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Reflections from the Eye of the Storm

By John Charles Dyer, UK Correspondent

28 July 2012.  

It is quiet tonight.  

The nation focuses on the Olympics.  GS4’s failure to deliver on its security contract, the call up of hundreds of troops to rescue them, Lord Ashcroft’s £7 million NHS profits, even new “hackgate” arrests, are just shadows at the edges of the Olympic sunrise. The Olympics - and the nation’s pride and celebration at holding them - have overwhelmed political news.  

To be sure, it is also the Parliamentary recess. But for the moment the warm glow of the Olympics has overtaken the political fuss and fury. The focus engenders a surreal calm, an inexplicable good cheer given the actual state of affairs not only in the UK, the Eurozone and the US, but across the globe. 

A good time to reflect. 

Mitt Romney triggered a brief flurry. Romney provoked universal indignation commenting negatively on British preparations for the Olympics.  

Romney’s staff exacerbated the outrage. Someone “leaked” an alleged security briefing by British intelligence.  That just isn’t done. The secrecy of the intelligence service is sacrosanct. Briefings are reserved for a select and cleared few. 

Tricky ground

An American criticizing British performance is tricky ground indeed, as I am only too aware. I've lost friends offended by mine. 

It raises a fair question. How is me being critical any different from Romney?  

When I retired to the UK, I embraced my tax paying responsibilities under the Tax Treaty between the US and the UK. I pay full tax on my entire income. I do not avoid those responsibilities by taking advantage of the non domicile provisions of the tax code (which could minimize my tax burden).  I pay full freight.  I'm proud of it. 

Romney allegedly built his wealth in part by minimizing his US tax.  When confronted with that allegation, he failed to produce tax returns from a time before he knew he would be running for President so the American people could see the documentation.  

Romney, a rich man, allegedly avoids the taxes of the nation he aspires to lead. I, a retired public servant, pay full freight. 

I participate actively in civic life. The government (and friends) may not always like what I say, but I am an equal opportunity critic. I am sometimes also positive (as in my comments on the Queen, the actions of the Church of England, and the British Foreign Office). Even when critical, I make constructive suggestions.  

Romney simply implied the negative to an American audience without providing constructive suggestion to his British hosts.  

Whitby, Love at First Bite

By John Charles Dyer, UK Correspondent

Introduction

As a wee lad I had the opportunity to tour Disney Studios. A budding artist even at four, I enjoyed observing the then-studio cartoonists at work. On a later holiday- but still while in elementary school- my family and I were privileged to have Walt Disney’s flat at the top of the Fire Station in Disneyland all to ourselves for a long weekend.  As I am sure all readers understand, the enthralled little boy in me still cherishes these memories.    

I’ve had many enchanting experiences. I watched stars glint in a pristine dark night sky above Monte Toyon in the Santa Cruz mountains. I gazed down  on the magnificent Yosemite Valley from Half Dome. I wandered the forests of mottled light that surround Patrick’s Point, seeking the Ewoks of my imagination. I held my breath watching wales breach the Pacific from Patrick's Point's sacred central rock.  I soaked up the warm, jeweled nights of Nassau.  I stood on the site of Bunker Hill in Boston.  I walked Capitol Park in the Nation’s capitol. I toured the North and South East coasts of Cornwall.

I rode the route along the Fowey River to Lerryn which was one of the routes that inspired Wind in the Willows.  I gazed  on the Talland Bay from a bench within the soul refreshing graveyard of Talland Church. I photographed England’s breath taking cathedrals in Wells, Salisbury, Bristol, Exeter. I listened to Timothy Leary expound on LSD in the Raymond College Common Room. I’ve talked with Allen Ginsberg after enjoying the poetry of Jack Kerouac. I have experienced the force of nature who was Eric Hoffer.

I remember vividly lounging in the warm light that flooded the Common Room alcove, smiling at its fountain, my first morning at Raymond College, my Hogwarts. It reminded me of my great uncle’s cabin in the then undeveloped Santa Monica Hills, the tiny but truly "burbling" creek that wandered through the ferns that covered his hillside, the steep trail that led from the Cabin in which some of the 20th Century's great theologians had debated life. 

But few experiences have been as magical as Whitby. To think, we only went to Whitby to avoid the crowds during the week of the British Open (which took place 200 yards from our home flat). 

Whitby

Whitby nestles into the North Yorkshire seaside, straddling the mouth of the Esk River.   

