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TALLRITE BLOG
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ISSUE #144 - 28th January 2007 [417]
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Renewed Will to Lose in Iraq More than two years ago, Victor David Hansen was listing those who were fervently willing America to lose in Iraq. Not much has changed. It is understandable that countries such as Iran continue to hope that America will be defeated in Iraq, and indeed are doing their utmost to bring this about. A free, democratic Iraq, prosperous and hopeful, would be an inspiring example to their peoples and hence a grievous threat to their own illegitimate, despotic regimes. However, we have also come to expect, as a matter of course, that huge swathes of public opinion in democratic Europe, South America and probably Canada, egged on by venal politicians, fervently wish for the humiliation of America in Iraq, and with luck in Afghanistan as well. “Humiliation” is the key word here, born of seething begrudgery of America's hegemony, not just militarily but financially, materially and even culturally (eg who's winning the music, theatre and movie awards?). On the theory that the easiest way for me to close the gap with someone better than me is not for me to improve myself but to drag down the other guy, there is a desperate desire to yank the Yanks down a peg or two, and a success in Iraq would make this immensely more difficult.
These naysayers want America to bail out of Iraq immediately, and
leave it to the Iraqis, in some
Yet it is also baffling that they do not want to think about what the global consequences of an American defeat might be for us lazy, wealthy westerners, who forgot sixty years ago how to defend ourselves because America has been doing it ever since 1945. No-one else kept the vile Soviet communist empire from swallowing and enslaving the other half of Europe. Even today no-one else is keeping the vile North Korean communist dictatorship out of democratic capitalistic South Korea, and no-one else is keeping the vile Chinese communist dictatorship out of democratic capitalistic Taiwan. An American defeat in Iraq will be nothing less than a green light for Islamicist extremists everywhere to attack, attack, attack the despised infidels in the pursuit of their depraved Koranic dream (in Sura 9:5) of converting, enslaving or killing the entire world. With Iraq descending into tri-partite civil war which draws in its neighbours, Al Qaida will have free rein in the Sunni areas for its notorious training camps. Iran, expanding into the Shi'ite regions, will be able to complete its nuclear bomb-building unmolested. Across the globe, Islamic extremists will be emboldened. 9/11, Madrid, Bali, London will turn out to have been but a foretaste, and a non-nuclear one at that, for the world-wide atrocities that will ensue. And who will stand up to them if even the only superpower has been routed? Belgium? Argentina? Austria? Canada? And what with? According to the CIA's World Factbook, the combined military expenditure of the five biggest EU countries (as if they would ever combine them) is but a third of America's.
Whether the Islamicists are successful in their ambition is a separate issue, but that will not take from the universal carnage they will inflict on us infidels in the attempt. This is not idle speculation. I cannot envisage any other outcome of an American defeat in Iraq. Can you? Those who wish defeat on America can only give heart to its enemies, who we should never forget are also the enemies of all western civilisation. Thus their defeatism prolongs the war. Which makes the recent antics of America's own legislators, both Democratic and Republican, all the more astonishing. Love him or hate him, at least George Bush is trying, whether competently or incompetently, to win.
His recent change of tactics should be a cause of hope. He has a new Defence Secretary (though Robert Gates seems singularly invisible), and a new, imaginative military chief in Iraq; he has ignored (while diplomatically praising) the extraordinary call for de-facto surrender of the Iraq Study Group; and he has instituted a 22,000 man surge in military deployment while beefing up their terms of engagement. Finally, in his State of the Union address, he pled with Congressmen and Senators to support the troops in the field and to give his new plan a chance. Now, notwithstanding their various party affiliations, these intelligent men and women are free agents free elected and are free to develop different ideas from the Commander-in-Chief. They are free to suggest different courses of action that they might think are better. The one thing that they should under no circumstances do is to decry their president's efforts without proposing realistic alternatives. For this - like the behaviour of so many Europeans - will achieve only one thing: encouragement for the enemy. Yet this is precisely what a large proportion of them are doing. Whether it is
there can be only one conclusion drawn by America's enemies in Iraq: that the US is fast developing a resolute will ... to lose. That it is only a matter of months before American public opinion - not Iraq's deadly minority of Saddamites, Ba'athists, Al Qaeda groups, local and foreign jihadists, Sunni and Shi'ite gangs, common criminals, hangers-on and dead-enders - will cause America to withdraw, to in effect declare defeat and retreat. This conclusion may not be true - I hope it isn't and clearly Mr Bush and the military under its new commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, don't believe its true. But it can only strengthen the resolve of their enemies and encourage them to wait out the surge. And that's what the General thinks too. In turn, any boost in morale for the enemies must inevitably lead to more American casualties. Vietnam was not remotely a military defeat. In 1975, America cut and ran and deserted its friends and broke its promises solely because American public opinion developed an indomitable will to lose. Ho Chi Minh marched into the South, tens of thousands died in the resultant purge, and Vietnam remains to this day a Communist dictatorship, albeit more benign and competent than it once was. Is America today developing and renewing a similar will to lose in Iraq? If so, all of us here in the west are in danger of paying a terrible price.
