Diary
All a matter of hubris
31 January, 2008
In March 2003 George Bush and Tony Blair launched a war to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Their decision turned ‘Iraq’ into a political dirty word. The WMD case for war was as dodgy as that infamous dossier while the failure to plan the aftermath set the stage for a protracted and bloody insurgency. War denuded Iraq of its professional class and exacerbated the nation’s Sunni-Shia divide. Nor was the cost cheap. According to Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, this was a $2 trillion war (and the figure could end up being 50% higher), a figure so huge that it dwarfs Britain’s entire GDP. Forget foundation hospitals, city academies, the respect agenda and the dot com boom, this war will stain the reputations of Bush and Blair as much as Suez damned Eden.
Historians may wonder why Bush and Blair committed themselves to such a disastrous enterprise. Were these great statesmen who merely possessed feet of clay?
According to former foreign secretary, Lord Owen, the clay affected their heads as much as their feet. In his new book ‘The Hubris syndrome’ he analyses the ‘mental illness’ that afflicted Bush and Blair in the run up to the war, and which caused so many of the disasters since 2003.
The main symptom of hubris syndrome is ‘a narcissistic propensity to see the world primarily as an arena in which (to) exercise power and seek glory rather than as a place with problems that need approaching in a pragmatic and non self referential manner.’
At first glance the idea that you can reduce political incompetence to mental illness sounds a trifle far fetched, even facile. But in the course of the book Owen provides a wealth of compelling evidence to back up his argument.
Iraq under Saddam certainly presented challenges in 2002. Here was a rogue leader who had repeatedly defied international law and whose WMD, if they existed, were capable of being passed to a terrorist entity. But dealing with that challenge required not just boldness but an ability and willingness to anticipate long term problems. Yet Bush and Blair were so intoxicated by their sense of righteous purpose, that they ignored the ethnic, political and social complexities of Iraq.
Thus after one meeting with Blair in 2002, Owen thought the prime minister had a ‘messianic belief in his purpose’ and a ‘restless, hyperactive manner.’ It was the manner of a man who sensed that he could achieve anything as long as he could grasp the big picture. Details, by contrast, were considered less important with Blair ‘brushing aside the difficulties that circumstance was likely to throw in his way.’
Bush’s belief in the virtue of his policy was reinforced by deeply held religious beliefs. The Palestinian prime minister once heard Bush say: ‘I’m driven with a mission from God. He told me “George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.” And I did. And he told me: “George, go end the tyranny in Iraq.” And I did.’ This kind of inner strength can be an important spur to action but it can also provide powerful immunity to fresh thinking.
When leaders believe their motives are pure, there is less need to take advice from others. Thus Bush made clear after 9/11 that he would bypass international institutions, such as the International Criminal Court and the UN, if they did not uphold American interests. Blair was more mindful of the EU and the UN but never doubted that he would back his ally in war.
Indeed, as Owen points out, Blair virtually ran foreign policy from no. 10, bypassing the Foreign Office and even some of his own ambassadors. As Lord Butler’s report made clear, the Prime Minister enjoyed a sofa style of government in which important decisions were made in the absence of Cabinet scrutiny. Even the Cabinet failed to act as a check and balance to the Prime Minister’s whims. ‘The full Cabinet essentially acted as a rubber stamp on decisions which Blair and a small coterie of colleagues and advisers took in No. 10 on foreign policy.’
The same was true in Washington. According to Bob Woodward, Bush’s government came to resemble a ‘royal court’, one whose political courtiers complied with Presidential thinking and exaggerated the good news.
The worst consequence of hubris syndrome over Iraq was the failure to conduct adequate post war planning. Bush assumed that after toppling Saddam, his forces would be welcomed as post war liberators with the country magically rebuilt after years of despotic tyranny. This Cheney-Rumsfield line was hopelessly flawed however. The country could not be handed over on a plate to a few choice Iraqi exiles nor could security exist in a vacuum.
Blairite apologists would have us believe these were Pentagon failures. But Owen documents the considerable warnings given to Tony Blair over the failure to produce a post war strategy. In messianic mode, Blair ‘was dismissive of any difficulties’ and ‘immune to all arguments about the practical difficulties that might ensue.’ This was not ordinary incompetence but ‘hubristic incompetence.’
By the end of the book, it is hard not to be impressed by Owen’s argument. This is a biting polemic which fuses intelligent political insights with pop psychology. But he does leave one question unanswered: How do we restore the checks and balances to eradicate the threat from hubristic leadership? Owen asserts the need for ‘Cabinet vigilance and scrutiny’ but in practice, this requires principled resignations from its most powerful figures. Neither Colin Powell nor Gordon Brown resigned from the Cabinet, no doubt fearing the implosion of their political careers. Powerful leaders will always exploit those too weak to take the plunge.
topAn SOS to Gordon Brown: the army is being undermined
28 January, 2008
Last week the police sent the government a resounding message about their shabby deal on pay. Now the government has suffered a double whammy. A select committee warns today that our armed forces, another vital branch of the security services, are ‘deteriorating’ because they are being asked to do too much with inadequate resources. Sagging morale has had an effect on retention with ‘some disturbing signs of an increase in early departure in the army.’ As a result, they conclude, ‘the army, the navy, the RAF are not able to do what they need to be able to do because people are leaving and that is, of itself, a strong indication of a falling morale.’
