New York Times article: Thomas Friedman - D-Day

Having failed to gain world support for a war, the United States must win friends after it. Story here.

Trust the President.

This quote from Salon (via Tom Tomorrow) has been nagging at me:

At some point, you have to trust your president! You have to believe that he knows something we don't!

Similar sentiments were expressed in the afore-linked "We're Good People" article, and by various warbloggers in the past. And to be honest, it scares me.

Quite apart from the sanity of trusting in the knowledge of a guy who is so clearly ignorant of the world outside of (a wealthy subsection of) the USA, it's also a dangerous meme to have loose in a democracy. Why? Because it's really a demand to have faith. Asking why we should trust our political leaders or believe in their secret knowledge will run you up against this straight away - we just should, they just do, there is no reason beyond the initial premise that the leader is right, therefore they must have a reason. Otherwise, if they're falliable, then where does that leave us?

(The answer to the above is left as an exercise to Americans, who will have to live with the consequences of their stupid president's stupid decisions for the next twenty or thirty years).

The idea that we should have faith in our politicians is literally laughable in any democracy outside America. But I've said before that their presidency is more of an elected monarchy anyway, and I guess this is just another example of it.

NZ Protests

There were pictures on Three News of NZ antiwar protests tonight. In Wellington, four thousand people marched, threw stuff into the US embassy, and had angry confrontations with a handful of pro-war protesters ("dickheads" about sums them up; it equally sums up those who chased one of them away and stole his sign). In Auckland, there were ten thousand.

Apparantly there were three arrests in Wellington. Hopefully it was the morons who attacked the pro-war protester. He may have been a dickhead, but even dickheads should be able to speak freely.

New Fisk

Minute after minute the missiles came, with devastating shrieks.

More protests

Anti-war protests are continuing worldwide, though at this stage there seems to be little point other than to vent anger at the US (and boy, is there a lot of it to vent). BBC has reports from Africa, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and from Britain, where it seems they are still causing some disruption. According to Salon, The "Arab street" has exploded; a report I read earlier today said that two people were shot in Yemen when a crowd tried to storm the US embassy there. They also have a report on yesterday's "Anarchy" in the streets of San Francisco.

No word yet on today's planned protests in Wellington and Auckland. Will they be larger or smaller than those of a few weeks ago?

As expected, the Iraqis are happy to be liberated. But will the stories now run the whole sorry gamut predicted by Fisk?

We're good people

Via ElectroLite, a link to 'We're Good People': A Play In One Act, which neatly pinpoints the reason why Americans seem to be on a different planet from everyone else: their belief in their own exceptionalism. Haven't they heard the line about the road to hell?

This is just nuts - a dry cleaning business in Modesto, California has been the victim of what looks like an arson attack. Other shops in the chain were shot or scrawled with grafitti - what does this have to do with anything you might ask? The business is called the "French Cleaners", has an eiffel tower logo and it is run by a bloke called Pierre. One could well ask what the world (or more specifically America) is coming to when there are hate crimes against the French (as It turns out the guy was actually Lebanese). Story here.

Telling it like it is

This is good for a laugh - a letter to President Bush from Michael Moore- the guy who made Bowling for Columbine.

Al-Qaeda and Taleban just won't give up

US launches fresh Afghan offensive to bolster Karzai

New Fisk- from Baghdad

Bubbles of fire tore into the sky above Baghdad

Iraq isn't the only place where they're fighting for oil right now.

Massive airlift as dozens die in Nigeria fighting

Protests

Some news on the antiwar protests. The Auckland and Wellington ones were on the news last night, and looked peaceful enough. But it looks like things have gone rather differently in other parts of the world. BBC is reporting over a thousand arrests in San Francisco, and Scoop is carrying photos of a protest in Geneva where schoolchildren were teargassed and reportedly one was shot and killed. There's not much about how things are going in England, but from the article in the Guardian and the report on the front page of IndyMedia UK, protests have resulted in widespread disruption.

There's also a series of worldwide protests scheduled for saturday. I wonder how they'll go?

The Thin Line Between Entertainment and War

After all my anti war rhetoric - now that the war has finally started. I find myself lost for words. What can you really say? America, Australia and Britain - culturally speaking, the three countries that are closest too us - are waging war as the aggressor. They are invading a sovereign nation - just as Germany did in 1939 and Iraq did in 1990. Now, clearly if they get rid of Saddam - Iraq and the whole region will be a much nicer place - but that isn't the point. There is a right way to go about things - and ignoring world opinon, destroying 50 years of American foreign policy, destroying the UN as an effective body and killing god knows how many innocent civilians is not it.

I meant to write about this earlier but, I went to the Peace protest on Saturday. About 4,000 of us stood in Cathedral Square and listened to speeches from the likes of the Green MPs Rod Donald and Keith Locke. I was particularly impressed by the speech from Christchurch's Anglican Bishop- I dump on Christianity a lot but in pointing out the immorality of this war he was really doing the job that the church is supposed to do - I was impressed by that. Standing there I really felt that I was part of something and although the usual suspects were in attendence - those members of the clueless hard left forlornly holding their copies of the militant and the socialist worker - these protests are really mainstream. Peace protests are no longer attended solely by people with bad hair and body odour (although there were plenty of them too).

Another thing that impressed me - its impossible to really talk sensibly about the Middle East without mentioning the conflict between the Israelis and Paletinians. Every time these issues were raised, every time Israel was urged to heed the UN security council resolutions the speaker was applauded - actually applauded much more than over the comments about Iraq. This shows that despite America's best attempts to bullshit everyone, NZers have a good handle on the situation.

According to the Peace Action NetworkIt looks like the next protest rally in Christchurch will be on Sunday March 30th but tomorrow there will be a vigil by the chalice in the square from 12-30 until the chiming of the clock at 1pm.

Sources

I've been poking around looking for sites covering the war, and the two best ones I've found so far are the BBC's reporter's log and the Agonist. The latter is just a guy with a TV, a blog, and 22 or so windows open on his desktop. Still, he seems to have the best info so far.

I've been looking for stuff on last night's anti-war demos and direct actions in the UK, but haven't found anything juicy yet.

New Fisk!

Even as we shop for canned food and painkillers, it is difficult to grasp the reality of what is coming. Obviously, this one is now a bit out-of-date.

Blogging from Baghdad

If you want some news from someone purportedly in Baghdad, try Where is Raed? . Their version of this afternoon:

there is still nothing happening im baghdad we can only hear distant expolsions and there still is no all clear siren. someone in the BBC said that the state radio has been overtaken by US broadcast, that didn't happen the 3 state broadcasters still operate.
:: salam 6:40 AM [+] ::

air raid sirens in baghdad but the only sounds you can here are the anti-aircraft machine guns. will go now.
:: salam 5:46 AM [+] ::

I have no idea how long their net connection will last, or whether they're real at all (rather than a propaganda site). Remember, this is the Net of a Million Lies; take everything with a pinch of salt.

Missed it!

