Libya and the Reality of Foreign Policy

So there’s change ahoy in Libya (added, without doubt, by a hefty payload of bombs from certain Western powers). No doubt for some we are seeing the dawn of a brave new era for Libya as a murderous dictator slowly falls from power. Now, for all those celebrating this turn of events, I’m probably going to sound cynical, but I’m going to wait to see what happens next before I get too excited by Libya’s Brave New Dawn.

After all, we’ve seen similar events play out before. For example, there was a Middle Eastern country where an unpopular dictator who had enjoyed considerable support from foreign sources was usurped by a populist movement in his own country. But post revolution Iran is hardly renowned the world over as a beacon of freedom now, is it? Of course, there are no guarantees that Libya will go the same way, but you’ll have to excuse me if I wait to see whether it does or not before I start popping the metaphorical champagne corks.

And it is worth pausing for a moment to consider the chequered relationship this country has had with the Gaddafi regime. Sure, we’ve hated him when he’s been involved in the murder of a police officer or the bombing of innocents on an aircraft. But when it looked like he could be an ally in the spurious War on Terror, we were happy to jump into bed with him. We’re helping to depose him now in an apparently noble crusade of freedom for the people, but dig into our relationship with Libya even just below the surface of the current headlines and you’ll get a much less edifying picture.

Which is the reality of foreign policy. It involves ugly compromises with temporary partners who, under normal circumstances, we probably wouldn’t deal with. Witness, for example, America funding bin Laden in the Cold War against the Soviet Union before he went to war with them. Or the allies joining the totalitarian regime that was the Soviet Union in World War Two in order to defeat the mutual enemy of Nazi Germany. Foreign policy is messy and involves difficult choices. Which is why anyone telling you about an ethical foreign policy is either terminally naïve or lying to your face. The grim reality of foreign policy is the realisation that Morton’s Fork and that the law of unintended consequences are your constant companion. And there are no guarantees that both concepts won't be rearing their ugly heads as Gaddafi apparently falls from power in Libya.

On the Death of Osama bin Laden

So, Osama bin Laden is dead. Make no mistake about it, I don't mourn the passing of that vile, murderous fundamentalist. But equally, I don't see that there's too much to get over-excited about. And I certainly don't think that this news will will make the world safer. Let's look at why:

1. Al Qaeda has never been, and almost certainly never will be, an army in the conventional sense. Consequently, the death of its supposed leader will make little difference to what its myriad offshoots are doing at the moment. The most powerful illustration of how al Qaeda works I've come across is that it is like a venture capitalist firm; it offers funds to those operations it thinks will be most likely to succeed. Just as the demise of a leader of a venture capitalist firm doesn't end capitalist investment, so the death of the nominal leader of al Qaeda won't stop Islamic fundamentalist terrorism.

2. Besides, was bin Laden really in control of al Qaeda when he died? I find it hard to believe that he was. Being the world's most wanted man is probably a full-time occupation, and it would make controlling and communicating with a disparate and loose network of people next to impossible. So bin Laden was little more than the figurehead of al Qaeda, and a poster boy for Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. Killing him won't have stopped the fundamentalist terrorists already out there.

3. What it has done, though, is make him into a martyr. Much of what constitutes Islamic fundamentalist is a reactionary response to supposed American imperialism - cultural and otherwise. And what could be a better symbol of US imperialism that the gunning down of bin Laden? Of course, I know that the US wants to send a particular message to Islamic fundamentalist (fuck with us and we'll kill you) but I rather think those fundamentalists will have got a different message from this murder (and I use that term deliberately). That message is "the war's hotting up, and we don't want to be seen to be losing". I've read that across the world security measures are being tightened and threat levels raised. I'm not surprised. If there's one think Islamic fundamentalist terrorists are good at, then it's revenge.

4. And let's be clear: this wasn't justice; this was revenge. Justice is where you take a suspect captive, put them through a fair trial and then - if found guilty - they are punished (with the death penalty, if your country happens to have that draconian punishment and deems state-sanctioned murder appropriate in this particular case). Therefore, bin Laden's death wasn't justice. It was a summary execution. It was murder. And by all means say he deserved it, but make sure you get your terms right. Not justice; this was revenge, pure and simple.