This has been coming for a long time. A Commons public accounts committee report recently stated that half of soldiers’ homes were ‘below par’ and that some soldiers would have to wait up to 20 years before their accommodation was improved. Then there are the woeful stories of soldiers dying needlessly because their comrades lacked basic equipment. Take the 27 year old paratrooper Corporal Wright who died in 2006 in a minefield in Afghanistan. A military inquiry found that Wright could have survived if an aircraft had been equipped with a suitable winch. Above all, the armed forces have been underfunded for years, a galling oversight given the commitments they are being asked to undertake.
This was all brought home to me a fortnight ago when I had the honour to interview Lord Ramsbotham, a distinguished former General and former Chief Inspector of Prisons who now sits as a crossbencher in the House of Lords. In typical army style, he pulled no punches. “We are undermining the whole existence of the armed forces,” he said.
He told me that for a decade the defence budget had been out of balance. New and expensive projects, like the Eurofighter and aircraft carriers, were distorting the budget and many of these items had nothing to do with the situation in Iraq or Afghanistan. The projects were “relics of the Cold War.”
Reflecting on the war on Afghanistan, his tone was even more pessimistic. “There is a great danger, with the number of causalities that are being received and the strain being put on units that go there, that we could undermine the recruiting ethos of the armed forces. If you are going to be there for 30 years, you have got to do one hell of a lot more to make certain that the army will be in existence in 30 yrs time and able to do it.”
Lord Ramsbotham argued that the military could not simultaneously engage in military conflict and nation building. “The army can create the conditions in which the second can follow and the military can shoulder the achievements of the second by protecting the people that are actually doing it. But what you have to do is to encourage the nation to do it itself.” In other words, given its current resources, it was not an option to do both ‘soft power’ and ‘hard power.’
Mind you, his preferred solution to the Afghan imbroglio was hardly convincing. He told me that the only way to pacify Afghanistan was to bring in neighbouring states, such as Iran. When I suggested that this was to trust in the benign intentions of Iran’s theocratic regime, a regime that was intent on regional domination and aggressive bullying of its neighbours, he half agreed. “But they are next door. What goes on in Afghanistan matters to Iran.” On this issue we had to agree to disagree.
Nonetheless his concerns over funding and morale can hardly be dismissed. It is vital that we play our role in the war on terror alongside our allies. This is no simple war of choice for we are under attack from a radical jihadist enemy with a decidedly totalitarian agenda. In taking the fight to that enemy, our soldiers, sailors and airmen perform incredible feats with courage and professionalism. But to ask them to engage in conflicts without adequate support and funding is a grave dereliction of duty. Don’t our armed forces deserve better?
topID cards should be in intensive care
24 January, 2008
The Tories have claimed that ID cards are in the ‘intensive care ward’ after Home Office documents allegedly revealed a delay in their introduction. If only that were the case. A two year delay means that the ID register will be rolled out in 2012, probably 2 years after a general election in which they could prove a divisive political issue. This is cynical Brownite manoeuvring, rather than a principled political strategy. But the Tories are right in one crucial sense. ID cards represent a moribund strategy for tackling the plethora of threats we face today.
During the Blair years we were told that ID cards were an important safeguard of our liberty and security. As Britain faced multiple assaults from jihadist terrorism, illegal immigration and violent crime, we were assured that they were essential for our protection and that if we had nothing to hide, we would have reason to fear.
Yet this view glosses over the objections of civil libertarians rather too glibly. ID cards are not just another means of identification, like a driving licence or bank card. They will contain dozens of registrable facts about a person, including multiple fingerprints, a digitized facial and iris scan as well as their holder’s current and previous places of residence. Those applying for a driving licence or passport will also be automatically be added to the Register. There is no saying how much more information will be included on the register, given the insatiable appetites of our political class and the temptation to centralize information.
This scheme has the potential to fundamentally alter the relationship between the individual and the state, albeit in a wholly undesirable direction. As Lord Ramsbotham told me in an interview last week, the register, with all its detailed information, is ‘Stasi stuff.’ It could also be a potential goldmine for criminals who make a tidy living from identity theft.
More importantly, this entire system relies on trusting those who administer the database of information and that trust seems to have entirely evaporated. Late last year the HMRC inadvertently offered criminals a potential bonanza after casually mislaying disks that contained millions of financial records. Last December the Driving Standards Agency admitted losing the details of 3 million learner drivers and now the MoD has mislaid the details of 600,000 potential army recruits. This is criminal incompetence on a staggering scale. How can any minister now demand that we trust these agencies after so many mishaps?