Great - I sit glued to my BBC feed for the last few hours like a good little twitching information junkie, then when I pop out for five minutes to get icecream, the war starts. Bush attacked at dawn, and everyone is surprised. He'll apparantly be speaking in 10 minutes, which will probably be the usual "My fellow Americans... as I speak to you American forces have begun the disarmament of Iraq... God bless America" crap.

But what I really want to know is what the BBC is going to do about those much-vaunted "E-bombs". These are supposed to use EMP to knock out electronics - like communications systems, or satellite uplinks. How will they get the news out with all their cameras dead? (or is that the point)

Consequences

Patrick Nielsen Hayden (the SF editor) links to an excellent story in Slate on the long-term consequences of this war, which contrasts our dubious immediate fears (terrorists will attack right this minute) with some more sensible long-term ones (teenagers will be inspired to terrorism by America's actions, and attack in 10 or 20 years time, as al-Qaeda was partly motivated by the first Gulf War).

Seen on an Israeli news site while trawling for info: ads promoting NZ as a safe haven.

New Fisk

Hope fades as the citizens of Baghdad begin to foresee the appalling fate awaiting them

The Final Countdown

So here I am in my office, waiting as the final hours tick away before the Americans unleash hell on Iraq. Being on a LAN is good, because I can stream video from the BBC straight to my desktop. Unfortunately, everyone else in the world is doing the same, and the result is pretty disjointed and jumpy. And I expect it'll only get worse as 1pm approaches. Will the internet be the first casualty of Bush's war?

I'm still convinced that what America intends to do is both immoral and a mistake, but at this stage all I can do is hope for the best - that they don't kill too many people, and that they actually try and make a proper job of rebuilding Iraq, rather than just installing a patsy and walking away like they've done with Afghanistan. At the same time, I also hope that they pay for what they're doing - that Saddam blows his wells, or contaminates them with radioactives so that Cheney doesn't get his oil, that things go wrong and the US takes heavy casualties, even that Saddam uses whatever WMDs he may have because he's backed into a corner and has nothing to lose. That's mostly pure spite talking, but also fear that the Americans will get a taste for this sort of hegemonic exercise, and a recognition that the only thing that might turn them from that path is lots of dead Americans.

That's an unpleasant thought, and its kindof depressing that Bush can make me hope for Americans in body bags...

SARS Watch

The three people admitted to Middlemore hospital in Auckland have turned out to be another false alarm. Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation has been posting daily updates tracking the disease. Today's news: it's probably not flu, and not as infectious as they first thought. Phew.

US names 'coalition of the willing'

The US has named 30 countries which are prepared to be publicly associated with their action against Iraq. Of course, only two of them (Australia and the UK) are contributing troops, but others are providing bases, flyover rights, or just saying "yeah we're on the team" in the hope of a future payoff.

The list itself reads like a Who's Who of who's unimportant. Several are prospective NATO members, who fear a US veto of their membership (instead, they'll now be fearing a combined French-German veto of their entry into the EU). Notably absent are traditional US allies like Canada, Norway, Belgium, France and Germany - countries who share a great many of America's values (and certainly a lot more than, say, Uzbekistan), and who you'd expect to support action that was in accordance with those values. Their absence should mean something to the US, but it doesn't seem to.

As a tie-in, lots of people in the left blogo-hemisphere have been commenting on this week's cover story in Newsweek: The arrogant empire: why America scares the world. There's a lot of good stuff in this article, but the conclusion is particularly relevant to the above:

But the larger lesson [from the Turkish vote] is surely that in an increasingly democratic world American power must be seen as legitimate not only by other governments but by their people. Does America really want a world in which it gets its way in the face of constant public anger only by twisting arms, offering bribes and allying with dictators?

There are many specific ways for the United States to rebuild its relations with the world. [...] above all, it must make the world comfortable with its power by leading through consensus. America’s special role in the world—its ability to buck history—is based not simply on its great strength, but on a global faith that this power is legitimate.

In 1991, the world had faith in the legitimacy of American leadership; Bush Sr's coalition to free Kuwait enjoyed near universal approval, and over 40 countries contributed militarily to it while others picked up the bulk of the bill. Now, Bush Jr seems to be doing everything he possibly can to destroy that faith, and the result is that noone is willing to help. The sad thing is that Americans will probably just dismiss this as another example of foreign ingratitude (similar to our abject failure to offer them blow jobs for "saving us" from nuclear annihilation during the Cuban Missile Crisis), rather than seeing it as a very real problem for the future.

SARS Watch

People are getting jumpy. Suspected cases are now being reported in Australia, the US and Canada. And tonight's One Late Edition had some footage of Ministry of Health officials in blue biohazard suits crawling all over a plane at Wellington airport, trying to decide what to do with two passangers displaying symptoms (turned out that it was probably jet-lag). Are we all nervous yet?

English backs the US

After calling for the SAS to be withdrawn from Afghanistan, Bill English has changed tack and now says that we should back our traditional allies. They're attacking Iraq, and so we should go along for the ride. For some reason, this makes me think back to primary school, when teachers would say things like "if they jumped off a cliff, would you do it too?"

Quite apart from the moral issue, National's position goes against the grain of the our entire foreign policy for the last two decades. Post WWII, the central theme of our foreign policy has been support for multilateral institutions and international law. We've been strong supporters of the UN, and more recently of GATT and the WTO, because we think that as a small country we need a strong framework of international laws and agreements to protect our interests. Likewise, we've been strong advocates of collective security, both through arrangements with our traditional allies (ANZUS; the Five Power Defence Arrangement) and through contributing to UN peacekeeping. While we traditionally toed the line set by the US, for the past twenty years we've been pursuing a more independent (but still very much multilateral and internationalist) foreign policy, because those traditional allies told us they wouldn't play with us anymore if we didn't accept their nuclear ships and weapons.

Given this historical multilateralist stance, why the hell would we want to throw our lot in with the Axis of Poodle? Collective security? But where is the threat? The only people who think Saddam is a danger to anyone other than his own people are Bush and his flunkies; his neighbours aren't concerned, so why should we be? Freeing the oppressed Iraqi people? A worthy goal, but isn't there a better way to do it? Do we have to bomb the Iraqi people in order to save them, or destroy the UN in order to save it?

Really, the only reason I can see for Bill English coming out in support of the US is that he's afraid that if he doesn't, Gerry Brownlee will. And that's hardly a good reason for ignoring our long-term interests and goals.

(With fond memories of Mr Ash and 5th-form history class)

New Fisk

In vain, I looked for signs of the storm to come. Baghdad is a city sleepwalking to war.

What to do when it starts

In Britain, anti-war protesters are planning walk-outs; in the US they're going for civil disobediance and trying to shut down city centers. Since our government is actually listening to its people, and isn't involved, none of that really seems appropriate - instead, there are plans for some sort of vigil / protest on the day the war starts. In Christchurch, people are meeting at 5:30 pm in Cathedral Square; in Wellington at 5:00 pm at the Cenotaph. It won't change a damn thing, but it might make you feel better.

