And I Won't Ride With You

The second event that I referred to in my last post was the attack by the Taliban on a school in Peshawar, Pakistan.  Although one of the tenets of terrorism is that it is intended to strike terror into the population at large this attack, intentionally targeting a school resulting in the death of 137 school children may have been a bridge too far.

The sheer brutality of the attack was apparently intended to break the country's resolve to fight the Taliban and perhaps submit rather then suffer more such violent attacks.

It appears to have backfired.

The Afghan Taliban condemned the attack as un-Islamic.  In Pakistan, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a rival jihadist group in the rebel alliance and other sectarian groups denounced the attack on the school. 

In Islamabad the Red Mosque, home of the pro-Taliban cleric Abdul Aziz and the site of a fierce battle between the army and the jihadists in 2007, was  surrounded by protesters demanding that Aziz leave the country and go live in the Islamic State!

And lastly, there were public demands that the State stop distinguishing between "good" and "bad" Taliban, to stop supporting jihadists in Afghanistan and India while waging war against some of them in Pakistan.

This was followed up by meetings between the Afghan and Pakistan governments to co-ordinate going after Afghan jihadists who seek refuge in Pakistan, and Pakistan jihadists who seek refuge in Afghanistan.  

I do not expect that the opaque linkages between parts of the jihadist movement and the more conservative members of the Pakistani establishment will be broken in one fell swoop. 

But perhaps this atrocity is the start of a major shift within Pakistani society.  Perhaps this is where those opposed to extremism go on the offensive and demand that the state stop dithering.  

And that could, just maybe, foreshadow the demise of religious fanaticism in Pakistan.

 

I Will Ride with U

I have been concerned that since the publication of Samuel Huntington's 1993 article  "The Clash of Civilizations" that the world was sleepwalking into a religious conflict of epic proportions.

From PEGIDA in Germany, to UKIP in the UK, the National Front in France and all the other "western" extremists to ISIS in Syria/Iraq, the Taliban in Afghanistan/Pakistan, Al-Queda and "Islamic" separatists  wherever they may be to the lone wolf terrorists of all creeds the world seems to be setting out cultural blocs designed to demarcate what separates us rather than what unites us.

But two events just happened which might just be the beginning of something new.

The first is the hostage siege in Sydney.  Forget about whether Mons Haron Monis was on a list or not.  Forget about whether he was walking around free instead of being interred, deported or made to wear a tag.

What was amazing is that as the siege became public a storm of anti-Muslim tirades hit Australian social media.  This at the same time that personally we were having a discussion as to why didn't the Muslim community ever come out and condemn these types of attacks.

First of all I don't necessarily expect the man or woman on the street to come out in condemnation-but I do expect it of the "speakers" for the Muslim community(s).  Otherwise I could harbour a doubt that they might in some way condone these acts done in the name of Islam.

Then I saw the message from the Australian National Imams Council and I had a moment of hope.  But then I read the message.*  It was addressed to the Muslim Community.  It spoke of its sorrow for the loss of death and trauma suffered.

And then it went on to commend the community for their strength and resilience in the face of the current challenges.  It encouraged the community to draw on their faith to help them through these difficult times.  And it gave a number to call to report threats or abuse to the authorities.

But no distancing from the perpetrator in any form or fashion.

Are they trying to attract negativity?  Are they trying to become part of the society rather than accentuating their separateness?

I don't know.

But then there were reports of many Australian Muslims taking to the same social media and expressing their fear of abuse and/or attack.  And in the report I read apparently  a 14 year old girl tweeted "i will ride with u" offering Muslims who were afraid to be accompanied by non-Muslims on buses, trains, in carpools etc.

And her offer was taken up.  Physically, and in the social media ether.

As a final comment, two Muslim men went to the cafe where the hostages were held, and after being questioned by the police where they emphatically stated "He's contradicting Islam...,He's not from our community for him to do this" and "We are Australian too.  No one wants this to happen.  It could have been my mother or my sister having coffee", went and prayed for the hostages/victims.

I can only commend the young girl trying to break the cycle of fear and hate, and equally commend the two young men for their comments, and their actions.

I will write about the second event shortly-the Taliban assault on a school in Pakistan.


 *http://www.anic.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/GRAND-MUFTI-AND-ANIC-MESSAGE-TO-THE-MUSLIM-COMMUNITY.pdf

National Security, Round 3

I was told that Round 2 was somewhat convoluted and so I reread it, AGAIN, and agree that it was difficult.  I was trying to cover too many points and the end result was a bit muddled.

So I am going to come at it from another angle.

There were two arguments I was trying to address.

One was that no matter how you look at it torture is indefensible and the United States shouldn't engage in it.

The other was that the information gathered from the interrogations might or might not have been as a result of torture.  This is actually beside the point.  The end does not justify the means.  Torture is unacceptable.  The information gathered is also highly suspect.

The criticisms I have read seem to focus the second point claiming that the information garnered wound conceivably not have been obtained without torture.  They also then focus on the fact that that the time "enhanced interrogation techniques" had been deemed legal.

They claim that one of the major weaknesses in the Senate's report was that no one from the Senate interviewed anyone from the CIA  so how would the Senate know if valuable information had been garnered from the torturing of detainees or not.

That is moving the argument away from one of principle and turning it into a question of facts.

It misses the most important fact which is that on principle torture is unacceptable.  Regardless of the information gathered.  It's called ethics.  It is the first question a student is presented with in Philosophy class.

Not that I expect soldiers to be angels.  Nor do I expect CIA operatives to be angels.  There is good and bad in everyone, and how and when it manifests itself can be very dependent on the circumstances.  But excesses in the heat of the moment, when discovered, are both recognized as such and prosecuted accordingly.

But in this case the excesses were condoned at the highest levels of government.  They were signed off by the Executive Branch, by the Attorney General, the National Security Committee, and by the Legislative Branch in the form of Senate Intelligence Committee..

They are making a mockery of our enlightened democracy.  Facts are facts.  What is of critical importance is that we maintain our values in the analysis of facts.   Renaming a fact doesn't change the fact.  Legalizing an immoral act doesn't make it moral, even if it suddenly gains legality.

Facts don't change our values.

National Security, Round 2

As was to be expected there was a backlash to the release of the CIA Report, specifically from a dozen former high ranking CIA officials and Senator Saxby Chambliss and five other ranking Republicans. The site is ciasavedlives.com.  It is their right to defend themselves, but I believe they are sailing a dangerous course.

Their first rebuttal is not to deny that it was torture, but rather that it was not illegal torture.  They claim they repeatedly consulted the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel before using brutal methods of interrogation.  They discussed the program with "The Gang of Eight"-a group of Congressional leaders who were apparently supportive of it. They further assert that the President, the National Security Council and the Attorney General all approved it.

Unfortunately for them, and for the government leaders the legal opinions which assured the agency that their requests for enhanced interrogation techniques were indeed lawful, were later discredited and withdrawn.

The problem here is that it goes beyond the "I was following orders" refrain of extermination camp guards,  It is dealing with the creation of those orders, at the highest levels of the CIA and more disturbingly of the Government.

Their second swipe at the report is to claim that the information gained through torture was instrumental in locating Osama bin Laden.

Given that bin Laden was essentially living next to the headquarters of the Pakistan Military Academy in Bilal Town which should have made him easier to find then if he were holed up in the mountains somewhere a lot more forensic evidence of the interrogations and the information achieved would have to be published to back up the claim.