In any case, the argument that we need ID cards in the war on terror seems patently ludicrous. The Madrid tube bombers possessed ID cards yet that scarcely prevented the deaths of hundreds of innocent people in the terrible suicide attacks. The same would surely have been true on 7th July if Britain had introduced the same system.
What matters here is not the identification of people but the ability to discern their intentions. In other words, while we need to infer which individuals pose a threat to society, it is more important to intercept and disrupt their murderous plots. No identity register can read minds. To this end, the £5 billion allocated to this scheme would be much better spent on more sophisticated intelligence and technology, with improved funding for the security services. At the same time they should consider a change in the law to allow intercept evidence to be used in court.
ID cards would be equally bankrupt in tackling the threat of illegal immigration and crime. Illegal immigrants continue to pass through our porous borders despite strict passport requirements. ID cards would hardly deter them. The government would be better advised to invest in a border police force with proper powers to intercept foreign entrants. Yet this was not an idea properly adopted by Gordon Brown when he outlined the government’s counter terror strategy last year. Nor will an ID register make people feel safer as they walk the streets at night. Police need to reclaim the streets and get in the faces of the feral youths that plague their local communities.
The obsession with ID cards reflects the lack of imagination that now permeates the Brown government. We have an unelected prime minister who chooses to regurgitate the sterile and unworkable solutions offered by his predecessor, with no evidence of a vision for Britain. The government has even seen fit to drop any reference to ‘Islamic terror’, preferring to focus on criminals with an ‘anti Islamic’ agenda. This shows a complete failure to conceptualise the threat from Islamic jihadism, which is coupled with an even more serious failure to deal with it. There is no doubt that the two are connected.
Of course we have to think about ways of making ourselves more secure in today’s troubled world. But we would be ill advised to support measures that needlessly enhance the power of the state at the expense of our hard won liberties.
topA blockade of reason
22 January, 2008
‘An unlawful policy of collective punishment’ screams the Independent this morning. They are of course talking about Israel’s ‘illegal blockade’ of Gaza which, if reports are to be believed, is slowly sapping the spirit of Palestinians in that miserable part of the world. Listen to the BBC and you get the impression that Israel has unilaterally cut off all fuel and electricity to Gaza in order to punish Gazans for their election of Hamas.
Of course it is true that Israel did seal off Gaza last week in response to an unceasing barrage of rockets fired into Southern Israel. Since Israel left the territory in 2005, thousands of Kassams have been fired by militants into Israeli towns, killing and injuring dozens. Last week’s action was designed to halt that activity and, as a result, supplies of fuel and electricity were reduced.
But here is the good news. It was Hamas, not Israel, which closed down the territory’s power plant on Sunday, plunging the area into darkness. Israel continues to supply the majority of the electricity coming into Gaza, with Egypt supplying a fraction more. Electricity and fuel have been reduced but not to such an extent that it will cause a humanitarian disaster. As even Kana Obeid, deputy head of the Gaza power authority, has admitted, the Gaza power plant provides only 30% of the strip’s electricity. The Israelis have also said they will not cut supplies to power lines that go into Gaza.
What the liberal media seem to miss is that there is no moral justification for Israel taking no action against Hamas. When Hamas allows missiles to be fired into Israel, they are in a state of de facto war with the Jewish state which can then take the necessary counter measures. Gazans can hardly be immune to the consequences.
In fact, on any analysis, Israel’s response has been weaker than might have been expected. For months, rumours have circulated that Israel would launch an invasion of Gaza in order to put an end to the rockets. The alternative was a series of heavy bombing raids but both options seemed to involve an unacceptable casualty count on both sides. Hence the option of reducing fuel supplies.
The Palestinian terrorists will continue to have it both ways. They will fire weapons at Israel when it suits them, knowing that there will scarcely be an outcry in the West, and then cry foul when Israel retaliates, knowing that gullible do-gooders will swallow their lies. But then this is the war of propaganda that the Arabs have waged for so long and which, with the help of the BBC and others, they are now sadly winning.
topIt is time to mention the 'i' word
21 January, 2008
With understandably little fanfare, the post Annapolis talks have kicked off between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators. But while there is seemingly endless wrangling over Jerusalem, borders, refugees and settlements, the one issue that dare not speak its name is ‘incitement’. President Bush glossed over it, Ehud Olmert seemed to brush it aside and now it has conveniently slipped below the political radar. Despite the fact that Palestinian and Arab textbooks, TV programmes and newspapers are all saturated with anti semitic hatred, despite their unending glorification of suicide bombers as ‘martyrs’, nothing can be allowed to scupper the liberal view that this conflict is primarily fuelled by ‘local’ grievances. Eliu Richter in the Jerusalem Post has a brilliant take on all this:
It is well to examine the consequences of Israel's past failures to demand an end to Palestinian and region-wide incitement and hate language, which are early warning signs of genocidal intent by their perpetrators. Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote that it was words, not machinery that produced Auschwitz. If the rocks, daggers, guns, suicide bombs, Kassams and long-range missiles are the hardware of today's terror threats to Israel, it is the incitement that is the software.
