Showing posts with label International relations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label International relations. Show all posts

04 March 2022

The purpose NATO exists for should be abundantly clear - the future beyond Ukraine is a new Cold War

During the Cold War, NATO was to the West what the Warsaw Pact was to the communist bloc. Both sides faced off at the Iron Curtain. So when the Cold War ended, and the Warsaw Pact dissolved (mostly because once the jackboot of the Red Army had been removed, most eastern European states were full of citizens that just wanted to be liberal democracies), the question was raised as to why should NATO still exist?

Francis Fukuyama's "End of History" was proclaimed, President Bush proclaimed a New World Order, after the UN Security Council endorsed collective action to expel Iraq from Kuwait. The new Russia was, in fact, a liberal democracy, had dismantled its centrally planned economy, and was now working with Western countries. Sure there was still tension and rivalry in the Middle East, with concerns over Iraq and Iran, the simmering Arab-Israeli dispute, and of course the Korean peninsula, but in Europe, the belief was that liberal democracy had won.

Except of course, it hadn't quite. 

The New World Order declared by Bush was no nefarious shadowy view of the international system, but one which would AT A BARE MINIMUM not tolerate one state taking the territory of another.

That is what the war to expel Iraq from Kuwait was about, and it is why Saddam Hussein's regime was not destroyed at the time. The New World Order was not about regime change, it was about protecting international borders from aggression.

Much happened after that. The war in the Balkans ultimately saw NATO action to deter Serbia from engaging in genocide in Kosovo, following the genocide in Bosnia and Croatia (not all from the Serbian side of course).  Hum.anitarian intervention became an addition to the New World Order as countries were confident that international cross-border war was a thing of the past

9/11 changed all that, although the attack and overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan was justified as a response to the aggression of 9/11, the subsequent attack and overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime was not. Overthrowing Saddam was a settling of old scores and an attempt to demonstrate Western military dominance against potential threats. What it did was show the West incapable of occupying and transforming a nation state without enormous loss of life, or in the case of Afghanistan, ultimately a lack of political will to pay the price in money and lives to institute government that was closer to the ideals of liberal democracies with Enlightenment values. This culminated in the weak withdrawal from Afghanistan last year

Yet Russia had already tested the limits of the New World Order a few years ago and found it wanting. Not only had Russia effectively annexed Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia (which had started in the 1990s),  but the 2014 annexation of Crimea under the Obama Administration (after Obama famously ridiculed Mitt Romney in the 2012 election campaign for claiming Russia was a growing threat) showed the West was unwilling to enforce post Cold-War borders against direct aggression.

NATO expansion has been occurring, with all of the former Warsaw Pact nations now NATO members, and the three Baltic states, all of which had been invaded and occupied by the USSR during WW2. The expansion of NATO to defend former Soviet republics was deferred, not least because of concern of provoking Russia.  Both Georgia and Ukraine have wanted NATO membership, and the results of denying it are now seen in the destruction of Ukrainian cities.

As much as the Western nations will crow about economic sanctions on Russia, and much global unity on condemning Russia, it has done nothing to stem the bombardment and the growing occupation of Ukraine. As much as it is significant that Germany has finally unhooked itself from equivocating on Russia, by stopping the Nordstream 2 pipeline, Russia knows its oil and gas supplies keep much of Europe from grinding to a halt. This is predominantly due to the virtue signalling policies of the EU in energy and the environment which have stopped Europe from pursuing domestic sources of fossil fuels as an alternative, in favour of trying to save the world. Unlike the US which wisely enabled fracking, and is no longer dependent on oil from the Middle East, Europe in transitioning from coal has become reliant more on Russian fossil fuels whilst it inches towards renewables. Even more disturbing, the inexplicable decision of Germany to abandon nuclear power as a bizarre reaction to the Fukushima disaster (even though Germany neither has earthquakes or a risk of tsunami) has further weakened European energy security. Russia, of course, funded and supported anti-fracking activists.  

In the coming weeks and months there is a likelihood Ukraine will fall to Russian tyranny, without a shot having been fired by Western liberal democracies in support of the principles they are meant to be defending.  For the first time since 1968, tyranny has advanced in Europe.

Disturbing as this is, what will be just as disturbing is what the Western response has to be. A return to the clarity that an attack on NATO means war with all of NATO, which includes the risk of nuclear war.  A rearming of European countries, which means a reprioritisation of public spending towards defence, at least matching the NATO target of 2% but realistically needing to go for 3% and above. Permitting expansion of NATO to any liberal democracy that meets the conditions for membership.

It goes beyond Europe though. In the Pacific, a reassertion of the defence of Japan and South Korea, but most importantly a clear assertion by the United States that it will not stand by if Taiwan is attacked by the PRC. It must become too risky and too dangerous for the world's two largest tyrannies, Russia and China, to go any further.  The single biggest risk now is that Russia and China perceive that there wouldn't be any pushback if they go further.

It's too late for Ukraine, we got here due to weak US Presidents, and by that I mean not only Biden, but also Trump and Obama. We can speculate endlessly about whether Putin would have risked attacking Ukraine under Trump or not, and the answer is far from clear.  About all that is clear is that Trump was unpredictable, and that unpredictability was probably a deterrent, but Trump was also a man whose positions on issues was not consistent.

All that can be done now is for a firm redline to be set, by Biden, by NATO and all of its allies, that the West is willing to go to war to defend the borders of liberal democracies.  It is frightening and plenty of people politically on the far-left and right will oppose it, but it also means that Western liberal democracies need to spend more on defence, and less on virtue signalling, "rebalancing/levelling up/building back better" and to strengthen their economies to be resilient against dependence on Russia and China. Allister Heath outlined it starkly in the Daily Telegraph here:

For the first time in more than 30 years, we face a truly existential threat. Our enemy is a hostile state armed with nuclear weapons, a large conventional army and led by an empire-building psychopath: the danger to the European powers is orders of magnitude greater than the very real risk posed after 9/11 by al-Qaeda and Islamic State.

This new conflict will almost certainly be long, complex and extremely expensive. It won’t be like fighting the Taliban, or Saddam Hussein, or lone wolf actors. It will require us to relearn strategies, tactics and virtues at odds with the hyper-emotional performative stupidity and instant gratification of the Twitter era. Our elites will need to reprogramme themselves psychologically, economically and militarily, read some history, become more serious and austere, and knuckle down for a lengthy fight.

The implications for Australia and New Zealand from that are going to be stark. The easy ride of China buying so much, and selling so much back is about to come to an end.

There is some hope, but as Heath wrote:

Yes, Russia is staggeringly weak, a decaying nation with a population much less than half that of the US, and a GDP far lower than that of New York state. But it has nuclear weapons and needs to be deterred and eventually defeated. We must also send a signal to China, a country that is immensely richer and more sophisticated than the Soviet Union ever was, that the West is serious once more. This is a new Cold War, and we must urgently contain the authoritarian powers at war with liberal democracy.

28 February 2022

The international system is turning against freedom and liberal democracy

The last monumental change in the international system occurred in 1989-1991, with the end of the Cold War, driven by Mikhail Gorbachev's unwillingness to keep a jackboot on the throats of Soviet citizens and just as importantly, its satellite states, along with the US and the UK and their allies being willing to try to put international relations back on some sort of legal footing.  The Gulf War was a test of that, with the UN Security Council generating unprecedented international support for action to evict Iraq from its occupation of Kuwait.  It is difficult to underestimate the optimism of the time, with half of Europe freed from Marxist-Leninist dictatorships (including some of the most evil in history in Romania and Albania), the end of Cold War tensions between the former USSR and the USA, and even though China brutally suppressed dissent in Tiananmen Square, it seemed to accept a new world order based on rule of law.  Victory against Iraq at the time indicated a willingness to not tolerate territorial aggression.

So much has changed in 30 years. 