Disclosure of that information would probably fall foul of National Security fears so it is likely to remain confidential, and admittedly, probably should.  The interrogators were following orders.  The information in their site only says they were able to get information on bin Laden's location through detainees.

The links on the website referencing the Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EIT) and highlighting the use of information gained from detainees emanate in the main from the office of the then President G W Bush so it is not surprising that in their releases they support the program both within as well as outside Guantanamo.

They do not explicitly say how that information was achieved so either every detainee was subjected to EIT-which I am not sure the CIA would like to admit, or we are still left in the dark as to the explicit method used to achieve the information.

It is always a difficult decision for a Commander-in-Chief to declare war.  But there are rules of warfare. There are rules governing the treatment of  enemy captives.  Making decisions as to how far to go when protecting (American) lives should be easier.

Even if one were to go so far as to say that it is a bizarre concept that there are strict rules of engagement in an exercise which at its core is to kill the other guys, the rules do exist and it is only rational for us to expect our leaders to adhere to them.

All of the legal shenanigans to get around the basic tenet that torture is illegal flies in the face of this expectation. But I don't hold the CIA (solely) responsible.  One of the most admirable aspects of our government is that we have a series of checks and balances.

Given the fact that the CIA completely missed the buildup to 9/11 it is understandable they would be willing to go to great lengths to try and prevent further attacks.  It is the government's responsibility, its duty to defend the ideals and basic tenets upon which our government stands.

The government failed miserably.

The dissenters are fighting to clear their names...they were either CIA officials, or part of that government.

They would do better to admit wrongdoing, and suggest that others, regardless of political affiliation who are in the same position should do the same.

Then we could move on.

In Defense of National Security

With the release of the  Senate Intelligence Committee's Report on Torture it is interesting who has come out in in support of the release; and who came out against it.

Of course I expected the usual partisan breakdown along party lines, Democrats for and Republicans against.  I also expected the liberal and conservative press to line up accordingly.

So it was with some surprise that I read an article in USA Today by former Democratic Senator Robert Kerrey decrying the "partisan" nature of the report and that this was generally bad for America.  

He did shoot himself in the foot mentioning that he will wait until he has read the full report before he makes a definitive statement on whether or not "the CIA handled interrogation of detainees in an appropriate manner".  

Now normally I don't wait to read a report on the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" to determine if I think something constitutes torture or not.

I find it even more opaque when Mr Kerrey chooses to base his view that our interrogation methods policies and procedures are aligned with our core values on John McCain.

The same John McCain who spoke passionately today in defense of the reports release and countered the usual blather with sincere, pithy retorts.

He started with  "Terrorists might use the report's re-identification (my italics) as an excuse to attack Americans, but they hardly need an excuse for that.  That has been their life's calling for a while now".

Touche.

Even more to the point, from someone who was a prisoner of war and tortured by his North Vietnamese captors:  "What might come as a surprise, not just to our enemies, but to many Americans is how little these practices did to aid our efforts....since it contradicts the many assurances provided by the intelligence official on the record and in private that enhanced interrogation techniques were indispensable in the war against terrorism."

McCain's focus is that although there are many things done in the name of war and certainly in the heat of battle this was a conscious, premeditated decision.  It is against against our core beliefs.  We fight for an ideal that is predicated on the idea that all men are endowed with with inalienable rights- and we were systematically trampling over them- without any real gain and at an immense cost to our self-image- despite the protestations of former senior CIA members and their political allies in the Senate.

Now maybe I am missing something else in Mr McCain's position, but it does make me wonder why he ever danced with Sarah Palin....

At Least He Can Be Voted Out....

James Mountain "Jim" Inhofe was the highest ranking Senate Minority Member on the Committee on Environment and Public Works.  As such he is a strong candidate to be the Chairman of said group following the Senate's successful election results.

In 2012 "Jim" was quoted on Voice of Christian Youth Radio Program "...that human influenced climate change is a hoax and impossible because 'God is still up there' and it is 'outrageous' and arrogant for people to believe human beings are 'able to change what He is doing to the climate."

Oh really Jim?

In an earlier speech he had previously compared the United States Environmental Protection Agency to the Gestapo and had compared EPA Administrator Carol Browner to Tokyo Rose.

He also repeatedly accused the EPA as following Hitler's "the bigger lie" theory that if you repeat an outrageous lie loudly and often enough people will believe you.

This from a man who makes outrageous statements referencing scientific journals and reports that don't support his comments.

But leaving the best for last, he claimed that Global Warming is "the second largest hoax ever played on the American people, after the separation of church and state".

C'mon Jim.

We just celebrated the truly American holiday of Thanksgiving. It is in celebration of the Pilgrim Fathers, who, having fled religious persecution in England, gave thanks to having survived the onslaught of a New England winter.  Through that very survival they were able to maintain the credo of "freedom of religion" as one of the founding tenets of American beliefs which, morphed into the separation of Church and State.

I am astounded that in the 21st Century a ranking Senate Member would make such outlandish statements.

And then I remember that along with freedom of religion, separation of church and state also comes an electoral process.

One can therefore over time only hope that the good citizens of Oklahoma will wake up and realize that they are being represented by a populist who speaks their "language" and whose campaigns are bankrolled by the oil, gas, and electricity industries as well as leadership PAC's, whatever they might be.

And yes, i am still in pursuit of the non-secular....

In Pursuit of the Non-Secular

I got a number of responses to my last  post-unfortunately none of them through the comment function which probably says more about my ineptitude with a computer than my readers.  Be that as it may they ranged from "great" to a rather more detailed questioning of a number of my points.

One of the more difficult queries was if I were not perhaps over-egging the dangers of the Islamic State just as in the past the West might have over-egged the perils of communism.

At breakfast this morning I ventured that the communist "threat" was actually a totalitarian government bent on world domination and that the Islamic State threat was also a form or totalitarian threat cloaked in the shrouds of religious fervour.

I was whacked immediately for suggesting that the US's reaction to the Soviet threat was valid given that it was actually one imperialist power confronting another.

That set me to reflecting on imperialism in general and whether one can speak of different forms of imperialism and is one more acceptable than another.

My answer is that the subjugation of one group by another, regardless of the rationale behind it is clearly despicable.

That doesn't mean that it doesn't happen.  And it doesn't mean that there aren't gradients to it which brings me back to my Realpolitik point that the "good" solution might not exist and the less bad proposition is often the best one can hope to achieve.

Still, supporting South American dictatorships because they were in our sphere of influence and more importantly because they were much more malleable then democratically elected governments in supporting our economic imperialism leaves me very uncomfortable.  The fear of communism as an excuse for the removal of Allende and replacing him with the monstrous Pinochet is indefensible-regardless of the fact that the domino theory was the dominant ideology at the time.

Indeed, it is the US action in Chile which made me pause for a moment with regards to the Islamic State.

But just for a moment.  

Pinochet was eventually removed-through the democratic process.  There is no way that the Islamic State can be removed through a democratic process.  They are by definition anti-democratic. In the various forms of an IS manifesto that I have read they state that they are declaring war against the current state of affairs.  The objective is to replace the concepts of law, politics, economic and sociology fashioned by the west with an implementation of law based on the Koran and the tenets of the Sharia.

Global domination predicated on a medieval interpretation of a religious law is not for me.

And just to be clear, I am not enamoured with any evangelical creed.  This is not a comment on Islam- it is as good or bad as any other mainstream religion.  It is a statement directed at any fanatic who would force their world view on me.

