WhirledView

Leveson's Unfinished Business

By: John Charles Dyer, UK Correspondent 

27 June 2012.  Testimony in “Module 3” of the Leveson Inquiry is due to end this week.    

In July the Inquiry will move on from its Module 3 focus on the relationship between the press and politicians. The focus of Module 4 will be how to fix the mess.  

Module 3 surfaced some of the most disturbing revelations yet. But, inevitably, leaving behind the relationship of the press and politicians also leaves loose ends. 

Some things seem clear 

It seems clear News Corp exerted significant influence, Rupert Murdoch’s protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.  Murdoch testified he never asked any Prime Minister for anything. Former Prime Minister John Major decisively and credibly contradicted Murdoch.   

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair backed Murdoch’s claim. But Blair’s own spin doctor, Alastair Campbell, appeared to contradict Blair’s version of events.  In an entry written long before anyone knew it would reflect on the testimony under oath of his former boss, Campbell’s diaries record that Murdoch pressured Blair to commit UK forces to the Iraq War without delay.  

Business Secretary Vince Cable testified he had warned that News Corp had threatened to turn its newspapers loose on the Liberal Democrats if Cable ruled the wrong way on the bSkyb takeover bid. Norman Lamb confirmed Cable’s account, giving the details of the threat during his testimony 27 June.  During testimony Lamb also made clear the prospect filled their Party’s leader with dread.  

Some loose ends remain 

The Leveson Inquiry concerns press standards, not Minister Misconduct.  Leveson will not adjudicate the guilt, innocence, culpability, or propriety of the conduct in office of either Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt or Prime Minister David Cameron.  That is not Leveson’s charge. 

It is difficult to see how the inquiry could pin down the extent of press influence on politicians without also pinning down the actual  impact of News Corp’s lobbying efforts on Ministers’ conduct.   

Observers divide between two alternative narratives.

Alternative 1: Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Prime Minister David Cameron remained impartial in judgement if deferentially “diplomatic.” They followed the process. 

Alternative 2: the process Hunt followed was cover for a plan to approve the bid. Ministers used process and “plausible deniability” to cover their tracks.   No one seriously argues for an express quid pro quo.   

But with the end to Module 3 testimony, Leveson will not cross-examine either the recently knighted internal counsel or the senior bureaucrats who allegedly monitored and approved the handling of the matter by Secretary Hunt and the Prime Minister. Leveson will not confirm what Hunt and the Prime Minister did or did not disclose to counsel and bureaucrats, or when in relation to the formation of their opinions.  This possibly enlightening testimony will remain untaken. 

Similarly, various sources report News Corp issued four Senior Executives iPhones in 2009, the records for which have not been disclosed to Leveson. 

News Corp initially denied the reports, then four days later revealed it was examining the records for evidence pertinent to phone hacking. Counsel indicated that thus far the records for one phone contained nothing new. He called the search “completely pointless.” 

But the question remains, what would these records disclose.  Would they disclose anything material not previously dislosed to Leveson concerning  any discussions between News Corp and politicians over the bSkyb bid?   

Module 3 closes without Leveson having received or examined the iPhone records or cross examined witnesses concerning the records’ content.  

Unfinished business  

It is difficult to see how Leveson could determine the extent to which the press influenced politicians without pinning down these loose ends.  On the other hand, it is just as difficult to see how Leveson could pin down these loose ends without at least impliedly determining (a) Minister(s) had been improperly influenced. 

That determination would clearly exceed Leveson’s charge. 

But just as clearly, it needs to be somebody’s charge.   The British government does not deserve - nor should it retain - the confidence of the British electorate while the very serious allegations of Minister misconduct surfaced by Leveson remain unresolved and outside the bounds of independent scrutiny.  The unfinished business should be somebody’s business to resolve. 

 

Children of the Greek Civil War: Book Review Essay

By Patricia H. Kushlis

In 1949, a bitter civil war that divided Greece between anti-Communist Greek government forces and the Communists ended when the latter’s military forces and their civilian supporters fled across the borders into Albania and Bulgaria.  Others had already left for Yugoslavia before Tito sealed the  Yugoslav border with Greece and cut off his country's support for the rebellion – a crucial decision in bringing the war to an end. Many of the refugees had come from desperately poor, isolated villages in the Pindus Mountains in Greece’s far north.   Yet prior to the end of the civil war that had raged since 1944 – erupting as the Nazis withdrew – the outcome had been far from certain. 

Loring Danforth and Riki Van Boeschoten’s controversial study of the long term effects of that war on children of both the Greek partisans and government loyalists who had been taken from their families and placed in boarding schools for safety away from the war zones is, unfortunately, far more than a carefully conducted academically rigorous objective survey of participant attitudes and recollections.   

Selective Memory

This book’s problems lie not so much within the confines of the study itself – although I would have liked to have seen the questionnaire and a summary of the data included in a separate appendix. Rather, the basic problems are with the book’s narrow focus and its lack of political objectivity.  The latter, from my perspective, rests primarily on omission.  It also has nothing to do with their disputes with Nicholas Gage, the author of the book Eleni, and others engaged in the argument as to whether the Communists sent children to Eastern Europe against their parents’ will.    