9/11 was critically important in refocusing Western attention on Islamist insurgency, but it paralleled change in Russia, as the relatively benign Boris Yeltsin was replaced with the altogether more sinister, ex. KGB official, Vladimir Putin. Russian liberal democracy has been wound back so much, it is little more than a fascist, organised crime syndicate running an authoritarian militarist dictatorship. China having become rich with capitalism under Marxist-Leninist rule, has seen the rise of Xi Jinping, who takes inspiration from Mao's era. Except now instead of being a gnat with a few nuclear weapons, China is the world's second largest economy, with businesses from Europe to North America and Japan all heavily invested in it. China is a major trading partner of many economies, and its requirement for local partners and investors has enabled it to steal intellectual property from some investors, and then copy what they do, at a lower price.

For much of the last 30 years Russia and China were content maintaining their regimes and growing richer. Russia on oil and gas (although this was severely dented for some years once fracking made the US in particular, capable of supplying its entire domestic demand), although little else. China on being a manufacturing hub. However, both have become bolder as Western liberal democracies have become weaker defenders of the international order.

Western liberal democracies have been damaged by 

  1. The war to overthrow Saddam Hussein: This demonstrated how utterly incapable Western democracies are in nation-building, and their lack of capacity and willingness to occupy and transform a defeated enemy. The blood and treasure lost in Iraq, and even the aftermath of the limited intervention to overthrow Gaddafi in Libya, have not been seen as worthwhile in most liberal democracies.  This has caused most to want to withdraw militarily.
  2. Weak Western commitment to the international system: President Obama was committed to a future of US pulling back from conflict, and this was followed by European powers that by and large took the same view.  When Russia invaded Crimea, the Western reaction was one of resignation.  When Russian-backed separatists in Donetsk shot down a Malaysian airliner, only the Netherlands and Australia demanded explanations so vocally. Obama's "red-line" over Syria using poison gas against its own population was backed up by little.  Trump for his bluster, has largely been uncommittal on anything. Biden is yet to be tested, but looks and sounds weak.
  3. Western ideological self-hatred: The weak commitment has been backed by both right and leftwing apologists for Russia and China.  Ones on the right regard China as a great business opportunity that shouldn't be disturbed. They also see Russia as a "traditional Christian" state, that has "understandable" interests in neighbouring states. They downplay Putin's authoritarianism. Ones on the left are back in the Cold War, thinking it is "time" the West stopped dominating, after all, it's Western capitalism that they blame for most of the world's ills.

The international system is led by actors that have proven unwilling to deter or confront Russia from irredentist behaviour.  Russia currently occupies not just Crimea, but Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, it also effectively backs a rogue breakaway entity called Trans-Dniestr in Moldova, and is Belarus's biggest friend.  

Russia's narrative that if Ukraine joined NATO it would provoke it was complete nonsense, as it is clear that HAD Ukraine become a NATO member some years ago, the chances of an attack would have been more remote.  

For what it's worth, the international reaction to the attack on Russia has largely been uniform and positive. Widespread condemnation, and the emergence of sanctions and increasing military and economic aid and assistance.  Yet it still looks pathetic for Ukraine to not be subject to military support from powers that completely support it politically and ideologically. Russia's vile defamatory narrative that it is "de-Nazifying" Ukraine (against its Jewish President!!??!) is laughably absurd.

Indeed, the Russian ethno-nationalist narrative Putin is expounding is absolutely fascist.  It is blood-and-soil, historical revanchism, that blanks out the USSR's alliance with Nazism that backfired, and glorifies the Soviet defeat of the USSR.  See this Twitter thread for an excellent summary of that, and how Putin now uses revival of WW2 myths to bolster Russian nationalism.

Let's be crystal clear, Putin is a nationalist neo-fascist.

Of course the West cannot directly intervene against Russia, not least because the price could well be risking nuclear war. What it CAN do, is make it crystal clear that it will use all necessary means to defend NATO member states, which means including nuclear weapons. Russia is only deterred by the risk of overwhelming force.

There have thankfully been very few voices seeking to downplay Putin. However, in NZ Chris Trotter, who has valiantly stood in favour of freedom of speech has revived his tankie instincts over the "tragedy" that the USSR collapsed. The Green Party's Golriz Gharaman has OPPOSED New Zealand sanctioning Russia unilaterally, implicitly accepting that Russia vetoing UN sanctions is preferable, but also essentially claiming sanctions just hurt ordinary people so shouldn't proceed.


Of course then she is happy to share a platform with Roger Waters, who supported Russia's invasion and annexation of Crimea and Noam Chomsky who actively supports the Russian imperialist narrative.

Maybe she is more concerned about Palestine and attacking Israel, than actual imperialist warmongering, which simply reflects the weak-willed vacuousness of hard-left anti-Western so-called "peace" activism.


By contrast the Australian Greens, have got a backbone:

 


as do, it appears, a lot of governments that we perhaps otherwise didn't think had it in them. Finland and Sweden actively discussing joining NATO. Germany finally capitulating to cancel Nordstream 2.   Then there is this magnificent speech from Kenya.

We can only hope that the brave people of Ukraine, finally having some support (except direct military assistance) against Putin, can hold out and Putin can be rolled back into some capitulation.  Putin wants ALL of Ukraine for himself, but he will likely have to resort to accepting a ceasefire in the Donbass, unless he is willing to unleash a fury of weaponry that may cause more Russians to turn against him.

Let us hope that this puts paid to the PRC's ambitions to attack Taiwan.  A firm resolve is needed.  Ukraine is a test of the international system, a test of the resolve of the USA, under a President who has looked weak from day one (with the withdrawal of Afghanistan having been such a mess), the UK and France, the EU and the community of liberal democracies

16 December 2016

Syria is what most in the West wanted

What did you expect with Aleppo?

Syria's hereditary socialist/nationalist (Ba'athist) dictatorship has flagrantly used chemical weapons against its own people and dropped barrel bombs on them, for daring to oppose 46 years of repressive family rule.  Nobel Peace Prize winner, Barack Obama, said the use of chemical weapons would be a "red line", then did nothing besides let Assad (and his father) 's ally Russia "supervise the destruction" of the weapons.   

Obama, leader of the world's only superpower, then did nothing.  His excuse was that the UK House of Commons had voted against military action against the Assad regime (which it did, as now former leader Ed Miliband wanted to prove how much the "anti-Blair" he was and burnish his leftwing credentials).  Non-intervention, the preferred policy of rightwing isolationists and leftwing "pacifists" is the new norm, except for Russia.

Of course it isn't pure non-intervention.  The West has been funding and arming some of the rebel groups in Syria, including those with Islamist leanings.  They aren't ISIS (despite some claims), but there are no angels in Syria.   No one is fighting for Syria to be a secular liberal democracy that respects individual rights and political plurality.  

The surrender of Aleppo to the Assad dictatorship was the inevitable outcome of Russian intervention in favour of its long standing ally and the flagrant ongoing violation of international law by the Assad regime in using chemical weapons and barrel bombing civilian areas.

Chemical weapons and indiscriminate bombing by the Assad regime has worked.  China, Russia, Iran, all of which execute political opponents, don't care.  The part of the international community that should care (the "West") has shrugged, said lots, but Obama handed over responsibility to Russia.  This was like handing over responsibility for addressing North Korea's human rights atrocities to China.

The experience of Iraq - successfully overthrowing tyranny, followed by utter failure in replacing it and achieving control of the country, rightfully gave cause for caution.   

However, the result of that vacuum has been to give Russia an opportunity, to be the new power in the Middle East.  There were opportunities to contain Assad's use of chemical weapons and air power over civilians, with no fly zones, but doing anymore would have been much more difficult.   

Now those on the left are complaining that "we" sat by and did nothing, yet that is exactly what they campaigned for.  Dictators will murder opponents, will slaughter civilians and unless you are willing to put our own taxpayers' money and military force to intercede, it will continue.   Obama in 2011 said Assad either had to lead a transition to democracy or get out the way, but he did neither - he fought on, gained support of his strong ally - Russia - which already knew the West was going to do nothing.

The isolationist right of course also believed in leaving Syria alone, a few because they accepted Assad's propaganda that all his opponents are "terrorists" and all his opponents are "Al Qaeda and ISIS" whereas he is moderate and reasonable.   A few because they see Putin as a "friend".  However, mostly because they have no interest in what happens to people in foreign lands, as they are far away places of which they know little.  Syrians wanting freedom from tyranny should do it themselves, and not expect foreign government support (even if it means foreign governments actively support the tyranny).  At least that position has a consistency - governments should only defend the rights of those within their boundaries, even if other governments engage in mass slaughter that sends hundreds of thousands fleeing to other governments.