(Left to Right Up: Whitby & Abbey from the Esk, Whitby along the Esk.)  

 

 

 

 

(Left to Right, Whitby & Whitby Bay. Photos by John C. Dyer)

 

We stayed in a “self-catering” cottage, rented through Whitby Holiday Cottages.  

(Left, Holiday Cottage,

Cottage BedRm

By John C. Dyer)

 

Whitby has fantastic historical associations.  The earliest documented English poet, Caedmon, lived and at worked at Whitby Abbey. The Abbey in its original form pre-dates the time of King Edwin of Northumbria. Edwin's daughter, St. Helena, became its Abbess.  

A Glimpse of What Could Be Lost in Timbuktu

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

Timbuktu, for most Westerners, is simply another word for the end of the world.  Today, in fact, it’s a somewhat decayed real city on the southern edge of the Sahara desert.

Once upon a time, however, Timbuktu was a vital commercial and cultural crossroads for innumerable African civilizations.  For this reason, non-Muslim historians as well as Muslims who treasure all aspects of their richly complex past are alarmed by the destruction that’s been taking place in Timbuktu and other ancient cities like Gao since Salafists wrested control of the rebellion in Northern Mali from Tuareg insurgents.

Most reportage from the area has emphasized the spoiling, wholly or in part, of shrines and mosques accused of encouraging idol-worship.  But the threat goes beyond the usual crude iconoclasm of al Qaeda-related sects.  According to photographer Alexandra Huddleston, “not only are thousands of ancient manuscripts and holy sites under threat, but also an ancient scholarly culture.”  She has documented this culture in the past, and now she has created a video that shows us what we are in danger of losing.

Go to this site for Alexandra's heart-rending introduction to Timbuktu and the culture it fostered over the centuries.  Go to this site and weep.  And protest.  If you want to know more,  follow the links that Alexandra has provided. 

And here are some pieces I've written on developments in Northern Mali:  Iconoclasts in Timbuktu and Malaise in Mali: Is a Sudan-like Solution Possible? 

The Troubled State of State Update # 4 – Joan and the Office of Special Counsel Investigation

By Patricia H. Kushlis

Today’s Post: Round 4

 It’s been just over a month since I last wrote about Joan Wadelton’s ongoing battle with the State Department’s Bureau of Human Resources.  Since then her struggle against the department’s “cover-up at any cost” has continued unabated. Not only – it turns out - has HR blocked investigations by its own Office of Inspector General (OIG) but it derailed an outside investigation by the Office Special Counsel as well. 

 Background

 Following years of abuse by HR that stymied her previously successful career, Joan filed three grievances with the Foreign Service Grievance Board (FSGB), citing irregularities in the reconstituted promotion boards that reviewed her file in 2003, 2004 and 2005.  HR claimed that she was not competitive for promotion despite the fact that during those three years she (while working for then-Senator Joe Biden) created the State Department’s Congressional Liaison Office on Capitol Hill, was one of the first State Department officials on the ground in Iraq and was the first Iraq advisor to the Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs.

The FSGB’s response was to order State to reconstitute six promotion boards (two each for the years in question).  These boards were reconstituted in 2006 -- and HR claimed that each ranked Joan at the bottom.  She contested these results and in 2010, the FSGB rendered an opinion that all six of the 2006 boards were so severely flawed that no determination could be made as to Joan’s promotion status.

Despite this finding, the FSGB ordered State to reconstitute six more boards -- without mandating safeguards to ensure against the same or similar irregularities.

Joan, at that point trusting neither the FSGB nor HR and giving up hope for fair treatment from either based on the previous record, decided not to wait for the results of the newest six boards; so she moved directly to the federal district court.  The results of the newest boards were produced by State in 2011 after Joan's case was already in federal district court. The results were identical to the improbably low scores of the 2006 boards.  The score sheets -- purportedly from the members of the 2011 boards that HR produced to bolster its claim that Joan came in at the bottom every time -- show clear signs of tampering.

Based on these questionable documents and corrupt processes, State fired Joan in December 2011. 

Update      

Joan’s case is currently in federal district court waiting for the ruling as to whether the judge will grant Joan’s discovery request which would allow her to see the original 2011 score sheets and to interview members of the boards who allegedly produced those score sheets.  State has made every conceivable argument (and several inconceivable ones) to deny Joan's attorneys access to both. 

