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Dick Cheney works on the 'principle' that the end justifies the means. This is a threadbare, unethical way of thinking and behaving. No 'end' justifies unethical behaviour and torture is profoundly unethical.
"You must ensure that arrangements for your ACA claims are above reproach and that there can be no grounds for a suggestion of misuse of public money. Members should bear in mind the need to obtain value for money from accommodation, goods or services funded from the allowances."
"You should avoid purchases which could be seen as extravagant or luxurious."
These are some of the rules which MPs have fiercely professed to have followed. So:
£300 for Mock Tudor beams?
£1,800 for a rug?
£18,000 for 2 bookcases?
£8,000 for a TV?
£2,600 for a home cinema system?
£730 for a massage chair?
Some examples of what MPs thought were "wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred" for their duties and which were not "for purely personal or political purposes" and were not "extravagant or luxurious."
These claims do not say much about MPs judgement and that some were allowed does not say much about the fees office.
This does not even start to address the issue of those who claim mortgage interest which was not actually being paid: a prima facie case of fraud only defensible if a judge and jury really believed it was a genuine oversight. I wouldn't like to defend myself against a charge for which my only argument was my intention.
"The Holy See supports the right of your people to a sovereign Palestinian homeland in the land of your fathers, secure and at peace with its neighbours, within internationally recognised borders"
"I know how much you have suffered and continue to suffer as a result of the turmoil that has afflicted this land for decades. Have the courage to resist any temptation you may feel to resort to acts of violence or terrorism. Instead, let what you have experienced renew your determination to build peace. My heart goes out to all the families who have lost so much"
"My heart goes out to the pilgrims from war-torn Gaza. Please be assured of my solidarity with you in the immense work of rebuilding which now lies ahead, and my prayers that the embargo will soon be lifted."
It is quite clear: The Palestinians deserve a homeland, violence should not be used to achieve it, the blockade of Gaza should be lifted. I believe few outsiders will have difficulty accepting those statements.
Will Israel's leaders respond positively? Or will they resort to the usual charges of anti-semitism, bias against Israel etc?
"The biggest obstacle to a comprehensive solution is not Israel. It's not the Palestinians. It's the Iranians. It's impossible to combat any problem in our region without resolving the Iranian problem. This relates to Lebanon, to influence in Syria, their deep involvement with Egypt, in the Gaza Strip, in Iraq. If the international community wants to resolve its Middle East problems, it's impossible because the biggest obstacle to this solution is the Iranians." Israel's Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman. Israel must dread the US coming up with an accord with Iran to resolve the Iranian "problem".
Meanwhile, Israel criticises the UN report which finds Israel culpable in 6 out of 9 incidents where Palestinians died under UN protection: "The commission prefers the positions of Hamas, a murderous terror organization, and by doing so misleads the world public." Hamas is a murderous terrorist organisation, but that does not means that it always, or even frequently, lies. Strange how Israel always accuses those who are critical of being biased. Maybe some of the criticism is justified. Just maybe.
"Thatcherism" was always a gamble (how appropriate: as the City exists purely to gamble, usually with other peoples' money). It was always divisive. It was always likely lead to a greater gap between rich and poor in the UK and a greater gap between rich countries and poorer countries. It was a gamble thar ultimately failed everyone: even the "winners" have been corrupted by the worship of money. Only a radical change in values and a willingness on the part of governments to govern for the sake of all, not just the few, will redress the baleful legacy of Thatcherism.
briefings by Mossad officials and commanders of the Shin Bet, briefing by officers in the IDF Intelligence and Operations branches, inside tour of the IAF unit who carries out targeted killings, live exhibition of penetration raids in Arab territory, observe a trial of Hamas terrorists in an IDF military court, first hand tours of the Lebanese front-line military positions and the Gaza border check-points, inside tour of the controversial Security Fence and secret intelligence bases,meeting Israel's Arab agents who infiltrate the terrorist groups and provide real-time intelligence. See THE ULTIMATE MISSION TO ISRAEL Monday, June 8 – Monday, June 15, 2009
I hope those that paid US$2,795 plus air fare enjoyed their vacation.
Would not a better result, more consistent with justice, have been to release the men, with the warning: "We will watch you like hawks, one solid piece of evidence that invalidates your visa sees you on the next plane home." If they are innocent, no problem. If they are guilty, deporting them to Pakistan risks giving them the freedom to continue to plot.
Let us not forget that these raids were under cover of the draconian anti-terrorism laws. It is another example of how bad law - justified by the government that it will not be mis-used - does get mis-used and in short order. Since 1997 the UK government has become more and more authoritarian and has passed laws that pander to the more authoritarian and Stalinesque sections of the police.
The findings of the Director of Public Prosecutions, in deciding there was no point in prosecuting included the following: "The information contained in the documents was not secret information or information affecting national security: it did not relate to military, policing or intelligence matters. It did not expose anyone to a risk of injury or death. Nor, in many respects, was it highly confidential. Much of it was known to others outside the civil service, for example, in the security industry or the Labour Party or Parliament. These examples are not an exhaustive list of the types of information that may be damaging for the purposes of the offence of misconduct in public office." In other words, this was a 'normal' leaking. Regrettable maybe, but not justifying the full drama of raiding the Houses of Parliament, ransacking houses and perhaps most importantly, taking the opportunity to check on the activities of others not involved in this but who are critical of the government.
This site, with others, has for a long time been warning of the slide into a police state. That is why I am not surprised. When is the general public going to wake up to this?
One would expect a full, independent judicial review of what happened, but under this government that is most unlikely. We are still a long way from returning the police into an organisation which serves the people, rather than what it does now with increasing brutality: serving the interests of those currently in power, whether or not those interests coincide with those of the people.
Meanwhile Margaret Beckett, Alastair Darling and Geoff Hoon are all said to have lived rent-free in state-provided London residences whilst renting out their London homes and claiming expenses for a home in their constituency. All say that they are acting within the rules. If so, the rules not only need to be changed quickly, but it is high time that MPs and Ministers acted within the spirit of the rules, not the letter. What they are doing may be 'legal', but it is certainly unethical. Rather in the same category as Fred Goodwin, with less money involved.
This is not how a society which calls itself free and democratic behaves. Violent protest has to be stopped robustly, but peaceful protesters - who have every right not only to protest but more importantly have the right of free passage - should not be harrassed and humilated (eg having to urinate in public) in this way. The slippery slope gets steeper.
Justice delayed is not justice, neither is unseen 'justice'.
The response of MPs? Oh, we will give up the allowance in exchange for an increase in salary of £36,709 on the present salary of £63,291. An increase of 37%. At a time of financial crisis, with hundreds of thousands of people losing their jobs. Desmond Swayne MP: "A clean reform would be to give MPs an incremental salary and take away the allowances. The current system is a constant source of grievance for the public, who now hold us in contempt. They hate us and think we all have our snouts in the trough."
Does he think the public will not hold MPs in contempt and see them as having their noses in the trough if they award themselves a 37% increase? And they have the gall to criticise Fred (he doesn't deserve the "Sir") Goodwin!
The Tony McNultys and Dawn Butlers of this world, who show a greed of dubious legality and is certainly not ethical should be termed "doing a Fred Goodwin". Fred Goodwins' persistence in taking the taxpayer's widow's mite should be 'rewarded' by a such a phrase. He deserves to remembered with disdain in perpetuity.
"If he wants to speak with us then let him come over here. If he doesn't want to come, then he can go to hell." Said of Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's President.
"Any attempt or removal of settlements or outposts, as far as we are concerned, will force us to quit immediately."
"From our point of view, the concept of land for peace is out of the question. The principle must be exchanges of territory and population."
"It would be better to drown these prisoners in the Dead Sea if possible, since that’s the lowest point in the world." Of Palestinian prisoners.
"The peace process is based on three false basic assumptions - that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the main fact of instability in the Middle East, that the conflict is territorial and not ideological, and that the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders will end the conflict."
"Our problem is not with the Palestinians but with the Israeli Arabs." Which is presumably why he wants to remove all Arabs from Israel.
"All negotiations on the basis of land for peace are a tragic mistake. Whoever says the conflict is over territory is misleading the public. If we go back to pre-1967 lines, the conflict and the terror won't end. We cannot accept the asymmetry of a Palestinian state and a binational state with a sizable Arab minority. That's why the solution has to be exchanges of population and territories and not land for peace." Sounds like policy of ethnic purity to me. Where have we heard that before? The Balkans and, oh yes, Hitler's Germany.
"I fear that this mission has absolutely no chance." On former Senator George Mitchell's arrival in Israel as President Obama's emissary.
These are the words of the man chosen to represent Israel to the outside world.
Meanwhile, shots on the television showing for example, police officers at peaceful protests, officials accompanying Binyam Mohamed off the plane from Guantanamo Bay blur their faces so they cannot be identified.
Can you think of a better way to divide the nation into them and us? We, the proletariat, can be photographed, personal details kept, sold on, frequently lost, treated as though we have no right to privacy, treated as if we were, or could become, criminals, whilst those responsible for keeping those in authority in power are protected by anonymity. I think you will search long and hard to find a police officer in the UK charged after a civilian is killed by police, let alone a successful prosecution. See: Inquest
The forces of law and order must be an integral part of the community or we will indeed become a police state. We are well on that road.
Which country - or grouping as in the EU group - will be the first to set different priorities? A policy which says that if we can make it/provide it, we will, even if it is not at the lowest global price. This helps to fulfil one of the highest responsibilities of a nation state: full employment. A policy which rewards, massively, the development of small businesses, thus also aiding employment and paving the way to the third policy. Saying to the multi-nationals: you will pay the going rate for labour in this country and you will pay a fair rate (ie higher) of tax so that we can provide decent services for our citizens. If you don't like it and leave, we will survive without being blackmailed by you. A policy which manages the flow of capital into and out of the country so that greedy speculators stop ripping us off. A policy which aims to reduce the gap between the richest and the poorest, as we know that such inequalities come with a high price, crime being just one.
I am well aware that such policies would fall foul of such organisations like the WTO. Tough. Let these agreements go. It is time governments started to concentrate on two ares: reduce/eliminate the power of the multi nationals and reduce the focus on economics and switch to focussing on what sort of society they want to foster. Trade agreements can be renegotiated and form, or should only form, part of what governments are there for.
Truly we live in the Orwellian world. Remember "four legs good, two legs bad?"
