bore you.)

Constructivism is an approach to the social sciences (not so much a theory) that can be applied in any area of the field. It emphasises the power of ideas and ideational factors rather than the material factors that have been historically prevalent in much social science. Essentially, it argues that the social world consists of ‘social facts’, i.e. things that do not exist ‘out there’ as objective reality but that depend on human agreement and human ideas and concepts, etc., such as terrorism and human rights. In IR, constructivist approaches emphasise the ideational and particularly social creation of the international system and the concepts within it. They’ve also been noted for the concept of ‘security communities’, in which shared norms and understandings bring certain states together, e.g. NATO.

Constructivism really only gathered steam as an approach in the 1990s, partly due to the failure of the major schools – particularly realism – to predict the end of the Cold War, and partly due to its ability to produce new insights into a new world. However, constructivist approaches have been around for longer than that – in fact, any political activity that involves constructing a narrative can be construed as constructivism. Which brings me to my point, based on something that’s occurred to me as I’ve read a couple of things recently. The first was a reference to German strategy and operations (and less often tactics) in the Second World War, from the short but packed book War: A Short History by Jeremy Black. Black says in effect that Germany undercut its own military capabilities by not having a clear enough grand strategy, which filtered down to the operational level.

Black places the genesis of this issue in Hitler's similarity to Napoleon:

Hitler was ideologically and psychologically committed to continual conflict. Empire, for him and his supporters, was a means to a meta-historical goal of racial superiority ... as well as a new world order. (p. 138)

Black cites Operations Barbarossa and Blue as examples here. Barbarossa showed operational confusion between capturing territory and destroying Soviet units, which 'led to a lack of agreement over whether to advance on Moscow or ... overrun Ukraine and destroy the Soviet forces there (the option that was chosen)' (p. 139). As we know, German forces neither captured Moscow nor destroyed enough Soviet forces to knock the Soviet Union out of the war. Black sums up: 'Strategically, insufficient thought had been given to translating successes into victory.' (p. 139)

Blue is the other example here. 'A drive to seize the oilfields in the Caucasus, and thus to deal with [the Wehrmacht's] acute resource problem, was confused with the goal of capturing a bridgehead over the river Volga at Stalingrad.' On the standstill generated in that incredible battle, 'operational opportunities had been reduced to tactical impasse' (p. 140).

Essentially, they were running around like Huhns ohne kopf.

Backing this up was what I read recently about Hitler’s thoughts on foreign policy as articulated in his second book (Zweites Buch, not nearly as famous as Mein Kampf) – it’s based on states as quite unitary actors, much like the realism that predominated at the time, but with Hitler's own meta-narrative thrown in to judge their power. This, again, paid little heed to rational or material factors but based power on perceived racial capability - it was no wonder, then, that German forces were underprepared - perhaps 'strategically casual' would be a more accurate term - for the Eastern Front.

Of course, most modern states attempt to support war or violence with a narrative - see China in Xinjiang with the 'Al-Qaeda threat' or any Middle Eastern despot who's 'fighting terrorism'. Probably the most prominent has been the US's construction of a narrative to go to war with Iraq. The confusion here, however, seemed public from the outset. Did they go because of Al-Qaeda and 9/11? WMDs? Regime change? Then there was the conduct of the war - hearts and minds vs Fallujah, anyone? Nation-building vs damaging economic decrees?

Personally, I think that at a grand strategic level the mission was, much like Barbarossa, clear enough in itself: to transplant US power at first directly and eventually by proxy into a strategic area. I think that the mass of public signals the administration sent out were less an example of confusion than an attempt to hit all possible buttons. I'd argue that, again like Barbarossa, the real issue with the effectiveness of the strategy was that it was simplistic enough to lend itself to many interpretations and, therefore, conflicting operational and tactical goals.

What’s the moral? Be careful using ideational constructs in an area in which the material is critical. Even better - don't go to war.

We are in the future

2011-03-13T14:45:00.001+08:00

A few years ago I had an idea for a sci-fi story in which someone invents a mass telepathy device. This was a kind of conceit to demonstrate a theory that if we all knew everyone else’s real opinions about public figures we wouldn’t get swept up in hysteria. Anonymity is key for that, because when political opinions are public and attributable dynamics are introduced such as power politics, second-guessing and herd behaviour like competitive patriotism. How many people go against the grain in public and refuse self-censorship? We remember many as martyrs.

Well guess what? For all that I think Twitter is overrated as a tool of revolution (look at the literacy levels in Egypt, for example), recent events in the Middle East (perhaps the coverage more than the events themselves) made me think Twitter and platforms like it approach that kind of function. Anyone who’s connected can immediately see the anonymous and un(self)censored thoughts of like-minded individuals.

Of course, Twitter’s no good if you don’t have access to it, but the cut connections were worked around and now I see at ahumanright.org that people are trying to get free satellite off the ground. Not sure how it’ll work if they don’t own the satellites though – I think we’ve seen in the US over the past decade what communications companies can agree to under government pressure or a sense of patriotism.

On that, head on over to ahumanright.org and check it out – the man’s doing good work.

The disappointment of modernity

2011-03-13T14:32:00.008+08:00

Just musing here – this needs some proper research, but I don’t think I’m wrong. A few things I’ve watched and read recently have got me thinking about modernity in its application to both politics and our daily lives. Modernity itself is a contested concept, as is its application to politics, but I think we can draw some broad contours.

Modernity was characterised by a view towards rational progress and the application of science and technology to social needs. In countries like the US, this was sometimes flipped so that science and technology drove social needs, e.g. the development of suburbia and the suburban lifestyle around the car (James Howard Kunstler’s The Geography of Nowhere explores this and related areas, as does his contribution to an interesting documentary called The End of Suburbia). In the Third World, starting with the era of development, countries were encouraged to ‘develop’ by industrialising to look like the West or the USSR, depending on their sponsor (remember here that while modernity and development are often associated with capitalism, Marxist development was emphasised the industrial just as much). Of course, the political class in those countries needed a nationalist project after colonialism and were themselves seemingly infatuated with modernity both for the purpose of ‘catching up’ to the developed countries and, I think, often for its own sake.

You can see this in pop culture as well – watch films from the early days of computers, for example, and see how they were depicted: very powerful in not only their computing capacity but in a problem-solving and societal sense; and everything from wise to evil, but mostly wise.

Decades on, what has happened? There is debate over when modernity ended in the socio-political sense, but there is certainly less faith in scientific progress – in fact, in some areas there’s a backlash against science and mistrust of it. This is especially noticeable in climate change, though that of course comes with its own economic – and therefore political – baggage. It’s interesting to see, though, how easily doubt has been spread on both the science and the scientists. In other areas, development is a dirty word in much of the world, at least in its original sense. Communist modernity failed, and its capitalist counterpart is coming under increasing pressure in much of the world. There are movements towards localism and specificity over globalism and ‘one-model-fits-all’. The extreme version of neoliberalism is no doubt responsible for some of this, but any dominant ideology is also in the position to carry the can for other failings.

What comes next is, as ever, the question. It’s obvious to say there’ll be increased friction, but how will this play out in local and regional contexts? Could it be increasing demands for political and economic ‘sovereignty of the people’ and an attendant international cooperation built on egalitarian and non-interventionist principles? Could it be global war against the backdrop of increased competition for scarce resources? Hobbesian, Lockean or Kantian ... Whatever the outcome, I doubt it’ll involve a reassertion of the neoliberal order – its champions are fading. That’s for another post though.

Finishing off by going back to pop culture, some of the best artistic depictions I’ve seen on this are at www.lostamerica.com – you can clearly sense both the expansive optimism and the profound loss and desolation in many of the pictures.

Anyway, comments as ever welcome. Am I way off track here?

The demands of study

2011-01-10T20:29:00.004+08:00

I know I've never been the most avid blogger, but a year and a half? Seriously? Coincidentally (cough), I haven't updated since I started postgrad study in international relations - and, of course, have been balancing it with a busy job. That's the bad news. The good news is that it's given me lots of ideas for what I hope are educational and stimulating posts - I just need to get them out there, and hopefully before June when I finish.

If I might be indulged to plug two posts in a row, I've also been lucky enough to get to know some people associated with the extraordinary hive of activity that is the Hong Kong NGO Civic Exchange. Head over, Hongkies especially, and check out what they do. Did I mention they spawned Designing Hong Kong and the Clean Air Network? If you live here in HK, stop complaining, get off your butt and get involved.

Plugges, of natures varying

2009-06-10T10:04:00.002+08:00

The Centre for Research on Globalisation is an excellent site, and is perennially short of funding, but particularly so at the moment. Go there and sign up to get their free newsletters and spread the word to your friends, or even better join as a member or make a donation.

And also, I have a new article up at Newmatilda.com (another quality free site - what did we do before the world wide webs?) on the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen, with a bit of a different slant than what you normally get.

Hysteria once more

2009-05-26T08:15:00.003+08:00

Back again. Looks like North Korea set off a more successful nuke than last time. While we wait for the hysteria to subside, check out this excellent article from last month by Scott Ritter on the hypocrisy of the 'international community' re North Korea's Taepodong-2 launch. Here's a taste:

Six minutes before 1 o’clock in the afternoon, on Jan. 23, a 173-foot-tall, two-stage rocket lifted off from Northeast Asia. Capable of carrying a giant 33,000-pound payload, the rocket’s liquid-fuel engine, supplemented by two solid-fuel strap-on booster rockets, generated nearly half a million pounds of thrust before giving way to the second stage, likewise powered by a liquid-fuel engine. After reaching a height of nearly 430 miles, the rocket released into orbit a 3,850-pound satellite, along with seven smaller probes. Other than the small community of scientists interested in the data expected to be collected from the “Ibuki” Greenhouse Gases Observatory Satellite (GOSAT), the rocket’s main payload, very few people around the world took notice of the launch. The United Nations Security Council did not meet in an emergency session to denounce the launch, nor did it craft a package of punitive economic sanctions in response.
The reason? The rocket in question, the H-2A, was launched by Japan, at its Tanegashima Space Launch Facility. Deemed an exclusively civilian program, the H-2A has been launched 15 times since its inaugural mission on Aug. 29, 2001. Four of these launches have been in support of exclusively military missions, delivering spy satellites into orbit over North Korea. Although capable of delivering a modern nuclear warhead to intercontinental ranges, the H-2A is seen as a “non-threatening” system since its liquid-fueled engines require a lengthy fueling process prior to launching, precluding any quick-launch capability deemed essential for a military application.
In contrast, on April 5, at 11:30 in the morning, North Korea launched a three-stage rocket called “Unha,” or “Milky Way,” which it claimed was carrying a single small communications satellite weighing a few hundred pounds. Like the H-2A, the “Unha,” better known in the West as the Taepodong-2, is liquid-fueled, requiring weeks of preliminary preparation before launch. Although North Korea declared the vehicle to be intended for launching a satellite, the launch was condemned even before it occurred as “dangerous” and “provocative,” unlike Japan’s similar efforts.