Antidisestablishmentarianism Not Yet
Dead Britain's' Equality Act of 2006 is a piece of legislation pushed into being under EU pressure. Its laudable aim is to outlaw discrimination towards people on grounds of - listed in this order - age, disability, gender, sex-change, race, religion, belief or sexual orientation. (The order is interesting. Is there an implied hierarchy that values my aged transgenderism over your one-legged voodoo?). On a general level, there is nothing much controversial about the bill, which was passed with ease. But, as always, the devil is in the detail. The devil in this case is the issue of child-adoption by gays: the law as it stands makes it illegal to refuse to hand a child over for adoption if the sole reason is that the prospective parents are gay. The Catholic church, which handles a third of Britain's thousands of adoptions, has, in a rare bout of courage, denounced this part of the legislation, and said that in the absence of a derogation, it will close down its adoption agencies rather than comply. The Church of England quickly followed suit, as did a few Muslim leaders. They all make the point that, to them, homosexual practices are sinful and provide an unsuitable backdrop for bringing up children. Even many atheists, for whom the concept of sin does not exist, might however agree with the second part. The Cabinet, with the exception of the prime minister whose wife is a Catholic and the doughty Opus Dei diehard Ruth Kelly, have all declared - including even the Catholic heavyweight John Reid - that the churches will get no exemption. When I was small, the longest word I knew (but couldn't spell or understand) was antidisestablishmentarianism, which I eventually learnt meant wanting the state to remain wedded to the Church (of England); a desire for some continued theocracy you might say. Well, other than the Head of State being also the chief of the Church and not being allowed to marry a Catholic, that's clearly a lost cause in the UK - for the moment anyway. If you ever doubted the separation of Church and State, the Cabinet's determination to stampede the Christian churches is the definitive statement. But will it prevail; can it win a confrontation? This depends on whether the churches - particularly the Catholics - will continue to be strong on the issue. That means that when, for example, a Catholic adoption agency is first confronted with the possibility of having to assign a child to gays, it must either dissolve itself, as Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the Catholics' boss in England and Wales, has threatened, or else deliberately ignore and flout the law as Archbishop Mario Conti in Scotland has threatened. This will lead to a classic confrontation of values and discrimination hierarchies. Will the British government be brave enough
The church will argue it is acting in accordance with its own sincerely-held beliefs and teachings, and claim that to prevent it from doing so is to discriminate against it and its members on purely religious grounds, itself a breach of the 2006 Equality Act. And note that the Act places religion ahead of sexual orientation in the list of things that are discrimination-worthy. This would be a hugely polarising issue, which regardless of the eventual outcome, could not fail to make the government look foolish. Yet simply to succumb to the church's defiance will make it look pretty stupid also. It really cannot win, but the longer the controversy goes on the worse it will look. (Mr Blair's deferral of full implementation of the Equality Act by the churches until 2009 is merely kicking the issue into touch until after he leaves office.) That's why Mr Blair's cabinet should take a leaf out of Bertie Ahern's book, and without delay grant the churches the derogation they are seeking. (It won't be the only exemption: as far as I know I will still be ineligible, on gender grounds, to join the Women's Institute). Last month, Ireland's Taoiseach faced his own religious row when a heavyweight parliamentary and cabinet committee chaired by his own party (amazingly, the “Child Protection Committee”) proposed to lower the age of consent from 17 to 16. He initially supported this, but the Catholic and Protestant churches immediately expressed alarm, not because of church teaching but on morality grounds, a concept very few dare float in today's non-judgmental times. Mr Ahern, famously “the most skilful, the most devious, the most cunning of them all”, knew an elephant trap when he saw one and promptly backtracked. After a few blushes and a bit of bravado, the issue quickly died out. Antidisestablishmentarianism is not yet quite dead in Ireland, and may well revive in Britain once the adoption row gets properly underway.
Sports Careers Ending with a Thump
The prophetic (though non-Gallic) George Orwell What is it about major sports stars with a Gallic flavour who want to kill their careers with a macho display of their donnybrook skills? Eric Cantona, for several years football captain of France and star of Manchester United, set the pace in 1995 when he kung-fu kicked spectator Matthew Simmons, then punched him a few times for good measure, because he had apparently made an insulting remark.
Mr Cantona earned a hefty fine, a nine-month ban and narrowly escaped a prison sentence. He was reviled for ever more, his professional career never fully recovered and a couple of year later it was over. Then, last year, it was Zinedine Zidane, another captain of France, who at the pinnacle of his career, played in the the World Cup final against Italy. Then, in the last ten minutes of the contest, with victory still a distinct possibility, he assaulted Italy's Marco Materazzi with a vicious head-butt for all to see, knocking him to the ground in pain.
The resultant red card ended in shame the previously illustrious career of Mr Zidane. Now it's the turn of Trevor Brennan, a redoubtable Irish rugby professional, who is currently a star with Stade Toulousain, arguably France's finest club. He holds ten Irish caps, two Heineken cup medals (the only Irishman to do so), a number of all-Ireland AIB championships medals, and has many other rugby accomplishments. Off the ball, he runs a successful Irish pub in Toulouse, De Danú, and writes regular contributions to newspapers about rugby life in France.