Indeed so. This software of hate can only produce a new generation of murderous bombers and hatemongers who will denounce any peace deal as ‘treachery’. By focusing on the secondary issues that are symptomatic of the conflict, rather than the primary one that has fuelled it, the peaceniks are putting the cart before the proverbial horse. As Richter goes on to comment:
An end to state-sponsored incitement to terror belongs right on top of the negotiating agenda, before any discussions on borders, settlements, refugees, Jerusalem, and all the other issues. The first "confidence-building measure" should be ending incitement, cutting off funding for those spreading such incitement, and prosecuting those who propagate hatred, not only in the PA, but its hinterland in Egypt and Jordan, and, yes, Saudi Arabia.
In a sane world, this would all be relatively non controversial. But the love in between the State Department and its ‘moderate’ Arab allies, and the special Saudi-US relationship makes this impossible. Last week’s Mid East tour was premised on securing a hike in oil production and creating an anti Iranian coalition in return for sacrificing Israeli diplomatic interests. This is the old realpolitik returning with a vengeance and it is as far removed from neo conservatism as you could get.
Richter continues: So long as incitement warps the minds of coming generations, no diplomatic solution of the conflict between Israel and the Muslim world will be sustainable.
And as long as Western diplomats, including Israelis, refuse to make ending incitement a precondition of peace talks, those talks will be futile. Just ask Bill Clinton.
topAlex
Herts, UK
21/01/2008
Possibly the best column yet., spot on. As long as a race of people are being brainwashed from kindergarden in to hating jews, what use for a roadmap when a stick of dynamite is that much more powerful...
Where is the ‘class’ in class war?
17 January, 2008
Anthony Seldon, the distinguished head of Wellington College, raised a few eyebrows this week when he accused Britain’s public schools of perpetuating ‘educational apartheid.’ In his words, they have creamed off ‘the best pupils, the best teachers, the best facilities, the best results and the best university places.’ While acknowledging the role of bursaries in rewarding children from poorer families, he went on to say: ‘They also pluck children out of their social milieu as well as taking them away from their state schools, depriving those schools of their best academics, musicians, sportsmen and women, and future stars.’ Public schools were living in ‘splendid isolation’ from the rest of British education, he lamented.
Seldon was right to talk about educational apartheid, but not in the way he intended. Our education system is certainly marked by a burgeoning gap in standards and achievements but blaming the private sector for this is grossly misguided.
While the state sector has seen academic standards dumbed down and ill discipline increase, the public sector has thrived. Public schools have pursued academic excellence as a goal in itself, successfully nurturing the talents of their brightest pupils. Certainly, they offer high standards to their pupils but to treat this as a crime is a folly of the highest order. As Dr Martin Stephen, wrote in the Telegraph recently:
I suspect the Oratory, Tiffin Boys' and Girls' Grammar, Hills Road Sixth Form College and hundreds of other institutions are guilty, but of what? Their crime appears to be that these schools do well, without the ability to open their doors to every child in England. If it is wrong to do well, then every excellent educational institution is guilty; step up and stand in the dock Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Princeton and Yale.’
Indeed. Given the emphasis on the ‘knowledge economy’, these institutions perform an incredible service by nurturing talented pupils who will later make invaluable contributions to society. Parents are often forced to make immense sacrifices in order to do the best for their children. They should never be condemned for this.
Seldon’s withering blast is particularly relevant in the light of new proposals by the Charity Commission. The Commission is demanding that schools pass a new test of ‘public benefit’ in order to retain their charitable status, as well as the considerable tax exemptions that go with it. Schools with higher charges have been told they must have sufficient money to offer free or subsidised places for poor pupils. They may need to share their facilities and teachers with local comprehensives. In essence, public schools cannot operate as ‘exclusive clubs’ that do not benefit poorer families. If they do not comply, schools face a range of sanctions, including the freezing of bank accounts and the seizure or even closure of their buildings.
But this threat to school freedom is wholly misplaced. As the Independent Schools Council has pointed out, public schools educate pupils who would otherwise be in comprehensives, thereby freeing up capacity in the state sector. But this is not the only ‘public benefit’ offered by the private sector. As Seldon himself acknowledged, many private schools offer generous bursaries and subsidies to children from poorer families. Indeed, one third of private schools offer bursaries which together, far outweigh the financial perks of charitable status. Beyond that, private schools regularly involve themselves in their local communities.
As the headmaster of Orley Farm School recently told me: ‘The school has long funded cricket coaching for the local sports centre and invites OAPs to attend school activities.’ Mill Hill School works with children abroad in high poverty areas including Ethiopia, Nicaragua and Tamil Nude. Such examples could be replicated up and down the land.
In one sense, this is the good news. Passing the ‘public benefit’ test ought not to be that tricky. But if schools are forced to accept children from deprived areas, without receiving the funding that would have followed that child in the state sector, the results will be predictable and counter productive. Inevitably, those private schools that are unable to shoulder the financial burden will either scale down their facilities or push up school fees, making it even harder for struggling families to get on the private school ladder.