Thanks Truthdig and Information Clearing House.

As for nukes, just think: hundreds more and the means to deliver them, and they'll be right up there with 'our' friends who are in flagrant violation. And as I said in an article last year:

For all the bluster about violation of the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty, mostly directed at emerging nuclear powers, the forgotten condition of the NPT is that existing nuclear powers should make efforts to reduce and eliminate their nuclear weapon stockpiles, and not develop new forms; therefore, all are in violation. Nuclear weapons are not needed as a deterrent between major powers, and stated first-strike policies, even against non-nuclear nations, act only as an incentive to arm the world to the teeth.

Having said that about major powers, nukes certainly can be a deterrent for smaller nations against belligerent superpowers (not mentioning any names, of course), as long as you portray yourself as 'just crazy enough to use them', which Kim seems to excel at.

Another point early on the wiki entry that I hadn't seen before came from this piece in the London Times:

The world’s intelligence agencies and defence experts are quietly acknowledging that North Korea has become a fully fledged nuclear power with the capacity to wipe out entire cities in Japan and South Korea.

The new reality has emerged in off-hand remarks and in single sentences buried in lengthy reports. Increasing numbers of authoritative experts — from the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to the US Defence Secretary — are admitting that North Korea has miniaturised nuclear warheads to the extent that they can be launched on medium-range missiles, according to intelligence briefings

Wa-hey, theatre nukes! Welcome to the club! I'd like to tell you guys to enjoy the newfound respect, but not sure how much you'll get.

If this is true, I'm interested to see what changes in the strategic calculus. Japan will wring its hands publicly as only it can, South Korea will continue to condemn while many (most?) of its own people support reunification, and the US will continue - and probably expand - its economic and disinformation campaigns, which won't help anything.

We shall see. On a related note, this whole area needs to be flushed clean of US influence. Most Japanese don't want them; I've seen opinion polls over the years saying the South Koreans don't either, though I don't know if that's a consistent finding and I haven't read much on it. My feeling is it's true. Imagine: they could be free to reunify at their own pace, and there'd be no more frat-boy rape by US soldiers. That's gotta be good for everyone. I'd like to see the South take its economy back first, but you don't often get your stuff back from the banksters. (Read The Shock Doctrine for more on how US capital encouraged and exploited the Asian crisis in 1997 so they could buy large enterprises for cents on the dollar.)

They're all getting in on it

2009-02-01T14:46:00.004+08:00

Here's a few from the South:

DEA quits Bolivia on Morales' order

Hugo Chavez Urges Obama To Hand Over Cuban Exile

Fidel Castro demands Obama return Guantanamo base

You think The Obamessiah will see this as a signal to end American pretensions to empire and save a broke country a fortune?

Me neither.

Also, I must admit I thought Morales was a bit soft - let's see what else he has in store.

Balles, the third

2009-02-01T14:11:00.003+08:00

Of course, Erdogan's been all over the news, but worth reposting here:

You know, a surefire way of uniting people is to give them yourself as an enemy. Well done, US and Israel.

And yet more balls!

2009-02-01T13:24:00.005+08:00

This time from Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal. It seems that Arab officials are lining up to get into the new US administration about Israel. Obama's reaction we can probably expect to be the same platitudes he's been mouthing. It'll take a bit more than this, but it's a start.

Some choice bits:

In the past weeks, not only have the Israeli Defence Forces murdered more than 1,000 Palestinians, but they have come close to killing the prospect of peace itself. Unless the new US administration takes forceful steps to prevent any further suffering and slaughter of Palestinians, the peace process, the US-Saudi relationship and the stability of the region are at risk.

...

Last week, President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad of Iran wrote a letter to King Abdullah, explicitly recognising Saudi Arabia as the leader of the Arab and Muslim worlds and calling on him to take a more confrontational role over “this obvious atrocity and killing of your own children” in Gaza. The communiqué is significant because the de facto recognition of the kingdom’s primacy from one of its most ardent foes reveals the extent that the war has united an entire region, both Shia and Sunni. Further, Mr Ahmadi-Nejad’s call for Saudi Arabia to lead a jihad against Israel would, if pursued, create unprecedented chaos and bloodshed in the region.

So far, the kingdom has resisted these calls, but every day this restraint becomes more difficult to maintain. When Israel deliberately kills Palestinians, appropriates their lands, destroys their homes, uproots their farms and imposes an inhuman blockade on them; and as the world laments once again the suffering of the Palestinians, people of conscience from every corner of the world are clamouring for action. Eventually, the kingdom will not be able to prevent its citizens from joining the worldwide revolt against Israel.

Again, for mine they're a bit too strong to be completely empty. Even if they are aimed at pacifying the average Saudi, they might just do the opposite.

Abbas grows some balls?

2009-01-31T15:37:00.002+08:00

I mean to post a longer piece on Gaza soon, but I just got back from Cambodia (might post something on that too) and saw this.

So he's either grown them or they've been implanted by Hamas-induced political pressure. Either way, the language seems too strong for empty grandstanding. Can Fatah get back some love from the Palestinians? We shall see ...

Two plus two equals you're fucked

2008-12-20T17:22:00.006+08:00

There was a news item the other day about Somalia which, as I've been busy, I've only just seen. Here's the gist:

The US government said Wednesday that it believes a new UN Security Council resolution on Somalia authorizes air strikes against pirates in Somali territory.

Sometimes their sheer vindictiveness surprises even me. First they go in and foment more violence than there was already. Then the country begins to return to normalcy under the Union of Islamic Courts. Oh no - an Islamist government?! Just hold on a sec. While they're commonly portrayed as fundamentalist nutjobs, James Petras writes:

The basis of the popular support for the Islam Courts during its short rule (from June to December 2006) rested on several factors. The ICU was a relatively honest administration, which ended warlord corruption and extortion. Personal safety and property were protected, ending arbitrary seizures and kidnappings by warlords and their armed thugs. The ICU is a broad multi-tendency movement that includes moderates and radical Islamists, civilian politicians and armed fighters, liberals and populists, electoralists and authoritarians. Most important, the Courts succeeded in unifying the country and creating some semblance of nationhood, overcoming clan fragmentation.

Whoa! Ending arbitrary warlord 'justice'? Including a broad base of non-fundamentalist nutjobs? Sounds like a start, at least. But hang on:

In the process of unifying the country, the Islamic Courts government re-affirmed Somali sovereignty and opposition to US imperialist intervention in the Middle East and particularly in the Horn of Africa via its Ethiopian client regime.

Yep. So in go the Ethiopian attack dogs - we always pick the arch-enemy to go in, it seems - and the country goes backward. Now the Ethiopians are deservedly having their asses handed to them and getting out (and back in again here and there, but out overall). But what about the devastation for ordinary folks? Meh, what does that worry us?

Anyway, what does this have to do with airstrikes on pirates? Well, one man's pirate is another man's toxic waste dumping preventer, and was for some years until the US helped the warlords come to power.

Then that hated, corrupt bunch (did I hear anyone say Afghanistan?) ran the place like, oh, like warlords tend to. As the article says,

the nature of this piracy soon began to change. Members of the Somali government, who were part of the then Western-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG), started to get involved.
They transformed the piracy operation into a multi-million dollar industry that funded their lavish lifestyles.

Yep, turns out piracy is a real money-spinner.

But now the warlords are on their last legs. Looks like there might be an independent indigenous government - the horror! - and, even worse, more sorties by locals wanting to stop foreign ships dumping toxic waste. Two plus two equals airstrikes. I can hear the useful idiot liberal journalists now. 'Oh, what a dilemma! We might accidentally kill innocent people but we have to kill bad people sometimes too!'

Et voila, airstrikes. Sorry Somalia, the 'civilised nations' aren't ready for you yet.

What I don't understand (I)

2008-12-16T08:35:00.007+08:00

The first in a sporadic feature wherein I ask readers to tell foolish me what I'm missing.

Today: the fossil fuel-climate change debate.

This is something I harp on about now and then, and it was rekindled by this article in yesterday's NewMatilda, which as I speak has generated more comments than I've ever seen on there, both from anthropomorphic climate change deniers and proponents.

But here's the thing. I, and many others like me, believe that we must invest in alternative energy sources because:

a) fossil fuels are non-renewable;
b) fossil fuels are filthy and poisonous; and
c) fossil fuels could well be causing catastrophic climate change.

So, people who want to argue about part c) with your

They wouldn’t know a heat flux, a radiative/convective continuity equation, a lapse rate, an albedo or a shortwave opacity if it jumped up and bit them on the arse. (thanks commenter ecoeng)

You're completely correct - I wouldn't. So have it your way. There's no smoking gun for anthropomorphic climate change caused by fossil fuels.

So can we just get rid of them because they're non-renewable and poisonous? Put all that taxpayers' money into something that'll sustain us in decades to come? Good. I knew you'd agree - you're such reasonable people.

So that, dear reader, is what I don't understand - why we can't reorient the debate to what we do have smoking guns for.

The SOFA

2008-12-15T09:35:00.004+08:00

I was, like a few others, surprised by the SOFA concluded between the US and Iraq, particularly in the area of bases. It doesn’t seem to leave much wiggle room for staying, and is overall pretty mild. (Let’s not forget though, in a moral world the US would be giving back all the enterprises it looted and paying reparations.)

Anyway, I’ve had some time to think about what the SOFA means, and unless I miss my guess, it’s a pretty clever move on the US’s part. It’s good PR around the world because it’s pretty mild, for one. But I don’t think it represents the quiet abandonment of empire – that’s only happened once in history, and there’s nothing else to suggest that the US is interested in doing it.

