Keep This between You, Me & 3 Million Trusted Colleagues.

Whilst I have no sympathy for wikileaks or their narcissistic founder Julian Assange (who believes he has the right to decide whether or not Afghans cooperating with the coalition and national government against the Taliban should have their identities protected), the latest wikileaks revelations reveal a more serious problem.

Given that the leaked documents are important enough to cause serious problems for the United States and their diplomatic efforts you'd think that access would be restricted. And sure enough it- to just a few million of the most trusted people in the US.

Yeah the Wikileaks mob are grossly irresponsible but it's hard to see how something like this was avoidable given the circumstances.

Not Funny

As the Chief Inspector of Prisons says, accidentally translating "exercise yard" into "execution yard" in a leaflet for Russian prisoners is very serious:

"You could treat it as a bit of a joke unless you were that prisoner and you didn't understand how the British prison service worked and came from a country that still had execution yards. It wouldn't be a funny thing for him."

 He's right, it wouldn't be funny then, because it would be hilarious.

"Honour"

Not often I say this, but Robert Fisk's column is a must read. It's about honour killings and the examples given are horrifying.

How The World Sees Communism.

Interesting survey* at the BBC on how the world views the collapse of Communism 20 years on: Relief at the demise of the USSR seems to be widespread throughout the West even though feelings are mixed in the poorer countries. I'd argue that it the poor countries who have benefited most from the end of communism with the wave of democratisation that has spread throughout Eastern Europe, South East Asia and Latin America being a direct result of the absence of a communist threat.

The survey also asks what people think about free markets and the results are much more mixed:

With more than 40% of the French population believing that capitalism is "fatally flawed", the failure of the French left to win power for 15 years is remarkable.

In Britain only about half that number believe that capitalism is doomed and an even smaller number that the demise of the USSR was a bad thing although if they had surveyed Guardian Towers the results would have been very different.

* and an "interesting" headline!

Who Pays The Piper

Curious isn't it, David Milband has adopted a highly critical approach to Russia during his tenure as Foreign Secretary (rightly so in my opinion) and yet soon after his name starts being touted for the role of EU foreign minister he does a 180 degree u-turn, decides that murder by nuclear terrorism on the streets of London is no biggie and that the Merkel-Sarkozy appeasement approach is much better.

Hottest Heads Of State.

Hmmm, this ranking of 172 heads of government in order of attractiveness is truly the work of a great individual or someone with waaaay too much time on their hands. The fact that Bashir Assad of Syria isn't even in the bottom third despite looking like the result of intensive inbreeding over several generations (think Charles II of Spain) shows that the list is unimpressive.

Hard to argue with the number one pick though.

Via the Croydonian.

Paying The Piper.

A bill is going through parliament to ban our intelligence services from paying bribes. Presumably they will now work on the basis of moral exhortation. Previously our intelligence services were to have been exempt.

Bribery is wrong but it can often prevent greater wrongs, in Afghanistan part of the reason the Taliban collapsed so quickly outside their heartlands in 2001 is because we paid off their formerly allied warlords. It has been claimed that the Allies bribed some of General Franco's advisers during the Second World War in order to keep Spain neutral.

This would be illegal nowadays.

Pressing The Reset Button.

It's too early to say that President Obama's foreign policy in in crisis. However the policy of building bridges, engaging and entering dialogue without any conditions, with countries that had fallen out with the USA needs rethinking.

It is one thing to repair some of the silly and pointless rifts that emerged between the USA and some European countries during the Bush administration. However applying this idea towards the likes of Russia and Iran isn't going to work. To present the Russian government with a symbolic reset button implies that the tense atmosphere between Russia and the USA was the result of US actions and had nothing to do with Russia's actions over the last few years.

Similarly his unconditional offer to engage with Iran not only undercut the EU 3 who had been trying to end Iran's nuclear programme with assorted diplomatic sticks and carrots it has also seems to have led the US government to react slowly to the ayatollahs election stealing antics for fear of imposing such preconditions.

The policy seems to have come about as a result of a gaffe in a debate with Hillary Clinton, but because a lot of his party's primary voters could only see foreign policy in terms of domestic politics- by which I mean they assumed that because they didn't like Bush, that any fraught relationships the USA had under his administration must have been the result of his failings- the gaffe became a very popular idea.

Outcasts Of The World Unite.