It's Never Black and White

As a young idealist I was continually disturbed by the fact the the United States, despite its' "freedom" rhetoric almost always found itself supporting the "wrong" regime.

From Central to South America; across the ocean to Africa and up the continent to the Middle East and over to Asia, we never missed an opportunity to support a right wing dictatorship.

This was strange in that from an ideological political point of view it made no sense that a democracy would support a dictatorship.

Then I read Huntington's axiom that strong democracies and strong dictatorships have more in common than strong democracies and weak democracies and I began to understand the rational  of Realpolitik in American foreign policy.

And Realpolitik, or Realism in foreign policy is what the United States, and therefore President Obama is currently exercising- and all the idealists and ideologues want to hang him for it.

That is what grated on me as an idealist and why idealists now grate on me.  They are unwilling to accept some home truths.

Tyranny is better than anarchy.  As bad as a Saddam Hussein was, the Iraqi's were better off in general under him than with the secular bloodbaths of the Islamic State.

Democracy takes years and institutions to be effective. Just because one institutes elections it does not follow that the rule of law is an automatic corollary.  Bribery and corruption are everywhere, but are not everywhere held in contempt.

Every problem does not have a solution, and certainly not a good one.  Often the answer lies in choosing the lesser evil.  Assad is somehow preferable to the Islamic State.  Sometimes doing nothing is better than doing something, even if it appears to be indecisive.

Interests come before values.  The Arab Spring, although seemingly a revolt against royal and/or military dictatorships was not a democratic uprising, although idealists like to paint it as such.  It removed semi-non-secular dictatorships and opened the doors to secular dictatorships-even if they were "democratically" elected.

Emotion has no place in policy making.  Passionate pleas or demands to do something can quickly turn into accusations of flawed policy if the expectations voiced in the heat of the moment by idealists or the ideologues prove to have been unrealistic once you have already committed.

How Tolerant of the Intolerant are we Supposed to Be

Recently the UAE Cabinet approved a list of 83 designated terrorist organisations including al Qaeda and the Islamic State. So far so good.  They also included Muslim organisations based in the West that are believed to be allied with the Muslim Brotherhood movement. Prominent among them are two American Muslim groups: the Council on American Islamic Relations and the Muslim American Society.

Now my point is not to comment as to whether these two groups are terrorist organisations or not.  To be honest designating a group as terrorist or not is a political expedient and is often merely a matter of perspective. I would even go so far as to agree that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.  But that's not the hard part.

What is much more difficult is the fact that the more clever, dare I say sinister organisations are those that espouse democracy, or more importantly the democratic process but whose goals are anything but democratic.

The Muslim Brotherhood falls under this mantle.

Draping themselves with the trappings of democracy, seeking political redress in monarchical/dictatorial states while working within the system they appeal to the oppressed masses. And in this guise they are extremely effective providing social welfare within the community, focusing on health, education and promising employment.

Their method is to use the democratic process to get elected.  Their goals however are to then dismantle the democratic process replacing it with a one-party state rule according to Islamic (Sharia) law.

It is a conundrum.  

If a majority of a population were to vote for a political party whose goals were to change the style of government, even if it were by one vote, and the new government were then to "legally" dismantle the state in such a fashion that the minority would never have the opportunity to reverse the electoral decision then I question the sanity of allowing the political party to participate in the electoral process.

I started off discussing the Muslim Brotherhood, whose manifesto most definitely is to introduce a non-democratic state.  But this is true for all political movements whose goals are the end of democratic institutions to be replaced by some sort dictatorship in whatever form it might be.

So how do we as a tolerant society deal with those wishing to exploit our tolerance to undermine our society?

It is an incredibly slippery slope.

Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership- In Whose Interest?

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is the current free trade agreement being negotiated between the EU and the USA.  It is not your run of the mill tariff-lowering agreement as a means of furthering trade. 

It is about regulatory issues and non-tariff trade barriers like health, safety, the environment and consumer's and worker's rights.  It is also about corporations trying to create their own rule of law.

Last night on German TV the focus of the negotiations was distilled down to two issues:

1.)  The US technique of disinfecting chicken with chlorine might be introduced in Europe which the Germans/Europeans don't want.
2.)  The laxer approach to bank regulation that has been followed in Europe since the Credit Crisis in contrast to the more draconian measures introduced in the US which the Americans don't want.

I actually think these two points are intended to keep the discussion away from a much more important point but I will come to that later.

Point #1.  In the EU generally agriculture is geared towards the prevention of disease rather than focusing on how to prevent the further spread of disease once it has occurred.

In the EU the breeding/rearing of livestock is done in a manner designed to prevent as much disease as possible at every stage from breeding to feeding to slaughter and to distribution.

In the US, presumably because it is cheaper and thereby more efficient the focus is to get the livestock through the system as fast as possible accepting the presence of disease and then "washing" the disease away  with a chlorine bath to eliminate bacteria at the end of the meat production chain.

Sounds like using chemicals to make up for inadequate hygiene standards in the meat industry....

Point #2 is also a diversion.  Bank regulation is already managed by the Bank For International Settlements (BIS) and we are in the third edition of rules known as Basle III which slowly but surely are being instated across the globe. This is a regulatory issue,not a trade issue, and that is where Investor-State Dispute Settlements (ISDS), the more important point, kicks in.

My concerns about ISDS center on a few basic points:

a.)  Currently under World Trade Organisation (WTO) legislation if a company feels that it has a case against a host (ie foreign) state it first has to convince its' own state that it has a case and the home state will raise the complaint on corporation's behalf.  This is not the case under ISDS.
b.)  A company wishing to sue a host state has the choice to sue the state under that state's laws or to move directly to ISDS counter to current law which moves cases to an international court or tribunal only after the domestic legal route has been exhausted.
c.)  Only foreign companies can use ISDS ie a domestic company could "suffer" the same damages claimed by a foreign company but have no recourse to ISDS.
d.)  International Tribunals, unlike domestic tribunals and international courts are private, confidential and essentially outside the domestic rule of law.

Now it may seem that a number of my concerns are in conflict with one another, and they are.  Host States versus Home States; Foreign Companies versus Domestic Companies and Domestic versus International Law certainly provides for different views on the same subject depending on ones perspective.

Different political systems dictate different approaches to health, safety, the environment and consumer's and worker's rights. They also result in different regulatory environments.

The current buzzword is Harmonization which inevitably means lowering standards to the lowest common denominator- but at what cost?

Neither the USA nor the EU are Third World Countries which operate outside the rule of law.
They might disagree on some interpretations and there will be instances where a government decision in one bloc will have adverse effects on a company from the other bloc.  

If these governmental decisions are neither capricious nor malicious then companies engaging in said countries, be they foreign or domestic, then such government decisions constitute part of the general risk of doing business which includes market and political risk.

ISDS is another insidious form of making corporate risks/losses public and keeping corporate profits private-at the cost of the taxpayer.

Call me old fashioned but I like a level playing field.

The Locusts

Earlier this year KKR purchased over 90% of the outstanding equity of WMF, a south German tableware manufacturer, founded in 1853 in Geislingen an der Steige, Germany, by the miller Daniel Straub and the  Schweizer brothers.

On August 21, 2014 WMF announced that the Group business performed at a stable rate in first-half 2014 achieving a gross revenue of EUR 462.6.  Overall revenue grew by 3% and the realised operating profit (EBIT) increased to EUR 27.6 million in comparison with EUR 17.7 million in the prior year.

On August 28, 2014  Buyout group KKR said it had obtained more than 90 percent of WMF's share capital, putting it on track to gain full control of the German cutlery and coffee-machine maker and delist it.