Aged 33, his stellar career is in the process of ending in similar
disgrace.
Likewise, his career has now effectively ended in disgrace, with a fine, a ban and possible legal action for the assault(s). He later said that his attack on Mr Bamford was provoked when Ulster supporters called his mother a “whore”, an unusual epithet. My guess is that they called him a “bastard”, which post-factum he has liberally and literally reinterpreted as an insult to his mother. Of course this kind of brouhaha is what makes French sport so much more interesting. Things that go thump in a fight.
The Qatar Masters golf tournament that took place last week produced an interesting, little-reported whimsy. The prize for a hole-in-one at the 17th hole (normally the 8th, as the pros play the nines in reverse order) was to be a 26-foot motor cruiser worth $150,000, which would be put on display by floating it in the duck pond over which the players have to hit. Just before the tournament, the boat was gingerly lowered into the water, but someone had forgotten to insert the bungs, and the bilge pumps didn't work, so the boat simply started to sink. Only an alert crane driver saved the day (and the boat) by putting the crane hastily into reverse before irreparable damage was done.
Tony in Doha, the keen-eyed observer who reported this story, reckoned it was a case of “a hole in the hole-in-one”. No-one won it, by the way.
Week 144's Letter to the Press Just one lonely letter this week, and not published.
- - - - - - - - - - U S i n I R A Q - - - - - - - - - - Quote: “Whatever you voted for, you did not vote for failure. Our country is pursuing a new strategy in Iraq and I ask you to give it a chance to work. And I ask you to support our troops in the field, and those on their way ... Let us find our resolve and turn events toward victory.” George Bush, in his State of the Union address to Congress
Typical responses of
naysayers, respectively - - - - - - - - - - I R E L A N D - - - - - - - - - - Quote: “It would be easy to blame the junior officers' conduct in dealing with various informants and indeed they are not blameless. However, they could not have operated as they did without the knowledge and support at the highest levels of the RUC and PSNI.” The redoubtable
Nuala
O'Loan, Northern Ireland's police ombudsman,
Sir Hugh Orde, Chief Constable since 2002, Quote: “Is it wrong that a prisoner who might be in for a long stay, that they [sic] might get out on humanitarian and welfare grounds, that they [sic] might get out for an hour for a Communion or for a Confirmation or for the Baptism of their child?” Ireland's Taoiseach
Bertie Ahern,
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ISSUE #143 - 21st January 2007 [372]
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Darwinism:
Not Just About Animals and Plants I'm still ploughing my way through Richard Dawkins' “The God Delusion”, which I must say is wonderfully written. His big thing, and answer to all theocratic and creationist arguments, is Darwinism, Charles Darwin's 1859 theory by which all creatures great and small, not to mention plant life, have evolved over millennia through nature's relentless and merciless selection of the fittest. But Darwinism need not be confined to living things. It also explains modern technology, for instance. Every component of every bit of it has come about through the steady improvement of what lay before. Just one simple example. I am using Microsoft's FrontPage 2003 to prepare this post. It's not an invention from nothing: it is an improvement on the two versions I used previously, which came out in 2000 and 1997. Like every other industrial product, it's evolutionary. If we go back far enough there will be a link to the proverbial wheel of our ancestors. Likewise, Darwinism explains much in the arrangement of human affairs.
And quel surprise. Those open societies are the same ones that deliver most wealth to their citizens, and the source of their openness is, of course, democracy. When it is the people who elect their governments, and can get rid of them, the politicians in those governments have to be able to back up their intentions and decisions with hard facts and arguments. There is a limit to what they can hide and get away with hiding. When they make errors, they need to correct for them or they won't remain in government for very long. They in turn demand openness from those doing business in their jurisdictions, in terms of providing reliable data both for taxation purposes and for their shareholders. Thus, if businesses don't make a profit and don't learn from their mistakes, their managers don't remain in position for very long. That old business mantra, “put it right or I'll find someone else who will” remains as powerful an incentive to take difficult decisions as it ever was. The net effect of this openness in democratic societies is continual improvement on prior practices, manifested in continual growth. This is pure Darwinism, survival of the fittest, ever adapting and evolving to meet an ever changing environment. And it's the reason for the slower growth and/or lower wealth levels of closed, undemocratic societies. And it also explains why the armed forces of democratic countries are also the world's most powerful - America, Britain, France, Israel, Australia - even though less numerous than those of say China and North Korea. Because they too have to operate in the glare of openness, which obliges their commanders to constantly improve or else find another means of livelihood. Israel, for example, is still smarting over the inconclusive end to last summer's war in (not against) Lebanon. Its previous wars have all ended in decisive victories, which earned it a reputation of invincibility for its first 58 years. Its failure to meet its 2006 war aims of
is a serious setback. When the Arab armies have in the past suffered defeat at Israel's hands - most spectacularly in the Six Day War of 1967 - no serious introspection has followed and no-one prominent lost his job. Most notoriously, the Arabs' main leader, unifier and rabble-rouser in 1967, Egypt's president Gamal Abdul Nasser, managed to keep his job - though in fairness he did offer to resign, but this was rejected by the masses (orchestrated or otherwise). He then went on to lead Egypt the following year into another losing war with Israel, which ended only when he died in 1970. Contrast this with recent events in Tel Aviv. After the Lebanon war, Israel set up a commission of enquiry headed by an eminent, 80-year-old retired supreme court judge, Eliyahu Winograd. It is investigating the failings of the political and security echelon, and its interim and final reports, due in a matter of weeks, will be made public. The military has conducted a
separate enquiry, which has
criticised poor planning, poor strategy and poor
execution of the war, with too much reliance on air power and
waiting too long to send in ground troops, many of whom were poorly
equipped.