Bush's speech

Pretty much what was expected - call Saddam an evil dictator who "hates America", call the UN a bunch of spineless wimps, assert America's sovereignty, and give Saddam and co 48 hours to leave Iraq or they'll level the place. Interesting bits:

• He warned Iraqi troops "do not destroy oil wells". I'm sure this will really help convince the Arab world that this isn't just a naked resource grab.
• He said that Saddam or al-Qaeda might respond to an American attack with terrorist action - and that this is why they have to attack him. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Note the "might" there, BTW - I've seen nothing from the Iraqis suggesting any such plan, and the possibility seems to exist solely in Bush's head. That Terry Jones article about killing his neighbours seems appropriate again...

The American public is now expected to do their herd thing and Unite Behind the President...

A dreadful silence

The web is quiet this morning. It looks like everyone is waiting to see what Bush will say in his 1pm address. I'll try and watch it upstairs, and probably rant about it later.

But then again, what's the point?

Weirdness continues

We've just had our first ever hit from Google. The search terms? moustache laws in iraq.

SARS Watch

The BBC has reported the first suspected case in the UK. Meanwhile, when I woke up this morning, some appalling breakfast radio station was promising hints on how to make your home safe from "biological warfare". Anyone thinking of taking their advice seriously may want to read this story first.

On a lighter note...

According to the BBC, The 19th annual World Championship Pooh-sticks race has taken place in Oxfordshire. They have results and everything. And the Aussies won the teams competition.

I wonder if Disney will sue them for undermining their movie IP?

Found while reading NZpundit: a quiz to compute your balance of bodily humours:

Which Humor Troubles the Disposition of YOUR Body?

I'm not sure that the above is an accurate description of me, but it might apply to some of my roleplaying characters :).

(Those who want to venture onto NZPundit are advised to hold their nose - he reminds me of that newsgroup troll Redbaiter. And for some reason he opens links in a subframe, keeping his URL at the top, rather than giving them the whole or a new window.)

Waiting for the miracle...

The Dominion-Post's headline this morning is that only a miracle can prevent war. So I guess those of you of a religious bent should pray that god will finally strike down Bush and half his cabinet with lightning, Cthulhu will rend them with tentacles, or that some looney will gun them all down or something.

Meanwhile, the NZ Police are apparantly receiving riot training to prepare them for "civil unrest, targeted protests, riots and terrorist acts". Yeah, way to go guys - at a time when dissent is actually important, you get ready to supress it. Fantastic.

And in the really scary box, I've been following reports from the British media about an outbreak of a highly infectious, mystery virus which is spreading from Hong Kong and Singapore. So far its only killed 150 people, but according to WHO it could get a lot worse:

People are not responding to antibiotics or antivirals. It's a highly contagious disease and it's moving around by jet. It's bad.

Having read about the 1918 Influenza pandemic this is indeed bad. Unless they get a grip on it, it could easily spiral out of control and become the next global pandemic.

Hmmm... maybe that's our miracle right there.

New Fisk!

The war of misinformation has begun. He's more on form this time, especially in the "weasel words to watch for" section.

Some interesting articles from Common Dreams

Andrew Greeley: War is not the Smart Option
Molly Ivins: Ticking everyone off
Joe Conason: Iraq's Nuke Threat Little More Than Myth

America plays hardball

"With a showdown looming at the UN Security Council, U.S. officials are warning darkly of consequences for those countries that oppose the world's sole remaining superpower."

Story here

US mining firm pays Papuan army

Native unrest giving you trouble? Need to keep those pesky darkies and spear chuckers away from your mining operation? Why not rent an army? Story here.

Polluter pays catches on in Britain

"Britain took the first step on the road to taxing air travel for its contribution to global warming yesterday when the Treasury published a document discussing the idea.

Although such a tax, which would mean a big rise in ticket prices and would hit low-cost airlines severely, is a long way off, the Government's decision to begin talking about it is significant" (story here).

This is something that is an obvious and long overdue solution. As an example - according to this site a return trip from Christchurch to Sydney emits 0.53 tonnes of carbon dioxide - thats about as much carbon as a single oak tree would take up over the first 100 years of its life....if I'm reading this data correctly, so it is not an insignificant amount.

New Fisk!

The forgotten power of the General Assembly.

Washington's other little lap dog

This week Australian Prime Minister John Howard gave a speech outlining his reasons for supporting a war with Iraq and declaring his intention to fight even without UN approval. The man's willingness to toady up to America in the hope of getting a free trade deal, and to do his best to make Australia a target for terrorists is simply astonishing.

Today the lap dog barked. Howard joined his British and American allies in launching a stinging attack on the French accusing them of being "international spoilers destroying the last hopes for peaceful disarmament of Iraq and scoring cheap shots off the US." This seems a little bit obvious but if Howard paid a bit more attention to what his masters in Washington are saying he may notice that they have absolutely no desire to disarm Iraq peacefully...zip...zero...zilch. They want war and they want it now.

They want war so much that they are prepared to launch pre-emptitive strikes against Iraq. They think that Saddam might do them first once he knows that a strike by America is iminent.

According to this ABC news report Saddam has moved artillery units that could potentially fire shells filled with poison gas close to the border with Kuwait and the 135,000 American troops stationed there. Inaddition, American intelligence thinks that Iraq has scud launchers hidden in the Western Desert able to strike Israel and they are also worried that many of Iraq's oil wells have been wired with explosive able to be triggered from a central command. There are a lot of "coulds", "maybes" and "probablys" in all this. ABC quoted unidentified officials (naturally) as saying that American pre-emptitive strikes "may" start a war...may? that makes it sound like it is a completely unintentional accident...there's no "may" about it. Pre-emptitive strikes "will" start a war and it "will" make America the aggressor...no weasel words blithely quoted by the tame American media will change that.

That said, does America now have legitimate reasons for going to war? Can they go to war on the basis that there "may" be scuds hidden out there "possibly" endangering Israel (as opposed to endangering America)? Well no.They haven't actually said anything like "we've found hidden scuds in the Western Desert which are targetted at Israel"...they just suspect they are there.

Can they go to war because Iraq might want to blow up its own (as opposed to any other country's) oil? I don't think so

What about the threat to the troops in Kuwait? They don't actually have any proof that Saddam still has poison gas...and we don't even know if the artillery pieces are even in range to hit the American troops...they are very vague on that point. Even if they are in range - I don't think the deliberate deployment of your own troops to a place where they are in danger is a legitimate reason to go to war. This is basically an attempt by America to avoid being thought of as the aggressor in this conflict...sorry guys its just not going to work.

In any case all of this implies that the two states aren't already at war...which is nonsense. America and Britain have been bombing Iraq for years and just yesterday America sent B1 bombers to take out an Iraqi radar site (story here). Getting back to John Howard. Australians have been given a wonderful insight into just how much of a slimy toad Howard is. Cast your mind back to August 2001 and Howard's treatment of the victims of Saddam Hussein and of the former Taleban regime in Afghanistan in the sea off Christmas Island...cast your mind back to how Howard used these poor people as electoral cannon fodder. unfortunately for Howard, the story refuses to lie down and die. Hopefully in the future, under another Government, the people responsible for this will be called to account for their actions.

