Those wanting to pretend that there is or was no problem with the way US soldiers use force in Iraq may want to read this...

Friends in strange places

The Whig thinks he has friends in strange places over flag burning. Hardly. A quick look at the political compass or my previous posts on similar issues will show where I stand. I may be a lefty, but I'm very definitely from the libertarian or liberal end of that broad church.

Freedom may not be the only thing I believe in (I tend towards value pluralism, though I'm by no means certain about that yet), but it is absolutely central to my political philosophy. People need as much freedom as possible to pursue their disparate visions of the good. So, I support the greatest possible system of coextensive rights for everyone, and the widest possible sphere of state non-interference. And the sorts of justifications I accept for restricting freedom ought to be recognisable to any other liberal - consent, preventing harm to or preserving the freedom of others. There's no such justification for forbidding people from burning the flag, and so I oppose laws against flag-burning.

Where I differ from right-wing or "big-L" Libertarians is that I want that freedom to be substantive rather than formal. Traditional libertarianisms (such as Rand or Nozick) talk about freedom a lot, but when pressed, you find out that that freedom is nothing more than a cruel joke. The shackles of the state are simply replaced - and strengthened - by contract law, with "consent" extracted by economic duress. The Enlightenment project of destroying privilege and extending universal rights has been perverted into a defence of economic slavery and the assumed privileges of wealth.

Fuck that. That's just freedom for the pike. I want something more.

In order for people's freedom to be meaningful, they must be able to exercise it - in practice, not just in theory. This means preventing the powerful from limiting other people's freedom (justifying employment law and anti-discrimination legislation), enabling people to make the most of themselves (hence state-provided (or at least regulated) education), and insulating them from the vagaries of fortune, of ill-health or poverty, so that they will be able to pursue their vision of the good (or at least not completely lose sight of it) regardless of circumstance (giving us social welfare and a comprehensive health system). In other words, your standard redistributive liberal-democratic welfare state, supported on the grounds that freedom is for everyone, not just the rich.

(BTW, the political compass graph is somewhat out of date, and does not include many of our newer political bloggers. If you want to be on the graph, then all you have to do is take the test and email me your score. My munged address is on the sidebar to your left...)

The witnesses are coming forward...

A military lawyer for a soldier charged in the Abu Ghraib abuse case stated that a captain at the prison said the highest-ranking U.S. military officer in Iraq was present during some "interrogations and/or allegations of the prisoner abuse," according to a recording of a military hearing obtained by The Washington Post.

The lawyer, Capt. Robert Shuck, said he was told that Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez and other senior military officers were aware of what was taking place on Tier 1A of Abu Ghraib. Shuck is assigned to defend Staff Sgt. Ivan L. "Chip" Frederick II of the 372nd Military Police Company. During an April 2 hearing that was open to the public, Shuck said the company commander, Capt. Donald J. Reese, was prepared to testify in exchange for immunity. The military prosecutor questioned Shuck about what Reese would say under oath.

"Are you saying that Captain Reese is going to testify that General Sanchez was there and saw this going on?" asked Capt. John McCabe, the military prosecutor.

"That's what he told me," Shuck said. "I am an officer of the court, sir, and I would not lie. I have got two children at home. I'm not going to risk my career."

[...]

At the April hearing, Shuck also said Reese would testify that Capt. Carolyn A. Wood, who supervised the military intelligence operation at Abu Ghraib, was "involved in intensive interrogations of detainees, condoned some of the activities and stressed that that was standard procedure."

More here.

Thoughts on regional unity

Simon Upton's column on EU expansion has got me thinking on the subject of super-national organisation in the South Pacific. The recent Australia - New Zealand Leadership Forum was explicitly aimed at bringing our two countries closer together, with talk of an eventual "single market" and even political union. And the topic of stronger co-operation has been raised at recent meetings of the Pacific Islands Forum. But what purpose would such co-operation serve, and what would the resulting forms of organisation look like?

The most obvious starting point is to look at the purpose of closer co-operation - and here we immediately begin to see differences with the EU. The driving force behind the unification of Europe has always been political - the early steps were taken with the explicit goal of making France and Germany so interdependent as to make future war between them impossible. While the EU has expanded since then, the goal has remained the same: to increase interdependence and stability, and thereby prevent war in Europe.

By contrast, the chief motivation underlying talk of closer relations between New Zealand and Australia is primarily economic. We want open access to each other's markets, and free passage for capital, goods, and people. But there's no driving pressure to unify to prevent war because war between our two countries is already unthinkable (and has been for a long time). Our shared history as British colonies, our enormous cultural similarities and the fact that we are so interconnected by family ties sees to that.

As for the wider Pacific, the motive here is primarily one of ensuring good governance, with a hefty dose of security. Discussion is driven by the larger states - Australia and New Zealand - who believe (with some evidence) that their smaller neighbours cannot properly govern themselves. Either they are plagued by corruption, nepotism, and outdated tribal structures to the detriment of their peoples, or are too small to be "viable". Either way, there is also a great deal of fear that these countries will collapse into "failed states" and so provide a haven for terrorists, drug dealers, and organised crime - all of which pose a threat to the larger states' security. And so we encourage them to get together - but primarily for our benefit, not theirs.

With these differences in underlying motivation you would expect the resulting organisations to look very different. So for example the EU is all about creating political and economic interdependence and unity, and so it has centralised political, legal, and bureaucratic institutions to serve these ends (a European Parliament and commission; laws and people to enforce them; a European Court of Human Rights; a common currency). But what would a future NZ-Australia or South Pacific "superstate" look like?

In the case of New Zealand and Australia, it probably wouldn't look like a superstate at all. Merging the two markets will require a lot of negotiation and compromise, but this can be done by the two governments sitting across the table from one another. While it will require shared regulatory authorities to set standards on things such as food and safety, there's simply no need for any superstructure over this. No need for an ANZAC parliament, no need for a court with jurisdiction beyond the intergovernmental agreements concerned, no need even for a common currency (while it would ease the way a little, it is not required). Political union may come by public sentiment, but there's no pressure there.

As for the Pacific, any supernational organisation created there is likely to be even weaker. The pacific states are mostly subsistence economies, with little in the way of industry or trade between them. So what reason is there to get together? Australia and New Zealand have suggested "pooled regional governance" and shared resources - for example, a regional police college and regional airline - but the suggestions all seem to be driven by an agenda of ensuring our security, rather than a real interest in the needs of smaller states. And given the past colonial history in the region, that's not a recipe for unification.

The thing is, there are plenty of issues that pacific states could get together on - controlling fishing in their vast exclusive economic zones, for example - and the problem of small-state viability is a real one that could be countered by reducing the duplication that multiple governments entails. But the latter is demanding something much stronger than the EU - stronger than the United States, even - and so is far less likely to happen. And it will absolutely never happen if New Zealand and Australia insist on being a part of it or on driving the agenda; the suspicions about colonialism and worries about dominance by vastly larger countries are simply too great. We may be better off stepping back, promoting unification as a solution to this problem, and simply funding it out of the aid budget, rather than trying to strongarm our smaller neighbours into doing things "for their own good".

Participate or perish

Drawing together some of the below with some comments made on NZPundit: why am I so keen for people to get out there and make their opinions known?

Simple: despite everything I think about the proper role of the state and the relationship between the state and the individual, the underlying basis of politics (the "facts on the ground", as it were) is ultimately Hobbesean¹. The social contract does not end the war of all against all - it merely outlaws force and the more obvious forms of coercion². This has the effect of moving our struggles into different battlegrounds - such as politics, civil society, and the market.

Liberal democracy is one way of providing a battlefield where people don't get killed - and I think its a good one. However even in a liberal democracy, great swathes of social, political and ideological "territory" are still up for grabs, undetermined by anything other than a naked clash of interests between disagreeing parties. And where a clash of interests is involved, you've got to be in to win. If you want other people to take your interests into account, you have to let them know what you think.

I regard it as axiomatic that if you are unwilling to advocate for your interests and in consequence get walked all over by people who do, then you have no-one to blame but yourself.

So: participate or perish. Vote. Advocate. Organise. Outsource, if necessary. But whatever, make sure that your memes are in the pool and that people know you care - because people aren't always going to be polite enough to ask.

¹ I say "Hobbesean" because he is the key thinker here, identifying the key problem: one of power and a clash of interests. While Locke identifies a far better solution to the problem than Hobbes' absolute Leviathan, and rightly puts the focus on "the consent of the governed", he muddies the waters of the State of Nature by trying to stick God and Christian morality back into it...

² Here I am using "social contract" in its weakest sense, of a widely shared consensus against using force and coercion, imposed on those that don't agree by force and coercion. I'm also using "interests" very broadly and abstractly, to encompass beliefs about how things should be done, "moral interests" and such - "advancing your self-interest" can here mean working in the cause of unselfish memes.

Update: Added link to Thomas Hobbes.

Well, that was quick

The government has backed away from its plans to decriminalise consensual sexual behaviour between teenagers.

What are the odds that Peter Dunne quietly threatened to withdraw confidence and supply over this?

Update: And on the other hand, what is Tony Ryall on? Contrary to his assertions, the government is not planning "to legalise older men having sex with 12-16-year olds, if they can prove they took reasonable steps to ascertain the age of the young person and believed them to be 16-years-old or over." That's already legal. In fact, as David Farrar points out, the government is significantly tightening legislation in this area. There is already a defence of "reasonable belief" that someone was over 16; now you have to actually have asked...

Submit!

Parliament's Fisheries and Other Sea-related Legislation Committee is finally soliciting submissions on the Foreshore and Seabed Bill. If you have an opinion on this (and doesn't everyone?), then why not make a submission?

They're after 25 copies by 5pm on Monday, 12th July, sent to:

Miles Reay
Clerk of Committee
Fisheries and Other Sea-related Legislation Committee
Bowen House, Parliament Buildings
Wellington

(No postage required)

There's a guide to making submissions here.

A progressive step

That's the only way to describe the government's plans to decriminalise consensual sexual behaviour between teenagers.

I know people don't want to face up to it, but (shock! horror!) teenagers experiment with sex. It is not neccessarily a good thing, but where it is consensual and non-exploitative, the threat of prosecution can only make things worse. If we put the interests of the child first (rather than the interests of outraged and scandalised parents), then we must acknowledge that this is something that should generally be dealt with by parents and educators - not the criminal justice system. The state should only be involved where there is coercion, predation or exploitation; beyond that, it should step back and leave teenagers to decide for themselves what they do with their own bodies.

Cheese-eating surrender monkeys strike back

Michael Moore's Farenheit 911 has won the Palme d'Or at Cannes.

This is one movie I will be shelling out money to see...

Say no to coalition impunity

The US/UK are trying to get the UN to grant their soldiers immunity from Iraqi law as part of the June 30th "handover".

There are three reasons to oppose this. Firstly, legal jurisdiction is a central part of sovereignty. Excluding American and British soldiers will undermine the sovereignty (not to mention the legitimacy) of the new Iraqi government. After all, what sort of "sovereignty" is it when you are forbidden from enforcing your own laws in your own territory? It is one thing to surrender those rights voluntarily, but to have them unilaterally denied? It makes the whole handover a joke.

Secondly, it's already quite clear that American and British civilian and military law have failed to deter abuses, and that there may be significant problems establishing jurisdiction over some people accused of crimes (such as civilian contractors). Making coalition forces subject to Iraqi law will solve this problem, and help ensure that members of the occupying force who commit crimes can be brought to justice.

Finally, there's the whole question of why this is before the UN in the first place. Normally status-of-forces-agreements covering things such as legal jurisdiction are negotiated between the countries involved, without the intervention of third parties. If the US and UK wish to remain in Iraq, they should negotiate such an agreement in good faith with the new Iraqi government after the handover - not attempt to unilaterally impose one by an outside agency. This is the sort of decision which should be made by the Iraqi people or their representatives, not by the US/UK, and not by the UN.

One of the biggest problems with the occupation is lawlessness - not just the lawlessness permitted by the occupiers, but the lawlessness of the occupation forces themselves. From day one, they've been killing civilians in dubious circumstances with no legal consequences. Whenever a bomb goes off, they start shooting at random. And then there's the beatings, abuse, humiliation and torture. US authorities have turned a blind eye to most of this (their rules of engagement seem to allow them to kill civilians at will and at random in the name of "force protection"); it's only with the recent Abu Ghraib photos that they've been spurred to act. And that simply isn't good enough. Granting immunity will continue the current US culture of impunity. The only way to change that culture is to subject US forces to a legal jurisdiction independent of US military or civilian authority.

(I've focused on the US in the last part because the UK is already subject to an independent jurisdiction: the International Criminal Court in The Hague. This acts as a strong incentive for the British to both set civilised rules of engagement (you may notice that British soldiers don't shoot at anything that moves), and to swiftly prosecute criminal behaviour and violations of the laws of war. They can't turn a blind eye or gloss over abuses, because if they don't prosecute, then the ICC will do it for them...)