In fact, State has spared no efforts to beat back Joan's lawsuit.  For example, the judge ordered that no motion in this latest round of filings should exceed 15 pages.  She made it clear that a litigant producing a motion longer than 15 pages would forfeit that round to the opposing litigant.  Joan’s legal team -- taking the instructions of this senior judge to heart -- made Joan’s first such motion 14 pages long and the second one 10 pages.  And State?  Well, State came in with a 27 page motion -- nearly twice the mandated length.

HR Highjacks Joan’s Office of Special Counsel Investigation

The Office of Special Counsel is a tiny agency created specifically to investigate whistleblower complaints.  In the latter part of the Bush Administration, the OSC was a troubled organization.  The political appointee who headed the agency was under fire from Congress, NGOs and the press for systematically refusing to investigate all manner of complaints.  His staff was -- to put it kindly -- also underperforming.  It was against this backdrop in 2008, that Joan asked the OSC to look into HR fraud regarding her 2006 reconstituted promotion boards.

Perhaps because of its own internal turmoil at the time, the OSC’s investigation of Joan's claims was poorly managed and inconclusive.  This weakness may also account for the OSC’s capitulation to State’s demand that it, State, be allowed to supplant OSC involvement in key aspects of the investigation.  Or the reason may never come to light.

The upshot? 

In 2008, State refused to allow OSC investigators to interview members of the 2006 reconstituted boards – outside and impartial investigators who could have shed light on the many irregularities in the conduct of those boards.  Instead, State insisted that State HR and Legal Advisor officials -- rather than OSC staff -- handle the key witnesses and produce the critical documents.  As a result, the very HR officials against whom Joan had made accusations were taking and processing evidence that might have proven their own wrongdoing.

Sound like a Grade-B movie?  Well it’s not.

Documents obtained from the OSC under a Freedom of Information Agency (FOIA) request reveal communications between State and the OSC in which State was negotiating with the OSC to ensure - apparently - that the OSC had as little contact as possible with any witnesses in particular or the investigation in general. 

Here’s a telling example, the record of conversations in July 2008 Download OSC-State in which OSC attorney Darshan Sheth notes that he and State Department attorney Paul Veidenheimer “agreed that OSC will submit written questions + the bd members will provide answers + swear to the truthfulness of the information.”

In other words, that the OSC -- having relinquished its normal role of interviewing witnesses in its own investigation – was to give State a questionnaire for the witnesses, which State would then process.  This was because State -- as Sheth noted in an e-mail to Joan’s attorney -- had “vigorously resisted” OSC in-person contact with potential witnesses.

After the Battle: Winning Back Hearts and Minds

By Guest Contributor Thomas Preece

Tom Preece is a combat veteran and veterans advocate, a thirty year VA retiree, and author of The Last Lost Warrior a forthcoming novel based on his Vietnam and post-Vietnam experiences.

The American military is in a war with itself, and US society can't afford it.  Fewer soldiers have been killed in combat in the Iraq/Afghanistan conflicts than have killed themselves.  Army suicides are said to have grown 80 percent since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003.

Secretary Leon Panetta recently announced visionary goals for reducing the suicide rates. Let’s hope he succeeds.

On Friday, July 13, 2012 The Institute of Medicine of the National Academies (IMNA) published its initial assessment of treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in military and veteran populations.  The assessment was prepared as part of a contract with the Department of Defense.  A free PDF copy of the report is available here.

The report contains a startlingly broad spectrum of assessments, treatments, and treatment facilities.  It’s clear that the US medical community is still struggling to understand the best practices for treatment of this disease.  The IMNA assessment was “a comprehensive review and synthesis of the available literature and data on the prevention, screening, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of PTSD in military and veteran populations.” The scope of the problem is immense.

In 2010 the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) reported treating 438,091 veterans with PTSD.  That number excludes those vets who are no longer in treatment or not diagnosed.  Studies of PTSD estimate that that 13 to 20 percent of the troops returning from Afghanistan and Iraq suffer from the disorder, but less than half are identified and receive treatment. 

Most of the IMNA recommendations concern modalities of treatment or research.  I was startled by their most specific recommendation, “PTSD screening should be conducted at least once a year when primary care providers see service members at DoD military treatment facilities or at any TRICARE provider locations, as is currently done when veterans are seen in the VA.”

There are three major VA divisions: The Veterans Health Administration (VHA), The Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA), and National Cemetery Administration (NCA). 