KKR invested 586 million Euros.  It announced that it intends to find savings of 30 million Euros a year requiring the firing of hundreds of employees and the likely divestiture of some parts of the business.

There has been a lot of discussion in Germany since the financial crisis focusing on the so-called "locusts" of private equity. 

The thinking is that these financial investors are only concerned in returns.  They represent no social value.  They don't possess a moral compass and have no compunction in destroying companies and the communities that rely upon them. 

They raise funds with the stated goal to find companies that are not maximising their potential, purchase them, and through either divestiture or cost cutting, a euphemism for cutting employees, maximise the return and then sell the more valuable company on, often to another financial investor.

This is the hard end of capitalism.

It is why there is a need for regulation.







30 Millionen Euro will der neue Eigentümer KKR jährlich sparen, hunderte von Arbeitsplätzen abbauen

Wie funktioniert das Ganze? Ein Finanzkonzern wie KKR leiht sich Geld, etwa bei Banken oder Pensionskassen, um einen Fonds zu gründen. Damit kauft er Firmen wie die WMF. In nur wenigen Jahren werden die Unternehmen auf Erfolg getrimmt. Durch Verkauf einzelner Sparten oder den Abbau von Arbeitsplätzen. Das Ziel: mehr Profit. Dann wird die Firma weiter verkauft, der Fonds aufgelöst und die ursprünglichen Geldgeber werden ausgezahlt.

Employment is the Goal

I read two conflicting articles yesterday about the levels of unemployment in Europe.  The one focused on the "Participation" rate as an explanation that things aren't maybe as bad as they appear.  The other suggested that changing labour laws to make it easier for employees to be fired would be the solution to Europe's unemployment dilemma.

First of all the discussion around the Participation rate essentially says that in looking at unemployment figures it is not only a question of how many people are employed but also measures the number of people either employed or actively looking for work as a share of the working-age population. Simply put if large numbers of people who could work have stopped looking and more importantly have stopped registering as unemployed then they fall off the radar and the unemployment numbers go down.

This is happening in the US apparently, while in Europe the participation rate is increasing ie more people are actively seeking employment and so even if the number of actively employed were to stay constant as a percentage of the employable population the unemployment rate would increase.

In any event all the article actually proves is that the statistics are eminently massagable depending on what you want to prove.  For those of you who care the writer of the first article works at a major UK fund manager and their sources, Bloomberg, claims that the particpation rate in Europe is rising while in the US it is falling.

The second article was written by an American geopolitical thinktank.  Their angle is that unemployment is the single most dangerous challenge the European Union faces and that the unemployment figures are understated as many Europeans are no longer looking for employment.

Go figure.

But their underlying assumption is that it is essentially a question of labour law regulations.  In one breath they support austerity and claim that reforming labour laws to allow companies to fire employees easier will boost employment.

To be fair, the argument is that if an employer knows that they can fire an employee if the market turns against him then that same employer might be more willing to take on a new employee in the first place. 

And they are probably right.

But it puts a lot of hope in the ethics of employers not to abuse the system. 

My next post will look at a class of employers for whom ethics are beyond the pale.

Seeking Truths from Facts

I was recently in the US for my summer vacation and one of my small pleasures is to read the title stories of magazines such as the National Enquirer just to see what weird ideas their editors come up with to sell their magazine.

In addition to the usual "I was abducted by aliens" stories there were any number of bizarre claims about the lives of the rich and famous running from what some fourth rate soap star is doing to what's going on in the White House.

I found it hard to believe that anyone actually takes anything of what they read in such publications to be true, but then as I tried to watch the news and flipped through various news websites I begin to think that I might just be demonstrating my naivety couched in a blanked of intellectual snobbism.

Now some people might maintain that I have been outside the US too long and have not lived through the decline of the media to the point that it is difficult to know what to believe regardless of the source.

But watching the reporting on the Ebola epidemic and the amount of scare mongering in the press it is clear to me that there is no interest in reporting constructively but rather every possible opening for sensationalism is mined to provide headlines a la National Enquirer even from what I had previously held to be respectable publications. 

One of my more disappointing realisations was that the Huffington Post, once a viable provider of alternative views on significant news items has essentially morphed into a Fox National Enquirer mishmash. 

I am not sure who is feeding whom but the focus of the news and the polarisation of American society seem to be woven together in such an unhealthy symbiotic relationship that it is impossible to know what facts can I trust in analysing a situation to try and distill some acceptable version of the truth. 

Victors, Vanquished and Who Writes History

I recently had the pleasure to celebrate my 30th wedding anniversary where, somewhat under the influence of alcohol, I entered into a discussion of my July 3rd post "From the Outside Looking In" with some of my friends.  The following is a response to them in letter form:

Hi Guys.

I have returned to London and after recovering from jet lag and partying I re-read the blog from July 3rd.  I think I understand why you thought it might have been difficult to determine my nationality given the perspective from which I write.

To be frank I think over the years whenever I write about Germany I try to make a distinction between good Germans and bad Germans with an eye to their recent history and my relationship to it.

For if indeed history is written by the victors we run the risk of not only allowing the victors to write the history of the wars, but to also allow them to rewrite the entire history of the vanquished.  That is what I was trying to present in the blog using the English take on the American Revolution.  As we discussed I am sure that the Vietnamese take on the Viet Nam war is very different from ours.  Indeed,  the next time you go on a golf outing go to Bayeux in Normandy and check out the French take on William the Conqueror's "trip" to Hastings.

Recently I inherited a book from my father-in-law written in 1901 entitled "A Century of German Victories".  They had no sense of guilt or shame but rather pride in their military prowess.  And yet when one thinks of the modern German state we invariably find the seeds of the Third Reich in the creation of Prussia. 

I am not pretending to suggest that there is no connection.  But I think however that it is along the lines of the minority report-an excellent science fiction book and ok film-where even if the majority of predictions presume result 'x' there will be a report which predicted result 'y' which was never allowed to come to fruition.
 
History is not a straight line although the concept of manifest destiny goes a long way to suggesting that there are geopolitical themes which are almost inevitable.  That doesn't have to result in genocide, though there may be a case to be made given the slaughter of the Indians in America's charge to the West and the destruction of European Jewry encapsulated in Germany's Drang nach Osten.

But that is not what I was writing about on July 3rd.  I was trying to give a voice to a nation's history "before the deluge" that is not normally granted to it.

I would hope that all nations are given the opportunity by third parties to understand not only how the world sees them-but to also get a glimpse as to how they see themselves.

It could give a new meaning to the idea of globalism.

Regards,

mz

It's Not Really A Game Is It?

Recently it has struck me how it is openly spoken of by everyone except the people in power (in any country making a 'geopolitical' play) as to why they are supporting financially and/or militarily this group or that group as part of a strategic national interest.

The two most obvious candidates are the Russians and the Saudi Arabians.

The Russian goal is to insure that the Ukraine at the worst is a neutral country whose foreign policy is controlled by the Russians.  I am not commenting on whether or not this is a rational goal, nor suggesting that it is only the Russians engaging in subversive actions in the Ukraine.  I am merely stating the Russian goals and outlining what they are doing to achieve said goals.

For despite the rhetoric that emanates out of the Kremlin is is clear that the Russians support the Russian separatists and will continue to do so as a means of applying pressure on the Kiev government until they accept Russian demands.