Bush scores own goal - Iran 1 USA 0

This article (thanks to nz pundit for the link) might explain why Ahmed Chalabi has fallen so spectacularly from favour. There must be some very smug people in Tehran at the moment.

Crooked Timber has an excellent post on some arguments over liberalism. Some of the links in it are worth folowing as well...

Fresh Python

Terry Jones: Support America - dump Bush

More deaths

First it was 25 prisoner deaths in US custody. Now it's 37 - with as many as 10 of them being murders. Not "justifiable homicide", not "self-defence", not "shot trying to escape" - murders.

But hey, they're only Hajjis, right?

Proof

More photos from Abu Ghraib, as well as statements from detainees. Meanwhile, details are emerging of outright torture - including drugging, beating and suffocation - being performed at a US special forces "battlefield interrogation facility" near Baghdad airport:

According to two top U.S. government sources, it is the scene of the most egregious violations of the Geneva Conventions in all of Iraq’s prisons. A place where the normal rules of interrogation don’t apply, Delta Force’s BIF only holds Iraqi insurgents and suspected terrorists - but not the most wanted among Saddam’s lieutenants pictured on the deck of cards.

These sources say the prisoners there are hooded from the moment they are captured. They are kept in tiny dark cells. And in the BIF’s six interrogation rooms, Delta Force soldiers routinely drug prisoners, hold a prisoner under water until he thinks he’s drowning, or smother them almost to suffocation.

If any of this sounds familiar, it's because it is exactly what Seymour Hersh talked about in the New Yorker last weekend: the same techniques originally approved for use on top-level Al-Qaeda operatives (and used on them by the CIA), applied to ordinary Iraqi insurgents by US special forces (who are the sorts of people you bring in to run the business end of that sort of project). Despite the Pentagon's denials and attempts to smear Hersh as a raving conspiracy theorist, we now have the proof. "Copper Green" (or whatever it's called) exists. The US government ordered people to be tortured, in violation of US and international law. Do you understand now why we need the Hague?

Resignations?

A former US diplomat who resigned from the Nixon administration over the decision to invade Cambodia is now calling on US diplomats and intelligence officials to follow his example, and refuse to be a part of the Iraq disaster:

It is your dedicated work that has been violated -- the flouted treaties you devotedly drew and negotiated, the estranged allies you patiently cultivated, the now thronging enemies you worked so hard to win over. You know what will happen. Sooner or later, the neoconservative cabal will go back to its incestuous think tanks and sinecures, the vice president to his lavish Halliburton retirement, Bush to his Crawford, Texas, ranch -- and you will be left in the contemptuous chancelleries and back alleys, the stiflingly guarded compounds and fear-clammy, pulse-racing convoys, to clean up the mess for generations to come.

[...]

No, it is you whose voices are so important now. You alone stand above ambition and partisanship. This administration no longer deserves your allegiance or participation. America deserves the leadership and example, the decisive revelation, of your resignations.

Your resignations alone would speak to America the truth that beyond any politics, this Bush regime is intolerable -- and to an increasingly cynical world the truth that there are still Americans who uphold with their lives and honor the highest principles of our foreign policy.

I wonder how many will take him up on it?

I bet NZPundit will laugh at this too

From the sound of it, the latest from Abu Ghraib is more sickening than anything we've seen so far:

In one video clip, five hooded and naked detainees stand against the wall in the darkness, each masturbating, with two other hooded detainees crouched at their feet. Another shows a prisoner handcuffed to the outside of a cell door. He repeatedly slams his head into the green metal, leaving streaks of blood before he ultimately collapses at the feet of a cameraman.

In one photo, a soldier is seen cocking his fist as he holds a hooded detainee in a headlock amid a pile of several detainees. Later, he is seen kneeling atop the same pile, flexing his muscles, a broad smile on his face, posing. Another soldier is seen in a photo brandishing a black baton as a naked prisoner - cuffed at the ankles and smeared with a brown substance - stands at the center of the prison hallway and holds his arms spread to either side.

There's also a throwaway line in this BBC report that Muslim detainees were force-fed pork and alcohol. While that's not greatly harmful in the grand scheme of things, it does reveal a lot about the attutides of the guards. They're childish bullies; like schoolkids with guns and power. And to them the prisoners are not people, but playthings to be abused and humiliated for sadistic pleasure.

As for NZPundit, it looks like I was wrong - he simply thinks that reports of people being "savagely beaten" and "repeatedly humiliated sexually" are "beyond parody". Charming.

ACT and flag-burning

Stephen Franks has once again proven that the only "freedom" ACT cares about is the freedom of the rich not to pay taxes, with his claim that "flag-burning is not speech".

Flag-burning is perhaps the ultimate example of political speech (second only I think to burning yourself). It conveys a powerful message - that of being so disgusted with one's country that you are willing to burn it in effigy. This is obviously offensive to those who aren't so disgusted (or who preach blind loyalty to a country regardless of what it does), but frankly that's part of the point - and its tough shit. There is no right not to be offended, and this follows very clearly from Mill's Law.

Liberalism is primarily about freedom, and its answer to the question of how far that freedom should extend is simple: as long as it doesn't hurt anybody else. John Stuart Mill captured this in the introduction to On Liberty:

the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection

Or as the pagans put it, "and it harm none, do what thou wilt". Giving offence is not "harm". Therefore suppressing it, either by state action or private use of force, is unjustified.

While we're on the subject of Mill, he also had this to say:

If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.

If Franks had any commitment at all to the principles ACT purports to stand for, he'd be supporting Paul Hopkinson's appeal, not opposing it. But sadly, he doesn't. Maybe liberal ACT members should protest by burning him in effigy?

Update: Not everyone in ACT is as illiberal as Stephen Franks, and his press release has brought out the best in at least one of them: The Whig. He may argue from property rights, but he gets to the right place in the end:

To be sure the flag is a fundamental symbol of New Zealand, our way of life, our democracy and our aspirations. But people have the right to disagree with these things. The right to disagree and dissent is in fact what the flag represents. The New Zealand flag, as I see it, is a symbol of our right to burn it.

It may offend people to burn the flag, but to make it a criminal offence to offend people is the mark of a fascist society. People who wish to protect the flag in this manner are not worthy of having it as their ensign.

Nothing from any of ACT's other denizens on the web, though.

Consequences

New Zealand has attracted criticism from the UN Committee Against Torture regarding our treatment of Ahmed Zaoui, and asylum-seekers in general.

Thanks, Lianne and Phil, for dragging our international good name through the mud.

Latest on Abu Ghraib

US interrogators there mistreated a child to get his father to talk.

This violates all standards of decency, international law, and the US's own anti-torture statute (which forbids threatening harm to others). But will there be serious prosecutions? I'm not holding my breath...

Economic independence for Timor!

East Timor turned two yesterday - but spent most of the time worrying about its lack of economic resources required to rebuild the country.

What really bites is that the resources are there - Timor is literally sitting on billions of dollars worth of oil and natural gas. Unfortunately, its currently subject to a border dispute with Australia, who are refusing to give it up and are trying to use their economic muscle (and control of aid money) to monster the fledgling country into signing away their rights - despite the fact that the Timorese position is the standard one in international law.

And what is the New Zealand government doing about this? Nothing. We have taken a strong role in helping Timor along the path to independence, but Timor will never be truly independent until it can stand on its own two feet economicly - and that isn't going to happen if Australia gets its way on the border. As a country which traditionally supports international law, we should be using our close relationship with Australia to argue for the Timorese cause. Friends don't let friends bully their neighbours.

Correction

In my post on the Israeli massacre of protesters in Rafah, I followed initial reports and blamed a missile from a helicopter. That was incorrect. From the news reports I saw last night, they used the main guns of tanks. Repeatedly. Not that that's any better.

OTOH, it makes for easier comparisons. What sort of regime uses tanks against peaceful demonstrators? One like this...

No way to treat friends

The Greens are wrong here, but they have a point. While the denial of New Zealand citizenship to Western Samoans born or resident in that country after Independence is strongly supported in international law, the way in which we did it was overtly racist and in the context of our history and close relations with Western Samoa, not morally supportable.

While repealing the law or extending or offering citizenship is not the right solution, we can do a hell of a lot better. Western Samoa is an ex-colony for god's sake, as well as one of our closest Pacific neighbours - and yet they need a visa to travel here and immigration is controlled by strict quotas. Why?

Instead of restricting the travel of Samoans, we should be welcoming them. Australians are allowed to visit and live here without any requirement for a visa or permit; we should extend the same privileges to Samoa. Our past history means that they're not just friends - they're family.

We're doing what?

Appently Immigration is requiring Tongan women to have pregnancy tests before visiting the country.

For fuck's sake. Is there no indignity they won't stoop to now?

Signs

Two comets and a plague of locusts. But the rapture undex is on a low 144. Do you think they're missing something?

The changing fortunes of Ahmed Chalabi

Ahmed Chalabi was once the NeoCon's golden boy, their preferred choice for the Iraqi presidency - which is surprising, given that he's been selling them out to Iran. But while they could tolerate him providing faulty intelligence and thereby helping them lie their way into a war, his recent demand that the post-handover Iraqi government should control its own oil revenues was obviously going too far. And so the Americans are retailiating. Earlier in the week, the CIA cut off his generous monthly stipend (which they paid in exchange for lies); today US troops raided his house. Can arrest and extradition to Jordan to face jail for fraud be that far off...?

Typical

In a fairly typical display, NZPundit and his cronies are laughing at the latest photos from Abu Ghraib...

Chicken feed

In response to a public campaign waged by greenpeace, McDonalds NZ has announced they will be switching to non-GE chicken feed.

A victory for consumer protest, I guess.

Who's confused?

The Whig thinks I'm confused about Don Brash's position on the Treaty, saying that it's simply "an issue of interpretation". Hardly. What Don Brash is claiming - that cession of sovereignty was also a cession of property rights - has no support in either the Treaty, its judicial interpretation, or in common law.

British common law has a well-established concept of "aboriginal" or "customary" title, which essentially holds that the locals retain their property rights (including usage rights) when a country is settled or colonised. The Treaty confirmed that the this concept would apply in New Zealand, and early jurisprudence was consistent in upholding it. Justice Prendergast's dismissal of the Treaty as "a simple nullity" on the basis that a deal with "savages" was not binding put a hold on the legal use of aboriginal title for a hundred years, but a decision in 1986 resurrected it, and it has since gained widespread judicial and legal support. What Don Brash is saying - that sovereignty necessarily equals extinguishment - is simply not the case.

The crown did gain the right under article one of the Treaty to entinguish Maori property rights by legislation - but that is not what Don Brash was claiming (and in any case the Court of Appeal found that that right had never been exercised with regards to the foreshore and seabed, meaning that any aboriginal title that existed at the time of the Treaty was still intact).

Brash may wish that the government had expropriated the foreshore, and he may wish that we were still back in the dark days of Prendergast when the crown owned everything and deals with "savages" were not binding, but it did not and we are not. There is simply no basis for his claim that Maori ceded property rights with the Treaty. He is either fundamentally ignorant, or being deliberately misleading. Either way, he should correct himself publicly at the first opportunity.

More on community education

Another polytech caught running a community education course with no classes, no assessment, no exams and no final qualification at the end of it - and scamming $15 million from the government for doing so. Ho-hum. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: it's the market, stupid. Underfunding tertiary institutions while demanding they operate according to commercial imperitives is simply asking them to exploit every loophole in the "bums on seats" funding model.

Though unlike twilight golf, Christchurch Polytech's self-directed computer course is at least useful. Extending basic computer knowledge to people who don't normally use them is exactly the sort of thing we have community education for. But why the hell were they getting $795 per student for a course which costs them less than $10 per student to "teach"?

The loophole has apparently been plugged, and hopefully there'll be more of a requirement for polytechs to expend resources (as in: actually teach people in a classroom) if they want to get funding. At the same time, though, this is an innovative model (people do actually learn from these things), and I've no problem at funding it at a level more in line with its cost if student participation and progress can be verified. And on the third hand, monitoring costs money, and it is cheaper and easier not to bother. Rather than paying polytechs per student to use shotgun methods, just pay someone a flat fee to develop the material, then host it on a central website and make it freely available to all. I'm sure it would be cheaper than paying every institution to develop its own material and then checking to see whether the students actually exist...

Newspeak

The Americans have renamed Abu Ghraib, and are now calling it Camp Redemption.

What a lovely piece of newspeak. Camp Redemption - where the innocent go to be beaten and tortured. Could they have thought up anything sicker?

Well, OK, yes, they could have. But still - it seems like a perfect example of the "cold joke" on a massive scale.

Anniversaries

One that doesn't seem to have made the news in a big way yet: Parliament will be 150 years old on monday.