Really, it’s a strategic redeployment, and I think it’s happening for two reasons.

One, there’s nothing more the US can achieve on the ground in Iraq, except to get its soldiers shot up some more and have footage beamed around the world of grieving civilians. Strategic Iraqi industries have been opened up to US capital, so they’re locked in to the system unless there’s an uprising on a national scale (in which case, you don’t want troops on the ground anyway). Oil? They don’t get much of their oil from the ME these days anyway (26% of crude and 20% of all petroleum this year to September, which wouldn't be affected much by an uptick in Iraqi production), but again, US and coalition enterprises have got their snouts in the trough now. Israel? Well Iraq was never a threat to Israel anyway (as has been observed, anyone can go to Baghdad – real men go to Tehran).

Two, it frees up resources for use in the other hotspots any empire has to deal with – at the moment, the main one is Afghanistan. Iran is a maybe, and if you rain bombs down on Iran, again, you don’t want heaps of boots on the ground in Iraq.

To summarise, Iraq is broken. It’s politically closer to Iran than before, yes, but its economy is in the US’s orbit. Ask any leader who’s sold their country to Western capital how hard it is to control your own country’s direction afterward (The Shock Doctrine is great for some history here). And anyway, who knows what might happen to Iran in the next couple of years?

Disclaimer: I'm assuming here that the US is going to abide by the SOFA and not invent an emergency to circumvent it. That's always a possibility, but I think they'll take the redeployment.

And speaking of hardware ...

2008-12-15T09:04:00.004+08:00

From an article on PressTV:

In a recent article published by the Aviation Week, US officials speaking on conditions of anonymity claimed that Moscow is using Belarus as a route for selling the highly advanced air defense systems to Iran so that it can deny "direct involvement" in the affairs.

"The Iranians are on contract for the SA-20," one of the US officials was quoted as saying. "We've got a huge set of challenges in the future that we've never had [before]. We've been lulled into a false sense of security because our operations over the last 20 years involved complete air dominance and we've been free to operate in all domains."

Yep. That last sentence is what it's all about. Uncle Sam better get less squeamish if he wants to keep a-meddlin'. That is, however many S-300s, or even S-400s, Iran or anyone gets, the USAF would still overwhelm them sooner or later - but taking casualties in the one area they've had it over everyone else will be a bitter pill to swallow.

Or they could just go quietly. (Post upcoming on why they're going, quietly or not.) Aviation week article here, for those interested - it's pretty much all repeated by PressTV. So a step closer to Zhirinovsky's call for them to be equipped with the S-400.

Hardware for the modern defence noob

2008-10-23T10:28:00.000+08:00

Or, how I learned to stop worrying and love countermeasures.

As a teenager (late in the Cold War) I was pretty into my war history, and dabbled in knowledge of military hardware. I remember debating the merits of fighter planes with my brother (who was right about the F-16 all along, dammit, and is still an encyclopaedia compared to me). These days I'm more interested in the politics that allow or forbid their use. Last year, though, I listened to Gore Vidal speak at the literary festival here in Hong Kong, and he told the story of Gorbachev's (with whom he's on very good terms) response to the SDI, or Star Wars, plan under Reagan. For all the bluster about hoe the US spent the USSR under the table - which was partly true - Gorbachev said they weren't worried about SDI - he said to counter it would have cost about one tenth of what the system was worth. Recently, Putin talked about how Russia would build a system that will get round the US missile shield - not a missile shield itself though (in fact, this system is on its way). In saying what they did, Gorbachev and Putin revealed what hardware nuts have probably known for years: Russia spends time and money on defensive systems and doesn't necessarily try to come up with equivalents to Western weapons systems. They're not alone - other nations with indigenous weapons industries are doing similar things. Rather than compete directly with capital-intensive weapons, they develop weapons that will negate them.

Let's run through a few examples: first, carriers. Carriers are the symbol of blue-water naval power. They're very expensive, as you'd expect. How expensive? According to wikipedia, Nimitz-class carriers (the largest and therefore most prestigious around at the moment) cost about $4.5 billion to build and $160 million a year to operate. According to globalsecurity.org, next-generation US carriers will cost more than double this. Pretty pricey boats. So how many are there? Well, the US has 13. The rest of the world combined has 16 (kind of - see Thailand). And the US's are mostly bigger. That speaks of some pretty major naval dominance (and pretty major debt).

Wow, so the Russkies, the Chinese, the Indians (as a country with an independent foreign policy, it's a potential enemy, remember), what have they got? How can they challenge this clear superiority? Well, India and Russia developed the Brahmos. China has Tomahawk-class surface-launched missiles, and a shiny new air-launched model. Hell even Iran has the Sunburst, which is much faster than the Tomahawk. And how much do they cost? Well, at the top there's the BrahMos at $2.73 million, or 1/4000th the cost of the new-generation carriers. Your average anti-shipping missile clocks in around $1 million. That could be called asymmetric conventional warfare. You've got a shiny offensive system I can't afford, but I've got something cheap that can blow it up.

So we see there isn't a country that could go head to head with the US Navy, but they don't have to - when you can bury capital ships under missiles, who cares? This was captured pretty succinctly in a quote by the War Nerd of a US sub captain: 'There are two types of ships: subs and targets'. So carriers are the most outstanding example in modern warfare as they're the most expensive. In the Second World War, we found something similar: battleships were obsolete. The Royal Navy sailed the Prince of Wales and the Repulse to the aid of Singapore, and what happened? They were sunk by a swarm of cheap Japanese planes. Clearly there was a bit of inter-service rivalry in Japan itself, though, as the Imperial Navy still built the monstrous Yamato and Musashi, which were sunk by swarms of cheap US planes. How many battleships remain in service today? Big fat zero. I think the last one was the USS Missouri, decommissioned in 1992.

Can't help but think the same fate awaits carriers.

The other area where the US has significant superiority is the Air Force - again, no other could go head to head, particularly with the Raptor. Russia has put some development into the Su-32, Su-35 and S-32/37, with India, the PAK-FA, but this is not for that reason: it's to keep their technological hand in, and to keep up the chance they have of fulfilling their military doctrine, which is to be able to defend themselves and project force in their immediate area. This is why they make some the world's best anti-aircraft weapons: the TOR M-1, the Panstir, the upcoming new generation S-400, the Tunguska (excellent example - much cheaper than an A-10 or an Apache, and a strong chance of killing one). Hence, no massive carrier force. The US, of course, wants to 'fight and win simultaneous wars on multiple fronts' - massive carrier force, bomber force, air force. All the expensive stuff.

But it's expensive stuff that'll make lovely reefs for the fishies. Glub glub.

Proof, if more proof were needed

2008-09-24T10:19:00.001+08:00

I’ve been reading a bit on economics lately – as it says on the right, Ha-Joon Chang’s Bad Samaritans, and Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine, both of which I highly recommend. Between them, you get a fantastic picture of exactly what happens when ‘free trade’ destroys economies, and – in Chang’s work – why.

As an Aussie, I was happy to see the end of the demagogic Howard, but I had to roll my eyes at the optimism of some on the left when Dudd … sorry, Rudd (why do I keep doing that?) was elected. Even before that, he’d given his backing to the campaign to have Ahmadinejad charged with genocide for killing … um, well, nobody, actually. (Fun fact: did you know that there are more Jewish people in Iran than in Spain and Poland combined? I guess he just hasn’t got around to them yet.) Then there was the Kyoto protocol signing, which is nice but cost nothing, the apology to the Aborigines, which was nice but cost nothing (specifically mentioned no financial compensation), blah blah.

Now we get a picture of their aid and trade policies with the Pacific. Blah free trade blah reduce dependence blah GIVE US YOUR ECONOMIES!!!

It fired me up a bit, that – think my comment was longer than the article.

This is what we're dealing with, folks

2008-09-23T21:59:00.004+08:00

(If you needed another reminder.)

Saw this in an article the other day:

[Sarah] Palin got famous in Alaska for exposing corruption on the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, where a member was doing Republican Party work on the public’s nickel. But then she was later caught by a conservative journalist doing the exact same thing herself. She admitted to him that she was wrong, and even though he didn’t publish anything about what she had done (of course), she nevertheless preemptively attacked him in the media for “smearing” her.

Palin’s cronyism is so rampant that the Times reports “The Wasilla High School yearbook archive now doubles as a veritable directory of state government”. She gave a childhood friend of hers, a former real estate agent, a $95,000-a-year directorship in the State Division of Agriculture. The old buddy “cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency”. Her attorney general is a former borough assemblyman that no one in the legal community had heard of prior to his appointment. He had never supervised people before, but now runs an office of five hundred staff.

She and her staff use private email accounts to conduct state business, and purposely chose to do so in order to avoid future scrutiny, including potential subpoenas.

Sarah Palin has now been in office for about 650 days. She has spent 312 of those at her home in Wasila, 600 miles away from the capital (and has billed the state per diem expenses for that), leading the Times to find that “Democrats and Republicans alike describe her as often missing in action”. So much so that members of the state legislature began wearing “Where’s Sarah?” pins.

In Palin World, opponents of Sarah aren’t just opponents. They are enemies of her, and of the state of Alaska, and they are labeled “haters”.

Same day, saw this in the South China Morning Post:

Palin an inspiration

US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin's arrival on the scene shows exactly how life has changed.

She is the epitome of the new, educated, career-focused leader who manages a family life and has to deal with the same issues as all real people.

Her accomplishments should be an inspiration.

Richard Atkinson, New York

The world is doomed.

Great missed jokes of history #48922

2008-09-17T21:14:00.001+08:00

Izvinite pazhalsta, just need to kick a bit of butt

2008-09-10T19:10:00.001+08:00

I think we can safely say that we've seen the end of Russia as poor cousin. And not before time. How long ago was the US warned by Putin? Last year in Munich, Vlad famously said of the 'unipolar world':

[It is] a world in which there is one master, one sovereign ... one centre of authority, one centre of force, one centre of decision-making. At the end of the day this is pernicious not only for all those within this system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within. … What is even more important is that the model itself is flawed because at its basis there is and can be no moral foundations for modern civilization.”

He added:

“Unilateral and frequently illegitimate actions have not resolved any problems. Moreover, they have caused new human tragedies and created new centers of tension. Judge for yourselves ... wars as well as local and regional conflicts have not diminished. More are dying than before. Significantly more, significantly more!

Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper use of force – military force – in international relations, force that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts.

We are seeing a greater and greater disdain for the basic principles of international law. And independent legal norms are, as a matter of fact, coming increasingly closer to one state’s legal system. One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations. Well, who likes this? Who is happy about this?

In international relations we increasingly see the desire to resolve a given question according to so-called issues of political expediency, based on the current political climate. And of course this is extremely dangerous. It results in the fact that no one feels safe. I want to emphasise this – no one feels safe! Because no one can feel that international law is like a stone wall that will protect them. Of course such a policy stimulates an arms race.

I am convinced that we have reached that decisive moment when we must seriously think about the architecture of global security.”

Well we've done more than seriously thought - we've moved, and now a whole bunch of people who underestimated Russia are running around like the proverbial headless chickens.

Was it then hypocritical after Putin's speech for Russia to go in to Georgia? Well, the man's not Gandhi, and he's playing by rules that the US set.

Toward the end of the Cold War, the US and Russia (for simplicity's sake, let's call it Russia rather than the liquid USSR, CIS and Russian Federation) concluded agreements on armed forces in Europe, amongst other things. Central to these was the agreement that there would be no NATO expansion. In return, Russia would reduce its forces in its European theatre, destroy some heavy weapons and move others east of the Urals (the CFE treaty and follow-up agreements). Even before Bush Jr, the US pushed NATO expansion and gave Serbia the smackdown for reasons completely unrelated to what we were told (story for another time), and the expansion has continued, despite the fact that, as Putin said

I would start with the Adapted Conventional Armed Forces Treaty in Europe (ACAF) [aka CFE-II]. We have not just stated that we are ready to comply with the treaty, like certain others have done. We really are implementing it: we have removed all of our heavy weapons from the European part of Russia and put them behind the Urals. We have reduced our Armed Forces by 300,000. We have taken several other steps required by the ACAF. But what have we seen in response? Eastern Europe is receiving new weapons, two new military bases are being set up in Romania and in Bulgaria, and there are two new missile launch areas - a radar in Czech republic and missile systems in Poland. And we are asking ourselves the question: what is going on? Russia is disarming unilaterally. But if we disarm unilaterally then we would like to see our partners be willing to do the same thing in Europe. On the contrary, Europe is being pumped full of new weapons systems. And of course we cannot help but be concerned.
What should we do in these circumstances? Of course we have declared a moratorium.

This applies to the missile defence system. But not just the missile defence system itself. Since if this missile system is put in place, it will work automatically with the entire nuclear capability of the United States. It will be an integral part of the US nuclear capability.

I draw your attention and that of your readers to the fact that, for the first time in history - and I want to emphasize this - there are elements of the US nuclear capability on the European continent. It simply changes the whole configuration of international security. That is the second thing.

Finally, thirdly, how do they justify this? By the need to defend themselves against Iranian missiles. But there are no such missiles. Iran has no missiles with a range of 5,000 to 8,000 kilometres. In other words, we are being told that this missile defence system is there to defend against something that doesn't exist. Do you not think that this is even a little bit funny? But it would only be funny if it were not so sad. We are not satisfied with the explanations that we are hearing. There is no justification whatsoever for installing a missile defence system in Europe. Our military experts certainly believe that this system affects the territory of the Russian Federation in front of the Ural mountains. And of course we have to respond to that.

And now I would like to give a definite answer to your question: what do we want? First of all, we want to be heard. We want our position to be understood. We do not exclude that our American partners might reconsider their decision. We are not imposing anything on anyone. But we are proceeding from common sense and think that everyone else could also use their common sense. But if this does not take place then we will absolve ourselves from the responsibility of our retaliatory steps because we are not initiating what is certainly growing into a new arms race in Europe. And we want everybody to understand very clearly that we are not going to bear responsibility for this arms race. For example, when they try to shift this responsibility to us in connection with our efforts to improve our strategic nuclear weapons. We did not initiate the withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. But what response did we give when we discussed this issue with our American partners? We said that we do not have the resources and desire to establish such a system. But as professionals we both understand that a missile defence system for one side and no such a system for the other creates an illusion of security and increases the possibility of a nuclear conflict.

I am speaking purely theoretically - this has no personal dimension. It is destroying the strategic equilibrium in the world. In order to restore that balance without setting up a missile defence system we will have to create a system to overcome missile defence, and this is what we are doing now.

At that point our partners said: "there's nothing wrong, we are not enemies, we are not going to work against one another". We would point out that we are simply answering them: "we warned you, we talked about this, you answered us a certain way. So we are going to do what we said we would". And if they put a missile defence system in Europe - and we are warning this today - there will be retaliatory measures. We need to ensure our security. And we are not the proponents of this process.

And, finally, the last thing. Again I would not want you to suffer from the illusion that we have fallen out of love with anyone. But I sometimes think to myself: why are they doing all this? Why are our American partners trying so obstinately to deploy a missile defence system in Europe when - and this is perfectly obvious - it is not needed to defend against Iranian or - even more obvious - North Korean missiles? (We all know where North Korea is and the kind of range these missiles would need to have to be able to reach Europe.) So it is clearly not against them and it is clearly not against us because it is obvious to everyone that Russia is not preparing to attack anybody. Then why? Is it perhaps to ensure that we carry out these retaliatory measures? And to prevent a further rapprochement between Russian and Europe? If this is the case (and I am not claiming so, but it is a possibility), then I believe that this would be yet another mistake because that is not the way to improve international peace and security.

So don't say you weren't warned, people. And not only about that:

Russian officials have repeatedly said that if Kosovo is granted sovereignty, the international community should also recognize as independent the separatist regions in the former Soviet Union, notably Georgia's Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and Moldova's Transdnestr.

That's from an article published in February 2007. And then along came Georgia, with Saakashvili the tie-eating satrap. Into South Ossetia they went, and promptly had their arses handed to them. And on cue, the media starts beating up the 'Bully Russia, Poor Little Georgia' angle. Um, and the 'Bully Georgia, Poor Little South Ossetia' angle? Did they underestimate the Russian response? Probably, but the US probably didn't. Surely the US was putting Russia in a no-win position - in that sense, it was a clever move. Go in, you get pounded by a good portion of the world's press, and politicians start acting all nasty toward you. Do nothing, and your own people crucify you. Isn't it wonderful that Dub got to stand up and say how terrible it was to be using bullying and intimidation in international relations? And Condi crapping on about force not being the way to deal in the 21st century? Spare me. How IS Iraq going, by the way?

Also, as character evidence for the Georgians, we offer this snippet from an excellent article by Mark Ames, from The Exile fame:

A few years ago, I had an Ossetian working as the sales director for my now-defunct newspaper, The eXile. After listening to me rave about how much I always (and still do) like the Georgians, he finally lost it and told me another side to Georgian history, explaining how the Georgians had always mistreated the Ossetians, and how the South Ossetians wanted to reunite with North Ossetia in order to avoid being swallowed up, and how this conflict goes way back, long before the Soviet Union days. It was clear that the Ossetian-Georgian hatred was old and deep, like many ethnic conflicts in this region. Indeed, a number of Caucasian ethnic groups still harbor deep resentment towards Georgia, accusing them of imperialism, chauvinism and arrogance.

One example of this can be found in historian Bruce Lincoln’s book, Red Victory, in which he writes about the period of Georgia’s brief independence from 1917 to 1921, a time when Georgia was backed by Britain:

[T]he Georgian leaders quickly moved to widen their borders at the expense of their Armenian and Azerbaijani neighbors, and their territorial greed astounded foreign observers. ‘The free and independent socialist democratic state of Georgia will always remain in my memory as a classic example of an imperialist small nation,” one British journalist wrote…. “Both in territory snatching outside and bureaucratic tyranny inside, its chauvinism was beyond all bounds.”

Hmm, history of tinpot imperialism, goading by a Great Power. I think I understand! Oh look - so does the OSCE!

European observers have faulted Georgia in this month's Caucasus conflict, saying it made elaborate plans to seize South Ossetia, according to the German news magazine Der Spiegel on Saturday.
In a report to appear in its Monday edition, it said officials of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) had said acts by the Georgian government had contributed to the outbreak of the crisis with Russia.

Spiegel said OSCE military observers in the Caucasus had described preparations by Georgia to move into South Ossetia.

The onslaught had begun before Russian armoured vehicles entered a southbound tunnel under the Caucasus Mountains to South Ossetia.

It said the OSCE report also described suspected war crimes by the Georgians, including the Georgians ordering attacks on sleeping South Ossetian civilians.

I must admit that I was enamoured of the idea of an EU - and I guess I still am, of the IDEA - but really, if we can take any of their statements at all on face value, what a bunch of pussies. I mean, are they still that weak that they toe America's line on everything (well, US asset Sarkozy aside, of course)? Is it just for public consumption? Are they waiting till America finishes its descent so they can get closure, wash their hands of the whole thing and reorient their interests eastward? Will take a while, methinks - I can't imagine they'd be able to mollify the Russians easily after this.

Anywho, on a similar note, when Viktor Yushchenko was funded to power by the NED - sorry, swept to power by the Ukrainian people - I gave his government a few years. We'll see how far off I am. You don't meddle with history that easily.

Belated plug, and stay tuned

2008-09-10T18:50:00.002+08:00

It's always so long between drinks! Am I the least-updated political blog in the world? Am working on a couple of updates, should have one up shortly. In the meantime, read my new one on newmatilda.com, if you're interested in a personal perspective on Hiroshima.

And now, Jim's Bioscience!

2008-07-04T12:44:00.007+08:00

This is mostly one for the Aussies, but I think it’s a fine example of the prevailing attitude in the mainstream of many developed nations.

It started when I was checking my gmail, minding my own business, when I saw the ad link above my inbox said something about finding the biological causes of poverty. Sounded dodgy straight away, so I clicked the link and found this page:

How stupid is this? Replete with cheap stock photos of people in white coats, a few graphs etc. It was then that I realised it was probably a wind-up. I checked the ‘Contact Us’ page to find that the main man was a Dr Jim Penman, email jim@jims.net. The name and domain sounded vaguely familiar, and it dawned on me that it was none other than Jim of Jim’s Mowing / Dogwash / Whatever fame!