So Aleppo is awful.  Yet, it is the end result of the policies of both leftwing so-called "peace" supporters and rightwing isolationists.  The biggest threat to the lives of individuals are tyrannies, and the only way to redress that is to arm opponents or to take them on yourselves.   The Western appetite for this is slim indeed.


27 June 2016

Brexit: An opportunity that could be wrecked by politicians

So the UK votes to leave and the PM decides to leave, but not now.  The Chancellor of the Exchequer hides, and beyond the Bank of England printing a few billion, nothing else happens.

The EU has already decided to play tough and has its own position, which is essentially "fuck off, the walls are going up, deal with it".  Although Germany is being much more nuanced.

The Conservative Party has to find a new leader, and from that a new Cabinet and a policy on negotiations.  Labour meanwhile is going the same way.  It is likely a new Conservative leader/PM will call a General Election on a manifesto of leading the UK into a new open, free-trading world with a new free trading relationship with the EU.   Leaving the EU requires the UK to initiate it formally, which the EU is begging for, but the Government would rather delay because it changes its bargaining position.

Yet that could be problematic, not least because a key plank of those fighting to leave the EU is to end free movement of people with the EU, and all countries in the EU Single Market (including non-EU Norway and Iceland) all have signed up to free movement, and even non Single Market Switzerland has, although it does have extensive restrictions on new residents having access to any government provided services.

Meanwhile, leftwing nationalists have jumped on an opportunity.  Sinn Fein wants a referendum on Irish unification, but the Northern Ireland First Minister has said no.  Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is flailing about wanting a second referendum on independence, but wont discuss:

1. The EU only lets non-members join, not current members split into joining and non-joining;
2. Joining the EU means joining the Euro;
3. 90% of Scottish trade is with the UK, Scotland in the EU would mean any EU trade barriers with the UK also apply to Scottish trade with the rest of the UK.

Spain, showing it really hasn't turned as far from Francoism as it would have liked, is demanding co-sovereignty over Gibraltar.

Meanwhile, the young leftwing social justice warrior types (Generation SnowFlake some have called them, for their "safe spaces", being "triggered" by hurt feelings and constantly protesting about what is offended) feel "betrayed" about the old "ruining their futures".  However, the truth is that the majority of the young didn't care enough to vote as revealed by Sky News below.

Whinging about democracy when it doesn't go your way, whilst embracing it otherwise, is beyond the pale, as are some of the hate filled attacks on older votes coming from those whose own identity politics is supposed to decry hate speech.  The truth being that the so-called liberal leftwing anti-hate, anti-violence activists are full of hate and quite happily embrace violence to get their "own way".  It's emotion laden petulance, of the kind you would have only seen from the fringes of the far-right and conspiracy theorists had the vote gone to Remain. 

So what should happen now? (notwithstanding who the PM and Government is)

1. The Government should announce the key planks of a new relationship with the EU around trade, investment, movement of people and co-operation, that it seeks to adopt.  It should clarify to the entire country that it is not going to be a UK of isolationism, but one of openness.

2. The Government should make it clear to all EU passport holders in the UK that no-one will be deported, except under existing arrangements for threats to national security or criminals.  No EU residents need fear this, nor will their property be affected or businesses, and if anyone threatens them they should go to the Police.

3. The PM should make it clear that there will be no referendum on Scottish independence this side of Brexit, but that the Government will consult with the Scottish government and parliament on the deal it seeks with the EU.  It is precipitous to talk about Scottish independence until Scotland sees the new deal negotiated with the EU.

4. The PM should make it clear that there will be no referendum on Northern Ireland joining Ireland unless the preconditions of the Good Friday Agreement are met, but that equally it cannot happen until the new deal with the EU is negotiated AND negotiations are concluded with the Republic of Ireland.

5. The PM should go to Dublin and discuss the future relationship and reassure that no border controls will be reinstated.

6. The PM should go to Germany and talk, extensively, about how to make this work, and then go to all other EU Member State capitals, and the EFTA Member States too. 

7.  The Government should go to the WTO to discussing reviving membership.

8. The PM should visit USA, China, Japan and other trading partners and say that it wants to have open, freer trading relationships and the UK will be open for business and people.

9. Finally, the PM should make it clear that there wont be a second referendum on membership and that those who want to claim it is unfair, that this is democracy and the task now is to bring the country together and work for a new relationship with the EU and the world that demonstrably proves the claims of the Remain activists wrong.

Oh and ignore Nicola Sturgeon.  The Scottish Parliament can't "veto" the British Government any more than Lambeth Borough Council can stop the UK having nuclear weapons.

19 March 2014

Crimea matters, for all sorts of reasons

I don't know what has appalled me more - Putin's cynical opportunistic land-grab of Crimea, the almost complete abrogation of the Budapest Memorandum on Security Guarantees for Ukraine by the UK and US, or the extent of leftwing and rightwing moral relativism about the whole thing.

I started by writing an article about how Crimea is what happens when isolationists are in charge.  However, the reaction of much of the public is not just the isolationism that has been bred by the left (the "the West is evil as as bad as anyone else" brigade) and the right ("we're safe, they aren't coming for us, just our friends, who we can ignore"), but the moral relativism attached to what is going on.

In this age of competing media, it is easy to turn on Kremlin propaganda in English from Russia Today, and for critics of the status quo on left and right to cynically dismiss reports from the plurality of Western media sources as propaganda, but it's naive and delusional.  What is going on in Ukraine is old-fashioned power politics, because Vladimir Putin has sniffed weakness from the West and knows it will do little - as long as Barack Obama is in power, David Cameron remains beholden to the appeasement loving Liberal Democrats and the Germans remain paralysed by their own history.

So let's first knock out some of the lazy assertions, promoted by Putin's regime:


14 December 2011

What the lobbyists wont tell you about the Kyoto Protocol

There are three types of countries that signed up to the Kyoto Protocol (the US is outside and now Canada is too):

-  Annex 1 countries:  Those that commit to reducing their emissions, covering both "industrialised countries" and "countries in transition".  New Zealand and the UK are in this category, along with all other EU Member States, Russia, Japan and others.  Total of 41.  So they all bear the costs of reducing activities that reduce emissions, or must buy emissions allowances, or mitigate their emissions.

- Annex 2 countries:  A subset of Annex 1 countries that also include New Zealand and the UK.  They not only are obliged to reduce emissions, but their taxpayers are required to subsidise the likes of others to reduce emissions.  This includes the "rich" EU Member States, i.e. Greece and Portugal, not Poland and Slovenia. 

- Developing countries: That is everyone else.  They are not obliged to reduce emissions at all, unless Annex 2 countries pay for them to adopt new technologies to allow it.  They can "volunteer" to become Annex 1 countries when they have developed.

The environmental movements don't challenge this.  Yet let's look at who is in the category of developing countries.  These are countries the New Zealand government, both the Clark and now the Key governments, have committed to helping subsidise to gain new technologies.

Qatar - Which has 6.8 times the per capita emissions of New Zealand and 6.2 times that of the UK, with per capita GDP (Purchasing Power Parity basis) 2.5 times that of the UK and 3.3 times that of New Zealand.  Bear in mind Qatar basically earns virtually all of its income from exporting oil, so it can earn money from "selling CO2 emission" then emit as much as it likes, and get money from poorer countries to buy new technologies. Nice.

UAE - Has 4.4 times the per capita emissions of the UK, 4.5 times the per capita emission of New Zealand, with per capita GDP 1.4 times that of the UK and 1.8 times that of New Zealand.  A similar economy to Qatar.

Bahrain, Brunei, Kuwait all have higher per capita emissions that the UK and NZ, and all but Bahrain have higher per capita GDP.   All richer more polluting economies, all making money from selling CO2 emitting energy, all expected to do nothing, all entitled to get taxes from NZ and British taxpayers to dabble in being more environmentally friendly.  Nice that.