There is wide expectation that, once the Winograd reports are out, if not before, prime minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz, as the war's political leaders, may also have to go, which could well be followed by loss of power by the ruling Kadima party. Hezbollah, who as far as we know have conducted no similar post-mortem on the war (nor have its sponsors Iran and Syria), are celebrating the downfall of Lt Gen Halutz as yet another victory against the hated Israel. This shows a deep and dangerous misunderstanding of the way Darwinism works. They should instead be fearing his departure, because it signifies that Israel is determined to learn from its mistakes and emerge stronger. It is, in fact, engaged in a process of Darwinian evolution in pursuit of its own survival through being the fittest in its fraught neighbourhood. If and when the war in Lebanon resumes, which seems likely given the inconclusive outcome of Round One in 2006, Israel will conduct itself very differently and Hezbollah will rue the day. Charles Darwin was not just about animals and plants, but - for better or for worse - about the ways of humankind as well.
From all the media coverage of Channel 4's unwatchable Big Brother lately, you'd swear that some act of racism had been committed.
Hell-o-o? This is what actually happened.
And that's it. That's what the furore is about. Thoroughly obnoxious nobodies being horrible to each other. But that's what prompted even respectable broadsheets like the Independent to carry a front-page headline which screamed “RACISM”, why UK's putative future prime minister Gordon Brown grovelled to the Indian government, why the Carphone Warehouse withdrew its annual £3m sponsorship of Big Brother, why a dozen people ridiculously burned an effigy of the TV producers in the streets of Patna in the east of India.
Of course the real transgression was not really of a racist nature. It was the sin of political incorrectness, that strange creed that says no-one (particularly no-one non-white) must ever be offended, especially on prime time TV and especially not by a white person. It is kind of scary to see how many people sign up to this new religion. But if you want to see some real racism,
executed in the most subtle and masterful of fashions, tune in over
the next few months to the, er, race for the democratic nomination for US
president.
And it won't be redneck white guys and gals doing the racism. It will be the traditional, long-serving, American black Left establishment, led by people like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, both past presidential hopefuls, and singer Harry Belafonte, famed for calling Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice “house niggers” for consorting with the hated George Bush. They are furious that Brother Obama has so suddenly and effortlessly passed them by and owes them no special subservience, and is so - well - polite. So when they carp that Mr Obama has no “meat”, he's “just the king's clothes”, and a Democratic strategist observes that “along comes this son of a Kenyan farmer and suddenly he’s measuring the drapes in the Oval Office”, be clear what you're hearing:
Such sentiments represent pure, if discreet, racism - racism against African Americans who actually come from Africa. Expect more of it. And don't expect Brothers Jackson, Sharpton and Belafonte to take any racism lessons from Big Brother's Ms Goody.
Enda Kenny is the effeminate, youthful-looking, whiny-sounding leader of Ireland's main opposition party Fine Gael. “Enda” by the way is a male name in this country. Since his party's policies barely differ from those of the ruling Fine Fail party (they were formed out of the opposing sides of the 1922-3 civil war), whose only ideology is to remain in power by keeping the good times rolling, Mr Kenny has little chance of becoming Taoiseach. The current incumbent, Bertie Ahern, is an adept survivor, who was aptly described by a crooked predecessor as “the most skilful, the most devious, the most cunning of them all”. But there is a general election looming in a few months, and Mr Kenny rightly concludes - though denies - that this not going to be all about manifestos, but about personalities.
All in all, he has attempted, in a flash, to replace his prior boyishness with a measure of urbane gravitas. But, despite the obvious scope for mockery, I have been astonished that there has been virtually no comment in the Irish media, and this in January the scarcest time of the year for news. My letter on the subject to the Irish Times (and later to the Sunday Times) went unpublished. Even the blogosphere is almost silent (this post notwithstanding). I say, good luck Enda, but you still haven't a hope, bouffant or no bouffant.
Late Note: On 11th May 2007,
Much Later Note (20th
November 2014):
Somewhat Later Note:
Oh, - and he lost the election, as expected.
Guess what's being loaded onto this Pan Am plane half a century ago.
In September 1956, IBM launched the 305 RAMAC, the first computer with a hard disk drive (HDD). The HDD weighed over a ton and stored five megabytes of data. (Thanks for this, Dave in Fuengirola)
Week 143's Letters to the Press Three letters to the Irish Times this week, none of them published. I was bit surprised the innocent one about Enda Kenny was not; perhaps there is a non-mockery conspiracy.