Naturally both Seldon and the Charity Commission have a point. Some private schools are so expensive as to be beyond the reach of many parents. But the New Labour movement, saturated as it is by class envy, has to take some of the blame. In 1997 they abolished the Assisted Places Scheme, a Tory measure that was designed to give free or subsidized places to poorer families. Worse, they sought in vain to abolish grammar schools, a genuinely meritocratic institution that used to help talented working class students.
Seldon was right in one sense. There is something about the ethos and methods of the private sector that should be imparted to state schools. How else could private schools continually churn out the most exceptional results at every level? But to blame private schools for ‘plucking the best and brightest’ from comprehensives misses the point. When parents see an obvious erosion of standards, achievement and discipline in local schools, they wisely opt for better ones.
Perhaps that is the obvious lesson from this debacle. It is the manifest failures of the state sector, not the success of Eton and Harrow, that ought to worry this government. When ministers, and their acolytes, place the emphasis in the other direction, they demonstrate class prejudice of the most malodorous kind.
topAn inglorious end to a Presidency
15 January, 2008
George Bush is ending his presidency in the same manner as his predecessor by urging Palestinians and Israelis to sign a peace agreement. During his tour of the Middle East, he has made a point of calling for an Israeli pullback from most of the West Bank in order for a contiguous Palestinian state to be created. He is therefore pushing for a lasting settlement in the region based on ‘painful concessions’, belying his image as an unshakeable pro Israeli belligerent.
He has obviously learnt little from Clinton’s disastrous mistakes. In 2000, American and Israeli largesse brought both sides to the brink of a peace deal. Arafat could have been crowned the leader of a contiguous state of Palestine in over 95% of the occupied territories, with a deal on compensation and Jerusalem into the bargain. It would have represented a triumph of diplomacy and hard bargaining. Yet Arafat refused all offers and settled for a bloody intifada that claimed the lives of thousands of people. As Dennis Ross declared of Arafat, to end the conflict was ‘to end himself.’
Fast forward to 2008 and little has changed. The Palestinian President is now a great ‘peace partner’ for Olmert, just as Barak and Clinton warmed to Arafat. But what kind of peace partner refuses to recognise Israel as a Jewish state and does nothing to stop the daily culture of incitement that disfigures Palestinian lives? Israel has been offered no tangible guarantees that in the aftermath of peace, the new state of Palestine will not become just one more front in the war against the Jewish state. Even with the will to negotiate the peace process, it is universally acknowledged that Abbas is a political weakling, subjugated in Gaza by the Islamists of Hamas while being threatened by the same militants on his own patch.
President Bush has also been in Saudi Arabia, tying up a cosy $20 billion arms deal while hoping to exploit Saudi influence in the region. The Saudis, of course, produced their own much heralded peace proposal recently, calling for normalized relations with Israel in return for an Israeli pullback from the territories.
But the Saudi plan is just as bogus as anything concocted by Abbas and co. For the Saudi proposals proclaim the inalienable Palestinian right of return to Israel, a negation of a two state solution and a formula for the demographic destruction of Israel. It is not part of the peace process but its very antithesis. Bush himself has openly supported Israel as a Jewish state, yet seems to have put little pressure on his Arab friends to moderate their demands.
Some have read the Bush visit as a clever sop to his Arab allies, the price to be paid for constructing an anti Iranian coalition among ‘moderate’ Sunni states. But there are signs that this coalition is not quite of ‘the willing.’ President Ahmadinejad was recently invited to Mecca for the hajj while foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, said his country would not be used as a launching pad for attacking his Saudi neighbour. This suggests that the desert Kingdom is rather lukewarm on the idea of using force against the Iranians. The publication of the risible NIE report, in any case, casts more than a few doubts about American intentions on this issue.
At a stroke, this Presidency is ending in rather inglorious fashion. Bush is rewarding a medieval autocracy that promotes terror abroad while encouraging a dependable ally to sacrifice its security on the altar of realpolitik. So much for spreading freedom.
topWhen humour is not the best medicine
14 January, 2008
Are we taking terrorists, some terrorists, too seriously? That is the view of columnist Sam Leith in a rather odd piece in Monday’s Telegraph. Titled ‘Having a large laugh at Islamic terrorists,’ he takes a swipe at those who imbibe the jihadis’ grandiose claims to world domination. Islamic terrorism is not about religion, he says, it is about ludicrous ‘bearded pinheads’ (like Richard Reid), and ‘noodles’ who happen to be ‘intoxicated by the fatal narcissism of adolescent boys.’
British home grown bombers are ‘McCain-Microchip-reared teenage self-exploders’ who parrot ‘grown-up-sounding slogans about the caliphate’, rather than people with a ‘settled political will.’ This is not so much an ‘army’ as a ‘playground fad’ and therefore the more we laugh at the ‘mumbling Muslim equivalent of Emo kids scuffing their shoes’, the better off we will all be.