China, Brazil and India of course are all classed as developing countries being poorer per capita, despite having significant foreign exchange surpluses and rapidly growing emissions.  You might ask quite why China is owed subsidies from Western taxpayers when it sits on a growing mountain of money it earns from exporting to those people.
A few other countries are classed as "developing" and deserving of subsidies, and able to emit all they wish, yet have HIGHER per capita incomes than New Zealand, such as Singapore, the Bahamas and Israel.

You might ask yourself quite why these little details are seen as acceptable by a government claiming to be looking after your interests.  Why you might have to pay more, whilst the descendants of oil sheikhs and Chinese millionaires need not face anything, and your taxes might even subsidise their dabbling in green technologies.

You might even wonder why nobody asked any of the major political parties those questions.



06 September 2011

Assange shows himself up to be a shallow attention seeker

The concept of Wikileaks has some appeal for a libertarian.  Government secrets can hide criminal behaviour, breaches of individual rights and can show up corruption.  It can also show up things that governments don't want you to know, because they are embarrassed or think they know best.

However, it is one thing to be concerned about governments misusing their power, and engaging in criminal activity.  It is another to think that absolutely everything governments do should be in the public domain.

Some time ago I wrote the post "What is the motive of Julian Assange?" where I noted that Assange tends to leak one side of the story on most things.  Relatively little has been revealed from Russian, Chinese or Iranian sources.  Probably because language is a barrier, possibly because Assange would rather not be in the firing line of authoritarian regimes who are known to not be too fussed about using murder to deal with opponents.    

I later noted:

As interesting as it is for Wikileaks to publish stolen communications from US diplomatic sources, are there not similar communications being made available for Wikileaks to publish from countries that are not Western liberal democracies?


Will it receive such uncritical coverage if it publishes British diplomatic communications regarding strategy with the European Union? How about New Zealand's diplomatic communications on trade access issues?  How about South Korea's diplomatic communications about north Korea defectors?


Would it not be at least as interesting, and indeed more valuable if Wikileaks also gained access to material from Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Zimbabwe, Burma, Cuba etc?

Now we have seen things have gone down that path.  Wikileaks has inadvertently published quarter of a million stolen US diplomatic despatches, which includes names of informants in China, Iran and Afghanistan.  People who now have their lives in jeopardy because Assange wanted attention.  The story behind it is complex and described in Der Spiegel, but it has since caused one former Wikileak's staff member to resign, explaining it in the Guardian as follows:

By drawing attention to, and then publishing in full, the unredacted cache of documents, WikiLeaks has done the cause of internet freedom – and of whistleblowers – more harm than US government crackdowns ever could.
Before the first publication of carefully redacted cables, human rights activists, NGOs, and organisations working with victims of horrific crimes contacted WikiLeaks begging us to take steps not to publish any names. To be able to assure them details would be protected was an immeasurable relief.

These cables contain details of activists, opposition politicians, bloggers in autocratic regimes and their real identities, victims of crime and political coercion, and others driven by conscience to speak to the US government. They should never have had to fear being exposed by a self-proclaimed human rights organisation.

Wikileaks is no human rights organisation.  It is an activist organisation, driven by the political agenda of Assange, which is to undermine Western governments' interests and embarrass them. 
Wikileaks is no friend of freedom, as Kyle Wingfield writes:

This is not a studied neutrality, or allegiance only to truth. It is for all intents and purposes making a value judgment in favor of authoritarian regimes over democratic ones. To deny this is to deny reality. And second, Assange and his co-conspirators, rather than proving the merits of transparency, have simply demonstrated the danger of letting a small group of unaccountable people wield control over information. They are guilty of everything they accuse governments (but mostly the U.S. government) of doing, and more.

The road to hell is paved ... and all that.  Pardon my language, but Assange is an attention seeking little cunt.  He hasn't a clue about international diplomacy, international relations, human rights or politics.  His own egomaniacal belief in his own genius has been his undoing, as he acts outside the laws of countries and effectively writes his own.  Brave people under totalitarian regimes, that he doesn't dare visit, have their lives at risk, because he knew best in dealing with stolen documents.

He makes the allegations about phone hacking within News International look like a misdemeanor, for that didn't put lives at risk.  His leftwing mates should do some soul-searching before implying that somehow it is a set up (nice bit of wilful blindness you smug little man).  I can only hope no one is hurt by this, but I suspect this has just effectively made any dissidents or activists for political freedom in many countries fearful of ever working with the USA (or any Western governments).  A situation I expect most Wikileaks supporters probably didn't want, but which the cloyingly cliche'd anti-Western agenda of Assange created as an inevitability.

You see, most of the things embassies and consulates do are mundane, some are sensitive, and a few are about providing outposts of support and comfort for dissidents and others.   Over many years thousands of north Koreans have defected from their own embassies or from work, sport or artistic groups, or by simply escaping, through south Korean embassies.  In many authoritarian countries, embassies provide a place for privacy or implicitly providing support and security for political dissidents, or even just ordinary people who want to use a library, open internet access or to learn about a country more openly.   It isn't something Assange and his sycophants understand, because they have never lived somewhere like that.

There are plenty of organisations, from Reporters without Borders to the Global Internet Freedom Consortium and Freedom House, who work hard to promote free and open media across the world.  They know what they are talking about, they have freedom and openness as core values, not banners for publicity, and they believe in individual freedom, not that everything every says should be open to the world.

It is time to turn one's back on Wikileaks and Julian Assange as an experiment led by someone whose primary interest was not freedom of speech, but publishing diarrhoea.  He didn't have the values he purported to represent, but a political partisan agenda, that has picked favours, and has shown that he isn't the god and saviour he'd really like to imagine himself to be.

22 August 2011

Bye bye Gaddafi, well done rebels and NATO

From the reports overnight, it appears that the Gaddafi regime is either in tatters or on the verge of engaging a final bloody battle. I wouldn’t put it past Gaddafi to do the latter, for the one thing that can be certain of the last 40 years of his regime, it is his willingness to lie incessantly and to react murderously on a whim.

There is, of course, great reason to celebrate the end of Gaddafi. He has spent his whole career following a megalomaniacal path of personality cult and self-aggrandisement, considering himself to be leader of Africa (and getting a semi-polite muted response from most of the rest of Africa, mainly because it looked forward to gaining some of his oil wealth in exchange for his friendship) and supporter of umpteen terrorist causes from around the world. He has over that period aided, funded and armed plenty from the IRA to the 1970s Marxist terrorist gangs in the West, such as the Red Army Faction and Red Brigades in West Germany and Italy. He supported communist insurgents in the Philippines, and often declared his solidarity with the Palestinians, though was not exactly a friend of the PLO. Of course he will be most well known in the West for the Lockerbie bombing in 1988 and the bombing of a West Berlin disco in 1986.   He also provided extensive funds to the Ceausescu regime in its development of a weapons industry (Gaddafi and Ceausescu were particularly warm with each other), whilst Romanian spies stole intellectual property from Western firms, and both countries developed chemical weapons.

Perhaps the one odd thing about Gaddafi is that you can almost always predict that he would be on the side of the dictatorial, the fascist, the murdering and the anti-Western. He supported Idi Amin in his fight against Tanzania, and granted the murderous brute asylum when he was overthrown. He supported the Iranian revolution and has long maintained warm relations with the Iranian Islamist regime.

He waged war against his dirt poor southern neighbour of Chad, and bombed a French airliner in retaliation for French intervention to protect Chad. All the time having warm relations with the USSR, and gaining Soviet arms. He pursued development of chemical weapons although has never used them. More recently, Libya sought to improve relations with the rest of the world, but notably provided cheap oil to Zimbabwe in solidarity with Robert Mugabe. He also supported the now fallen Tunisian dictatorship of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.

Domestically, he ran an economy almost entirely dependent on oil wealth that would rise and fall according to the price of oil. In the 1970s he embarked on a socialist programme that included at one point free supermarkets, but this all collapsed in the 1980s as oil prices dropped and economic sanctions from the West tightened up markets for Libya. The more recent rises in oil prices have helped, along with his sudden willingness to co-operate with the West following the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime. This, of course, saw him courting plenty willing to turn a blind eye to his past, from Prince Andrew to the London School of Economics.