Quotes of Week 143 - - - - - - - - - - R W A N D A - - - - - - - - - - Quote: “The view in the past was that it was our fate to be poor. We don't believe that now. We believe our fate is to be rich.”
An unnamed minister in the Rwandan government, - - - - - - - - - - U N - - - - - - - - - - Quote: “I was very pleased that I ... could at least hold the door for him to go first.” Sir Mark Malloch Brown, Sir Mark also departed, a few weeks later. - - - - - - - - - - I R A N - - - - - - - - - - Quote: “Regime change [in Iran] is preferable to striking Iran’s sites, but the only course worse than the use of force is an Iran with nuclear weapons.” The same John Bolton, - - - - - - - - - - B R I T A I N - - - - - - - - - - Quote: “If we had anticipated [that], we would have wanted to do something to try to ensure the ratio of profits to total income stayed the same.” Patricia Hewitt,
Britain's Health Secretary, In 2004, incentives were introduced to improve service.
- - - - - - - - - - LY R I C S - - - - - - - - - -
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ISSUE #142 - 14th January 2007 [360]
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You will have seen my “Image of 2006”. The judicial execution of Saddam Hussein was a defining moment of 2006. For the first time in the entire history of mankind, a tyrannical head of state was
and his fellow-countrymen then
And all this was carried out in accordance with a constitution that had been ratified by the people in a free vote barely a year and half before. Wow. That is the context in which the execution should be viewed. Of course there have been unmitigated howls of anguish across the world from naysayers, Saddam-lovers, Bush-haters, fearful tyrants (that includes you, Mr Qaddafi) and others more concerned about their own posturing than Saddam's million-plus victims. Amongst these there have also been many who genuinely object to capital punishment in all circumstances, and frankly I am one of them. However I find it odd how vociferous many of those in this group have been over the hanging of Saddam, and - from time to time - over America's executions, especially those sanctioned by George Bush when governor of Texas. Yet they remain strangely silent over China's daily executions, or those perpetrated by other such pillars of democracy as Egypt, Iran and Saudi Arabia (whither the Irish prime minister happens to be leading a large trade delegation this week). My own objection is one of principle - you shouldn't kill another human being if you can possibly avoid it. But I must confess to feeling wobbly about Saddam when I contemplate the alternative sentence of imprisonment for life. This is not only due to the enormity of his crimes (in addition to the ones in Dujail for which he was sentenced), but because of the ongoing twofold hazard that life imprisonment would have entailed. Firstly, you have only to recall Napoleon's first banishment, in 1814, to Elba, following his disastrous invasion of Russia and the humiliating defeat of France that followed. From his tiny Italian island-exile, within months he mounted a military come-back plunging France into a further three months of bloody, deadly and pointless warfare culminating in a second humiliating defeat at Waterloo, at the hands of the Duke of Wellington. Or think back to the 1950s when many closet Nazis were still encouraged by their belief that Hitler - whose Berlin suicide the Soviets refused to confirm - had evaded death and was living somewhere in South America preparing to resume, Napoleon fashion, the super-race dream. By contrast, no Italian fascists harboured such thoughts about Mussolini, for the simple fact that Communist partisans shot him and then hung up his body by the feet for all to see for several days near the magnificent Romanesque railway station he himself had completed in Milan. It is, therefore, not fanciful to suppose that Saddam's continuing existence would have given hope to many a Ba'athist, Sunni or Tikriti insurgent that he would one day return and lead them back to glory. Secondly, under a sentence of life imprisonment, his return to the fray may well have been facilitated and hastened by a few kidnappings, atrocities and blackmail. With Beslan as a recent example, raiding a nice primary school in, say, Kurdistan and beheading one child per hour on prime-time TV until Saddam was released would probably do the trick. If not, try the same in some pacifist haven such as Belgium or Sweden. You get the picture. But with his execution, all such scenarios have now been extinguished, and this should be welcomed. He's gone. He's history. He'll never come back. That's why I find it hard to condemn the fact of the execution. Then there is the manner of his hanging, which has drawn even more widespread disgust. Disparagement came even from George Bush and Tony Blair, who by invading Iraq did more than anyone to create the circumstances of its happening. There are three threads to the criticisms, all of which I think are rubbish.
He was mocked and taunted by onlookers in his last moments.
No-one should have been permitted to film the execution, much less release it on the internet.
In conclusion, it is well to recall once more the simple but brutal history of Saddam, as recently recounted by Brendan McMahon. Having used intrigue, chicanery and murder to wrestle himself on to the Iraqi presidential throne in 1979, the following year he invaded neighbouring Iran, a war that cost over a million lives. When this military adventure failed he exacted revenge on the Iraqi Kurds, whom he accused of supporting Iran, and killed thousands of them in chemical attacks on Kurdish villages. He then turned his attentions to the south, where he made an unprovoked attack on Kuwait, again resulting in the death or disappearance of thousands. When it looked like he had misjudged the situation and many of the neighbouring countries joined the United States and others to oust him, he ordered the firing of missiles at Israel in an attempt to provoke a third war. When forced to leave Kuwait he ordered a “scorched earth” policy which involved the destruction of Kuwaiti oilfields. A catastrophic environmental disaster was only narrowly avoided by a speedy response by oilwell blowout specialists from all over the world. After this, he ruthlessly suppressed an uprising in the south of Iraq and caused irreparable damage by maliciously draining an area inhabited by an ancient civilisation, the Marsh Arabs, in an attempt to wipe them out. He then concentrated his attentions on the Shi'ite population of Iraq, again killing thousands, as the continued uncovering of mass graves testifies. In addition, during this time he was also an enthusiastic sponsor of international terrorism with his support, both moral and financial, of suicide bombings against civilians in Israel and the disputed territories. Death by hanging was a mild price to pay for his heinous, multifarious crimes. May other tyrants tremble.