I think the flag burning prosecution also raises fundamental questions about why we have laws. Laws should really be restricted to

1. Protecting people's life and wellbeing.
2. Protecting people's property.
3. Protecting people who through their age or whatever other reason don't have the ability to make informed decisions for themselves.
4. Protecting the poor and disadvantaged from exploitation.

When it comes down to it, this man is going to be tried for a crime that has no victim...lots of people may be offended by his gesture but no one is actually being hurt in any way. On the other hand, we all lose if we tolerate this attack on freedom of expression. Even more worrying is the fact that the police tried to get a court order preventing the man from associating with one of his fellow protesters...what exactly were they trying to do here? I am happy to be offended occasionally if that is the trade off for living in a free country. This law has to be scrapped...it is the thin end of the jackboot.

Lese majeste: An offence against the "dignity of the sovereign". Like painting a moustache on their statue, calling them a poopy-head, or criticising their performance as a ruler. Strangely, it was the last one which tended to be the most vigorously prosecuted.

Citizens of modern liberal democracies find the idea of their rulers having some special dignity which renders them immune from criticism to be laughable. We no longer believe that our politicians are somehow better than us and automatically deserving of respect (the obvious exception being the Americans, but their Presidency was designed from the outset to be a sort of elected monarchy, so its hardly surprising). And so over the years, the "dignity of the sovereign" has been transferred to the State, and thence to the flag.

However, one of the underlying axioms of those democracies is that nothing is sacred. Everything is up for grabs, to be questioned, criticised, and (if necessary) burned in effigy. So why the hell, after all these years, are we still protecting the "honour" of the flag? Doesn't it seem too much like protecting the "dignity" of Helen Clark from people who would deface her official portraits?

Flag-burning and freedom of expression

A man who burned the New Zealand flag at an anti-Howard protest last week has been charged with dishonouring the flag under the Flags, Emblems, and Names Protection Act 1981.

Now, I know that the NZ flag Means Something to some people (usually war veterans and rabidly anti-immigrant nationalist wankers), and that burning one in public upsets them. And I'd argue that that's precisely why we shouldn't have stupid laws banning it. Freedom of expression is about upsetting people - about goring their sacred cows, questioning their most basic assumptions, and burning their idols in public. That's what a "robust debate" in society means.

Regardless of that, flag-burning is against the law here, and this guy could be facing a fine of up to $5000 for doing it. I'd urge him to mount a vigorous defence on the grounds of freedom of expression, in the hope of getting the law struck down for violating the principles of the Bill of Rights Act; I'd urge the judge to discharge without conviction rather than enforce a law which violates such a fundamental principle of human rights; and I'd urge any jury involved to do likewise. I'd also urge our politicians to repeal this atrocity ASAP. No modern liberal democracy should have laws which are frankly a throwback to eighteenth century ideas of lese majeste.

Oh, and while we're looking at this story, this comment takes the cake for disingenuous bullshit:

Wellington area controller Inspector Marty Grenfell said the use of fire in crowded situations was dangerous.

Obviously. That's why you're arresting people for "dishonouring the flag" rather than "playing silly buggers with matches".

New Fisk

Invasion will spur terrorism on, Arab opinion poll says. Actually pretty boring - I think I prefer him when he wants to vent his spleen a little.

How Kofi Annan Can Stop the War

According to recent reports, the United States may be about to warn the U.N. inspectors and reporters to leave Iraq within three days. The purpose of this warning will be to protect the inspectors and reporters from harm when U.S. forces attack Iraq, perhaps late next week.

The situation provides an interesting opportunity for U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. If the U.S. issues the expected warning, he can and should announce that the U.S. has no authority to evict the inspectors, who are United Nations employees. Furthermore, Annan can say that he will not withdraw the inspectors from Iraq unless he is ordered to do so by the U.N. Security Council or the inspectors report that they are not being allowed to do their job.

How will this help? Firstly, it'll make it difficult for Bush to start bombing. Sure, he could invade anyway, but it would be a public relations nightmare. And secondly, it will seriously up the pressure on Saddam, becuse the moment the inspectors feel they're being obstructed, they'll leave, and the Americans will have a free hand. Reinforcing the authority of the UN and sticking it to the US are just bonuses.

Of course, it's a bit risky for the inspectors themselves, which is why Kofi won't do it. [sigh]

The US wants to go to war over a model aeroplane?

This speaks for itself, really. It turns out that the "smoking gun" the warbloggers have been braying about for the past week is made of balsa wood and duct tape, and powered by lawnmower engines.

Oh, those cunning Iraqis. They're so evil they can turn even an innocent microlite into a Weapon of Mass Destruction.

A competition!

Yesterday's Christchurch Press article about a protester throwing eggs and tomatoes at Richard Prebble at Canterbury has got me thinking: people should really do this sort of thing more often. We don't do nearly enough to express our contempt for our politicians. Sure, we sneer at them, make them the butt of our jokes, call Rodney Hide "the face of irritable bowel disease" and what have you, but they don't seem to get the message. Maybe throwing shit at them will work?

So, a competition. The winner is whoever can get the best hit on an MP with a nonlethal missile (water bomb, rotten fruit, excrement). Bonus points for getting on TV, revealing that someone wears a toupe, or being arrested by the diplomatic protection squad. The grand prize is a sense of satisfaction at a job well done. Any takers?

BTW, apparantly the photos accompanying the hardcopy of the story were cool - maybe Mike will scan and post them?

NZ statement on Iraq to the UN Security Council

Same as the last one, really. Again, it seems to be pretty much in line with mainstream NZ political opinion - though no doubt our own local warbloggers and newsfroupies will be appalled by limp-wristed liberal commie peacenik sentiments like the one below:

The New Zealand Government therefore urges the Security Council to continue to support the inspection and disarmament process it has in place while it is getting results.

That bit is the key - down here, we see missiles being destroyed and the fact that no "smoking gun" has been found as evidence that inspections are working, rather than evidence that they're not. This is probably because we're not paranoid loons desperate for any pretext to start a fight.

'Dirty bomb' suspect to get lawyer

A Judge has ruled that Jose Padilla, the US citizen accused of plotting to build and detonate a "dirty bomb", will finally be allowed to see a lawyer. The US government had designated him an "enemy combatant", denied him access to counsel or the courts, and imprisoned him in a military prison. If this isn't appealed, then it represents some return to sanity in the US - an acknowledgement that September 11th did not erase those parts of the Constitution dealing with the right to a fair trial (at least for US citizens).

Unfortunately, the US government can still listen in on Padilla's discussions with his lawyer. And if they think that his representative is too effective, they can always charge them with aiding and abetting a terrorist. There's still a long way to go before things will be "back to normal" over there.