I'm sensitive about the differences because members of the public, and indeed even Congressional staff, often fail to make the distinction, expecting service or response from the wrong part of the department.  Nobody would expect the NCA to provide health care, and I can assure you – VBA - where I worked for almost 30 years doesn't screen for PTSD, but it does review and grant compensation claims.

Annual screening is a fine idea, but in my experience this suggests the weakness of this kind of survey.  INMA did query the VA and included the Department’s response in their report.  VA apparently told the INMA researchers that veterans were screened annually at VHA facilities.

Huh?  I'm a patient at a VHA facility. 

If they've screened me for PTSD, I haven't noticed it.  Perhaps there were brief questions by my doctor, but since I don't recall them they couldn't have amounted to much.

In all fairness to INMA this was only phase one of their work.  Follow up continues.  They will continue to review the new literature and have already scheduled visits to Army and VA facilities.

If you haven’t read Gail Sheehy's July 5 USA Today article about a new treatment pioneered at Ft. Carson, Colorado here’s the gist:

At Ft. Carson, where a spate of military suicides occurred as recently as 2007, the military has been working to reduce the stigma of stress and to provide immediate intervention to those in danger of suffering from it.  That means really immediate intervention.   At the suggestion of the psychiatric staff at Ft. Carson, psychologists are being sent directly to the battlefields after particularly harrowing engagements and more rigorous psychological evaluations are now given to the returning soldiers. 

The Sheehy article is consistent with the IMNA findings, but not typical.  I hope the Ft. Carson program succeeds and becomes widespread. But it may not.  The Ft. Carson approach represents a huge culture change.  There's a telling remark at the end of Sheehy’s story.  An Army psychiatrist is quoted as saying in part, "This is not a military problem; this is an American problem."

That's a distinction without a difference, but suggests a cultural attitude that exposes the difficulty of dealing with psychological trauma. 

Back to Sparta

We train our soldiers to be warriors in traditions that go back to Sparta.  We train them to be indifferent to pain and fear, and to fight as a disciplined and bonded group, physically and technologically best at inflicting pain and fear on the enemy.   Of course, other armies – friend and foe - and guerrillas do the same, as do biker gangs.

Trained to be indifferent to physical pain and fear, soldiers from the warrior culture try to extend their indifference to psychological pain as well.  There's evidence for this in the varied suicide rates among the branches of the service.  About half of the suicides are committed by troops who have never been deployed. Overwhelmingly the Marine Corps and the Army are responsible for the increase. Why? The Army and the Marines train for and support personal physical combat and as a consequence, their troops suffer PTSD more.  The Air Force and the Navy?  Not so much.

Unfortunately if you don't acknowledge the illness, guys and gals with PTSD look remarkably like poor soldiers, resistant to authority, easy to enrage, isolated from friends, and maybe self-medicating with alcohol.  Separating sufferers from malcontents is difficult.  Someone suffering from PTSD is in a war within him or herself to regain safety and control.  Yet in the military a person is never fully in control, his superiors are.  This contradiction seems to confound the organization which still needs to find more effective ways to deal with the illness. 

There have been national and local training programs designed to teach everyone to recognize the symptoms.  It doesn't help in the least that the person suffering the most may be terrified that he or she fits the mold.  This is a disability subject to discharge - not a desirable outcome for someone hoping to complete a twenty year career.

The US military is an all-volunteer corps. It has been since the Vietnam War. The Army and Marine corps brag about their retention rates.  Their enlistees have career ambitions. Discharge for a psychological disability doesn't fit the program.  The INMA report confirms that career enlistments are a barrier to treatment.

While Parliament is on holiday a new LIBOR narrative takes shape in the US

By: John Charles Dyer, UK Correspondent

Parliament’s Treasury Select Committee  interviewed Jerry Del Missier 16 July 2012 as Parliament broke for a 10 week “recess.”  Jerry Del Missier is the former Barclay’s official who allegedly interpreted Bob Diamond’s email as a directive to artificially lower interest rates.  

Politicized Process both sides of the Atlantic

To date, members of the Treasury Committee have displayed a single minded focus on either finding “the smoking gun” of Labour involvement or proving that there was no such involvement.  Members, including the Chair, dismissed Diamond’s testimony as “economical with the truth.”  Last week the Chancellor publicly accused Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls of “having questions to answer.” Despite clearly consistent, exonerating testimony from Bank of England Deputy Governor Paul Tucker and Barclay’s Bob Diamond, despite Number 10 acknowledging Balls had no personal involvement, Number 10 steadfastly refused to apologize but instead repeated that Balls and Labour “have questions to answer.”