EU Membership Will Be Bad for Turkey It is becoming ever more obvious that, though no-one is prepared to stand up and say so, the EU doesn't really want Turkey in the club. The reasons are a mélange of the good, the bad and the ugly, and I have written about some of them previously. But what is puzzling, at least to me, is why successive Turkish governments seem so keen to join, that they are prepared to put up with perpetual rebuffs, if not humiliations, the latest being Joseph Daul of the European People's Party who last week declared that “Turkey is not ready for EU membership and the EU is not ready to absorb Turkey”. But like the Chumbawamba hit, “Tubthumping”, Turkey gets knocked down, but it gets up again, you're never goin' to keep it down. On the one hand, the economic benefits of EU membership are plain. As a member you get free access to 490 million more consumers, suppliers and investors - rich ones at that - than you have at home, and you get gifts measured in €uro-billions to beef up your infrastructure. Wealth creation under the invisible hand of Adam Smith is sure to follow, as it (eventually) has for every other new member which has joined. On the other hand, prospective membership also provides excellent cover for pushing through constructive economic and political reforms that you know you should be doing anyway, but which might be painful and unpopular. They usually boil down to cutting services, slashing subsidies, increasing taxes, privatising state assets. You simply tell your people that you don't agree with the reforms either, but you have no choice due to those damned, faceless, heartless EUrocrats in Brussels. Turkey has gone a long way down the reform path using this simple expedient and deserves much praise for doing so.
On the economic front, protectionist barriers have been dismantled, foreign investors welcomed, markets opened. These are the kind of measures that have, both directly and indirectly, contributed mightily, since the massive earthquake of 1999 and the economic meltdown of 2001, to Turkey's healthy GDP growth currently cracking along at about 7½% per year. So why the eagerness to actually join the EU when it is getting anything but a welcome? There is a more or less permanent free trade deal on the table, together with generous grants, which stops short of membership. It's there for the taking. So why would this not be good enough? What is the vital ingredient that makes Turkey feel it must strive for all or nothing, even if the nothing is the more probable outcome? It must be the free movement of people that Turkey desperately wants, which is the very same ingredient that the EU so desperately fears. Notwithstanding all the positive things I've said about Turkey's reforms above, it is still a good bit behind the main EUropean nations in key areas such as democracy, human rights, control of the army, freedom of expression, minority rights, religious freedom, civil liberties. Such factors help to explain its relative poverty - an annual GDP of only $7,950 per head, ranking it 75th in the world, compared with the EU average of $28,100 which puts it at 23rd. Free movement of people through full membership of the EU would thus provide an enormous safety valve for Turkey's people,
Moreover, once inside the EU, the EU's power to influence Turkish policy would necessarily diminish. In effect, Turkey would be sorely tempted to export its problems rather than solving them. If you doubt that, look west across the Atlantic. What is the primary export
It's 800,000 illegal Mexican emigrants fleeing north per year. The army of Mexican émigrés then, through their remittances home, add a welcome $17 billion a year to the Mexican economy. Thus, the Mexican government, far from feeling concern at the never-ending loss of so many citizens, protests any United States action to curb the flow - such as building a physical barrier, and urges the US to grant amnesties to all those illegal Mexican incomers. This is all because the illegal efflux helps
This is hardly a recipe for the advancement of your country. Thus, for the good of its own people, the Turkish government should abandon its futile aspiration to join the EU, and instead continue vigorously with its political and economic reform process, whilst robustly negotiating an immediate free trade agreement with the EU. Full membership will be bad for Turkey's people.
An interesting new think tank was launched in Ireland this month - the Iona Institute, which is dedicated to strengthening civil society through making the case for marriage and religion. Its underlying premise is that data consistently show that, statistically, children raised by married (heterosexual) parents consistently do better in life than those brought up in other family or non-family situations. This is what most people would intuitively expect. Less intuitive, and thus in need of evidence to back it up, is the view that religious practice (note - not necessarily religious belief) leads to a stronger, more benign civil society, with less crime, drug and alcohol abuse, suicide, family breakdown etc. This would have to be qualified by defining what religion you're talking about. One which advocates limb amputation and conversion by the sword might not have such beneficent effects as one that says you should love your neighbour and avoid murder. The Iona Institute is unabashedly Christian and Catholic. It kicked itself off with a poll regarding family arrangements which sought, from a cross-section of 950 people across Ireland, their agreement/disagreement with seven statements The results are not in themselves surprising but these kinds of questions seem not to have been asked systematically before. The institute has presented the poll results a bit awkwardly as two pdf files, so I've summarised and rearranged the main findings below. Those who agreed with the statements were roughly double the number of those who disagreed, the rest being don't-knows.
