War and lechery

To Parliament Square tonight to visit Brian Haw on the 2,000th night of his protest against the war in Iraq. I had no idea this would be such an exclusive event. There were 30-40 of us — where were thousands of others?

I begin to feel like Thersites in Troilus and Cressida, constantly snarling “War and lechery, war and lechery!” Our government advances our national interests with a new century of meddling in Mesopotamia, while we watch soft-porn reality shows in a media-soaked fog. O temporara, O mores! — O Times, O Daily Mirror.

Patrick Cockburn

Nothing to do is the verdict of Patrick Cockburn on the British and American occupation of Iraq. I’ve admired Cockburn’s reporting in the LRB for some time, as he appears to report from among the Iraqi people rather than living in the Green Zone. The best information about the state of Iraq outside Baghdad comes not, he says, from intelligence professionals, but from lorry drivers, whose lives and livelihoods depend on it.

After the failure of all other excuses, the remaining justification for remaining is to prevent a civil war. Forget it, says Cockburn, it’s already in progress. And there isn’t anything our troops can do about it.

Clutching at Straw For those who doubted HM Government’s commitment to it, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw set the record straight at the opening of a two-day conference on transnational terrorism in London on 16 Jan.

If we want to be seen to deliver justice and offer a stronger and better world view than that of the terrorist, we have to be seen to stand by our values and our strengths. We have to show that when it comes to counter-terrorism we practice what we preach. I want to set this out as plainly as possible. This Government is committed absolutely to our obligations under United Kingdom and international law.

Defective Yeti has provided a brief summary of the Iraq war in the form of a text adventure.

Maya Anne Evans writes from Our World Our Say

My name is Maya Anne Evans. On 25th October last year I was arrested and charged. Simply for standing outside Downing Street and reading out the names of the British soldiers who have died in Iraq. It doesn’t seem possible that something like this could happen in our country but it happened to me. I thought we had freedom of speech.

If you believe that it’s time we stood up and challenged this Government then please help Our World Our Say do that in 2006 by making a donation.

Brave New Year
As a New Year resolution for all those at No. 10, we suggest a daily rereading of the promises they made before we gave them power.

With a new Labour government Britain will be […] an advocate of human rights and democracy the world over […] Labour wants Britain to be respected in the world for the integrity with which it conducts its foreign relations. New Labour manifesto, 1997

And if you are an elector, give it some thought yourself.

Constabulary duty Been a while since I had a good sing-song, and that’s what we had last night with a carol service in Parliament Square, while the Met. pretended they weren't observing a breach of Sections 132-138 of the Serious Organised Crimes and Police Act 2005. Pity the rozzers obliged to enforce this hasty pudding of a law.

It has to be repealed. Glenda Jackson MP sent her apologies and best wishes to Brian Haw. Ms Jackson, we would have been glad to hear your voice among ours; what we need more is action from Parliament.

» BBC News TV report
» BBC News Online

They work for you — when they can

I hope that some day people will wake up to what has happened to this Parliament, and to this House in this Parliament. We are effectively handing over our responsibility, as the House of Commons, for the proper scrutiny of legislation—ironically, to the unelected House of Lords. It does a wonderful job of scrutinising legislation properly: it works more days and longer hours than we do, it has more serious debates, and it is not subject to draconian Government timetables. I wish that I were a member of the House of Lords. Eric Forth (Bromley & Chislehurst, Con)

From the debate in the House of Commons, 3 Feb 2005, on the Government’s motion to restrict debate on the SOCPA bill to 90 minutes.

Wotta Charlie
Yesterday John Humphrys interviewed Charles Falconer, Baron Falconer of Thoroton and pressed him on the government’s attack on civil liberties. Chicken Yoghurt has the transcript. Readers should be dismayed to learn that this former flatmate of the Prime Minister is Lord Chancellor, responsible for the administration of justice in this country.

Human Chain Following the Beating the Bounds of the SOCPA designated area, you can now pledge to join a human chain around it.

I will form part of a human chain around the Westminster no protest zone but only if 6,000 other people will join in. — Richard

Deadline to sign up by: 1 May 2006

Still some good Babar Ahmad writes from HM Prison Woodhill

…there is still some good in this country, despite what it has done to weak peoples around the world. […] Before we impose ‘freedom’, ‘democracy’, ‘justice’ and ‘human rights’ on other countries, we should implement them in our own back yard first […] Today the excuse is terrorism, tomorrow it will be animal rights and anti-war. No one will be protected from the scourge of the 2003 US-UK Extradition Treaty.