Dell Missier had not testified as of the writing of this article. One has the impression that whatever he testifies, the Chair will likely find "economical with the truth" any testimony that does not finger at least the regulators at the Bank of England, and Number 10 will continue to insist Labour “has questions to answer.”   

In the meantime, the US Senate plans its own inquiry into what Timothy Geithner knew about LIBOR, when and how, and what he did or did not do with the information, prompted by information that suggests Barclays complained as early as 2007 that its competitors were low balling LIBOR.   

The version of “the truth” on the airways in the US is Diamond repeatedly tried to warn the Federal Reserve in New York (translate Geithner) that others were low balling LIBOR.  The airways believe they already know what Geithner will testify.  Sky News reported 13 July that Geithner leaked a 2008 email to Sir Mervyn King warning UK banks were low balling LIBOR. Following the New York Fed's release of documents, the Post reported Geither recommended 6 changes to the regulation of LIBOR. Saturday the 14th the Independent reported that regulators both sides of the Atlantic knew banks were fiddling LIBOR, but did nothing about it.

Iconoclasts in Timbuktu

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

Not so long ago Buddhists and art lovers of the world were aghast when the Afghan Taliban destroyed the famous Buddhist statues in Bamiyan. I thought of this tragedy when I learned that  Salafist gangs known as the Ansar Dine (Defenders of Islam) connected with Al Qaeda in Northen Mali are destroying Sufi shrines and have smashed in the main door of the world-famous 15th mosque in Timbuktu. You might say that this strain of Islam produces equal opportunity iconoclasts.

The Golden Calf Precedent

The prohibition of idol worship has a long history among the so-called Abrahamic religions.  One has only to read what the Christians call the Old Testament and the Jews call Torah to find the story of how the Israelites went astray and began worshiping a golden calf and how the idol was destroyed and the wrong-doers castigated when Abraham found out. Is this so different from what’s happening in Mali today? 

Protestant extremists during the Reformation were equally stringent about rejecting what they called saint worship among Catholics.  They destroyed monasteries and cleansed their own places of worship of all imagery.  The grounds were the same as those cited by today’s Salafists: the Catholics/Sufis were inserting saints between believers and God.  As a result, the Puritan churches in Massachusetts Bay Colony, for example, were beautiful, but austere in the extreme. There is a strong strain of equally stringent Calvinistic puritanism in some branches of contemporary  Presbyterianism.  Christmas trees and Santa Claus are rejected as unwelcome pagan traditions. No organs or pianos either.  Only the human voice during worship. 

Missionaries Singing the Same Song

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Christian and Muslim missionaries made identical demands of the Batak tribes of North Sumatra: smash your idols; destroy your ritual objects; eradicate your pagan past.  Most converts, some out of fear, some out of zeal, acquiesced in the wholesale destruction of their material culture.

Some people, fortunately, resisted.  They hid their religio/cultural treasures away, some for centuries, some for decades, and many, though made of wood, survived into the 1980s when I was sent by  USIA to be Branch Public Affairs Officer in Medan, Indonesia. My philosophy being that you can’t influence people unless you understand them, I tried to find out as much as I could about the Batak culture that was so haughtily despised by the Javanese I’d known in Jakarta. And so I met people who, though Muslim or Christian by confession, were proud of their Batak roots.  They proudly showed me their treasures, especially a physician who had been a life-long collector of these materials.  This doctor’s home was like a museum, and together we conceived the idea of an exhibit at the American Center.  It would combine his collection with contributions which I subsequently sought from every corner of the Batak world.

The exhibit, the first of its kind, was a smashing success. The governor of West Sumatra, not only a general but himself a Batak, opened it, and it was reviewed enthusiastically by the premier national news magazine, thus putting the American Center in a very favorable light in the cultural capital of the country.  As far as I’m concerned, it was the best thing I did during my two years in Medan. (And for you bean counters, note that it cost us less than $500, including gas for those collecting trips, refreshments for the reception, a little staff overtime and a slightly higher electricity bill.)

The Power of Icons

Interestingly enough, the Doctor’s wife did not share her husband’s enthusiasm for the objects in his collection.  (She collected antique Chinese pottery and porcelain.) Some of the figures had stains which were, she was sure, evidence of having been anointed with sacred oils and powders.  That being the case, they might still have power, and so they frightened her. 