New Zealand's House of Representatives first assembled on May 24th, 1854. It differed in three important ways from the modern institution. Firstly, there was the obvious method of election - FPP reigned supreme back then, and there was no truck with ideas of proportionality or fairness. Secondly, there were no parties - everybody was an independent. And thirdly, it didn't actually govern the country, being simply a legislative body with limited powers to enact laws for the Governor.

Our aspiring politicians weren't happy with that, and spent their entire first session passing various motions demanding "responsible government" - that executive power be devolved to ministers selected by and from Parliament. The only other business they considered was setting up a pub for themselves: Bellamy's. Plus ca change, I guess.

Anyway, the Greens have organised a public seminar on monday night on the next 150 years of Parliament. If you're in Wellington, why not go?

Murderers

Israeli forces have killed ten people and injured sixty when they fired on a Palestinian demonstration in Rafah. Many of the casualties seem to have occured when a helicopter fired a missile into the crowd as a "warning shot".

What sort of regime attacks demonstrators with helicopter gunships? The Israelis are nothing more than murderers.

Shameful and unjust

Jim Anderton asks himself "what's a kiwi like me to think?" over the government's foreshore & seabed legislation. Well, this "pro-Treaty, pro-New Zealander, pro-Maori, anti-racist" New Zealander thinks that it is shameful and unjust. Oh, it's better than National's "alternative" of flat-out confiscation and denial, but it is still unjust. Not because it fails to recognise the possible customary rights or guardianship of Iwi (those parts of the legislation are perfectly acceptable), but simply because it treats Maori as second-class citizens. It denies them rights guaranteed both by the Treaty (articles two and three), and by our general democratic principles of fairness and equality.

On the Treaty front, article two is quite clear. Maori were to enjoy the continued possession and enjoyment of their lands, estates, fisheries etc. for as long as they desired. Absent alienation or expropriation by the government, if they owned something in 1840, then they are still entitled to it today. Whether they actually owned patches of foreshore in 1840, or merely enjoyed various usage rights is something for the courts to determine. However, by denying the ultimate remedy of freehold title, the government is stacking the deck, and greatly enhancing its hand in subsequent negotiations for compensation.

More importantly, there's a clear breach of article three, and our general principles of fairness and equality, in that we already allow various people to freehold foreshore and seabed - a right the law would deny to Maori claimants. Shouldn't we be treating everyone equally? If we are saying to Maori "you cannot own it, but we will compensate", shouldn't we also be saying the same to existing landowners? And conversely, if it is OK for foreign millionaires to own beaches, then why not Maori?

Yes, allowing the courts to award freehold title runs the risk of more foreshore falling into private hands - but it is what justice and equality demand. Besides, there are alternatives. Using the customary rights scheme to create universal presumptive customary rights of access, navigation and recreational usage across all foreshore (or at least, all foreshore not granted a permit to restrict) would make the whole question of private ownership fundamentally irrelevant.

We have to get this issue right, otherwise we'll be poisoning our race relations and creating a problem for future generations. Fortunately it's not too late. The government still has time to change from its current shameful path, and find a solution which will uphold all our "kiwi" values - justice, equality, and beaches for all.

Be afraid. Be very afraid

Remember that scary Monbiot article last month about how US foreign policy was being driven by apocalyptic Christian fundamentalists who believe that they must start a world war so they can sit at the right hand of god? Well, Village Voice has more details on these people's influence on US foreign policy - for example, the way they were consulted before Bush's rejection of the "road map":

The e-mailed meeting summary reveals NSC Near East and North African Affairs director Elliott Abrams sitting down with the Apostolic Congress and massaging their theological concerns. Claiming to be "the Christian Voice in the Nation's Capital," the members vociferously oppose the idea of a Palestinian state. They fear an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza might enable just that, and they object on the grounds that all of Old Testament Israel belongs to the Jews. Until Israel is intact and David's temple rebuilt, they believe, Christ won't come back to earth.

Abrams attempted to assuage their concerns by stating that "the Gaza Strip had no significant Biblical influence such as Joseph's tomb or Rachel's tomb and therefore is a piece of land that can be sacrificed for the cause of peace."

The Apostolic Congress claims credit for Bush's subsequent rejection of the roadmap and endorsement of a massive Israeli landgrab in the West Bank.

Why should we be worried? Simply put, these people are not interested in peace in the Middle East. The only thing they are interested in is their Biblical vision of the end of the world. If this requires a bit of war, carnage and death, then so be it. After all, isn't eternal life in heaven worth it?

In an ordinary person, these views would be insane, but mostly harmless. But when the most powerful man in the world is outsourcing his foreign policy to loonies like this, we should all be very, very afraid.

Torture cover-up

Dozens of soldiers - other than the seven military police reservists who have been charged - were involved in the abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, and there is an effort under way in the Army to hide it, a key witness in the investigation told ABCNEWS.

"There's definitely a cover-up," the witness, Sgt. Samuel Provance, said. "People are either telling themselves or being told to be quiet."

More here.

Guilty

Specialist Jeremy Sivits has pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to maltreat detainees, maltreatment of detainees and dereliction of duty relating to his abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. It will be interesting to see what sentence he gets.

More on ignorance

The Whig wonders why I think that this survey lends weight to the idea that Brash's support on Treaty issues is built on ignorance. Simple. If a third of the population doesn't even know when the Treaty was signed, they are unlikely to be familiar with its nuances - or even its obvious features, like protection of property.

This allows Don Brash to get away with (for example) deliberately conflating the Treaty's surrender of sovereignty with a surrender of property rights:

SIMON But didn’t Maori have those property rights isn't that why they feel aggrieved they didn’t have a right then to ...

DON No on the contrary Maori surrendered sovereignty to New Zealand in 1840, I think that’s one of the fundamental points at issue here, there's a feeling that somehow Maori did not surrender sovereignty and that they should therefore still own the seabed and the foreshore. Maori surrendered sovereignty in the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 clear from the preamble of Treaty, clear from Clause 1, so basically that’s the point to establish.

(Emphasis added).

While Maori indeed surrendered sovereignty in Article 1, Article 2 guaranteed them continued possession and enjoyment of their property. Saying that they surrendered any rights they held in the foreshore and seabed with the Treaty is simply nonsense. If Brash had even a passing familiarity with the Treaty, he'd know that. So the conclusion is that he's either fundamentally ignorant of our founding document, or that he's deliberately spreading lies to advance his own political agenda. Either answer isn't good for a man who hopes to be Prime Minister.

The Day After Tomorrow

For those who haven't heard, the above is an SF-disaster movie about catastrophic climate change bought on by global warming. The greenhouse-deniers are already kicking up a stink about it being unrealistic and having shonky science - and it hasn't even been released yet. So how bad is it?

Well, the basic scenario - freshwater from the melting north pole shuts down the gulf stream, kicking Europe and America into a new ice age - is possible, and has certainly happened before. Hollywood then takes this basic premise, amplifies it to the max, and time-compresses the results to fit their typical short attention span. So there's silliness - unexplained tidal waves which exist solely as an excuse for special effects; warm summer turning into a deep-freeze practically overnight - but it doesn't sound any worse in that regard than, say, Armageddon.

Those complaining that it is premised on an extreme scenario frankly need to get over themselves. Extreme scenarios are what disaster movies are all about. Yes, the vast majority of asteroids miss the Earth completely, the vast majority of dams do not burst, and the vast majority of towering buildings do not turn into infernoes - but disaster movies are about what happens when things go wrong, not when they go right.

Not that any of the above necessarily means I'm going to go and see it, of course. I'm not a great fan of disaster movies, and paying money to see Lost In Space has made me reluctant to shell out for Hollywood crap. Besides, with the price of movies nowdays, I could just buy a book instead - and Kim Stanley Robinson's Forty Signs of Rain would seem to be just the ticket...

Ignorance

Adding more weight to the argument that Brash's support on race-relations is built on ignorance is the news that only a third of New Zealanders even know when the Treaty was signed...

Stretched

The US is planning to redeploy troops from South Korea to Iraq. It's a telling indicator of just how far the US military is stretched - they're having to pull troops from their core defence commitments just to keep their head above water in the Middle East.

The positive side of this is that it means they can't really fight any more wars - they just don't have the troops for it. NeoCon dreams of Syria or Iran being next are just so much hot air. And the negative side is that they can't really fight any more wars - so if things go pear-shaped in Korea, or China decides that now is the time to retake Taiwan, the US will be limited to watching from the sidelines.

Overall, I'm not sure that this is a good thing...

Update: Kevin Drum has more details on what other barrels the US is scraping the bottom of, and its scary. Sometime soon, they're going to have to make some hard political decisions - draft, withdrawl, complete callup of the reserves - and the results won't be pretty.

Part 4 of Morgue's trip to Palestine is now up.

Responsibility

Colin Powell has finally admitted that the claims he made to the UN Security Council were wrong and based on faulty intelligence.

Crooked Timber draws an interesting contrast between the different standards of responsibility demanded of the media and practised by politicians in these sorts of cases. If the Daily Mirror publishes photos which later turn out to be fakes, heads must roll. If politicians build a case for war on information which later turns out to be false, that's just business as usual. But I guess the difference is that we still expect some truth from the media, even from the tabloids. Wheras it was Powell's job to get up there and lie to the UN, to sacrifice his credability so Bush could have his war.

Only hours to go...

...until gay marriages are legal in Massachusetts. People are already queuing.

So, why the hell are we settling for Civil Unions again?

Double jeopardy

On the face of it the government's plans in this area seem fairly reasonable. Allowing the police to go back to correct an "error of justice" where there has been perjury or witness intimidation seems fair enough. But a retrial on the basis of "new and compelling evidence"? I don't think so. Given the number of hoops that must be jumped through to get a re-trial on those grounds, the mere fact that one is being held would be a pre-judgement of guilt which would irreversibly taint the jury.

Yes, it is unjust if murderers escape justice - but it is also unjust if we pre-judge them, or lower our standards to convict them and thus increase the risk of punishing the innocent as well. The general maxim is that it is better for ten guilty men to go free than punish an innocent, and so we should oppose this change. Instead, we should encourage the police to do a proper job the first time round rather than lower our standards in this way.

Somebody's going to jail

Seymour Hersh's latest instalment in the New Yorker is earth-shattering:

The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision, approved last year by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret operation, which had been focussed on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. Rumsfeld’s decision embittered the American intelligence community, damaged the effectiveness of élite combat units, and hurt America’s prospects in the war on terror.

According to interviews with several past and present American intelligence officials, the Pentagon’s operation, known inside the intelligence community by several code words, including Copper Green, encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq. A senior C.I.A. official, in confirming the details of this account last week, said that the operation stemmed from Rumsfeld’s long-standing desire to wrest control of America’s clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A.

The short version: After September 11th, Donald Rumsfeld established a secret operation to kill, capture, and interrogate "high value" Al-Qaeda targets, with blanket permission to do whatever they thought was necessary. This included torture and sexual abuse - whatever would get people to talk. Later, when the insurgency in Iraq was going badly and US forces were floundering in the dark without any idea of who they were fighting, the project was expanded into detention facilities there. In order to cope with the number of detainees, Military Intelligence interrogators were bought into the loop - and there it started to go wrong. The overworked interrogators got the prison guards to help them (how else to explain these photos of Military Intelligence staff and MPs cooperating in abusing prisoners?) - and things spiralled out of control. It's unclear whether all the abuse was at the behest of interrogators, or whether some of it was done for recreational purposes by sadistic guards (describe as "recycled hillbillies" by one of Hersh's sources), but either way the techniques originally approved for use against terrorist masterminds were being applied to "cabdrivers, brothers-in-law, and people pulled off the streets". Then, when people who weren't supposed to know found out - people like the MP's superiors, and General Taguba - an investigation was started and the whole thing hit the media.

Hersh's sources are quite clear on where ultimate responsibility lies: with Stephen Cambone, the deputy under-secretary for intelligence. He had direct oversight of the program, and approved its expansion. Donald Rumsfeld and General Myers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are also in the gun, for approving it and "[creating] the conditions that allowed transgressions to take place". Command responsibility goes all the way to the top.

What's interesting is that people have come forward. Violating secrecy and leaking the details of a classified program to the media is a criminal offence, punishable by imprisonment. Even knowing about this when you are not supposed to results in the cancellation of security clearances. Yet senior figures in the Pentagon and intelligence community have come forward to talk about it. I guess the stakes have simply got too high. This is bigger than Iran-Contra - someone is going to carry the can for it in the end, and people are desperately trying to make sure that it's not them. And they're doing it by leaking and pointing the finger in advance.

But the worst bit is that it hasn't stopped. According to one of Hersh's sources:

“The black guys”—those in the Pentagon’s secret program—“say we’ve got to accept the prosecution. They’re vaccinated from the reality.” The [program] is still active, and “the United States is picking up guys for interrogation. The question is, how do they protect the quick-reaction force without blowing its cover?”