It is evident from this that a majority of Irish people still support, and want the State to support, the traditional two-parent family and marriage, and would like, for example, to see disincentives to marry removed from Ireland's tax and welfare code. The Iona Institute is a privately funded NGO which is headed by David Quinn, an Irish writer on social and religious affairs - he who gave professional atheist Richard Dawkins such an unaccustomed mauling on Irish radio last November. I engaged in some conversations with Mr Quinn about that, and wrote a post entitled “DawQuinn: Atheism Nil, God 1” where you can hear the infamous interview with Mr Dawkins. Mr Quinn then asked me to contribute writings from time to time to the Iona Institute, which I will be pleased to do, with links to this blog as appropriate.
Alerted by Graham in Perth, I was fascinated by the story about another McLaren, a recovering alcoholic-druggie who plays (played?) football. In a Scottish First Division football match between Clyde and Dundee last month, Dundee striker Andy McLaren lived up to his positional title, and achieved a seemingly impossible hat-trick at the same time. In the 87th minute Dundee, who were 2-0 down, scored from a penalty, after which Mr McLaren tried to wrestle the ball from the Clyde keeper, David Hutton, who was naturally attempting to slow things down to bring the 90th minute closer. Both players were booked. Just seconds later, on his way back into his own half, Mr McLaren was goaded by another Clyde player, Eddie Malone, and the shoving match resulted in a second yellow for Mr McLaren, and thus an automatic red, and sending off. On his way off the pitch, he hit yet another Clyde player, this time Michael McGowan. But Dougie McDonald the referee was only alerted to this by one of his assistants, and thus when the match was over (final score 2-1 to Clyde), the ref called Mr McLaren to his dressing room to show him the second red card. The hapless Mr McLaren was so incensed that he kicked a hole in the door, for which the ref made it a full hat-trick of red cards! To finish off the saga if not the man, he was then given an eight-game ban and was fired by Dundee. As an added quirk and irony, Dundee now seems to have replaced him by snaffling Clyde's captain Paul McHale. Who says soccer is dull (apart from me).
Week 142's Letters to the Press “Week” 142 is a bit of a misnomer because it covers the seven weeks since I last blogged. That's why there are no fewer than ten letters below, of which three were published (P!) - in the Irish Times, the Economist and on Mark Steyn's site. A thirty percent success rate is about par for 2006, when I wrote a total of 75 letters, of which 23 were published, or 31%.
- - - - - - - - - - I R A Q - - - - - - - - - -
George Bush explains - - - - - - - - - - I S L A M - - - - - - - - - - Quote: “Anyone who cannot accept the equality of men and women has not even come close to meeting one of the basic conditions for the 21st century. It's in Islam's own interest to make that very clear and decisive.” German interior minister Wolfgang
Schäuble, He was commenting that parts of the
Islamic world Quote: “I wish to reiterate my great esteem for Muslims, encouraging them to continue to work together, in mutual respect, to promote the dignity of every human being and the growth of society where personal freedom and care for others provide peace and serenity for all.” Pope Benedict XVI,
on his first visit to Turkey, Earlier he
characterised Islam as a religion of
Quote: “On November 21st you carried a report headed ‘Medical Students Seek right to wear hijabs’. I wish to state, as a patient, under no circumstances would I allow anybody wearing a veil, hijab, burqa, balaclava or a paper bag over their face to examine me. I have rights too.” Dubliner Patrick Smith, writing to the Irish Times - - - - - - - - - - I S R A E L - - - - - - - - - - Quote: “Iran openly, explicitly and publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when they [Iran] are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel, Russia?” Ehud Olmert, Israel's
prime minister, in an interview, He later blamed his poor grasp of English. - - - - - - - - - - U N - - - - - - - - - - Quote: “Nobody intended our aid to subsidise this.” A United Nations official pathetically
whines - - - - - - - - - - E U R O P E - - - - - - - - - - Quote: “The Europeans have relied on their American allies for too long. They have to shoulder their share of the burden by making a national defence effort commensurate with their ambitions for the Atlantic alliance and also for the European Union.” An extraordinary
statement issued by Jacque Chirac. - - - - - - - - - - I R E L A N D - - - - - - - - - - Quote: “My intention was to assassinate Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness.” Multiple murderer
Michael Stone Sentenced in 1989 to
684 (!) years for the murders of six Catholics, Having now
re-offended, He will leave prison in a coffin. Quote: “I feel sorry for the Ward family who have lost a father and is left with young children.” Padriag Nally, after
being acquitted - at his second trial - Last
November, I wrote about this case in a post titled
- - - - - - - - - - E N G L A N D R U G B Y - - - - - - - - - - Quote: “When England won the World Cup in 2003, it probably seemed to the outside world that we were travelling on a gleaming, modern cruise liner. We were not — we were on the Titanic. I realised it even as Martin Johnson held the trophy above his head in Sydney. It is personally shattering for me to say this, but winning the World Cup was the worst thing that ever happened to the England team.” Clive Woodward, His closing remark is of course utter
drivel,
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So
time to change his own. Or at least his appearance. So,
suddenly, after Christmas he appeared with a new persona. Gone
are his luxuriant golden locks, replaced by dark hair with just a
hint of patrician grey. His so last-century parting on the
left has been supplanted by a backswept, business-like, almost
bouffant hairstyle. He's dyed his pasty eyebrows and had them
shaped, and taken to narrowing his eyes to look less gullible.