Osama bin Laden's dead. Good riddance. But only the terminally naive would think that this actually makes the world safer. bin Laden's death is simply another moment in the ongoing revenge spiral between the US and fundamentalist Islam. The fundamentalists aren't going to give up now bin Laden's dead. In fact, if anything, they will become more determined and more resolute. This murder will simply lead to other murders.

Body Scanner Abuse

As soon as I heard about the new airport body scanners, I knew someone would abuse the machines. But even I didn't think it would happen this quickly:

A security worker at London's Heathrow Airport has received a police warning and faces disciplinary action over claims he ogled a female colleague using a full-body scanner, officials said on Wednesday.

The 25-year-old worker made lewd comments after his colleague Jo Margetson, 29, mistakenly strayed into the scanner, which can see through clothes to produce an image of the body, the Sun newspaper reported.

So there we have it. Body scanners are being abused. Because technology may be tell whether someone is carrying a weapon, but human beings are going to be just as interested in a scan of someone's tits and genitals as they are in whether that person is carrying a bomb or not. Security technology will be consistently undermined by some of those people who use that technology.

*Link via the Moai.

Quote of the Day

At the very moment when it would like to give lessons in democracy to different traditions and cultures, the political culture of the West does not realize that it has entirely lost its canon.

Giorgio Agamben (1942- )

Profiling and the Impossible Dream of Absolute Security

One of the most startling things about the War on Terror is the number of supposed miracle cures for a phenomenon that dates back to biblical times. If we introduce full body scanners at airports or increase the amount of time that people can be held for without charge or if we invade another country then everyone will be safe. Of course, that is palpable nonsense, but it doesn’t stop people spouting this sort of crap.

Like in this Telegraph article, where we learn that everything will be ok if we allow profiling of air passengers. In fairness, the article stops just short of arguing for profiling based on an explicitly racial basis, although given the gushing praise heaped on stop and search procedures designed to halt knife crime you can sense that this is what is being alluded to throughout the article. No, what the author does explicitly call for is profiling and searching those who have behaved suspiciously. And what constitutes suspicious seems to be flying from Nigeria to Amsterdam, and then paying for a one-way ticket to the USA with cash.

Ignoring the fact that people might travel across the world paying in cash for any number of reasons, the big flaw in this logic is that it assumes that the terrorist threat is essentially static. It isn’t. Terrorists adopt different methods as the authorities learn how to fight them. If you’re going to stop and search those who pay for their tickets in cash, then the terrorist will pay for his tickets by credit card. If those with one-way tickets are profiled, and singled out for more rigorous searches, then the terrorist will buy a return ticket. After all, a return ticket offers two chances to down the aircraft.

And you can extrapolate from there. If you search young men who look like Muslims, then the next bomber will be a white man. Search all young men, then it will be a woman with a bomb. Skip the little old lady in the queue, then at some point she’ll be your bomber. Until you are in the position where a kid is turned into a living weapon, and you’ve got an aircraft downed by a child. Don’t believe me? Well, consider this. One of the reasons for the growth in female suicide bombers is because of the comparative ease of getting them through a checkpoint without the sort of searches their male counterparts are subjected to.

Guess what? Terrorists adapt.

As well as increasing the likelihood of catching the bomber who doesn’t fit “the profile”, random searches are fairer. And fairness is an important consideration. I resent it when I have to take my shoes off at an airport, but I understand it. Because either everyone does it or a random selection of people do it, it is ok. But I would be irate if I was selected to be searched based on the colour of my skin, or because of by beliefs. Profiling discriminates – by definition. And discrimination increases the likelihood of radicalisation. So profiling could increase the number of terrorists. A counter-productive move, if ever there was one.

The article talks about the “absence of reality” in those who oppose counter-terrorist methods like profiling. Let me talk about the “absence of reality” in those who believe that ideas like profiling will increase security. You could do what you like to try to stop the likes of the underpants bomber through any number of invasive security procedures, but guess what? That attack failed anyway. And even if you turn airports into a dystopian security nightmare, you’re still not going to stop four lads from the North getting onto a train, coming to London and killing 52 people. Your plans are fuck all use against the most devastating terrorist attack this country has faced.

