Media Shame

This is an interesting commentary on the servility of the US media during the leadup to Iraq. Within is a hypothetical query - would the US have gone to war if the media had been doing their jobs properly? This isn't a new question, it's been posed quite a lot as the truth about the missing WMD is revealed.

I think though that the answer is still very much a resounding 'yes'. It's clear from whistle blower testimony and the credentials of the whitehouse officials involved that Iraq has been a long-standing priority... the instability of the Saudi regime is threatening to Western control over Persian Gulf oil, and Iraq offers a potential treasure trove of natural resources... even more than is officially reckoned since so much of the region has never been probed for goodies.

The situation in the UK during the leadup to Iraq was somewhat different from that in America. True, only a handful of papers opposed the action (the Independent being the most eloquent), but there was massive opposition to the plan, with huge protests in London, Glasgow and Belfast. The leader of the Liberal Democrats political party argued forcefully and articulately against the action in Iraq.

Gallup conducted a poll about the looming military intervention in Iraq - the results may be downloaded from here. The third question on the poll is:

Q3: Are you in favour of military action against Iraq?

For the UK (excluding Northern Ireland), here were the results:

Under no circumstances (41%)
Only if sanctioned by the UN (39%)
Unilaterally by America and its allies (10%)
Don't know / No opinion (10%)

The largest proportion of the country was always against the war - and a vast, vast majority were against the war that was actually waged. And yet, the UK went to war.

The situation in the UK is of course not directly applicable to the situation in the US - after World War 2, a very definite decision was taken by foreign policy planners to set the United Kingdom up as a 'junior partner' of the US hegemony... choosing to listen to the voices of the electorate would have compromised our 'special relationship' with the United States. It all just goes to show - it's not just a compliant media that undermines genuine democracy.

Blue Moon

So, tonight is a blue moon... now's the time to call in all those favours that were promised!

Goodnight Seattle

I had fallen out of the habit of watching Frasier during its last four or five seasons - thinking back, I can't even remember why. There are many TV shows that I have watched religiously and then stopped watching because of a perceived drop in quality, but that was never the case with Frasier. Considering it had an eleven year run, it is amazing that it stayed so consistently sharp and well-written.

I had missed so much of the series that I didn't feel comfortable watching the last ever episode until I had brought myself up to speed - thus began an aggressive campaign of downloading old episodes until I had worked my way through all eleven seasons.

I think that saddest thing about Frasier was that it always ran second fiddle to lesser sitcoms like Friends. I mean, don't get me wrong - I enjoyed Friends too... but it was never even in the same league as Frasier as far as the writing, the acting, or the producing were concerned.

A lot of great TV shows have gone off the air (or have become shadows of their former selves). It's really depressing to think that there are only a handful of shows worth watching these days. Buffy is gone. Angel is gone. Frasier is gone. The X-Files are gone. Firefly is gone (and indeed, never really got a chance in the first place). Futurama is gone. Dark Angel is gone. The Simpsons jumped the shark about six years ago... and the few episodes I watched of season five of the West Wing (a show that I once regarded as the being the best that has ever been on television) were just heart-breakingly bad.

What's left? Of the TV shows that I watch, only Alias and Scrubs. There's nothing else left on TV for me to become engrossed with. It's all reality TV - Big Brother, Survivor and 'I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here'. Television is just converging towards the same mediocre crap. The same tired premises. The same talentless mediocrities swarming over the screen in an undignified scrabble for their fifteen minutes of fame.

The last episode of Frasier didn't just mark the end of an era. It was just one in a long line of nails being hammered into the coffin of quality entertainment.

The Astounding Success In Afghanistan

More good news in the astounding success that is Afghanistan. Of course, this isn't exactly new news, since Karzai has been saying for months how bad the situation is. The battle against institutionalised poppy farming has been on-going for some time - the situation was somewhat more under control when the Taliban were in power, but a number of ham-fisted efforts by the US and the UK managed to escalate the problem.

The most ludicrous of these was the 'compensatory eradication' program that paid farmers to destroy their poppy - of course, this meant that local warlords would pay people a smaller amount to pose as farmers so that they could claim the payouts. The warlords collected the lion's share of the proceeds whilst the real farmers continued to grow poppy seeds.

Even if the full proceeds were going to the farmers, the $1,250 per hectare being offered is still far below what an opium farmer can actually earn (around $16,000 per hectare).

I'm in no way arguing that Afghanistan would be better if we just left the Taliban in place (as things stand, they're already making inroads back into power)... but Afghanistan is almost always passed off as a success story, a shining example of benign military intervention. The truth is somewhat bleaker.

In other news, the Doctors Without Borders organisation have withdrawn from Afghanistan because of danger to their staff.

The Afghanistan situation gets worse and worse every day - and as with the increased poppy production, this has a direct effect on our own way of life. Money from the heroin trade is being used to fund the Taliban resurgence, and likely funding Al Qaeda cells throughout the world. The propaganda machine in the West is right about one thing though - Afghanistan is most certainly a shining example of something.

Muslim Army

I'm not entirely sure what they are thinking with this baffling idea - do they think that it's going to cause less upset than the current situation? The fact that bombs are ripping through Iraqi civilians and that 'collaborator' Iraqi politicians are being executed at an astonishing rate suggests that the insurgents aren't particularly concerned about the religion of the occupying forces.

Vote First, Ask Questions Later.

It's a shame that the movie Bob Roberts was such a commercial flop, and it's especially unjust that it has sank, virtually without a trace, at a time when its message is more relevant than it has ever been. The movie, which is written and directed by Tim Robbins in 1992, takes the form of a mocumentory following the campaign trail of a Republican senatorial candidate called Bob Roberts.