Amusing stuff, but is mockery the best way to deal with the current jihadist threat? Certainly there are cases where terror attacks have been foiled by their perpetrators’ incompetence, particularly at Glasgow airport last June. It is tempting to ridicule Muslim extremists as exotic figures of fun, as no more than a group of teenage rebels intoxicated by delusions of grandeur. Tempting maybe, but ultimately wrong.
To underestimate the danger from Islamists would be disastrously complacent, as proven by the dozens of attacks perpetrated each week. Only last month Benazir Bhutto was assassinated by extremists, leaving a nuclear armed Muslim state in a state of profound turmoil and without its leading force for democracy. Her jihadi assassin was no cartoon character nihilist or disillusioned school drop out but a determined killer with serious intent. And it is to Pakistan that British Islamists have travelled so that they can be schooled in the art of mass murder.
Leith acknowledges that not all terrorism ‘is about berks.’ He writes:
‘The suicide bombers of the West Bank and the Gaza strip may be misguided. But they have, however reprehensible their methods, intelligible political ends: the Palestinian kid who marches into a Tel Aviv disco and turns himself into organic shrapnel wants the lives of his people to change, and has resorted to violence against himself and civilians because he believes that is his only chance of achieving it.’
Having produced an original but misguided thesis, Leith lapses into a sadly conventional viewpoint. It is a commonplace that Palestinians immolate themselves for political ends, that their appalling acts of mass murder are designed to redress specific localised grievances and improve the lives of their co-patriots. But when would be ‘shahids’ are interviewed, their language becomes apolitical and non localised. They seek to do Allah’s bidding by becoming ‘martyrs’, with the added incentive of unlimited sexual pleasures in the world to come. They have been brainwashed to believe that the ‘infidel’ Jew, rather than occupying Israelis, are responsible for all the evils of the world. In any case, Hamas, which trains and arms suicide bombers, is a branch of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and thus shares the revolutionary world view of the jihadist movement.
It makes little sense to differentiate between Al Qaeda and Hamas, as if they lacked any ideological affinity. An Islamist is an Islamist after all. And whereas Leith can afford to mock Britain's Islamists, the Israelis take theirs much more seriously. After all, they know who ends up having the last laugh.
topBritain is ready for the Wisconsin programme
10 January, 2008
The Tories want to reform the welfare state. Most people who live in the saner regions of Planet Earth will warmly endorse this aspiration. Britain has a burgeoning and unreformed welfare state, enslaving huge numbers of otherwise useful citizens in an appalling and pernicious dependency culture.
It was Tony Blair himself who promised to end the something-for-nothing welfare state'' when he came to power. No longer would people see work as a second option, he said. For good measure his Chancellor, a decade ago, declared that “refusing the whole range of offers that are open, and staying on benefit, will now not become an option”. But their laudable promises were not translated into reality.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics now show that around 8 million people are classed as ‘economically inactive’. The political think tank Reform recently pointed out that there were over half a million unemployed 18-24 year-olds in Britain, up by 70,000 since 1998 and an increase in the number of NEETS, those not in employment, education or training. There are also over 2.6 million people on incapacity benefit and you would need to have a brain of mush to believe that they were equally incapable of work.
In the light of these disturbing figures, David Cameron’s reform programme is both brave and eminently sensible. He has unveiled proposals for a ‘fit to work’ test for those on incapacity benefit, with those able to work being forced to go on the Job Seekers Allowance. But while on this allowance, recipients need to do mandatory job training and community work, such as cleaning parks and public buildings. People who fail to show up to work are penalised depending on the number of hours work they miss.
Those with genuine permanent conditions that make them physically or mentally unable to work would continue to receive incapacity benefit. The Tories have also talked about setting a time limit of 2 years for people to claim the Job Seekers Allowance. Again, this makes sense for there is evidence that some claimants find temporary work, only to quit their jobs shortly afterwards so that they can return to the JSA.
These ‘tough love’ proposals are based on the Wisconsin style reforms of the 1990s. This program demanded that welfare recipients performed community work if they could not immediately find jobs and that any subsequent benefits were reduced, proportionate to the number of hours service they failed to do. Food stamps and aid were withdrawn if no community work was performed.
The effects have been impressive. At least one third fewer families are on welfare rolls, leading to an overall reduction in the state’s welfare expenditure. While more money is now spent per welfare family, given the higher administrative costs involved, there are many less families to cater for.
The moral lessons are also clear. As the American Heritage Foundation put it: ‘A key problem for rational charity is separating those who truly need aid from those who do not but are willing to take a free handout if one is offered.’ The coupling of work and benefits helps to solve that problem.
Predictably, government ministers have poured scorn on the proposals, with Peter Hain claiming that the Tories cannot cost them. This is a bit rich coming from a government which has been notoriously profligate with public finances and which has increased public spending to record levels. It also tells you something about what this government sees as ‘progressive’ politics.
Apparently they are happy to keep incapacity claimants out of work, permanently writing them off, rather than ‘invest’ in finding them work which would raise their confidence and self esteem. Instead of getting people back to work, they have presided over a system of unrestricted immigration in which low skilled workers have entered the job market, restricting job opportunities and wage rates for indigenous British workers. This in turn has helped to prevent the termination of the welfare dependency culture.