Oh yes, I forgot. We do indeed have such a legal "system". BAe, Binyam Mohamed, the detention of terrorist suspects: all are above the due process of law. Three cheers for democracy!
Meanwhile, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is calling for a national unity government which will include Hamas. Will Israel boycott such an organisation if it were ever formed? Probably, as it serves Israel's purpose for the peace process to proceed slowly, if at all. After all, in spite of all the rhetoric from Israel, it is the Palestinians who suffer the most from the lack of peace.
The figures become meaningless in that each side tries to justify its stance, but even if all the 320 men could be proved to be Hamas fighters, this still leaves the IDF figures showing a quarter of all fatalities as being non-combatants. What else (and maybe worse) can anyone expect when crowded urban areas are hit by 2,000 pound bombs? The word irresponsible does not even start to cover it. Criminal recklessness is nearer the mark.
There remains the wider issue: even if all the casualties and fatalities could be conclusively proved to be "militants" or "combatants" or "terrorists", how can it be justified that all and sundry are just bombed to extinction? Gazans are officially under the protection of Israel: Gaza is not a state, has no armed forces, no independent access to the outside world. Israel oppresses the population for which it bears responsibility to the edge of starvation, then bombs that population with all the force of modern warfare employed between armies (short of a nuclear strike) from land, air and sea. Because? Because mainland Israeli cities are being bombed from Gaza? Because hundreds or thousands of Israelis are being wounded or killed? No, because a few hundred, maybe a few thousand "miltants", "combatants", "terrorists" have fashioned home made rockets and some have landed in Israeli towns. Crimes certainly. Acts that should be punished. But no-one can possibly justify the carnage wreaked on Gaza, whether the 'true' figures are those of Hamas or Israel.
The intention of Yisrael Beiteinu to demand 'loyalty' oaths from Israeli Arabs is contemptible. We in the UK have a party with similar concepts: it's called the BNP. Whilst analysts are pessimistic about how the US may now be able to further the peace process, I believe that Barack Obama has a simple but effective option. He can reduce aid, substantially, to Israel and he could also make his "We will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist." statement apply specifically and explicitly to Israel. The world needs to know that the US is willing to apply pressure to rogue states of whatever creed or nationality.
It is these arrangements that the UK government is stubbornly refusing to acknowledge. The anger is not to do with labour in one country competing with labour in another. It is the craven way in which successive governments have allowed key industries to slip outside direct UK control, the use of contracts to force people into short term employment, the use of what are effectively mercenary forces, rather than individuals who choose where to work.
I hope the protests continue and bring the government to a position where sense will prevail and some regulation is introduced.
So, Israel has decided to act even more disproportionately, to act even more outside the rule (actual rule) of international law, to inflict more suffering on innocent people. Before anyone says 'self defence' (eg Hillary Clinton), if someone taps me on the nose, I am not entitled in self defence to shoot or stab him. The argument of self defence is always accompanied by the word proportionate. Israel thus puts itself outside the law.
"Israel is going to act according to a new equation. We are not going to show restraint anymore." Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. Having killed over 1,300 Palestinians in the last few weeks and wounded over 5,000, what does she mean? Next time - today, tomorrow, next week? - Israel will kill 2,000 Palestinians, 5,000, 10,000?
"Hamas controls Gaza and is responsible for everything that happens. Whenever they fire at me from Gaza, set off a bomb or launch a missile or smuggle, Israel will respond." Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. Presumably she also accepts responsibility for any unlawful killing of Palestinian civilians by the IDF? Whatever the circumstances and history of the Middle East, Israel is now a state out of control, a rogue state, like an animal that, having been bitten and continuing to be bitten by insects (Palestininas cannot inflict any serious harm on Israel) goes on a rampage of killing anything and anyone in sight.
Gaza may be razed to the ground; it will not stop the conflict. Israel and the world know this. When is Israel going to stop these futile killings and actually look for a solution?
Secondly the complaints by British troops that wounded Taliban fighters are being treated on the same wards as wounded British troops. Are they not people? Also, in spite of the fact that I have no sympathy for the Taliban, whose regime was odious in many respects, they were ruling Afghanistan until the allies invaded. The Taliban therefore are fighting to regain (may they not succeed) their land against foreign occupiers. Might it be that they feel "uncomfortable" at sharing the same wards as those of their wounded occupiers? Again, the rights and wrongs of a person's views and actions are irrelevant when a person is in need. Whatever our differences we share a common humanity, common needs. We have more things in common than things which divide us. I was reminded only this morning of Edith Cavell's words, executed in the First World War by the Germans for treating allied and German soldiers equally: "I know now that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred towards anyone". Would that some politicians learn this lesson.
Where now? Two answers. What should happen after a ceasefire: the removal of Gaza from Israel's malign control, the opening up of the borders for normal trade and the establishment of a UN force both to enforce border controls, especially the elimination of arms importation, and to establish internal security in Gaza leading to the establishment of a viable administration. The investigation of actions on both sides and the referral of any breaches of international law referred to the appropriate courts. Barack Obama could facilitate this: Israel should be kept in line by a quiet word to them: back of, shut up and keep quiet for a while, or the aid stops. No need to make it public.
What will happen? Not the above. The international community will pussy foot around the issue, hoping that it will somehow sort itself out. Sooner or later the whole thing will flare up again. Thousands of Palestinians in the last few years, let alone the last few decades, will have died for absolutely nothing,
I hope I am wrong.
I have listened to Israeli spokespeople saying that their aim is to wipe out Hamas/militants, by violence of course as we are seeing. Even if every last militant and weapon are destroyed what then? Israel knows full well what then. The bitterness will create another generation of Palestinians resolved to use violence against Israel. Any respite will be temporary. Israel knows that full well. Israel also knows that talking and negotiation are the only ways to resolve disputes. We have to ask why Israel does not act on that knowledge and have to conclude that the killing of Palestinians is gratuitous. There is no ultimate purpose behind it. It is killing for the sake of it and there is absolutely no credibility in Israel's assertions that everything is done to prevent harm to civilians, not when you see these figures: 854 Palestinians dead, 270 are children, 68 women, and 90 elderly people. The claim also that Hamas is to be blame for breaking the cease fire is also false: the killing of six Hamas members on November 4th started it and a joint Tel Aviv University-European University study has shown that Israeli violence has been responsible for ending 79 per cent of all lulls in violence since the outbreak of the second intifada, compared with only 8 per cent for Hamas and other Palestinian factions.
We know that Israel provokes the violence and therefore conclude that Israel has a vested interest in maintaining a violent confrontation. The question is, what is the world going to do about it? It is our responsibility as well. Schiller wrote, and Beethoven set it to music, 'all men shall become brothers'. For that to happen all of us have to act as brothers. To all, Israeli, Palestinian, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, etc etc. We cannot leave it to 'the others'. We may not have the power of a head of state but we are not powerless and can use ehat power and influence we have.
The Israeli military continually asserts that it does all it can to avoid civilian casualties and also prides itself on the precision and accuracy of its weaponry targeting. Yet it appears that at least a third of all those killed so far are children. Which would Israel prefer to own up to: it does not care about civilians or the weaponry/training of its troops is poor?
We know that Israel prevents any reporting from Gaza, so that all we have are pictures and information transmitted from inhabitants with great difficulty. Contrast that with the invitation to over 30 journalists to Sderot to hear a presentation about the rocket attacks. Right on cue, two came in and within a few minutes the journalists were were inspecting the still hot fragments. No-one was hurt but the disparity in the visibility of the threat to Israel versus the suffering of the Palestinians matches the disparity between the weaponry each side uses.
The grotesque three hour ceasfire each day - you can receive food and aid for three hours, then we will resume killing you - is not only inadequate - how can you get supplies to 750,000 people in three hours? - it is not even honoured. So two UN convoys are fired upon by Israel, even though the UN vehicles are clearly marked and their movements notified in advance to the Israeli military.
Fighting in a built up area, if it has to be done and this does not have to be done, must be carried out in a way which minimises civilian casualties but usually there is somewhere the civilian population can escape to. In Gaza there is nowhere to go to: Israel's grip on the noose in which it has strangles Gaza for more than fifty years ensures that, like the Nazi ghettos, those inside can be picked off at will. I abhor violence , but if Israel concluded that the threat from rockets was unacceptable and aimed to cut off the supply, as has been said, then the area immediately next to the Egyptian border could have been targeted, having given enough warning for the civilian population to flee to Gaza city. There was no need for all this carnage. Except the wish for communal punishment masquerading as legitimate defence.
Meanwhile the US Senate, Democrats and Republicans alike, pass a motion supporting the Israeli actions. Mention is made of "our historic bond with the state of Israel" Historic? I am older than Israel. Truly we can understand why Iran calls the US 'the great Satan'.
Israel has said that it will not stop until Hamas stops firing rockets. Can we interpret that as 'unless or until all Palestinians are dead?' Or is there a point at which even Israel will stop the slaughter before there is no-one left to kill.
I notice that the media refer to Israel as a 'Jewish state' more frequently. This is regrettable. Attacks on Jews have no place anywhere in the world and such language is likely to encourage the unthinking to conflate the Jewish people with the state of Israel. Jews, like all peoples, come in all shapes and sizes, act like all peoples across the ethical spectrum. The state of Israel on the other hand acts despotically, arrogantly (because the US bankrolls it in every way) and brutally towards anyone, internally or externally, who disagrees with it or acts against it.
The ground invasion of a densely populated area such as Gaza is totally uncivilised and should make Israel a pariah amongst nations. The 'no alternative' excuse is worthless: there are always alternatives. Israel chose this action. The 'any nation would do the same' is factually incorrect: a fragile peace in Ireland came not through F16s, helicopter gunships, tanks and infantry. It came through talking. The 'Hamas targets our civilians' excuse is is lacking all responsibility: a state has a duty to act in a civilised manner to all, especially towards its own citizens and, like it or not, the citizens of Gaza are Israeli citizens by nature of the absolute control over their every move by Israel. They should not be. The sooner someone with authority enables Gaza and the West Bank to be taken out of Israel's malign grip the better. The sooner the borders can be controlled by the UN and the Palestinians in both areas return to some semblance of normality, trading with other areas, able to manage their own economy - continuously crippled by Israel - the better. Any settlement, if any comes in my lifetime, which does not include the management of the borders between Palestine and Israel by the UN for the decades necessary until each side can start to trust the other will fail.
A final thought for this day, stemming from the BBC programmes mentioned above, a very bitter thought. Israel learned very well from the lessons of the Holocaust.