Bob is a folk singer - in fact, he's very much a right-wing Bob Dylan, as is evidenced by the style of his music and the hilarious parodies of Dylan album covers and music videos. The movie covers Bob Roberts as he preaches his deeply worrying ideology to crowds of adoring fans via the medium of folk rock concerts and populist television appearances. Roberts is accompanied at all times by his long-time friend Lukas Hart (played by Alan Rickman), a former CIA agent and participant in the Iran-Contra affair. Hart and Roberts are co-founders of a charity organisation called 'Broken Dove', which is ostensibly aimed at getting kids off of drugs. A tenacious reporter makes it his mission to reveal the truth about the charity's involvement in gun and drug-running... with unfortunate consequences.

Gore Vidal plays the incumbent senator - a man who is slandered by the Roberts campaign early in the race. He's a man of principle, and of conviction - sadly, he's the kind of thoughtful and honest politician that only exists as a literary invention (Jed Bartlett in the West Wing being another example).

From start to finish, the movie is a masterpiece peppered with fantastic performances from a range of supporting characters. The movie is set at the period of time when America is poised to invade Iraq for the first time - certain parts of the movie make you feel as if we're just following the same footsteps in the sand with the current Iraq war, since we're just repeating the same script from the first. The first Gulf War is often cited as an example of benign multilateral action - an action that was almost universally supported by the people. The movie Bob Roberts reminds us that it was never so clear cut, and that a majority of Americans were opposed to the war right up until the point it was inevitable.

It's not available on DVD in the UK (alas), but I would recommend checking it out for a thought-provoking example of how it is possible for unpalatable characters to inject themselves into the political system through the manipulation of emotional buttons.

Ann Coulter dropped from USA Today

It'll come as no surprise I'm sure, but I really can't stand Ann Coulter - she is absolutely everything that is wrong with the Right in America. So it comes as a nice surprise to read that USA Today are dropping her column.

Coulter says: 'USA Today doesn't like my 'tone,' humor, sarcasm, etc., which raises the intriguing question of why they hired me to write for them,'

I'm sure the really intriguiing question is - why would anyone hire her to write for them? Really, if you want Coulter's brand of 'humour' or content, all you need to do is forcefeed chilli to a monkey and let it spread its excrement over a copy of Mein Kampf.

It's all going so horribly wrong

More holes poked into Blair's case for war.

Flip Flop?

I really don't think that John Kerry is a great candidate for President. He's better than Bush, but hey... who isn't?

However, it's just a little bit hypocritical for the Republican party to dismiss him as a confused opportunist who changes his views on major issues in accordance with the way the political wind is blowing. That may very well be true, but he's hardly the only one guilty of 'flip-flopping'.

I suspect 'Kerry the Flip-Flopper' is going to be the dominant impression that the Republicans seek to present when referencing to their opposition. Don't let yourselves be fooled... Bush ain't so rock-steady either.

Outfoxed

Today, I got my DVD of Outfoxed delivered through my letterbox - my GF and I watched it tonight. It's quite clearly biased and one-sided... for one thing, nobody at Fox gets a chance to make their case - but it's really good nonetheless. Considering the Fox network's gift for self-aggrandising propaganda, the lack of an 'official opposite viewpoint' in Outfoxed is forgivable... Fox already have an official avenue for stating their case, and it'll reach a much wider audience than the documentary itself is every likely to.

There were certain sections that could have been a lot stronger - I would have liked to have seen more of Bill O'Reilly bullying his liberal guests and obnoxiously shouting down any opposition. The footage that was there however was pretty revealing. The daily briefing memos distributed within the network clearly show the Spin Machine in action, although really the footage extracted from the channel is enough to demonstrate that clearly enough to anyone with a glimmer of rationality,

There's nothing wrong with FOX news in itself - the problem is that it passes itself off as objective journalism when it's really little more than a semi-autonomous propaganda machine for the Republican party. I'm not naive enough to believe there is such a thing as a completely unbiased news source - but the difference is in intention. Most news sources make at least an attempt at objectivity, even if the inherent bias of the personal selection process ensures that any given story is likely to be slanted in a very personal way. Most reputable news sources don't employ vicious personal attack techniques to diminish the standing of those deemed to be politically incompatible with the editorial leaning. Most reputable journalists have a sense of integrity and ethics, and even if they have a particular political bias themselves, they attempt to ensure a clear divide between news and commentary.

Everyone should watch Outfoxed - especially those who consider it to be something other than misleading propaganda. I've referenced this report before, but it's sufficiently interesting that it's worth focusing your fickle attentions upon it once again.

Delicious!

My mouth is watering at the very thought of these tasty morsels!

My favourite paragraph in the article: But Hydration Technology Inc, in Albany, Oregon, which made membrane, warned it is too coarse to filter out urea so soldiers should only use urine in an absolute emergency.

It chills my blood to think there are soldiers on the front line who actually need to be given the advice 'Don't piss on your sandwiches unless you have no other choice'.

ET Contact

There's a lot of uncertainty surrounding the whole issue, but this is a bold prediction indeed.

Linda Ronstadt

Isn't it great that in the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave, that someone can be escorted from their job and their hotel room for daring to dedicate a song to Michael Moore. I know he's a polarising figure - but calm the fuck down.

Ronald Regan's Daughter

Patti Davis, daughter of deceased president Ronald Regan, has written a very thoughtful article about Fahrenheit 9/11. Unfortunately, it seems to be written from a fairly sheltered perspective... "Many things have been said about the movie, and of course about its director, Michael Moore. But I don’t think I’ve heard anyone comment on Moore’s love for America."

Funny... almost all I ever hear about Michael Moore is that he hates America, and that he hates the soldiers. There's even an upcoming documentary: Michael Moore Hates America.

I agree with her central point - the rage that comes across in the movie is borne out of a love of his country. Denying the patriotism of critics is a powerful tool of the right in the propaganda war... it's a variation of the whole 'Well, if you hate America so much why don't you go live in Iraq?' argument that has become popular of late. Conflating a deep-seated anger at the current administration with a hate of the country in general is thoroughly simple-minded, and yet it is an argument that is becoming more and more popular, even if it's not getting any more credible.

