Category: Politics

The legality of the Iraq invasion

The UK Iraq Inquiry

Our American friends may not all be aware that momentous events are taking place in London. Momentous for us, I mean ….. nothing much of what happens over here is momentous for you of course, though interesting perhaps!

We have an enquiry going on into the 2nd Gulf War , an enquiry which Premier Gordon Brown set up in an untypical

Sir John Chilcott

and in fact reckless fit of statesmanship but which looks is as if it might be the final nail in his coffin. For a whole series of witnesses are parading in front of Lord Chilcot to give their five penn’worth about the reasons for the invasion.

Now the British public is a magnificent beast, but not particularly famed for long-term memory and just when Iraq was beginning to fade a bit from the radar here it is all surging up again and reminding us what a divisive business it was and how the then government – so it is said – blatantly lied about the reasons for sending our young men to die.

Well, that it all very interesting but here is not the place to go into this enquiry in depth. I did wonder, though, how George Bush seems to have escaped any threat of an enquiry!! You folks sure do things differently over there!

No, what particularly interests me is all the talk about the “legality” of the war, but nobody has explained to me how it can be illegal to attack a mass-murdering gangster, which is all SH was. The  “law” only works if ALL are involved. If someone murders our fellow-humans and sets himself up as leader then he or she can’t have recourse to “the law”, can they? You cannot hide behind legality when you murder all your opponents and hundreds of thousands of others, can you?

Now we Anglo-Saxons – and even the French – profess to believe in “democracy”, even if this sometimes throws up complete idiots as leaders (but I won’t mention any names ….) Yet we trade with despots, we take them seriously, we even kow-tow to them on occasion.

But they are just gangsters, aren’t they? Where is their legitimacy? Nobody voted them in, did they? In Sadaam Hussein’s case, there was a party conference at which his rivals were pulled out of the audience and taken away to be summarily shot. Yet this mass-murderer was supposed to be given the respect of a “leader”?  We even had a British MP going out to Iraq to shake him by the hand! It is of course surreal.

The UN Charter – which all members sign up to – has clauses on human rights, freedom of speech, of assembly and all that stuff, yet a large proportion of members are dictatorships! What a humungous LIE to base the government of the world on! Yet the UN is the body that is supposed to make “international law”!! You couldn’t make it up.

So while the case for the invasion of Iraq is extremely complex and controversial, I for one will certainly  dismiss any claptrap about it being “illegal”. How can it be illegal to bring down a man responsible for the deaths of over  ONE MILLION of our fellow-humans, including the use of gas to destroy a whole village of 5,000 in Kurdistan?

It is often said that “the law is an ass”. Well, in this case I cannot but agree.

By Chris Snuggs

UK Iraq Enquiry Update

The UK Iraq enquiry produces some odd insights

I found this on the BBC website last Sunday:

“Gordon Brown was ‘marginalised’ by Tony Blair in the build-up to the Iraq war”, former International Development Secretary Clare Short has said.

“The then chancellor neither opposed nor supported the invasion but was ‘preoccupied’ by other concerns,” she told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.

Frankly, it is surreally ludicrous. Is she really saying that while the country was preparing to go to war in extraordinarily-controversial circumstances, with hundreds of thousands marching in protest and all the rest, that

Clare Short

Brown had “other concerns”? And during the whole process these “other concerns” prevented him from AT ANY TIME having an input or indeed an opinion?

Is this some sort of attempt to disassociate him from responsibility? Whatever one thinks about the rights or wrongs of the invasion it was in the end a COLLECTIVE DECISION. Blair could NOT have done it without the support of the British Cabinet, especially Brown and Straw. If they had felt strongly enough about it, they could have resigned, or more likely have told Blair they WOULD resign if he pressed on, and thereby thwarted him.  Now, it isn’t easy to resign, or even threaten to – your bluff could always be called and your career go down the spout – but if you can’t do it when it is a matter of your country going to war when the hell CAN you do it?

Gordon Brown

As for “neither supported nor opposed” the invasion, what a PATHETIC verdict on someone who went on (without an election) to “lead” the country.

“Well, I’m neither supporting nor opposing it since that way I can take either position later depending on how it pans out.”