Perhaps my Batak friends should once again think of hiding their treasures.  Indonesian Islam is now finding room for proponants of violent intolerance of the sort we used to think was incompatible with Indonesia's supposedly well-ingrained syncretism.

Meanwhile, I think of the Doctor’s highly-educated wife when I consider the vehemence of Wahabis, who eradicated most (or all) evidence of pre-Muslim culture in Saudi Arabia.  I thought of her when the Ansar Dine, the Wahabi-related Salafists,  pushing their Tuareg nationalist allies aside,  set about smashing the frighteningly-powerful mausoleums that are precious to the local people who consider themselves to be perfectly good Muslims.  The so-called “saint-worshippers” had to flee, of course. The alternative would be life under an alien Taliban-like regime.

No to Imported Islam

On July 5, non-Salafist  Muslims converged on Mali’s capital Bamako to protest the defamations in Timbuktu.  Thousands of ordinary people gathered and many religious leaders spoke out strongly against the shrine-smashing. This is the sort of thing that was said:   “All of us are joining hands to protest against the profanation of the mausoleums of Timbuktu.”  “Those who carried out these acts...have no notion of Islam.” “No to imported Islam [which is to say, from Wahabi Arabia], yes to the Islam of our [African] parents.”  The sense of possible loss in Bamako was strong. “Timbuktu was founded on a pure Islam, respectful of men, of all men.” 

The non-Muslim world is strongly sympathetic to proponents of tolerant Islam and to the need for the protection of world heritage sites derived from all religious and spiritual  traditions.    Consider the following statement by Francesco Bandarin, UNESCO'S Assistant Director-General for Culture, when he asked if the destruction of shrines and artifacts in Timbuktu can be seen as an “act of war”:

It is, and it has been declared so by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. In effect there is an article called Article 8 of the Rome Treaty, the treaty that established the International Criminal Court. It talks specifically about destruction of heritage. So we are in a zone of international criminal law which is clearly determined; they are violating this law and they are subject to prosecution. Mali is a signatory of this treaty, they will be prosecuted.

Unfortunately such sentiments will have no impact on those who have now wrested control of Timbuktu.  As a media man for the Ansar Dine put it, “There is no world heritage.  It doesn’t exist. The infidels must not get involved in our business.”

Wars of Religion

And so, pious statements from a powerless UNESCO notwithstanding,  the iconoclasm will continue, until tolerant Islam is able or willing to protect itself from well-armed zealous puritans.  The West had its brutal wars of religion, of which remnants survive even in the U.S. today.  Islam is now caught up  in a perhaps more complex network of wars of religion into which the West, especially the U.S.,  has allowed itself to become entangled (though most Americans don't see it that way).  The  perfectly predictable sort of blowback is what we call Islamic terrorist extremism.  Perhaps the ultimate trajectory for Islam will resemble that of Christianity.  Sects will discover it's better to agree to disagree and work by persuasion alone.  In the meantime, the single-minded  iconoclasts, though apparently in the minority, seem to have the zeal that will always intimidate the lukewarm.  To say nothing of the weapons, of course.

The Rule of Law- lost in translation

By: John Charles Dyer, UK Correspondent

6 July 2012.  A Tsunami called LIBOR swept across the gleaming edifices of global finance. The banks nations bailed out, the banks that across the West forced austerity and bigger bailout funds using the leverage of sovereign debt interest rates, the banks we trusted with the underpinnings to our economies, pensions, children’s futures, these banks (or some of them) systematically rigged LIBOR rates. Sometimes to benefit a rogue trader. Sometimes, allegedly, as bank policy. Observers argue this scandal will eventually dwarf JP Morgan. 

The Tsunami crashed into “The City” (the euphemism for London’s financial sector), leaving its Archbishops figuratively trembling with dread beneath their desks. It left in its wake the shattered remaining credibility of banks and banking sector.  It also left scattered amid the wreckage respect for the Rule of Law and political good judgement.  

A match in a basement full of gasoline

On 4 July Barclay’s released a 29 October 2008 email from suddenly former CEO Bob Diamond to Barclay’s Chairman John Varley and COO Jerry Del Messier. Diamond informed them Bank of England Deputy Governor Paul Tucker had warned Diamond that day “Whitehall” was on Tucker’s back about Barclay’s relatively high LIBOR interest rates. Del Messier allegedly took this email to be an instruction to Barclays to artificially lower its rates.   