The saddest part about the whole thing is that genuine debate is being obscured in this ignorant muck-raking. It is possible to be against the Bush Administration and yet still be in favour of America. It is possible to hate the war in Iraq without loving Saddam. It's possible to be opposed to the 'war on terrorism' without supporting Osama Bin Laden. If the people mouthing off about the patriotism of others spent lest time talking and more time thinking, I suspect we'd have a much more productive debate on the big issues. Unfortunately, so many people can now only see the world in shades of red, blue and white... in the real world, outside of vacuous rhetoric, the problems of the world have richer and more varied colouring.

Sickening

I know they're only birds that are going to be killed anyway, but Jesus Fucking Christ. This is absolutely sickening... the footage available here is upsetting, and I wouldn't advise anyone with a nervous or sensitive disposition to view it. The footage shows chickens being thrown against walls, stamped on and kicked... PETA have a detailed expose on their website.

On July 20, 2004, PETA released the results of an undercover investigation into a KFC chicken slaughterhouse in Moorefield, W.Va., where workers were caught on video stomping birds, kicking them, and slamming them against floors and walls. Workers ripped the animals' beaks off, twisted their heads off, spat tobacco into their eyes and mouths, spray-painted their faces, and tied their legs together for "laughs."

This is absolutely unconscionable - the kind of people who would do these things for 'laughs' are nasty, twisted fuckers. Indiscriminate cruelty to animals is a symptom of a deep-seated psychological problem that bleeds into other aspects of a person's life. I hope these bastards get shafted so hard by the law that it's a decade before they can sit down again.

Educational Ipods

Jesus... if ever you have to pick a university, this is the one to go for.

Corrine Brown

Congresswoman Corrine Brown, I salute you.

Greg Palast talks about the events that led up to this remarkably principled statement. Her comments themselves though are not really the big news - the big news is that her comments were stricken from the record in an unsettlingly Orwellian attempt to obscure the articulation of 'taboo topics'. Corrine Brown has this to say about the affair.

It's also revealing that the votes to censure her were cast according to party lines. It seems that one wing of the house is especially keen to marginalise this kind of protest... no prizes for guessing which. It is recorded in the floor proceedings with the following line:

5:07 P.M. - WORDS TAKEN DOWN - During the course of debate on the Buyer amendment exception was made to comments uttered by a Member.

Incidentally, these comments were made in a discussion about allowing the UN to monitor US elections. This is a great idea, but one that was shot down in flames after Congressman Buyer proposed an amendment effectively prohibiting any Federal employee from using US funds to make any such request to the United Nations:

An amendment to insert at the end of the bill (before the short title) a new section stating that none of the funds made available in the Act may be used by any official of the United States Government to request the United Nations to assess the validity of elections in the United States.

The votes for this were cast as follows.

The great thing about the internet is that this kind of censorship is virtually impossible... it's like God blotting the remembrance of the name of Amalek from under the heavens. It can't be done, and the act of censorship in itself is a permanent record.

Sharon Not Welcome in France

Phbt. For all of the reasons to say that Ariel Sharon is not welcome in France, this is the one that Chirac picks. Yeah, let's put aside the fact he has ordered assassinations of militant political opponents. Let's put aside his complicity in the Sabra and Shatilla massacres. Let's ignore his support for the illegal wall being built on occupied Palestinian territory. Let's pay no mind to the fact he has no qualms about approving military action involving indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, provided it helps achieve his aims.

There are many reasons to say that he is not welcome in any nation with a respect for human rights - to pick this outburst as the most important is ridiculous. Truly, the mind boggles.

Watered Down Report

Apparently the Butler report was originally going to have some much stronger language:

In the original draft this last sentence was much stronger, expressing the opinion that Mr Blair personally masterminded the misleading impression left by the dossier. The passage is important because Downing Street maintained last week that the report at no point questions Mr Blair's "good faith".

Now, that's the kind of direct censure I was hoping we'd see in the Butler report - if it is true, as this article alleges, hopefully we'll see some genuinely searching questions during the upcoming Commons debate. Lord Butler is in many ways, an Old School 'voice of the establishment', and I'm sure the language was softened with the best of intentions... however, a sin of omission is a sin nonetheless.

Alter Ego

Just as an aside, I hate all these online personality tests that clutter the Internet like balls of pustulating snot sneezed from the nasal cavities of some diseased yeti. The only thing worse than the personality tests themselves are the people who take them. And the only people worse than those fuckers are the ones who can't wait to tell you what their results were. Jesus, if I had an AK-47 and a license to kill, I swear the Internet would be a different place.

Anyway...

When I was a kid, there was this insanely innovative computer game called Alter Ego. It was written by a professional psychologist, and charted your progress through a fictional life according to your response to life scenarios. And now I find that someone, some wonderful person, has actually made it available as an internet game!

I don't know if it's all there and complete, but check it out anyway. It was aeons ahead of its time... released in 1986, and incorporating reams of relevant psychological theory. It wasn't all Manic Miner back then, you know.

Inside Burma: Land of Fear

I just finished watching John Pilger's remarkable documentary on Burma. It's an impressive work of journalism, shot entirely in secret to avoid the censorship and brutal retaliation of the ruling military Junta. The saddest thing about the whole Burma situation is how they are forced to suffer in relative anonymity. There is little in the way of mass media coverage of the situation - not really surprising considering how much foreign investment is at stake, and how that investment is currently propping up the despotic generals who rule the country.

I first heard about Burma's democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi in a book by John Pilger, and ever since then I've been a huge admirer of her courage, her integrity, and her dignified eloquence. Kept under house arrest from 1990-1996, and denied contact with her husband and children for as long as two years at a time, she never broke under pressure and never lost her faith in the strength of her people. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, while she was still under house arrest.