This in a nutshell sums up what we have witnessed of the last fifty years: Israel not concentrating on defending itself but aggressively attacking any state or organisation seen as a threat. So the principles of cost and pre-emptive strikes win out. Putting it another way, the costs of defence are largely transferred away from the Israeli taxpayer (or, more accurately, the American taxpayer) to the lives of Palestinians, Syrians, Jordanians, Lebanese, Egyptians.
This aggressive principle was embedded into Israeli military policy from the beginning: attacking Egypt with France and Britain in 1956, a state just eight years' old willing and able to send warplanes to bomb the territory of another state.
There will be no peace in the Middle East until Israel changes its approach and only an American President can facilitate that. If this were to happen and if the other parties were wise enough to respond positively to this change, then peace could be established. The order however is as above: the USA to lay the boundaries and ground rules, Israel be seen to change. Hamas and the Palestinian people certainly have responsibilities, but there is a fundamental power principle involved. Those with more power, and Israel has massively more power than the whole of the Arab world, have the greater responsibilty to set the agenda, to make the first move. To say the opposite, which is what bankrupt Bush says, is the equivalent of saying that the French Resistance should have stopped their activities first and only then would their Nazi occupiers have had the responsibilty to change their tactics.
The difference is, or should be, that terrorists violate agreed behaviour in seeking to achieve political and military aims. States are expected to have a higher level of conduct and to follow internationally agreed behaviour. Israel fails in this respect and is therefore no better (and it can be argued is far worse because it has the responsibilities of a state) than those who fire rockets into Israel. Innocent people die because of unacceptable terrorist behaviour and I fully support efforts to stop terrorism and bring to justice all terrorists. In this respect all terrorists should include all those in power in states which carry out state terrorism. The people and the number of such states are many, but peace and justice will never be progressed whilst the present double standards continue.
Colloquially, two wrongs do not make a right. The USA, in its role as the major setter of standards, has done much since the Second World War to pretend that the US 'wrongs' (the long list of illegal interventions in other nations' affairs and governments) can make a situation 'right', thus eroding international standards of behaviour. How long before the US starts to set acceptable standards for the rest of the world to follow? A good start would be make it clear to Israel what the limits to Israel's power are. Eisenhower did it. Barack Obama could do it. Will he?
The Palestinians, whether in Gaza or the West Bank, pose no military threat to Israel. Israel knows this, the world knows this. Israel simply continues along the path that has been followed right from the beginning: violence. The state of Israel had a violent and bloody birth, but in the first few years, Israel had opportunities to build a multi-ethnic state. That alternative was rejected in favour of ethnic cleansing, continual illegal expansion, callous physical and economic oppression of Palestinians, periodic episodes of savagery against people who have little but their own bare hands to defend themselves.
After more than 50 years there is no evidence whatsoever that Israel is interested in peace or a two state solution. “The goal of the operation is to topple Hamas.” Haim Ramon, deputy to Ehud Olmert. "War to the bitter end." Ehud Barak. Both know that Hamas cannot be defeated militarily: the only way that Hamas will cease to be is if Palestinians cease to support the movement: attacking it is the most effective way of that support continuing. As far as 'the bitter end' is concerned, Ehud Barak is right only if by 'bitter end' he means the total eradication of all Palestinians. Even then, other Arab peoples and states would take their place.
What then is the way forward? For the Palestinians: study Ghandhi. A difficult pill to swallow, but non-violent resistance is not weakness and is more likely to achieve their aims - a viable state - than violence. Israel? My sad conclusion is that Israel's leaders are so steeped in bloodletting, so steeped in paranoia, that Israel's policies cannot change from the inside.
This is where the 'good men' are needed: to act. The USA in particular needs to stop colluding with evil. Barack Obama needs to act as soon as he takes over the presidency, making it clear that support for Israel is not a blank cheque, that diplomacy and negotiation is the only way forward. Labelling Hamas as a terrorist organisation and likening it to Al-Qaeda is, respectively, irrelevant and nonsense. Britain talked to terrorists who were inflicting far more casualties that Hamas. That process is still not yet over, but there is hope. At present there is no hope in the Middle East, because one party, Israel, shuns any positive steps (justifying the attacks on Gaza as a way of restoring national pride after Lebanon is just sick) and Israel's banker, the US, keeps supplying the military hardware and political support. If the credit crunch were to be applied to Israel, genuine negotiations might follow.
It is the more tragic therefore that the modern state of Israel treats Palestinians like the Nazis treated the Jews. I know that this statement will be fiercely contested but it is factually true in one crucial respect. The Nazis treated the Jews and the Israelis treat the Palestinians as second class people. In this respect there is no difference between them and it is this attitude as much as the actions which flow from it which I condemn. It violates a fundamental principle which should always be upheld: all people are equal, whatever their gender, race, age, religion, political views, wealth or lack of it, health or lack of it. If world leaders really started from that position and acted accordingly, the world would be a far better place.
Meanwhile Israel continues with the usual threats: "There's no doubt we are approaching a huge military operation in the Gaza Strip." Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai said last Saturday, November 29th.
There are a number of issues that will be high on President-elect Obama's agenda, but in terms of furthering peace - worldwide - Israel/Palestine ranks highest. If he is to make a difference his policy and actions will need to be radically different from those of successive US administrations over the last fifty years.
"There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza." says Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Who do you believe? Well, Jordan sent 20 trucks of humanitarian aid to Gaza this week. When I was last in Northern Jordan a few years' ago, living conditions amongst the Palestinin refugees living there (driven out by Israelis from Israel) were such that they themselves were in receipt of UN humanitarian aid. The white UN trucks were quite conspicuous.
Two other contrasting figures. US aid to Israel in 2009 is planned at $2.55billion, up from $2.38 in 2008. The UN are appealing for $462million in aid for the Palestinians.
Brother, can you spare a dime.
Why does Israel act like this? There may be several reasons. One assumption we have to make, which seems to be borne out over the years, that Israel always provokes violence if peace looks remotely possible - and the truce in Gaza had held for some months. More immediate possibilities in the current situation is to pre-empt any frantic attempt by George W Bush to salvage something from his reign by cobbling together some form of progress in the Middle East. Another is to fire a warning shot over the bows of President - elect Barack Obama. Depressingly, I favour the inbuilt Israeli instinct to fight, rather than seek peace. Even more depressingly, I wonder if the agenda for greater Israel is the dominant one in Israeli politics: that given enough time (100+ years? Israel is already halfway there) the Palestinians will gradually be driven out of all the occupied territories.
Something else Shimon Peres said in relation to Syria was that if Syria wanted the Golan Heights back, then Syria had to make moves. There is never any indication that Israel is ready to make moves and I also noted that Shimon Peres did not indicate that Israel would withdraw the settlers from the West Bank.
It is all one way. It is naked oppression and aggression. The world knows it and history will rank Israel since her birth amongst the most oppressive and evil regimes in modern times. Israel does not make the mistake of killing masses of the other. The strategy is more subtle. It is a long, slow strangulation. It reminds me of the sad fate of poor James Bulger: he was killed partly because he kept getting up. The Palestinians persist in getting up repeatedly.
As I have said many times, I do not condone violence of any sort, but let us make a couple of comparisons. Who would deny the right of the French Resistance to resist Nazi occupation? Who would deny the right of the Tibetan people to resist Chinese occupation? Why then are the Palestinians are denied any means of resisting a cruel and relentless semi-stavation over decades?
This is where the Conservative doctrine of a 'small state' with little taxation is fatally flawed. It is all very well to say "it's your money, you should decide how to spend it", but no-one is able to choose to channel their money into, say, hospitals, schools, railways etc. Money for essential infrastructure should, firstly, be under the control of the government, not left to private organisations to choose which are likely to be the most profitable. Secondly, the money needed for such investment has to come from taxation, either corporate taxation and/or private taxation. It is this government-directed investment which is Keynesian and the advantage any government has over any other body or person is that government has a national perspective. Thus investment could truly be directed to where it is most needed and which is fairest for the nation as a whole. Such investment, as happened under Keynesian principles after the 2nd World War, has the effect of stimulating growth, growth which benefits all, both in the short and long term. It is too important to be left to the lottery of the capitalist jungle.
In this regard I applaud the UK government's continued statements and ?commitment? to action on climate change and deplore the same government's plans to backtrack on proposals for allowing more flexible working practices. Treating workers like human beings should not be sacrificed on the altar of short term economic expediency.
After all, we individual investors in ISAs etc are penalised if we remove our money in the short term (short term here being measured in years, rather then milliseconds).
The system is sick, always has been sick since the Thatcherite monetary policy was sold to states and states, in their miserable incompetence, bought it. The world and the health of its citizens are held to ransom by a relatively few people and still, like the emperor's new clothes, we hear commentators parrot the 'market will adjust', 'the market must be left to correct the imbalance' phrases until you want to scream: 'The market got us into this mess, why should the market be able to get us out of it?'
100,000 houses destroyed. 250,000 people displaced. No deaths, nineteen injured. Fidel Castro estimates the damage to be in the region of 4 billion USD. What help has been offered, provided?
Russia has already flown in two planeloads of aid. China has promised 300,000 USD. East Timor has promised 500,000 USD. Spain has shipped in 16 tons of aid. I can find no references to aid from countries like the UK, France, Germany, Italy. The US?
Ah, the US. The US has the possibility of 100,000 USD available, but only through relief agencies, not through the Cuban government. Some,like Barack Obama and Howard Berman, chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, have called for the restrictions on contact and travel to be lifted in order to help Cuba. The US State Department's reply? "We do not believe that at this time it is necessary to loosen the restrictions on remittances and travel to Cuba to accomplish the objective of aiding the hurricane victims. Non-governmental organizations on the ground in Cuba are already mobilizing to provide such assistance."
The meanness, vindictiveness and sheer inhumanity of the US administration is mind-boggling.
The same applies to energy. If the UK government had been mindful of its responsibilities concerning climate change it would have invested in renewable, by definition home-grown and controlled, resources. Instead, it forgot about market forces, one lesson of which is not to allow oneself to be subject to monopoly or near-monopoly supply, and allowed UK energy supply to be overwhelmingly dominated by Russia. The crisis in Georgia symbolises the risks in such a course. The sooner the UK invests in energy resources which are independent the better; it is apposite to suggest that the money to be spent on the 'independent' replacement of Trident could be much better spent on protecting our energy supply as well as helping to reduce the effects of greenhouse gasses.