The study itself - based on questionnaires of 114 adults (out of a total of around 43,000 children) decades later – does, however, include one finding well worth keeping:  namely that these children of peasants from extremely poor villages who received urban educations whether through the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union or in Greece through the Greek government - often moved in a single generation - into the urban middle class.

Whether this would have happened regardless of their wartime displacement is a question never broached because no comparisons were made, no interviews were conducted with Greek children who remained in their villages during the same period but whose families soon thereafter moved to the cities as a part of a mass internal migration that occurred in Greece during the 1950s and 60s.  Calliope Moustaka’s book The Internal Migrant: A Comparative Study in Urbanization (1964) is one landmark source on the characteristics of this migration.  There are also far more recent academic papers and journalistic articles on the topic currently available on the Internet.   

Back to business as usual – at least, for a bit

By Lois Woestman, Guest Contributor

Dr. Lois Woestman, both a Greek and US citizen, is a Lecturer in Anthropology of Contemporary Greek Society at Arcadia University (Athens branch), an External Funding Officer at the Agricultural University of Athens and an independent research/policy advice consultant (including for UNWOMEN, Europe-based WIDE+ Network, global Association for Women in Development – AWID).

Today is Thursday, four days after the second round of elections in which more Greeks voted against further austerity than for it. And yet, because the New Democracy party obtained just under 3% more of the vote than Syriza, we narrowly missed the opportunity to shock ourselves, our politicians, and the world, by refusing to go along with the austerity-only path we have been on the past two years, and are projected to be on for at least a decade to come.

In other words: It is pretty much back to business as usual in Greece – at least, for a bit.

There are a few changes within this continuity, however. For one, free market leaning New Democracy, instead of center-left “socialist” Pasok, is leading in the coalition between the two parties that have run the show in Greece for decades, and led us into the quandary we are in. And, these two are joined by the small “Democratic Left” party as well.

Monday and Tuesday’s New York Times headlines suggest that these election results mean EC institutions, and the G20, have lost the sense of urgency to make real, radical, changes in a clearly faltering global economic system that the potential for a Syriza win had evoked. “Greek voting Past, Europe Returns to Fiscal Rescue”; “After Greek Vote, Europe Still Has a Host of Problems”; “World Leaders Make Little Headway in Solving Debt Crisis”. Our “leaders” are back to putting out fires, instead of burning bridges with the past.

 Their respite may be short-lived, however. Another of yesterday’s New York Times headlines declared “Before Greek Coalition Forms, Question about Its Resolve”. Today’s Kathimerini notes that “Democratic Left backs coalition, won’t join cabinet”. The same decision was made by Pasok. Wary of the political fall-out, the two junior parties are reneging on the responsibilities that come along with accepting to join the newly-formed government. They are limiting their participation in the cabinet being formed by Mr. Samaras, New Democracy’s leader, by not placing any of their primary figures in it. Instead, they are proposing, inter alia, that some of the previous interim ministers remain at their posts. Such a lack of political responsibility could arguably be called yet another certainly not encouraging change within continuity.

And, all three parties are calling for renegotiation of the adjustment agreements while remaining in the Euro – essentially Syriza’s position. As today’s Kathimerini also notes, “Creditors seem open to talks” – meaning the EC is indicating it may be open to extending the fiscal adjustment period, on (the rather disingenuous) ground that the recession in Greece is deeper than expected. German officials, however, continue to insist that what is needed is “greater decisiveness in the implementation of what has been agreed”.

 As Greek, EC and global leaders revert back to business as usual, Greece continues to slide ever so steadily from its status as a “normal” “PIIG” southern European country, toward membership in the global south. The misery here increasingly resembles that which I saw in Mexico in the mid-1980s, after the world’s first debt crisis broke out, and the first adjustment programme was implemented.

If more evidence were needed: The case of Greece demonstrates that the combined economic shock doctrine and accumulation by dispossession “the north” has been pressing on the global south has come home to roost in the Eurozone. The example of Greece should - and is increasingly being - understood by many other European citizens as the potential picture of their future; they, too, are slated to become “southerners in the north.” I am talking not only about residents of the other “PIIGS”, but also the majority of those in the “core” Euro countries, who have been living through adjustment over the past decade or more, just to an (as yet) lesser degree, and at a slower pace.

As a Peruvian colleague told me a while back: “Now you are getting a taste of your own medicine.” Her schadenfreude is understandable. However, for all our faults, many of us Greeks – as the Syriza vote attests – are not and have never been advocates of this model. And many of us (at least as old as I am) have been continually denouncing it as it has been implemented globally under different guises and mantras.

The time may still come, and perhaps soon, for Greeks to shock the world and ourselves. Predictions are that the current coalition may not last long. It will have to implement the even tougher austerity measures, further tax hikes, and privatizations, stipulated in the second adjustment package. As the vote for Syriza shows – a jump from 3 to 30% within two years – Greeks are rapidly reaching the end of their ropes. 