We must do more in the West to bring the plight of Burma to the attention of those around us... we must not allow the silence of the mass media to obscure the terrible human rights abuses that are continuing on a daily basis - slavery, forced child labour, military brutality and indiscriminate suppression.

Perhaps the most moving line in the documentary relates to a question Pilger asked to a native Burmese man, if the mass democratic uprising of 1988 could happen again. Pilger relates the answer:

Imagine a zebra crossing. The traffic never seems to stop for the pedestrians. One or two dart across. The majority wait impatiently at the kerb, then they surge across, until the traffic has lost all its power. Well, we are all back at the kerb now, waiting impatiently.

The Good War

Howard Zinn, another of my favourite authors, has a moving article over at the Progressive... it's about the glorification of World War II as 'The Good War', and the way that its image has been used as a propoganda tool when convincing the public of the need for the wars that followed.

Hutton Coverup

Unprecedented my ass.

Allawi execution

It's been denied quite strenuously, but the news is starting to spread. I suspect we'll hear a lot more about this story over the next few days, even if it is to debunk it entirely. It's something well worth keeping an eye on, though - should the allegations prove to be true, it demonstrates that the hand on the tiller of Iraq may not be Saddam's any more, but you'd be hard pressed to tell that from the direction that country is going.

The Butler Report

I just finished reading the Butler Report, which has been in the news quite a lot recently. It's interesting, and its conclusions in some respects are quite harsh. Nonetheless, overall it is a wheedling exercise in blame avoidance. Nobody did anything wrong, and everyone acted with the best possible intentions. It's too harsh to dismiss it entirely as a whitewash, although Teflon Tony is certainly more cheerful now that it's been published. On the other hand, it's too forgiving to refer to it as fair and balanced. It falls somewhere in the middle.

At this point, calling for another inquiry to correct the deficits of the previous inquiries seems like a case of sour grapes - I suspect that certain elements of the media, the opposition, and the public are going to holler until they get an inquiry that says 'Yes, Tony is to blame. He should resign'. That's never going to happen... what the Butler report outlines most succinctly is the failure of intelligence that led up to the spurious case for war. It's too much to expect that the Prime Minister can personally validate every piece of information that crosses his desk - he has to trust in his officials.

The Butler Report clears the government of any attempt to deceive or mislead the public over Iraq. However, the transition from the official intelligence reports to the official dossier released to the public shows a very clear hardening of the language used, as well as a much reduced emphasis on highlighting the limitations of the intelligence sources. The effect is that the case for Iraqi proliferation was sold without all the appropriate caveats - caveats that Blair would have been very aware of since they had all been previously published in internal intelligence reports. The fact Blair took a single vague assertion about '45 minutes to deployment' and emphasised it during his public statements and in the foreword to the public dossier shows a reliance on unsubstantiated intelligence that is not simply a case of trust in his officials.

Blair later claimed that he didn't realise the 45 minute claim only related to potential battlefield munitions - the fact that there was ambiguity at all (and there was, as is clearly documented in the Butler report) meant that he had an obligation to ensure that the information was being used in the appropriate context. Considering that one of the primary conclusions of the Butler report concerns the informal policy making machine at Number Ten indicates that Butler himself disapproved of the 'laissez fair' approach taken to major governmental initiatives.

One of the most interesting paragraphs (to my mind) of the Butler report is Paragraph 427:

'But there was no recent intelligence that would itself have given rise to a conclusion that Iraq was of more immediate concern than the activities of some other countries.'

North Korea's role as potential aggressor *and* source of proliferation is discussed in one of the preceding chapters. The justifications for the war in Iraq are documented as the historical context in which Iraq operates, as well as a requirement to ensure the credibility of the United Nations. As Noam Chomsky points out, if you want a definition of what credibility means in this kind of context, you just need to ask your local Mafia don to explain it.

Other interesting conclusions of the Butler report are:

• Many of the sources used to justify the intelligence on Iraq were unreliable... in many cases, these were ex-Iraqi officers/emigres who had potentially hidden agendas for ensuring that Saddam was deposed. However, the Butler Inquiry notes there is no evidence that motivations were a factor in the later debunking of certain sources.
  


• There was no precedent in International Law for a Regime Change, and there was no credible evidence of Iraqi complicity with international terrorism. This invalidated the 'self defence against terrorism' argument.
  


• The JIC left out certain pieces of information that conflicted the prevailing wisdom about Iraq's capacity and willingness to deploy WMD.
  


• Warnings and caveats that were present in internal information reports were either omitted or softened for the dossier that was made available to the public.
  


• The context of certain pieces of information was not present in the case made to the public - for example, that Saddam would be unwilling to use any of his alleged WMD unless he was actually attacked.
  


• The reliability of sources as far as certain pieces of information went meant that they were more likely to be accepted as reliable sources even when reporting outside of their proven area of expertise.
  


• The quality control process which should have been applied to Iraqi information sources was sometimes lacking due to a reorganisation in the structure of the SIS, as well as an emphasis on less experienced officers staffing the appropriate desks.
  


• Existing sanctions and inspections had ensured that the lid had been kept on Saddam's desires to obtain WMD capabilities, and that it was only in the event of these sanctions being softened that any credible capability in WMD deployment would be possible.
  


• The sources quoted regarding Iraqi weapon stockpiles generally did not have first-hand knowledge of the programmes. One of the major sources is identified as largely passing on what was 'common knowledge' amongst high-ranking Iraqi military officials.
  


• There was no credible evidence of co-operation between Iraq and Al-Queda.
  

There is some damning criticism in the report, even if it is couched in the most diplomatic language - but the fact that those responsible have not been censured is the primary failing of the inquiry. There is too much of a willingness to take people at face value, when all the evidence (both in the report and outside it) points to the contrary.

Anyway, that's my capsule review! Read it for yourself, it's worth taking the time for.

