Crony Capitalism

Seen on Atrios, this tale from an Iraqi blogger:

One of my cousins works in a prominent engineering company in Baghdad- we’ll call the company H. This company is well-known for designing and building bridges all over Iraq. My cousin, a structural engineer, is a bridge freak. He spends hours talking about pillars and trusses and steel structures to anyone who’ll listen.

As May was drawing to a close, his manager told him that someone from the CPA wanted the company to estimate the building costs of replacing the New Diyala Bridge on the South East end of Baghdad. He got his team together, they went out and assessed the damage, decided it wasn’t too extensive, but it would be costly. They did the necessary tests and analyses (mumblings about soil composition and water depth, expansion joints and girders) and came up with a number they tentatively put forward- $300,000. This included new plans and designs, raw materials (quite cheap in Iraq), labor, contractors, travel expenses, etc.

Let’s pretend my cousin is a dolt. Let’s pretend he hasn’t been working with bridges for over 17 years. Let’s pretend he didn’t work on replacing at least 20 of the 133 bridges damaged during the first Gulf War. Let’s pretend he’s wrong and the cost of rebuilding this bridge is four times the number they estimated- let’s pretend it will actually cost $1,200,000. Let’s just use our imagination.

A week later, the New Diyala Bridge contract was given to an American company. This particular company estimated the cost of rebuilding the bridge would be around- brace yourselves- $50,000,000 !!

Which, of course, the Iraqi people will have to pay for, in oil.

This sickens me. An entire country is being forced to buy from the company store, at inflated prices, at gunpoint, for the profit of Bush's friends and political donors. When this sort of thing happened in Indonesia, the Americans called it "crony capitalism". But I guess it really depends on whose cronies they are, right?

The first action of an independent Iraqi government (assuming they are ever allowed to have one) ought to be to repudiate any debts owed for reconstruction. The above more than justifies it.

Hate and revenge

Tyler Cowen writes:

CONSISTENCY TEST? Today's New York Times tells us that the bombing in Iraq, which killed a moderate Shiite leader, "dealt a blow to American efforts to establish order..." Other papers have said pretty much the same. But when the United States, or Israel, kills terrorist leaders, are we not told that dozens will rise to take their place, making the movement stronger than ever?

Yes. And the reason why is because there is a fairly obvious link between hate and revenge and becoming a terrorist. But its not so obvious that hate or revenge motivates people towards respecting democratic elections...

Why it matters

In the context of discussing a PolSci paper on the Palestinian right of return, Eric Muller asks:

To ask whether Israel's negotiating positions do or do not conform with liberal theory is, I think, rather like asking whether bumblebees ought aerodynamically to be able to fly. It's an interesting thing to think about, but how does the inquiry really matter?

Ask Locke. Ask Mill. Ask Hamilton, Madison and the fathers of the American revolution. Ask Voltaire, Mazzini, Marx, Lenin, Ghandi or King. Ask everybody who has ever decided that things as they are suck, and that they need to change.

I can just imagine someone like Muller, back in the times before the French Revolution, saying "Well, it's very interesting that Voltaire is asking whether the King's actions are right or justifiable - but why does it matter?"

It matters because we can change. Whether a bumblebee can fly or not is a physical fact, something that can't change. But how we or our governments (or other people's governments, for that matter) behave is something we can change. And comparing actions to some set of (ideally) commonly-shared or universal principles is one way of pointing out both the need for change, and a preferred solution.

I have no illusions that the current Israeli government will directly change its behaviour due to an academic paper, but that is no reason to discount the process of political inquiry in general.

Scalp

Tony Blair's chief spindoctor has quit.

Hearts and Minds

If you're looking for an example of how the US is winning hearts and minds in Iraq </sarcasm>, check out this post from Salem Pax. The US army raided his house, humiliated his family, and stole his booze because their informer can't tell the difference between builders rennovating a kitchen and a terrorist cell. As he says, "way to go".

Save it for Brian Edwards

There are big political stories this week - the foreshore & seabed issue, the revival of corngate - so you'd expect that some politician would be fronting up to Kim Hill tonight to try and get his views across. But instead she's interviewing some fucking ex-All Black. It's been a disturbing trend over the past few weeks, and it's almost enough to make you think that politicians don't want to be interviewed by her anymore...

Anyway, I'd rather have politics on Face To Face, thankyouverymuch. Save the lifestyle bullshit for Brian Edwards.

Restaurant Review: KK's

KK's is a terrible restaurant. The food is cheap, plentiful and good, and excellent value for money. The satay is delicious, and they do a mean Kung Pao. Unfortunately, its rather small, and it can be difficult to get a table, so you should never go there, except on friday nights when I'm otherwise engaged.

Tories want to close down the Beeb

Well, its website anyway. They don't see why commercial news agencies (most of whom happen to be owned by their friend Mr Murdoch) should have to compete with a publicly funded one.

As a compulsive user of news.bbc.co.uk, I think that that competition is precisely the point. Publicly-funded, high quality news organisations such as the BBC raise the bar for everybody else, and through this provide the sort of robust and watchful media environment necessary for a modern democracy. They also make it more difficult for wealthy media owners to manipulate public opinion to their advantage - which is precisely why Murdoch wants to get rid of them.