Update: Unfortunately the news isn't so good for the detainees at Guantanamo - a court has ruled that they cannot access US courts and are not protected by the US Constitution. Whatever happened to "we hold these truths to be self-evident... that all men are created equal"?

This article by New Zealand First MP - Ron Mark appeared in Saturday's Christchurch Press. It really illustrates how opposition to a war with Iraq is not restricted to the usual suspects of the anti American left. Ron Mark is usually a hawk when it comes to defence and NZ First is ideologically quite far removed from the Greens and even Labour. It also shows how adept NZ First are at keeping their finger on the pulse of the NZ voter.

Meanwhile, the situation in Iraq grows more complex.The Kurds are mobilising to fight the Turks should they enter Northern Iraq. As if the Turks didn't have enough on their mind. Talks on the future of Cyprus have broken down and it now appears certain that the Greek southern half of Cyprus will join the EU without the northern Turkish half. In the past Turkey has threatened to annex northern Cyprus should this happen....more recently they have tried to gain favour with Europe by urging the Turkish Cypriots to make a deal with the Greeks...these efforts appear to have failed. Where does this leave Turkey? One to watch I think.

Old Fisk

History: For centuries, we've been 'liberating' the Middle East. Why do we never learn? This was published on the 6th; guess it shows how slack we are.

More things that make you sick

Apparantly I have a knack for sending Mike links that make him sick. The first was a New York Times article on a pipe foundry in Texas, whose emphesis on profits over worker safety resulted in the worst accident rate of any American workplace (containing some rather graphic descriptions of people having their arms sanded off by conveyer belts). So, in the interests of reguritation, we have the town of Ciudad Juarez on the Mexican border. Salon did an article about this place several months ago, reporting that "more than 325 women have been murdered in the free-trade boomtown of Ciudad Juarez in the past decade", and following up with a disturbing story of government indifference to (if not active collusion in) what seems like the activities of several serial killers. The Observer has now done a two part series on this hellhole, and its even worse.

There is a new word spoken in Ciudad Juarez: 'Feminocidio' - feminocide, the mass slaughter of women. There is no other word to describe what is happening: some 340 young women found murdered since 1992 in much the same manner as Sagrario, and a further 180 or so missing.

'They are dumped in public places, not even like animals, more like trash,' says Marisela Ortiz, from one of the groups campaigning to bring the killers to justice. The victims, she says, fit a pattern: 'They are poor, young, mainly migrants to the city looking to improve their lives in the factories. And when they are found, they have been tortured, mutilated, bruised, fractured or strangled and in every case violated - gang-raped.'

'The killers,' adds Marisela's colleague Rosario Acosta, 'take no trouble to cover up evidence, like most murders. With these, the evidence is brazen, right there, every time. Whoever is doing this knows they are immune from the law.'

There's more - victim's parents being taunted by the clothing of their dead children being returned to them in the dead of night, police cover-ups, frame-ups and executions of those who question them. It's your worst nightmare of callous corrupt third world society crossed with a serial killer movie. And all I could think was "there's gotta be a Vampire game in this".

Terry Jones Strikes Again!

Mr Bush goes for the kill:

Mr. Bush is right, Saddam Hussein is a nasty man and nobody I know has the least objection to Mr. Bush killing him. It's just the way he proposes doing it that worries me. Dropping 3000 bombs in 48 hours on Baghdad is going to kill a lot of other people who, as far as I am aware, are not nasty at all.

That's the bit of the 'moral' argument I don't follow. It's a bit like the police saying they know a murderer comes from the south of England so they are going to execute everybody in Epsom.

And that about sums it up, really. The Americans' preferred tactics are wanton, indiscriminate overkill. How many innocent bystanders is it acceptable to kill to get rid of one Bad Man? Ten thousand? Twenty? What about one hundred thousand or half a million?

If we're going to even ask such Utilitarian questions, we need to pay some attention to the Principle of Equality and value Iraqi lives as highly as American ones. And its quite clear that those in favour of what Bush is proposing simply aren't doing this.

Bush's Noble Intentions

This Washington Post article (President paints 'Big Picture' - Bush reveals democratic vision for Middle East) appeared in the Christchurch Press last Friday (February 28th). Clearly the Christchurch Press backs a war with Iraq and has no qualms about recycling American propaganda...in any case it makes the journalist's job so much easier. To be honest I'm not actually convinced that the Christchurch Press still employs anyone that could be called a journalist.

The article just about made me spit out my morning coffee, especially the line about President Bush "presenting a neo-Wilsonian view of the imperitive to spready liberty and democracy in the world." I mean if President Bush really was painting a big picture of the Middle East he'd probably be doing it with crayons. I have some other problem's with Bush's speech - he correctly identifies the Middle East as a "troubled region" - the point he is missing is that America is one of the major reasons why it is a troubled region. He also mentions Saddam Hussein's payments to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers and its training and support of mysteriously un-named terrorists. At least one of these claims is true but this does not give America (as opposed to Israel) a legitimate cassus belli. I meant to post the article here earlier but I couldn't find it on the internet, instead I've had to ignore the niceties of copyright law and type it out myself...bring on the evil attack lawyers.

New Fisk

US War Plans Are Not Helped By Blix.

Crimes against language

Mark Kleiman has awarded the first Winston Smith Memorial Medal for Dishonest Language in the Service of Unspeakable Actions to the New York Times for the headline Questioning of Accused Expected to Be Humane, Legal and Aggressive. Examples of the tactics the NYT considers "humane" include sleep deprivation, long periods of restraint in "stress positions", and "teasing" wounded prisoners with occasional painkillers. Meanwhile, this article from the Wall Street Journal gives more details on US methods, which can include "a little bit of smacky-face" for "extra encouragement".

All of this is of course contrary to the United Nations’ Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and to the Geneva Convention as well, but the US doesn't seem to be paying attention to its international agreements at the moment. Unfortunately for the Bush Gang though, they may have a few little problems with US law. According to the NYT:

When the United States ratified the antitorture treaty in 1994, Congress also passed a law making torture committed in the United States or by an American anywhere a felony punishable by 20 years in prison. Torture resulting in death can give bring the death penalty.

In 5 or 10 years time, when Bush is out of office and the US has come to its senses, I'd like to see prosecutions. I'd like to see those responsible for running the interrogation rooms at Bagram and Guantanamo put on trial for their crimes, and sentanced to long prison terms. But most likely they'll never be charged, or let off the hook like Lt. Calley was for Mai Lai. Hell, maybe John Ashcroft will repeal those troublesome anti-torture provisions in PATRIOT III or IV.

And on a completely different topic, Kleiman also has some thoughts on a recent lecture by Jared Diamond. I suspect I'm going to have to get that upcoming book...

Storywatch

Thursday's story about the deaths of Afghan prisoners in custody has been widely reported, even making the New York Times (which has a 3-page article on the subject). As more detail has emerged, it's looking even more likely that at least one of the prisoners died as a result of US interrogation techniques. The Pentagon's response has been to quibble over the meaning of homicide, and stress that it doesn't neccessarily mean an unlawful or criminal killing, though they've been strangely unwilling to present any alternative scenarios as to how the prisoners died (e.g. it was self-defence). Given their "nothing we do is illegal" response to the Washington Post's original allegations of torture last year, it suggests that they're going to rely on the same legal game playing that allows them to keep people in legal limbo in Cuba, rather than engage with the moral issue here.