It is already clear that Edinburgh and Glasgow do not compete with each other and that there is therefore little point in splitting ownership there. Other airports such as Southampton are either the only local airport or compete with other local airports owned separately. The argument is therefore about London and the wider principle that only a free market can provide efficient services. On the latter, I dissent but even if it is true, the catastrophic effects on the environment of unfettered travel by whatever means a free market can most cheaply provide it mean that government regulation with real powers is essential. Any other conclusion means that allowing private companies to maximise their profits is more important than the future of the human race.
None of this money would be frittered away if the services were public owned and run and the answer to the argument that extra costs without the incentive of the profit motive would be incurred just begs the question of adequate measurements being designed and implemented. There is also the principle of governments abdicating one reponsibility of government: providing essential services. Outsourcing this responsibility is just such an abdication.
There is also the spurious claim of competition, market forces etc. These industries are oligopolistic: few suppliers, many customers. Price fixing by one means or another is a great risk here, as any first year economics student knows. As we have seen recently, the changes in prices by each supplier follow remarkably similar curves. If competition were genuine there would be no need for regulators.
There are always reasons why violence erupts. The tragedy is that politicians take up pre-prepared, partisan and own agenda positions, rather than addressing the real grievances which lie behind violence. There will be real grievances on both the 'Georgian' and 'Russian' sides, but it is unlikely that world leaders will spend much time examining these to try and seek a fair way forward.
In a TV programme yesterday on China, someone was acknowledging with approval that China shows no sign of wanting to export its 'revolution' (ie Communism) to the rest of the world. This commentator was speaking from the US, the country which is doing and has done more than any other country to export its values, culture, political systems, judicial systems and political institutions to the rest of the world. A country which has the arrogance, aided and abetted by camp followers like the UK, to believe that its systems are so superior to others that they should be foisted on everyone else.
It is also worth noting that the energy industry illustrates the inbuilt catch 22 of capitalism: that free competiton results in companies competing to outgrow each other, often by takeovers/mergers, thus resulting in a few large companies dominating the industry and thus reducing/eliminating competition - which is the raison d'etre of free market capitalism.
A cynical addendum. 'To think for themselves' is what many governments are terrified of. Citizens who think for themselves are threats to those in power. It reminds me of a phrase I used in response to a senior manager: 'What you are asking me to be is a creative conformist. I can be one, or the other, but not both.'
The other not so positive news was the 'agreement' between Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai. Dictators do not share power easily, or at all, and it is difficult to see how the MDC can become seriously influential in reversing the ruination of Zimbabwe whilst Robert Mugabe remains in any position of power. If he is weak enough to have to negotiate then he is probably weak enough to be removed. After all, Zimbabweans did vote to remove him.
Had the case been brought earlier, the principle of natural justice might have prevailed. As it is, the unfair punishment is still open to legal challenge unless the BOA changes its rules.
Well, I suppose it depends upon the newspaper's political stance and agenda. There is a case to be made for media coverage on this or any other crime issue being part of the problem: how many young people are now carrying knives because they believe that everyone else is starting to? There is little anywhere however about the real problem underlying youth crime. The real issue is cultural. Children are relatively deprived nowadays. Deprived of an extended family (often indeed of any family at all), deprived of time spent with them by parents and older relatives, deprived of a society in which values other than economic are nurtured. These causes cannot be fixed by punishment, by draconian threats, or by bribes or within the term of a single government. Politicians need to be honest about this and work together for a gradual reinstatement of values that most people would agree with, but are thwarted from reaching out for because of the inbuilt pressures in society.
1.Use of severe interpretation of the tuberculin test in infected herds and herds at special risk
2.Strategic use of the IFN-y assay
3.Increased frequency of herd testing
4.Implementation of the pre-movement test in areas and regions of high prevalence
5.Definition and application of the epidemiological unit of concern
6.More extensive use of epidemiological data analysis: indicators
7.Stamping out in infected herds: criteria, application and assessment
8.Wildlife removal/alternatives.
9.Re-appraisal of compensation schemes
10.Re-define and strengthen restrictions on animal movements
Only one involves wildlife and on that the same document says "Strategies to be implemented on wildlife and in particular the removal of infected wildlife need a sound scientific basis and, if applied, should be accompanied by a range of other measures." Italics from the original document. (Working Document on Eradication of Bovine Tuberculosis in the EU accepted by the Bovine tuberculosis subgroup of the Task Force on monitoring animal disease eradication)
The EU task force is unlikely to focus on badgers. It is more likely to ask the UK government why it has not made more progress in reducing the incidence of bovine TB. The EU provides funds: in 2007 Spain, Italy, Poland and Portugal received 50% of the costs of their approved programmes. In 2006, Estonia, Spain, Italy, Poland and Portugal likewise. 2005: Cyprus, Greece, Spain, Italy, Poland, Portugal. 2004: Italy, Lithuania, Greece, Spain, Poland, Ireland, Portugal, Slovenia, and, wait for it, the UK.
In 2008, programmes were approved for Spain, Italy, Poland, Portugal. It is quite easy to work out which countries are making the most effort.
It's about time the UK sorted itself out and took responsibility for the state of the nation's livestock: the ways in which livestock are reared, moved and slaughtered, as well as implementing scientifically-based measures to reduce the incidence of disease. Wild animals are the victims of our farming methods, not the main cause of disease.
Incidentally, in perusing EU documents, I came across approval for a programme to vaccinate foxes as part of the programme to eliminate rabies. If only we in the UK were so humane. Instead we see foxes as vermin or 'sport'.
There is a way forward: remain vigilant and talk. Extensive talking to those whom you regard as your enemies has a habit of causing you to realise that they are your friends after all and for them to realise that you are their friends too. Dialogue is the most effective way to settle disputes.
It takes me back to a visit to Zimbabwe a few years' back. Talking to a group of Zimbabweans, a sum of £100 was regarded as a fortune, no need to work anymore. Whilst that was over optimistic, even then hard currency was sought after because of the plummeting value of the local currency. This was just before Zimbabwe shut the world out: getting out involved negotiations and paying officials.
We in the West do not realise that almost all our possessions and spending can be regarded as luxurious, not essential, compared with the rest of the world. Our economic concerns are trivial.
Since 1998, the UK has increased its spending year by year on the so-called nuclear deterrent by 70% in real terms: this year alone it is expected to be £1.7 billion. The government is also planning to replace Trident at a cost of £75 billion.
How many children would be lifted out of poverty if this completely useless weaponry were scrapped?
When will we get a government which cares for its people and allocates resources to those less fortunate nations, rather than the succession of governments intent at all costs to strut around the world stage waving its macho weaponry around, playing at being a world 'leader'. We and the world pay dearly for these delusions of grandeur.
MI5 do not want it. The former Labour Attorney General and former Labour Lord Chancellor do not want it. The Director of Public Prosecutions does not want it. Several Chief Police Officers have said they do not want it. Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe's Human Rights Commissioner, does not want it, adversely comparing the UK's present, let alone proposed, laws with the rest of Europe.
This is of course the truly awful cul de sac that Gordon Brown has driven into: the proposed powers to detain terrorist suspects without charge for 42 days. I welcomed the departure of Tony Blair and the arrival of Gordon Brown but the lack of judgement shown on this issue in particular is appalling. No one has yet to come up with an argument for it. The nearest I have read is the fatuous 'new technology makes it more difficult and longer to obtain evidence'. 'New technology' means computers and this lame excuse implies that the UK government is not as up to date in mastering computing as the terrorists.
Britain (before the nation actually became Britain) led the world in establishing a reasonably fair system of justice. Now, with the exception of the US in terms of Guantanamo Bay and its associated obscenities, Britain seems determined to lead the democratic world away from fairness and back towards arbitrary imprisonment, arbitrary treatment of individuals (why are people still being sent back to Zimbabwe?). We are sliding rapidly towards the use by the state of arbitrary powers and the only safeguards are the increasingly beleagured judges, frantically trying to see how these unfair laws can be interpreted in as fair a way as possible. To the judges' credit, some have achieved a degree of success.
Remember Donne: "Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee". A different context, but the message is the same.
In the present context of a catastrophic fall in support for the government and frantic efforts by Ministers to assure the public that their concerns are being listened to, a programme of draconian and costly schemes to retain data (ID cards, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 - which is the Act the Home Office is intending to widen) are bizarre. Freud had a word for it: thanatos. Death wish.
"I suspect if you looked back 60 years ago and tried to guess where Israel would be at that time, it would be hard to be able to project such a prosperous, hopeful land" was another statement by the US President. Same comment as above applies.
A White House spokeperson, Gordon Johndroe, also said on the same subject: "The United States and Israel share a belief that all people have the right to live in peace, that democracy is the best way to ensure human rights, that religious liberty is fundamental to civilized society and that using violence to achieve political objectives is always wrong." Really? I doubt that the people of Iraq and the Palestinians amongst others would agree. The US and Israel, in common with most nations, sadly, employ violence in pursuit of poltical ends as a matter of course. Gordon Johndroe's words are just words without substance or meaning in the context of the violence meted out across the world by the US and the arms supplied to states of whom the US approves to use against their own and other people.
And yes, I am aware that the UK, France and other 'freedom loving', 'democratic' countries follow similar policies and actions. There may be a case for saying that other, non-democratic, countries behave more badly, but this still only makes the US and her allies guilty of a lesser level of crime. It does not absolve the US et al of responsibility for their own actions.
It is these moments that the words of Schiller that Beethoven set to music in his ninth symphony come to mind: all men will become brothers. We are just as far from that, if not further, as Beethoven was. The absence of worldwide brotherhood pained Beethoven greatly. It pains many people just as deeply today. If it pains world leaders, they show no signs of acting on their pain and the world's pain to further Schiller's and Beethoven's dream.
The figures are for aid requested for specific regions/countries, not the whole budget for US aid.
| Region |    $     |  %   |
| Africa   |  5,297,732,000   | 32.37 |
| Near East |  5,524,133,000   | 33.76 |
| S and Central Asia |  2,216,618,000   | 13.55 |
| Western Hemisphere |  2,048,612,000   | 12.52 |
| Europe and Eurasia |     734,028,000   |  4.49 |
| East Asia and Pacific |     542,847,000   |  3.32 |
| Total | 16,363,970,000 | 100.00 |
|   |   |   |
| Specific Countries |    $     |  % of Total above |
| Egypt | 1,505,400,000   |  9.20 |
| Iraq |          397,000   |  0.00 |
| Israel | 2,550,000,000   | 15.58 |
| West Bank and Gaza |    100,000,000   |  0.61 |
| Jordan |    535,441,000   |  3.27 |
| Afghanistan | 1,053,950,000   |  6.44 |
| Pakistan |    826,255,000   |  5.05 |
| Bangladesh |    106,835,000   |  0.65 |
The Near East therefore will receive more than the whole of Africa. Iraq receives virtually nothing. Afghanistan receives two thirds of Egypt's share. Israel receives over 15% of the world total and nearly half of the Near East budget. Pakistan receives eight times that of Bangladesh. Jordan receives relatively little, yet still over five times more than the West Bank and Gaza.