Moore's Stance on File Sharing

For those of you who don't live near a cinema showing Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore has said that he has no problem with you obtaining it by file sharing. There are plenty of places where you could obtain it, but if you do download it and enjoy it, please go see it at the cinema anyway. If you enjoy someone's work, they deserve to be rewarded for that. Go see it at the cinema, buy the DVD when it comes out - it doesn't really matter how you show your support, but if the RIAA and MPAA are to get the message, we need to ensure that our file-sharing is ethical, even if it isn't legal.

Press Gang

So, today Amazon shoved a package through my waiting letterhole. In this package was the freshly released second season DVD of Press Gang. Admit it... more than ever, you want to be me, right?

I thought so.

Philippines to pull out of Iraq

While I understand the decision, it's something that I find very difficult to agree with. I can't help but feel that it's never okay to acquiesce to the demands of terrorists. Of course, I'm not the one who has to decide whether or not to sentence a man to death, so it's easy for me to say that.

On the face of it, it seems like the right decision - after all, the humanitarian troops were going to be withdrawn in a month anyway. The problem is that it sends entirely the wrong message... whatever happened to 'We will not negotiate with terrorists'? There's a reason that it is an international policy - giving in on even the smallest points encourages terrorism as a legitimate form of protest.

I know that's a simplification - we have negotiated any number of times with representatives of terrorist organisations (like the IRA, for example). But still, there's a difference between using diplomatic talks to attain some kind of mutual understanding and giving in to direct terrorist demands. It's all to do with the big picture.

In the short-term, this decision may save one life... but I can't imagine that in the long term it will do anything but put innumerable others at risk.

Abu Gharib

We have plenty of scapegoats for the inhumanity at Abu Gharib, but as usual, the whole thing is being subjected to a very distasteful whitewash. It is misleading to label the treatment of the prisoners at Abu Gharib as the work of a few bad apples, sullying the good name of America... in fact, this kind of thing is so entrenched that it is accepted practice.

That's not to say that Abu Gharib isn't an interesting (and shocking) case... but it is far from a unique example of man's inhumanity to man. Institutionalised torture is one of the mainstays of American foreign policy, and has been for decades. Abu Gharib is remarkable in the way that it exploded into the public consciousness, which was a consequence of the unprecedented availability of communications technology in our modern age. In previous years, it was difficult to get footage out of a country under military occupation... nowadays, anyone with a digital camera and a modem can send their footage half way across the world without the interference of military censors.

We also can't discount gross stupidity as a factor either - at least in the past, those involved in such techniques had the good sense not to pose with their humiliated victims. In an area such as Iraq, which is under unprecedented international scrutiny, it's pretty difficult to fathom what could have motivated such candid and incriminating photography.

Abu Gharib was also remarkable in that the United States military was directly involved in the torture... in previous situations, it has been customary for the United States to take a 'hands off' role - clearly supporting the torture and benefiting from the information extracted under duress, but not actually being the ones to apply the electrodes, as it were.

In 1984, a torture manual written by the CIA was declassified and made available under the Freedom of Information Act. This manual dates from the Vietnam war, and details a number of interrogation techniques, many of which are familiar from the reports emanating from Abu Gharib. This manual served as the basis for training many torture squads around the world... the School of the Americas at Fort Benning even gave classes in torture techniques to Latin American military officers during the 80s and early 90s.

Let's take a quick tour through some of the areas in which the American intelligence community have participated, directly or indirectly, in torture or in the training of torture 'subcontractors' :

The CIA were instrumental in setting up the Iranian SAVAK intelligence service, which had a pretty shocking history of torturing political opponents of the Shah

In Guatemala, the CIA overthrew the democratically elected Arbenz government, and then helped train the Guatemalan army which operated a range of torture centres around the country.

In Vietnam, the notorious Operation Phoenix ran a bloody rampage through the war-torn country. One of the lesser known aspects of the Phoenix Project included the systematic torture of suspected Vietcong insurgents. Then there's Indonesia, where the CIA supplied Suharto with a list of thousands of suspected communists for torture and execution, and helped train the Indonesian troops in the art of 'interrogation'.

Then there's Chile, then there's El Salvadore, then there's Haiti, and then, and then, and then.

In fact, the United States' record of human rights is so appalling that it prompted Amnesty International to remark: Throughout the world, on any given day, a man, woman or child is likely to be displaced, tortured, killed or "disappeared", at the hands of governments or armed political groups. More often than not, the United States shares the blame.

There are many books on this subject - William Blum's Rogue State is an especially interesting introduction. Only a single chapter is devoted to the subject of torture in particular, but it clearly maps out the secret history of the world's only remaining superpower.

Abu Gharib is a disgusting blight on the record of the Coalition - but let's not kid ourselves into thinking it's the only stain that the West has on its soul.

Postponed Elections

I suppose this makes good sense, but it's still very creepy... if I were an American, I would have some very strong objections to the government having the ability to cancel or postpone elections. Much better that power goes to an independent organisation. You know, something like the Supreme Court, but with integrity.

Fahrenheit 9/11

So, my GF and I went to see Fahrenheit 9/11 last night. As can be expected from Michael Moore, it's a masterpiece of cinema - immensely thought-provoking, funny, and very moving. As with Bowling for Columbine, I wouldn't dream for an instant that it will sway anyone from their currently deeply held convictions (in fact, I saw one couple get up and leave during the movie... whether they were dissatisfied or suddenly aware that they had left the gas on at home and their children were most likely burning to death as they watched, I don't know). Those on the fence may find it more convincing.

My overall review is that it is doubleplusgood, and everyone should see it - but it's not flawless. I'm not going to go down the whole 'rar rar a documentary is supposed to be unbiased rarr rarr' route, since that's a pointless argument for two reasons:

a) Michael Moore has said any number of times that this film is being made to get Bush out of office.
b) There's no such thing as an unbiased documentary, and it is a disservice to Mr. Moore to suggest that his work is flawed in this respect whereas other documentary-makers are mysteriously innocent of the sin of selective inclusion.