So go away and try to create your hermetically sealed security bubble, and watch the terrorist find a way around it. Or instead you could invest time in trying to find ways to engage with those at risk of being radicalised. You won’t stop terrorism, but you might help to minimize its recurrence without devastating civil liberties in pursuit of the impossible dream of absolute security.

Terror Threat Levels

OMG! OMG! The terrorist threat level has been raised! Stock up on the canned goods, and avoid contact with other human beings.

Alan Johnson:

"We still face a real and serious threat to the UK from international terrorism, so I would urge the public to remain vigilant and carry on reporting suspicious events to the appropriate authorities and to support the police and security services in their continuing efforts to discover, track and disrupt terrorist activity."

The facts:

The home secretary stressed there was no intelligence to suggest a terrorist attack was imminent.

Right, so the terrorist threat level has gone up despite there being no intelligence to suggest that it should go up. I can't be alone in seeing the absolute insanity in that. But the facts don't really matter, do they? Because the headline is "UK terrorist threat level raised to 'severe'", not "UK terrorist threat level raised to 'severe' for no reason whatsoever". And the raising of the threat level is intentional, but its intentions have very little to do with protecting us against terrorism. No, this sort of thing is about creating and maintaining a certain level of panic with society, that can then be used to suppress civil liberties, and to justify attacks on the way minorities live in this country. If you want proof that it isn't about fighting terrorism then just remember - there is no evidence to suggest a terrorist attack is imminent.

"It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party." Well, Orwell was right - to some extent. In that the ruling elite will always try to shape reality in order to meet their own ends. But it only becomes impossible to see reality except through the prism of the ruling elite if you let it, and if you don't challenge what they say. So the next time you hear that the terrorist threat level has been altered (which, lest we forget, it went down just before the London bombings of 2005) ask why that has happened, and whether there is any evidence that the situation has actually changed. I can almost guarantee there won't be.

Nu Labour: Making You Safe With Child Porn

This cracks me up:

Campaigners have claimed the images taken by the controversial machines could breach legislation making it illegal to create indecent images of children, as well as threatening the privacy of other passengers.

Excellent stuff, albeit pretty bloody obvious. Let's start with the privacy issue:

Simon Davies, of human rights campaign group Privacy International, said he also feared that scans of celebrities or of people with unusual body profiles could prove an "irresistible pull" for some employees, leading to their potential publication on the internet.

There's nothing potential about the publication of such images; if these machines go ahead, this will happen. Just think about it. The first time a funny image or body shape goes through, the captured image will be e-mailed to a friend. It might be a man with a button mushroom penis, or a woman with more folds of fat than an opulent pig. And once that first e-mail is sent, it becomes a done thing. After that, more e-mails will be sent, and the whole thing will become normalised. And then, at some point, the images will be sent from one organisation to another, from one recipient to another, and the captured image will go viral.

So what if someone gets embarrassed? I can hear the shrill, "makemesafeatallcosts" brigade asking that question. After all, these machines are going to save lives. Except there is no guarantee that they actually will save lives. And just imagine if it was you - your body image - that went viral. How would you feel if you were exposed to international ridicule because you happened to want to get onto a plane in this increasingly insane, Orwellian country?

Moving on to the child porn accusation:

Terri Dowty, of civil rights group Action On Rights For Children, told The Guardian the scanners could breach the Protection of Children Act 1978, under which it is illegal to create an indecent image or a "pseudo-image" of a child.

I don't know about the technicalities of the law around this, but it does seem logical that taking thousands of pictures of children effectively in the nude might become a problem at some point. Given the government's record with sensitive information, something will leak, sooner or later. And the outcry if it happens to be nude pictures of children will be absolutely staggering.

But it is the irony here that really startles and amuses me. In their haste to make us safe from a largely ersatz, manufactured threat, the government may be proposing the production of what could be considered child porn on a massive scale. Which is perhaps the perfect summation of the idiotic "War On Terror" and the startling inability of this Labour government to get anything right.

You're safer with strip searches

Oh, what fresh hell is this?

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has given the go-ahead for full body scanners to be introduced at Britain's airports.