Argentina took a number of rounds of elections before a government emerged that led the country out of a dollar-tied currency regime, out of austerity, and into growth. So, as Argentina shows, there is some hope – if/when we might eventually depart from the Euro. However, while it lasts, hope – even for traditionally upbeat Greeks - does eventually die, as the rapidly rising suicide rate in Greece documents. Newly sworn-in PM Samaras’ comment that he will push his ministers to work hard in order to bring the Greek people “tangible hope” provides as yet nothing of substance.

Today’s New York Times’ “Samaras Takes Office as Greece’s Prime Minister, Facing Major Challenges” notes that the new Greek government came together just a day before European finance ministers are to gather today in Luxembourg, to discuss Greece’s latest troubles. George Zanias, the departing finance minister, is expected to represent Greece at today’s meeting in Vasilios Rapanos’ stead, the president of the National Bank of Greece, who is expected to be named Greece’s finance minister.

If some tangible hope is to emerge, it will be seen in today’s meeting, and/or in the outcome of the (re)negotiations at next week’s European Union summit in Brussels.

In the interim, as our politicians and world leaders turn back to business as usual, many of us in Greece have no business(es) to turn back to - except trying to eek out a living, and continuing to hold onto hope for hope’s sake.

Also see: Lois Woestman, 17 June Election Mood in Greece and Germany, WhirledView, Tuesday, June 19 ,2012

17 June election moods in Greece and Germany

By Lois Woestman, Guest Contributor

Dr. Lois Woestman, both a Greek and US citizen, is a Lecturer in Anthropology of Contemporary Greek Society at Arcadia University (Athens branch), an External Funding Officer at the Agricultural University of Athens and an independent research/policy advice consultant (including for UNWOMEN, Europe-based WIDE+ Network, global Association for Women in Development – AWID).

Athens, June 18, 2012

Yesterday felt like the eye of the storm. We Greeks had our second round of elections to determine our futures – in/outside of the Euro/pe, of austerity – and to some not insignificant degree set the stage for broader European, if not global, developments.

Aeolus, the ruler of the winds, was out in full force – as if to make up for the eerie silence. Uncharacteristically, my fellow Greeks were keeping their voting cards close to their chests - not to be secretive, but because they were genuinely baffled as to which choice to make. Many voted at the last moment, wavering all the day/way to the box. When I coaxingly asked one colleague which party she will vote for, she said: “The one that is going to save our country.” And when I asked which one that might be, she said: “I wish I knew.” 

Yesterday’s “choice” consisted in one between two roads that lead to the same bitter end, just at different paces and through different means: Do we remain in the Euro, and with it the austerity straightjacket that has caused five years of recession, dropping living standards for the majority, growing social unrest and splinterings to left and right “radical” parties – with more stringent austerity and worsening circumstances to come for at least the next decade? Or, do we “bite the bullet”, and leave both, so as to take things into our own hands, albeit based on a now severely dysfunctional economy and political system? Either option portends very difficult times ahead.

In a recent discussion I had with a lawyer, he claimed that if we leave the Euro, we will be “sta machieria” – up in arms against each other, literally. But, as I responded, if we implement the austerity programme as is, without any growth mechanisms in place, we will also be “sta macheria”, just at a slower pace.

Yesterday’s vote demonstrates a squeak-by “victory” for the remain-in as vs. bite-the-bullet path. In the next days, it remains to be seen if New Democracy, the right-center party winner of yesterday’s election, can form a coalition government with Pasok, the “socialist” party that ruled during the signing of the two austerity programmes. This is likely, given international pressure – and the fact that Syriza, the party advocating the tearing up and rewriting of the austerity memorandums - which obtained only 2% less of the vote than New Democracy - declared it will not join a coalition with New Democracy.

German Chancellor Angela Merkl is said to have settled back last night into her easy chair, heaving big sighs of relief. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle declared yesterday that Germany may grant Greece more time to meet its targets – but that the targets remain unchanged.

A colleague of mine who recently returned from a trip to Germany explained that, already prior to the elections, Germans had written Greece off - their mental maps, TV screens. It is perceived as but a far away sprite of a country that constitutes 2% of the European economy, whose time in the limelight has come and gone. A “Grexit”  did not threaten any longer to affect them, as contingency plans were ready. There were bigger fish to bail out – Spain, Italy – as a “Spexit” or an “Itexit” would pose a more immediate threat to the Euro’s, and hence Germans’, wellbeing.   

If New Democracy and Pasok form the expected coalition, our hopes may, ironically, rest with Germany. If, as predicted, Merkel’s coalition will lose the German elections in fall, 2013, the German Social Democrats may join with France's President Francois Hollande to finally bring some growth into the European economic equation. This might be encouraging news for others in Europe, but I fear comes too late for us, as our fate has essentially already been written in stone in our already signed and sealed austerity-only Memorandums. As my recently returned colleague said, the most we can hope for in the way of changes in the Memorandums' conditions until the German elections are a shifting of a few commas from here to there.

As foreign journalists also noted last night, there was not much celebration going on, even by New Democracy supporters. This morning, most of us are walking around as if hung-over. Not from drinking too much, or only from too little sleep, or the oppressive heat. The feeling is one of listlessness. Aeolus continues to fill in for speech, and to provide impetus for movement to Greeks who voted across the political spectrum. Pandora is said to have kept sealed hope inside her jar, after she released the ills from it. Most fellow Greeks and I sense especially strongly today those ills flitting around us on the winds - with the eye of the storm our entrapped hope. 