Meanwhile, he ran a regime that was heavily focused on his own personality cult and the worship of his incoherent body of ranting called the Green Book. In this he mixes Islam, socialism and a disdain for free speech and liberal democracy in the style of an unhinged man. He would be funny, if he were not so lethal. Gaddafi was always ruthless towards political opponents or those suspected of plotting against the regime. Like any such regime he ran a ruthless secret police force, and Libya was never ever a haven for human rights.

Anyone with a smidgeon of belief in freedom will celebrate his overthrow, although it is unclear what will follow, it is difficult to imagine it could be worse. Certainly, the risk of an Islamist revolution seems slight in Libya. As a curious footnote, it might be worthwhile to find those in New Zealand who were once acolytes of Gaddafi. Like veteran Maori radical Mike Smith, the late communist radical Syd Jackson felt warm about Gaddafi’s regime. New Zealand’s media is all incredibly forgiving of those who were friends with mass murderers, but then again what can you expect from those who don't check their facts to justify an editorial line.

Meanwhile, keep an eye out for the fifth columnists in the West who will denounce all of this, who will claim that all along they opposed Gaddafi, but also opposed NATO’s intervention to protect the rebels and civilians from Gaddafi’s own war against his own people.   People like Andrew Murray, a noted sympathiser of the Kim Jong Il hereditary nepotocracy, who not long ago was damning the whole thing in the Guardian.  The ones who would rather sit on the fence and impale their moral reputation than accept that a people have overthrown a militarist dictatorship, that was more than willing to use its own army to crush opposition. For you see, for the leftist apologists of Gaddafi to accept that, they would have to accept that NATO did GOOD, that the UK and France (let’s not pretend the Obama Administration led this, or did more than come in behind) acted morally and justifiably against this murderous tyrant. Watch now as they point at Syria and say it is hypocritical not to intervene there, yet these very same people would oppose such a move. Watch as they deftly ignore Castro and Chavez's warm support for Gaddafi, brothers in blood spilling.  Dare a NZ journalist ask Hone Harawira's view on any of this?  Maybe someone might seek to go to Tripoli to do some research on the regime's archives and see how many lowlives worldwide were paid off by this regime?

Watch also as Obama, suddenly come out of his shell, to proclaim a kind of victory months after he was the do-nothing President.  

This is a victory by ordinary Libyans, who watched their neighbours in Tunisia and Egypt reject tyranny.  It was supported by NATO, but only because Cameron and Sarkozy were determined to prevent a bloodbath on their doorstep (and had a degree of guilt for how UK and French governments had appeased the regime in recent years).  Italy and Germany were obstructive, the USA tagged on behind.

Now is a chance to rebuild, for Libya to be a friend and for the truths of Gaddafi's decades of waging war on the outside world and tyranny on his own people, to come out.

UPDATEThe New Statesman reminds us of some of Gaddafi's erstwhile friends.  Remember the one career where you can be feted internationally, at the expense of foreign taxpayers, whilst maintaining a record of mass murder, is to be a politician.  Yet so many people still like politicians to make decisions for them.

Professor Juan Cole writes top ten myths of the war in Libya.  It includes the perpetual (and vile) claim that it is all about oil.

08 August 2011

End of cloud cuckoo land economics

So says City AM editor, Allister Heath.  In an extended editorial this morning he wrote an elegant piece that summarises where we all are at:

The post-Bretton Woods era is coming to an end. Asia and the emerging nations are on the rise – and the world’s increasingly vocal creditors. As economic power shifts, so will geopolitical and cultural influence. The US, which for decades enjoyed massive inflows of cheap financing, and huge benefits from owning the world’s reserve currency, needs to start to live within its means. The same is true of Europe, which faces two additional challenges: the Eurozone, which cannot survive in its present form and which has become the most urgent threat to global prosperity; and (even more than America) bloated welfare states and a generalised failure to grasp that weak education systems, high taxes and crippling regulations are a no-no in a globalised world.

He has no time for the endless budget deficits and the abuse of fiat currencies as ways to evade reason...

“stimulus” packages of the fiscal or monetary variety have become counter-productive, with every extra pound in economic output created coming at a much greater cost. Ultimately, one needs real, sustainable growth – and that must mean deferring consumption to allow the savings required to finance productive investment; a sound, non-manipulated currency; interest rates that reflect reality; and lots of hard work, creativity, skill and innovation, suitably incentivised. The pseudo-Keynesian micro-management that dominates policy-making is not only intellectually bankrupt but has been proved to fail in practice. Politics and wishful thinking has been defeated by economic reality. In a world of scarce resources, we need to produce before we can consume – all the borrowing and money-printing in the world cannot refute this simple truth. 

His big predictions are that the US can prevaricate for some time, and be in long term relative decline as it does, but the European Union has an immediate crisis, that now threatens to spread beyond the CPIIGS (Cyprus, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) into Belgium and France.  

But while the US’s decline could run for decades, and will involve further downgrades, the Eurozone’s crisis is urgent. The only question is how much debt the authorities will want or be able to federalise – how many toxic government bonds will the European Central Bank and the European Financial Stability Facility buy, in exchange for creating money or issuing Eurobonds backed by all Eurozone countries. Prudent taxpayers in Germany and elsewhere will pick up the bill left by profligate nations; but given its huge, multi-trillion euro size, this could destroy yet more credit ratings. France could be next for a downgrade. Even more importantly, a sovereign bailout will destroy any remaining popular support for the euro project, especially in Germany, understandably so given that the population was lied to when it was told that countries would retain their fiscal independence despite giving up monetary sovereignty.
 
The implications of this for Europe, could be positive if it unshackled itself from the socialist part of the EU project, and helped set its economies free, but it is unlikely that will happen.
 
The more serious concern ought to be about the decline of the United States, what is means not so much for the global economy, but for the international order.  For decades many in the West have rallied against Pax Americana, more than a few will cheer a New World Order that does not resemble what George Bush (Sr.) declared at the end of the Cold War.   
However, bear in mind what it represents.  It means Asia being dominated militarily as well as economically by China, and India, both nuclear powers.  It means the Middle East being dominated by Saudi Arabia and Israel, it means Europe being dominated by NATO and Russia, and it means the United States doing what Obama has royally done, opting out of the world by withdrawing.

The so-called "peace movement" will proclaim the world is a safer place as a result, although if it is a place where the United States no longer carries a banner, and sword, for freedom, one wonders how true that will be (not that the "peace movement" ever believed in freedom).   Some US libertarians welcome this, not wanting the US to be "World Police" (not that it ever really was), but what it leaves is a philosophical vacuum - one that is increasingly filled with "make money wherever you can regardless of individual or property rights" as the Russia and Middle Eastern kleptocracies move forward and China seeks a 21st century imperialism over African natural resources to replicate the 19th century Western equivalent.   Islam may fill part of it, corporatist state capitalism will fill some more, as will knuckle-dragging nationalism based on ethnicity. 

However, consider this.  If you were in Poland, with a relatively chilly authoritarian neighbour to the east, and you saw the US withdraw its presence in Europe - given the past 70 years of history - would you be feeler safer as a result?

01 August 2011

Watch Syria, for that's the future

It shouldn't surprise anyone that Bashar el-Assad has turned the army on protestors and has shown little hesitation to create rivers of blood among his subjects.  Tanks firing on civilians, sniper taking out protestors, blocking hospitals to stop protestors entering according to a report from The Independent.   With reports of heavy machine gun fire, tanks shelling buildings and electricity and water being cut off from the city of Hama (where Assad's bloodthirsty father had massacred reportedly over 10,000 in 1982), it appears the regime will stop at nothing to remain in power.  Another report talks of tanks running over people.   Some claim over 1,600 have been killed by the regime since protests started in March, whilst this is likely to be somewhat exagerrated there can be little doubt the regime has been engaging on a spree of oppression.

It did try in recent years to put on a more moderate face.  Some thought that as Bashar Assad had been trained as an opthamologist and had not originally been seen as the successor to his father (his far more ruthless and "Uday Hussein" like brother Basil had been, before he died in a car crash), he would be more moderate, and there had been signs of a loosening of the totalitarian state his father Hafez had instituted, but it would be more like moving from Stalin to Khrushchev.   It didn't stop Vogue writing a gushing piece about Bashar's wife late last year (which it wisely has removed from its website). 

