Category Archives: Politics

The allure of prohibition

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Portuguese television channel RTP left former dictator António de Oliveira Salazar out of the running to be the greatest of his countrymen, then relented.

Only for him to go and win the damn thing.

Scooping 41% of the vote (although one blogger has claimed an opinion poll taken around the time of the vote gave Salazar just 6.6%) he saw off challenges from writers, politicians and explorers such as Vasco de Gama.

Salazar ruled the country from 1932 to 1968. While managing to keep his country out of World War II and instituting corporatist policies that led to rapid economic growth in the 1940s and 1950s, his belief in holding on to overseas territories drained Portugal’s resources in the 1960s (ultimately ending the dictatorship). He created a secret police force that tortured opponents, although during his reign only 60 people died while in jail for political reasons. After Salazar’s death in 1968 the regime limped on only to be overthrown in a near-bloodless coup d’etat in 1974.

The Herald Tribune article linked to above points out that there has been a trend in economically insecure nations of yearning for “the authoritarianism of the past”. Portugal is the poorest country in western Europe. It also has a legacy of political corruption.

I once had a lecturer who spoke of the theory that people look for a ‘strongman’ out of a childhood belief that “Daddy will make it better”. He was referring to the dictatorships of ancient Greece (a different type of dictatorship I will not elaborate on right now), but the sentiment is still applicable.

However, I think it goes beyond that.

By banning something you make it that much alluring; the most dramatic example of this would have to be Prohibition in the US. It could be argued that Salazar’s win is down to his initially being omitted from the running — and certainly that sparked a campaign to get him included.

Many Portugese would have been born after his reign, and many would have lived only in its twilight. It makes me wonder how many people voted for Salazar as a protest or rebellion.

Time has an uncanny — and unfortunate — ability to soften opinons on historical figures. Although the dark sides of his rule have been well documented, that is not the same as a person having intimate experiences of living through it.

Consider the continuing mystique of Che Guevara. He has become a pop culture icon despite ordering the executions of hundreds of political opponents in pre-determined extrajudicial trials. For a slightly considered rant against him — but please don’t think I endorse it fully — check out this 2004 review of The Motorcycle Diaries.

Ladies and gentlemen I don’t claim to have all the answers, so I throw the floor open to your good selves. Agree with me? Disagree with me? I welcome your comments.

US torture, I mean interrogation rules

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George Bush has signed an executive order prohibiting cruel and inhuman treatment in the detention and interrogation of terrorism suspects.

I can’t make out if this is putting a stop to CIA practices or just a public relations smokescreen. The White House would only say that if the agency had a detention/interrogation programme, it would have to adhere to the Bush order.

Interestingly, a CIA official quoted in the text said: “It would be wrong to assume the programme of the past transfers to the future.” Is this a tacit acknowledgment of extraordindary rendition? Is he indicating the alleged abuses have taken place, but won’t from now on? A kindler, gentler intelligence agency.

A report by the Council of Europe, which is essentially a human rights watchdog, found evidence the CIA ran secret prisons in Bulgaria and Romania from 2003-05. The agency has denied this and said its counter-terrorism methods were lawful. Bush has admitted prisoners were held overseas, but wouldn’t say where.

An Teach Bán wouldn’t say exactly Bush’s order allows. The following are banned:

  • Torture or other acts of violence serious enough to be considered comparable to murder, torture, mutilation and cruel or inhuman treatment.
  • Willful or outrageous acts of personal abuse done to humiliate or degrade someone in a way so serious that any reasonable person would deem the acts to be beyond the bounds of human decency, such as sexual or sexually indecent acts undertaken for the purpose of humiliation, forcing the individual to perform sexual acts or to pose sexually, threatening the individual with sexual mutilation.
  • Acts intended to denigrate the religion, religious practices, or religious objects of an individual.

The second point above seems to be a direct reference to Abu Ghraib. Every one of these points should be welcomed, although it should not have taken an executive order to enforce them.

I appreciate the US considers itself in a war against terrorism, and I also appreciate that the CIA may feel some … unethical … actions are necessary to gain intelligence on hostile groups. But inhumane actions only serve to rally people against American efforts.

However there’s an interesting line in the article: “whatever interrogation practices used must be determined safe on an individual basis”.