The obvious general conclusion? Aid is provided not by virtue of need but for political purposes. "Friends" of the US get much and those, like Pakistan, needed to be kept friendly, likewise. To those who say, well, why shouldn't the US help its friends, ther are three answers. Firstly aid should not be based on politics, secondly, how did the 'enemies' of the US become 'enemies' in the first place and thirdly, how did the 'friends' of the US become 'friends'?
I wonder what, if any, changes may be made by the incoming President?
So, the UK government via its health service arm, the NHS, kills a wife and then the UK government via the Home Office, gets rid of her grieving husband. The pretext is that Arnel had sent their son to be cared for in the Philipines whilst the inquest and his claim against the NHS were in progress. The Home Office therefore said "It is considered that [Mr Cabrera] has not established a family life with his son in the United Kingdom. As his son [Zachary] remains in the Philippines there are no insurmountable obstacles to his family life being continued overseas."
Such a cold, mechanistic conclusion chills the blood. Do we employ robots at the Home Office?
The underlying reality which gets missed is that we just do not know how the earth's climate system works. The 'natural' short term Gulf Stream cycle may not be happening: it may be the start of a more prolonged (ie centuries, if not millenia) shift, which has happened before, creating havoc with the global system. One result of such a shift would be to make North America and Europe uninhabitable. Poetic justice?
There is a simple and wise strategy when we are doing something that we do not understand: either proceed very, very, cautiously, or stop and consider. Humanity is adopting neither of these strategies. If humanity survives and if there remains sufficient archeological evidence and if humanity is capable of deciphering such evidence, then the leaders and all those living between 1950 and 2050 will be condemned for their sins of commission amd for their sins of ommission.
By contrast, David Abrahams, a former treasurer of Labour Friends of Israel, writes positively of Jimmy Carter's dialogue with Hamas and indeed David Abrahams himself has clearly worked with all sides behind the scenes in the Middle East. He makes the point that all elected representatives have to be included in the peace process. I commend the latter writer and would wish the former be more aware of the oppression carried out in the name of his faith.
Meanwhile, Israel rejects the proposals by Hamas for a truce and continues to blame Hamas for everything. "We hold Hamas responsible for anything that goes on inside Gaza and to all the strikes [ie Israeli air and tank strikes]." said Ehud Barak. Hamas, in one of the most densely populated areas in the world, are guilty of using civilian areas for their resistance. Four children under four years' old and their mother were killed today by a tank shell as they ate breakfast in their home. Presumably Ehud Barak blames Hamas for their deaths.
If 'militants' in Tibet started to attack Chinese soldiers and civilians in Tibet and the adjacent provinces of China, would the US brand them 'terrorists'? I think not. Yet whatever ills the Chinese have visited upon Tibet - and they are many - the Tibetan people have rather less cause for violence than the Palestinians, who have been ethnically cleansed and subjected to violent oppression for decades.
In the face of this the 'democratic' West is silent. It falls to private organisations, private citizens - inside Israel too, as well as outside - to enable the Palestinian case to be made. Including one former American president.
Biofuels are not necessarily more carbon neutral than oil, indeed may be just as damaging to the atmosphere, but the main issue is that emissions need to reduce, car and aviation use must reduce. The world needs food above energy.
(2) A person shall not grant an authorisation for the carrying out of directed surveillance unless he believes—
(a) that the authorisation is necessary on grounds falling within subsection (3); and
(b) that the authorised surveillance is proportionate to what is sought to be achieved by carrying it out.
(3) An authorisation is necessary on grounds falling within this subsection if it is necessary—
(a) in the interests of national security;
(b) for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime or of preventing disorder;
(c) in the interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom;
(d) in the interests of public safety;
(e) for the purpose of protecting public health;
(f) for the purpose of assessing or collecting any tax, duty, levy or other imposition, contribution or charge payable to a government department; or
(g) for any purpose (not falling within paragraphs (a) to (f)) which is specified for the purposes of this subsection by an order made by the Secretary of State.
Clearly, Poole Borough Council acted under (3) (b) - preventing crime, (assuming that trying fraudulent means to get your child into a school of your choice is a crime - how far above parking tickets and below murder is that?) but can be deemed to have fallen foul of (2) (b) - proportionality. Because it is badly drafted, (no reference to the seriuousness of the alleged offence or intention to commit an offence) the Act enables no fewer than 600 organisations to carry out surveillance on people who are believed to be contemplating any criminal offence, subject to a subjective and debatable view on proportionality.
So we in the UK can be spied upon by our local Town Hall for what? That we are suspected litter louts, so are followed around until we drop litter, or the local authority gumshoe gives up? That we are suspected of illegally using disabled parking spaces or using someone else's disc and said gumshoe is put on our tail?
The Act is draconian enough - what constitutes (c) in the interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom - and of course the Secretary of State can authorise surveillance for any other purpose, conveniently not described or limited by the Act.
Of course, the taxpayer in the form of the Council Tax, foots the bill for all this surveillance. Maybe the surveillance itself can be deemed to be against "the interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom"? I hope the taxpayers of Poole let the local council know what they think of the use the council is making of their money.
The fundamental issue is quite clear and simple. Does the UK want to have a judiciary which is independent of the executive or not? If so, the Attorney General should not also be a Minister in the government. If the present arrangements continue and more powers added as proposed to the Attorney General's office, then criminal justice is not subject to the rule of law, as enacted, but to politically motivated decisions. This is directly in contravention of the aims of the Attorney General's Office:
The Attorney General, assisted by the Solicitor General, is the chief legal adviser to the Government. They are responsible for ensuring the rule of law is upheld. (The first sentence on the Attorney General's website. It is in bold))
Maybe the web site should have a caveat entered after those fine words 'unless foreign governments get upset or they are worried about national security, in which case they set aside the rule of law'.
Commentators make much of 'elected representatives ie Parliament, government, as against unelected judges', siding with some notion that the 'elected representatives' are in some way more accountable and that they in some mystical way discern the wishes of the public, whereas judges are inevitable 'fuddy duddy' and 'out of touch'. Well, the Attorney General is not elected/accountable. Judges should be above political pressure/considerations and to an extent, immune from day to day fashions, fears, panics. Good law takes time to create and be refined. We know to our cost how law created in haste and to match short term political considerations results in bad law.
Who knows whether or not there was corruption in the BAE case. What we do know is that the rule of law was thrown aside for political considerations.
It will be interesting to see how the American case involving Saudi Arabia proceeds. I criticise the US administration considerably, but I suspect that the US legal system is and will be rather more robust than that of the UK.
Thus the covering letter by the Independent Scientific Group, set up by the UK government to investigate the link betwenn badgers and bovine TB. The group spent 10 years conducting research and submitted its final report in June 2007. The study cost £34m and killed 12,000 badgers in randomised trials to establish what links there are between badgers and bovine TB.
Again, from the above: "Scientific findings indicate that the rising incidence of disease can be reversed, and geographical spread contained, by the rigid application of cattle-based control measures alone."
Also: The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in England (Defra)conducted trials (the Krebs trials), starting in 1998. Badgers were culled for five years, but the trials were halted in 2003 because the incidence of bovine TB increased.
Bovine TB occurs on the Isle of Man. The Isle of Man has no badgers.
Today we read: Welsh Rural Affairs Minister Elin Jones announced yesterday a three-year £27m programme to cull badgers in specific areas of Wales. In order to do what? Certainly it will not eradicate bovine TB. Certainly it will kill thousands of badgers. Also certainly it will prove nothing. In North Wales, and I suspect this is not unusual, cattle are only inspected every four years.
The scientific evidence is against it. Common sense says that bovine TB in cattle must be controlled by measures involving cattle. I have found it difficult to get any information about bovine TB in Europe except that Germany, France, Scandinavia, Holland and Luxembourg are considered to to be free of bovine TB. Do we know how these countries achieved this?
One further point. Bovine TB is called mycobacterium bovis. The vaccine BCG adminstered to children is mycobacterium bovis bacille Calmette Guerin, ie a live attenuated vaccine. Does the vaccine work on cattle? Apparently it can. In fact, there have been successful trials and the UK government plans to test the vaccine in the next 3 to 5 years, it was announced in July 2007. Spending to date on a vaccine is £18m.
So, other countries do not have bovine TB, but we don't know why. The UK government plans to develop and introduce a vaccine in the next few years. Independent reports and experience show that culling wildlife does not work and that the living conditions for cattle - as for humans in the nineteenth century - significantly affect the rate of infection. Bovine TB occurs where there are no badgers. Wales is about to spend £27m killing badgers in one or more small areas of Wales.
Welcome to the UK in the 21st century, a society supposedly based on rationality and scientific study. In fact a society run by politicians who obey various pressure groups, in this case the farmers.
Two points. It may be legal, but this yet again demonstrates that senior executives not only are paid vast sums of money but take no personal risks whatsoever. Their huge salaries are supposed to reflect not only their ability but also their part in what the private sector always trumpets as a risk taking enterprise, as opposed to the 'no risk' public sector. Secondly, yes it may be legal but it is certainly unethical and no person with any sense of honour would take this money when thousands of employees are losing their jobs and thousands their life savings as a result of his recklessness. Adam Applegarth may never get another job, but then he doesn't need to. Some of his former employees may never work again either, but they pay the price, having done years' worth of honest work, only to be let down by someone seduced by the greed of the financial industry. A greed which is now causing so much pain, but not to those in charge. As usual the little people, the people who actually create products, provide services, pay the price.
Perhaps we should retitle MPs, who are presently 'Honourable' or 'Right Honourable' to 'Honest', 'Really Honest' and 'Not Very Honest at all'.