 

Democracy Diminished and Bankrupt - the week that was at Leveson

By John Charles Dyer, UK Correspondent

15 Jun 2012.  Leveson closed a week of hearings from Prime Ministers and would be Prime Ministers with the testimony of David Cameron.  Of much revelatory testimony and commentary, one exchange stands out as the single most revealing illustration of the current condition of British politics and, by analogy, American.    

But first ...

Prime Minister David Cameron inadvertently revealed  “the smoking gun” to thunderous laughter   

Cameron’s appointment of Culture Secretary Hunt to review the B Sky B bid is a bone of contention.

This week, Parliament debated an opposition motion demanding independent review of Hunt’s conduct. The motion lost, but it lost only because Liberal Democrats abstained rather than vote their position that Hunt’s conduct should be independently reviewed.    

Debate focused on the question whether or not Hunt misled Parliament.

Hunt told Parliament he had not interceded on behalf of the bid during the time Business Secretary Vince Cable reviewed it prior to Hunt taking over.  But Hunt had, in fact, sent Cameron an internal memo supporting the bid and complaining about the handling of the bid.   

Cameron subsequently appointed Hunt despite this memo, despite Hunt’s prior public support for the bid in the Times, despite Cameron's own recusal due to his connections, and despite the rationale that led Cameron to remove Cable.   Cameron told Parliament he did so because senior civil servants recommended it. The most senior civil servant and counsel had concluded Hunt's public comments had not, under the Ministerial Code, sabotaged Hunt's appointment to the role.  

During testimony Cameron admitted he had not disclosed the internal memo to staff.  Counsel’s “review” consisted of an hour's telephonic discussion.  Not only had Hunt failed to reveal the internal memo to Parliament, but Cameron failed to tell Parliament he had not advised staff of the internal memo (to say nothing of the sometimes delicious texts between Murdoch lobbyist Michel and Hunt).  

All together, there were quite a few lapses in disclosure.  Hunt didn’t tell Parliament. Cameron didn’t tell reviewing staff. Neither Cameron nor Hunt told Parliament that neither had told staff.   

Cameron told Parliament that Leveson would review Hunt’s conduct.  Tory MPs regularly repeat this. But Cameron neglected to tell Judge Leveson.  Judge Leveson has repeatedly made clear that he will not adjudicate Secretary Hunt’s culpability. Leveson reviews press power and misconduct, not Ministerial.  In light of this Tory line, repeated in Parliament, that Leveson exonerated Hunt may itself be a continuing misrepresentation to Parliament. 

But all this became lost in press laughter over the fascinating details of the Prime Minister’s relationship with Brooks.  One text in particular fired imaginations. On the eve of a major speech by Cameron following the Sun’s endorsement, Brooks texted Cameron her support as a personal friend.  Cameron was, she wrote, on the eve of what might be the most important speech of his career.  She added that professionally “we’re all in this together.”  She ended with the Sun’s banner from its endorsement- “Yes he Cam.”   

The delicious details of their relationship is fodder for, well, lots of laughs.  But the laughter obscures what's important. What's important is, Cameron confirmed he and Hunt failed to disclose material facts when it was their duty to do so. 

I suppose one could argue no one was fooled.  Ergo they didn't mislead. But the argument is hardly inspiring.  

Cameron's testimony was not the most interesting exchange of the week 

The most interesting exchange took place between two observers, commenting on Twitter, concerning the testimony of former Prime Minister John Major.  Major testified that former "New" Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair was more right wing than Major.  Milliband biographer James MacIntyre tweeted this to his followers.  Tory MP Louise Mensch re-Tweeted MacIntyre’s tweet, adding the comment “exactly why I joined New Lab in 1996.”  

Louise Mensch is a member of  the key Parliamentary committee which investigated "hackgate." She's made a name for herself commenting on Leveson. She often - if sometimes prematurely or inexplicably - comments that testimony of "fill-in-the-blank" exonerates "fill-in-the-blank."  

But the exchange is telling.  

No wonder the electorate is  unsure who to trust or what to do

The one time standard bearer for the historically right wing Conservative Party says his opponent from the historically left wing Labour Party was more right wing than he. Blair defeated Major. The electorate wanted to dump "the Nasty Party."  It was not public support for left wing policy so much as revulsion to perceived sleaze, Eurocentricism, and dithering.  But, labels mean something to an electorate. The tin bore the label, "Center Left." 

I suspect it came as no shock to today's voter to hear Major's view of Blair. It's a fair assessment. Blair did not reverse, but rather accelerated, "neo liberal" reforms of the British economy and government. He took Britain into a neo conservative war. He allegedly dissembled to do it.  

That's indisputable. Cameron delights in crediting New Labour for many of the reforms Cameron now pursues.  Should the point be missed, Blair helpfully steps in to support the Prime Minister.  

I think Blair's "Legacy" remains among the opposition’s great handicaps. 