In certain respects, I think it would have been a more convincing movie if certain allegations hadn't been made - for example, that the Bin Laden family is still in contact with their black sheep relative Osama. Sure, he was spotted at a family wedding, but I don't think the argument made there is strong enough to justify the implication. I'm not saying that the Bin Ladens *aren't* helping their relative... I'm just saying that Fahrenheit 9/11 didn't sufficiently make the case that they are.

In other respects, there were bits of the movie where it was a little too emotionally manipulative. There's a very sad scene where the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq is in Washington, and she bursts into tears and doubles up in misery... she was on the screen like that for a while, and I was just thinking 'Please, cut the camera... go comfort her'. It was very effective in conveying the message of heart-breaking loss, but I would have liked it to have been less effective and more... well, humane I suppose.

Certain parts of it are very hard to watch - the scenes of Iraqi citizens mourning their dead are especially heart-breaking, and the footage of the wounds suffered by men, women and children are extremely troubling... but that doesn't disguise the fact that we *need* to see this kind of footage. For too long, mainstream news outlets have been providing us with the Iraqi Lite footage... a clean, sanitised version of events that doesn't upset the viewing public with unnecessary explicitness.

By turns it is hilarious, and upsetting, and eloquent, and troubling. The high-point for me, which encapsulated all of these traits, was the footage of George Bush when he is told about the second plane that crashed into the World Trade Centre. He is at an elementary school, where the children are reading for him... his chief of staff whispers in his ear, and he continues to sit there, for seven minutes, reading 'My Pet Goat'. It was creepy, watching this man completely retract in on himself at a time when he should have been taking appropriate action - the appropriate action that he is being paid $400k a year to take.

Will it get Bush out of office? I doubt it - Michael Moore is a polarising figure, and the chances are if you care enough about the issues to go see a documentary on the subject, you're already in one of the two main camps. There is far more compelling evidence to suggest that Bush isn't going to be re-elected, Fahrenheit 9/11 or not. But it's still very much worth watching just for the experience of seeing the Bush Administration lie, cheat and obfuscate on the big screen, where there's nowhere for them to hide.

Noam Chomsky Interview

Jeremy Paxman interviews Noam Chomsky. The BBC has a video link of the interview, which is quite interesting in its own right.

The New Iraq

With Saddam's Ba'ath party set to gain political power in Iraq, and the new Iraqi PM's far reaching martial law legislation, just exactly how free and democratic are we expecting the new Iraq to be? One can't help but suspect that it will be a case of 'here's the new boss, same as the old boss'... perhaps with a little less obvious repression (in the short term) while the international community is watching, but with little substantial change in the real character of the government.

Of course, as soon as the US/UK objectives have been achieved, we can expect the same kind of success story as we have seen in Afghanistan... the new PM virtually powerless, the gradual resurgence of the Taliban (at a time when they're even being courted by the US), women still being subject to violence and denied their fundamental human rights.

The upbeat official story regarding the reconstruction of Afghanistan seems to be at odds with the reality of the situation on the ground - mainly because the pledged aid is far from enough to meet the needs of the devastated country. Karzai has virtually no power outside of the capital - the country is still ruled by the warlords, many of whom are friendly with the Taliban.

Why the sudden US disinterest in rebuilding a country they systematically brought to its knees? It's a mystery, that's for sure.

Conspiracy Theories

There's one kind of argument that's guaranteed to put my back up, and that's labelling someone as a 'conspiracy theorist' for arguing a case that is not compatible with the mainstream orthodoxy. It's lazy, it's insulting, and most frustrating of all, it's a spectacularly effective way of completely undermining even the most well researched or impeccably argued point of view.

The effectiveness of the 'conspiracy theory' label has been realised by the Bush administration - it was one of Rumsfeld's chief ways of dismissing valid questions about the motivations for the Iraq conflict. No-one wants to be seen as a paranoid kook, and dismissing something as being a conspiracy theory tends to cause the more orthodox thinkers and journalists to shy away from participating in a further investigation.

Consider how often Noam Chomsky is dismissed as a conspiracy theorist... this is much easier (and quicker) than countering his usually immaculately researched and documented assertions. Whether Chomsky is genuinely right in his analysis of foreign affairs is a different question - there are many facts, and these can all be argued from a huge number of different perspectives - but it does him a disservice to lump him into the same category as David Icke and other such figures.

A conversation with someone on Discworld MUD included a dismissal of the 'Iraq is all about oil' theory as 'conspiracy'. A colleague at work similarly dismissed the Iraqi Oil Theory as being naive (this colleague later changed his mind and remarked at one point a few months later 'It's obviously all about oil', but I digress). I understand the reaction - the last thing that we want to believe is that the people who have power and influence over all spheres of our lives are so morally bankrupt that they will send thousands of their sons and daughters to fight a war they were sold on the basis of lies and falsehoods. No father or mother *wants* to believe that their elected representatives have weighed up the risks and rewards and decided that human lives are expendable on the basis of naked profiteering.

Personally, I believe it's all about oil - but I don't believe Bush and Cheney went to war in Iraq to line their pockets and the pockets of their supporters. That's just a perk.

In our modern society, Oil is Power... and Power is valuable. Currently the west has control over the very profitable oil fields of Saudi Arabia, a close ally. However, the Saud royal family is cruel and corrupt, and hated by their populace... the British and American military presence in Saudi Arabia is being phased out... a military presence that, despite its primary aims (ostensibly to patrol the no-fly zone over Iraq), also helped to legitimise the rule of the House of Saud. The growing unease in Saudi Arabia, precipitated in part by the American military presence, has made it difficult to justify the current strategy of protecting Saudi oil.