Then I move to Iraq where the trail is somewhat murkier but there too the Saudis, who are still fighting a war of succession over who is in charge of the world's Muslims which started almost 1400 years ago, are stirring it up to try and maintain their grip on the Middle East.

Now I know the US does it as well and so it is unfair of me to highlight these two luminaries, but the US has been the villain of choice for ever so I don't feel obligated to drag them into this discussion, especially because recently, for better or for worse they have put their mouth where their money is and sent US troops to try and impose their geopolitical vision as opposed to the current paradigm of surrogates doing a country's dirty work.

I am appalled by the way they all, but recently especially the Russians and the Saudis take the old adage that war is just the continuation of politics by other means, and apply it so literally.

From the Outside Looking In

I was recently in Berlin and visited the Historisches Museum (History Museum) with an American friend.  Given that we are fast approaching the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War you can imagine that just as there is a significant amount of discussion/books/programs on the subject in the UK that there is a similar level of activity in Germany.

Part of the drive to go to the museum is that there is an interactive map of Europe there showing the ebb and flow of empires across the Eurasian continent from basically the year zero to the present. If for no other reason I would recommend the museum.

But part of the agreement to go to the museum was that we would stop at 1914 so as not to have to get involved with the calamities of the 20th century, and under that aspect I would also highly recommend it.

It is an excellent museum which mixes military, imperial, economic, social and cultural history in its presentation of the development of Germany. 

As we were leaving my American friend turned to me and mentioned casually how interesting it was to see German history from a German perspective.

At first I just nodded as we walked down the street towards the Brandenburger Tor to be suddenly overwhelmed by the sweet, powerful smell spilling out of Unter den Linden (Tilis cordata or small leaved Lime Tree for the non German readers). 

Then it hit me. 

These trees were first planted in 1647; the Brandenburger Tor was built in 1791 replacing a gate in the city wall with a monument to victory, and to peace.  This place, this object, is a living archive.

For anyone who lived through or was born after the Second World War German history is tainted.  Whether stated explicitly or implicitly the crimes of the National Socialists cast a pall across the breadth of German history, certainly from a non-German perspective.

But the history from the year zero to 1914 can't be painted with the knowledge of 1933-1945.  

And in the Historisches Museum it isn't. 

There can be no guilt for the future in the past as I have postulated it.  Of course post 1933 into the present there will always be the question- 'what did I/what did my parents, my grandparents do?'
But that is not the lens through which the exhibition was built.

As a schoolboy I went to English grammar school where we studied the American Revolutionary War from the British point of view. 

I had to go home and check my dates to ensure that we were actually talking about the same war.

History is written by the victors.  But if the defeated are not annihilated then they too will write their history, and we should never lose sight of the fact that the descendants of the victors, and of the vanquished, are a matter of birth, not choice.

The Longitude Prize of 2014- Addressing the Elephant in the Room

The initial Longitude Prize was over 300 years ago and was a competition which offered £20,000 to anyone who could devise a method to accurately determine a ship's position at sea.  Knowing where you were and additionally knowing what time it was were two extremely important bits of information to help you circumnavigate the globe.

Now, 300 years later, again with the Astronomer Royal on the committee, the Longitude Prize is being offered, somehow in conjunction with Amazon, and this time the committee is putting the question as to what the subject should be to popular vote-if you are connected to Amazon or so it would seem.

But Amazon is not my focus today.

The public has been asked to pick between 6 offerings as to what the £20 million prize money question should be.  They are:

Antibiotics
Antibiotics have changed the face of health care for the better; they on average add 20 years to our lives. 80 years on from the discovery of penicillin, we are still unable to distinguish bacterial from viral infections, or the type of bacteria in the clinic, which has caused the overuse of antibiotics and the evolution of multidrug-resistant strains of bacteria. We need a cheap, rapid and accurate point of care test kit that allows doctors to accurately prescribe antibiotics at the right time.

Flight

The rapid growth of carbon emissions caused by air travel needs to be addressed to help tackle climate change. The potential of zero-carbon flight has been demonstrated but it has had little impact on the carbon footprint of the aviation industry, which still relies exclusively on fossil fuels. We need to bring novel technologies into the mainstream to stimulate a significant change.

Paralysis

Paralysis can emerge from a number of different injuries, conditions and disorders and the effects can be devastating. Every day can be a challenge when mobility, bowel control, sexual function and respiration are lost or impaired. We need to find a way to vastly increase the freedom of movement for people with paralysis and address some of the secondary symptoms to make life easier.

Dementia

An ageing population means more people are developing dementia and unfortunately there is currently no existing cure. This means there is a need to find ways to support a person's dignity, physical and emotional well being and extend their ability to live independently.

Water

Water is a finite resource and we must seek to find ways of producing more fresh water. Some 98 per cent of the Earth's water is too salty for drinking or agriculture and as water requirements grow and as our reserves shrink, many are turning to desalination. We require a scalable solution that demonstrates low carbon, sustainable production of water for drinking or agriculture from seawater helping bring new technology to fruition.

Food

The world's population is growing, getting richer and moving to cities. Current estimates suggest that by 2050 there will be about nine billion people on the planet; moreover our tastes will have turned to more resource-hungry foods such as meat and milk. In the face of limited resources and climate change, we must learn how to feed the world better, but more sustainably...

Of the six choices, four are designed to ensure that we can continue to increase our global population exponentially.  Two are looking for ways to make the lives of some parts of the current population better.

The four: Antibiotics; Flight; Water and Food are all important, but let's take a look at them.

Starting with Flight.  I too am guilty of flying as a means of transportation and although I prefer trains I confess to flying because it is easier although it is certainly not the green choice.  In a previous post I wrote about the sliver of atmosphere which is all that is between us and the vast void of outer space.

I haven't changed my opinion, and certainly any and every thing we can do to help protect the atmosphere we must do.  But the carbon neutral programs are essentially scams which help to salve "green" consciences, but the truth is there are far too many flights taken.  This is a as a result of the wealthy who fly halfway around the world for a weekend, and the rest of the flying public who have been seduced by the abundance of cheap flights to cheap locations, all of which comes at a severe cost to the atmosphere.

Following on with Food.  Malthus was like an economist who can't tell you when the next recession will be but knows that one is coming.  His prediction of a global famine keeps getting pushed back, but at some point we will reach the tipping point at which time all the sustainable food sources will also be pushed to the limit and the famine will hit.  Recognising that sooner or later we will be unable to feed the total population means that we also need to look at population growth.

Water comes next.  Although it is not often thought of or discussed as part of the atmosphere in these types of discussions it is only logical to recognise that the planet's water and the planet's atmosphere are essentially two states of the same substance and so just as we have been treating our atmosphere extremely poorly we have also been treating our water with the same disdain.  Providing water to an ever growing population is a laudable undertaking, but the solution has to include looking at population growth.

Then we move to antibiotics.  The goal as discussed in the option description is to be able to use antibiotics more effectively.  There is no question that there is a massive over-prescription of antibiotics for a myriad of reasons, one of which is assuredly the inability to distinguish between viral and bacterial infections.  Solving this problem; decreasing the improper use of antibiotics is surely a desirable goal.  But it is a sideshow.  If we can talk seriously about medical solutions to health issues we should also be able to have an intelligent discussion about population control.

I won't pontificate on Paralysis and Dementia.  The former is like unemployment: it primarily effects the paralysed person.  The latter is more like inflation: it effects almost all of us either directly or indirectly through our friends and relatives.

Obviously both of them are admirable.  Of course medical advancement to help re-mobilise the paralysed would be great and anything that combats or defeats the scourge of dementia would be a wonderful thing.