Anyway, if you'd like to do your bit to save the BBC, why not email John Whittingdale (the Shadow Media Secretary and chief agitator for eliminating the website) and let him know?

Flypaper?

NZPundit is propagating the latest theory on Iraq: the Flypaper Plan. Invade Iraq, flood it with juicy targets (also known as "US troops"), and wait for the terrorists to come and get killed...

Even if we take seriously the idea that this was The Plan All Along, rather than yet another post-facto excuse trotted out after the last one has fallen over, it does raise an interesting question. If this was The Plan All Along, why didn't Bush present it to the American public beforehand? That's what's supposed to happen in a democracy, after all, and its not as if secrecy is an issue - hell, announcing the Flypaper Plan would have been worth a few "bring 'em on"s, which would have made it work even better, so why hide it?

The obvious answer (assuming that this was The Plan All Along etc) would be that the American public would react unfavourably to the idea of US soldiers - their loved ones - being sacrificed in such a way by their leaders. It's a bit rough on the actual flypaper, you see...

So, even if we're charitable to the NeoCons and accept their latest line, that still makes them undemocratic lying arseholes. But no doubt, their supporters will find some way to claim that these are in fact virtues...

New Fisk

We have a long and dishonourable tradition of smearing the dead

Opposing torture

The New Zealand government will be one of the first to sign the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention Against Torture.

But guess who's not signing?

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

Great. The US occupation forces in Iraq are using Saddam's old secret police to help root out the resistance:

U.S.-led occupation authorities have begun a covert campaign to recruit and train agents with the once-dreaded Iraqi intelligence service to help identify resistance to American forces here after months of increasingly sophisticated attacks and bombings, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.

Things under the US are beginning to look awfully like things under Saddam. The American viceroy rules from one of Saddam's palaces, protected from the people by an army of special forces bodyguards. People are "disappeared" in the dead of night, held without trial, and beaten. And now, even the faces will be the same. All it needs is for Paul Bremer to grow a silly moustache, and the transformation will be complete.

And this is supposed to be their "model of democracy" for the Middle East?

"Helping Out"

More evidence that we have a National government in disguise: the government is going to help out landlords track down former tenants by allowing WINZ and Housing NZ to pass on personal details (such as addresses).

This is a gross violation of the Privacy Act's principle that information collected for one purpose (say, paying you a benefit, or enabling the collection of taxes) cannot be used for any other purpose. Though I suppose the government simply legislate themselves a loophole to exempt themselves.

Those whose kneejerk response is to be unsympathetic to debtors might want to consider a slippery slope argument: if this debt, then why not others? There's nothing special about debts owed to landlords, and no doubt the banks, credit card companies and everyone else who is owed money will be soon be demanding that the government be even-handed and open WINZ's books to them too. Do we really want the government acting as an agent for (or even supplanting) BayCorp?

I'd rather they kept out of this entirely. Landlords can use the courts and debt-collection agencies like everybody else does.

New Fisk

A corner of a foreign field desecrated

I am obviously not an American

We had a power cut this morning, and I didn't for an instant think it was terrorism.

New Fisk

Why the US needs to blame anyone but locals for its latest catastrophe

"Chemical" Ali captured

"Chemical" Ali has been captured - which isn't bad, given that he was supposed to have been killed four months ago.

US wants others to "contribute"

In the wake of the Baghdad bombing, the US is apparantly trying to get the UN to encourage other countries to contribute forces to Iraq. Steve Gilliard has some nasty, pointy things to say about this, but I think the best (and shortest) response comes from the wonderfully named Fuck Everything:

"What? You guys ignored us before the war, and now you want us to send people as fucking cannon fodder? Fuck you! Clean up your own goddamn mess!"

Ramos-Horta and the death penalty

NZPundit is crowing over an article by Jose Ramos-Horta in The Australian. The death of his close friend (and former UN administrator of East Timor) Sergio Vieira de Mello in the bombing of the Baghdad UN HQ has caused him to rethink his opposition to the death penalty:

Indeed, I am so angry about this act of terrorism that I now have second thoughts about opposing the death penalty for terrorists. Why should taxpayers pay for the rent, meals, electricity bills and medical care of a convicted terrorist who kills, maims, destroys and takes away the lives of the innocent?

Many times in the past, I have signed petitions pleading to spare the life of someone on death row. And I will continue to do on a case-by-case basis.

But I will not shed tears when those responsible for the countless terrorist bombings in Bali, Jakarta, New York, Washington and Baghdad are put to death. Clearly, Sergio's death has changed the way I look at life and the issue of the death penalty.

There's an old saying that a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged, and I think this is a classic case. While it's understandable that Ramos-Horta would want revenge against his friend's killers, it's also sad to see him abandon his principles. The whole point of human rights is that they are things that should be protected even for your worst enemy. And the right which makes everything else possible is the right to life.

New Fisk

Attack underlines America's crumbling authority and shows it can guarantee the safety of no one