Shortly after Barclay’s release, commentators raced to interpret. Tucker’s communication was an instruction from Whitehall to artificially lower its interest rates.  Barclay's did because of this intervention.  Gordon Brown and Ed Balls were implicated. They have “questions to answer.”  Pundits named who they believe was the mystery Minister. If anyone asked if the email accurately represented Tucker’s communication or was another explanation equally plausible, it was lost in the furore. 

Speculation soon morphed across Twitter into “Balls has questions to answer” including from Tory MPs.  This may have been just spontaneous reaction from those who have long believed Brown and Balls have evaded owning up to culpability for the financial crisis.  It may have been a reflexive “gotcha” from politicos smarting from months of bad news and claims from Balls the bad news vindicates his economics.  It may have been a coordinated campaign to regain ground lost in the polls.  

Whatever it was, it was premature. 

High Noon in the Commons 

5 July the uproar reached a dramatic “high noon” in the Commons.   

The Spectator published Chancellor Osborne’s allegation Brown and Balls “have questions to answer,” elaborating on the theme Brown’s government caused Barclay’s to artificially lower their rates.  During a subsequent Parliamentary debate Osborne repeated the charges. Balls defended his integrity. It went on for three extraordinary, bitter hours.  

It appalled everyone.  

BBC’s Nick Robinson seemed to defend the Chancellor, arguing Osborne just believed Brown and Balls ought to be held to account for their handling of the banking crisis. But most, even the conservative Daily Telegraph, focused on Osborne. 

Shortly after debate closed, Osborne withdrew his allegations. While Osborne did not apologize, he acknowledged Brown and Balls were not themselves personally culpable. 

Some say Robinson appeared crestfallen delivering the news for BBC, but I did not observe that myself.  I did observe heightened tension and broad outrage at Parliament’s loss of proportionality and judgment. 

The original purpose of the debate was to decide whether to refer the investigation of LIBOR to a Parliamentary committee chaired by the widely respected Treasury Committee Chair, Andrew Tyrie, or to an independent, judge-led inquiry on the model of Leveson.  The government proposed the former, Labour the latter. Labour scheduled the debate during its “Opposition Day” time.  

The outcome of the vote was a foregone conclusion. The Coalition partners defeated Labour’s motion.

That did not itself immediately end it.  Tyrie made it clear prior to debate he would not chair without cross party support.  Under considerable pressure, and perhaps fearing public perception, Labour agreed to cooperate even before Osborne’s climb down, sealing the deal. 

It is doubtful the credibility of the process can be rescued  

Osborne and eager Tories opened Pandora’s Box.  Sometimes legislative committees guided by counsel can do decent work. But it is hard to see how Tyrie's committe can transcend the manner of its birth.  

Apart from public perception, I question the capacity of a politically constituted body in such a politically charged atmosphere to adequately investigate, much less put to bed, the demons Party pols already unleashed.  Yet, now unleashed, it is imperative they receive a fair adjudication promptly.

The performance of Tyrie’s own Treasury Committee offers no comfort. 

I watched them question Diamond, an American listening to an American questioned by British politicians with a hurricane at their backs.   

Conservative members on the Committee immediately tried to expose the assumed involvement of Labour Ministers. Labour members reflexively defended Labour. Neither really heard what Diamond said.  When Diamond did not give answers they expected, they appeared (and were subsequently reported to be) furious and openly incredulous. Several, including the Chair, commented negatively on Diamond’s “evasiveness” and “lack of plausibility.”   

In doing so they slighted and ignored two key pieces of testimony and two key principles of due process. 

Diamond testified he did not take the Tucker conversation memorialized in his email as a veiled instruction to artificially lower Barclay’s LIBOR rates. He learned only last week that COO Jerry Del Messier purportedly did.   

Diamond further testified that- “in context”- the focus was nationalization of the bank. He took Tucker to be warning that Whitehall was concerned because of the comparison of Barclay’s LIBOR rates to Barclay's competitors.  Diamond wrote to prompt Varley to talk to Whitehall to explain the competitors rates were too low.  Diamond feared an alarmed Whitehall in the midst of the 2008 crisis would nationalize Barclay’s.   No, Diamond did not know who the Ministers were, or even if they were Ministers, although that's how he took it. 

Committee members did not appear to want to hear it. They interrupted. They expressed disbelief.  They insisted Diamond enter their frame of reference rather than understand Diamond’s.