Satisfied that I’d got the joke, I did a whois search to find that the web contact was a Dr Tony Paolini from the Psychological Science department at LaTrobe University, one of the major universities in Melbourne. Aha, so not just a joke, an experiment! It all made sense – the tacky pseudoscientific webpage, the weird link to ‘Dr’ Jim the franchise king. I was about to email the guy at LaTrobe and ask what the deal was with his little scheme, but I thought I’d just make sure first and do some more checking.

Well guess what? It’s all real. Jim actually is a doctor – he has a PhD in history, though apparently some of his ideas were a bit too radical for some of the faculty – and he’s using his franchise wealth to fund research that he’s always wanted to do: basically, whether people would make better parents and drive themselves out of poverty with a bit of biological tweaking and reeducation, right down to getting fewer calories and being instilled with a better work ethic. (They’re starting on rats, naturally – and fortunately.)

Well, as someone with scientific training might say, what a steaming pile of horseshit. Apparently (according to a 2006 article) they’d gone some way to confirming one of Jim’s hypotheses: rats that were given fewer calories were in some ways more organised mothers. I’m not sure what that means, but I can say that rats (and presumably people) with less food might well be more likely to be careful in how they dole it out. Unfortunately for the global scientific community and the future of humanity, that was about all they were prepared to say.

And how is their research backed up? Well, with meticulous study of history, of course!

It goes on in this vein to say that we’re the best because we trained our kids more rigidly than anyone else. I’ll be merciful and spare you the detail – how in the hell did Dr J get his PhD? Anyone who’s read some modern literature on this subject – Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel, for one – could blow these idiots out of the water.

Anyway, two years later in the real world, the price of oil has more than doubled (and has increased more than 1000% since 1998). This is partly due to the flow of hot money away from stocks and mortgage backed ‘securities’, which has created rampant speculation in commodities and also driven food prices through the roof, pushing many in developing countries – and some now in developed nations – to the brink of starvation. Many of these nations were able to feed themselves before falling victim to the IMF’s Structural Adjustment Programmes, but under these SAPs their agricultural sectors were either driven out of existence by heavily subsidised products from developed nations with huge agro-corps, or became dependent on GMO seeds that they have to buy every year. Haiti is a salient example of the first case. More here.

But thanks to the good folks at the BED Initiative, we can continue to blame the poor for their own plight! Not only that, but the research clearly shows that this calorie restriction (that’s what happens when you eat mudcakes) will actually make the lazy pricks work harder, thus lifting them from poverty! The market delivers again.

Lucky you don’t pay for it

2008-07-04T09:17:00.003+08:00

Thanks to those who have continued to visit during my renovation- and moving-enforced absence. Luckily nothing happened in the world while I was gone! Stay tuned, have a few things to talk about. Just to keep you going, some Daily Show that’s been on these here internets for a couple of weeks.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1819619605546829892&q=aipac+decides&ei=bHttSPbyNoSY-wHZpMCTDw

Not the first time I’ve noticed the best news and analysis in the US comes from a putative comedy show. As a comparison, how about this gem from Glenn Beck:

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/25/beck-shoot-in-head/

And how many of those in Guantanamo had a) had any kind of due process, and b) actually done anything, Glenn? How many? But don't worry Glenn, I'm sure no-one would want to shoot you in the back of the head. How would they watch you blubber?

(Yeah, tasteless, but how is it that so many mainstream pundits, politicians and religious leaders feel it's OK to call for murder? Is it me or are they all batshit insane?)

Watch this space ... no, the one just to the right ...

2008-04-30T13:42:00.005+08:00

'Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war', as Shakespeare said. Well guess what? The propaganda arm is doing its bit and crying havoc - and really, I wondered why it had taken so long.

Oh no! Pakistan is nuclear-armed! Supports terrorism! Has a democratically elected government! Is finalising the IPI deal with India and Iran!

'What shall we do?' they cry.

We all know there are two answers to this: one, respect other states and work with them, or two, carry on like you own the world. Interfere in / attack Pakistan, continue to interfere in / attack Iran, lean on India. None will achieve their desired outcome - the first two will contribute to a conflagration that could stretch from Morocco to Central Asia, and the third will only work if it's accompanied by the sort of soft power that's backed by lots of money - in other words, exactly the kind of soft power the US is running short of.

Still, I wonder which way they'll go ... (cough)

Napoleon said, 'Show me the geography of a country and I'll tell you its foreign policy'. Mackinder continued this line of reasoning with this 'Eurasian heartland' concept. We've progressed a little from that, but the simple fact is that countries' concerns are largely regional. Geopolitics is not difficult to grasp. A country's region and what occurs there affects its stability and economy (especially in the era of pipelines) in profound ways. Countries that attain global reach, like the US, find eventually that they get brought back to the field through a combination of factors, primarily overstretch, in the US's case involving a raft of poor economic and military choices (see the latest by Chalmers Johnson for an excellent summary). While the US could afford to support allies and fight enemies around the globe, it kept up its appearances, belying the fact that it has been in relative decline for around fifty years, and outright decline for perhaps thirty. Now that decline is marked, and countries are not listening to the US's wishes, or even inviting them to conferences. And why should they? Their interests are regional and don't necessarily coincide with those of countries on the other side of the world. For a while, they had an interest in placating 'the world's most powerful country'. Now, what's in it for them?

So the threats ratchet up - Mike Mullen is openly threatening Iran, Robert Gates says the second carrier group is a warning (actually there have been two in the Gulf quite often, but the timing and thrust of his remarks need to be considered), and Petraeus will be in place soon barring some Congressional spine.

The perfect storm?

They'll have to go back to al-Sayyid

2008-04-03T08:44:00.007+08:00

Was anyone surprised? Unpopular government fights popular militia and loses - again. There are two excellent articles (IPS is the best agency around, surely) on the recent fighting between the Mahdi Army and government forces, with two 'Iraqi military' sources going even further than previous reports of some government soldiers switching sides - apparently they abandoned armoured vehicles that the Mahdi Army men then drove around triumphantly. At least one US citizen was killed in the 'secure' Green Zone, and US officials are now claiming that the whole thing was done without their approval. Uh huh. Another opponent underestimated. Well, for now Petraeus will have to go back to being the 'ass-kissing little chickenshit' that Fallon described him as, and start using the al-Sayyid honorific for al-Sadr again.

In the meantime, penny for the Iranian government's thoughts - Presstv's Iraq section is pretty dull. It's on one hand a blow to their ideal Iraq, but on the other keeps US forces insecure, maybe even less secure than before. But then, as Gareth Porter points out in one of the above articles, Mahdi Army members have been trained recently in Iran, and this must have been done with the government's knowledge. Hedging their bets like shrewd Persians. Personally, I think they're waiting to deal publicly with an Obama administration and, as I said last week, contacts might have started already. I think Iran would wash its hands of the Maliki government for improved relations with the US - he's on borrowed time - and would probably not mind so much Iraq not being split. I imagine we'll know a lot more here in the coming months, but again, there are nuts in the US administration who'll want to go out in a blaze of glory.

Iraq situation clearer?

2008-03-27T12:52:00.004+08:00

What struck me as strangest about the recent fighting that started in Basra was that it was Shia on Shia - maybe not the first time, but having the Mahdi Army attacked in a coordinated offensive by the state-backed Shia militia was a major development.

As I pointed out yesterday, Moqtada al-Sadr is first and foremost an Iraqi nationalist and has spoken out against the plan to divide Iraq into autonomous Shia, Sunni and Kurd regions. On this, he and the Sunnis agree. (As an aside, there wasn't much sectarian strife in Iraq's recent pre-invasion history anyway.) The Shia who don't agree are the Badr Brigades - the military arm of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council. The two things to note about the Badr Brigades are that they form the backbone of the 'security forces', and that they're backed by Iran. (Yes, the US is working with a pro-Iranian government - such is one more manifestation of the absurdity of war.)

Coinciding with this are rumours that have surfaced of a high-level secret summit on Iraq between Iran and the US (which also coincide with the current hunches of the normally credible MK Bhadrakumar). These were published in Arabonline, an Arabic newspaper published in London, and posted in English on the Roads to Iraq website. Roads to Iraq has published an incorrect story already about the current fighting (the Mahdi Army arresting US soldiers), and didn't name sources for this, so on the one hand its authenticity is dubious. On the other, two things the Iranians are said to be giving the US are a) their support in the division of Iraq, including the oil law; and b) their undertaking to clamp down on violence in Iraq.

Now, this leads us to an interesting place. Presuming the story is true, we have on Iran's side: a professed interest in splitting Iraq, thus cutting the Sunni areas off from most oil revenue (I suppose we shouldn't be surprised there) and angering the Shia Sadrist bloc as well (playing with fire); as well as what is either an admission that they are responsible for most of the violence in Iraq (which most Iraqis, for one, don't believe) or an offer that plays to US beliefs and that can be forgotten later. We have on the US's side (amongst other offers) commitments to stop paying the Sunni 'Awakening' groups and to stop agitating against the current Iranian regime.

In pragmatic geopolitics, these moves make sense; it's been clear for a long time that Iran and the US share some strategic interests and, if the story is true, it's quite representative of those. But it would mean US administration infighting between the pragmatists on one hand and the neocons and hardline Zionists (and, of course, Israel) on the other, as well as Iran dealing with a lot of angry people in Iraq (which they might see as a reasonable tradeoff for calming the US).

So there are still plenty of unknowns here, but we can make some educated guesses. How would it play out within Iraq? Not well with the majority, and the government is weak. In Israel? Not well - and the story also says that Israel is working with John McCain on their next move. In the US? Well with the public, but sparking a war in the administration. Between Iran and the US? Here's where it's tricky: an easing of tensions with the US players that are confident of a friendly administration after this year's elections, but exacerbated tensions with the other camp - the one that's notoriously reckless and might not have much time left to make its move.

The tyrant's TIRANNT

2008-03-26T11:48:00.008+08:00

That's Theater Iran Near Term in military-speak, and it's looking more and more like the last two words are operative.

We've seen financial warfare taking place for a few years, culminating in last week's 'declaration of war' by the US Treasury Department.

On the military side, the major institutional obstacle was removed when Admiral William Fallon stepped down. There are Aegis ships being moved into position off Lebanon, and Mike McConnell trying to backpedal on the NIE. But as others have pointed out, there's an Iraqi obstacle to an attack on Iran as well: the Shia resistance (and maybe others) could turn the entire south of Iraq into an inferno for US forces, and it would all centre on Basra.