Presumably this is to make us feel safer. Except, you know, it probably won't actually make us safer:

Experts have questioned the scanners' effectiveness at detecting the type of bomb allegedly used on Christmas Day in an attempted plane attack over Detroit.

Plus, the rollout of these machines - if they are going to make such a valuable contribution to aviation security - does beg the question why didn't it happen earlier?

The government's move has been largely welcomed by the Liberal Democrats.

But home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne did say the scanners could have been rolled out sooner as they had been kept in storage since being trialled.

Right. So we have machines - that do an effective strip search of passengers, lest we forget - that won't combat the type of bomb that failed to blow up an aircraft recently being rolled out after being in storage for God knows how long. You'll have to forgive me, but I suspect that this has fuck all to do with making air travel safer. This looks and feels like the sort of knee-jerk reaction from a panicked, beleaguered government desperate to avoid the charge of being soft on security. The outcome of this move won't be increased security, but rather increased costs and increased delays.

Ooo, and it also shows that even failed terrorist attacks can provoke panicked reactions from governments. Which is exactly the sort of message we want to send out...

The Long War in Afghanistan?

With the 100th British soldier dying in Afghanistan, it is probably worth asking the fundamental question about our presence in that conflict. It has nothing to do with the Labour rhetoric of endlessly repeating the idea that this war is vital to UK security, or the current Tory tactic of demanding more international support. Immediate questions of rhetoric and logistics are irrelevant in the long-term. The question we have to ask ourselves is whether we have the stomach to cope with the war in Afghanistan in the long term; whether we are willing to stay there for another ten to twenty years; and whether we are willing to see the death count double (if not treble or quadruple) in pursuit of some sort of stability in that country.

Because in order to put down the insurgency in Afghanistan, we will probably need to be there until at least 2020. If not longer. We will need to build up a sense of security in that country (no mean feat for any occupying force, even a heavily armed one, since any security the occupying force can offer ceases on the day that force leaves), and then help it build up some sort of society where the best career option isn't been an insurgent. That cannot happen overnight. In reality, it will take years. And the insurgents will continue to fight, and to kill. The IEDS will keep going off. The body bags will keep coming home. And the mistakes that claim innocent Afghan lives will continue to be made. It is a bleak prognosis, but is also a realistic one. The only reason why the Taliban managed to gain such a strong foothold in that country is because they were able to offer some form of security. We need to be able to offer the same but this is far more difficult for us, since on the day we leave, the Taliban will still be there. As things stand, a pragmatic, long-term view for any Afghan would be to back the Taliban - and that is what we need to combat.

It is well within the bounds of possibility that a successful counter-insurgency campaign in Afghanistan will not just last longer that the current Labour government, but also the incoming Tory one. It would be a long-term campaign, that would require the support of the British people. Therefore, the key question that the government needs to ask the people of this country is whether they are willing to commit to this conflict for years to come, or whether they wish to write off the lives lost so far, and run away from that conflict. It is not an easy choice to make - but at this stage, the British people need to know what the choice actually is. Against the empty futility of the meaningless platitudes spouted by politicians of all parties, it would be great to get a feeling for the reality of the situation facing us in Afghanistan actually is.

Gordon Brown and The War On Terror

Gordon Brown:

"We've got to ask ourselves why, eight years after September the 11th, nobody has been able to spot or detain or get close to Osama bin Laden, nobody's been able to get close to Zawahiri, the number two in al-Qaeda."

Yes, we should ask the question. And then note the very obvious answer. Which is that both Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri aren't going to be advertising their presence. They won't be in the phone book. They are not going to have an e-mail account. They are terrorists on the run and they are on the run in an area of the world that is pretty close to being in a state of anarchy. Finding bin Laden and the other members of the al-Qaeda is never going to be easy. For some reason - like the fact that they are amongst the most wanted people in the world - bin Laden and al-Zawahiri aren't going to make it easy.

And I also fail to see why finding al-Zawahiri and bin Laden is supposed to make that much difference to the so-called War on Terror. Al-Qaeda is not structured like a traditional terrorist group. If you decapitate al-Qaeda, then you aren't going to end the threat from Islamic terrorism. It just isn't the way al Qaeda or the extremes of Islam work.