Why do Americans always conflate legality with morality anyway? Even if it's not technically illegal for the US government to torture and kill noncitizens outside the United States, it's contrary to the universal values which the US is supposed to stand for. If it isn't illegal, it damn well should be.

New Fisk!

Doha summit shows Arab disunity.

"Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.."

Recently Captured al Qaeda Leader Was Killed Last Year. I guess we'd all forgotten that.

More to froth about

More stuff to froth about: the deaths of two Afghan detainees in U.S. custody in Afghanistan have been ruled to be homicides

A criminal investigation into the December deaths of the two men is in its final stages, but a U.S. military source said it is not clear whether anyone will be charged.

One senior military official said, "This investigation may not go well for us."

The men died shortly after arriving at Bagram air base north of the Afghan capital, Kabul. The first man died December 3 of a pulmonary embolism and the second one December 10 of a heart attack.

Autopsies found that "blunt force trauma" was a contributing factor in both cases, military sources said.

It's unclear whether that blunt force trauma was inflicted during interrogation, or by "overenthusiastic" US soldiers inflicting their own "justice" or "having a little fun", but either way it's pretty damning: the US military either tortured two men to death (though that may not have been their intention), or failed to enforce discipline and allowed their soldiers to do the same. And they're supposed to be the good guys.

Torture is a crime, and those responsible should be found, charged and tried. However neither the spokesman's comments above or the US Army's handling of similar cases is exactly encouraging.

According to this article advisors have warned Bush that he faces a humiliating defeat on his proposed UN resolution authorising war on Iraq. They have allegedly advised him to seek a way out of war with Iraq (see story)...then again who the hell are capitolhillblue.com and why should we believe them?

Going more mainstream...I'm not sure if this was picked up by the New Zealand media but It is pleasing to see a Democrat front up to the public and have the balls to criticise George W Bush. Former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright (the woman who famously said that the deaths of Iraqi civilians caused by UN sanctions was a price worth paying) has urged the President to wait longer before attacking Iraq, saying current pressure was forcing Baghdad to disarm.

She has suggested "more intrusive inspections and even the threat to destroy suspected weapons facilities that the government refuses to open to U.N. personnel, the way U.S. and British pilots attack missile sites in the Iraqi no-fly zones." This sounds very sensible. (story here)

Peace March

There is a peace march in Christchurch on Saturday March 15th at 2pm.It will start at the museum and finish in Cathedral Square...It won't acheve anything but I might try and get out of bed for this one because its always good to be pissed off in the company of other people who are pissed off about the same things that you are. Besides, the war could be in full swing by then.

Actually, having a look at the Peace Action Network's website does highlight one of the problems with being a self respecting leftie...the nutters you have to share the political left with. Some of them take their paranoia and anti Americanism a bit too far.

US may not put UN resolution to a vote

From America's point of view, this makes good sense - why bother to vote if the resolution is going to be rejected? - but it's definately shafting their main ally. Tony Blair has staked his political future on his ability to get a second resolution authorising force through the UN security council; if it doesn't even go to a vote, where does that leave him?

OTOH, Bush has already shown that he'll screw even his friends if he thinks he can get some political mileage out of it.

Those who forget history...

Further to Mike's comments the other day about American and European attitudes to war being attributable to European memory of what war is actually like, I found this comment in an interview on Salon to be interesting:

[America's] forgetfulness makes it possible at any moment in history for us to believe in our essential innocence. We don't remember that we've ever done anything other than what we do now. It's a great triumph to a civilization that it can go from being a white supremacist country in the late '50s, when a substantial portion of the country didn't believe in racial intermarriage, to racial egalitarianism. We can believe that this is just the triumph of what our essential values have always been.

Americans see their lack of memory as a virtue, because it allows them to forget the bad past and focus on the (assumed) better future - and there's some truth in this. However, in forgetting the bad past, they also forget why it was bad, which robs them of the very guidance they need to ensure that the future stays better rather than regressing back to the bad old past again. We can see this in American economic and social policies over the last twenty years, where their rush to deregulate everything seems to give no thought to why such regulations were implemented in the first place. It's just assumed that they're there because regulation is the sort of thing Government just does (because its Evil and Spiteful and wants to Impede Business) - rather than a response to the very real problems of an unregulated market (see the nineteenth century for an example of this). And of course, we see it in the American desire to ignore existing international agreements on warfare, and return to the barbarities of the past.

Straw warns against isolating US

[Straw] argued that America was the only superpower and the world had to decide whether to force it to act unilaterally or through international institutions.

Call me stupid, but I don't see how acting through international institutions only if they agree with you is any different from acting unilaterally.

Storywatch

The Independent's story on American plans to use banned chemical weapons in Iraq is slowly percolating through the media. It's been picked up by the NZ Herald, Common Dreams, and by various newspapers in Pakistan. But thanks to the Associated Press, the American media is putting a decidedly different spin on things.

Unlike the Americans, I'm actually quite keen on "straitjackets" such as the Chemical Weapons Convention. Sure, war is an inherantly messy business, but mutual restraint from the worst barbarities can save us from horrors such as this or this.

The Green Party is asking the Government to withdraw the invitation for Australian Prime Minister John Howard to visit New Zealand next week. According to their press release, Howard is a warmonger whose actions have stripped him of any right to the courtesy normally owed to a visiting dignitary.

I don't entirely agree with them - given that Australia is our closest ally and number one trading partner we can't afford to have our Government piss them off quite to that extent. That said, I hope that the protest movement gives him a good bollocking when he is here and that it gets across exactly what people think of the toadying little weasel.

My theory is that America has a totally different point of view on war compared to the Europeans. Much of Europe was destroyed in WW2...America suffered only two attacks on its home soil(I'm not counting the bomb laden balloons that the Japanese launched into the jet stream in the forlorn hope of hitting something in America). There was Pearl Harbour of course and also the Japanese occupation of a couple of the Aluetian Islands (I suspect most Americans would struggle to find the Aluetians on a map).

For Europeans war is something that should be avoided at all costs, there are still enough people around who lived through the war and/or the years afterwards for the memories to still be strong. America just doesn't have that experience.

Likewise, while the horrrible effects of poison gas attacks haunted people in Europe for years after the Great War...and the institutional memory has remained, few American soldiers where ever targetted by it and the proportion of the population that was involved in the war was much smaller in the US.

They lack the frame of reference to understand that war and chemical weapons are bad. When you combine this with an elite that is avaricious and drunk on power and a President who makes foreign policy at about the level of an 8 year old its bad news for Iraq...and whichever country or countries they decide to invade next.