But not if you pacified Basra first, hey boys?

This to me is the clearest sign yet that a US attack on Iran is intended (I stress intended) imminently. It may be a test run, but let's presume it's the big one. I can't see them pacifying Basra (and yes, I'm including the Iraqi 'security forces' with the US and UK here), but I think they'll risk it; I imagine the thinking is that there'll be chaos in the South for a long time (months or years) but that if they've prepared and gone on the offensive rather than reacting, they'll be in a better position when the attack does happen.

Even so, they're letting themselves in for a world of hurt - whatever else he might be, al-Sadr is known as a proud Iraqi nationalist, and is a better chance than the government Shia factions of garnering support from disgruntled Sunnis. He'd held off the orders to let loose at the time of writing, but won't hold off forever.

Oh, and speaking of worlds of hurt, there's the other small matter of the US having never wargamed an Iran attack without losing the Fifth Fleet. If that happens, what forms of escalation would the US employ? Nuclear? All the pieces are in place.

Charlie Foxtrot, in every sense.

*

UPDATE: There seem to be conflicting reports, including those from Arab sources, about who's fighting whom - there's a bit of Byzantine action going on between the central government, Fadhila, SIIC (formerly SCIRI) and the Sadr bloc. Some are portraying it as an Iraqi factional fight for control of Basra's market and powerbase, while Maliki officially says it's to (finally) assert government control over Basra.

All of those might have a degree of truth in them. I hope I was premature in my initial post, but I can't help thinking that no matter how true any or all of the motives are (and this might become clearer as news filters through), it's going to be seen by the US as a chance to put some armour on a soft underbelly. And again, that could be big down the track. Even as is, US Central Command must know that it's a powder keg that could blow up in their faces as well. That would certainly justify escalation - maybe they're banking on it. But Maliki must know this as well - is he that much of a stooge, or is he banking on letting the US and Iran deal with each other, and being able to build his own power whatever happens?

Shameless self-promotion

2008-03-17T10:47:00.004+08:00

I have a new article up at newmatilda.com. Hope you enjoy and read a few more on the site.

Without an unfettered press, without liberty of speech, all of the outward forms and structures of free institutions are a sham, a pretense - the sheerest mockery. If the press is not free; if speech is not independent and untrammeled; if the mind is shackled or made impotent through fear, it makes no difference under what form of government you live, you are a subject and not a citizen. - William E. Borah

Just in from an alternate universe (III)

2008-03-13T15:45:00.003+08:00

'As it tries to expand its influence in Latin America, the regime claims to promote social justice,' Bush said. 'In truth, its agenda amounts to little more than empty promises and a thirst for power.'

You just can't write satire anymore.

The crazies are out of the box, repeat, the crazies ...

2008-03-13T09:12:00.010+08:00

Admiral William Fallon, chief of US Central Command, which covers the Middle East, in 2007:

An attack on Iran 'will not happen on my watch'.

'There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box.'

'[Fallon] asked why another aircraft carrier was needed in the Gulf and insisted there was no military requirement for it.'

(It's true, boys and girls - military men think the neocons are nutjobs as well!)

Anyway, Fallon resigned a few days ago. Not so good. And from Robert Gates:

Gates described as "ridiculous" any notion that Fallon's departure signals the United States is planning to go to war with Iran.

Ah crap, the official denial. Let's just hope they get delayed to the point where they can't do it.

UPDATE: The ever-insightful Justin Raimondo adds the following:

What makes this particularly ominous is that, according to former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst Patrick Lang, Fallon told him, upon taking over at Centcom, that war with Iran "isn't going to happen on my watch." Lang asked him how he thought he could stop it: "'I have options, you know,' Fallon responded, which Lang interpreted as implying Fallon would step down rather than follow orders he considers mistaken."

Do I really need to draw you a picture to get you to imagine what's coming next?

Well I said 'crap', Raimondo goes further: 'we're fucked'. Actually, I think he's right.

Charlie Wilson's propaganda

2008-02-29T09:24:00.006+08:00

Saw a preview (a 'trailer', in American) of Charlie Wilson's War at the cinema last weekend. I'd already read a critical review so I knew what to expect, and it's worth highlighting as an example of the insidious way a lot of people are conditioned to believe that 'we' are never the belligerent party in a conflict.

The film's major driver is Congressman Wilson's efforts to channel tens of millions of dollars to the 'resistance' in Afghanistan, after 130,000 Soviet soldiers invade the country. That's America, standing up for the little guy and all that's right and good.

The reality is, as always, completely different.

In 1979, Afghanistan had a communist government - it was secular and progressive (meaning health care, equal opportunity, education for girls, etc.), and was of course hated for this by Afghanistan's numerous Islamic fundamentalists. On the other side of the world, the US had been hurt badly by the war in Vietnam - how badly, some people are still realising given the US's debt and dollar difficulties - and the foreign policy circle of Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Adviser to President Carter, wanted to give the Soviet Union, as he called it, 'its Vietnam'. So, the US started arming the fundamentalists to overthrow the Afghan government, as they knew it would provoke a Soviet invasion in support of its client state - Brzezinski proudly called it the 'Afghan trap' (see link above).

That's right: the Soviet invasion came AFTER the US-sponsored violence - a fact the film conveniently turns on its head. And in a post-script I'm pretty sure the film doesn't touch on, those 'resistance' fighters became the movement we know today as the Taliban, rivalled only in their backward attitudes to women and modernity in general by our current favourites, the 'Northern Alliance' (some of whom, according to Afghanis I've read interviewed, are even worse). As for Brzezinski, in the 1998 interview linked above he was still proud and thought he'd ended the Cold War early. He was also dismissive of the threat of Islamist terrorism - wonder how he felt three years later. FYI, he's supporting Obama, for those of you expecting something different after the US election.

Anyway, I'm sure a lot of people will see the film - I just hope they realise that life isn't written, produced and directed in Hollywood.

Stop Press: Pot calls kettle black

2008-02-18T19:30:00.006+08:00

... but I suppose it's no less true for that.

(Also, be warned: strong language.)

More, and more context, here.

UPDATE: For the non-Aussies among you, Kennett and Howard were in the same party, Kennett in State politics and Howard of course in Federal. Kennett was lionised as a 'strong leader' who proved his weakness and petulance by taking his bat and ball and going home after being voted out - after denying that this was actually the voters' intention. Howard? Well, Howard's basically famous for being what Kennett called him.

The nuke site that wasn't

2008-02-09T11:07:00.000+08:00

Seymour Hersh's latest article in The New Yorker is an investigation of what Israel actually bombed in Syria last year. Hersh dismisses a few of the myths surrounding the operation - the alleged North Korean ship and the nuclear aspect, for two - with research that, as usual, could be done by most 'journalists' but isn't. Most Israeli officials Hersh spoke to were still tight-lipped, but two Syrian officials gave interesting, though contradictory, comments: one said that the site 'would most likely have been used as a chemical-warfare facility', while the other claimed something I think is more credible:

Syria had concluded, he said, that chemical warfare had little deterrent value against Israel, given its nuclear capability. The facility that was attacked, the official said, was to be one of a string of missile-manufacturing plants scattered throughout Syria—“all low tech. Not strategic.” (North Korea has been a major exporter of missile technology and expertise to Syria for decades.) He added, “We’ve gone asymmetrical, and have been improving our capability to build low-tech missiles that will enable us to inflict as much damage as possible without confronting the Israeli Army. We now can hit all of Israel, and not just the north.”

Militarily, both options make some sense, but the second sounds more likely - Syria, as Hersh says, is believed to have possessed chemical weapons for some time anyway, while the first official's phrasing didn't speak volumes for his access to information. The second actually makes pretty clear sense, and is something North Korea probably could help with more than chemical weapons.

If the official is correct, though, the missile capability exists anyway - what else can or will Israel do?

Just in from an alternate universe (II)

2008-02-04T22:10:00.000+08:00

Chomsky says that the only way US foreign policy makes sense is if you start from the premise that the US owns the rest of the world. Bear that in mind as you peruse this report about how the US Congress might have difficulties passing trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama.

The Panama agreement is in trouble because last year that country's National Assembly elected as its president a lawmaker wanted in the United States on charges of killing a U.S. soldier in 1992, he [Steny Hoyer] added.

Ah yes, 1992 - the Panamanian killed a US soldier as Panama, remember, had not long before invaded the US in an act of naked aggression.

Sorry - I mean the US had invaded Panama in a(nother) act of naked aggression.

There's your lesson for today, kids: when US forces come a-knockin', don't get fool thoughts into your head like retaliating - that just makes you the bad guy.

Noriega, who was OK by Uncle Sam
till he got all independent.
(I wanted to show some invasion
casualties here, but couldn't as the
freedom-loving SOBs banned the
press till they got rid of the bodies.)

Rabbi excoriates Zionists

2008-01-22T21:30:00.000+08:00

Outside the recent Annapolis hot-air fest, Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss was at pains to insist that the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians is not a religious war.

Ouch.

The good rabbi, of course, is certainly not the first Orthodox Jew to decry what many see as the spiritual bankruptcy of Zionism. (Or, I imagine, to be called a Nazi for his trouble - and for some links on anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews, follow the links from Neturei Karta International, the rabbi's organisation. Try Norman Finkelstein, Ilan Pappe, Israel Shahak, Chomsky and many others for a more secular bent.)

The thing is, he's right. Jews, Muslims and Christians lived in the holy land together for centuries in what compared to now must have seemed like paradise. This, like most wars, is not religious, and leads me to part of the reason I posted this video.

I'm an (ex-child Christian) atheist, and I'm a fan of a lot of what Richard Dawkins has done in promoting atheism, which to watch some TV shows seems to be an utter mystery to some. ('So what do you teach your kids? Nothing?')

I think Dawkins is wrong, though, to lay so much blame for wars at the feet of religion. Most, if not all, modern conflicts are political in nature - they're over resources, territory, social or economic grievances, geopolitical jockeying, that sort of thing. What religion often does do is provide a cover, as in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and, really, the whole 'clash of civilisations' rubbish.

That said, though it's not the root cause it's one legitimising cover that needs to be torn away.