But these are tactical strikes.

Strategically we need a plan to manage the global population.

A solution to that Gordian Knot which begins by breaking the taboo of population control has to be worth £20 million.

View From a Spaceship

Amidst all of the noise surrounding the Ukraine and the celebrations of D-Day there was a spaceship launched which had a 3 man crew: A German; A Russian; and An American.  In interviews with the three none of them ever mentioned any of the geopolitical manoeuvring taking place on planet earth but rather focused on the tasks at hand as they flew to their space station.

And yet the German, on German TV did make a bizarrely political statement that I don't believe has been picked up by the media at large.

He spoke of how huge space was.  That it just stretched and stretched in every direction into a vast darkness.  And he spoke of how beautiful the earth was.  Full of colour in an otherwise black and white environment.  He noted that it was simply incomprehensible that the atmosphere surrounding the earth was all that separated our bright colourful planet from the emptiness of space. 

And then, in a voice that started to crack, he said how horribly thin that barrier to survival was, and that whatever our differences on earth might be, we are all in this together and there is a very thin line between all of us, and the great void of space.

70 Years On

Living in England there was a lot of coverage of this the 70th anniversary of the Invasion of Normandy.  Additionally I have just come back from a visit to a small village near Le Havre where the celebrations were also in full swing.

This year was especially poignant given that many of the survivors of the D-Day landings are no longer alive and with their passing the "living memory" of the event moves from life to history.

As I also watch German television to try and get a more balanced view of events I was struck by the lack of coverage for D-Day in the German media. I asked a friend who edits an investigative journalism program for one of the mainline (public) television channels in Germany as to why.

His blunt answer was "It's not really discussed and no one asks our opinion anyway".

This got me to thinking as to just how deep does Germany's historical retrospection regarding the Third Reich go and as to whether the blanket of collective guilt smothered the fact that there was a German resistance-it just manifested itself very differently from the resistance in occupied countries.

So first: collective guilt.  This is a two-edged sword.  On the one side it sweeps everyone up and holds them responsible regardless of where they were on the "guilty-scale".  It also allows everyone on a very different level to shrug their shoulders as if to say we were all involved and therefore the responsibility is to the nation-not to the individual. 

Secondly is the question of resistance: What about those Germans who were against Hitler?  Those that were either demoted or fired because they wouldn't join the party.  Those that were banned from writing, painting, teaching or acting because their politics were wrong.  Those that physically escaped persecution by emigrating, not to mention those that were imprisoned and/or executed.

For on June 6th, 1944, they breathed a sigh of relief.  They saw what they hoped would be the end of the war, of the dictatorship, of the nightmare.

And yet there is still a whiff of not being patriotic in voicing those thoughts, of maybe even being a traitor. 

As far as Germany has come in trying to come to terms with its National Socialist demons I think there is still work to be done. 

Putin and the Rise of the Right

I recently read an article by Robert Kaplan on the shift to the right in Europe as reflected in the European Parliament elections. 

I won't go into full detail but essentially he was proposing that the fears and distaste for the Far Right/Totalitarian Regimes such as Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini and Franco had done much to discredit any attempts to emulate them in Europe, but that we were entering into a new phase in Europe which was no longer hampered by the horrors of WW II combined with the perception that the current political elites were failing their constituents.

From the end of World War II Western Europe was basically run by centrist governments, some left leaning and some right leaning but never venturing to far in either direction.

The politics of the centre led to the rise of the EU and its' evolution from a trade bloc towards a financial and political union.  Parallel to this development was the virtual collapse of the ethnocentric nationalist right wing parties as well as the far left "Stalinist" parties. 

Then the financial crisis hit.  And with it came the rise of populist parties promising a return to a past which was never as rosy as they portrayed and ignoring the fact that this nostalgia for the past was incompatible with the present and certainly not a viable vision of the future given the state of Europe today.

Despite that the ethnocentric nationalist propaganda found fertile ground amongst ethnically white populations which allowed themselves to be convinced that all their problems were caused by an influx of immigrants, primarily non-white, who were "taking our jobs, our social services, our health care and were responsible for all crime".

Add to that mix the increase in Muslim immigrants and suddenly you find that these right wing parties are bizarrely aligned to Russia in general and Putin specifically whom they perceive to be the protector of the ethnic Russians and even more importantly is aggressively anti-Muslim.

So a supposedly anti-fascist Mr Putin who conjured up a fascist West once again trying to oppress Holy Mother Russia as evidenced in the Ukraine finds himself being an icon for the truly fascist right wing parties of Western Europe.

In a similarly strange twist the fiercely anti-Gay Mr Putin has become an icon for the Gay community.

Politics does make for strange bedfellows.

Just Because it was Tony Blair Doesn't Mean it was All Bad

Although I am not a fan of Tony Blair  last week's speech was interesting despite the fact that he gave it.

In the speech, which you can read for yourself (see below), he essentially had his version of an Oriana Fallaci moment, although much more tempered and focused on Islamism as opposed to Islam.

He waves the banner against the forces of religious extremism and closed-mindedness asserting that the war is between belief and modernity.  He goes on to say that even if a political party campaigns on the basis of a dangerous corrosive political ideology but stops short of actively participating in acts of terrorism, if the political goal of that ideology is to gain power through manipulation of the political process and then transform a democracy into a dictatorship it must be stopped.

He highlights the danger that the very freedoms that our democracies represent are fertile ground for the seeds of our own destruction. We allow anti-democratic, anti-freedom of religion, closed-minded intolerant political parties to participate as if they were one side of a conventional political debate.

They are not.

Still, unfortunately, he goes on to group the "West" with Russia and China against the Islamist threat.

Politics makes for strange bedfellows but China is a dictatorship and Russia is a modern version of Czarist Russia.  Neither really promote the ideals of western liberal democracies.  The only thing binding us together is that they too are targets of Islamist extremists.

Reaching for straws are we now Tony?

http://www.tonyblairoffice.org/news/entry/why-the-middle-east-matters-keynote-speech-by-tony-blair/

Conventional Warfare

I have read a number of articles recently about how the US Defence planners had presumed that with the fall of the Iron Curtain that there would no longer be a need for big "boots-on-the-ground" conventional wars and that the shift for ground troops would be to specialist units.

The same articles go on to criticise this approach suggesting that the defence planners had failed to recognise that the apparent demise of conventional wars, especially in the European arena, was the exception to the rule and that they should therefore have failed miserably in their roles as strategic thinkers.

Their analysis seems to forget Reagan's claim to have used the arms race, especially the "Star Wars" technology to demonstrate to the Soviets that they could not compete economically.  The American electorate was happy in the main to have a guns and butter policy because they were intricately intertwined.  The Russians couldn't compete on that basis thus forcing the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Or so the song goes.

What the planners actually failed to see is that the Cold War between the Soviets and the West was not really an ideological one although it was handy to present it in those terms and much more was a good old-fashioned geopolitical spat between two opposing imperialistic power centers.

So now we have Putin's Russia which has not only happily used troops to quell problems deemed necessary for national security such as Chechnya, Georgia and Moldavia, but now perhaps even into the Ukraine. 

Strangely, the Baltics, the Poles and any other former Soviet satellites clamouring for NATO membership didn't buy into the end of conventional war in Europe mantra.

Perhaps it was another case of American hubris and a serious case of selective hearing.

I don't know why the US didn't pay attention to the signs that highlighted Russia's build-up of a conventional military and the accompanying willingness to use it.