The government’s inability to reform the welfare state is one of the great political failures of modern times. By seizing on this issue then, the Tories have shown a boldness of vision that will serve them well in the fraught months ahead. British politics is all the better for it.
topSo much for Obamarama
9 January, 2008
So much for Obamarama then. Just when Hilary Clinton seemed set for electoral wipeout, when she was as likely to make a comeback as Northern Rock, the former First Lady confounded all expectations with a surprise victory in New Hampshire. She is obviously learning lessons from her husband who was known as ‘the Comeback Kid’ after his unexpected success in the 1992 primaries. It seems like all bets are off in the race for the Democratic nomination.
In one sense, the most obvious lesson from all this is not to be seduced by opinion polls! Most commentators, media outlets and pollsters seemed certain that Clinton was headed for doom after she came second in Iowa. She proved them all wrong.
But the same thing has happened here of course. In 1970 Edward Heath dumped Harold Wilson out of no. 10, giving the Tories a most unexpected victory. Opinion polls had put Labour ahead by more than 10 points before polling day. In 1991, Labour was well ahead of the Tories, with some opinion polls putting the opposition 20 points ahead of the Major government. It did them little good when, a year later, they suffered a fourth catastrophic election defeat under Neil Kinnock. There is nothing like mid term gloom to give the opposition a pre election boost.
In recent months, Cameron has surged ahead of Brown, particularly in his personal approval ratings, and some Tory optimists are experiencing a bout of heady optimism. But if pre election polls can get it so spectacularly wrong, this optimism may be misplaced.
But it still leaves open the question of why Ms. Clinton confounded the doom and gloom merchants, many from her own campaign team. Already there have been suggestions that her triumph was helped by her (manufactured?) last minute tearfulness in front of the cameras. Perhaps, but we shall probably never know.
What we do know is that Mr. Obama’s campaign team can take nothing for granted. He may have swept aside the voters of Iowa with his youthful dynamism, abundant charisma and sweeping rhetoric but that cannot guarantee the keys to the White House.
Just as Cameron discovered mid way last year, it is one thing to claim the mantle of change using vacuous, hackneyed political slogans (opportunity for all, diversity etc.) and another to show you have the substance to back it up. Cameron traded on his age, image and sheer force of personality, using every trick in the book to persuade people that, finally, the Tories had moved on. Soon enough he was accused of being slick but superficial, with people unsure of what he actually stood for. Many of the same criticisms have been levelled at Barack Obama.
If foreign policy issues rise high on the election agenda in the next few months, Obama may be found wanting. True, he can claim to be untainted by the Iraq war, unlike the zealous, pro war McCain and Hilary Clinton. But when it comes to national security, people may just warm to a wise old head with experience (like McCain) rather than the relatively untested new kid on the block.
It would be idle to make rash predictions or write off any of the big candidates right now. What we know for sure is that this gruelling contest is set for a fascinating conclusion.
topLet's praise a Bishop who is not afraid to tell uncomfortable truths
7 January, 2008
I have often lamented the fact that the Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali, is not the current Archbishop of Canterbury. Unlike Dr. Rowan Williams, Bishop Nazir-Ali refuses to be a mouthpiece for the degrading culture of political correctness. Instead his trademark is to tell uncomfortable truths about sensitive issues when and where this is necessary.
In a penetrating article in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph, the bishop warned that there had been ‘a worldwide resurgence of the ideology of Islamic extremism’ over the last few decades. In Britain’s case, this had resulted in the creation of separate communities which were being turned into ‘no go’ areas, the kind of environments where people of other faiths and races found it difficult to live and work. This increasing Islamification of public space was described as ‘the other side of the coin to far Right intimidation.’
Almost as soon as the ink was dry, the usual suspects emerged to blacken the good bishop’s name. Inayat Bunglawala, the self confessed Islamist from the Muslim Council of Britain, said the remarks were ‘more like the kind of commentary we would have expected from the far-right BNP.’ Mohammed Shafiq, from the Ramadhan Foundation, called for the Bishop to resign as he was 'promoting hatred towards Muslims.' Then in today’s Independent, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown offered her own facile interpretation, denouncing Bishop Nazir-Ali’s article as a ‘fundamentalist intervention’ from a ‘vicious bulldog’ who seemed ‘to take pleasure in divisive rhetoric and stoking up hatred.’ She added that Nazir Ali was prepared to ‘inflate, exaggerate and invent perils in order to push his particularly fanatical Anglicanism.’ Oh, how the left hate it when their complacent attitudes are challenged by those who prefer factual truths to politically correct ones.
Contrary to this hysterical and ill informed rant, Bishop Nazir-Ali was not inflating or exaggerating perils, whatever the strength of his Anglican views. Segregation and ghettos exist, period. Following the riots in Burnley, Oldham and Bradford in 2001, the Government-commissioned Cantle report found people leading ‘parallel lives’ and living in ‘ignorance’ about other communities. Another report found that the violence in Oldham was caused by ‘years of deep-rooted segregation between communities.’