In an early psychological experiment scientists gave lab rats a "change up."  The set up was a choice between two buttons. Push one, get a treat, push the other, an electric shock.  At first, the same button always delivered the treat, the same the shock. The rats learned. They avoided the shock. They ate the treat. Next the scientists reversed the buttons.  In time the rats adjusted.  But finally the scientists made it random. The rats stopped eating.  

I think Blair’s premiership may have represented such a "change up" for voters.

Cameron did something similar. His “Compassionate Conservative” framing  gave way to harsh Tory policies. His NHS "safe in Tory hands" gave way to NHS reform.  Now voters know what they don’t like, but voters are unsure whether they can trust anyone to deliver them from what they don't like (much less deliver what they would like).   They're not even sure what they should like.

Democracy diminished 

I suspect Americans can relate.  

Cameron once described Blair as Britain’s Bill Clinton.  Both Blair and Clinton reflected the West's transition from economic and political pluralism to economic and political neo-liberalism.  

As a father, I would not be especially pleased to see either gentleman show up to date my daughter.  Charming, but slick - what you thought you "saw" did not precisely turn out to be what you got.  

Cameron strikes me as cut from the same cloth. Charming. Neo Liberal rather than Conservative. Not encumbered by an ethic of high fidelity to pledges.  Reflective of "modern" political leadership, GOP and Democrat, Tory, Liberal Democrat and Labour.

Different people "package" this same experience differently, blaming different "bad guys" or causes. But there is a common denominator - disillusionment - not only with the elite who "know better," but with the process the elite claims to represent.  

Very soon the chickens will come home to roost.  Neo Liberalism is, quite literally, bankrupt in Europe.

Neo liberalism has a lot for which it must answer: the 2008 bust, its extremity fueled by an extreme boom pushed by unfettered and unregulated greed; the global transfer of wealth and power from West to East; "democracy" adulterated to mean an equal opportunity to be wealthy; and last, but by no means least, the diminution of democratic governance, accountable to the public, from the ideal of social contract carried out by honourable, representative "public servants," to the empty "transparent" etiquette of political elites "with class.”

Sadly, in these respects, we are "all in this together." 

Drones—and Worms: Part One

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

Until a couple of days ago I’d envisioned a hypothetical piece falling under the rubric of “what goes around comes around.”  In short, if we use drones to kill and worms (or viruses) to disrupt, the people we don’t like will be returning the favor, the sooner or later of it depending on the rate of technology transfer.  And whadyaknow!  They have them already—drones anyway. Bashar al Assad’s regime is using reconnaissance drones in what’s gradually being recognized as a very nasty civil war.  So the future is here.  This means that Americans need to do some very clear-headed thinking about drones—and about cyberwarfare, too—and when I say “we” I don’t mean a few guys in a bunker making decisions the rest of us won’t have access to for 50 years or more.

The U.S. deploys drones (pilotless aircraft) for spying and killing in many places.   When activated from a command center, the killer drones fire powerful missiles at selected targets.  The U.S. has thousands of drones in the air or ready for use. 
 
Many questions pop up when it comes to waging war with drones.  (1) Are these gizmos legal under the rules of war?  If so, what rules? (2) Legal or not, is it moral or ethical to use them? (3) Was it smart for the U.S.  to pioneer this sort of war? (4) What do American citizens have a right to know about drones or any other weapons deployed on their behalf?

The Abuse of Words

For starters, however, let’s get rid of the “surgical strike” metaphor.  The idea that bad guys and only really bad guys are taken out by the lethal drone treatment consoles too many who are otherwise squeamish about remotely controlled slaughter.  Every day surgeons make mistakes that are followed by funerals that shouldn’t have been. Drone “mistakes” fill whole cemeteries.

Excessive mortality from bombing and shelling used to be called “collateral damage,” as if dead people mattered as little as shattered windows.  Today’s equally cynical, but more sophisticated verbal coverup works by redefinition.  We’ve been told that any post-pubertal male who’s killed along with the targeted individual is presumed also to have been a terrorist. What a brilliant statistical coup!  Aim for one.  Get ten. Guilt by propinquity. Probably the dead women and girls should be counted, too.  If they didn’t divorce the guy, run away from home or disinherit a son, they probably hated America, too. Guilt by association. Ker-boom!

There have been many attempts to cover up an inconvenient truth about drones, which is: even when guided by up-to-date from-the-air-and-on-the-ground information, drone management does not yield perfect selectivity.  If a well-known bad guy is driving through a desert on a little used road with no turn-offs, those with him probably are collaborators or comrades-in-arms, and probably the missile can find the right man in the right car.  Roll back the tape and consider this: the subject may actually have been at said address, but it takes mere minutes  to say good-bye a trife early, jump in a car and be a mile away, thereby leaving unfingered people behind to take the taking out.  Ker-boom! 

Here are some other ways in which good info turns out to be useless or mistaken and a supposedly pinpointed strike requires apologies and long-winded explanations that are very bad for the American image: the target changes his schedule at the last minute and never gets to the rendezvous, he suspects a trap, his vehicle breaks down en route, the missile was delivered to the wrong address or was a few dozen feet off target, hitherto reliable informants didn’t know or mention that there was going to be some sort of traditional family conclave in the same place at the same time, etc, etc., etc. Ker-boom!