But of course bellicose words are always tempting for a beleaguered Prime Minister, particularly when said bellicose words are a call for someone else to do something. However, we shouldn't be fooled by Brown's crude tactic for one moment. His demand directed at Pakistan is nothing more than a distraction tactic. He is using the out-of-date rhetoric of the War on Terror - a spurious campaign against a concept rather than a meaningful war against a tangible enemy. Pakistan is fighting a terrorist foe that increasingly resembles an insurgency in parts of its domain. The very last thing they need is the endless prattle of a discredited British Prime Minister trying to claim some sort of authority in his final months in power.

The Terrible, Deadly Cynicism of Nu Labour

That Nu Labour has been one of the most sickeningly amoral and calculating regimes in British history should come as a surprise to no-one. Even the quickest of glances over the behaviour of our government over the past 12 years presents a positive plethora of cynical politicking and absolute cowardice as our government has prioritised popularity over anything and everything else. Yet there is no better example of this shallow yet cynical calculations than the rush towards war with the invasion of Iraq.

Now, I understand the case for the Iraq War. I don't agree with it, but I understand it. I understand the notion of preemptively disarming a rogue state with nuclear ambitions, and I understand the rhetoric about spreading democracy across the globe. Now, Labour paid lip service to both of these ideas in its rhetoric as it made the case for taking on Iraq, but it is clear that the real reasons behind Britain joining the Coalition of the Willing had little to do with these lofty yet intrinsically flawed ambitions. No, the rush to war had rather more pragmatic reasons:

The political calculation was therefore straightforward. As far as Blair was concerned, if he had opposed the war he would have destroyed the New Labour coalition and given up vital ground to the Conservatives. Rupert Murdoch's newspapers were a key factor in this respect. Murdoch was a passionate supporter of Bush's foreign policy. Blair knew Murdoch would have switched his newspapers' support to the Conservatives if he had sided with the loathed Chirac and Shroeder in opposition to the war. In its 2005 election endorsement for Labour The Sun backed Blair for a single reason – his support for Bush in Iraq.

So there we have it. Britain committed to invading Iraq - and the deaths of British and Iraqi people - not because it wanted to spread freedom or protect the UK, but because the Prime Minister wanted to keep The Scum onside and wanted to get one over on IDS. The cynicism is breathtaking, and the implications clear. Britain's role in the Iraq War was purely in the interests of the ruling Nu Labour elite. I hope this is remembered when the votes are cast in the next election and when the history books are written. We went to war for reasons that make Suez look like a unassailable diplomatic triumph. Bemoaning the cheap cynicism of this rancid excuse for a government is nothing new; but it is worth repeating since their complete lack of morality must not be forgotten.

Obama on Afghanistan

Barack Obama has been talking about Afghanistan and pontificating on "finishing the job". Now, sometimes I wonder why that particular part of the "War on Terror" is still ongoing. Fortunately Barack is there to remind us. Yes, it is about whupping the butts of al-Qaeda:

"We are going to dismantle and degrade their capabilities and ultimately dismantle and destroy their networks"

Funny, but that sounds to be a lot like the rhetoric of one George W Bush. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. But in fairness, I'm fine with the idea of effectively destroying al-Qaeda. And I am A-Ok with the idea out of getting the hell out of Afghanistan. The key question is how. And I wait with bated breath for someone in power to come up with some sort convincing plan. Rather than spouting tired rhetoric about fighting al-Qaeda...

Gordon Brown, Letter Writing, and Afghanistan

There can be few better examples of the inverted midas touch* of Gordon Brown than the furore about his letter to Jacqui Janes and then his ensuing phone apology. Of course, Gordon Brown's handwriting is appalling and very difficult to read, and his phone call reads like a muted argument involving a man who can't help himself but to try to make himself look correct, even if it means arguing with a recently bereaved mother who he has already managed to piss off massively. Now, this whole exchange has given Brown some unlikely (and, no doubt, extremely temporary) allies and I have no doubt that Jacqui Janes' appalling tragedy has been shamelessly milked by The Scum - a paper that, lest we forget, was a bellicose supporter of both the Iraq and Afghan invasions and that did much to ensure both the election and repeated re-election of Nu Labour. But I can't help but think that once again we have a classic mountain being constructed from a molehill - and one that obscures what should be debated right here, right now.