New Fisk

American billions keep Arab regimes sweet (02 March 2003)

Still frothing with outrage

Yes, I'm still frothing with outrage over the article below. There are people on nz.politics trying to draw a distinction between "bad" gases that that Evil Monster Saddam uses, and the "nonlethal" ones the US plans to use - you know, the ones that killed 128 people in Moscow last year. The logical conclusion of this is that Saddam is a monster because he killed a higher percentage of his victims than the US Army intends to. Either that, or its American Exceptionalism again.

Issues of morality and hypocrisy aside, this isn't exactly going to encourage Saddam to continue disarming. And I can think of no better way to ensure that he uses any WMDs he may have stashed away than to use them on him first.

America plans to use banned chemical weapons in Iraq

The US is preparing to use the toxic riot-control agents CS gas and pepper spray in Iraq in contravention of the Chemical Weapons Convention, provoking the first split in the Anglo-US alliance. "Calmative" gases, similar to the one that killed 120 hostages in the Moscow theatre siege last year, could also be employed.

The convention bans the use of these toxic agents in battle, not least because they risk causing an escalation to full chemical warfare. [...]

The British aren't keen on this, firstly because they're one of the chief authors of the Chemical Weapons Convention and unlike the Americans still take their international agreements seriously, and secondly because of fears of escalation and retaliation:

Professor Julian Perry Robinson, one of the world's foremost authorities on the convention, said: "Legally speaking, Iraq would be totally justified in releasing chemical weapons over the UK if the alliance uses them in Baghdad."

Meanwhile, I'm just boggled at the sheer blatant hypocrisy involved here. Saddam is (rightly) demonised in the US press because he used chemical weapons against Iran and gassed his own people. There's a strong underlying theme that chemical weapons are a Bad Thing, period. And so the US is going to prove it by using them. Do they expect us not to notice?

Actually, given Fisk's recent article on planned media censorship, and the reports on how the media was controlled last time, they can probably guarantee it.

Plan B - U.S. Looks at Alternative War Plans Without Turkey

I call "Godwin"

Blair calls anti-war protesters "appeasers". Obviously he's never heard of Godwin's Law.

Seriously, if the best argument in favour of the war is that everyone opposed is a commie, peacenik or appeaser who would have supported Hitler, then it doesn't really have much going for it, does it?

[Addendum] BTW, my memory of WWII history may be flawed, but wasn't Hitler the guy who wanted to invade other countries?

That darn democracy thing again...

Turkey's parliament has failed to approve the deployment of US troops in the country. While the vote was 264-250 in favour, it failed to achieve a majority of MPs present in the chamber (19 of whom abstained), and was declared invalid.

The US is apparantly "seeking clarification" on the vote, which was initially reported as having been passed. Really, it sems pretty clear to me - Turkish MPs are still heavily divided on the issue, and US$15 billion isn't enough to persuade them.

There's new Fisk!
How the news will be censored in this war - Robert Fisk: 25th February, 2003
America uses Israel's words to justify occupation - Robert Fisk: 28 February 2003

Fisk is good but this article - Richard Dawkins: Why should we in Britain help Bush to get re-elected?- has my favourite quote for today - "I am vigorously pro-American, which is one reason why I am anti-Bush. They deserve better"

The seemingly unstoppable march towards war continues. In Britan, Tony Blair gained the backing of the house of commans for his position on Iraq. Unfortunately for him he had to rely on the support of the Tory opposition to overcome a major rebellion in his own party . How the lack of trust and the ill-feeling between the various factions within Labour, affects Blairs ability to govern in the future could proove to be very interesting...one to watch I think.

Meanwhile in America it looks like the Whitehouse is trying to scare the people who have choosen to be human shields in Iraq into packing up and going home (story here). No names of course, just an anonymous official saying that they may be considered "combatants" rather than "civilians." I don't know what that means in practice but somehow I don't think it is good news.

It also looks like a deal between Turkey and the US to open up a Northern Front in Iraq and coincidently sell out the Iraqi Kurds is all but done. (see story - U.S. Would Limit Action By Kurds in Postwar Iraq - The article also has a map showing the areas where the Kurds live, which gives a plenty clear indication of what is at stake here). I mentioned in my post a few days ago that America's allies in the region want to keep a lid on the idea of democracy and don't want a change in the status quo. This article gives a reasonable summary of what the status quo actually is in the Arab world.

Soothing the conscience

Greenpeace's "No War" blog has a nifty form to help you send a letter to the UN security council expressing support for inspections and opposition to military action. I don't think it'll make a damn bit of difference, but it might make you feel better.

I guess it depends on your meaning of "can't"...

You're not a Real Blogger unless you talk about Sullivan, Krugman, InstaPundit and Hitchens, so I suppose I better start. While reading the interview with Christopher Hitchens in this week's Listener, a peculiar comment caught my attention. To provide some context, he was reacting to the news that the Iraqi opposition wanted to implement Sharia law in a post-Saddam Iraq. His initial reaction was "it'll never work". His explanation?

It's been proved that you can't do Sharia law because the propositions that it's based on are flat-out not true, among them that there is a God who intervenes in our lives.

Unfortunately, if you look at countries where they have implemented Sharia, like Iran and (parts of) Nigeria (or indeed, the whole Islamic world during the middle ages), they seem to have had no problem arresting people, trying them, and then hacking their limbs off or stoning them to death. This is because people can hold (and act on) false beliefs as well as true ones.

Of course, he could have been equivocating over the meaning of "can't", and really been saying "you shouldn't do Sharia law because...", and I'd agree with him. But that's not an argument that it will fail, and I don't think that it's going to stop people who believe otherwise from trying.

Kurds in their way...

Now that war in Iraq seems to be all but inevitable the big questions now are, "how will the war pan out?" and "what happens once the war is over?"

In answer to the first question, I find myself hoping that the American bravado will be reflected on the battlefield, because at least if they do get into Baghdad in a week or so it will hugely reduce the number Iraqi casualties. Imagine the carnage that will occur if the greatest war machine the world has ever known has to carry out a sustained assault with all the weaponry it can bring to bear. I hope the Iraqis won't fight to the death but who knows what's going to happen...this time they will be defending their homeland against a foreign invader...this means more than Kuwait did.

Once Saddam's regime is toppled there is a lot more to consider than just who gets the oil (although this is an important consideration). The Americans have released their blueprint for a Post -Saddam Iraq...and it has not gone down well with the exiled opposition groups(see Iraqi opposition slams plan for military governor, Our hopes betrayed and US falls out with Iraqi opposition ).

The Americans would argue that they spent millions of dollars in the nineties supporting these groups and they were totally unable to get their shit together - the two Kurdish groups , although they have since kissed and made up, actually ended up fighting each other and they now each control large but seperate enclaves in Northern Iraq. No one really knows how much support these groups have since many of them have lived in exile for the last 30 years. The best bet for the Americans is actually to work with the remnants of Saddams regime. Whatever the Americans decide to do one would hope that they would have learnt from their experience in Afghanistan (which is a shambles) and Kosovo.