All that Bishop Nazir-Ali has done is echo an increasingly widespread view that this segregation has been caused, in part, by the misguided creed of multiculturalism. This creed has encouraged ethnic minorities and immigrants to assert their differences as an end in itself, resulting in them having as little linguistic or cultural connection to the wider society as possible. Naturally, this has helped to foster a sense of alienation, particularly among some second generation Muslim immigrants whose identification with ‘Britain’ is painfully thin.
Separatist demands have followed, such as calls to implement Sharia law and Sharia based banking. More recently, the authorities at the Oxford Central Mosque have applied to broadcast the call to prayer (the adnan) three times a day from the local mosque, arguing that in a multi faith society, this is consistent with the ringing of church bells. Not surprisingly, local residents are rather less enamoured, fearing that not just noise levels but the public character of their environment will be irrevocably altered.
For Ms. Alibhai-Brown, this might be evidence of Islamophobia in a society that is scapegoating Muslims. But this is to miss the point. There is no reason why a liberal, tolerant society cannot accept religious pluralism in principle. All that our tolerant society demands is that there is no clash between religious commandments and the laws of the land, that in asserting religious freedoms, minority communities do not encroach on ‘public space’ and on the rights and needs of others. This is the kind of unwritten contract that should be accepted, implicitly and explicitly, by every ethnic and religious community. But for sections (I stress sections) of the Muslim community, that contract appears to be null and void. Indeed Ms. Alibhai-Brown comes close to acknowledging that in her own article when she condemns ‘mad, bad and dangerous’ organizations that make ‘unacceptable’ demands on the state and which encourage ‘total religious identification and self-exclusion.’ Yes, and there are also people that choose to follow this separatist creed and live, guess what, ‘parallel lives.’
Still, the tide has turned in the last few years. It is no longer just centre-right think tanks and political commentators who attack this multicultural madness. Trevor Phillips regretted its negative effects in 2006 while some government ministers have recently made the same grudging admission. The left’s remaining diehards need to wake up and smell the coffee. Our fractured society will only strengthen when we learn to celebrate what we all have in common, as well as our own differences.
topAn uncertain future for Pakistan
02 January, 2008
Benazir Bhutto’s horrific assassination last week should have surprised no one. Given the resilience of Pakistan’s extremists, and the vulnerability of their target, it was a matter of when, not if, they got to her. Her murder has left the country in a state of the deepest uncertainty, her supporters grief stricken at the loss of an inspirational leader.
There must be some serious question marks against the conduct of General Musharraf. He seemed scarcely interested in capturing those responsible for October’s atrocity in which 140 of Ms Bhutto’s entourage were slain. Worse, he failed to provide her adequate security when it was obvious she was a key target for the Islamists. In the eyes of many, Musharraf is implicated in her murder. But even if he is innocent of these charges, he (and his Western backers) must face up to the fact that his rule is bankrupt in every sense.
After 9/11, the West’s strategy was to give the General strong backing in the hope that he would best remove the menace of Al Qaeda and the Taleban. This was understandable for, as a non Islamist ruler, he was personally targeted by terrorists on several occasions. However, his recent behaviour has suggested an unwillingness to take on Al Qaeda in its strongholds on the Afghan/Pakistani border.
Add to that his reckless disregard for democracy, both in suspending the rule of law and cancelling elections (initially) and you can see why the West lost patience with him. Musharraf had pretty much spent his capital with his backers by the time that Ms. Bhutto landed in her native country, ready to resume the mantle of power. Now she has gone too.
But even the loss of a democrat should not blind us to the scale of the danger in Pakistan. Undoubtedly, Ms. Bhutto was a courageous woman. She knew that in returning to her native country, she faced immense risks from those dedicated to turning Pakistan into an Islamist fortress. But even she may have lacked the courage or the ability to confront her country’s infrastructure of terror.
For Pakistan remains, as it has for decades, a breeding ground of virulent Islamic extremism and anti semitism. Millions of people have passed through madrassahs that preach the revolutionary dogmas of radical Islam. It is a focal point of terror where, according to one CNN opinion poll, nearly half the population express some sympathy for Osama Bin Laden. The country’s intelligence services are peppered with Islamist sympathisers while the army remains half hearted about tackling the menace of jihadism. Worse of all, it already possesses its own sizeable nuclear arsenal.
A genuinely moderate Pakistani party should make an abiding commitment to changing popular attitudes, including virulent anti Semitism, as well as challenging the ideological extremists who shelter in mosques and madrassahs. But as the murder of Bhutto shows, any person who announces such commitments is under an effective sentence of death.
It remains to be seen what type of government rises on the ashes of military dictatorship. But there is no doubt that the concerns of 2007, whether Iranian nukes, Syrian WMD, the Taleban or Iraq’s troubles, have now been overtaken by events in Pakistan. It would be a foolish person who declared that the country’s future was in safe hands.
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