The issue isn't Gordon Brown's handwriting, or his insensitivity on the phone. That is nothing more than cheap, point scoring politics. Fun, to be sure, but nothing more than that. And the issue isn't about whether or not we should have gone into Afghanistan in the first place - that's one for military and political historians now. The fact is we are there, and people are dying. So there are two, crucial issues - one tactical, one strategic. And neither is about this unfortunate letter sent out by Gordo.

On a tactical level, there needs to be an open and honest debate between the government and those leading the armed forces on what needs to be done to make sure that the troops have the best chance possible of surviving in what is proving to be one of the most hostile battlefields Britain has encountered in decades. Specifically, what equipment is necessary. Put simply, when joining the army people should expect at some point to have to fight. They shouldn't expect to die because their "grateful" government has failed to provide the equipment needed for the army to fight the very war the government sent it in to. There has been lots of talk recently about spending cuts, with many lamenting a drop in spending - yet it appears that perhaps the one area where more spending might be appropriate is on those fighting a brutal counter-insurgency in Afghanistan.

The alternative to increasing spending on the Armed Forces in order to maximise their chances of survival is, of course, to get the fuck out of Afghanistan. But even if we choose to stay, then we need to come up with something a little more credible than the present plan. Which seems to be sitting tight and hoping for the best. No-one is saying that it will be easy - after all, Afghanistan is a disparate collection of tribes that has track record of repelling any British incursions. Yet there needs to be some sort of strategy to indicate just how the ongoing deterioration of the situation in Afghanistan can be turned into a situation where if we cannot claim something approaching victory then at least we can point to some sort of stability in that country. At the moment, there appears to be nothing.

And once we have managed to sort out both the tactics and the strategy in Afghanistan, then we can focus on the blame game and giving Labour the kicking it so richly deserves for the Afghan disaster. But when we do, the focus should be on the failure to give troops vital equipment and a plan. Rather than Brown's letter-writing ability. Because whilst he may have blundered in his dealings with Jacqui Janes, at least he didn't stoop as low as Donald Rumsfeld and his special signature stamp...

*In that everything he touches turns to shite and becomes absolutely worthless.

Debate and Definitions

A few weeks ago, I asked the question "what to do with the railroad?" There doesn't appear to be a clear solution but, as DK notes, talk of privatistion and nationalisation hides the fact that the railways weren't transferred back to the private sector under Major:

And that's all I wanted to point out: that the railways are not privatised. But maybe, just maybe, we might look at whether proper privatisation could work.

But it would have to be proper privatisation—without the constant and crippling interference and condition-setting, occasional nationalisation (e.g. WWI) or commandeering (e.g. WWII) or the companies and network that the state has indulged in almost since the very inception of the rail industry.

Quite. The railways weren't privatised properly; it is disingenuous to refer to them as privately owned and privately operated. And it isn't just the missed classification of the railways. Across the board, words and phrases are being twisted in their meaning to allow the government to get away with murder. For example, we've heard a lot about the failure of free market capitalism since the recession began - something that hides the fact that we have a mixed economy in this country that is anything other than free. We are constantly told that the banking sector needs to be regulated - yet it already was massively regulated when it went tits up and strangled the rest of the economy. We hear about how the War On Terror is about increasing our security and bringing "freedom" and "democracy" to other parts of the world, even though it does anything other than achieve security, freedom or democracy.

This bastardisation of terminology may sound like a tedious point of semantics, but it really isn't. It allows the ruling elite to control the debate with our democracy through misusing simple words. Privatisation can be painted as a bad thing based on the failure of the railways; even though they haven't been privatised. The banking crises can be used as part of the argument for regulation - even though regulation did nothing to prevent the collapse of certain banks. And so on, and so on, and so on. Until the terrified and terrifying rictus grin on Gordon Brown's face sums up the "progressive" movement in this country, and the ever preening David Cameron apparently leads a "conservative" party offering nothing other than utterly empty concepts of "change".

It isn't even a question of arguing with our elected elite; it is more about telling them to shut the fuck up until they learn what very basic terms mean and use then use those terms correctly.