The House of Saud is destined to fall... and what happens after that? It seems likely that a new Islamic state will be born out of the ashes of Saudi Arabia - a state that will welcome Osama Bin Laden as a hero. In such a case, it is unlikely that the US can hope to maintain warm relationships with the new government... a problem since Saudi Arabia has a quarter of the world's proven oil reserves. The conquest of Iraq, however, has now guaranteed Western control of a country which has the second largest oil reserves in the world, as well as an estimated 110 trillion cubic metres of natural gas. Remember however that these are proven reserves only... long years of war and sanctions have left around 90% of Iraq as being unexplored as far as potential oil reserves are concerned. It's likely that there are still huge untapped fields to be discovered - experts estimate that there could be around 100 billion barrels worth under those blood-stained desert sands. The conquest of Iraq has ensured a friendly administration working hand and hand with American oil concerns... the overall trend in Western oil control looks to be downwards, but at least this ensures that it is a slope downwards rather than a plummet.

The increasing power of OPEC should a hostile Islamic Saudi state appear is likely to make it more difficult for the US to meet its rising energy demands... Western control of Iraq also ensures a friendly voice will be heard during deliberations.

To me, this is a plausible (indeed, understandable) reason to conquer Iraq... and call me Mister Cynical, but I think it would be instructive if there was a referendum with a secret ballot, which had the following choices:

a) We do not go to war, and thus suffer higher prices for goods, fuel and a severe general slump in Western fortunes because of reduced oil availability.
b) We go to war to maintain our standard of living.

I'd like to think that the majority of people would vote A, but I don't really believe that would be the case. Most people find it difficult to defend abstracts like human rights and international justice when doing so has a powerful negative effect on their way of life. It's all well and good to say 'I'd definitely vote A!', but until the question is posed as something other than a hypothetical, that answer is pointless. I'd like to think that I would vote A, but it's never a case of someone holding a gun to your head - it's a slow, gradual process of favouring one over the other.

Anyway, rant over.

Morbid

As morbid as this is, it still sounds like a great idea. I'd love to be able to record a video message that activated only in the dead of night (no pun intended), and displayed a real-time view of the inside of my coffin. Especially if I could use the power of 3D Animation to make it look as if my eyes were open and staring directly at the passer-by.

John Pilger

One of the journalists I admire the most is John Pilger... here, he makes an interesting argument about the growing problems documentary-makers face when trying to get their work onto the air. John Pilger is a remarkable man, with a wonderful grasp of the issues and a clear, effective style of communication. For those of you living in Britian, I heartily recommend that you take advantage of the fact that the ITV News channel will be showing a nine-part documentary series of John Pilger's work. If you have access to the channel, please be sure to tune in on Sunday 11th of July at 9pm.

European Court of Human Rights

Alas, perhaps it should be the 'European Court of Western Rights', since they have just rejected an appeal regarding the ban on Muslim dress in education: Court backs Turkish headscarf ban. It seems that provided you class human rights as 'What the West regards as human rights', then you have a good chance of finding justice at the Court. Otherwise, no... after all, we don't want to encourage foreigners. One minute they're wearing heathen garb, the next they are killing our families in their sleep. :-P

I'm all for separation of state and church - in fact, I think it's pretty much the only sensible approach to take. But this isn't a case of a school enforcing a state religion on its students - it's a case of a student (in higher education, no less) who wishes to adhere to her religious obligations, completely independently of the university. This is not a church and state issue - it's an issue of personal freedom.

Further to this, the news has recently carried a story about the 300% increase in Muslim stop and searches. This is just further evidence that we are creating a whole new apartheid in Europe, one driven almost purely by a cynical political agenda aimed at promoting fear at the loss of cultural diversity and understanding.

Site Statistics

It appears from the automated site statistics kept by Blueyonder that one of the search terms used to find my homepage is 'suck one little cock'.

I'd hate to think how disappointed that person was when they clicked on my link and found it almost 100% Fellatio Free.

Civilization 4 Again

I've been thinking about some of the things that would really make Civ 4 into the Best Game Ever, and I wanted to share them before I forgot all about them.

Primarily, the game needs the Design Workshop and Social Engineering as was provided by Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. Regular units and government types could be instantiated as 'templates' so that if someone wants to play with 'cookie cutter' predefined configurations then they will all be present. However, those of us who wish to tailor our strategy according to our exact needs can then delve into a deeper game.

The 'civ unique' traits of Civ 3 are somewhat disappointing - every civ gets a unique unit, but this unit either goes obsolete very quickly or is introduced so late as to be useless.

Let me give you a brief reminder of what the design workshop in SMAC was:

Each unit was made up of a combination of four main aspects: A chassis type, a weapon type, an armour type, and a reactor type. Each unit also had an optional two 'special traits' that could further specialise them. So, if I wanted an infantry chassis with tachyon weapons and no armour, I could have it... likewise I could have a hovertank with heavy armour and little weaponry. If I had a huge empire connected by mag-tubes, then I could use such units to provide an effective, 'quick deploy' defence garrison that meant I could concentrate my military on offence rather than defence.

On the other hand, if I wanted colony pod paratroopers, then I could have that also... or probe team hovertanks, or almost anything. The configureability was astounding.

A system like that would work great for Civ 4 - each unit could be combined in the same way to provide particular kinds of strategy. For example, I could combine swords and plate armour with an infantry chassis to produce a foot-knight. The same weapons with a horse chassis becomes a mounted knight.

Here's where it really starts to get interesting - each civilisation should have a range of unique 'special traits' as well as those chosen from a starting pool. Then we get genuinely useful civ traits that reflect their potential development through history - not just some predefined snapshot. For example, the English (an imperialistic, Naval society) may have a 'pacifier' trait which means that the unit is more effective at regaining control of rioting cities. Or a 'naval superiority' trait that gives +50% to offensive, defensive and movement for naval units. Combine these two, and you could have a parallel of the British gunboats that were sent to bring order to rioting colonial cities.