Also, sadly, it does not really matter when the American troops are withdrawn. Whilst they are there, they are not only a target, but also a reason/excuse for violent dissent and continuing instability - unless they go the whole hog and annex the country - all this would mean is an elongated timetable for eventual withdrawal as empires always falter. Once they leave, barring a quite remarkable ability of the Iraqi people as a whole to reconcile differences, old scores will be settled. Too many people have been killed, too many people know who has done the killing for any sober forecast to be anything but gloomy.
Let us compare it with Israel/Palestine. No-one expects, even with a peace settlement, that Israel and a new Palestinian state will live happily side by side in the foreseeable future. Yet far fewer people have been killed in Israel and the occupied terrirories than the number of Iraqis who have been killed by Iraqis.
A country can be kept in order by sheer brute force: the Americans have just about done that in Iraq. Maintaining a country without naked force is far more difficult and long term process. Even success in creating an effective Iraqi armed forces contains dangers. It simply leads to the possibility of the emergence of a dictatorship by whoever commands the loyalty of the armed forces.
I would love to see the emergence of a settled, stable, democratic Iraq. Sadly, this possibility runs a poor fourth behind breakup or the establishment of an Islamic fundamentalist state or a secular dictatorship. If the last happens then we are back to Saddam Hussein Mark 2.
Some small sign that Israel may be seeing the need for genuine negotiation: "To my great regret, we have not done what we should have done for a long time concerning the outpost settlements. We have to act as soon as possible. We will have to take decisions in one or two weeks. These decisions are difficult, but we will have to dismantle these outposts, at least some of them, because it troubles our relations with the United States. Everything damaging those relations impacts Israeli national security." Israel's Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon. However, the US is only talking about settlements after 2001. The illegal settlements have been going up since 1967. George Bush said some time ago that'events on the ground' need to be taken into account: this means turning a blind eye to decades of illegal activity. We aslo know that the word 'outposts' does not refer to settlements proper, only to those settled by Israelis beyond that sanctioned - illegal even so - by Israel. So I am not holding my breath for a breakthrough.
The second point of despair, given the present situation is Ehud Olmert's announcement that up to 750 additional homes are to be built in the settlement of Givat Ze'ev in the West Bank. This, as has been remarked on before with similar actions, show utter contempt for the Palestinians and any peace process.
Israel once again pursues a narrow nationalist colonial agenda, contemptuous of her neighbours, the UN, Europe, Russia, the US and the world in general.
Israel has a choice. At present Israel is exercising a choice to murder Palestinian civilians. According to AP today, 75 Gazans have been killed in three days, over half of them civilians. Thirteen Israelis have been killed by Palestinian rockets in the last seven years - thirteen too many, but against 75 Palestinians in three days, the disproportionate use of force is indefensible. It is not legitimate defence, it is collective punishment and rightly illegal in international law. The silence of world leaders is deafening.
Another example this week of this government's obsession with draconian, anti-justice measures. Not content with presuming that terrorist suspects are guilty without charge and locking them up indefinitely, the government now proposes that suspected drug dealers have their assets seized on arrest. The principle of 'innocent until proved guilty' is further eroded. The threat to drug users to stop benefits if they drop out of rehabilitation clinics is another example of how this government always reaches for the stick if anyone may be breaking the law. Whilst 'innocent' grandparents are to be encouraged to take care of the children of addicts, the 'naughty' addicts just face threats.
It is crude, simplistic, black and white thinking.
Whilst I have every sympathy with the employess of Northern Rock at the prospect of redundancy, this will be inevitable. The fault for this will not lie with the UK government. It lies with the reckless actions of Northern Rock management.
Question. What do you think the police action may have been in the event of a suspected Islamic terrorist sitting on an airplane at Heathrow; or Radko Mladic or Radovan Karadzic? There is no way that aircraft would have been allowed to leave. So this is another example of double standards. More than that, it makes a mockery of British justice. It may be that Major General Doron Almog had no charges to answer. It may be that the magistrate (the Chief London Magistrate) exceeded his powers. Whatever. The due legal process should have been followed and we know what the authorities do with aircraft on these occasions: move them to a remote part of the airport and wait/negotiate. Had it then been proved to be incorrect, that would have been the occasion for an apology to the individual and to Israel.
As with the posting on February 14th, one rule applies to the rich and powerful - Israel, Saudi Arabia, the US - and another to the poor and oppressed - the Palestinians in this case.
What this appears to mean is that the US will act within its laws. The US Senate, as a US lawmaker, passes a law prohibiting waterboarding. In order to continue to act within the law, the President simply strikes out the law.
This is democracy? What is the difference between this and a dictatorship, in which the ruler can simply overturn decisions of the elected representatives? Yes, I know that a two thirds majority can still overturn a presidential veto but the whole process is open to the charge that an American president can say: "Pass whatever laws you wish, as long as I agree with them".
He goes on to say, in the same context: "It should send a signal that America is going to respect law." By that we can infer that 'law' here means Presidential decree, not the law that the representatives of the American people wished to see.
He also has his own position on the 'innocent until proved guilty' principle. On the Guantanamo detainess: "Take Guantanamo. Look, I'd like it to be empty. On the other hand, there's some people there that need to be tried. And there will be a trial. And they'll have their day in court. Unlike what they did to other people. Now, there's great concern about, you know, and I can understand this. That these people be given rights. The - what - they're not willing to grant the same rights to others. They'll murder. But, you gotta understand, they're getting rights." These people are clearly guilty in the President's mind and in the UK, maybe in the US criminal justice system (but the Guantanamo detainees are outside this system, so much for their 'rights') such a statement from such a source may be seen as so prejudicial to a fair trial that the trial is abandoned. Such issues are not niceties. Justice should not only be done but seen to be done. Cavalier statements from a head of state show contempt for the law, the same law that President Bush claims he upholds.
There was an American commentator yesterday using the phrase "take them out and kill them". Those people are present in every nation. Any nation which claims to be civilised needs to have a way of marginalising them. Killing people via a legal system is simply judicial murder and murder nonetheless. Following such a deeply flawed process there can be no justice for the accused and no justice for those surviving victims of 9/11.
"The Electoral Commission has also considered the possibility that criminal offences may have been committed in this case. Specifically:
Under section 56 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, the offence of accepting and retaining a donation from anyone who is not registered on an electoral register in the UK at the time of the donation. It is also relevant to consider whether all reasonable steps were taken to avoid this" and
"In respect of a possible offence under section 56, the commission has concluded that, while Wendy Alexander did not take all reasonable steps in seeking to comply with the relevant legislation, she did take significant steps." and
"Having considered all the circumstances, the commission has decided that it is not appropriate or in the public interest to report this matter to the procurator fiscal."
So, the commission checked the 'reasonable steps' test, failed her on that, then invented the term 'significant steps' and cleared her on that. In criminal law, someone has to be found guilty 'beyond reasonable doubt', not 'beyond significant doubt'. If the 'Wendy Alexander' test were applied in the courts, lots of criminals would be found not guilty.
The other rather more important issue is that for the rest of us mere mortals the police would automatically be involved in an investigation when the police have reason to believe that the law has been broken. It may be that the police in this case, as in many cases, decide not to pursue an action. Even if they do, the prosecuting authority may decide not to proceed. These matters however should be strictly within the normal legal processes. Politicians should not be assessed in the first place by their own club. Doctors and surgeons for instance do not go through a professional filter before the police get involved in any possible criminal case. Doctors and surgeons are at least as honourable as politicians.
Giving intercepting agencies the ability to retain control over whether their material was used in prosecutions
Ensuring that disclosure of material cannot be required against the wishes of the agency originating the material
Protecting the close cooperation between intelligence and law enforcement agencies
Ensuring agencies cannot be required to transcribe or make notes of material beyond a standard of detail they deem necessary
Pretty well a full house in protecting the interests of the security agencies. They clearly own the information that they have obtained by spying on individuals and the individuals have no right either in it being gathered or how it is used.
Gordon Brown was honest in this respect: "These conditions relate to the most vital imperative of all, that of safeguarding our national security." In other words, security overides individual freedoms. Anything can be done in the name of national security and anything is being done. One day the citizens of the UK will wake up to the fact that all the apparatus of a police state has been built on that basis of 'national security'. An apparatus waiting to be exploited by the desperate or the ruthless. When it is too late.
It is not enough to believe 'it couldn't happen here'. The question should be 'can what is being done be misused if it happened here'. The framework for actually implementing a police state is largely in place already.
On a wider issue, it is clear that MPs regard themselves as above the law. Decisions to refer cases such as Peter Hain, Wendy Alexander, Harriet Harman and Derek Conway to the police should not depend on MPs, or MP's committees. If the police believe any other citizen of breaking the law, they investigate. Why should MPs be any different?
So, the Israeli judiciary considers it right for economic warfare to be waged against the whole population of territory for which it is the occupying power. I cannot see how anyone can justify this under any code of law.
The extraordinary reaction of the Palestinians to a small chance to break free, temporarily, from that prison, to have some freedom of movement, testifies to the horrors inflicted upon them over generations.
I am pessimistic however that the world will finally accept the real plight of the Palestinians and put real pressure on all parties, not just the Palestinians, to negotiate an honourable settlement. Maybe if the world's media stopped using the word 'prison' for Gaza and substituted the word 'ghetto' (my guess that Gaza is the largest single ghetto ever inflicted on a population), then not only might the people of the world put pressure on the politicians, more Israelis might see just what their country is doing.
If Israel wants reliquish responsibility for Gaza it has two options. Progress the peace process for a Palestinian state or set Gaza free separately in the meantime, thus allowing trade by sea, air and land. I say this to the Israelis who would reasonably say that this opens up the possibility of more terrorist attacks on Israel: Israel bears some responsibility for the build up of that terrorism and a free Gaza could be held accountable for its actions. At present the militants simply point to the oppression of the Palestinians and say "We have no option".
International law is quite straightforward: the occupying force is responsible for the occupied population. While the stranglehold on Gaza continues, Israel is responsible. Israelis also suffer from the inhumane treatment of Palestinians, from terrorism and the effects of being part of a society which is acting unlawfully and unethically. It really is in Israel's interests to settle the issue of a Palestinian state. The greatest single obstacle to peace is the power held in Israel by those wanting a 'greater Israel'. They should be persuaded or told to give their imperialistic dreams.
Meanwhile in the UK the government persists in applying percentages unfairly. The proposal to limit public sector pay to 1.9% would result in a nurse getting just £385 per year extra whilst an MP (before expenses and any additional responsibilities) would get £1,152 per year extra. A nurse and MP living in the same area have roughly similar extra demands upon their income as the cost of living goes up. As usual, the rich get (relatively) richer and the poorer get (relatively) poorer.