Not "why are we torturing people", not "how do we stamp out this practice", but "how do we cover our arse and keep doing this." Well, now the program's cover is well and truly blown, and there will be a shitstorm of epic proportions. Media coverage, investigations, congressional hearings, indictments and prosecutions. This will drag on for months, years even. But at the end of it all, hopefully, somebody will be going to jail.

Showcasing

Bush wants the venue of the G8 summit next month to showcase his "environmental stewardship" - so he's holding it in one of America's most polluted counties, in an island resort surrounded by toxic waste dumps.

Quiet satisfaction

The photos were fake, but the story wasn't. Soldiers from the Queen's Lancashire Regiment will be charged next week in relation to the death of Baha Mousa, and other charges are pending. Due to the severity of the crimes, the cases are likely to be dealt with in a civilian court rather than a military court-martial.

So much for the regiment's "quiet satisfaction" that its honour had been restored...

An interesting question

Surely the CIA's use of "water boarding" violates the Federal anti-torture statute?

Presumably the agents and operatives are US nationals; the practice clearly falls under the definition of "torture" (making someone "believe he might drown" sounds like a threat of imminent death to me). The only quibbles would be either to argue that it wasn't intentional, wasn't severe, or was a lawful punishment - none of which pass the laugh test.

The same does not apply to members of the US military - they are subject to military justice - but there is the interesting possibility of executive accountability. Donald Rumsfeld approved the use of sensory and sleep deprivation at Guantanamo; according to Stephen Cambone, his under-secretary for intelligence, he "insisted on being asked for permission" each time these techniques were used. In addition to ordinary physical violence, the anti-torture statute also bars "procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality" - such as sensory and sleep deprivation. Does this open Rumsfeld to charges of conspiracy to commit torture?

An interesting question indeed...

Good, but this isn't just about Iraq

Following yesterday's admission that methods used in Iraq violated the Geneva Convention, the US government has changed its interrogation rules for Iraq and barred the use of sleep and sensory deprivation, "dietry manipulation" (hunger and thirst) and stress positions.

This is good, but its important to remember that this isn't just about Iraq. The US has also admitted to using torture in Guantanamo and in the CIA's secret gulag; it must be stamped out there as well. Anything less is as much a betrayal of America's values as what went on in Abu Ghraib.

Gross hypocrisy

In his presidential statement on the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture on June 26th, 2003, George W. Bush said this:

The United States is committed to the world-wide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example. I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment.

While he was saying it, prisoners were being abused and tortured in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and in the CIA's extrajudicial gulag, on the orders of his subordinates. Did he not know - or did he just not care?

Watch them scatter like cockroaches

According to Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon's lawyers, "torture-lite" is perfectly legal and not banned by the Geneva Convention. Unless, of course, the victim is an American:

Sen. Jack Reed asked Pace if a foreign nation held a U.S. Marine in a cell, naked with a bag over his head, squatting with his arms uplifted for 45 minutes, would that be a good interrogation technique or a Geneva Convention violation.

"I would describe is as a violation, sir," replied Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"As I read Gen. Sanchez's guidance, precisely that behavior could have been employed in Iraq," said Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat.

Reed later asked Wolfowitz a similar question. Wolfowitz initially tried to sidestep it, but eventually replied, "What you've described to me sounds, to me, like a violation of the Geneva Convention."

And suddenly everybody at the top level in Washington is running to avoid the war crimes charges. That list of interrogation techniques was never discussed, never reviewed, never seen "beyond the theatre" - it's all General Sanchez's fault, prosecute him, not me!

This will be fun to watch...

The strategy of deceit

And while I'm on Don Brash, I have to mention his strategy of deceit. His initial response when asked "did you say that" was "I don't remember", and "it's not the sort of language I'd normally use" - with the clear implication that he hadn't said anything of the sort. And now the evidence is out, it's "I don't remember", with the tone implying that, well, he may have said something like that, but he doesn't remember the exact words.

I thought Brash was supposed to be a man who stood by his principles, not a weasel. The above sounds like Bill Clinton's infamous "I did not have sex with that woman", rather than the words of a "man of conviction".

But I guess Brash knows better than anyone that if the public understood his convictions - on nuclear policy, on taxation, on government services, on wage-levels - they'd run a mile.

Confirming duplicity

The comments released by the government today confirm Don Brash's duplicity over nuclear ships. He's been telling the New Zealand public one thing, and the Americans another:

Dr (Lockwood) Smith explained the current study being done by the National Party. If the study came to the same conclusion as it did in 1992, then National would look seriously at the nuclear legislation...

It was here that Dr Brash made the throw-away comment 'If the National Party was in government today, we would get rid of the nuclear propulsion section today - by lunchtime, even.

Which makes his sudden "memory loss" when asked about it highly convenient.

Also in the category of people who try desperately to hide their unpopular opinions is Lockwood Smith. Linda Clark interviewed him on Nine Till Noon the other morning about National's nuclear review, and at the end asked him for his personal opinion on the desirability of nuclear ship visits. He didn't have one, didn't want to talk about it, and said that that wasn't the issue. All of which made him appear rather two-faced...

Bloody tabloids

The Mirror's photos are fakes. Stupid, stupid newspaper. By going for a dramatic image for the front page, they've given the government the chance to paper over the scandal. Which means that the growing number of witnesses that have come forward, the allegations by the ICRC and Amnesty International, and the fact that these claims are being taken very seriously by military authorities, will be lost in the noise.

Anticipation

Why has Public Address' David Slack been silent for the last two months? Because he's been writing a book...

Given his previous contributions on the foreshore issue and Treaty debate, I'm looking forward to it.

Condemnations

One of NZPundit's commentators asks:

Once again I ask where are the voices from the Muslim world decrying the actions of these imbeciles as an insult to Allah?

The murder of Nick Berg has attracted widespread condemnation in the Islamic world, on exactly those grounds. Scholars, religious and political leaders, even groups normally hostile to the US (such as the Iraqi Board of Muslim Clergy and Hizbollah) have condemned it; "forbidden by Islam", "rejected by Islam", and "absolutely wrong" are just some of the opinions expressed.

If NZPundit's commentators aren't aware of this, it says more about their narrow media-reading habits than about feeling in the Islamic world.

Intolerable

Suspects in methamphetamine manufacturing cases are facing up to three years in jail on remand while waiting for ESR to analyse the evidence. One suspect has waited a year already - and his case hasn't even made it to a depositions hearing, let alone trial.

A High Court Judge has called this situation "intolerable", and I agree. Waiting years on remand before facing trial means that suspects will pay the price regardless of guilt or innocence. It's a violation of human rights and of natural justice. And if it continues, we are going to see charges dismissed and people going free, or judges granting bail and suspects reoffending - which will no doubt be exploited by politicians to argue for increased penalties and longer sentences.

As for why this is happening, yes, the direct cause is that ESR doesn't have enough trained forensic scientists. But the root cause is their funding model. CRI's are no longer funded simply to maintain a capability; no-one is giving ESR money just to be a decent forensics lab (or rather, the "non-specific" funding they get from the government is nowhere near enough to cover this). Instead, they must get funding on a project-by-project basis, from FRST, the private sector, or other organisations. This unstable revenue stream affects staffing decisions and encourages CRIs to keep core staff numbers low.

In the case of ESR Forensics, they get a lot of their funding from the police, on a case-by-case basis. This provides even less stability than usual, and its easy to see how they could be caught short-staffed by an epidemic, and be reluctant to hire more (because they'll just have to lay them off when the epidemic passes), or have difficulty doing so (temporary contingent employment is not the norm in science, and potential staff would be reluctant to accept it).

ESR have said they can reduce the backlog if given a one-off cash injection of around a million dollars - enough to hire extra staff and provide stability for four or five years (by way of comparison, ESR's total revenue last year was $33 million, so this represents a substantial increase in funding). But in the long-term, the government is going to have to fund CRIs more on a capability basis if it wants to avoid this problem happening again and again and again.

(And for those on the right, no, this is not something we can simply contract out. Few labs are accredited for forensic work, and we should be very uneasy about involving organisations legally required to be driven solely by the profit motive in a core aspect of our judicial system).

Deeper into the pit

It's not just the US Army using torture in the "war on terror"; it's also the CIA. And they're worse:

The CIA has used coercive interrogation methods against a select group of high-level leaders and operatives of al-Qaida that have produced growing concerns inside the agency about abuses, according to current and former counterterrorism officials.

At least one agency employee has been disciplined for threatening a detainee with a gun during questioning, they said.

In the case of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a high-level detainee who is believed to have helped plan the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, CIA interrogators used graduated levels of force, including a technique known as "water boarding," in which a prisoner is strapped down, forcibly pushed underwater and made to believe he might drown.

Where "made to believe he might drown" means "held underwater for long periods of time until drowning, repeatedly, until they talk". This technique is also known as "the submarine" and is popular among torturers because it doesn't leave any marks.

There can be no quibbling about torture vs "torture-lite" here. This is the real thing. And there can also be no question about "bad apples" or "isolated individuals", because this has been authorised at the highest levels of the Bush administration. The moral degeneration of the US is complete - it has now wholeheartedly joined the ranks of states that practice torture. The beacon of freedom has been extinguished; the light has gone out.

Still, I guess it'll give them something to talk about with Sudan and Cuba at the next meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission...

The article also alludes to the US practice of extraordinary rendition - transferring people to a foreign jurisdiction with a questionable human rights record (such as Egypt or Jordan) so that they may be tortured. This allows US officials to keep their hands clean and dodge US anti-torture legislation - they only ask the questions (or write them so that their proxies can ask them); they are not the people applying the electrodes or pulling fingernails. But what's the moral difference between torturing someone yourself and having someone do it on your behalf for your benefit? None whatsoever.

Sarah, formally of Leto fame, has got herself a new blog.

Part of the process

The other day the ICRC reported being told that prisoners being confined naked in their cells was "part of the process". Now we have confirmation that the US has legalised the widespread use of "torture-lite" in Iraq:

Revealing the interrogation methods allowed in Iraq, the Senate Armed Services Committee released a single page titled "Interrogation Rules of Engagement", listing two categories of measures.

The first showed basic techniques approved for all detainees, while the second involved tougher measures that required approval by Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, commander of US forces in Iraq. Among the items on the second list were stress positions for up to 45 minutes, sleep deprivation for up to 72 hours and use of muzzled dogs.

Looking at the photo, the list also includes dietry and environmental manipulation - i.e. denial of food, water, heat, shelter, and clothing. Sound familiar?

And at the sme time, in the same room, the US undersecretary for defence had the gall to claim that prisoners in Iraq were treated according to the Geneva Convention. He must have a different version of it to everybody else, because the version I've seen outlaws anything even remotely like the above.

Still, we now know exactly how high this goes - all the way to the top. Use of these techniques must be approved by Lt-Gen Sanchez. There is a similar list for Guantanamo, requiring the explicit approval of Donald Rumsfeld. As they are the people approving this treatment, responsability ultimately rests with them. Both are war criminals, both should be prosecuted. If the US won't do it, then the international community should.

Hollow promises

Aviation students are being sold "hollow promises", many racking up tens of thousands of dollars in student loans without ever finding jobs as pilots, aviation operators say.

Story here.

But aviation is just an extreme example; the same applies to graduates in general. The good thing about the student loan scheme is that it has made tertiary education more accessible; the downside is that by increasing the supply of graduates, it has decreased the payoff for getting a degree - undermining the "private good" which is supposed to justify the scheme in the first place.

The market solution is that students will respond to market demand by focusing their studies in areas where they are more likely to gain employment, or even forgoing tertiary study entirely. This sounds perfect in theory - the market will eventually reach equilibrium - but due to imperfect information and a five-plus year timelag, what it means for individuals is ruined lives and debt that can never be repaid.

(And when the market does work as intended and the signals reach students, the result is that we don't have enough teachers or nurses. Fantastic)

One of the reasons we have a State in the first place is to insulate people from risk - both the risk of other people using force (hence police and a justice system), and the vicissitudes of fortune (hence a health system, welfare, and anti-discrimination legislation). Our current market model of education - tuition fees and restricted student support - dramaticly increase the risks individuals are exposed to - and for what? To save the government money. Why do we, as citizens, tolerate this?

Questions

why is rhetoric all right in muslim nations?

Because effective language usage is obviously the sort of thing that only dastardly Muslims and lawyers would approve of.

who won the dispute between thomas becket and henry 2?

Henry delivered a knockout, but Beckett won on points.

Putting the past behind us

The Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Act (2004) was passed last night. This is a good thing. It allows people who made stupid mistakes as teenagers and never reoffended to put their past behind them and get on with their lives. At the same time, it strikes a good balance with protecting the public - records are still kept, and can be consulted when someone is applying for a sensitive position (such as in the police or security services); sexual offences and anything resulting in prison time are not concealed.