Perhaps I’m overly reading between the lines but a system that can be tailored to “individual” cases is ripe for abuse, even if this becomes written policy.

There’s no way any of these policies can be verified without external oversight of CIA actions, and let’s face it that’s not going to happen (at least not to the extent that would be necessary).

So in essence what we have here — even if it is a shift in policy — is good publicity. Bush makes all the right noises, the CIA acts suitably serious and talks about accepting the order, and everybody’s happy.

Except this isn’t going to go away soon. The legacy of the rendition programme will last for many years to come. Even if the order becomes the agency’s standard practice, who’s going to believe them?

We live in interesting times

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Russia has pulled out of a key European arms treaty.

The Conventional Forces in Europe treaty was signed between the Soviet Union and NATO in 1990 and limits the signatories’ deployment of tanks, heavy artillery and combat aircraft.

Russia has threatened to pull out of it in the past because of US plans for a missile shield in Eastern Europe. The move means it can deploy as many troops and weapons as it likes along its borders; it has complained there are too many limits on moving troops within its territory despite security concerns.

This is a political act. Presidential elections take place next year and this is a good way to get citizens motivated.

The missile programme is key to what has happened, but it is not the only factor.

The treaty was amended in 1999 to reflect the break-up of the Soviet Union, but part of the revised deal was that Russia would withdraw troops from parts of Georgia and Moldova with Russian-speaking majorities. It has not. NATO members haven’t ratified the treaty (although Russia has) because of this.

According to BBC, it will be 150 days before Russia’s move takes effect. The country will no longer allow military inspections or give details of its deployments.

Russia has become increasingly assertive under Vladimir Putin. After years of economic decline and shrinking global standing a boom from oil wealth has given the country new confidence. The great Russian bear has re-awoken and is flexing its muscles.

But its wealth under Putin has come with the erosion of democratic liberties. To put it bluntly, the nation is a political basket case and has been for many years.

By focusing on a target outside Russian borders — or in this case two, the old Cold War reliables of NATO and the United States — legislators can deflect from internal problems.

Withdrawal from the CFE raises the spectre of old conflicts and sparks fears of new ones. While essentially a move to curry favour with the Russian electorate and raise the nation’s profile internationally, it does not imply a new Cold War looms.

However, nobody can predict who Putin’s successor will be. That is why these diplomatic issues must be resolved soon. Failure to do so will only widen the schism between Russia and NATO/the US. Who knows where that will lead?

Iraq rant

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bush_vietnam_joke.jpg

George W Bush is on increasingly shaky ground. Not only has Congress voted to pull US troops out of Iraq by April 1, 2008 (though he will veto this), but members of his own party are turning against him.

It’s about time.

He has been a disaster for the Middle East. It will take years to repair the damage his administration has done to the region, if that is even possible. Only the Australian defence minister has been forthright enough to admit his country is in Iraq for oil — it would be so refreshing for the US (and Britain) to at least admit this is a factor in keeping them there.

I won’t sit here and pretend a US withdrawal from Iraq will solve everything overnight. It’s scary to think of the future that awaits the Middle East once the occupation ends. A shambles of a nation bordering seven countries… It is worrying that Iraq is ahead of Somalia on the failed states index, as Somalia has essentially been an anarchy for years.

For a vision of where Iraq may be headed based on experiences in Basra, check out this report from the International Crisis Group.

I feel obliged to point out that, according to this map at least, much of the country is under Iraqi government control. However, it does not indicate if control is total, nominal etc. Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki says his nation’s army and police are capable of maintaining order once the US leaves. It is important for Iraq’s self-esteem as a country and the credibility of al-Maliki’s government that they do.

That the US military has begun arming Sunni militia to fight al-Qaida in Anbar province is tacit acceptance that an American victory is impossible. Not only that, it could allow old local grudges to be settled and set the scene for well-armed militias to rule the roost once coalition forces leave.

Bush has made much of the “liberation of Iraq from Saddam Hussein” and the “return of sovereignty to the Iraqi people” (quotes from this transcript). Liberation from a man the US helped put in power and whom the CIA assisted during the Iran-Iraq war.

Unfortunately Iraqis have used this liberation to catch up on decades of sectarian conflict which was oppressed under Saddam (and it is not the first country where this has happened).