This just in from an alternate universe

2008-01-22T20:51:00.001+08:00

John Bolton says that intelligence on Iran has been politicised.

John Bolton

says that intelligence

has been politicised.

JohnBoltonsaysthatintelligencehasbeenpoliticised!

From the article:

'It [the recent National Intelligence Estimate] was a highly politicized document written by people who had a very clear policy objective.'

The former ambassador decried the lack of separation between 'intelligence and policy'.

I don't really know what else to tell you.

(cough) Except to point out that intelligence seems to have been split from policy since humans formed tribes...

Never believe anything until...

2008-01-22T20:38:00.000+08:00

...it's officially denied. (Remember that, kids - it's the first rule of politics.)

In the latest in the Sibel Edmonds saga, the London Times has published a follow-up to its story of two weeks ago claiming an FBI cover-up; specifically, the bureau's claims that a file detailing the case on which Ms Edmonds spoke is non-existent. Other sources, of course, say otherwise.

More coverage, again, at The Brad Blog. We wait for it to hit the US media, which has just told us, to the world's relief, that Tiger Woods wasn't really bothered by that whole lynching thing. Phew.

A plug

2008-01-18T09:57:00.000+08:00

...but it's not for me. It's for the tireless Tom Feeley of Information Clearing House, who has supplied me and thousands of others with comprehensive daily news for some years, and has been praised by no less than John Pilger. All he asks is for occasional donations to pay for his bandwidth use and other expenses, and it seems this month has been a particularly difficult one.

To quote Tom:

To those of you who were able to respond to my appeal for support, Thank you. Unfortunately WE HAVE NOT MET OUR EXPENSES and I need to post this notice again in the hope that others may respond.
I would appreciate your providing whatever you can- $1, $5, $10, $20, $50, $100- To Use PayPal click here.
To use your credit card click here, or if you prefer to send a check or money order, Tom, PO Box 365 Imperial Beach, CA 91933. USA.

Your assistance is greatly appreciated.

Low income readers: DON'T send money, just encourage others to subscribe to our free daily newsletter.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/subscribe.htm

It all starts with information, and ICH is a beacon.

Stop press - Fidel sends in the Tomahawks!

2008-01-18T09:42:00.000+08:00

The President of Cuba yesterday authorised cruise missile attacks against sites in the US state of Florida that Cuban officials and US media describe as ‘terrorist training camps’.

'We cannot sit idly by while our country is attacked. We will confront the evildoers wherever they may be,' said the president in a short statement.

Well, no he didn’t actually – but could anyone blame him if he did?

It’s about time the US media started using the word ‘terrorist’ to describe these people, even if it is in quotation marks.

Still here...

2008-01-18T09:33:00.000+08:00

Isn’t it a poor state of affairs when work gets in the way of blogging? (Not so poor when it’s holidays, I suppose, and this time it was a bit of both.)

Lots has happened, not the least of which has been the Sibel Edmonds disclosures in the Sunday Times (yes, a Murdoch rag - wonder what's going on there). Amazing stuff, and according to Ms Edmonds only about 20% of what she has to tell. But more on that later (good coverage on Bradblog).

For now, Happy New Year to my devoted readers (both of you – I read the site stats ;) ), and may we get the bastards.

The pillars are crumbling

2007-11-03T10:38:00.000+08:00

I imagine that I could have a wide-ranging discussion with Paul Craig Roberts and not agree on a real lot, but it's always good to read his columns in Information Clearing House (plug: subscribe to this - you need it) and see someone from the right excoriating US policy. And, well, at least you could have a conversation with him, right?

Roberts makes an observation in his latest piece that should be self-evident, but the ramifications of which aren't always thought through: that US hegemony has been more about economic than military power. Of course, economic power enables military power for a country that chooses - and the US certainly did.

Roberts observes:

Full of hegemonic hubris, the US government does not understand that US power and hegemony have always depended, not on missiles and military force, but on the financial power conveyed by the dollar’s role as reserve currency.

The reserve currency is world money, good in any country to pay any bill. The reserve currency country is not a debtor in the usual sense. As the reserve currency can be used to settle international accounts, the reserve currency country can borrow at will until lenders lose confidence in the currency.

And further:

There is abundant evidence that the loss of confidence in the dollar is underway. When it is complete, the US will no longer be a superpower.

The latest of this abundant evidence came the other day, in the form of staunch US pupp...er, allies, considering dropping their dollar peg. Yep, the Gulf oil states are looking at following Kuwait's lead, meaning they won't need to keep buying dollars - and propping up their price - to even the dollar with their own currencies. This isn't just a sign of lack of faith, it's going to hit on a practical level.

Basically, the US economy depends on foreign lenders, to the tune of around $2-3billion a day. In the past, the US could borrow with impunity as its currency was the global reserve, and thus always in demand - central banks around the world would just keep soaking up supplies to pay for oil, to pay debts, to back their own currencies, etc etc, so hyperinflation and devaluation were never real issues. The Federal Reserve literally could - and did - print more money to pay for whatever the US needed. But now that the demand is down, where can the US turn? There's a spirited debate by people more knowledgeable than I about the direction of interest rates: continual lowering risks huge inflation and postponement of the inevitable, while raising will attract foreign investment but provide liquidity problems of its own for a debt-ridden domestic economy. Either way, we shouldn't expect the landing to be soft.

Ashes to ashes etc for the 'American century'. Let's hope the new centres of world power don't behave the same way.

It was a nuke site ... no wait, it was a nuked site ... no, wait ...

2007-11-03T09:01:00.000+08:00

More 'information' (possibly of the dis variety) has come to light abut the September 6 strike on Syria. According to this article in the Jerusalem Post, which quotes Al Jazeera, which quotes unnamed Israeli and Arab sources, the strike was actually carried out by the US, with Israeli air cover.

One can admit this as a possibility - in fact, the estimable Chalmers Johnson writes in The Sorrows of Empire, the second volume of his trilogy on the American Empire, that the US uses bases in the Israeli Negev that don't appear in official reports.

But it doesn't end there. The report claims that two US jets ARMED WITH TACTICAL NUKES struck the site. Even to an uninformed observer, this must stretch credibility - tactical nukes on an above-ground facility at this stage of the game?

Trish Schuh, the first (and only, to my knowledge) Western journalist to visit Deir al-Zur after the strike, had this to say, though:

... I spoke to western oil company officials in Deir Ez Zor. One technician told me they routinely monitor radiation as part of the refining process. They registered no heightened levels of nuclear residue in the area as there would have been if the Israelis had hit a North Korean atomic stockpile. Operations and technical foremen put it this way: "The nuclear claims against Syria are pure bullsh*t."

At the time this was written, there was no question of tactical nukes - the reference was to possible nuclear material at the site. The same rules apply, though - no radiation, no nuclear material, and no tac nukes.

Was this, as many people have said, a dry run for an attack on Iran? Was there anything of importance at all at Deir al-Zur? The Syrians deny it, but they would. What was the story with the jettisoned fuel tanks? Israel has F-15 and F-16 variants that wouldn't need external tanks to strike anywhere in Syria - but they would if they were going to Iran.

I doubt we've heard the end of this.

'Don't you forget about me'

2007-10-31T13:37:00.000+08:00

If any Aussies out there needed a reminder that we're involved in a very dangerous game, how about this message from the Baath party in Iraq? Only a few hundred words long, the document takes care to mention our 'so-called security forces' three times, including this lovely allegation:

The Australian contractors company 'Unity' has opened fire on purpose in the Al Masbah Neighborhood and murdered two Iraqi women and wounded a third lady and all her children.. What was their crime? They happened to cross at that time an Iraqi street.. nothing else!

So the Spanish were there and were attacked for their role, the British are there and were attacked for their role, the US of course has been in the region for decades and suffered blowback, but Australia so far has avoided attack by either good security or good luck. I would hate to think it was the latter.

I'm not trying to fear-monger here, but there's an election coming up and it's well worth thinking about the stand your preferred candidate has taken on the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the intended attack on Iran. History has shown, as Ahmed Rashid observed in the excellent Taliban, that good relations with your neighbours are the best defensive strategy. Is there anyone from the major parties interested in pursuing this policy? Even if it's unfashionable? Even if it's 'courageous', as Sir Humphrey used to tell Mr Hacker?

Oh, and speaking of Iran, I'm sure New Matilda wouldn't mind if I borrowed a few lines from an article I wrote for them a few months ago:

Will more people die for falsehoods, for resources, for preservation of the status quo? Will their country take this aggression without responding? Or will thousands or millions more enemies be created — enemies who will have nothing against you personally but will attack your country, your economy, your friends and your family, as your country has attacked theirs?

Will this happen in your name?

We all have the power to make sure none of it does. Let's learn the lessons of history.

Turkey-PKK-Armenia-US update

2007-10-26T14:00:00.000+08:00

File this under ‘You know you’re a declining power when …’

So things are hotting up in northern Iraq, with Turkey continuing to hit what it says are PKK targets, though Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani (who is not allied with the PKK) claims that no PKK fighters have yet been wounded.

While we can’t know for sure, the political developments are somewhat easier to read. The same article quotes Recep Tayyip Erdogan that ‘we [i.e. not the US] make the decision on what we do’. This on the heels of his remarks early on in the piece that Turkey expected ‘speedy steps from [the] US’. Condoleezza Rice asked for a few days – and didn’t get it. Earlier still was the remark about the US asking for permission from Turkey before responding to an attack on itself.

In the normally polite and euphemism-filled world of diplomatic-speak, that’s a combo to the head.

The US political response? An offer to bomb the PKK – ignored. And that resolution about the genocide of the Armenians? Delayed. Not forgotten about, of course. Ahem.

Basically, Turkey’s interests (right or wrong though they may be) are regional, as are those of most states. The US has been able to impose its will on most of the world for decades through its economic, and consequent military and political, clout. But a few countries have already realised that being friends with America is actually not that useful – and sometimes detrimental to their interests.

Paralleling this, we have even mainstream sources such as the IMF saying that the US is no longer as crucial to the world economy as once it was, we have investors and economists saying that the dollar isn’t the world’s reserve currency anymore, countries diversifying currency holdings and not wanting to buy more US currency – powerful economic decisions all.