I can hear it now.  Chuckle!  Chuckle! You can’t make an omelet without cracking eggs. Which only brings us back to the prison of inappropriate metaphors.  Give me two eggs.  I can beat them into a superb omelet—or I can take the longer view.  I’ll end up with two laying hens and dozens of eggs—or a pair of doves, for that matter. Diplomacy is getting where you need to go without breaking eggs. 

Smugness is Not a Good Idea

More ominously to the present point, given the inevitable ubiquity of drone availability and the likelihood that drone range can only increase, it might be a good idea for all of us heretofore smug and safe Americans to consider the distance between houses in our own neighborhoods.  Would our families survive if the house next door harbored targeted terrorists?  Is the kids’ school a safe distance from any conceivable target?  And so on. And what about incoming missiles that go off course?  From human error.  From mechanical or electronic malfunction.  Either way, someone dies. 

Have you made your funeral plans?  Your son’s?  Your daughter’s? Americans are pretty safe now, but that won’t be the case in the near future—and the big danger won’t come from cells of amateurs manipulated by FBI agents or from adolescents inflamed by internet propaganda.  If we end up on the receiving end of a drone delivery, you might say, given our own way of waging war, that we asked for it.

Worms That Turn

Space is running out here, and I haven’t even begun to describe what could happen if serious cyberattacks were directed at the United States rather than Iran.  I don’t mean the kind of hacking that annoys large institutions with sloppy security or even, on occasion, the Pentagon, which has also had a few embarrassing encounters with cyber intruders.  I mean a worm or virus that shuts down the whole country in this age of massive interconnection.  Evidently it was a Russian hacking genius who discovered the Flame virus and Stuxnet, too.  What if he were working for a an actively hostile Russian government?  Who’d break his code?

My purpose here isn’t to fear monger or start a panic but to suggest that there are some very powerful reasons why the international community needs to do a little updating of the conventions of war and peace now that technology has complicated our mutual vulnerabilities—and our responsibilities as human actors.  Part Two will address these urgencies by looking more directly at the four questions that introduced this discussion. Given attempts to conceal, minimize, mischaracterize and otherwise mislead the public about the use of drones, it is particularly important to determine just how much secrecy is necessary to protect Americans and to what it extent it serves only to deprive Americans of the open debate about means and ends that is necessary to democracy.  Excessive secrecy does not protect.  It infantalizes the many and empowers the few.

The Grinch who stole the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee

By John C. Dyer, UK Correspondent

11 Jun 2012. 

Within hours of the final ceremonial curtain call a Grinch stole the limelight - and some of the joy- from the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

The Guardian broke the story that a government security contractor, Close Protection UK, not only forced unemployed “workfare” recipients from the South West to work the Jubilee as stewards without pay, but to “sleep rough,” with only a thin sandwich at lunch for food.  But the government paid Close Protection UK to provide these same services. 

Close Protection UK. is among the private firms contracted to provide fire protection “marshall” services to the upcoming Olympic Games.  

These are not the droids you're looking for

The new English bulldog, Lord John Prescott, demanded an explanation.   The explanation was something on the order, "these are not the droids you're looking for."

Molly Prince, head of Close Protection UK commented back to The Guardian that the stewards had been treated well. The Guardian had sensationalized an “unfortunate logistics problem.” 

Number 10 Downing Street dismissed the event as a “one off.”  One could almost see the hand wave. Some called it the "rogue" logistician defence.

Baroness Stedman-Scott, CEO of Tomorrow’s People, a national employment “charity” and the overgoupenfurher for the services which included those of Close Protection UK claimed “all due diligence was done over Jubilee Stewards.”

The Daily Mail picked up the theme, publishing accounts allegedly from participants describing their experience as a “great time.” The Daily Mail accused the “Left-wing Guardian” of a “scandalous story ... reported gleefully on its front page.”  Bad Guardian.  

But they were 

The Daily Mail's words would soon prove to echo (in more than one way) reaction to The Guardian's early "hackgate" stories.  Within 48 hours of The Guardian breaking the story the head of Close Protection UK apologized to the stewards.

In short, the story was accurate.   

There's more

By 10 June disturbing claims about an event had morphed into scandal.

Even more disturbing claims emerged concerning Prince and Scott.   Scott’s company, Tomorrow’s People, had arranged for Close Protection UK to provide the stewards. Allegations now emerge that regulators at the Charity Commission previously reprimanded Baroness Scott’s company for contributing to the funding of the Tory Party "manifesto," a political activity prohibited to a charity. Regulators allegedly "struck off" five of Prince’s prior companies for failing to submit their accounts as required by law. Prince herself has allegedly been convicted of perversion of the course of justice, a very serious crime in Britain.  

I should be clear these are allegations not officially proven at this point. But Lord John “Bulldog” Prescott continues to press for an official probe.

Britain's Teapot Dome  

Prince and Scott now join a growing list of allegations a scandal-ridden government must handle.

Lady Warsi, who Prime Minister David Cameron appointed Chair of the Tory Party, faces an official probe over expenses and her dealings with her business partner.  It may be only the beginning as to allegations concerning Lady Warsi.

Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s relationship with James Murdoch and Hunt’s involvement with and support of the Murdoch bid to own all of Sky continues to make global headlines. Despite evidence many saw as persuasive that emerged during Hunt's testimony to the Leveson inquiry, the Prime Minister took only 25 minutes to decide that Hunt had not violated the Ministerial Code.  The House of Commons is expected to take up the question next week.

The credibility of the government’s banner “workfare” programme has been dogged by charges of corruption and fraud levyed against contractor A4e and A4e’s CEO, Emma Harrison. These charges threaten to damange the entire programme.

Adrian Beecroft, the controversial author of the government’s report on how to free private enterprise from "unwarranted" regulation, is the Chairman of Dawn Capital. He is also a major Tory doner. Dawn Capital is a firm with substantial investment in "Payday Loan" lender, Wonga.  Wonga's loans carry interest rates allegedly running into the thousands of percent per annum. Wonga allegedly stands to gain substantially from the Beecroft report’s recommendations.  Scotland Yard has begun a probe of former Tory Party co-Treasurer Peter Cruddas and allegations the Tory Party engaged in significant levels of “pay to play” fund raising.  Speculation is that these allegation may in time lead to Beecroft (as well as other major Tory Party doners). 

This week the Prime Minister appears before the Leveson inquiry. Osborne emerged largely unscathed 11 June. However, it is important to note that the inquiry was formed to look into Press standards not political corruption. It has nevertheless been led by the remorseless flow of fact to interrogating the politicos concerning the corrupting influence of some in the media. There is still a lot of testimony and indeed cooextensive processes ahead. 

The list is long.  I have difficulty keeping track of it all. The Prime Minister’s government may soon have the dubious distinction of joining the Administration of Warren G. Harding in scandal's Hall of Fame.  

The Odious Grinch 

The Jubilee Steward story broke after my last piece on the Jubilee. But no story makes clearer the point I sought to make.  The story of the Jubilee Stewards (and of the government’s approach to dealing with it as the story broke) illustrates just how out of touch the government is, not only with its people, but with the values of public service that the Queen has worked so assiduously to embody.  

Odious is not too strong a word for the Grinch who stole the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.   Should that not have been Number 10's reaction? Many feel the time has come to take the decision as to whether or not to investigate politico misconduct out of the hands of those who could be implicated and place it in the hands of an independently initiated inquiry.

 

 

Malaise in Mali: Is a Sudan-like Solution Desirable or Inevitable?

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

So the Tuareg have occupied Timbuktu! Given the frequency of rebellion over the past century, I’m not surprised.  With a military coup diverting the attention of threatened civilian authorities as well as the politically ambitious army itself, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad swooped down on the prize they have long coveted. 

The New Ingredient

But something new has been added to the equation. Islam in Mali has always been described as regionally acculturated, moderate and tolerant. Tolerant of different Muslim sects. Tolerant of non-Muslim minorities.  Today’s game-changing addition is militant salafist Islam of the sort that’s sympathetic to if not synonymous with al Qaeda. What had always been a fierce campaign for ethnic autonomy or a separate state dubbed Azawad seems to have been overwhelmed by or manipulated by Islamic extremists.  Timbuku, former center of great learning and site of one of the most renouned libraries in the world, is being transformed into a theocratic nightmare à la Kabul under the Taliban.

How should the U.S. respond?  Before the Islamist complication, the alternatives were hard enough to weigh. A Sudan-like solution?  Or continued integration at all costs? Now all prospects seem uglier. Support the coup—or not?  Support bifurcation—or not—with or without Islamist influence?  Take on the Islamists?  Ignore them?   

The Wealth that Built a Library

The north-of-the-Niger territory claimed by the MNLA supports only about 10% of Mali’s population, but occupies more than half of Mali’s territory.  Picture a mere sprinkling of humans in very harsh terrain. Although most Malians are Muslim, life-styles North and South couldn’t be more different.  The Tuarag are at home in the desert.  They were notorious for camel-mounted caravan raiding back in the days when cross-Saharan trade featured great trains of dromedaries laden with gold to be bartered for life-sustaining salt.  These days drought has forced many Tuareg into a more sedentary life in the sahel on the margins of the desert. Further South, however, settled agriculture has always been the norm, along with migratory animal herding in the transition lands. Such differences notwithstanding, as powerful kingdom succeeded powerful kingdom over the centuries, the  wealth in the area that's Mali today was more than enough to support the fabled city of Timbuktu, with its well-stocked markets and vast intellectual and cultural resources.

Including the library, the source of my own fascination.  Over the years I’d managed to visit Nalanda, the site of the famous Buddhist university and library which had given intellectual backbone to the spread of the dharma for more than a millenium.  I’d also gone to Alexandria, primarily to imagine the city in its classical prime before its great library was destroyed.  Timbuktu was next on my list.  Getting there was my primary personal goal when I was posted to neighboring Sierra Leone. I brought a Jeep to Freetown, because I planned to drive to Timbuktu. What a terrific vacation that would make!