I can’t recall having seen a more pathetic, fumbling, cowardly shambles. You may love or – more likely – hate Tony Blair, but as with Margaret Thatcher, you certainly knew where he stood.

By Chris Snuggs

Obama’s Farcical Freeze

When is a freeze not a freeze?

President Obama’s proposal to freeze parts of federal government spending over the next three years is a lot like a smoker buying a truckload of cigarettes one year before promising to “freeze spending” on cigarettes the next.  He can keep smoking for years to come without spending another dime.

Federal government spending has increased so much over the last year — by some estimates at a rate of 34% — that in December of 2009 the debt limit had to be raised to $12.4 trillion to help absorb a record-shattering $1.4 trillion deficit.

The promise to freeze spending is actually a guarantee that spending will remain at record high levels for the next three years.  It effectively prevents a reduction in federal spending.

How disingenuous of our President.

By Sherry Jarrell

“FACE” and the Human Spirit

Putting on a face with deadly consequences!

I worked for 10 years at ISUGA, a school in Quimper, France dedicated to multi-cultural understanding and international co-operation in business. This was an extremely rich experience at a school where the majority of the foreign students were Chinese.

The campus at ISUGA, Quimper, France

It is also, incidentally, the place where I had to good fortune to meet Jon Lavin and Paul Handover, fellow authors on Learning from Dogs.

I like to think that I have always been sensitive to the cultural differences between different nationalities. Having lived abroad for long periods in both France and Germany, the idea of living in a sort of English enclave somewhere, jealously guarding such cultural practices as endless burgers and fish and chips, is totally anathema to me.

I am human first and English second and if I live in Germany, France or anywhere else I want to live like the natives as far as possible …

This also means making an effort to understand and accept their “culture”. Now this normally poses no problem, but with my Asian friends there is one aspect of their culture that I could not accept. And of course, if one DOES put one’s humanity first, then there is always the risk that the culture of one’s hosts – in some respect – may have to take second place. The “culture ” of Germany in the 1930s was fascist, and I certainly could not have lived with that.

No, what causes me problems with Asians (and particularly Chinese) is this question of “FACE”. One is supposed – and one learns this on “cultural-understanding” courses for businessmen (which of course I organised at my school!!) – to so arrange things that EVEN IF the Asian negotiating counterpart is a complete fool and/or makes the most idiotic errors one must ALWAYS find a way to avoid humiliating them in any way.

Well, “humiliating” is too strong a word in fact … one is supposed to arrange things that they never seem to be in an “inferior” position in any way.

My problem with this is that it is in fact the antithesis of everything this site stands for, which is integrity, truth and honesty. Now if a negotiating partner does in fact make some sort of mistake then to pretend otherwise just to preserve their “face” is dishonest, isn’t it?  And what are we in fact preserving? An IMAGE and not the reality.

Claudia S

It is, in fact, totally AGAINST the Human Spirit. We are all fallible. I know of no perfect men or women (though Claudia Schiffer comes close 😉 ). It is simply DISHONEST to deny this to preserve “FACE”.

The current British government could have done with learning this lesson. For YEARS there was never ANY acceptance that, yes – perhaps – they might have got some things wrong. Funnily enough, this is coming now in short bursts, but not enough to be convincing – shame!

“FACE” is of course a FACADE.  I no longer am interest in facades, but the truth. But the worse aspect of this Asian FACE thing is that it is so totally accepted by them (and by us, but that’s our fault) as being “normal” and acceptable. No, it is NOT acceptable.

The stimulus for this post came from the recent execution of a British drug-smuggler in China. Now it is quite clear from what has been revealed that this guy was A) not fully compos mentis and B) was set up as a mule by a handler. He was caught, tried, sentenced to death and executed by the Chinese. No, I have no sympathy for drug-smugglers, but Mr “Big” he was not.

What muddied the waters even more was that the British Prime Minister made a special plea for clemency, which might very well in normal cases have been granted. But these were not normal circumstances. Just before this incident the British had severely criticized the Chinese for their stance on Global Warming at the Copenhagen Conference. Now, ANY criticism of the CPP (Chinese Communist Party) is likely to be taken as a “loss of face”. One suspects – but there is no way to know – that the Chinese refusal to listen to Prime Minister Brown’s very strong plea for clemency was the CPP’s way of putting the British government in its place and restoring its “face”.

