Playing with society, part II

Republic of New Ithilien.

If Iraqis are so supportive of the occupation, why are they mutilating the bodies of dead American soldiers?

"Love the occupation, but hate the occupier", perhaps?

We cannot take this on faith

KiwiPundit says:

I'm not sure whether Zaoui's detention is unjust, because we don't know what classified information they have. It seems doubtful that one person would be singled out like this for no reason at all.

I'm sure the SIS has a reason, I'm just not sure that it's a good reason. And the problem with the current system is that we will never know. Without proper, independent oversight of the process, we effectively have to take it all on faith. And given the quality of their "evidence" so far, the bias displayed by the supposedly "independent" judge and by the Immigration Minister, that is simply not possible.

In the wider context, there are some things no government can be trusted with. Noone should be imprisoned solely on the say-so of a government official, no matter how good they think their reasons are - such contravenes some of the fundamentals of our constitution. If the government wants to lock someone up, they should prove it in a court, before a jury - or at worst, before a panel of judges in camera. But they should not be allowed to imprison people simply because they've convinced themselves that it is justified.

Mergers

The merger of United Future and the Outdoor Recreation party provides a perfect example of what is wrong with our current MMP system: the undemocratic 5% threshhold forces mergers between parties who have nothing in common, for the sole purpose of leveraging maximum advantage from a single safe electorate seat.

It would be better to ditch the threshhold entirely (or rather, reduce it to that required to win a single seat). That would remove a great deal of the game-playing, and allow parties like Outdoor Recreation to be represented without having to crawl into bed with a pack of fundies.

Watching the Watchers

The Listener interview with SIS Inspector-General Laurie Greig is here.

Unfair process, biased judges

Just when you thought the Ahmed Zaoui travesty couldn't get any worse, we have this news from the Sunday Star-Times. The Inspector-General of Security Intelligence, the man who is supposed to be "watching the watchers", has discarded any pretence of neutrality and displayed significant bias towards both Zaoui, and asylum seekers in general.

On Asylum seekers:

We don't want lots of people coming in on false passports thrown down the loo on the plane and saying, 'I'm a refugee, keep me here.'

On Zaoui himself:

I don't bind [Dalziel] to say 'out'. Because she's got three days to decide ... If that wasn't the case, then she wouldn't have a decision. I'd be making my decision and it would be 'outski' on the next plane.

If these comments were made by a judge in a criminal case, they would result in his immediate disqualification. It is essential to our system of justice that judges be neutral, and seen to be such. The government can no longer expect us to have any faith in the process it is following - one even Greig thinks is unfair - or in the neutrality of the people making the decisions. If it wants to maintain any credability or conform in any way to standards of natural justice, it should either send the case to a credible court, or else revoke the SIS's security risk certificate and allow Zaoui to stay.

Playing with society

Brian Logan has drawn my attention to an online game called Nation States. Users create a nation, define its political and economic outlook on various axes by answering a short political quiz, then guide its progress by responding to issues posed by the game. Kindof an interactive, evolving political quiz. If you're interested in playing, he has created a region, Zealandia, "for the purposes of politico kiwi bloggers to show how their philosophies are effective and make sense." Might be a way to waste another lifetime.

Though actually, having poked around the site, I'm more interested in its creator: Max Barry, author of Jennifer Government. I saw this book in Dymocks, read the blurb (an early version of which is here), and stuck it on my "to buy" list. It sounds like it has all the craziness of Snow Crash, plus the cool bits from Only Forward. And looking at his other novel, Syrup, it looks like I'll have to get that one too. <Sigh>... And I don't have enough time to read as it is...

Iraqi bombers 'are war criminals'

Of course they are. While US troops and their quislings are legitimate targets, the resistance has been even more indiscriminate than the US. The US usually tries to avoid killing bystanders; the resistance (or at least those parts of it conducting large-scale bombings) just don't give a shit. Hell, the more dead civilians, the more a bombing proves that the US canot provide security. Don't you just love terrorism...?

New Fisk

The price of an infantile attempt to reshape the Middle East

A free and open media

Why doesn't Bush like to travel overseas? One reason is that he actually has to answer questions posed by foreign reporters (rather than being able to outsource this to a spindoctor), and he has far less control over who those reporters are and what they might ask.

So in London yesterday, Bush got asked the question no member of the American media would dare ask him back home: "Why do people hate you"? And his "answer"? Avoidance, denial, an attempt to claim that anyone who disagrees with him hates freedom and loves Saddam, and some macho posturing for good measure:

Mr. President, if I could ask you, with thousands on the street...marching today here in London, a free nation, what is your conclusion as to why apparently so many free citizens fear you and even hate you?"

"I'd say freedom is beautiful, Bush responded. "It's a fantastic thing to come to a country where people are able to express their views."

Pressed on the question of why people hate him "in such numbers," Bush said he doesn't know that they do hate him.

"I fully understand that people don't agree with war," President Bush said. "I hope they agree with peace and freedom and liberty. I hope they care deeply about the fact that when we find suffering and torture and mass graves, we weep for the citizens that are being brutalized by tyrants.

"And finally, the prime minister and I have a solemn duty to protect our people. And that's exactly what I intend to do - as the president of the United States, protect the people of my country."

No wonder he avoids press conferences like the plague.

Responses

NZPols has a thoughtful response to my earlier post about Tony Ryall's outrage at the UN criticising us.

I agree that the fact that we are a liberal democracy counts for something - and that this seems to be exactly the sort of minor and often quite debatable case that NZPols is talking about. At the same time, though, adhering to international human rights standards requires that we yield some of our national sovereignty to international bodies - and if we don't stick to them, then why should anybody else?