The US is in trouble and make no mistake – when countries close bases (I expect to see more of this in the coming decade), stop funding the debt on which the US lives and tell the US Secretary of State in plain terms to butt out, the signs are pretty clear. The only question is what exactly the decline is going to entail. I'm betting nothing good.

Devaluing values

2007-10-19T13:01:00.000+08:00

Is there anything worse than politicians droning on about values? I suppose the official line is that now that the good guys won the war, we can take a good (not-so-) hard look at ourselves and slap ourselves on the back for being decent and honourable people who live in countries that got rich by doing something – anything – other than looting the rest of the world. Etc etc.

But as if the droning wasn’t enough, our lovely neofascist Australian government, I learnt this week, is now asking all visa applicants to sign a statement of adherence to ‘Australian values’. Australian values? What are they exactly? Burnt sausages, mateship and a cask of moselle for the ladies?

I couldn’t help thinking of The Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade from Catch 22, a classic and a favourite, finally broken when the fierce Major _______ de Coverley returns from a trip and demands ‘eat’ without signing. The passage is worth reproducing:

Milo carefully said nothing when Major _______ de Coverley stepped into the mess hall with his fierce and austere dignity the day he returned and found his way blocked by a wall of officers waiting in line to sign loyalty oaths. At the far end of the food counter, a group of men who had arrived earlier were pledging allegiance to the flag, with trays of food balanced in one hand, in order to be allowed to take seats at the table. Already at the tables, a group that had arrived still earlier was singing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ in order that they might use the salt and pepper and ketchup there. The hubbub began to subside slowly as Major _______ de Coverley paused in the doorway with a frown of puzzled disapproval, as though viewing something bizarre. He started forward in a straight line, and the wall of officers before him parted like the Red Sea. Glancing neither left nor right, he strode indomitably up to the steam counter and, in a clear, full-bodied voice that was gruff with age and resonant with ancient eminence and authority, said:

‘Gimme eat.’

Instead of eat, Corporal Snark gave Major _______ de Coverley a loyalty oath to sign. Major _______ de Coverley swept it away with mighty displeasure the moment he recognized what it was, his good eye flaring up blindingly with fiery disdain and his enormous old corrugated face darkening in mountainous wrath.

‘Gimme eat, I said,’ he ordered loudly in harsh tones that rumbled ominously through the silent tent like claps of distant thunder.

Corporal Snark turned pale and began to tremble. He glanced toward Milo pleadingly for guidance. For several terrible seconds there was not a sound. Then Milo nodded. ‘Give him eat,’ he said.

Corporal Snark began giving Major _______ de Coverley eat. Major _______ de Coverley turned from the counter with his tray full and came to a stop. His eyes fell on the groups of other officers gazing at him in mute appeal, and, with righteous belligerence, he roared:

‘Give everybody eat!’

‘Give everybody eat!’ Milo echoed with joyful relief, and the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade came to an end.

Anyway, to this list of values as promulgated by the Life in Australia book. Just a sample:

I understand:

Australian society values respect for the freedom and dignity of the individual, freedom of religion, commitment to the rule of law, parliamentary democracy, equality of men and women and a spirit of egalitarianism that embraces mutual respect, tolerance, fair play and compassion for those in need and pursuit of the public good.

Australian society values equality of opportunity for individuals, regardless of their race, religion or ethnic background.

Has there ever been a greater exercise in self-congratulation, deceit and hypocrisy? Why don’t you ask a Timorese or a Solomon Islander about Australian ‘values’, Mr Howard? They might come up with something more like this:

I understand:

Australian society values a diverse range of mineral resources, and will do anything in its power to get and keep its hands on them. This includes deposing elected leaders , calling an invalid legal argument that only it subscribes to a ‘school of thought’, and sending forces to small, weak countries to enforce its will.

Australian society values the help that it was given by the Timorese in the Second World War, and repays it by taking Timor-Leste’s oil and gas.

Or you could ask an Iraqi or Afghani:

I understand:

Australian society values freedom, when that is its own freedom to kill, maim, torture, brutalise and otherwise debilitate people and societies with valuable resources, or to aid its allies in doing this. This is Australia’s manifest right and Australia does not need to apologise to anybody for this.

That’s not even getting into domestic politics – our venerable Prime Minister, for the uninitiated, is considered ‘habitually dishonest’ by members of his own party.

Values indeed. The worst part is that most Australians are decent people but are at the mercy of cheerleading media (some of the worst in the English-speaking world) and a scaremongering government.

Where’s our Major _______ de Coverley?

Fool me once ... can't get fooled again

2007-10-19T10:50:00.000+08:00

(Note from Phil – I wrote this a while ago but didn’t get around to posting. Latest development is at the bottom.)

Put this one in the ‘Just when you thought they’d done something right’ basket. The US Congress, after decades of Armenian lobbying and despite intense counter-lobbying by Turkey, looks set to pass a resolution (it has already been passed by its congressional committee) recognising and condemning the Turkish genocide of Armenians in 1915. To what end? Turkey is a valuable ally of the US and NATO. As the article points out,

[Defence Secretary Robert] Gates said that 70 percent of U.S. air cargo headed for Iraq goes through Turkey, as does about a third of the fuel used by the U.S. military in Iraq.

"Access to airfields and to the roads and so on in Turkey would very much be put at risk if this resolution passes and Turkey reacts as strongly as we believe they will," Gates said. He also said that 95 percent of the newly purchased Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles are being flown through Turkey to get to Iraq.

Turkey could put a stop to this traffic, and could retaliate by operating more freely against Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq. The first situation is being discussed but seems unlikely, though making this transit more bureaucratic in an attempt to force the US to go somewhere else is one possibility. Stepping up operations in Iraq, however, is quite possible; this would not only be detrimental to US efforts there, but could give Iran licence to begin (or step up, depending who you believe) its own incursions.

One thought I had on reading this was that it would be interesting to hear the Israel lobby’s response, if any. The lobby has tended to encourage the viewing of the Nazi holocaust as unique, though it is willing to recognise as genocide the events in Darfur, which more closely resemble civil war but are politically expedient due to resource conflict in the Horn of Africa. Keep that in mind.

So here, what does the US have to gain? Perhaps, I thought, the Congress was finally showing its spine and was willing to take the hit for doing the right thing. The article, however, closes with a quote that is telling:

Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, the resolution's sponsor, who is not on the committee, said he hoped it would now move quickly to a vote on the House floor. He said passage of the resolution would give the United States "the moral authority it needs to take action against other genocides like that taking place today in Darfur."

And now it all becomes clear. With or without Turkey, the US will be in Iraq as long as the powers that be wish it. To gain legitimacy and push for ‘peacekeepers’ in the Horn region, though, would be a double-whammy: it would secure a source of US oil imports that is more important than most people realise, and at the same time hurt China – the other power in the region and supporter of the Sudanese government – both in prestige and resource-wise.

No spine after all, then. Just chasing more guilt currency as more people realise the myth of American benevolence.

(And now the latest development - maybe not passing. And nice to see Turkey behaving as predicted.)

Riddling the corpse

2007-10-19T10:29:00.000+08:00

The death of satire has been reported many times, and was probably correct even before Donald Rumsfeld declared China’s military build-up disturbing. The neocons in general, in fact, have put their fair share of bullets into the corpse. I remember that when Bush was first elected, The Onion reported him as saying, ‘On the home front, tax cuts for the rich are a high priority, while in foreign policy, we need to find an enemy and defeat it as quickly as possible’. Or words to that effect. A year or so later …

Closer to (my) home, The Age satirised itself on the eve of the Iraq war with quite possibly the most brilliant juxtaposition of same-day editorials in history. Iraq? Clear threat, evil, terrorism, WMDs, go in now before it’s too late. Chadstone redevelopment? Ooh, big job that, let’s not rush into these things, feasibility study, thorough evaluation, blah blah. (Chadstone is a shopping centre, for all you non-Melburnians.)

But even so, this item from Israeli paper Yedioth Ahronoth stood out. A child was prevented from attending a Haredic school because one of his grandfathers was Sephardic. Emphasis is mine. Comment is … well, probably superfluous.

The child was denied admission to a Talmlud [sic] Torah school in Beit Shemesh because of what its principal called a “stain” in his genealogy.

“Tell the child’s dear father that although he himself is completely Ashkenazi, his wife’s father is Sephardic, and we therefore cannot accept his son into our institution. We have to maintain a certain standard,” the principal said.

…

“I begged the principal. I explained that my child is truly Ashkenazi and looks exactly like his father. Our son also speaks Yiddish, but nothing helped,” the mother said. “They explained to a friend of ours that they didn’t want to ruin their Talmud Torah with ‘damaged goods’.”

I think that just emptied the whole clip.

On the misuse of beetles

2007-10-19T10:21:00.000+08:00

Anyone who has lived in Asia can tell you how important soybeans are; given their history and entwinement with the region, I was surprised to learn recently that

China

imports some of its soybeans from the

. I was even more surprised at what they got in the containers:

The country's top quality watchdog on Friday said it had returned 460 tons of soybeans imported from the United States because they contained live Khapra beetles – an extremely destructive pest of grain products and seeds.

…

The Khapra beetle is considered one of the world's most serious pests to stored grain products, such as wheat, rice, corn and broomcorn, as well as beans and nuts.

But wait – there’s more.

It is not the first time China has reported problematic soybeans from the US. Late last month, the AQSIQ said that it had recently found "substantial" quality-related problems with imports of US oilseed. It said soybeans shipped from the US often contained harmful weeds, or herbicide residue.

Of course, there was nothing in the article about motive or premeditation – privately, however, I suspect that Chinese officials suspect. And if so, with good reason – the future of food is a topic too large to go into here, but there is a rough precedent for this kind of thing.

Won't find that one in the New York Times, I imagine. Looks like they’ll have to narrow that trade deficit by more mundane means.

Just what the world needs...

2007-10-19T09:24:00.000+08:00

Another left-wing political blog! Welcome to Rank Dissension.

A little about me: I'm an Australian editor and writer living in Hong Kong. I write a column, usually on Asian affairs, for www.NewMatilda.com back in Australia, and am a bit of a geopolitics junkie. This blog will contain everything from short observations on current events to longer pieces on how we got where we are and perhaps a little lesser-known history. Comments are of course welcomed, wherever you're from on the political spectrum. Hope you enjoy and maybe find out something you didn't know.

Cheers
Phil Annetta