So we are now left with the Ukranians having to use their own conventional forces to combat what is actually an attempt by (pro)Russian militants to secede from the Ukraine.

Would we have acted any differently if the south-west United States was suddenly filled with armed militias clamouring to become part of Mexico?

Why Is There No Outcry

A strange thing happened last week in the US.  The meaning of "the selling of the presidency" left Madison Avenue and wandered down to Wall Street.

In one of the most convoluted rationalisations I have every seen the inalienable rights granted to citizens i.e. humans under the Constitution have now been granted to artificial legal entities such as corporations and labour unions.

Then, to add insult to injury, through the writ of the court we witnessed the transubstantiation of money into speech thus legalising the buying of the presidency and every other political seat.

I understand without hesitation the thought process behind this.  I understand that if the inalienable rights granted to humans could be given to legal entities and if the concept of freedom of speech could be granted to money then it would open the floodgates for moneyed interests to buy every politician in the land-legally!

I can even understand that in a greedy masters of the universe euphoric sort of way one could imagine creating such absurd constructs.

But I also thought that even the most corrupt captains of industry would somewhere in their reptilian brains realise that it was totally immoral to legalise corruption and bribery.

I was wrong. 

It is devastating.  And yet I don't sense any real outcry. 

Has apathy reached such a point that people just watch their political process crash and burn?

It's Not A Question of Good or Evil

There are a number of commentators who wish to couch the conflict in the Ukraine in terms of good and evil.

I think this is a mistake.

I am not overly impressed with the "Good" credentials of either side.  Nor the intelligence levels of the John and Jane Doe's that are interviewed on the street.  We have all see enough of "spontaneous" crowd scenes which only occur when the camera's are rolling and interviews filled with soundbites from semi-literate demonstrators.

No, both sides are filled with much that is to be discredited.  Both sides have groups that are easily swayed by populist propaganda and both sides are capable of brutality.

But there is a difference.  There are Ukrainians in the Ukraine who don't want to be under the control of Putin's Russia.  The Russians demonstrating in the Ukraine are clamouring precisely for that state of affairs.

And it is the Ukraine.

Ideally I would like it if we could forget nationalistic rhetoric and were able to create a global society that would actually benefit the many rather than the global market which condemns the many to poverty and benefits the oligarchical few.

But I don't see that happening and certainly not in the near future.

So my solution is to offer those Russians currently living in the Ukraine who want to live under Putin's rule to go back to Russia, voluntarily, or, if they refuse, by decree. 

I would make the same offer in all the other borderlands with "restless" Russian minorities. 

And if Russia cuts oil and gas deliveries to the Ukraine.  I would make sure that the first to feel the pain be the restless Russian nationalists.

That might make me evil....

So What Happens if Putin Enters Eastern Ukraine

I will admit that I kept hoping that Putin would not sign the documents that ratified the transfer of the Crimea from the Ukraine to Russia.  Not because he is a nice guy.  No, but because I had hoped that he wanted to demonstrate his power, and then pull back from actually using it and thereby creating a form of gunboat diplomacy in the near-Russia periphery.

I was wrong.  Mr Putin really does want to recreate the Soviet Union.

This throws a new light on things.

In the first instance it raises the stakes exponentially.  For the moment it demonstrates that the decision to join NATO by the Baltics, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and  Roumania was the right decision even if some of the southern European members might be having second thoughts about their position within the EU.

For, if a NATO state is attacked by definition the rest of the NATO states must come to its defence.

The Ukraine is not a NATO state.  Nor is Georgia.

Perhaps Russia only took back what they hold to have been rightfully theirs.  But, as I have discussed previously, it is a dangerous precedent both for those countries on the Russian periphery, but also perhaps for ethnic groups within the Russian mainland such as Chechnya.

But for Russia to make a military move into the Ukraine is a step which cannot be allowed to happen without a response far beyond the sanctions put in place as "punishment" for devouring  the Crimea.

I don't want war.  The West doesn't want war.  But is Putin willing to risk war?  I don't know.  I especially don't know as currently I don't believe he thinks a military move into the eastern Ukraine will be met with a military response, so he quite possibly doesn't even perceive such a move as even a potential declaration of war.

So what to do.

I believe the West needs to call his bluff.  It has to say that a military move into the Ukraine would constitute a declaration of war.

This is not something the West wants-and I would hope neither does Putin.

It would force both sides to sit down and pursue a diplomatic solution which would probably be some sort of a "Finlandisation" of the Ukraine i.e. a neutrality which required any foreign policy moves by the Ukrainians to be sanctioned by the Russians.

It is not clear to me that the Ukrainians would agree to such a solution.  It might require massive pressure from the West to make them acquiesce along the lines that if they don't then they will be left to take on Russia on their own...

This is what Russia really wants.  Control over the Ukraine.

Great Power Realpolitik is full of examples of small countries being sacrificed for what is considered the greater good which in this case is a non-military solution.

I can't help but think that if the West allows Putin to annex the Ukraine, under the threat of a loaded gun, that he will continue until the West says stop.

It is an incredibly depressing thought that on the 100th anniversary of WWI,  the 75th anniversary of the start of WWII, despite the end of the Cold War and the supposed new paradigm of peace, that the Russians, whom I hold at least partially responsible for WWI, and who were joint aggressors in 1939, should once again be the sable rattlers for another European war.

Is it the Spring of 1912, the Fall of 1914, or September 1938?

The first Balkan War of 1912 was started by the Russian sponsored Balkan League which was formed to eject the Ottoman Empire from the Balkans.

The Fall of 1914 is the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I, the blame for which could be aimed at the Russians for their then support of the Serbians in their efforts to escape the clutches of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Given that the Russians lost and with it the Czar disappeared most commentators forget about the battles in the East and focus on the Germans as the guilty ones in World War I- but that is a different post.

Or, with the advantage of hindsight, are we bending over backwards to ensure 'peace in our time' although in this case not as a result of German but rather Russian geopolitical imperatives.

The truth is I don't know.

But I do know that we are in a much more dangerous position than many people appreciate.

On the subject of history the Crimea has been part of Russia since Catherine the Great.  It remained so more or less until Khrushchev-himself a Ukrainian-decided to give it to the Ukraine.

So much for history.

If we go back further than Catherine then the Crimea belonged to numerous peoples-as did almost every other piece of land on earth.  The problem with going back in history is that empires rise and fall.  Sometimes of their own volition, and sometimes through invasion.

This time around there are a lot of voices suggesting that the Crimea, with its majority of ethnic Russians should be allowed to go "back" to Russia.

I even understand that thought.

But to allow the Russians of the Crimea to vote to return to Russia would suggest that wherever there are ethnic minorities, who are however majorities in their ethnic enclaves, they should be allowed to vote to become part of their "parent" countries.

I am not sure that this is a good precedent.

It is true that the lines of nation-states have been drawn somewhat arbitrarily reflecting either the status quo-or a desire to change the status quo-depending on the time and the situation and so there are many borderlands of countries that today look out of place.

Whatever changes are made could look equally out of place tomorrow.

To start allowing these kind of votes will open up fissures between peoples that have actually often enough lived happily together until it was brought to their attention that maybe they shouldn't really get along with one another.

Every group has its own geopolitical hang-ups.  There is always a border which can not be defended; there is always a lack of natural resources, of fertile land.  Essentially every group wants to be in charge of its own destiny-even when that destiny is fraught with danger.