However, the truth is out.  Bashar wants to retain absolute authority and power, like his father.  He has the support of the armed forces, and the brutal Ba'athist socialist legacy of the ruling party continues.

President Obama has rightly condemned what has been going on, as have other Western leaders.  The regime's response has been to sponsor attacks against the US and French embassies.   Meanwhile you'll notice two major differences between the foreign reaction to Syria and the reactions to Libya, Serbia and other examples of what is typically referred to as "humanitarian intervention".

Firstly, the Western world is financially and politically exhausted as regards "saving the world" from the brutality of dictatorships.  Barack Obama has no appetite or inclination to do anything to intervene in Syria, not least because of the cost, but also because he firmly believes that it is for the UN Security Council to authorise any such action.  Is he pushing for this?  Well no, because he knows it wont be politically popular, he knows he'd struggle to pay for it and as he didn't support the overthrow of Saddam Hussein (and was subdued on Libya) he doesn't believe the US should project itself militarily, in order to save the lives of others.  Meanwhile, as the UK and France effectively lead the continued presence over Libya, they are not so inclined to go into Syria either, because of money.  Germany opposed intervention in Libya at all.   Of course neither Russia nor China are in any way inclined to support intervention against a government that turns on its own people, given that both are quite adept murderers of their own domestic populations.

So the post-Cold War age of humanitarian intervention, which has had mixed results including the former Yugoslavia, Somalia, Liberia and Libya (I count Afghanistan as being action against those that harboured an aggressor and Iraq as action against a proven threat to international peace and security), is now over.

You'll have to get used to watching TV coverage or hearing/reading reports of governments massacring their own people.  For the US and European powers are no longer willing to save them.  That is, in part, because they have nearly bankrupted their own economies through many years of overspending on bribing voters and interest groups with future taxpayers' money. It is also because the cost in lives and money of such interventions (and the organised forces against them from the left) have made it politically more difficult to support.   The UK was embarrassed about its previous sycophancy for the proven mass murderer Muammar Gaddafi, so could not stand by as he used helicopters to take out civilian protestors.  However, Syria has never been a friend of the West, so the guilt isn't there.

All of this should please the so-called peace movement and human rights advocates from the left who opposed the Allied invasion of Iraq and overthrow of that Ba'athist dictatorship, as well as the smaller group who thought the Taliban should have been left alone in Afghanistan, to keep harbouring Al Qaeda and enforce a dark ages Islamist year zero ultra-patriarchy.   The same people have been relatively quiet over Libya, except the usual tiresome claim that its only about oil.  

You see, the so-called peace movement have long held up Afghanistan, Iraq and even Libya as of late as being "the fault of the West".  This is a line whereby all NATO members and Western allies of military intervention in all these cases, must carry the blame for the actions of previous western governments in the Cold War.  Never ever is the finger pointed at Russia or the governments of the former Warsaw Pact countries and the like.

Afghanistan was the fault of the West supporting the Mujahideen against the brutal Soviet backed Najibullah regime.  The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was, after all, supported by Keith Locke of all people.   It takes a peculiar contortion of one's belief in human rights, womens' rights and freedom of speech to oppose the overthrow of the Taliban, but that is what the far left did (it would have been ok had the Afghan people done it on their own efforts though - like how it would have been good if the Jews had overthrown the Nazis in Germany).  Support for the Islamists in Afghanistan was a mistake, but it doesn't mean one cannot rectify it when they not only have proven to be brutally sadistic, but harbouring those who attack you.

Iraq was also the fault of the West, for the support Saddam Hussein got against the Iranian Islamists.  That piece of realpolitik (your enemy's enemy is your friend) was an appalling miscalculation, which was eventually figured out in the late 1980s when the West stopped arming and supporting Hussein (though one shouldn't forget the French help for Hussein's first attempt at building a nuclear reactor, which Israel swiftly dealt to).   Of course, the USSR and Warsaw Pact countries also extensively armed and assisted Saddam, but Russia and its former allies are forgiven, somehow.  However, that doesn't matter now, for notwithstanding Saddam's use of chemical weapons against his own people, his invasion and occupation of a neighbouring state (for oil) and his extended oppression and brutality against anyone who opposed him, he was deemed protected by international law by the so-called peace movement.  Invasion against this dictatorship was "illegal" and "unjustified" as the borders of a dictatorship are considered inviolable.  The left considered Saddam's regime as having at least enough moral authority for the actions to overthrow him to be considered less justifiable than letting him be.  

This Ba'athist hereditory dictatorship in Syria has so many hallmarks of being abominable it should be more surprising that it didn't long ago raise anger and activism among the legions of self-styled human rights protestors in Western countries.  You know, the ones who will raise a flotilla for the Gaza Strip, or rally against apartheid, or protest against the Chinese one-party state.

However, Syria's past can't be easily blamed on the West.  It gained independence in 1946, but between then and 1956 was marked by multiple military coups.  In 1956 it became explicitly allied with the USSR, and merged with Egypt in the ill-fated "United Arab Republic" of Nasser in 1958, before withdrawing in 1961.  A 1963 coup led by the socialist Ba'ath Party set the stage for the future of the country.  With Hafez Assad staging his own coup within the regime in 1970, he held power for 30 years, with an iron fist and a personality cult to match, with Bashar taking on the legacy in 2000.  Throughout the entire period since 1956, Syria has been allied with the USSR, and subsequently maintained warm relationships with Russia, Iran, North Korea and other regimes with an overtly anti-Western stance.

So for now, you can watch Syria's regime massacring its own people.  In the knowledge that the Western advocates of peace and human rights are rather quiet on it all, expressing concern, but not at all supporting intervention (how could they).  They will be quiet about a regime they have ignored for decades, because it never had Western support and was always antagonistic towards Israel (although Israel has for some years sought a peace treaty based on progressively handing back the Golan Heights, but Syria wont make peace until the Palestinian situation has been resolved).  

Meanwhile, with Obama in the White House, and largely uninterested in international affairs.  With Western leadership dependent on a fairly wet British Prime Minister who is in coalition with anti-interventionists, it may be up the the French (given Syria was a French colony) to seek action.   Yet, as China and Russia have no inclination to support it (and since few dare to ignore the UN Security Council nowadays), expect to see more blood flowing in Syria with no intervention.

It is, after all, the consequence of a policy of non-intervention and what the so-called peace movement and human rights movements want as a response.

01 January 2011

Top 10 wishes for world affairs - 2011

As below, here are some of my biggest wishes, for international affairs and countries other than the UK and NZ.   As before, from lowest to highest priority (and the list could easily have been twice as long).

10.  A new WTO trade round is rescued from oblivion: The Obama Administration has been absolutely disgraceful on trade, and so the dark economically illiterate forces of ill-guided economic nationalism have raised their ugly heads.  It would be enormously beneficial if the US, EU, Japan and the key developing countries got their heads out of their arses and talked multilateral liberalisation of trade in agriculture and services.  If this is done it could lift global GDP by 1-2%, could dramatically improve the lot of people in food producing countries, service providing countries and consumers worldwide.   It's an indictment on the Obama Administration and the EU that neither have the competence nor courage to lead this.

9. Robert Mugabe is dragged from a car, beaten up and left to die with his wife and lackeys in central Harare, and Zimbabwe gets a truly open accountable government:  This repulsive murderous crook continues to be lauded around Africa (explaining the standards of morality on much of that continent) and by the UN.  A bullet would do, but it would be a delightful message to his Stalinist gangsters and fellow dictators elsewhere as to what can happen to thieving violent bullies.   Let's hope 2011 finishes without Robert Mugabe.

8. Kim Jong Il dies and his son succeeds him, averts a military coup and starts reform seeking guidance and friendship from South Korea:  North Korea is in a sad state due to 60 years of misrule and totalitarianism.  There are plenty there who want reform who know it is needed and fearful of what will come.  There are various paths for it to go down, the best one is to follow its neighbour to the south, of strong rule establishing open civil society, ever opening markets and progressively confronting the lies its people have been bathed in for decades.   Only through reform and economic growth can the strong role of the military be sidestepped.  Only with firm deterrence, but with a friendly hand to assist change with someone who seeks it can this happen peacefully.  Japan wont be trusted, China can't be trusted and South Korea has done an impressive job that Pyongyang need not look elsewhere.

