Legal system and the WoT

It's good to hear that the US Supreme Court, despite having been filled up with conservative judges, still has the gumption to strike down the executive's attempts to try Guantanamo suspects extra-judicially. Nonetheless it appears that they've simply placed an extra hurdle in front of the administration, requiring it to get a law through Congress explicitly allowing these military trials to take place. I have no notion of how hard it might be to get Congress to pass such a law, but it's nice to see the Americans reaffirming their enthusiasm for democratic processes. It will make for an interesting debate.

Ultimately it will be a hell of a shame if they pass it though, and this does seem to be a real risk. I'm sympathising with some points Germain has made previously, namely that by pursuing the WoT in this manner the US is violating some important principles of its own. Henry put up a big speech by Condi Rice earlier, and you've got to take her point about this being a different kind of war, a different kind of enemy, it's not just for the benefit of the US but of the whole of the West... But you don't go about changing your standards of behaviour in response to provocation from others, especially when you're the most powerful state in the world.

[Update] Of course there's a parallel battle going on over here, between the Home Office and the judiciary, in which Mr Justice Sullivan is frustrating the Home Secretary's efforts at keeping terror suspects under curfew. The control orders placed on six suspects (which stipulate that they're not allowed out of their one-bedroom flats for more than six hours a day) are deemed to violate the suspects' right to liberty under the Human Rights Act. I'd bet on there being a compromise eventually, but there's no way John Reid will let those guys go completely; MI5 reckon they were plotting a bomb attack.

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Wither Liberty

The two pieces below (especially the Guardian) are worth the time...it frightens me that we are increasingly accepting the notion that 'if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear.' Historically the accumulation of such information by government agencies (and this is only the stuff they tell us about (eg- wire taps in the US were leaked rather than presented to the public)) has never been a sign of a free society.

What is the difference between a terrorist today and an enemy of the state in the former USSR both in terms of how the government treats them and how the population at large regards them? Is it possible that we too are sacrificing and stigmatizing a minority to the benefit of chimerical ideology held by the majority? Though today such questions may seem absurd and exaggerated I think they deserve serious thought and consideration.

Do you really want your government to know where you drove, when you did it, and even (thanks to internet and phone surveillance) why you did it? Isn’t the very basis of liberal democracy the protection and preservation of a private sphere?

I think I should re-visit Orwell’s 1984 to better understand the risks of where we might be heading.


Guardian
realy short news

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In rare praise of Bush...

The US President's surprise visit to Iraq is a good time to give him credit for his position on the troop levels. Though President Bush's refusal to commit to a time-line may be in the US's ultimate interests, it is also coincidentally likely to be in the Iraqis' best interests. A full troop withdrawal, as many demagogue politicians are calling for, would only further exacerbate the instability in Iraq. A full-scale civil war benefits neither Iraqis nor the broader region.

While I was clearly against the war from the very beginning, now that the US has started this mess, they need to 'stay the course' and 'finish the job.' Unfortunately pushing for democracy in a country with multiple overlapping ethnicities and religions may not be the most expedient means of stabilizing the country but it is the stated US objective in Iraq and the troops must stay in until Iraqis can again send their children to school with smiles on their faces and dreams of a better tomorrow.

The US presence may instigate certain insurgents but I am not convinced that a US withdrawal would really affect the insurgency. Perhaps on the contrary, certain groups would see as US withdrawal as an opportunity to seize power structures.

I think it was Madeleine Albright who said something on the lines of 'to go to war in Iraq was a choice, to end the war in Iraq is an obligation.'

It seems President Bush agrees.

On a related note, check out this analysis of US geopolitical strategy ATimes, it is quite thorough.

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Israel and Hamas

Another ‘stolen’ FT contribution…thank you FT!

NB- Click ‘read more’



The issue is not whether Hamas recognises Israel
By Henry Siegman in The Financial Times Published: June 7 2006 19:58

What hope there may still be for avoiding a complete meltdown in the Palestinian occupied territories, not to speak of the hope of ever achieving a two-state solution, lies not with the initiative by Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Authority president, to put the two-state formula to a popular referendum but with the ruling Hamas movement’s refusal to play by Israel’s old rules. Those rules have in effect eliminated the prospect of viable Palestinian statehood and were intended to achieve that end.