Remember freedom

When I pass protestors every day at Downing Street, and believe me, you name it, they protest against it, I may not like what they call me, but I thank God they can. That’s called freedom. Tony Blair, 7 April 2002

Disposable citizens You can’t take your eyes off them for a moment. Look what's going through the House of Lords now. The Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill empowers the Home Secretary to remove any person’s British citizenship.
» Spy Blog

Suppression of dissent
On my occasional passes through Parliament Square in recent years I’ve seen the protest camp of the lone saddo fixated on our disgraceful invasion of Iraq. I mean, one agrees; but camping in Parliament Square? Get a life.

Or so I thought until I discovered the provisions of this year’s Serious Organised Crime and Police Act specially designed to outlaw the lone protester. This deserves a parliamentary inquiry. Where did our elected representatives find the nerve to outlaw protests within 1km of Parliament? (Did I overstate that? We may protest in any way the police don’t mind.) If our MPs have the balls to pass legislation like this, we have serious work for them to do.

Peace Mom Political farce writer Dario Fo and his wife Franca Rame are in London for tomorrow’s première of his new play Peace Mom, based on the American activist Cindy Sheehan, also visiting:

The Mayor [of London] closed by quoting a remark that William Jennings Bryan made in response to Andrew Carnegie claiming he loved America: We’re glad you love America. When you’re done with it, can we have it back? American Chronicle

I saw the Belt & Braces Theatre Company perform Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist at the Wyndham Theatre in 1971 and laughed so hard I thought I would need surgery. I stumbled across his Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay at the Toronto Theatre Festival in 1978, but missed Rame performing her One Woman Plays at the National Theatre in — 1980? And now another chance.

Falling out of love is a dangerous thing, sings Mary Gauthier in a bleak Louisiana whisper. The Atlantic is widening, and it’s not just rising sea levels.

A new competition: find a definition of terrorism that excludes American support for the IRA and the Nicaraguan contra insurgency.

Falling Out Of Love MP4 5.6Mb

In fact, mandatory

I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory.

If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us — the dignity of man.
Harold Pinter, Nobel Prize acceptance speech

Filthy

One policeman was heard saying I wish I could join you. I wish I could do what you're doing. This is filthy. This is very hard for all of us. Indymedia report

Withdrawal of Consent My recent return to Scandinavia was a timely reminder in little things of the ways in which civil society consists of trusting strangers. Danish society is markedly more trusting than ours, more firmly founded in consent.

Michael Vlahos argued in Terror’s Mask that terrorism has long been used to influence or just force entry to political processes. This reads suicide bombing as desperate, vengeful political dissent, national and international.

How did we acquire such enemies? From what have they withdrawn their tacit consent? The endless debate on measures to protect ourselves from terrorists gives this no thought. Batten down the hatches. Not listening, not listening!

Writing in 1826 of the utter cynicism of Italian public life, Leopardi remarked: It is as marvellous and apparently paradoxical as it is true that no individual or people can be so cold, indifferent and insensitive … as those by their nature are lively, sensitive and warm. The lively, sensitive Italian nature, Leopardi explains, when exposed to the ugly reality of things and men, particularly as manifested under Italy’s abysmal rulers, is prone to fall into a full and continuous cynicism of mind. The poet suggests a psychology oscillating dramatically between positive and negative states, a condition that the northern peoples, less warm and hence less swift to disillusion, could not understand. Tim Parks, “Rebel States” | London Review of Books

For Italians, read Iraqis. Read Arabs unhappy with the commitment of the US-backed House of Saud to keep the oil flowing at any cost.

…continued

…continued

Opinion Soup To the Everyman Cinema last night with Tom Brent for a public meeting on current affairs. BBC presenter Emily Maitlis chaired a brisk discussion in which Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, outshone distinguished panelists Sir Leon Brittan, Simon Hughes, and Daniel Finkelstein.

Hughes remarked that half of the Britain’s current laws have been enacted since 1970; and Brittan pointed to six anti-terrorist bills since 1997. Brittan, a former Home Secretary, remarked that new laws are rarely required; issues are more commonly administrative than legislative. Chakrabarti spoke of the public’s complicity in this: we respond to outrage and tragedy by demanding action from politicians, who, faced with a choice between diagnosing deficiences of their administration or of inherited legislation, propose new laws.

Terror is not our enemy, nor even our enemy’s cause, but a tactic used by people who consider us enemies. The panel, either sceptical of or hostile to the government’s anti-terrorist measures, acknowledged that the new willingness of such people to die for their cause requires an escalated response from us. So much conversation about escalated responses to terrorism — but silence about how we acquired such enemies. Is this country’s political class as out of touch with this issue as France is with its rioters?

Shame shame shame I could weep. I've been reading how Londoner Babar Ahmad was arrested and beaten by Anti-Terrorist police, then released without charge. The Crown Prosecution Service has shamefully declined to prosecute his assailants, despite expert witnesses and eyewitness testimony. Now he’s being plucked out of the protection of our judicial system and tossed into the now-dangerous waters of the Americans’ — courtesy of a nod from the US and a wink from our Home Secretary.