Anyway, the Americans have decided that they will have an initial period of military rule followed by the appointment of a prominant American as a civilian administrator...much of the existing beaurocracy will be retained although it will be purged of those deemed to be to close to Saddam. At the moment a Sunni elite rules over a Shi'ite majority and it looks like the Americans will preserve this....so much for democracy.

It is a pragmatic decision on the part of the Americans...even if they wanted to install a democratic government, there is no way that America's allies in the region want that meme getting out of the bag...after all the Arab street might be reminded of the repressive and non democratic circumstances they are living in. The big problem is what happens in Northern Iraq? The Turks don't want the Kurds to get any notion of Statehood (see Analysis: Turkish threat to Iraq democracy, Kurds brace for Turks ) as this idea could spread to the Kurdish minority in Turkey whose rebellion the Turks have just finished suppressing. Turkey is now preparing to deploy its army in Northern Iraq both to prevent the flow of arms and refugees north and to destroy the incipent Kurdish state that has grown there under the safety of the no fly zone.The Kurds in Iraq are angry and afraid and who can blame them? They've been shafted for years by Saddam and they are about to get shafted by their would be liberators.

Endgame

The Merkins have finally put their draft resolution before the security council, and it is basically a license to bomb. Meanwhile, the French, Germans and Russians have countered with a memorandum calling for further inspections.

Currently its looking like the Americans can't win the nine positive votes they need for Security Council approval, but this could change. They are apparantly pulling out all the stops and threatening smaller members of the council with a cessation of US aid. If they strongarm enough countries into backing them, the UN effectively becomes a joke. And if they don't, then they will almost certainly act unilaterally, for much the same effect. It's a lose-lose proposition for the UN either way, but at least one way they get to keep their soul.

Kiwis get D- for Saving, Media gets A+ for laziness

According to this story on Stuff, which was also broadcast on one or other of the TV news shows tonight, we're not saving enough for retirement. Two comments on this:

Firstly, the story is sourced from a survey done by Sovereign, an insurance and investment company which sells, among other things, retirement schemes. So what we have here is a company scolding consumers for not being interested in its product. I don't know about you, but I'm wondering why the hell this is regarded as news rather than advertising, and whether we'll soon be seeing stories like

"Kiwis get D- for Coke-buying - according to the owner of a local supermarket, New Zealanders aren't buying enough Coca-Cola..."

Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? But this is what happens when lazy journalists reproduce corporate press releases verbatim rather than doing their job.

Secondly, on the subject of saving for retirement: Yes, we all know its important, and yes, we all know that we can't rely on the government. Yet despite this, there's a relatively low uptake even amongst the better-off demographic that Sovereign polled. I suspect this is because even those who are comfortable (I wouldn't call a household income of NZ$50,000 pa "rich", though its certainly better than many make) can't really afford to stash money away at the rates investment advisors reccommend, while simultaneously pursuing all those other components of Kiwi life (children, mortgage) and paying for all those expenses which the government has decided to drop in our laps over the past 20 years (health care, children's education). And at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale, saving for the future simply isn't an option when you're struggling to get by today. What this means is that government is going to continue to have a role, whether it likes it or not, unless it wants to deal with the bad PR of the elderly spending their twilight years in poverty and destitution.

And as for those of us who are still relatively young, I guess its going to be "pay off your student loan, or save for your retirement - pick one". Sorry, Sovereign, but a government decision 11 years ago has shitcanned your prime customer demographic for the next twenty years...

I thought I'd post something a bit lighter today...
Bush Gives You The Finger / Millions worldwide rally against Dubya's oily little war -- not that he gives a damn
Terry Jones: Powell speaks with forked tongue - Language, not truth, has been the first casualty of the West's war against terrorism
Terry Jones: I'm losing patience with my neighbours, Mr Bush
Observations from a reluctant warrior(thanks John).

Powell seeks Chinese support (on North Korea):

Speaking in Tokyo after talks with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Mr Powell said the UN Security Council, together with North and South Korea, Japan, the European Union and Australia should all be involved in talks to resolve the problem.

Hint to Merkins: International diplomacy is a game of quid pro quo. You can't expect people to share your concerns and support you on issues you care about unless you share their concerns and support them on other things. If you blunder around like an enraged rhinoceros, breaking treaties, pissing on world public opinion and acting unilaterally whenever you feel like it, you may find that you have to act unilaterally when you don't feel like it too, because you won't have any friends anymore.

Just a thought.

Interestingly, newsgroup criticism of Tamihere's plan focuses on the prospect of Maori case managers "putting their fingers in the till". nz.politics really is a sewer, and I'm beginning to remember why I stopped reading it a while ago...

"Privatisation" or punishment?

I've just been reading about John Tamihere's call for privatising welfare at the Knowledge Wave conference.

His chief suggestion is that "all state benefits for each household should be paid through non-government case managers", who would pay essential bills like rent and power, buy basic food items, and send anything left over to the beneficiaries bank account to be used for discretionary spending.

"Welfare as presently practised in this country literally kills us with kindness," he said.

"It hands out enough to get you through until your next handout. There are no mutual responsibilities. Recipients are denied a sense of worth and equality."

I can think of no better way of denying people a sense of worth and equality than having some bureaucrat buy their food for them on the basis that they can't be trusted to buy it themselves. While this will certainly stop beneficiaries from "frittering away their money on lotto and cigarettes", it will also allow free reign for the case-managers prejudices on every purchasing decision. Do they really need chocolate biscuits when they could have Basics^TM gingernuts - or no biscuits at all? What about double-ply toilet paper vs single-ply? Is shampoo - or female sanitary products - really an essential item, or is it a "luxury" that they "really can't afford"? And why should they be living in that clean house in a reasonable suburb when there's a rat-infested fleapit well away from public transport available for twenty bucks a week less?

Giving case-managers that sort of power over people is a recipe for dehumanisation, arrogance, and bigotry. As if WINZ wasn't bad enough already.

Still, he's got it half right: part of the problem is that welfare "hands out enough to get you through until your next handout" - and only enough to get you through until your next handout, with no safety margin for emergencies or even replacements. The problem beneficiaries face is not poor money management skills (there's nothing like being actually poor to teach you the value of good budgeting), but enormous barriers to getting out of the trap. Finding a job - printing CVs, postage, interview clothes, child care, transport - costs money, which WINZ doesn't provide; actually getting one is a tremendous risk, since you face another stand-down period if it falls through. And in today's insecure labour market, dominated increasingly by casual contracts with 24-hour notice provisions, these risks are simply too great.

Tamihere is right, in that our welfare system needs reform, but it certainly doesn't need the "reform" he's suggesting. We don't need more authoritarianism from bureaucrats - we need more flexibility to cope with part-time and casual work, easier access to "special needs" grants, and a complete turnaround in the attitudes of case-managers (if you've ever dealt with WINZ you'll know what I mean). Tamihere's plan is simply punishing beneficiaries, not helping them.

As for the "privatisation" aspect, I'll let the idea of replacing an intrusive government bureaucracy with an even more intrusive non-government bureaucracy with a requirement to make a profit speak for itself.