I am not for one second saying that Saddam’s leadership was a good thing. Although relatively stable compared to its successor state, his was a brutal regime and many thousands of people suffered under it.

However, many thousands have suffered in a democratic Iraq. There have been months when as many civilians died as did during the whole of the conflict in Northern Ireland (c. 3,500). America does not have a good track record of encouraging or forcing regime change: just think of Chile, Cambodia and Guatemala.
It was natural that, in the power vacuum following Saddam’s fall, local groups would work to secure their vested interests. Hence the formation of an Iraqi parliament along sectarian lines (and feel free to leave a comment if I’m missing something here).

A fragmented Iraq is a dangerous thing, as it invites external actors. For example, Turkey has 200,000 troops along the border with Iraqi Kurdish territories. I have already written about what could come of this (here and here). Iran must also be looking at the situation, particularly given the history between it and Iraq.

To argue that the move by Republican senators Richard Lugar and John Warner (linked to in the first paragraph) isn’t significant because they have not set a date for the withdrawal of armed forces would be to miss the point — it underscores divisions within Bush’s party and a wider opposition to the war in Iraq.

It would require Bush to re-seek authorisation for the war, authorisation he has had since 2002. Although it would still be up to the president to pull out of Iraq, he would have to submit revised plans by October 16. These plans, the senators urge, would include “a drawdown or redeployment of forces”.

Bush wants to keep things as they are until the US commander in Iraq, General Petraeus, delivers his report in September — and Petraeus, using Northern Ireland as an example, has said countering an insurgency could take ten years or more.

Reports on Iraq are not worth waiting for. This week saw one by the Bush administration that said the Iraqi government had made satisfactory progress toward eight of 18 benchmarks, unsatisfactory progress on eight more and mixed results on the others. You can read the report here.

“I believe we can succeed in Iraq, and I know we must,” Bush has said.

There comes a time in every man’s life when he must realise he can not win. This is surely the time for Bush. A withdrawal plan must be put in place as soon as possible.

Would the situation in Iraq be any different if it was a force of UN peacekeepers? The UN is not the greatest organisation in the world but its cordial relations with Hezbollah in Lebanon demonstrates it has the capacity to sink substantial roots in the region.

It seems Bush is not the only US official with his head in the sand. Writes Anne Flaherty of AP:

At a news conference Friday (July 13), the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, said the number of battle-ready Iraqi battalions able to fight independently has dropped from 10 to six in recent months despite an increase in U.S. training efforts.

Pace said the readiness of the Iraqi fighting units was not an issue to be “overly concerned” about because the problem was partly attributable to losses in the field.

“As units operate in the field, they have casualties, they consume vehicles and equipment,” Pace said.

Hang on for just one moment please. Did he just say the loss of four battalions wasn’t something to be “overly concerned” about? A battalion can have hundreds of soldiers (I’m unsure of the exact make-up of an Iraqi battalion, but such a unit in the US army has 300-1,000 as far as I know).

That four battalions — lost either through attrition or lack of resources — can no longer act independently is not something that should be dismissed as a matter of no consequence. Their country needs them. I hope they are rebuilt and back in the field as soon as possible — for Iraq’s sake.

I invite your comments and observations.

What's in a name?

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There’s a quirky little panel in the latest issue of Archaeology.

The magazine ran an online poll giving readers a chance to vote for their favourite Maya royal name — names made delightfully exotic by their translation into English.

Topping the poll with 24% of the vote was Smoking Squirrel, followed by 18 Rabbit (15%), Lady Six Sky (13%) and Moon Skull (12%). Others making up the top 10 were Smoke Monkey, Knot-eye Jaguar, Turtle Tooth and Curl Snout.

Translation can make anything funny. Take this ABC News report on how US presidential contenders fare in Chinese; the ballot in Massachusetts could well feature names such as Sticky Rice (Mitt Romney), Triumphant Wheat (John McCain), Tired Forest (Hilary Clinton) and Profound Horse (Barack Obama).

Doctors and extremism

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I have issues with Clive Cookson’s article “Value the ‘great Arab doctor’ ” over on the Financial Times website.

His commentary is about the recent terror incidents in the UK, when a group including several doctors — all from outside Britain — attempted to detonate two car bombs in London and drove a Jeep into the terminal at Glasgow Airport.