Driving to Timbuktu

Unfortunately, although the Tuaregs had reputedly entered into one of their more quiescent phases, the civil war in Sierra Leone went from bad to worse. I didn’t dare to drive through it.  I’d have to fly to Bamako, where I could engage a Landrover with an experienced and reliable driver.  In this, I followed recommendations from still unmet colleagues at U.S.I..S. Bamako. (Thanks again, friends!)  If anything happened to me, the driver would have to answer to his pals and my colleagues in the capital.  It was a very Malian arrangement—and there were several more pluses. The driver was fluent in French, which gave us a shared language.  He also spoke several local languages. 

And so, Landrover stocked with a zillion gallons of water, in case we lost our way in the desert, we crossed the Niger River and drove roughly east north east toward Timbuktu.  It would take us two days to cover the 440 miles.  After about 50 miles, pavement gave way to sandy ruts, sometimes deep and easy to follow, sometimes not, especially after dark.  Even the driver was relieved when we finally rolled into the town that was our overnight destination.  After that the complications began.  The simple guest house we’d been counting on no longer existed.  Most people we spoke to suggested that we sleep in the Landrover, preferably close to a police post.  And then, happily, we met a bunch of boys playing fussball outside a bar.  They directed us to a U.N. compound from which a French team was trying to oversee refugee resettlement during the current shaky truce in the unending war between the MNLA and the government in Bamako.

Hand Over the Landrover

Contrary to the reassuring reports that had reached Sierra Leone, the Tuareg were far from pacified.  That morning a band of them had barged into the U.N. compound and stolen a Landrover at gunpoint.  For that reason, perhaps, even  though our arrival was as unexpected as that of the raiders, the French observers were happy to shelter me and my Malian driver.  They fed us well, à la français, then offered me a choice: sleep on a cot in the kitchen or sleep on the same cot under the stars.  The choice was easy. The stars were so thick I hated to shut my eyes. 

I might have chosen differently if our hosts had informed us immediately about the morning’s raid.  “We didn’t want to worry you,” they explained at breakfast.  Over croissants, of course.

How could we not worry?   It would take us most of a day to slew through ever more treacherous sand to reach Timbuktu, which created anxiety enough, and now I was obsessed with the fear that, at any minute, a troupe of blue-turbaned Tuareg would pour over a dune’s crest to steal our precious Landrover.  Maybe we’d be kidnaped and held for ransom, too. This had happened to many travelers over the years.  But not to us. We reached Timbuktu well before dark.  There was room at a comfortable little hotel.  There was cold beer.  There was delicious food.

Timbuktu in the ‘90s

And so I got to meet with deeply learned scholars, who were delighted to tell tales of the good old days when Timbuku was a center of global trade.  Although most of the contents of the famous library had been carried away by invading Moroccans many centuries ago, local archives contained fascinating collections of old manuscripts and letters which were being collated and catalogued and, in some cases, translated from the original Arabic by Western-funded scholars.

Yes, there was beer, which my driver greatly appreciated.  Better yet, for me, there were women in public, few of them paying much attention to whether their hair was covered or not.  And everywhere, since this was a city that prized education, there were French speakers.  As I wandered around, people were openly curious about me but always polite, and courtesy often led to interesting conversations in French. Meanwhile, real estate was booming.  Timbuktu, as a U.N. heritage city,  was being rediscovered and refurbished. Seeing the elegant old stone houses that had already been reclaimed from near ruin, I found it possible to imagine what an imposing city this now provincial outpost had been in its heyday.

Back then, in the mid ‘90s, the worst threat that hovered over Timbuku was the desert. Dunes were encroaching.  The city was in danger of being buried in sand.  The new threat is human.  Now that Islamists are making the rules, bars are closed, music is banned and women are terrorized if they’re caught in the streets.  The politics are murky.  I don’t know the personalities or the intricacies of who has promised what to whom, but the dramatic external transformation proves that the Al Queda faction is dominant for now.

What To Do Now?

The Timbuktu I visited was gracious, gentle, in love with music and books and the great accomplishments of Muslim civilization. If such a city could be the capital of a new Muslim majority land, how promising it would be!  Given my own positive experiences and the fact of wide divergence betwen cultures, North and South, I found myself back then inclined not to dismiss the idea of endowing a nation of Azawad with sovereignty.

The bifurcation of Sudan hasn’t been easy, and harmony between the divorced will be a long time in coming.  Oil remains a divisive issue.  The new border is bitterly (and cruelly) disputed.  Within South Sudan itself there are serious tribal divisions.  Nevertheless, aside from certain Islamists and the power elite in Khartum, few would argue that the split as such was a bad idea.

Today everything in Mali has changed.  Chaos in Bamako created opportunity for the MNLA, who have fought so long for a homeland.  But here comes the irony. The average Tuareg is more conservative than the average denizan of Bamako, but I’m not so sure that most insurgents are getting the society they fought for.  Meanwhile, back in Washington, the developments in Northern Mali are probably causing more consternation than the coup in Bamako. What to do?  What to do?  In fact, whether or not we’re happy about Islamists in power above the Niger, there’s not much we can or should do, so long as their focus is purely internal.  Should they decide to ape their counterparts in Yemen, however, they should have one worry on their minds.  Drones.