7. The Communist Party of China separates party and state, putting the Party under the rule of law for the first time, and loosens freedom of speech some more:  The biggest hindrances to the growth of China being seen benignly is the iron fist it uses to maintain domestic control, and its unwillingness to have modern independent judiciary and separation of politics from governance.  It is too much to expect China to become a fully liberal state, but a key step forward would be separating party and state, so that the party and its officials can be prosecuted for breaking the law.  Accompanying this should be legal guarantees of free speech to discuss government policy and the behaviour of all politicians and officials.   Only when Chinese people and institutions can hold government accountable, and the Chinese government and CPC stop acting like a moody teenager whenever criticised, will China have become a modern country.

6. The West-bashing climate change agenda comes to a complete halt,  as people in Western countries choose politicians that are unwilling to sacrifice their economies and freedoms to let China, Russia, Gulf States and India emit all the CO2 they wish, and they stop believing the armageddon rhetoric of the anti-capitalist green movement:  It's about time that average people in richer countries stopped tolerating taxes and regulations on their behaviour for the sake of letting the likes of Kuwait and other countries with fast growing economies to do as they wish.  The middle and low income of rich countries should not be penalised to allow the rich in poorer countries to do as they wish, particularly because there is no evidence to support the kind of pillaging interventionism demanded by the developing countries (who want more money to pay for the luxuries of their political elite).  Energy efficiency and cleaner energy are all very well, if people are prepared to pay for them, and governments get out of the way of developing them, but no more should be done.

5.  The Obama Administration has its spending plans frozen, as the new US Congress slashes spending and starts focusing Americans on achieving a balanced budget in less than 4 years:  Unless the US stops growing government and stops debasing its currency through continued borrowing, it will continue to slide relative to other economies.  The US can recover, but it will need a wholly different approach to the spend and borrow policies of recent history.  Here is hoping Americans can maintain the courage.

4. Portugal, Spain, Italy, France and Belgium face sovereign debt defaults, effectively destroying the Euro: All of countries have sustained decades of socialist style big government economic policies, running almost perpetual deficits and borrowing, and all have sought to use the Euro as a hard currency to sustain their economic irrationalism.  The tension in the EU is either it governs national fiscal policies or the Euro is unsustainable.  Let the Euro collapse, and the short term pain will result in a longer term re-evaluation of the EU, fiscal and monetary policy and demonstrate that the Western European quasi-socialist approach has been irrational, unsustainable and immoral.

3. An end to Islamist insurgency and terror: As much as so many haters of Western values and individual freedom cheer them on, I wish very simply, that Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and all other Islamist insurgents fail to carry out any further attacks, whether they be in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere.  The reason should be obvious, it may be idealistic, but this scourge continues to cost in lives, injuries and cash an incalculable amount every day.  Appeasement of Islamism is no virtue.

2. Fiat money is subject to serious review by governments across the world:  Fiat money has proven to be what it has always been, a way for governments to manufacture nothing from nothing, generating either inflation of consumer goods or commodities and property.  Time to reconsider the entire basis for monetary policy and to examine the role fiat currencies had in the financial crisis.  It is the single biggest elephant in the global economic "room".

1. The Iranian people overthrow the country's brutal theocracy:  Having already destroyed any semblance of democracy effectively by military coup, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is now pursuing nuclear weapons with the forked tongue of a cruel mindless liar.  The people of Tehran know better and rattled this evil regime briefly a year or so ago.   It would be right for them and especially right for the Middle East and the world if this murderous brutal regime was overthrown.

28 December 2010

Helen Clark the hypocrite

As one of the world's very high income untaxed international civil servant parasites, Helen Clark thinks she has some moral authority to comment about New Zealand politics.

So she is back to her tired old tribal politics of saying the Wikileaks cables showed the US "disrespected" New Zealand's so-called "independent" foreign policy according to the NZ Herald.  Of course it paints a whole series of assumptions, such as the idea that a foreign policy that was sold as maintaining an alliance with the US (just without anything nuclear) is more independent than choosing to welcome all of the ships and weapons of your allies.   However, the key point Clark is upset about is that US diplomats, privately, were less than impressed by the policy - which Clark was a cheerleader of as she and other leftists in the Labour caucus in the mid 1980s, pushed David Lange to accepting.

Clark herself has long been anti-American, having picked coffee for the "peace-loving" Sandinistas (not that the other side was worth supporting) and having frequently held the US government in contempt publicly (and who knows how often in private).   If her private communications were to be leaked much no doubt would be discovered, although it is no secret that she was no friend of US foreign policy.

Moreover, was it not disrespectful how Clark encouraged the Lange government to act towards the US? How the US was prepared to send a non-nuclear powered ship, that no rational individual could believe would ever carry nuclear weapons (USS Buchanan), but Clark like a clamouring harpie along with her coterie of baying Marxists demanded Lange refuse access to it because of the "neither confirm nor deny" policy that applied to all ships.   In other words, Clark was instrumental in telling the US, in the midst of the Cold War (which Clark no doubt thought NZ should be "neutral" in), to go to hell.

On top of that, as a former Prime Minister she isn't keeping her mouth shut, as is the conventional protocol, when there is an existing, elected Prime Minister that replaced her.

Who is the disrespectful one?  

Let's not forget, Helen Clark is one of the lords of poverty, she sups from the cornucopiae of loot from rich countries under the pretence that she is somehow necessary to the advancement of people in the poorer countries.  Helen Clark having never had any poverty as a child, and on US$0.5 million tax free, plus accommodation allowance and first class air travel, she will remain more remote from poverty than she ever has been.  Meanwhile, she has spent tax money on criticising UNDP's critics, and runs an organisation that has been criticised for not keeping proper accounts and in the midst of the recent attacks by North Korea on South Korea, sought to increase its budget.   You see UNDP has been paying its North Korean government approved staff in the country in foreign currency directly, not that Clark cares as she lives off the pig's back.   Experience has shown me how utterly lazy, unproductive and vastly overpaid the UN bureaucracy is, how little work people there do compared to the private sector (or even public sector elsewhere) and how generous pay and conditions are.

Helen Clark doesn't have moral authority to talk about "respect" from the US, when she gave the US precious little respect politically in much of her career, and in private as Prime Minister.  Today she lives like a grand Lady of Poverty, enjoying a privileged lifestyle whilst having responsibility for billions of dollars of other people's money (a good part from the US) ostensibly to provide relief from poverty.   She is one of the biggest parasites on the face of the earth, having spent her whole life living off of the back of others and doing little more than telling others what to do.   She wont answer questions about the openness and accountability of UNDP in her own job to Radio NZ.

You don't learn much about respect from paying attention to Helen Clark

21 July 2010

Bits and pieces

Yes, I do now have broadband internet at home, but this little interregnum of blogging will be brief as I will be away for a couple of weeks sans any sort of electronic communication at all.

So what's been happening?

1. The right concerns but the completely wrong answer. While Nicolas Sarkozy proves there is nothing a French politician likes doing more than regulating the lives of others, Old Holborn makes the point quite succinctly here. After all, plenty would be offended by the scene of a man walking around with a woman on a collar and lead, but why should it be banned? Meanwhile, is one of the key reasons for this issue being raised because the liberal socialist left refuses to confront Islamism directly, and is willfully blind to the oppression of women by most Islamic cultures because it sees any enemy of the West as a friend?

2. The Con-Dem British government is off in several directions, primarily focused on cutting spending it has decided to slash spending on its core responsibility - law and order. Whilst there are undoubtedly efficiencies to be gained in the sector, and undoubtedly many people shouldn't be imprisoned for a whole raft of offences that are more civil (e.g. not meeting child support payments) than criminal, is the question being asked as to whether there should be less criminal offences at all? In other words, if there is no victim, why should it be a criminal matter? Prison is effective at its core role - protecting the public from criminals. One report suggests that replacing prison time with community sentences will increase crime.