The downside is that it will create new business opportunities for scum like BayCorp, and give them new scope to ruin people's lives when they make a mistake. Theoretically this can be dealt with under the Privacy Act and libel law, but few have the resources to protect their reputation through the courts. Adding a provision imposing significant fines on those who do not correct false information when asked would have been good.

Can we sue?

So one of the labs responsible for testing seed coming into New Zealand for GE material turns out to have not been reporting levels it considered "too small to confirm" - despite being told that we had a "zero-tolerance" regime in place. As a result, the government is going to have to spend a lot of money finding out where the seed was planted, whether its still there, and possibly checking surrounding areas for evidence of cross-pollination.

I really hope we can sue them for their laxity.

Why the Spanish left Iraq

According to Juan Cole, they were asked by the Americans to bring in Moqtada al-Sadr "dead or alive". Being familiar with conditions on the ground in Najaf, and having some inkling of the shitstorm it would provoke (and the number of Spaniards who would die as a result), they wisely refused.

It's an illuminating insight into how American commanders see the rest of the "coalition of the willing" - as disposable auxilliaries, to be given all the dirty and risky jobs and die in the place of Americans. No wonder the Spanish wanted nothing to do with it.

More details here.

Other solutions to the foreshore

While the Foreshore and Seabed Bill has passed its first hurdle, that hasn't stopped other solutions from being proposed. Here's two:

Fighting Talk:

Let the land court handle the claims. Legislate so that, if the court finding would confer the right to bar public access or to sell the land, that must be ratified by Parliament. That satisfies the public positions of everybody this side of National, and probably some people on the other side as well.

Well, this is certainly better than the current plan, and I think the need for ratification would encourage negotiation by both parties. And OTOH, requiring ratification by Parliament is blatantly stacking the deck, and will turn any property rights recognised by the court into a political football.

Clockworkfish:

* allow the law to grant title to foreshore where Maori can prove they have a right to it

* set up a legal structure which protects access to and enjoyment of important areas of New Zealand.

This gets to the heart of it in recognising that its not ownership that matters to pakeha, so much as the right of recreational usage. And the government is creating just such a legal structure with the customary rights mechanism. If they granted universal customary rights of access, navigation and recreational usage on all foreshore, then it wouldn't really matter who owned it.

The sticking point, obviously, is existing property owners. There are some who need to be able to restrict access (ports, for example); others would need to be compensated. However, the former can be dealt with by tweaking the RMA (which already allows people to restrict access to public foreshore with the right permit), and the latter would seem to be a damn sight cheaper than compensating for full expropriation.

The Bill is currently heading to Select Committee, and isn't due back before the House until November, so there's still time to encourage the government not to shame us all.

Morgue's trip to Palestine

Part 2
Part 3

Mischevious

Don Brash says that speculation that Simon Power will lose his defence portfolio is "mischevious"...

...besides, they don't have anyone else to give it to.

Report of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on the Treatment by the Coalition Forces of Prisoners of War and Other Protected Persons by the Geneva Conventions in Iraq During Arrest, Internment and Interrogation [PDF]

Writing down the debt

Murray Boardman makes a good argument in the Herald today for writing down student loans for people who stay in New Zealand. I agree with him. The problem of student debt needs to be addressed. It's driving people overseas, causing them to delay buying a house or having kids, and makes it impossible to save for retirement (something the government tells us we must do). This doesn't just affect the individuals concerned, but the economy and society as a whole.

Writing down the debt may be unfair to those who paid their own way through university, but its the only way to fix this.

"Widespread and routine"

That's the International Committee for the Red Cross's assessment of the torture and abuse of prisoners in Iraq.

The ICRC works with governments to improve the conditions of POWs, and generally keeps its findings secret, prefering to apply pressure in private rather than in public. However, in this case someone leaked the report, and its shocking. According to the Red Cross:

• "Between 70 percent and 90 percent" of detainees held in Iraq had been arrested by mistake.
• Abuse was reported in more than ten seperate detention facilities, some of it "tantamount to torture". Hooding, beatings, humiliation and mock-executions were used by interrogators

  in a systematic way to gain confessions and extract information and other forms of cooperation from persons who had been arrested in connection with suspected security offenses or deemed to have an 'intelligence value.'

• The Red Cross "directly witnessed" prisoners being abused (being kept "completely naked in totally empty concrete cells and in total darkness"); they were told by interrogators that this was "part of the process".
• They also observed evidence of other abuses - bruises, burns and other injuries - which supported prisoner's allegations.

"A few bad apples"? Yeah, right.

Justifying torture

Early this morning I was foolish enough to channel surf onto Fox News, where I was greeted by some American talking head telling us that we should remember that those detained in Abu Ghraib "weren't boy scouts". Subtext: "They're bad people, and so torturing them was OK".

Fortunately there was nothing nearby to throw.

Moral fatigue

NZPundit thinks that Abu Ghraib is "a storm in a teacup", and "will be news history in a week or two". While I disagree vehmently on the first - this is fucking torture, for fuck's sake! - I have a nasty feeling that he may be right on the second. Why? Moral fatigue.

There's only so much of this people can take. While the initial reaction is one of burning outrage, wading through this sewer, reading report after report of torture, humiliation, and abuse, replaces that with just a dull, sick feeling. You just don't want to read it any more. Easier to just send money to Amnesty International and let them worry about it.

Must read

Pakeha And The Treaty - Why It's Our Treaty Too

The great Blogger "upgrade"

On consideration, I hate the new way Blogger looks - at least in Firebird. But no doubt it looks great in the latest bloated MickeySoft browser...

Unfortunately, it's not just looks. The new interface demands that I sign in every five seconds, then throws a 404. It's a piece of crap. Bring back the old Blogger!

Chain of command

Seymour Hersh's latest article in the New Yorker focuses on the failures in the chain of command that allowed Abu Ghraib to happen. There's a section on Rumsfeld's management of the Pentagon, and a description of another series of photos showing the use of army dogs on a naked and helpless prisoner. There's some stuff about command of the prison being turned over to military intelligence, and the way their use of unmarked uniforms (used to disorient prisoners and depersonalise the process) blurred the chain of command. And there's an example of what should have happened when interogators requested that prisoners be "softened up":

Not everybody went along. A company captain in a military-police unit in Baghdad told me last week that he was approached by a junior intelligence officer who requested that his M.P.s keep a group of detainees awake around the clock until they began talking. "I said, ‘No, we will not do that,’" the captain said. "The M.I. commander comes to me and says, ‘What is the problem? We’re stressed, and all we are asking you to do is to keep them awake.’ I ask, ‘How? You’ve received training on that, but my soldiers don’t know how to do it. And when you ask an eighteen-year-old kid to keep someone awake, and he doesn’t know how to do it, he’s going to get creative.’" The M.I. officer took the request to the captain’s commander, but, the captain said, "he backed me up.

"It’s all about people. The M.P.s at Abu Ghraib were failed by their commanders - both low-ranking and high," the captain said. "The system is broken - no doubt about it. But the Army is made up of people, and we’ve got to depend on them to do the right thing."

Pessimism

KiwiPundit says:

There's no way to recover from Abu-Ghraib except to severly punish those who took part and those who knew, and fire or demote those who should have known or are otherwise culpable through inaction. Then we just have to wait for the wounds to heal.

Yes. The problem is that, judging by past behaviour, the US is unlikely to hand out anything more than a wet bus ticket. Lt Calley, the leader of the massacre at My Lai, served only three years of his life sentence. The only soldier so far convicted of killing prisoners unlawfully in Iraq received a demotion and a discharge - for manslaughter! The US Army has dragged its feet over investigating and prosecuting other suspicious deaths of prisoners in custody - and has not lifted a finger to investigate grossly unlawful deaths of civilians. And most importantly, despite the Taguba report recommending immediate disciplinary action against military intelligence staff at Abu Ghraib, the army's reaction has been anything but "immediate".

I don't think there's much hope there, I'm afraid. Serious prosecutions would involve admitting that the United States did something bad - and that is something that the US will never do. At least, not under the current administration.

Not just a few eminently qualified bad apples

When I first posted about the torture at Abu Ghraib, I made a snide remark that one of those involved was a prison guard in civilian life, so it was hardly surprising. The mainstream US media is finally exploring this angle, with a New York Times story (mirrored here) pointing out that:

Physical and sexual abuse of prisoners, similar to what has been uncovered in Iraq, takes place in American prisons with little public knowledge or concern, according to corrections officials, inmates and human rights advocates.

There's a catalogue of abuses, and you can find more on the web if you have the stomach to look. Beatings, sexual abuse of female prisoners by guards, chronic misuse of electroshock belts, cattle prods and restraint chairs as instruments of torture... many of the MPs at Abu Ghraib worked as prison guards, and they may have brought their bad habits with them. The man brought in to set up the prison in the ruins of Saddam's torture chambers and train the guards was himself a prison officer, who had previously been forced to resign from one job after

an inmate died while shackled to a restraining chair for 16 hours. The inmate, who suffered from schizophrenia, was kept naked the whole time.

I guess he was eminently qualified for the job at Abu Ghraib.

And OTOH, this reinforces the "few bad apples" narrative - which is false. The abuses and torture at Abu Ghraib were not random acts of sadism by a few individuals, but organised, systematic, encouraged, if not ordered by the military intelligence interrogators. This comes out again and again in the stories of those now coming forward, in the witness statements in the Taguba report, and in interviews with those currently facing charges:

"They would bring in one to several prisoners at a time already hooded and cuffed," Harman said by e-mail this week from Baghdad. "The job of the MP was to keep them awake, make it hell so they would talk."

[...]

"The person who brought them in would set the standards on whether or not to 'be nice,' " she said. "If the prisoner was cooperating, then the prisoner was able to keep his jumpsuit, mattress, and was allowed cigarettes on request or even hot food. But if the prisoner didn't give what they wanted, it was all taken away until [military intelligence] decided. Sleep, food, clothes, mattresses, cigarettes were all privileges and were granted with information received."

That's a long way from what the photos show, but it's easy to see how this can escalate. And it is obvious from one of the more recent photos that the abuses pictured are completely normal and accepted - there's something like eight guards in it, standing around as if nothing unusual was happening.

(I think its also important to note that even the relatively "mild" treatment Spec. Harman talks of violates the Geneva Convention - see Articles 13 ("prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated"), 14 ("prisoners of war are entitled in all circumstances to respect for their persons and their honour"), 26 (they must be provided with adequate food...), and 27 (...and clothing)).

Major General Miller, the new commander of Abu Ghraib, was up on the podium last night trying to deny his own words - he had previously recommended in a report on methods to extract information from detainees that

the 'guard force' [should] be actively engaged in setting the conditions for successful exploitation of the internees

(emphesis added). He wasn't very convincing.

New Fisk

If we see our enemies as inhuman, then we ourselves end up as savages

Neat

I've been looking at comet Neat tonight. It's about halfway between Sirius and Procyon, and up a bit. Through my binoculars it looks like a little fuzzy blob. I wonder if you can see the tail from somewhere with better seeing?

A sick feeling

The Guardian has a story suggesting that torture techniques are being propagated through coalition forces in Iraq by their horde of ex-special forces mercenaries - who learned them when being trained to resist such methods if captured.

I feel sick.

Labour party blogs

The PM has a blog too. Unfortunately its in the same bletcherous format as John Tamihere's - every entry on its own individual webpage. Ick!

The other problem is that she never says anything interesting. Like Tamihere, her content is just a travellogue - "went here, did this". But I guess this is one of the limits of being a politician - every word will be scrutinised, so they can't ever tell us what they really think, throw out interesting facts, muse about possible policy directions, or just vent their goddamn spleen.

Actually, I take that back. This week, John Tamihere actually says a few things about a Maori party, and is promising more. Actual content for a change...

The politics of conviction

One of the reasons people like Don Brash is because of his perceived conviction. He is seen as a man driven by principle, willing to stand up for what he believes in, and untainted by the compromises of everyday politics.

Hopefully, this perception is being undermined by his duplicity over National's newly released nuclear policy. Last weekend he told the NZPA that he had no position on the nuclear ship ban. Then, when pressed about reports that he had told a group of visiting US Senators that if it were up to him, the nuclear ban would be "gone by lunchtime", he refused to confirm or deny the comments. More recently, he told Linda Clark on Nine Till Noon that he personally opposed nuclear ship visits, and stood on his credentials as a peacenik. When pressed about his other positions, he said he didn't want to talk about it.

(As a peacenik, I wonder how he feels about Simon Power's plans to send New Zealanders to die for America whenenever told to? I'm sure the answer would be fascinating...)

These are not the words of a man of conviction. Like all politicians, Brash is tailoring his message to what he thinks his audiance wants to hear, to what he can sell to the public. The sooner the electorate wakes up to this, the better.