Each of the weapon/armour/chassis types could be governed by strategic resources, meaning that a society without, for example, coal... isn't necessarily crippled and unable to defend itself against an aggressor that does possess this. Instead, they have to adapt - electrical or nuclear engines attached to their tanks.

This strikes me as a phenomenally fun system that could prompt a huge amount of strategic options that the current game does not possess.

And then social engineering - each Faction in SMAC gains a few modifiers that define them as a unique race, and then different governmental options are combined to give an emphasis. This could also be successfully applied to Civ 3, allowing for people to choose the exact type of government they want. A government with full freedom of the press may find that more citizens are malcontent, but also more resistant to propaganda. A government with an emphasis on green policies would find its cities producing less pollution, but at a cost to efficiency. A government with an effective secret service would be able to keep its citizens in check easier (more content citizens), but would never be able to produce great happiness (fewer happy citizens). The possibilities are endless.

Another thing that I think needs to be introduced is a greater control over the budget. I would love to be able to fund initiatives in individual cities (a-la Sim City) to address particular concerns. Or failing that, I'd like to be able to assign x% of my income to individual governors for them to apply to social, scientific or industrial requirements.

I'd like to be able to distribute my income into various categories. Foreign Aid, for example - this could work as a general modifier to your international standing. Intelligence could be funded through this system, allowing for espionage to be more prevalent - the better funded it is, the more information comes your way. This is also something that could perhaps be associated with freedom of the press. I'd like to be able to set a particular budget for my military and ensure that it is adhered to by city governors.

Oh, and I'd like to be able to setup build plans for governors, so I could say: 'First, build a hoplite. And then build a library, and then a temple. Then build a barracks. Then build whatever you want'.

In Civ 2 you had a set of advisors who let you know how you were getting on - why not expand on that by letting you recruit a cabinet from the great minds of a civilisation, each of which would give you individualised advice. For example, I might have Plato as a scientific advisor, and Alexander the Great as a military advisor. This would be far more inversive than the standard vanilla advisors in Civ 3.

Finally, diplomacy needs to be fine-tuned so that it combines the best of SMAC and Civ 3. It should have the open-ended negotiation of Civ 3, but with the range of SMAC. I want to be able to broker peace deals for my allies. I want to be able to place my units under the control of an ally. I want for civilisations to react to me in terms of my civic and governmental model rather than on my military might.

Perhaps even allow for diplomats and embassies to be more useful, in that they are an irregular source of information regarding your relations with a particular nation. Every now and again, the diplomat for England may come up to me and say 'Our leader is most concerned with your military buildup along our common border', or 'The Chancellor of Germany is upset at your excessive freedom of the press, which he feels threatens the stability of his own land'.

Now, *that* would be a game that I would be able to lose myself in.

The Drumhead Trial

So, Saddam is on trial. Whoopee. Why even bother?

It's obvious that he's not going to get anything like a fair trial... something that's well underscored by the fact the American military is attempting to censor journalist reports from the courthouse. Sure, Saddam was a cruel and vicious bastard, and he deserves to face the death penalty - but at the very least, he also deserves a fair, open and unbiased hearing. This current exercise is nothing but a sham drumhead trial taking place before a show execution.

It's not a surprise the American administration is not happy to allow his voice to be heard in the west - there's so much that's embarrassing that could come out... this page is a pretty interesting reference.

Of course, Britain is no better - we managed to express our shock and outrage at the gassing of Halabja by doubling our export credits to Iraq in the later part of 1988.

The trial of Saddam is a sham, and will remain a sham, until the political leaders, past and present, in the West are also taken to task for their involvement in Saddam's crimes against humanity. And maybe then, we can start looking at an appropriate system for ensuring that the elites in the west are equally culpable for their aggression.

State-supported terrorism is still terrorism regardless of which state is pulling the strings. Britain and America both have a long history of active involvement in brutal acts of violence against civilian populations, such as the 1985 car bomb attempted assassination in Beiruit that killed 85 innocent bystanders. The hypocrisy of this trial is sickening.

Of course, I'm sure now that Saddam-Lite is taking over, things will be rosy again. After all, the US have long been looking for someone who can maintain an iron-fist, strong-arm control of Iraq, and who isn't Saddam. Looks like they have their wish.

Some useful advice

This is an animation... for the ladies: Tenacious D

And so you're back, from outer space...

Bing!

I am back from my week long break, not that you even noticed I was gone. Jeez, what is wrong with you? You're too self absorbed, that's the problem.

Anyway, we started off with a couple of days at hay-on-wye, which is one of my favourite places in the world - a whole village devoted entirely to second hand books. We didn't stay in the village itself - instead we were accommodated at the Haie Barn, which was absolutely lovely. The couple who run the place are very nice, and the breakfasts were just superb - I couldn't recommend this place highly enough. If you're ever in the Hereford area, this is a great place to stay.

We then went to London for a few days - we stayed at the Queen's Mansion Hotel . This... wasn't as nice as the Haie Barn. From the shower that had only half a shower door, to the cold tap that dispensed BURNING HOT LAVA, to the floorboards that creaked alarmingly when anything as reckless as a foot was carefully placed down... well, we shan't be staying there again. I had stayed there a few years previously - I recall it being better then. Oh well!

Anyway, London was great - we went on the London Eye, took a cruise along the Thames. We went to the world famous London Comedy Store, visited the British Museum, and a wonderful Dali exhibition. The paintings on display weren't very impressive, but the sculptures were just amazing.

We also visited the Houses of Parliament... the architecture inside is simply stunning, but the House itself was mostly empty - I'm sure it's like that most of the time, of course. Nonetheless, I feel it's quite important for British citizens to see their elected representatives in action at least once in their lives.

After that, we headed up to Birmingham to spend a couple of days with a friend of my girlfriend, where we visited the think tank. Then we headed back home.

A very enjoyable trip!