3. The Obama Administration is showing how empty headed and vapid it really is, by its continued embrace of xenophobic anti-capitalist rhetoric against BP. Now it is accusing BP of lobbying to release Libyan terrorists from British custody, when Exxon-Mobil and Shell did exactly the same thing. It is accusing the British government of being a party to providing succour to terrorists, when it happened over a year ago under the Gordon Brown regime, and was in fact the devolved Scottish government (albeit with Downing St tacit approval). Quite what the Obama Administration thought would be gained by hassling the newly elected Prime Minister about something he had nothing to do with, is rather curious.

4. Australia is having a Federal election. A choice between a feral unionist and a feral evangelist. Neither are deserving of a vote from a libertarian. Whilst it is tempting to back the "mad monk" Abbott, because of climate change alone, the Liberal Party remains liberal in name only.

A better choice, given the preference/AV based voting system is the Liberal Democratic Party which lists Ayn Rand as one of the great classical liberals of history. It seeks to abolish victimless crimes, significantly cut taxes (income tax would have the first $30,000 tax free then a flat tax of 30%), engage in a major privatisation programme, replace welfare with negative income tax and promote free trade. Think of it as ACT with balls AND a belief in personal individual liberty.

It has more to it than the Secular Party which seems more a reaction to the Christian politics of Abbott and the now defunct Rudd. It is broader based than the Shooters Party, which is essentially just about the freedom of peaceful people to own firearms. It also doesn't have the obsessive believe in anti-discrimination laws of the Australia Sex Party, as tempting as that party may be to some.

4. A city councillor in Wales is suspended for Tweeting "I didn't know the Scientologists had a church on Tottenham Court Road. Just hurried past in case the stupid rubs off." Apparently this is against the local authority code of conduct according to the Public Services Ombudsman. If ever there was a reason to abolish this body or to make those on it undertake training in fundamental individual freedoms, this is it. Britain is a country where expressing your opinion about a religion is restricted, because it might upset the precious little flowers who believe in ghosts.

5. New Zealand's government continues to disappoint. The weak will surrounding mining in national parks, the continued evasion of reality over climate change and the inability to lay down an agenda that directly confronts the anti-human anti-science statism of the Greens, and by default the Labour Party, should cause many more National and ACT voters to weep. Now you're going to vote for an Auckland Mayor who will be more of the same.

UPDATE: Well it would appear the Australian Liberal Democratic Party is more disappointing than it may seem. I have been informed privately that it is largely marketing driven, and that the presence of Ayn Rand on the front page was for marketing purposes. I'd be curious if any Australian libertarians and especially objectivists would interrogate Liberal Democrat politicians as to what they REALLY believe in. A laudable goal would be to return the Liberal Party to its core principles, but the chances of that may be as much as there is in getting the (New Zealand) National Party to do so as well.

26 February 2010

US turns back on UK over Falklands

The Falkland Islands have a mixed history of differing claims to sovereignty. The French first established a colony there in 1764, the British established one on another part of the islands in 1765. France and Spain were in Alliance, so France handed over its colony to Spain in 1767. This effectively put it under the same colonial administration as Argentina.

Spain attacked the British colony bringing the two countries on the brink of war, which was settled by Spain capitulating and letting the British settlement be re-established. However, Britain abandoned the Falklands in 1776 leaving it all to Spain (although also leaving a plaque asserting British sovereignty). Spain similarly abandoned the islands in 1811, also leaving a plaque. From this point on for some years, the Falklands ended up being under no effective control, but being a harbour for various fishing, whaling and other vessels.

Argentina gained independence in 1816, and in 1820 had sailed to the islands and asserted sovereignty over them. Between then and 1833, merchant Luis Vernet sought permission to settle there from both the Argentines and the British. He received assurances, and the Argentines appointed him Governor in 1829, to British (and US) protest. However, by 1833 Britain had re-established itself on the islands and ordered the Argentines to leave, which they did. A British colony was established and has remained relatively undisturbed, notwithstanding the more recent Falklands War.

Argentina claims it was first, as it inherited the French then Spanish settlements, and was forcibly ejected from the Falklands. The UK claims that it has a parallel claim, that the Spanish abandoned the Falklands (like the British did), and there was no indigenous or Spanish/Argentine colony established before the British colony. Moreover most of the current population opposes Argentine sovereignty.

In essence, for all of the debate the population of the Falklands do not want to be governed from Buenos Aires. Arising from this are claims to exploit the Exclusive Economic Zone around the Falklands for energy exploration. The beleagured Argentine government is seeking to distract attention from its own economic mismanagement by confronting the UK over this.

The Obama Administration's response? Neutrality.

According to the Times ""The Obama Administration “is trying to split the difference as much as it can because it knows that coming round to the British position would again create a lot of ill will in the region"

The leftwing Argentine government, beleagured by high inflation, is challenging British attempts to take advantage of the UK EEZ as it surrounds the Falklands.

Argentina's claim will no doubt have the backing of the cabal of socialists that now run many Latin American countries, none of whom give a damn that most Falkland Islanders want to remain British.

The bigger point is that the "special relationship" is over. The Obama Administration is reverting to the form REJECTED by Ronald Reagan, the realpolitik preferred by the State Department.

Who will know if John McCain would have done the same, would George Bush have just thumbed his nose at Britain given its close support in Afghanistan and Iraq?

One thing IS sure, from the DVD set gifted to Gordon Brown to this, there can be no question that the Obama Administration doesn't think the UK deserves consideration beyond that of just another friendly country - like Argentina, France or South Africa.

11 February 2010

Did China test Obama?

The recent typical furore about US sales of weapons to Taiwan should have been par for the course, but this time it provoked a particularly angry threat of outrage from Beijing.

Why?

Well for starters China sees itself as bigger, more powerful and more important on the international stage than it has ever been. Having eclipsed Japan as the world's second biggest economy, it now is flexing its power more openly. In part this is due to domestic nationalism, as can be seen by the large numbers of Chinese online willing to defend their authoritarian government, not out of love for the government per se, but out of nationalism. China is, after all, a country of considerable national chauvinism.

However, China also knows the nature of US-Chinese relations since the Taiwan Relations Act in 1979 in the US made it national policy to supply arms to Taiwan. So why now?

My view is that it is a test of the Obama Administration. The dove like instincts of the Administration are simply being tested to see if there is a change from the Bush Administration.

China's wildest dream would have been for Obama to halt the supply of arms to Taiwan or delay it. Either would have been a disaster for Taiwan, and caused a panic on the stockmarkets and among the population there.

What was done is that a package negotiated by the Bush Administration has been allowed to proceed with one major change - no submarines. Taiwan had been promised submarines by the Bush Administration, and instead will receive Black Hawk helicopters, not exactly a substitute.

Taiwan has long sought new generation F-16s, to supplement those sold under the previous Bush Administration, but these were denied also.

So the Obama Administration has not followed business as usual, rather a watering down of business as usual. It passed the "test" as China showed its outrage by cutting military ties with the US, and threatening commercial sanctions on US companies supplying Taiwan. Most of those firms will not be concerned since they do not supply China in any case, but Boeing's role in the Chinese airline sector is substantial. That is where China could inflict some pain, although Airbus would be well aware of this and price accordingly to reap the rewards of any symbolic smarting inflicted upon Boeing.

China will hope that it can scare the Obama Administration into withdrawing more from providing Taiwan military assistance, for that is what it can hope for. China has no serious plans to invade Taiwan, for it knows such maneouvres would cost it dearly in foreign investment, trade access and international relations with more than a few neighbours. However, it keeps the threat of force to "reunite the motherland" there to keep Taiwan "in its place", and it is useful for nationalist rabble-rousing in the event of the need for a distraction.

Nevertheless, Taiwan (or more legally correct the "Republic of China" government temporarily exiled in Taiwan) deserves US support to defend itself. It is today a vibrant and open liberal democracy, with the rule of law, free speech and individual freedoms widely respected. It has changed a lot since the days of Chiang Kai Shek's authoritarian rule. Beijing will continue to treat its renegade province as such as long as the Communist Party holds a monopoly on power, for now it is up to the US to continue to provide sufficient support for Taiwan's free democratic government to deter attack from the mainland.