National wants to sell us out

National has signalled a return to foreign policy subservience, saying that they would send New Zealand troops to die for America's interests whenever we are told to:

Without reservation we will support our close allies, Australia, the United States and Britain when and wheresoever our commitment is called upon

The disaster in Iraq shows more than ever the need for an independent foreign policy. Blindly following the United States would have led us straight into a moral quagmire of occupation and torture. Yes, we should help our friends - but only when their cause is just. And when they are in the wrong, we should try and set them right. Friends don't let friends wage illegal wars of aggression.

National wants to sell out our independence in the vain hope of economic benefit for their fat-cat supporters. We shouldn't let them do it. The core of our foreign policy should always be independence - making our own decisions, according to our own values, in Wellington, not in Washington.

Selling the foreshore?

There has been some scaremongering that the government's foreshore policy will allow the government to sell the foreshore. Well, yes - but so did the status quo. The provisions in sections 11 and 12 of the Foreshore and Seabed Bill (the Land Act 1948 does not apply; alienation only by special Act of Parliament or under the provisions of the RMA dealing with reclaimed land) are identical in substance to those in the Foreshore and Seabed Endowment Revesting Act 1991. Those provisions exist because there are reasons why the crown might sometimes want to alienate - setting up a new port, for example - and so it needs the ability to do so.

Furthermore, this is about as strong a protection as we can get in a Westminster system. After all, if Parliament passed a stronger provision forever barring alienation, a later Parliament could always repeal it, or pass a law saying "except for this bit". We don't really do "higher law" in this country - about the only part of our constitutional framework protected in any way is part of the Electoral Act, and even then such protection is not very strong (the provision saying "these bits can only be repealed by a two-thirds majority" is not itself protected...). The Constitution Act, the Human Rights Act, all can be gutted by a simple Parliamentary majority. It is up to us, the voters, to ensure that it does not happen.

The same goes for the foreshore. We must keep an eye on Parliament to ensure that any attempts at alienation are justified. We must meet any unjustified attempt at alienation with lobbying and protests. If we fail to do this, we will have no-one but ourselves to blame.

New Fisk

An illegal and immoral war, betrayed by images that reveal our racism

Torture update

More pictures have emerged, showing prisoners on leashes, more sexual posing, and prisoners chained up with women's underwear on their heads. I've also seen mention of other pictures - more of the beaten-to-death "ghost" prisoner in his bodybag, and a blood-spattered torture chamber. The soldiers were apparently trading them. There's also more reports of mistreatment, such as this one of a 70 year old women being put in a harness and made to crawl on all fours like a donkey. Yeah, the greatest army in the world shows how powerful it is by humiliating grandmothers. What a pack of sadistic bullies...

Meanwhile, the UN is calling on the CPA to respect international human rights law and grant the detainees access to courts.

New Fisk

Pictures of wounded men being shot censored by TV

Moral blindness

NZPundit just doesn't understand people's outrage about the US's torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib:

What am I missing here people? I see the tragic symbolism of what happened in Abu Ghraib but really don't see how it is that important past the hysteria of the current news cycle.

Curiously, he has no such trouble understanding people's outrage about Saddam's torture, which shows us where the trouble lies. And as usual with NZPundit, it's a problem of consistency. What he is clearly missing is any sense that torture is wrong regardless of who does it. His analysis is concerned solely with what people will think, and how it will cause them to act towards the US. He seems completely blind to the moral dimension, to the idea that if it is wrong for Saddam to torture, it is also wrong for the United States, and everyone else as well.

But it's not just the outrage of torture itself, it's the outrage of torture committed by people who know better. The United States is supposed to be the "beacon of freedom", the exemplar of human rights for the world. And yet, it stoops to this. And so we have shattered expectations, disgust at backsliding, abhorrence at the betrayal of the values we hold dear, and a hefty dose of fear - because if the US can backslide, how safe are the rest of us?

Blowback

Many Americans are worried about "blowback" from the publication of torture photos from Abu Ghraib. Too late - it's already happened. This weeks Time has 10 Questions For Jumpei Yasuda (one of the Japanese journalists taken hostage in Iraq last month), and it includes this snippet:

The man who pointed his gun at me told me he was walking on the sidewalk and was arrested by the G.I.s when he wouldn't answer their questions. He said he was imprisoned for almost a month and regularly beaten up. One day, he said, he was taken to a private room and sexually assaulted.

(Emphesis added)

Abu Ghraib's torturers have been turning Iraqis against the occupation long before the photos were published. Contrary to the myopic beliefs of Americans, for whom nothing is real until reported in the US media, people do know when they are being tortured...

Hardcore

My friend Morgue went to Palestine recently. Here's the first part of his story.

Relief

Nanaia Mahuta will not resign from Parliament.

This means the government won't have to go to the Greens after all. Phew.

Focusing the mind

The hope on the left at the moment is that Labour will form a backup agreement with the Greens, allowing them to maintain confidence and supply and thus stay in government. The problem is that while Rod Donald has said that keeping National out of power focused the mind, a ban on commercial release of GMOs is still a bottom line for the party - which probably won't wash with Labour (or the electorate as a whole).

However, I think National has just given the Greens an even sharper focus, by threatening a sacred cow even more important than GE: our nuclear-free policy.

As a Green supporter, I think that this, more than anything else, makes a deal with Labour imperitive. An election now will hand the government benches to National, resulting not only in a repeal of the nuclear-ship ban, but also withdrawl from Kyoto, gutting the RMA, allowing open-cast mining and environmentally destructive development in conservation areas, a rollback of the last six years of progressive social legislation, and, in all likelihood, opening the floodgates to GE. We have to prevent this. If it means swallowing our pride and working with the government, then so be it. Labour, for all its flaws, is far more friendly to our goals than Don Brash.

What should a deal look like? It's probably best not to be seen to be too opportunistic, and with only fourteen months till the next election, it's too late for major policy changes anyway. And if United Future is also to continue supporting the government, then a deal must also be fair to them. Peter Dunne got one big policy item: a families commission. The Greens should push for the same: one decent policy payoff (and greater backroom influence, obviously). A universal student allowance, or a big dollop of cash to fund railways and public transport in Auckland would fit the bill nicely, and both have the advantage of also being popular with the centrist parties (and therefore, one would hope, with "middle New Zealand").

While it seems like selling out cheaply, I think the important thing at the moment is to buy time to ensure that the left-bloc in Parliament (Labour, the Greens and the Progressive Coalition) continues to hold 51% of the vote after the next election - because if it doesn't, then all the progress of the last five years, and our anti-nuclear policy, will be as dust.

New Kiwi blog

Just Left, also an exile from nz.pols.

Size matters

No matter which way you look at it, there were a hell of a lot of people marching yesterday. While some are clearly trying to downplay it - witness the editor of the Independent on Holmes last night making the standard "it's only a tiny fraction of the population" noises - the fact is that this is the biggest protest march in Wellington in a decade, and rivaled the size of anything from the Springbok Tour. We're not in the habit of taking to the streets in New Zealand over politics - it's telling that the only thing bigger on the Herald's list was Peter Jackson's triumphant opening of The Return of the King.

I said a while ago that any real solution to the foreshore and seabed issue had to satisfy the vast majority of New Zealanders, including the vast majority of Maori, otherwise it would simply fester. I think yesterday shows that the government's policy is a failure on the Maori front - you don't get 15,000 people outside Parliament when the vast majority are happy. As a result, it's going to be endlessly relitigated, before the Waitangi Tribunal and various international human rights bodies, in the process damaging our international reputation. Worse, it's going to be re-litigated every time there is a change of government. Maori will keep advocating, in the hope that eventually a friendly government (perhaps dependent on a new Maori party for a Parliamentary majority) will give in.

So, this issue is going to rear its ugly head again and again until Maori are happy with the result. Those hoping they'll admit defeat and give up should look at the Treaty settlements process to see how patient Maori can be.

Thousands

Scoop reports ten thousand marchers on the Hikoi in Wellington; the Herald says it took an hour for the whole march to leave Te Papa. Whichever way you look at it, that's a fairly hefty demonstration of the depth of feeling on this issue.

The full text of the Taguba report into torture at Abu Ghraib prison is here.

Casualties

A footnote in a Herald story indicates that the Civil Unions bill has become a casualty of the current political unrest over the foreshore and seabed:

the Herald understands the controversial Civil Unions Bill, due to be introduced to Parliament next week, has suddenly been put on hold and will not now be seen this parliamentary session.

I'm not sure whether this also applies to the omnibus bill or not, but either way its bad news. The Civil Unions Bill is a long way from perfect (it's really a half-measure, only full-on marraige will bring real equality), but it is a step in the right direction, and it would be a shame to lose it in the panic.

Twenty-five

That's the number of prisoners who have died in US custody in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the US military:

The BBC's Pentagon correspondent Nick Childs says of the 25 deaths, 12 were found to be either of natural or "undetermined" causes, one was a "justifiable homicide", and two were murders. Ten inquiries are ongoing, he says.

I wonder which of the above categories these two fall into...?

And the Pentagon has shown exactly how seriously it takes its human rights responsibilities;

An Army official, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said a soldier had been convicted of killing one of the prisoners by hitting him with a rock.

He was thrown out of the army but did not go to jail.

Normally, murderers go to jail. In the US army, they just lose their jobs. Do we need any more proof that the US army regards its captives as untermenchen?

Experimental metaphysics

Via Pointless and absurd, word of an experiment which has apparently disproved both the Copenhagen and Many-Worlds Interpretations of quantum physics.

The experiment is a variation on Young's double-slit experiment. When you pass a beam of light through a narrow slit, it diffracts (essentially, spreads out); the slit effectively becomes a point-source of waves, like the ripples you get when you stick your finger in water and wiggle it up and down. Young used two slits, side by side, and found that the waves from each interfered with one another. He was able to use this interference pattern to calculate the wavelength of light.

(The first slit in the above setup is used to ensure that the waves impacting on the pair of slits are coherent - all lined up. Nowdays we'd just use a laser)

How is this relevant to quantum mechanics? It's all to do with waves and particles. Young did his experiment because he wanted to prove that light was a wave. However, light also behaves like a particle (your TV remote is proof of this). Quantum physics accepts that it's both ("wave-particle duality"), but according to the complementarity principle (shared by both the Copenhagen and Many Worlds interpretations), "both aspects cannot be revealed in a single experiment". You can see (and measure) light as a wave, or as a particle, but not both at the same time.

The experiment - "Afshar's experiment" - purports to do both. It uses a double-slit apparatus, with a series of wires placed in the minima of the interference pattern. Behind that is a photon detector, placed so as to detect the light from only one slit. Light is passed through the apparatus one photon at a time. According to the complementarity principle, this forces particle-like behaviour. A particle passes through one slit; it follows a discrete path; therefore, it may hit one of the wires and be absorbed. You would therefore expect, over many photons, that the number detected at the detector would be lower than the number emitted, the difference being those that were absorbed by the wires.

This doesn't happen. The number of photons detected is pretty much the same as the number emitted; no photons are absorbed by the wires. What's going on?

The obvious answer is that the wires are where no light is going to go (the minima in the interference pattern), and so of course they don't absorb any. The problem is that we know which slit the photon went through - and when we look at what happens with a single slit, we find that light is indeed absorbed. How can the mere existence of a second slit (which the photon doesn't go through) affect where it goes?

Conversely, we can think of the photon as a wave, which goes through both slits and therefore produces the interference pattern. But then, how do we then see it as having travelled through only one slit?

No matter which way we look at it, it's a problem for complementarity, because we are able to see both wave and particle aspects at once. Which means it's also a problem for the Many-Worlds interpretation, because in their view this means that the world both has and has not split.

No doubt the proponents of the Copenhagen and Many Worlds interpretations will come up with an explanation - that's what paradigms do, after all - but what's really interesting about all this is that they have to at all. Both interpretations are regarded as purely in the realm of metaphysics - after all, what can be more metaphysical than the idea that photons "know" whether they're being looked at as a wave or particle, or that the world continuously splits and we never notice? - but here we have an experiment which purports to disprove them. And this isn't the first time this has happened in quantum physics - the EPR experiments in the 60's, 70's and 80's disproved "hidden variable" theories and showed that actually, some properties really are determined at the instant they are measured (or worse, at the instant the same property of a correlated particle is measured). Quantum physicists just seem to have this bad habit of constructing interpretations which seem on the face of it to be metaphysical, but which turn out in the end to be making testable claims which can be verified or disproved by looking at the world.

The traditional view is that "if it makes testable claims, it's not metaphysics", but what is testable and what is not is a function of both technology and theory. This means that the boundary between physics and metaphysics is not stable. Physics can chip away, bringing things out of the realm of metaphysics and into testable reality. Which means that "experimental metaphysics" isn't the oxymoron it sounds like...

Is NZUSA writing Peter Dunne's press releases?