3 Brazilians News comes to the Oval Office that three Brazilian soldiers have been killed in Iraq. “Omigod,” moans the ‘war president’, burying his face in his hands, “omigod… the media will kill us.” Suddenly he looks up. “How many is a brazilian?”

Flaming liberty George Monbiot writes about how laws passed by Parliament to protect public safety are routinely used by government and police to suppress dissent. Sport the War on Error.

Stop the ID Card bill Is this not dead yet? I read it is still slouching towards Bethlehem and returns to Parliament this month.

Sport the War on Error When the Wehrmacht invaded Denmark in WWII, the Danes famously announced, We have nothing with which to resist but humour. We shall fight hard! 5jt.com is doing its bit for the present times.

Bang bang This morning, the long-awaited explosions in London. No, Miki and I are fine. Thanks for the txt inquiries.

If anyone remains unclear that we invaded Iraq 2 years ago but failed to occupy and subdue the country, go to the back of the class now and study the map. If anyone has worked out what we’re doing in Iraq and what success there would look like, (see Ed Harriman’s article in the LRB for what failure looks like) please come to the front of the class and explain it to the rest of us.

» Tariq Ali in The Guardian on The Price of Occupation

Bush strategy lacks clarity asserts a report from the US Army War College , reviewed in the Boston Globe on Saturday.

A dose of humility An Op/Ed piece on Iraq in yesterday’s Baltimore Sun by General Wesley Clark.

Dangerous visions If you’re wondering what happened to the America we knew, you can find a lot of answers in the TV science-fiction series Firefly.

The Coming Wars An article by Seymour Hersh posted in The New Yorker in January describes the alarming arrangements the Bush Administration is making to “prepare the battlefield” in Iran.

Missing
Have you seen this woman?

She has been reported missing and there are fears for her safety

If you think you have seen her, or if you remember her fondly, contact the Department of Fatherland Security.

Those who would give up essential Liberty to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. Benjamin Franklin

Is Iran next? It’s no longer just the comics saying the US plan for disengagement from Iraq is to attack Iran. Former Marine and UNSCOM weapons inspector Scott Ritter told an audience on 18 February his President has approved orders for an aerial attack on fledgling-democracy Iran in June this year, according to a report from Washington.

Crimewatch Our government not only gave us a false reason for invading Iraq, it also pretended to have advice the invasion would be legal. Turns out this was hooey too, and apparently made up to placate people like the head of the army:

I spent a good deal of time recently in the Balkans making sure Milosevic was put behind bars. I have no intention of ending up in the next cell to him in the Hague. Gen. Sir Mike Jackson

The view from Olympus Some senior US official was quoted recently hoping the “situation in Iran” would be resolved without the use of military force. I believe Hitler expressed similar statesmanlike hopes about Austria and Czechoslovakia before invading them. Yielding to no one in largeness of view and generosity of mind, everyone here at 5jt.com hopes the situation in the present US Administration will be resolved without assassinations.

War on anxiety Presumably a War on Terror aims to reduce fear. So why are we not winning? The US Department of Fatherland Security could usefully study lessons learned in London.

The war thing What is it with Americans and wars? War on Poverty, War on Drugs — how do we Europeans manage with just programmes?

No war in Iraq A poster in our neighbourhood before Christmas urged us to stop the war in Iraq and bring our soldiers home. Is anyone else confused about this?

Dogs of war Hats off to the Liberal Democrat party for choosing civil liberties as their platform for election. It really is the defining issue for our time — whether in our complacency we shall let the British and US governments roll back two centuries of liberal democracy.

Exit Strategy Word is Washington is drawing on its experience in Afghanistan for a plan to get its troops out of Iraq earlier than anyone expects — invade Iran.

Sorry everybody from decent, ordinary Americans apologising for their country's dismaying failure to throw out George II There are also a few apologies from the rest of the world: “Sorry for 911. We have our dictators too. (That's not an invitation to invade.)” www.sorryeverybody.com

Dear Maria Just swallowed John le Carré’s latest thriller Absolute Friends in two evenings. I recommend it unreservedly. Sharpened my outrage at the 1984-ish way our governments giddy minds with foreign quarrels. This isn't a war on terror. When there is real danger, real leaders urge calm. None of this Dept of Fatherland Security ‘orange alert’ nonsense. (Thanks for the cartoon and the message from the general.) Put a brown paper bag over your head. Stay calm. Suck it up.

Weapons of Mass Distraction Maria Wells writes:

Go to Google and search for "Weapons of Mass Destruction", but don't hit Search, hit I'm Feeling Lucky. Then read the error message you get. The tears are still running down my face.