Does anyone else find it vaguely amusing when assorted international pariah's get together to offer each other support and understanding:

The leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation on Tuesday congratulated Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his election win, Kremlin spokeswoman Natalya Timakova said.

The SCO groups Russia, China and the ex-Soviet Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Iran has observer status at SCO.

International politics is like a school playground, if no one lets you hang out with them then you can form your own gang of outcasts and pretend to like each other. They can't really form a coherent bloc based purely on not being liked very much though.

Foreign Soldiers & UK Residence Question.

It seems right that the Gurkhas should be allowed to settle in the UK seeing as they've served the country well.

I'm just wondering though, how does the position of the Gurkha's compare to that of other foreign soldiers who serve in the British Army, although not in different regiments? Commonwealth and Irish citizens are eligible to serve and according to Wikipedia there are 6000 soldiers from outside the UK currently serving in the army including 1900 Fijians, 600 Jamaicans and a similar number of Ghanaians. Are they eligible to reside in the UK once they've completed their service?

Update: In the comments Tim Worstall says that they are allowed to become residents after 4 years of service, which makes the treatment of the Gurkhas seem even stranger.

The Sincerity Of A Greeting Card.

Gordon Brown is pleased by the effusive praise for his 'extraordinary leadership' he received by the US president Barack Oprompta, which is understandable given the latter's impressive popularity.

It certainly sounds impressive until you realise that he says something similar about everyone, even Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, whose leadership he also praised, which is akin to praising Kermit the Frog for his stewardship of the Muppet show whilst not mentioning Jim Henson.

G-20- Why?

Is it me or is the G20 basically the G8 with Affirmative Action, in which we pretend that a bunch of large third world countries are of critical importance on the world stage? Does anyone really believe that it matters whether or not Argentina or Indonesia go along with whatever is proposed or not?

There was a leaked paper a couple of weeks ago suggesting that the British government had divided the countries into two tiers based on their importance, Canadians were surprised to discover that their country was 2nd tier, whilst South Africa with an economy about a quarter the size of Canada's was first tier. It isn't as if the world is awaiting the deep insight of third world leaders.

While all sorts of countries that simply don't matter that much clog up the space, important economic players like Spain and the Netherlands aren't even in the G20 (although are represented this time, so it's really the G22).

Of course given that the chances of the G20 summit accomplishing anything except allow anti-globalisation protesters demonstrate what tossers they are, let alone Broon's "Global New Deal" (what we want to prolong the downturn for a decade?), it doesn't really matter who attends.

Like Living In A Foreign Country.

The New York Times has an article about the failure of British football players in Italy* and they've included one of my favourite quotes of all time:

After scoring 139 goals for Liverpool from 1980 to 1987, Rush had seven goals in 29 games in his only season at Juventus. A Welshman, he did not help himself when he reportedly said about his time in Turin, “It’s like living in a foreign country.”

Rush was also reputed to have once asked a group of journalists why one of their number wasn't there.

"he died a few months ago" they told him.

"How?" he asked.

"The Big C", one of them replied.

"What, he couldn't swim?"

Now That's What I Call "Moral Hazard"!

There has been a lot of talk about how the US bailout of the financial sector might remove the "moral hazard" for mismanaging the institutions in question. Did our system ever have any real moral hazard to begin with though? Compare the West to the East, in this case Vietnam:

There cannot be many places in the world where you can get shot for losing money on a foreign exchange deal, but Vietnam is one of them.

That is the situation potentially facing Nguyen Thi Quynh Van.

Until March this year, she was the deputy head of trade financing at a branch of one of Vietnam's biggest state-owned banks in the port city of Hai Phong.

Now she is under arrest, having been charged with "losing state resources through economic mismanagement" - a crime that carries the death penalty in Vietnam.

If "losing state resources through economic mismanagement" is a capital offence we ought to send Gordon Brown over to Vietnam right away.


ps. In case you are wondering, I don't think they did execute her. I wouldn't make light of it they had killed her. Probably.

Doubles Trouble

Kim Jong Il is dead, perhaps:

Is Kim Jong-il for real? The question has baffled foreign intelligence agencies for years but now a veteran Japanese expert on North Korea says the “dear leader” is actually dead – and his role is played by a double.

The expert says Kim died of diabetes in 2003 and world leaders including Vladimir Putin of Russia and Hu Jintao of China have been negotiating with an impostor.