That baby-pink complexion has given way to a tough-guy tan.
And he has tried (not very successfully) to lower his voice to make
it sound more, well, virile.
Now, for a little [Light Relief]
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Gift Idea |
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Good to report that as at
FREED AT LAST, |
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BLOGROLL
Atlantic Blog (defunct) Blog-Irish (defunct)
Jihad
Religion
Iona Institute
Leisure
Blog Directory
My Columns in the
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What I've recently
But it's not
entirely honest in its subtle pro-Palestinian bias, and therefore needs
to be read in conjunction with an antidote, such as See detailed review +++++
BP's ambitious CEO John Browne expanded it through adventurous acquisitions, aggressive offshore exploration, and relentless cost-reduction that trumped everything else, even safety and long-term technical sustainability. Thus mistakes accumulated, leading to terrifying and deadly accidents in refineries, pipelines and offshore operations, and business disaster in Russia. The Macondo blowout was but an inevitable outcome of a BP culture that had become poisonous and incompetent. However the book is gravely compromised by a litany of over 40 technical and stupid errors that display the author's ignorance and carelessness. It would be better to wait for the second (properly edited) edition before buying. As for BP, only a wholesale rebuilding of a new, professional, ethical culture will prevent further such tragedies and the eventual destruction of a once mighty corporation with a long and generally honourable history. Note: I wrote
my own reports on Macondo +++++
A horrific account of:
More details on my blog here. +++++
After recounting a childhood of convention and simple pleasures in working-class Aberdeen, Mr Urquhart is conscripted within days of Chamberlain declaring war on Germany in 1939. From then until the Japanese are deservedly nuked into surrendering six years later, Mr Urquhart’s tale is one of first discomfort but then following the fall of Singapore of ever-increasing, unmitigated horror. After a wretched journey Eastward, he finds himself part of Singapore’s big but useless garrison. Taken prisoner when Singapore falls in 1941, he is, successively,
Chronically ill, distraught and traumatised on return to Aberdeen yet disdained by the British Army, he slowly reconstructs a life. Only in his late 80s is he able finally to recount his dreadful experiences in this unputdownable book. There are very few first-person eye-witness accounts of the the horrors of Japanese brutality during WW2. As such this book is an invaluable historical document. +++++
This is a rattling good tale of the web of corruption within which the American president and his cronies operate. It's written by blogger Michele Malkin who, because she's both a woman and half-Asian, is curiously immune to the charges of racism and sexism this book would provoke if written by a typical Republican WASP. With 75 page of notes to back up - in best blogger tradition - every shocking and in most cases money-grubbing allegation, she excoriates one Obama crony after another, starting with the incumbent himself and his equally tricky wife. Joe Biden, Rahm Emmanuel, Valerie Jarett, Tim Geithner, Lawrence Summers, Steven Rattner, both Clintons, Chris Dodd: they all star as crooks in this venomous but credible book. ACORN, Mr Obama's favourite community organising outfit, is also exposed for the crooked vote-rigging machine it is. +++++
It is really just a collation of amusing little tales about surprising human (and occasionally animal) behaviour and situations. For example:
The book has no real message other than don't be surprised how humans sometimes behave and try to look for simple rather than complex solutions. And with a final anecdote (monkeys, cash and sex), the book suddenly just stops dead in its tracks. Weird. ++++++
It's chapters are organised around provocative questions such as
It's central thesis is that economic development continues to be impeded in different countries for different historical reasons, even when the original rationale for those impediments no longer obtains. For instance:
The author writes in a very chatty, light-hearted matter which makes the book easy to digest. However it would benefit from a few charts to illustrate some of the many quantitative points put forward, as well as sub-chaptering every few pages to provide natural break-points for the reader. +++++
The author was a member of Britain's V Force, a forerunner of the SAS. Its remit was to harass Japanese lines of command, patrol their occupied territory, carryout sabotage and provide intelligence, with the overall objective of keeping the enemy out of India. Irwin is admirably yet brutally frank, in his descriptions of deathly battles with the Japs, his execution of a prisoner, dodging falling bags of rice dropped by the RAF, or collapsing in floods of tears through accumulated stress, fear and loneliness. He also provides some fascinating insights into the mentality of Japanese soldiery and why it failed against the flexibility and devolved authority of the British. The book amounts to a very human and exhilarating tale. Oh, and Irwin describes the death in 1943 of his colleague my uncle, Major PF Brennan. +++++ Other books here |
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After
48
crackling, compelling, captivating games, the new World Champions are,
deservedly,
England get the Silver,
No-one can argue with
Over the competition, |
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