This is the seed of nationalism.  Today it is often a response to globalism.  The benefits of globalism are often positive on a macro level, and equally often negative on a micro level.  This is compounded by the fact that the weak are generally at the mercy of the strong, regardless of how the strong present their case.

So back to my question.

What are the Russians really up to?

It was Just a Pizza Parlour

In a recent debate on Britain's place in the European Union held at Bloomberg's London headquarters Luke Johnson, famous for having created the Pizza Express brand, decided to show that he should have stuck to pizza and not politics by announcing that "the European Union was 'built on German guilt' after World War Two".

No Mr Johnson, Germany has many things for which its sense of guilt associated with the Second World War "directs" it choices, but the creation of the EU is not one of them.  

Germany was indeed involved in the creation of the EEC.  But it was not out of guilt.  It was corralled into the EEC out of fear by the victorious allies.  A fear that Germany would once again, despite an unconditional surrender and a complete collapse, physically, politically and economically, rise up and once again wreak havoc in Europe.

Now if you want to twist things and say that it was guilt that made Germany  provide the bulk of troops to NATO second only to the US, you can.

If you want to twist things to suggest that it was guilt that made Germany  pay more into the European Economic Community than it received, you can.

If you want to twist things to suggest that guilt was the driver behinds Germany's  willingness to take a "backseat" at the table, then you can.

But you would be wrong.

No Mr Johnson, I don't think your memory-if you ever took the time to look into the facts-is clear.  I think that you are forgetting that despite the integration of Germany into Europe by the victors it is once again becoming the dominant continental power-a thought which is anathema to 600 years of English geopolitical strategy.

Granted, this time it is through economic rather than military prowess, it still stirs that underlying British fear of German hegemony in Europe.

And so it is not surprising that Mr Johnson would try and play the guilt card to try and squeeze Germany back into its box. 
                                                            
No not surprising.  

And not correct.

There is no Escaping the Past....nor the Future....

I am fully aware of the dangers of the Ukraine.  As always national boundaries are drawn by the victors, sometimes constructively, and sometimes maliciously. The Ukraine has suffered from this almost since its inception and certainly its most recent manifestation arising from the ashes of the Second World War is flawed to the core with battle lines being drawn along religious, ethnic and political lines.

Post-Soviet Russia might have changed it's political stripes and openly embraced capitalism-but its territorial imperialism, even if it is to defend its national interests against perceived threats- both real and  imagined-is as strong as ever.

The EU and the USA are engaging in a dangerous game of baiting the Russian bear as if the wars in Chechnya, in Georgia, not to mention the interventions in Budapest and Prague were not part of a long term geopolitical dance with destiny.

No one in the West wants to go to war over the Ukraine and so the West's antics are more to discomfort Russia rather the prick it into overt aggression-if Russia plays along.

I would suggest however that on the eve of the 100th anniversary of the First World War which, despite Bismarck's famous statement that "the Balkans weren't worth the bones of a Pomeranian grenadier ended up costing a lot of bones, the majority of which were not from Pomerania, that we be very careful of our actions in the Ukraine.

I'm not sure that it's that much different than Egypt or Syria except that Russia sits on the other side of the board.

I am not forgetting nor suggesting that the path of appeasement was any more successful 25 years later, but we should be very clear of the ramifications of our actions and react strategically rather then the tactical positioning which smacks of opportunism as practiced by dilettantes..

The Perils of Populism

An epitaph for the 20th Century could very well be Socialism; Fascism; and Communism.

The world experienced the advent of all three "ism's" with tragic consequences in the latter two and interesting incursions into the basic capitalist setup by the former.

Socialism and Communism developed to combat the perceived injustices of capitalism combined in many cases with the remnants of monarchism and the established class systems.

Fascism on the other hand was designed to restore some warped perception of past glory essentially recreating a monarchical caste to "defend" against the ravages of Socialism not to mention Communism.

They all have the requirement for an enemy or scapegoat: the rich; the poor; the Jew; basically the "other" against whom they can rant and rave.

In this aspect they all have the potential to fall prey to the latent disease inherent in democracy-
populism.

For populism has the ability to take a kernel of truth and turn it into a monster of exaggeration and lies.

Take the recent vote of the Swiss which passed a referendum to limit immigration with the slightest of majorities- 0.6%.

Two million out of a total Swiss population of eight million are foreign. 

The largest contingent are Italians who make up just under a third.  The second largest are Germans who make up a little less and lastly the Portuguese who make up the majority of the rest.

The Germans are almost exclusively in the professional classes.  The Italians are professional and skilled labour and the Portugese provide a significant part of the menial labour and the lower eschelons of the health care.

The majority of the foreign workers are in the cities.  The "no" vote- that is the vote not to introduce limitations on immigration came from the cities.  The "yes" vote- the anti-foreign vote- came from the countryside where the number of immigrants is minimal.

A perfect example of the creation of a scapegoat, of fomenting fear and loathing of the unknown by a populist, nationalist xenophobic movement .

Unfortunately this seems to be the traditional route taken by the Right.  Create an enemy.  Exaggerate the danger.  Come to power.  And then consolidate your position by creating ever more scapegoats.

My problem is not the Swiss.  They are a relatively small group and don't appear to have territorial aims in Europe.

My concern is that every other right wing populist party in the EU will now latch on to the Swiss example and parlay that into a "seat at the table" of the political elites.

This has happened before.

It didn't end well.

Simple answers to complex questions don't really exist.

But they are alluring.

Net Neutrality

Years ago Noam Chomsky wrote the book "Manufacturing Consent".  In it one of the things he railed against was the small circle of families-26 I believe was the number-across the globe who together essentially owned the world of print media.

In the US they were held in check by the "Fairness Doctrine" which was created in the 30's to counter the power of the print media barons and to check the growth in the "new" area of media the radio.

It was proposed among others by some of the leaders of print and electronic media, perhaps to level the playing field, and was incorporated in the tenets of the FCC.

I have written earlier of how President Reagan dismantled the Fairness Doctrine and that President Carter went on to weaken it even further with the removal of barriers to owning national radio and television stations as well as cross-ownership of print and electronic media.

The next step in the ever increasing attack on freedom of communication are the continuing attempts to dismantle net neutrality.

"Fundamentally, net (short for "network") neutrality is the idea that the Internet works best when ISPs deliver every Internet site's traffic without discrimination. At its core, net neutrality demands ISP equality in the treatment of consumers who pay for the same or a greater quality of service, permitting peer-to-peer communication in any platform of the consumers' choosing, regardless of the amount of content transmitted or bandwidth utilised."*

 

It is a strange fight. 

 

Pro net neutrality supports are looking at "freedom of speech" and the right to have free choice in the sense that they wish to maintain an open broadband in which major Internet providers cannot control what information people see, at what speed and at what price as promoted by the Federal Communications Commission.

 

On the other side of the debate are those looking to ensure that they control the content, the speed and the price of the Internet.  These are the major Internet providers and their congressional supporters like Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.), who introduced H.J. Res. 37 on Feb. 16, 2011, a few weeks after the FCC had put forth a regulation maintaining a high level of net neutrality. 

 

The Honourable Mr Walden's Resolution held that:  "....that Congress disapproves the rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission relating to the matter of preserving the open Internet and broadband industry practises (my italics), and such rule shall have no force or effect."

Just to confirm what happened.  The House Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology voted to repeal an FCC Regulation because the Regulation preserved the open Internet and broadband industry practises.

And wanted to replace it with a sort of Cable TV structure controlling the Internet.

*Sedgewick Law Los Angeles Daily Journal