It will continue and the misery of the Palestinians will continue until the US publicly draws a line and says to Israel, no further.
The real tragedy though is that the West continues to see force or the threat of force as the first, if not only, way of getting what it wants. Is it any wonder that non-Western countries are less than enthusiastic about being 'civilised' by the West?
Since October 28th Israel has been reducing supplies of fuel to Gaza and had planned to reduce electricity to Gaza from next Sunday. Israel's hight court has upheld the reductionsin fuel, whilst ordering a delay on reducing electricity.
So, the Americans, the Israelis, the Fatah faction of the Palestinians, all say they want to pursue peace at the talks in Annapolis? The Israelis choose a strange way of pursuing peace. Intimidation, oppression, semi-starvation. There are various terms to describe their strategy. None of them will work.
"New nuclear power stations potentially have a role to play in tackling climate change and improving energy security. Having concluded the full public consultation we will announce our final decision early in the New Year." As with Heathrow, the Prime Minister blatantly pre-empts a public consultation process, effectively announcing what the government is going to do: the "Having concluded" sentence openly indicates that having gone through this rather tiresome consultation process, we will then tell you what we will do.
There is one other telling phrase: "There will be no irresponsible relaxation of pay discipline". Interesting word, 'discipline'. The workers, for that read 'public sector workers' have to be disciplined or be disciplined in terms of having low pay settlements, historically below the rate of inflation. Meanwhile, wealthy financiers have a third runway built for them, are allowed to continue to pay low taxes, are allowed to gamble on the money markets without let or hindrance. And if such financial games go awry, not to worry, the government will fork out £25bn to rescue the situation, some of the £25bn being provided by those workers so much in need of 'discipline'.
One more quote: reforms will be introduced to "move claimants from passive recipients of welfare benefit to active job and skill seekers". Those people most in need, the chronically ill, the disabled are labelled "passive". The word contains a criticism, the assumption that everyone receiving benefits (some of whom have contributed mightily before becoming ill or disabled) is content just to receive, happy to be reliant on the state. It would be interesting too if, when asked, Gordon Brown would include injured soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan amongst those "passive recipients of welfare benefit".
Strange how the rich are looked after and the wage earners, the poor, the ill, the disabled are pilloried in the brave new world of New Labour.
The most worrying aspect however is the impression given that no-one knows what happened and why and therefore the country can be reassured or otherwise. Knowing the track record of Uk governments, whatever results from the inevitable enquiry will not be fully trusted: suspicions of cover up, spin, etc will remain.
Similarly, it is noted that the US has invited 40 nations to the forthcoming Middle East meeting. This meeting is about Israel and the occupied territories. Why not facilitate such meetings just for the immediate parties? Yes, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt etc etc have a legitimate interest in how the Israelis and Palestinians settle, or do not settle, their differences, but the primary parties have most to gain or lose. Why infantilise them by insisting on everyone else being involved? Everyone except the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people that is, who are conveniently labelled terrorists.
The powerful nations continue to dominate, like a bad parent spending money on themselves instead of their children, punishing their children for perceived errors, behaving selfishly instead of with love and compassion. The analogy contains within itself a fundamental error, deliberately so: the less powerful states are not children, the powerful states are not adults or parents, either benevolent or benign.
If those with power used it wisely for humankind, did not interfere except to maintain or restore peace and vested those peacemaking/keeping resources in an international body, the world would be a different and potentially better place.
Is the UK government really serious about climate change? Is the UK government really serious?
Ian Blair on the findings of the Independent Police Complaints Commission's report which not only criticised the Metropolitan Police for a significant corporate failure but also criticised the Commissioner himself for delaying the start of the IPCC investigation. The IPCC report follows a vote of no confidence in the Commissioner by the Greater London Assembly and the Metropolitan Police being found guilty on a criminal charge relating to health and safety.
Yet, he does not believe he should resign on an individual incident, "however grave". Really? So Ian Blair could do anything, the Met could do anything, without resignation being an issue? I think not and I assume that his words are ill-chosen. The question is whether or not the botched job of following and then killing Jean Charles de Menezes is 'grave enough' to warrant resignation. We may have to wait until the inquest before Ian Blair is forced to resign.
Quite what he means by the IPCC, Greater London Assembly and health and safety legislation having "great advantages" but "they have changed the context of this post" but "they do not change the basic nature of the Commissioner's task" is debatable. A muddled statement, but it appears to say the same thing: whatever others say, my job stays the same. Arrogance of this sort (shown also in him challenging the Greater London Assembly to sack him, knowing they had no powers to do so)in a person holding such a post is dangerous for his force and for those who are policed by his force.
Two points. What kept her? This is not new. Everyone has known this for years, for decades. Only the effectiveness of the Israeli stranglehold has prevented "unbridled extremism" and ironically increases its possibility. Secondly the "Palestinian reformers" phrase. This presumably means the unelected West Bank Fatah personnel: the US refuses to talk to the party the Palestinians elected. Is it likely that any peace deal will last if those the Palestinians elected have no say? Further, it is always the Palestinians which have to deliver, never the Israelis. This point is underlined by the comment of Tzipi Livni, Israel's Foreign Minister: "The meaning is security to Israel first, and then the establishment of a Palestinian state." The order is always the same. The opppressed must first conform, the oppressors might then 'allow' a people their own state. What would have happened in the UK and Ireland had the UK government insisted on "security to the UK" before talking to the terrorists on both sides? Ireland and the UK would still be suffering the daily terrorist attacks, civilians would still be losing their lives.
Dialogue with all those who are party to the issues is the only way forward with realistic hopes for a lasting settlement. The sooner the US starts telling Israel that and acting itself in the same way, the better.
So the government's own independent advisors conclude that cattle controls are the first priority, ie testing and vaccinating cattle and that culling badgers makes things worse (apparently with more space they roam further, thus being more susceptible to infection from cattle and infecting cattle). Faced with this, the government's chief scientic advisor recommends culling. Some science. Perhaps he is considering a Hitlerian 'final solution' - the extermination of every last badger in the UK? The tragedy of that would be the final proof that cattle TB would still occur, the tragedy of partial culling would be an increase in TB in both badgers and cattle.
Two final points. Economic considerations again take precedence over living with nature and respecting the natural world. I come from farming stock and am a meat eater, so I understand the farmers' concerns, but for me all creatures in nature have a right to live and our narrow economic priorities demean us. This sort of proposal is less than human in disregarding evidence and in being unconcerned about animal welfare. I will certainly join in any organised protest if this uncivilised, inhumane and misguided proposal is taken further.
There is a wider point. In 2005, The Independent listed thirty people who were shot by police over a twelve year period. Just two police officers were prosecuted, none have been found guilty of either murder or manslaughter. For me, the worst case was that of James Ashley, with his girl friend, unarmed and naked, but shot dead by police. In this case there was a prosecution and a verdict of not guilty of murder or manslaughter. Can we believe that anyone other than a police officer would have been cleared of any crime?
The police do a difficult job and have to take decisions in the heat of the moment, but it does not encourage the general population to respect and cooperate with the police when they appear to be immune from all blame in all circumstances. It also encourages criminals to arm themselves - if unarmed citizens going about their lawful business but in doubtful circumstances get shot, criminals, who know they are in doubtful circumstances, are likely to take precautions to defend themselves/shoot first.
Apparent police immunity is unhealthy.
There is a lot made about human activity not being proven to create climate change. What does not seem to happen is for those of us who are concerned to insist that sceptics provide proof that human activity does not significantly accelerate the pace of climate change. I would be delighted if schools - and everyone else - had a similar DVD, "substantially founded upon scientific research and fact" as the judge ruled on An Inconvenient Truth arguing that climate change is either not happening or that human activity is not significant. We could then ponder the alternative positions and make our minds up. Meanwhile, my view is that humanity is currently acting like a parent watching a young child skipping around a main road - there is no proof that a vehicle will hit the child, but the odds are that it will and the risk is not worth it. We should act as if the world were that small child and exercise due responsibility. When the accident happens it is too late. Even as recently as a week ago the news about the opening up of the North West passage and a 23% reduction in Arctic pack ice in the last two years tells us that that 'accident' is going to happen. Only political action will stop it from happening, which is why all of us, including children, need to become political and politically active.
We have just witnessed what a totalitarian regime does with powers over communications facilities in Burma. It is not far-fetched to say that the UK government is acquiring such draconian powers over our freedoms, except here in the UK it is being done within the Parliamentary process. It is no use the government saying they will use such powers responsibly. Law is law: a future dictator would love to have such powers ready made. Many laws in the name of 'security' over the last ten years in the UK have brought the possibility of a dictatorship much closer. In extreme situations extreme measures tend to be reached for. The Labour government has created a host of such measures, all ready and waiting to be used.
I am not saying the UK is like Burma, but it is salutary to note that the UK populace have restrictions placed upon them which they would deplore and decry in states considered to be 'rogue', 'undemocratic' or 'dictatorships'. Bad law is bad law, and especially so when passed by a parliamentary democracy. There are reports that Gordon Brown may repeal this part of the Act. Let us hope he does so soon.
The only justification therefore for forceful prevention of the development of nuclear weapons is to retain influence/the ability to bully etc. There is some logic in that argument but no Western politician is honest enough to admit it.
We know and the Israelis know that the opposite will happen. Militants grow in strength under hardship and punitive measures. The only people who will suffer are the ordinary Palestinians through lack of food, power and water and the ordinary Israelis through rockets attacks from Gaza. The violence on both sides is futile. There is no leadership, seemingly anywhere on the world, who is on the side of peace and who is willing to act on the proven principle that conflicts are not resolved through miltary means, but diplomatically. How long must we wait for such leadership?
There are many responses to this. The worst - and possibly the most likely - is to echo Marie Antoinette, 'Let them eat cake'. The French revolution was the result of this attitude. No-one earns £3m a year. It is a combination of luck, ability, coupled with the inevitable 'valuation' of scarcity in a jungle-oriented capitalist economy. No-one needs £3m a year. Some, especially in the US, give much away; it is one of the most admirable aspects of US society, still pursued in spite of the culture of greed and competitevness. It is a result of the obsession with money being the only valid measure that creates these grotesque anomalies. Status is what is achieved and status is measured by wealth. What you do and who you are are poor runners up in this value-poor society. The irony is that the likelehood is that top executives rate themselves less on their 'earnings' than does society. I doubt that many, on their deathbeds, would express the most satisfaction with their lives in terms of how much money they received. It would be more likely to be their corporate achievements, personal achievements, family, friends.