» Bush's Crusade
» Support John Kerry for President

After Madrid The attack in Madrid – or the impending atrocity in London that is predictable from its sucess – is likely to play differently here. I remember IRA bombs exploding in London in the 70s. Londoners were clear then that the attacks were intended to undermine support for a political process in Northern Ireland. They failed at that, though the IRA appears to be succeeding over the long term, as terrorists who can stay in business tend to do. (See Michael Vlahos: Terror's Mask and commentary.) The IRA bomb attacks failed because Londoners were clear what they were about and were not going to be cowed. That's how I think an al-Qaeda attack in London would play.

But nothing al-Qaeda might do will make our invasion of Iraq right in retrospect.

A separate question, which an attack might easily push aside, is how the war was sold to us. Whether you want/ed our troops in Iraq or not, you have to be concerned that the Prime Minister said on September 24th 2002:

His [Saddam's] WMD [weapons of mass destruction] programme is active, detailed and growing. The policy of containment is not working. The WMD programme is not shut down. It is up and running." He described the intelligence upon which his assertion was based as: "extensive, detailed and authoritative.

Saddam didn't have any weapons of mass destruction and the intelligence wasn't "authoritative". You have to be concerned about that, unless you think our invading Iraq more important (to us in the UK) than having a Prime Minister who is neither a knave nor a fool.

Our World Our Say is petitioning for an inquiry, not into the quality of the intelligence (another valid issue), but into whether it justified the case Blair made.

Lie to us, we don't mind really

Last year our army invaded Iraq to seize weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) that weren't there. I don't need to tell you what this cost Iraqis and us.

It seemed unlikely WMDs would be there. The UN inspectors doubted it. It seemed less likely they threatened us, or that Iraq intended them to. But the Prime Minister assured us he knew -- and we didn't -- WMDs were there, and that they threatened us. “Trust me,” he said.

It wasn't true. It now appears either he knew that or, with our intelligence services, that he could and should have known that. It seems he either lied to us or was deliberately reckless on this very grave matter.

We could step over it. We could say by inaction Lie to us, we don't mind really. You probably had a good reason. Tell us what you like; there are no consequences.

Or we could insist the government answer for what it said. If Blair had good cause to sound the alarm over Iraq, let it be shown, and we can remove the suspicion that our leaders lie to us as they please.

Do be clear. This isn't about whether invading Iraq was a Good Idea. That is an issue; but it's another issue. The Prime Minister didn't ask us to support invasion as a Good Idea, but to remove an imminent threat to us. It looks like he was lying.

Don't tolerate being lied to, or even the appearance of it. Support the call for a full judicial inquiry to establish the facts. Use this link:
» www.ourworldoursay.org

The War on Error In Terror’s Mask, a paper written in the winter of 2001-2002, Michael Vlahos (Joint Warfare Analysis Department, Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University) argued that the West deeply misunderstands the issues in the ‘War on Terror’.

Terror’s Mask—in contrast—sought to show that what is called terrorism is deeply religious, even theological, in motivation. Instead of moving to Western notions about “sources of conflict”, Muslim radicals move to uniquely Islamic rhythms of History.

Vlahos has now written a commentary reviewing the original paper in the light of the subsequent invasion and occupation of Iraq.
»Terror’s Mask PDF 5Mb
» Commentary MS Word 50Kb

Apologies to “5Mb”, who wrote in complaining “… have a dinner party tomorrow and need something smart to swear.” Flattery will do it every time, but there never was any danger of going off the air. Still less of “5Mb” running out of cracks: with his plea came a list of reasons for electing George Bush. (About time someone did.)

It’s 9am on 14 August and I still don’t know why my country invaded Iraq. The Prime Minister assured us we were in imminent danger — “Trust me.” Turns out it was not only a false alarm, but sounded speculative even to our intelligence services. Clearly a cover for some other reason — for which deception Blair has still to be brought to account — but what?

Saw Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine last night. Though I’m not finding Stupid White Men as funny as its cover thinks I will, Moore’s dramatisation persuades me of the importance of Glassner’s Culture of Fear analysis. In the movie, Moore observes that Canadian politicians talk funny; he misses the combative rhetoric of American leaders. The US has its War on Drugs, War on Poverty, War on Terrorism; Canadians just have programmes and policies, and leave their front doors unlocked.

After a day cutting code, rolled out my bicycle to see a movie in Muswell Hill. Perfect summer weather had given way to the beginnings of an electrical storm, and I doubted the wisdom of crossing the ridge of Parliament Hill as clouds growled above me. But the shower passed, I saw the movie and rode home over the Heath as the crowds were leaving the Music on a Summer Evening concert at Kenwood House. A friend has borrowed my car to take his son camping. Good to be back on a bike.

He was not one of those fortunate people whose anger refreshes and stimulates them. Bruce Bannerman’s transformation into the raging green giant Hulk is a disturbing reflection of America in the 21st century.