Cookson makes a few interesting points and gets off to a relatively good start, followed by this in the second paragraph:

(I)t is naive for the world in general to imagine that the medical profession somehow contains “better” people who are less likely to kill for a cause than those in other walks of life.

I’m not sure if the world really does imagine this given the legacy of men such as Josef Mengele, but I agree it would be naive to do so. No profession can claim its members are all on the straight and narrow.

Then the article falls down:

Once one accepts that violent revolutionaries may come from relatively prosperous backgrounds, then doctors are an obvious recruiting ground for extremism – particularly in the Middle East, where medicine has long been one of the largest and most prestigious professions. The great tradition of Islamic medicine, established during the Middle Ages, still resonates today in the Arab world.

WTF? “An obvious recruiting ground for extremism”? That’s a seriously big jump. I have no idea how he is linking a career’s prestige with extremist viewpoints. Surely a more obvious “recruiting ground” would be a university, where young people feeling lonely or lost in the milieu can be swept up with a cause that gives them purpose. I think the real key to this paragraph is “largest”: it’s logical to assume that a large base will throw up a greater number of oddballs. It does not mean the profession itself is attracting or breeding them.

His use of geography to illustrate this point baffles me even further — if such a “prestigious” profession can inspire violence then surely the same is true in most regions, not just the Middle East. (On a historial note I take issue with his use of the term “Middle Ages” in relation to Islam; it’s an imprecise term more suited to European history.)

The article then makes reference to medicine’s “long history of involvement in revolutionary violence”, with reference to Joseph Guillotin (for whom the execution device is named) in the French Revolution and Che Guevara.

Even more relevant to the events of the past week is the leadership provided by physicians in the Arab world’s revolutionary movements of the late 20th century. George Habash, a paediatrician from a Christian Palestinian background, founded the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which became notorious for hijacking aircraft in the early 1970s. Several senior figures in Hamas and Islamic Jihad, including Mahmoud Zahar, Abdel Aziz Rantisi and Mohammed al-Hindi, trained in medicine.

There’s trained in, and then there’s practicing. Habash was not working as a doctor (unlike most of the men in the British incidents) when he became involved with extremism, although I can’t speak about the others referred to above.

I’m not sure if “leadership” by physicians is relevant; Michael Collins was a civil servant and adept bookkeeper, Castro studied law and Mao was an assistant librarian at one point. Are we to think of these professions as being potential hotbeds of revolution? If a civil servant leads a coup d’etat somewhere in the world, are we immediately going to point to Michael Collins as his antecedent?

With hindsight, what is more surprising than the involvement of doctors in a terrorist plot is their incompetence in carrying it out. Doctors are practical people, with a scientific training, who might have been expected to explode a car bomb successfully

Not necessarily. As French anti-terror expert Dominique Thomas has said: “You can find videos on the Internet from Iraq on how to booby-trap a car. But carrying it out is not as simple as people might think.” (And if you want to know about incompetence in carrying out terror activities, read Ed Moloney’s A Secret History of the IRA — and those people were supposedly serious terrorists.)

The young men from humble backgrounds who carried out the July 7 attacks in 2005 were more effective suicide bombers than the two professionals who drove a vehicle laden with petrol and gas cylinders into the Glasgow airport terminal.

Since when does professionalism equate to “superior terrorist”? I refer you to the above quote from Thomas. I also refer you to this AFP article, where various analysts make it clear that these doctors were unlikely to have been trained in terror activities.

It’s unfortunate that the point of Cookson’s commentary is left to the very end. After referring to anecdotal evidence of patients “cancelling medical appointments with doctors who have Arab or Islamic-sounding names”, he writes:

Any loss of public confidence in Arab or Muslim doctors – and discriminatory measures that would make it harder for physicians to come to work in Britain from the Middle East than from other parts of the world – would be a tragedy for the NHS. There are still “great Arab doctors” working in Britain today and, if we encourage them, there will be more in future generations.

Which is a very, very good point. The wrongs of a few tearaways should not be visited upon their countrymen. Unfortunately humans are fucked up in this regard and tend to tar everyone with the same brush. Will we ever learn?

Am I making valid critiques of an otherwise very good journalist, or has he just caught me on a bad day? I invite your comments.