Hamas is determined that Palestinian recognition of Israel will not come about without Israel’s recognition of Palestinian national rights, and that only an end to the occupation and Israel’s acceptance of the principle that no changes in the pre-1967 borders can occur without Palestinian agreement (a principle enshrined in the road map that Israel pretends to have accepted) will constitute such recognition.
The most widely respected Israeli security expert, Efraim Halevy, believes Israeli and American efforts to overthrow the Hamas regime are misguided. A hawk who headed Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, under five prime ministers and served as Ariel Sharon’s national security adviser, Mr Halevy is convinced these efforts damage Israel’s vital interests.
His view shocked members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organisations when Mr Halevy addressed them recently in New York. He has held it for some time. In September 2003, he said Israel should signal to Hamas that if it “enter[s] the fabric of the Palestinian establishment, we will not view that as a negative development. I think that in the end there will be no way around Hamas being a partner in the Palestinian government”. At that time, when Hamas had the support of only a fifth of the Palestinian population, Mr Halevy said: “Anyone who thinks it is possible to ignore such a central element of Palestinian society is simply mistaken.” How much more so today, when Hamas enjoys majority support.
Asked last week on Israeli television how he could justify advocating engagement with a terrorist organisation that does not recognise Israel’s right to exist, Mr Halevy ridiculed the stale assumptions that underlie that question. Do not look at Hamas’s rhetoric, he said, look at what it does: Hamas declared a truce 18 months ago and has committed no terrorist acts against Israel since. In spite of Hamas’s refusal to change its theological rejection of Israel, Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister in the Hamas-led government, ordered his ministers to seek practical co-operation with their Israeli counterparts. Mr Haniyeh also confirmed that Hamas’s self-declared truce is open-ended.
Why should Israel care whether Hamas grants it the right to exist, Mr Halevy asked. Israel exists and Hamas’s recognition or non-recognition neither adds to nor detracts from that irrefutable fact. But 40 years after the 1967 war, a Palestinian state does not exist. The politically consequential question, therefore, is whether Israel recognises a Palestinian right to statehood, not the reverse.
Using Mr Halevy’s criterion of looking at what a government does, not what it says, it is clear that – its many declarations to the contrary not withstanding – Israel does not recognise a Palestinian right to statehood in the West Bank and Gaza. The position of Ehud Olmert’s government is that Israel’s right to annex at will any parts of Palestinian territory east of the pre-1967 borders supersedes any Palestinian rights. This is implicit in the Israeli government’s decision that a Palestinian government that even wishes to place on the agenda of a peace negotiation the territorial changes made unilaterally by Israel in the West Bank, or the question of the Palestinian refugees, cannot be a partner for peace.
Israel’s “concessions”, such as the withdrawal from Gaza and isolated West Bank settlements, are intended to serve narrow Israeli interests. As noted by Peace Now’s Settlement Watch, Israel is continuing to thicken its existing settlements and expanding the settlements’ territorial boundaries for yet further expansions. In these circumstances, what is puzzling is not Hamas’s refusal to accept Israel’s dictates but the support given by the international community – particularly by the European Union – to Israeli efforts to isolate and overthrow Hamas.
Israel’s government has left no doubt that even if Mr Abbas’s promised referendum passes by a large majority (indeed, even if Hamas were to sign up to it), Israel will not accept it as the basis for a peace process and will proceed to set its border with the Palestinians unilaterally. Should that turn out to be the case, will European leaders continue their support of Washington’s incurable pandering to Israel’s rightwing policies, or will they muster the political will to re-engage with the Palestinian Authority and provide the needed political and economic support for the Palestinians’ achievement of their national rights? The answer to that question may well determine the future of the entire region.
The writer is a senior fellow on the Middle East at the US’s Council on Foreign Relations and a visiting professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. These views are his own.

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The US: A victim of asymmetric warfare (suicide)

Well the people who may or may not be terrorists have struck again! It seems that following a couple of years gagged in orange jump-suits, three ‘enemy non-combatants’ have attacked the US from within its Cuban, no lawyers-no rights, luxury ‘back to basics’ resort by committing suicide. “The two Saudis and a Yemeni…had killed themselves in ‘an act of asymmetric warfare waged against’" the US. ( BBC )

Seriously though, suicide ( with no bomb) as warfare? Killing oneself is now an act of terrorism that threatens ‘our freedom’?

I really do not understand the logic or justification for such statements. If they spin any faster the world may slide out of orbit.

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Agog with news

I do not recall a more lively news day in the past six months. To start with:

Zarqawi's dead. Killed in a US air raid near Baquba, apparently, following tip-offs from civilians. So... live by the sword, die by the sword: he went around lopping civilians' heads off and he's had his comeuppance. I don't think there's much argument to be had around that. Number two...

Massive ructions at the UN! Deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown has started something of a war of words with John Bolton about the way the UN is portrayed in the US media. He has apparently characterised the administration's position as hypocritical, in the sense that it uses the UN as a foreign policy tool, yet fails to defend it at home from the attacks of commentators such as Rush Limbaugh. Bolton's response is that this was the worst mistake by a senior UN official in his experience. Blimey. There's a few ins and outs here; the mainstream US media is frequently described as ultra-right wing, violently anti-UN, boorish and flagrantly misleading. I don't know, I've never watched it. Bolton, however, described MMB's speech as an attack on the American people. That seems to be overstating things, and is only going to fuel the inevitable, enormous backlash from said media. Parlous. Next!

Concessions! Appeasement! Inevitable repeat of 1939! Apparently the latest deal to be offered Iran is that they will be allowed to enrich uranium for their own reactors as long as there are credible assurances that the programme is peaceful. Apparently this is a "right" under the non-proliferation treaty, and with reference to an earlier comment on the blog, I don't see why this debate shouldn't have some input from the "rights" lexicon. Our system of independent nation states is founded upon the right of peoples to self-determination, after all. Anyway, this process looks likely to drag. I'd prefer it to drag indefinitely than there be a war - if we stall long enough there may even be a peaceful regime change. Continuing...

Google U-turn over China. They say they might have made a mistake. No, really? It was absurdly bad PR to strike that deal with the Chinese government, and Google will never look the same again. And finally,

We drink because we're stressed. These last two aren't really in the same league as the preceding ones, but this caught my attention: one third of men in the UK drink to drown out the stress of work. If I could afford to perhaps I would too. It's way too easy to get stressed about work, and frankly my only concern about the future (apart from nuclear holocaust/global climate meltdown) is that if I get promoted, it's gonna be worse.

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I think they're gonna talk!

So Iran has said it wants to talk, but won't suspend its enrichment activities... Clearly America won't be happy with that, but Iran would have lost face if it had just dropped enrichment as soon as the US said it was willing to talk. I'm guessing we'll see a gradual shifting of positions over the next little while, probably involving some sort of "temporary" suspension from Iran so they can sit down together. Then we'll see what happens.

Doesn't it feel great to have moved just a tiny bit further away from a war?

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