Peter Dunne: Debt punishes our brightest and best

Middle Class an Endangered Species? (part 2)

My Right has taken issue with my post yesterday and missed my point. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the Government's tax policies, if you are in a financial hole you should stop digging. Somewhere along the line this family got themselves into trouble because they made a crap decision, they decided to have more kids without making sure they could afford them. People on the right seem to think that this behavior is limited to beneficiaries but its not.

Its a bit simplistic to look at this as a simple left vs right issue. One of the major factors that is hurting the middle classes is the student loan system and other than a bit of tinkering around the edges by Labour there is a broad consensus on this short sighted policy between the main parties. This family may get a tax cut under a National government but they would still be shafted by having to pay all that extra money for student loan repayments. The student loan system is completely out of control and is going to have big consequences down the track yet no party seems to have the answer to this problem.

Poor political management

Nanaia Mahuta may resign from Parliament

This is poor political management on Clark's behalf. She's acted in a high-handed and arrogant manner, taking a page from Blair's book in labelling her opponents "wreckers and haters". If she loses her majority and has to go crawling to the Greens or NZFirst, or worse call elections, she'll have no-one to blame but herself.

General of the day

The US has replaced the Republican Guard general appointed to control Fallujah, saying that he would not pass the vetting process. However, he will continue to serve as the Fallujah force's deputy - which is interesting, because I'd have though that if someone was so tainted by their association with the former regime that they'd be unfit to command, then they'd certainly be unfit to be second-in-command as well. You'd almost think that this is a poor PR move, designed to paper over General Salsh's background while leaving him in defacto control because he has the loyalty of the troops on the ground...

The bottom of the barrel

New Zealand employers seeking staff are down to the "crud at the bottom of the barrel", according to one economist.

Well, he's an economist, so he should know the answer: offer more money. That's how the market is supposed to work, after all.

Middle Class an Endangered Species?

In some ways I can identify with the family in the Sunday Star Times article. I will turn 28 this month and despite having a reasonable job, for me home ownership and a family seem a very long way off. I suspect at some point I will have to work overseas again to be able to ultimately afford the lifestyle that I want...I'm lucky because I could do this without too much bother. Other people aren't in a position where they could drop all their commitments like that.

Although Idiot is bang on in his analysis of the predicament that the middle class find themselves in, the "struggling middle class family" in question's problems are largely of their own making. At the end of the day they chose to have children that they couldn't afford...its no use whinging to Helen Clarke about it. Its also interesting that in their letter they took a swipe at Helen being childless....just like opposition parties have been known to do from time to time. I smell a rat.

Maybe I'm just being paranoid. In any case, I think there is a huge personal responsibility component to this story that is being overlooked.

New Kiwi blogs

Aaron Bhatnagar, who I remember from my days on nz.pols.

Also, Rodney Hide has got in on the act, and has started his own campaign dairy.

Foxes: Henhouse Abuses Rare

Billmon really has a way with words, doesn't he?

Saving the middle class

Another interesting series in the Sunday Star Times, this time on the plight of the middle class and the demise of the single income family. The stalking horse is a Waihi family, which is barely getting by despite a salary of $55,000 a year.

Rather than focus on the specifics here, I'll take the case as symptomatic of a wider problem. An increasing number of "middle class" families are having trouble getting by. Why is a traditional middle class lifestyle increasingly unattainable?

The obvious proximate cause is student loans. This is exactly what critics of the student loan scheme have been warning about all along - professional graduates unable to afford children or houses because they're still paying for their parent's tax-breaks. Without that debt-burden, the McLachlans would be substantially better off each week, both financially and psychologically.

I say "proximate cause" because this problem has been brewing for a long time. Part of it goes back to double vs single income families. Once upon a time we had a social contract in this country - employers would pay workers to support a family as well as themselves. Now we don't. The social contract went into slow decline in the early 70's, a decline dramatically hastened by the "reforms" of the 80's and 90's. A conscious goal of Douglas and Richardson was to create an "internationally competitive" - meaning "low-wage" - economy, and in this respect they succeeded. New Zealander's incomes dropped in real terms. The expansion of the labour force and the resultant downward pressure on wages created a feedback cycle, driving the process even faster as people were forced into part- or full-time work to make ends meet. The result has been a real impoverishment and drop in living standards of New Zealanders - not necessarily financially (household income has now recovered in real terms), but in terms of time. We now work twice as hard to earn what we used to get.

But the change from a single- to a double-income economy isn't the whole story. The real culprit here is the dramatic redistribution of wealth during the "reform" period. Rogernomics and Ruthanasia shifted wealth up the pyramid, from the poor and middle classes to the rich. Tax changes and service cuts fell disproportionately on the middle class, while the fruits of growth went to the rich (and only the rich). The net result? The top decile's share of earned income increased by about 5% over the reform period; their share of wealth by even more. These increases were at the direct expense of everybody else.

Should we do something about this? Yes. The New Zealand "dream" has been of a middle-class country, a "property-owning democracy", where people own their own houses, enjoy substantial equality, and can afford to have kids. While there's been a great broadening of social attitudes on the latter front, I think the rest of this dream still holds. Having a broad middle class is fundamentally what this society is all about. The government should therefore be trying to promote it, or at least make it accessible.

How can we do that? The most obvious immediate solution is restoring a decent universal family benefit for parents. This assists families while maximising choice. Rather than the government telling mothers to work or not to work, it is up to the individuals concerned whether to spend the money on subsidising childcare or on supporting a non-working parent.

Longer term, we can reduce the debt-burden on future earners by restoring a universal student allowance. The Greens and Progressive Coalition have long been in favour of this; United-Future came on board last week, and NZFirst today. The government has hinted that there will be something along these lines in the upcoming budget, but I suspect they're simply going to widen eligibility rather than universalise, and that simply isn't good enough. Quite apart from the long-term effects of debt, no-one in this country should have to borrow to eat.

(Of course, this does nothing to help ease the problems of student loans now. In order to do that, we need to look seriously at altering the repayment structure, and ultimately at debt forgiveness. The problem here is that there is no way to do the latter without creating serious inequities between those who have their debts forgiven and those who paid themselves. OTOH, not doing it results in a crippled middle class...)

But ultimately, we can only rebuild the middle class by reversing that 80's and 90's shift of wealth up the pyramid. And the only way to do that is by government redistribution - higher taxes on the rich, funding increased benefits and services to everyone else. Those balking at this measure should ask themselves what sort of society they want. Do they want a broad society where most people are in the middle - or a narrow one of rich and poor?

Sweeping racism under the rug

The mayor of Christchurch is now opposing plans to hold an anti-racism, "pro-harmony" march in the city, saying that it will damage the city's reputation overseas. He's worried about a counter-demonstration by the racist National Front, but his reaction plays right into their hands. Problems like racism need to be confronted, not swept under the rug. Refusing to confront them simply allows the problem to fester and grow. We all know the quote: "the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing".

The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. Well, Christchurch has a problem, and it needs to be faced up to, rather than ignored.

New Fisk

The "Good Guys" Who Can Do No Wrong

Safe

Truck-driver Thomas Hamill, taken hostage in Iraq almost a month ago, has escaped.

Global warming could soon make Antarctica the only place to live, says chief British scientist

You always wonder if the scientist has really said this or if the dumb media who cover science stories poorly at the best of times have taken it out of context. I looked at it and thought...hang on a minute, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is a long way from being the sole factor in determining the Earth's climate. Just off the top of my head, the distance from and activity of the sun and therefore the amount of heat we are getting in the first place play a huge role. The circulation of the oceans make a big difference too...and they would have been radically different cause the continents weren't where they are now. Sure climate change is a reality, but this is stretching things. I'm expecting the story to show to be uncritically regurgitated on the Greenpeace site any day now.

ACT of madness?

Prebble's decision to resign as leader may well be the only thing that saves it from being swallowed up by a resurgent National party. Actually ACT has probably already been swallowed up so its more like they're attempting a desperate heimlich maneuver or sticking their pudgy little capitalist fingers down National's throat to force vomiting in the hope that they will spit ACT back out again

While on the one hand we get to see an interesting and possibly bloody tussle between the faithful policy purists (who probably still have pictures of Rodger Douglas pinned to their wall, and a zeal that is only exceeded by that of hard core Christians) and the more populist approach of Rodney Hide, it does ensure that ACT will be in the news for the next few months giving them maximum exposure to the voters. Thats if the Tariana Turia travelling circus doesn't steal the show.

So who should they pick as leader? Its easy to see why they wouldn't be so keen on having Hide as head stone thrower in the ACT glass house. Aside from the embarrassment of Donna Awatere Huata there are a few others in the party whose ethics have been called into question over the years...even if they aren't quite in the same league as she is in the dodginess stakes. With Hide out busting perks and uncovering scandals, people might be tempted to look more closely at ACT.

Hide has his uses but he doesn't come across as a team player. Besides its always a mistake to give the leadership to anyone who openly covets it and especially to reward someone for undermining the incumbent leader.

I'd go for Stephen Franks personally. The few times I have heard Stephen Franks in interviews and debates I have been impressed. He's someone who does his homework and gets his point across well and has found some of the Government ministers wanting on occasions. People have suggested that his leadership skills are an unknown (true) and that he lacks charisma but I'm not sure how much charisma matters in ACT. I don't think people voted for Prebble on the basis of his warm, fluffy personality and besides I seem to remember people saying that Brash's lack of charisma would be his downfall.

Of the others, Ken Shirley is solid but probably won't inspire people and Dr Murial Newman makes me ill...which could be be a desirable quality if its something that only happens to lefties :-)

In any case I hope that they can turn their poll rating around...not because I want them in Government but because they have been very good in opposition at keeping the Government honest, certainly better than National has been up until recently. Of course the other reason to have them there is that if National's support does hold and they win the next election, ACT will be there to counterbalance NZ First. Lets face it, Labour has dropped the ball so badly over the foreshore and seabed that National winning the next election is a distinct possibility. Well there are one or two good things a National Government could do that Labour can't, its not something I'd overly look forward to.

Rotten to the core

The New Yorker has published details from a leaked army report on the torture at Abu Ghraib, which finds widespread culpability amongst military intelligence staff and private contractors - none of whom have yet been charged.

It also mentions several soldiers who were fobbed off after reporting abuse to their superiors, and a previous report which was a poor attempt at a coverup.

Rather than being the isolated acts of a few individuals, it is becoming clear that Abu Ghraib was rotten to the core. Torture was passively condoned by the command structure, and covered up at the highest levels of the army. Even now, the army is in denial - they have charged only six low-level staff. They have not charged the officers who looked the other way and allowed torture to happen on their watch, or the military intelligence staff and mercenary interrogators who encouraged (and even ordered) abuse. Complicity and culpability is widespread, and if the US army is to redeem itself, it must acknowledge this and properly punish everyone involved.

Legalities

A comment on Political Animal suggests that this is an opportunity to prove the superiority of western democracy - because:

A) In a free society like the U.S., such governmental misconduct can be exposed by the press, and,

B) Swift and severe punishment awaits the perpetrators.

I think Lt Calley disproves this to some extent... but worse, some of those involved are mercenaries and may slip through the legal cracks. It's happened before, in Bosnia, where DynCorp employees bought and "owned" teenage sex-slaves. As mercenaries, they were not subject to US military jurisdiction; as American contractors, they weren't subject to Bosnian civil jurisdiction; and they weren't subject to the US courts either. They lost their jobs, but no-one could be prosecuted. So far, there's no indication that the US has plugged this little loophole and made mercenaries legally accountable for their actions.

Another outrage

Several years ago, the Macedonian army killed a group of "foreign militants", apparantly an Al-Qaeda cell. They tried to link it with the Albanian NLA, then stuck their hand out for aid money because they were fighting the "war on terror".

The whole thing was staged. The "Militants" were a group of helpless illegal immigrants, gunned down in cold blood.

That's about buried the needle on my outrage-meter for the day.

Orwellian

In civilised parts of the world, it's May Day - a day to celebrate worker's struggles. In the US, it's Loyalty Day, "a special day for the reaffirmation of loyalty to the United States and for the recognition of the heritage of American freedom".

Just a little Orwellian, neh?

More on torture and abuse in Iraq

The US torture scandal has spread to the UK, with the Daily Mirror publishing photographs of a British soldier urinating on an Iraqi prisoner.

The Mirror says the latest pictures were handed over by British soldiers who claimed a rogue element in the British army was responsible for abusing prisoners and civilians.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the soldiers told the paper no charges were brought against the unnamed captive.

They allege during his 8-hour ordeal he was threatened with execution, his jaw broken and his teeth smashed.

After being beaten and urinated on, he was driven away and dumped from the back of a moving vehicle, the soldiers claimed.

They added they did not know whether he survived.

As with the US case, the British army is investigating and promising prosecutions.