It is possible to see through the mirage of 'loadsamoney', but it is still inequitable. It is still a source of justifiable unrest. It still a potential if not actual danger to society.
The UK government should be seeking ways to reduce the gap, not allowing it to get larger, citing helplessness (without using this word of course) in the face of globalisation.
The other aspect was the entirely appropriate pride in her family's participation as partisans during the second world war, resisting the Nazi occupation. The images of the underground living accommodation drew parallels with the Vietcong's struggle against the American invasion/occupation, but most people in the West would not see these actions as equivalent. It is back to the "those on 'our' side are freedom fighters/partisans, those on the 'other' side are insurgents/terrorists." We are all biased and it is difficult to be aware of the bias and take account of it.
In round terms this means that the 'native' Palestinians are crammed 1,000 people per square kilometre, whilst the illegal Israeli settlers are spread 5 per square kilometre. I say 'native' Palestinians. These people are of course a mix of people born here and those, and their descendants, who fled their homes when driven out of what became Israel.
This is so grotesque that it is incredible that the politicians who know these figures do not act. The general public are not aware of the extent of the Israeli occupation in terms of land alone. If this helps to make more people aware, surely some will act on this gross injustice. I would ask anyone who agrees that this situation is indefensible to let your local and national politicians know that you know what is happening and ask what they are prepared to do about it. Pressure from citizens is regrettably necessary to force those in power to act to remedy such gross injustice, outwith and in advance of a final settlement of the Israel/Palestinian issue. The Palestinians deserve better, much better, than the conditions meted out to them at present.
The other curious aspect - but then Tony Blair always has taken an odd course - is that, having been told that his role is purely focussed on the Palestinians and how to help build up their institutions, he sets off next week for the Middle East, not straight to the West Bank, but to Israel, to meet Ehud Olmert. Now there is nothing wrong with establishing ties with leaders in both Israel and the occupied territories, but it seems something like an insult to visit Israel first. No-one ever seems to regard the Palestinians as worthy of respect and worthy of the common courtesies offered to other peoples.
In this respect, the continuing boycott of Hamas, who won free and fair elections, is another example of how the Palestinian people are treated with contempt.
I will applaud Tony Blair if he does in the Middle East what he did in Ireland. In Ireland he talked to the IRA. His contacts with the Palestinians should also be comprehensive.
What is needed is rather more long term and little, in essence, to do with money. It is cultural change, a rolling back of the marketing-led consumer society which is needed. Society presently values the latest consumer product and children are the most vulnerable to this value system, creating upward pressure on parents to work harder and longer, thus reducing the time actually relating to their children. When as a society we value relationships with others as more important than the latest iPod or the 'in' trainers, then the sense of continual dissatisfaction will reduce and harmful behaviour with it. Whilst this is written from a UK perspective, it applies to all 'developed' nations and globalisation is exporting such marketing led values to the rest of the world. It could be argued that marketing - the deliberate creation of desire for goods and services that the population at large have not identified a wish for - is the biggest single cause of what the Conservatives call the 'broken society' and also is the biggest single cause of climate change.
The process would cost peanuts in relation to what is being spent on perpetuating the violence and may of course lead absolutely nowhere, but involving the people in some way, free of immediate pressure from their communities and open to the wishes of ordinary people from the other community, might just provide a way forward. My belief is that the wishes of the people from each side would be less demanding for themselves and less demanding of the other side. Ordinary people are generally more tolerant and less confontational than politicians.
I am rather more cynical about the decision to investigate BAE in relation to the arms deal with Saudi Arabia. Welcome as that decision is in terms of looking at what may be corruption on a large scale, politics is driving it rather more than justice, as politics drove the British decision not to pursue the enquiry.
You may say, why should Iran not just become a Westernized state, join the Western club, become 'democratic'? The answer is that this is not enough, not for states who have any political or economic potential. The only state which is acceptable to the US is a client state. One which does the bidding of the US, opens its markets to US corporate exploitaton, opens its territory to US military bases. Maybe for Iran this price is too high, but tragically the price of independence, of dissidence, may be higher still. The age of empire is not yet past, maybe it never will be. The US empire is governed by corporate power, but it is also backed by deadly military power.
It is indeed tragic that the acquisition of military power and the willingness to use it still form the basis of how the world is ordered. One day the world might grow out of its adolescent, testosterone-fuelled macho way of conducting international relations. One day, women, or men, may take over from the boys.
Where an institutional boycott would be effective is in sport. Excluding Israel's participation in the major sports would help Israel's dissidents and the Palestinian cause enormously. Beyond that, each one of us can do our bit: never knowingly buy anything grown, processed, made or assembled in Israel.
"We have chosen as a society to put the civil liberties of the suspect, even if a foreign national, first. I happen to believe this is misguided and wrong."
Tony Blair on how terror suspects are treated less harshly than he would prefer. Note the "even if a foreign national" phrase. This betrays his inability to see people equally and objectively and comes dangerously close to racism. Why should a person, of any nationality, suspected of any crime, be treated any differently to a person of any other nationality? We know of course that Tony Blair tried to discriminate in this way and the courts rejected this approach. Civil liberties should be the last aspects of a civilised society to be jettisoned, then only as a last resort in times of emergency, with strict time limits and repealed just as soon as possible.
This is also in the context of plans to give the police powers to stop and question people as they wish, in other words, without having any reason to do so. At present the police have to show there is a reason, eg. suspicious behaviour. If there is no reason, why should the police stop anyone? On a whim? Out of boredom? No, we know what will happen, in the absence of anything which can remotely be called suspicious (eg. a man carrying a chair leg, shot because it looked like a gun, but at least there was a semblance of a reason). It is a gift to all those looking to stir up trouble, claiming racist discrimination whenever the police stop someone who is black, or is, or looks like, a Muslim. Not having a reason makes the police task more difficult in that it lays them open to such accusations of racism and sets back the cause of good race relations.
It is also, clearly, yet another step on the road towards arbitrary police powers, in this case literally arbitrary. In other words another step towards a police state. When are we going to wake up? When will I be able to stop writing that phrase?
I believe that those in power in Israel have no desire for peace, that they believe that somehow, over a period of time, Palestinian opposition will fade and wither away. To those people I would say "Look at Ireland". Peace is closer than it was, but we are 300 years down the line. Can Israel really contemplate hundreds of years of conflict and then still have to settle? Is that in Israel's interests?
The profit motive, private, individual gain, are the new gods. Despite Labour's claims that they have reversed the Thatcher doctrine of 'there is no such thing as society', there is precious little evidence of action to support social cohesion. What most often fall from ministers' lips are phrases like 'global competition' and measures like ASBOs when things go wrong. A fundamental responsibility of government to defend, maintain and improve the welfare of its citizens is abandoned to the capricious and indifferent workings of the free market.
Science, or the misuse of science, also leads into more horrendous mistakes. Fertilising the land in an ultimately destructive way can be excused to a degree - at the level of the need for food it has some short-term justification. Genetic manipulation, however well intentioned, cannot be excused. Firstly it shows a profound lack of respect for other living, sentient creatures. Secondly it is tinkering with the unknown: there is some evidence for instance that personality is in some way embedded in the tissue such that the recipients of human transplants acquire personality traits of the donor. How much more therefore is not known about the effects on the animal which is being genetically manipulated for medical reasons and the consequent effects on the human being receiving the results of that genetic manipulation? We simply do not know what we are doing but justify it on the grounds of the end justifies the means. This means that the prolongation of human life, the alleviation of human suffering, is more important than the welfare of any other living being, indeed, than anything else, including the earth itself. What arrogance. What folly.
It is time - indeed the time is long overdue - for humanity to set aside the selfish belief that the earth in all its variety is there solely for the benefit and pleasure of humankind. It is time to blend with science the respect for and humility towards nature in all its manifestations. In this way science can work with nature, be an ally of nature. Note the last phrase. "Be an ally of nature" is not the same as "making nature our ally". We are not superior to nature, we are a part of it, not it a part of us.
A word on the prolongation of life. We have to ask the question why and we have to ask the question in what circumstances and at what (non-economic) cost. A few years' ago, my 15 year old dog, previously healthy although nearly blind and deaf, suddenly worsened. That day, to use the euphemism, she was 'put to sleep'. This was an act of compassion and I could even make out a case that she looked (literally) to me to make a decision for her. I am not advocating euthanasia as such, but there are questions about the purpose of prolonging life as a matter of course. A short life can have profound meaning, sometimes echoing down the centuries. We only have to think of Mozart. We can mourn for the person and for ourselves and we can also rejoice and celebrate the life purpose. Extending human life for the sake of it, clinging onto life for the sake of it seems to me to risk challenging nature - a challenge we will ultimately lose. The purpose of life is not measured in mere years. Experience does come with age and thus inform purpose, but age itself has no meaning. There is something about an appropriate length of life, whether long or short, and there is certainly such a thing as a good death.
Meanwhile, I guess that the US is furious that the Royal Navy was stupid enough to get so close to Iranian waters without adequate defences in place. Presumably the Royal Navy is aware that Iran is a potentially if not actually, hostile nation?
We are currently hearing of how Liverpool, for instance, grew rich as a result of the profits from the slave trade. So does the US grow rich - at the expense of other nations - as a result of its commercial empire. I used to work for a US corporation. I saw the revenue streams back to New Jersey. The US does not explicitly enslave people or populations but the commercial stranglehold, financial stranglehold, backed up by visible force, ensures that other nations do not step out of line. When they do, as in the case of former ally Saddam Hussein, the response can be brutal.
On Iraq, the current line, now that most people have forgotten about regime change being illegal, is to justify the invasion on Saddam's appalling human rights abuses. On this basis, there is more justification for invading Zimbabwe. There is little to say in favour of Saddam Hussein except that he enabled his people to be educated (commentators are presently saying that Iraq has a chance to achieve democracy because of the high level of education, conveniently forgetting to mention that, as absolute ruler for 30 years, Saddam encouraged or allowed that). Robert Mugabe cannot even claim that and he is no more or less of a threat to the US than Iraq under Saddam who took care to keep terrorists out of Iraq. We know that invading Iraq was about far more than protecting the Iraqi people. Our children's children will learn the truth in their turn as we now gradually uncover the truth behind such episodes as slavery.