Interesting if true, although since the Iraq war I'm sceptical about claims of dictators having lots of body doubles. The much rumoured Saddam doubles never showed up, except for one.

{Via}

Another One Bites The Dust.

Sudden bullet syndrome strikes a Kremlin critic in Russia, again. Can we stop pretending Russia is run by a civilised regime now or that Putin is something other than a gangster?

Update: It's not often, or indeed ever, that I have cause to praise Gordon Brown but he seems to understand it to a point.

Putin, Genius Or Moron?

In some quarters Putin's invasion of Georgia and the lack of serious resistance he has face proves that he is some kind of genius, but I think there is a stronger case for arguing that he is the same bumbling moron who screwed up the Kursk rescue, the Beslan siege and the attempted murder of Victor Yuschenko.

Yes Russia now looks to have brought two Georgian provinces into Russian control but at the cost of driving Ukraine into the Western camp and earning his country near universal contempt in the civilised world. The word for someone who would trade the Ukraine for two tiny provinces plus the uncritical love of the far left is not 'genius'.

Some Thoughts On Russia.

This is more of a string of inter connected thoughts than a full comment.

Russia's attack on Georgia looks more and more as though it were planned in advance. The behaviour of the Russian state over recent years demonstrates that not only is it extremely unpleasant but unlike say China, it is a danger to the rest of the world. To list a few examples of Russia's recent behaviour:

• Nuclear terrorism in London, by which I mean the murder of Alexander Litvinenko.
• Refusing to extradite the main suspect in the Litvinenko case, despite having signed an international extradition treaty.
  
• Occupation of Moldovan and Georgian territory.
• The attempted murder of Victor Yuchenko, now president of Ukraine.
• Threatening Estonia over the placement of a statue honouring the Red Army.
• Threatening to annex part of the Ukraine.
• Murdering exiled opponents in Qatar.

In other words Russia has clearly been a rogue state even before they tried the Sudetenland gambit of claiming to protect their citizens in another country.

Georgia should be brought into NATO immediately and a base established there.


Various other Russia related points to comment on include the Norfolk Blogger asking why the west has allowed itself to become dependent on Russian gas, this is true to a point but we should also realise that Russia is dependent upon our buying it. Marko Attila Hoare rejects the bogus comparison between the Georgian breakaway regions and Kosovo. EU referendum has a series of good posts on the issue including the reaction of the EU:

Russia is bombing cities inside Georgia, including the outskirts of Tbilisi, and has sunk at least one Georgian boat in Georgian waters. Gori is being evacuated and the Baku-Tbilisi oil pipeline has been bombed though not, apparently, put out of action.

The EU, the body that demands that it becomes our sole representative on the international scene is preparing to call an emergency meeting of foreign ministers and this will take place, possibly, on Wednesday. Or possibly not.

This is called a Rapid Reaction in EU circles.

Quote Of The Day.

Remember the World Conference Against Racism (and Jews) that was held in Durban during the week prior to the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks? You remember the one where holocaust denial literature was being peddled, where Robert Mugabe received a standing ovation whilst the representatives of Western countries were denounced. Where the countries that still practiced slavery demanded compensation for the slave trade that the West abolished more than a century earlier. Yeah that one.

Joy of joys there is going to be a sequel! In the National Review Anne Bayefsky reports on some of the preliminary events:

The United Nations opened an “anti-racism” meeting here Monday. First up on the agenda? Anti-Semitism. Not anti-anti-Semitism but actual anti-Semitism

It appears to be the Iranian government that is particularly active in trying to ban Jews from the event. Rather incredibly the Iranian government's commitment to antisemitism is so great that even Al Qaeda have been upset by it, sort of.

Maoists & Gurkhas

Daniel Hannan MEP is in Nepal, presuambly observing the election, and he reports that Nepal's newly elected Maoist* government wants to stop the recruitment of Nepalese men into the Gurkha regiments of Britain ( along with those of India and Singapore).

They have been serving in the British Army since the end of the Gurkha War ( 1814-1816), a conflict which was concurrent with the tail end of the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. Not to be jingoistic, but fighting three wars on three continents simultaneously and achieving the desired objectives in all three is a pretty impressive feat!

Anyway hopefully the prospect of losing the Gurkhas can encourage the British government to treat them correctly.

* Hopefully their Maoism is about as deep as that of peace protesters who wear Mao T-shirts and 'Free Tibet' badges together.