But my main beef with Ryall's nationalist chestbeating is that if we hide behind national sovereignty, then so can anybody else... and other people hide far worse things behind it than we do. We effectively lose any right to criticise other people's human rights records. Death penalty? "Sorry, that's a matter of national sovereignty". Torture? "It's our contry, not yours". Disappearances, forced labour, and gulags? "We make the decisions here, not the UN". By standing on our "sovereign rights", we give a free pass to any shitty regime who wants to do the same.

(I'd also point out that the Nuremberg precedents seem to indicate that human rights standards trump national sovereignty anyway, but they really only apply in the big cases).

Sure, we're a liberal democracy. And there's no question that our human rights record is generally good. But trying to draw a distinction based on a country's type of government is not going to produce an acceptable result. Firstly, while democracies generally respect human rights, it's not necessarily so (just look at the US - death penalty, excessive sentances, Guantanamo, Jose Padilla...). And secondly, it allows the shitty regimes to claim that we're just dividing the world into "goodies' and "baddies", and therefore why should they listen to what we say?

Consistency is the better answer, I think.

Putting things in perspective

KiwiPete approvingly quotes from an article by Claudia Rosett and claims that it "puts it in perspective":

For Saddam to have presided over the slaughter of 300,000 during the course of his rule meant killing, on average, about 34 human beings per day, or more than one an hour, every hour, around the clock, for 24 years.

A quick glance at the Iraq Body Count counter on the left hand side of my screen shows the current tally of confirmed civilian deaths stands somewhere between 7898 and 9729 since January 2003. That's a generous average of between 24 and 30 a day (I say "generous" because the war - and flow of casualties - didn't start till March; in other words there's two "free" months in there. You do the maths). And of course, IBC underestimates, and restricts its figures only to what is solidly reported and confirmed. This report talks of estimates of 20,000 or more - but goes with the concrete figure from IBC...

To "put things in perspective", the occupation has, on average, killed around the same number of civilians per day as Saddam. And this is supposed to be better?

New Fisk

Under U.S. control, press freedom falls short in Iraq.

The company they keep

National Party Corrections spokesman Tony Ryall is outraged by a UN finding that our preventative detention system breaches human rights. His response? "NZ decides its justice laws, not UN". But perhaps Ryall should be aware of the company he is keeping here. National sovereignty is the same excuse used by China, Cuba, and every other shitty despotism with an appalling human rights record. We don't accept it from them, so why should anyone accept it from us?

"Anything you say or do can be used against you in a court of law..."

NeoCon arch-hawk Richard Perle has admitted the invasion of Iraq was illegal:

In a startling break with the official White House and Downing Street lines, Mr Perle told an audience in London: "I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing."

[...]

But Mr Perle, a key member of the defence policy board, which advises the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said that "international law ... would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone", and this would have been morally unacceptable.

Now, what was that precedent from Nuremberg again...?

Why we shouldn't privatise health

Crooked Timber has an interesting analysis of OECD health stats. His conclusion? "Health care systems that are government run or funded tend to be cheaper despite being just as effective in every respect, and more effective in some respects".

Kindof shows the lie behind the Right's dogma that increased privatisation in healthcare will be more efficient and give better results...

Spinning Bush's visit

"Bush defies critics on UK visit" - that's what the headlines say. But how "defiant" is he being when he will speak only before a hand-picked, friendly audiance? Why isn't he making this speech before the British Parliament? Perhaps because he's afraid of the reception he'll get...?

Sock Thief's comments on Monbiot's article on the European Social Forum has reminded me that we have one of our very own - the Social Forum Aotearoa - taking place in Porirua this weekend.

I'm tempted to drop by in search of blog-fodder, but their registration page is broken, and there seem to be no details on cost.

As for Monbiot's key question, "what should be done about capitalism?", my answer is the same as his: tame it. While it is red in tooth and claw, the market mostly works, and its a damn sight easier and less intrusive into people's lives than the alternatives. The trick then is to regulate it, to insulate people's lives from the bad effects of capitalism, while keeping as much as possible of the good. This means taxation, redistribution, regulation, and state provision of some services. While this is obviously offensive to purists, fundamentally the market is just a tool for resource allocation, and if it does not work properly (by providing a sufficient allocation of resources for all members of our society to live a decent life) then it needs to be tweaked until it does. Tools should serve human ends, not vice versa.

Reaction

Reaction from around the blogosphere to the US army's adoption of the Israeli tactic of demolishing suspected militant's homes:

• Riverbend (an actual Iraqi, mind you): "I'm so angry it makes me want to break something!!!! What the hell is going on?!"
• Tacitus (the thinking man's warblogger): "This is wrong."
• Billmon: "Criminal, stupid and counterproductive"

They're all interesting posts (and much longer than the quickie summaries) - go read them.

Victory in Massachusetts, but questions at home

The Massachusetts Supreme Court has ruled in favour of allowing gay couples to marry:

"Barring an individual from the protections, benefits, and obligations of civil marriage solely because that person would marry a person of the same sex violates the Massachusetts Constitution," the court said, saying state law forbids the creation of second-class citizens.

They've kicked it back to the state legislature, and given them 180 days to bring the law in line with the ruling - after which, they'll have to start issuing marriage licenses.

This is a victory for civil rights, but at the same time it raises the question of why New Zealand is lagging behind on this issue. While the government has announced plans for civil unions, they seem to have sunk without a trace; there's no mention of the legislation on knowledgebasket, and no further mention of it in the press. You'd almost think that the government had got cold feet...

This simply isn't good enough. Marriage rights are an issue of basic equality, and the government should be moving to correct its discrimination ASAP.