In many ways I'm unsurprised by this. A psychology experiment in the 70's graphically showed what people do when given power over one another. Prisons and authoritarian institutions are supposed to prevent this by leadership - by having those at the top lay down the law and tell people very clearly that sadism and abuse are not acceptable. That didn't happen here - which is why the CO of the prison has been relieved and may be prosecuted. But it's not just a failure by authorities to discourage abuse - quite the opposite, in fact. According to the CBS story, other authorities within the prison positively encouraged it. The guards were told by CIA and mercenary interrogators to "fear up" prisoners before questioning. As one of the suspects' lawyers said:

"The elixir of power, the elixir of believing that you're helping the CIA, for God's sake, when you're from a small town in Virginia, that's intoxicating," says Myers. "And so, good guys sometimes do things believing that they are being of assistance and helping a just cause. ... And helping people they view as important."

A second famous psychology experiment showed how far ordinary people will go when "following orders". Mix the two, authority and obediance, and the result is simply toxic. They feed off one another to create worse and worse abuses. Add "justice" into the mix - a sense that what you are doing is right and proper and in the aid of a moral and just cause - and you're staring into the abyss.

None of this is an excuse - but it is illuminating, and it points out that responsibility doesn't rest solely with the abusers. Those who created this toxic situation, who failed to show the required leadership, and who passively encouraged abuse must also be held to account.

Pictures

For people who missed it on last night's news: some of the photos of US soldiers abusing their prisoners can be found here (WARNING: disturbing)

Update: More here and here.

Update 2: There is also another set of pictures circulating, purporting to show a gang-rape by soldiers. There's some speculation as to their provenance, so I won't post the link. The CBS photos are foul enough, without having to muddy the waters.

Fresh Python

The war of the words

Expectations of condemnation

Mike wasted his time replying by email to PNN, saying:

NRT doesn't bother to post articles condemning Palestinian suicide bombers because we don't need to. We don't support people who target innocent civilians and we assume our readers are in the same boat and that being the case, there's no interesting angle to write about. The mainstream media covers these stories already.

To that I will add that there's also a difference of expectations. I don't spend a lot of time on atrocities commited by terrorists because I expect them to be monsters. But I expect something far better from the military forces of organised governments. These people are supposed to be "the good guys"; therefore I expect them to act like it. They have more power, and therefore a greater obligation to show restraint. Whether fighting an all-out war or the "war on terror", I expect them to act with the restraint and respect for civilian lives and human rights demanded by international law. And if they don't, they're no better than the "thugs and terrorists" PNN denounces.

Standing by her principles

Listening to Tariana Turia being interviewed on Radio Waatea, and she's decided to stand by her principles and do the honourable thing - resign her portfolios, resign from Parliament and fight a byelection. She's also decided that it is time for Maori to have their own party. Fair enough. Take it to the ballot box, and see how much support there is within maoridom for the idea.

Reading the entrails

Steve links to the CNN version of this poll, commenting that:

Idiot at NRT is going to be screaming at the top of his voice that this validates his opposition of the war

You betcha.

According to the poll, most Iraqis hate Saddam (%) and are glad to be rid of him (61%), but increasingly (71%; or 81% if you don't count the Kurds) view the Americans as occupiers rather than liberators. The CNN version has self-reported historical data, indicating that the split was much more even a year ago. Then there's the really interesting result:

Asked about when they wanted U.S. and British forces to leave, 57 percent chose immediately, as in the next few months, the poll said; 36 percent said troops should stay longer.

At the time the question was asked, 53 percent said they would feel less safe if the U.S.-led coalition left immediately.

Contrast this with the result from a mere six months ago, when 71% of Baghdad residents said that US troops should not leave in the next few months.

(As an aside, USA Today notes that the polling was conducted before the recent uprising. Given the way the US have handled things since, those numbers will probably have got worse)

So what's going on? It can be summed up as "thanks, now goodbye". Of course Iraqis think that getting rid of Saddam was worth it - who wouldn't? It's the subsequent clusterfuck by the Americans that is pissing them off. The American's inability to guarantee basic services or security, unwillingness to hold elections, and casual disregard for Iraqi civilian lives has taken its toll. When people want you to leave despite the fact that they think it will hurt them, then they're pretty pissed off.

I regard it as axiomatic that if Iraqis want the US to leave, they should leave. Iraq's destiny should be decided by Iraqis, not Americans. It's an indictement of America that they have not been able to win over the Iraqi people and gain broad consent for a transitional government. But what did they expect when they insisted on working with Chalabi...?

Can this situation be rescued? Not by the Americans, I think. They've simply got too much baggage now. Replacing US troops with international peacekeepers may help, and while there are some hopeful signs in that area, I think recent decisions by the US (notably with regard to Israel and Iraqi sovereignty) are working against it. I suspect that the only way to ensure serious international cooperation in Iraq is regime change in the US. But by November, it will almost certainly be too late...

The Civil Unions Bill has its own swanky new educational website...

Irony

National's Wayne Mapp will be addressing the foreshore Hikoi on "equality before the law". Perhaps he'll explain why his party supports due process and property rights for pakeha, but not for Maori?

"We will be paid back for this"

CBS's 60 Minutes has broadcast images of US soldiers abusing and humiliating Iraqi prisoners at Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison

There are shots of the prisoners stacked in a pyramid, one with a slur written on his skin in English.

In some, the male prisoners are positioned to simulate sex with each other. And in most of the pictures, the Americans are laughing, posing, pointing, or giving the camera a thumbs-up.

The allegations of mistreatment go beyond humiliating photos to psychological torture, murder, and rape. National Guardsmen assisted civilian interrogators to "fear up" prisoners. Sometimes they did this with beatings, sometimes with humiliation, and sometimes they did it by attaching wires and telling prisoners they would be electrocuted if they lied. They're even taking pages from Saddam's book - the Army apparantly has photos of a prisoner with electrodes attached to his genitals. And then there's this bit:

Part of the Army's own investigation is a statement from an Iraqi detainee who charges a translator - hired to work at the prison - with raping a male juvenile prisoner: "They covered all the doors with sheets. I heard the screaming. ...and the female soldier was taking pictures."

There is also a picture of an Iraqi man who appears to be dead -- and badly beaten.

To its credit, the US Army is prosecuting those involved - they at least understand what the Geneva Convention means, even if their Commander-in-Chief doesn't. Not that everyone there is a POW - Abu Ghraib is where "security detainees" go; those disappeared in the middle of the night, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, or arrested for chanting anti-coalition slogans. Every Iraqi has a story about their friend who was detained and sent to Abu Ghraib; every Iraqi therefore is eventually going to know what has gone on there. And, as one of CBS's interviewees says, "[the US] will be paid back for this."

Finally, consider this: the day job of one of those being court-martialled by the Army... is as a prison guard. No surprises there then.

Isn't this what the health system is for?

So, the government has a plan to get people off the sickness and invalid's benefits by paying for them to have operations. This isn't such a bad idea on economic grounds - if an operation substantially improves work chances, then it may be a net saving to the government's welfare bill - and its almost certainly better from the beneficiary's perspective (after all, who likes being sick?). At the same time, though, isn't this what the health system is for? Shouldn't we be asking why sickness beneficiaries aren't getting proper medical care in the first place?

Of course, we already know the answer to that question: underfunding. It's something that those complaining about "queue-jumpers" don't get: contrary to Lynda Scott's claims, there is spare capacity in the health system. The problem is that the government doesn't fund enough operations, not that we don't have the operating theatres and staff and tools to do them. What this scheme does is fund extra operations by the backdoor.

However, that doesn't mean its a great thing. What pisses me off about this is that it's not about patient need or quality of life - it's about saving the government money. And that is gettig things arse-backwards as far as I'm concerned. We shouldn't be funding medical procedures for sickness beneficiaries through the social welfare budget; we should funding the health system properly so that they're not on the sickness benefit in the first place.

One law for all?

Canada is experimenting with allowing Muslims to resolve civil disputes through voluntary arbitration under Sharia law.

It's an intersting idea, and certainly not a bad thing if it takes off. Voluntary arbitration is nothing new, and is already encouraged as a way of relieving pressure on the court system. If Canadian Muslims are happier using Sharia rather than suing one another, who am I to argue?

(There's a nice irony here too: the hallmark of Islamic states was the existence of different legal codes for different religious communities. So the Christians were subject to one law, the Jews another, and Muslims a third. In the case of the Ottoman Empire, the French managed to get their own citizens covered by their own legal code, at least with respect to one another. OTOH, this is not a case of different laws, but of a parallel voluntary system of dispute resolution which must abide by Canadian law.)

On the down side, divorce cases are included, and the freedom to refuse arbitration and use the Candian courts (and Canadian family law) instead may not mean much in a social group with strong prohibitions against apostasy. That may be an area better left to the State, I think (especially since its marriages granted and recognised by the State which would be being dissolved...)

Search term of the week

Geothermal+explain how it is used to produce gay energy

Yes, they were American...

The massacre has started

AC130s, airstrikes, and helicopter gunships employed without regard for civilian loss of life. NZPundit must be creaming his pants.

Busy

Theoretically, I'm writing an assignment today...

Fighting Talk's Lyndon Hood has an excellent post on Machiavelli and Iraq.

Good riddance to bad rubbish

Prebble's gone. Huzzah! Now we just have to hope that the rest of his party follow him into political oblivion...

It gets worse

And at the same time the British government is being criticised for misusing anti-terrorism powers, the Home Secretary is saying that he wants to introduce guilt by association, allowing them to jail the friends and associates of suspected terrorists. No need to prove conspiracy, no need for there to be anything more than suspicion to underly it all, just "you talk to this man so we are throwing you in jail". Jesus H Christ, they're returning the the fucking dark ages over there...

Confirming our fears

People's fears about British anti-terrorism legislation are being confirmed, with the government's own independent reviewer reporting that police are misusing them to curb legitimate political protest.

Lord Carlile QC noted particular problems with the police "kidnapping" of protesters attempting to reach RAF Fairford, and the excessive use of "stop and search" powers at an arms fair in London. He also drew attention to the fact that "emergency" powers allowing the police to search anyone without reasonable suspicion were being used far more widely than anticipated, and were in effect constantly in London.

This is exactly what people warned about when the legislation was passed, and a graphic warning to all of us of the dangers of kneejerk security legislation. The purpose of such legislation is purportedly to defend democracy; at the moment it loks as if the British are destroying it in order to save it.

How much is that photo worth?

There's been a procession of Presidents, Prime Ministers and politicians "visiting the troops" in Iraq recently. Unfortunately, the stakes of such visits just got higher:

Shots have been fired at a motorcade carrying Bulgarian President Georgy Parvanov during an unannounced visit to Iraq.

[...]

"A brief exchange of fire took place between unknown assailants and the convoy," BTA said.

While no-one was killed or injured, politicians seeking a photo-op in Iraq should all be asking themselves "how much is that photo worth?" Visiting Iraq not only puts VIPs at risk, it also risks the lives of their staff and bodyguards, and those of ordinary soldiers tasked to protect them. Is a self-serving photo to bolster political popularity at home really worth that? I don't think so.

"Not in a dangerous part of the country"

Whoops. Looks like the British zone is far more dangerous than you'd think from the media reports. While the British casualty rate is still far lower than the American, they have still been forced to give up their "soft hat" policy, and are facing increasing levels of armed resistance. Not good.

If this trend continues, then the New Zealand deployment should be reconsidered. If they can't do any good there, and are simply risking their lives for no good purpose, then they should come home.

Picture of a war crime

Inquiry After Israeli Forces Caught Using Boy as Shield

"Us or them"

Fran O'Sullivan recounts being ranted at by a US uber-hawk, who told her that New Zealand must make a choice: the US or China, "us or them". Well, let's look at our options: one the one hand, we have a country which is demanding total subservience, which screws over its closest allies on the trade front, and which says that we cannot have a trade relationship without also having a security relationship (one that requires that we ditch our anti-nuclear policy - a matter of fundamental sovereignty over our own country - and send our soldiers to die for other people's interests to boot). On the other hand, we have a country which will negotiate an equitable trade relationship on its own merits, without making any other demands whatsoever.

That seems like a fairly clear choice to me...

Disappointing

I've been generally supportive of the deployment of New Zealand army engineers to Iraq, on the basis that they're not in a dangerous part of the country and their primary task is rebuilding things rather than oppressing the locals. But today's news on how little they've done was disappointing.

NZAID budgeted $5 million for "reconstruction and humanitarian aid tasks", but so far they've only been able to do $400,000 of work in five months, and its expected that they will have used less than 15% of the money by the end of the financial year. While the projects they've done - rebuilding five schools and installing water systems - have been worthwhile, I can't help but feel that this has been a poor use of resources. Iraq is awash with unemployed engineers and construction workers; surely we would have achieved better results for the Iraqi people by contracting the work out, selecting projects and paying vetted teams of Iraqis to rebuild the place themselves?

New Fisk

A Warning to Those Who Dare to Criticize Israel in the Land of Free Speech