The point is, BEING WRONG is HUMAN. Pretending to be RIGHT all the time is NOT HUMAN. It is IMPOSSIBLE. We should accept this and learn humility. Sadly, the words “humility” and “Chinese Communist Party” are unlikely bedfellows.

By Chris Snuggs

[When Chris wrote this Post, he was unaware of one that I had written that was published on the 28th.  Interesting parallels! Ed.]

Fed Sets up unit to Police Itself

Foxes and hen-house?

I’m not quite sure how I feel about this yet.  The Fed recently announced that it has appointed a long-time staffer with the New York Fed to head a newly created branch to oversee the the parts of its balance sheet acquired in efforts to bail out firms like AIG.

These massive asset purchases, orchestrated by Timothy Geithner, the current Treasury Secretary and former New York Fed official, ballooned the Fed’s balance sheet from $800 billion in primarily government bonds to $2.3 trillion in toxic assets.

Now the New York Fed is overseeing the assets brought into the Fed by the Treasury Secretary as he moved from the New York Fed to the Treasury.  All while the Treasury functions are supposed to be isolated from the Federal Reserve’s role in its implementation of monetary policy.Foxhenhouse

Smacks of the fox watching the hen house….

By Sherry Jarrell

Actual Unemployment is Worse

Unemployment statistics and the real world.

Keep in mind, even as the number of first-time claims for unemployment insurance rose again recently, that the 10% U.S. unemployment figure understates the actual number of unemployed. Even the 17% underemployment figure, which includes those who are either unemployed or who are working part-time but would like to work full-time, fails to include many of those who have lost their jobs but, because they fail to qualify for unemployment, are not being tracked.  I know several such people personally; one has been unemployed for over a year.

My point? Structural unemployment is a serious economic issue. But the solution is not to funnel more unemployment benefits to the unemployed.  The best thing the government can do is to reduce the barriers it has erected to a vibrant economy, including oppressive taxes, fees, paperwork, bureaucracy, and regulations that repress business productivity and raise prices.  By reducing these explicit and implicit costs, there is absolutely no doubt that the private economy will be able to employ more workers as it produces more output at lower prices.

The best thing we can do as private citizens and neighbors is to treat each other right.  Keep the economy moving.  Put in a good day’s work.  Volunteer or learn a new skill if you can’t find a job.  Fill a need.  Buy smart.  And, finally, elect business-friendly local and national politicians.  It matters.

By Sherry Jarrell


Great way to make friends

Maybe it’s me but there must be better ways to manage foreign relationships!

Ahmet Oguz Celikkol

Most people in their private and business lives find that a genuine interest in, and respect for, those that one engages with leads to better outcomes.  Surely that is just common sense.

So a recent report from Stratfor telling of an ‘incident’ between Israel and Turkey leaves me, frankly, speechless.  Here’s how the report reads:

Last week a small crisis with potentially serious implications blew up between Israel and Turkey. Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon summoned Turkish Ambassador to Israel Ahmet Oguz Celikkol to a meeting Jan. 11 to protest a Turkish soap opera that depicted Israeli agents kidnapping Palestinian children. When the ambassador arrived, he received a lower seat than Ayalon — and was photographed in that position, making it appear that Ayalon was speaking to an inferior. Ayalon wouldn’t shake hands with him during the televised parts of the meeting, and had an Israeli flag visible on the table. Topping it all off, Ayalon told an Israeli cameraman in Hebrew that the important thing was that people see Celikkol sitting down low “while we’re

Danny Ayalon

up high.”

Turks saw the images as a deliberate Israeli insult, though Ayalon argued that the episode was not meant as an insult but as a reminder that Israel does not take criticism lightly. While it is difficult to see the relative height of seats as an international incident, Ayalon clearly intended to send a significant statement to Turkey. The Turks took that statement to heart, so symbolism clearly matters. Israel’s intent is not so clear, however.

Continue reading “Great way to make friends” →

“The People Just Don’t Understand”

US politics and health care

The latest political spin in the U.S. is that the Democrats lost the seat that was held by the late Senator Edward Kennedy in Massachusetts because the people “just don’t understand the health care legislation.”  It is not, so they say, that the legislation is bad or that it will raise taxes or result in rationing.  No, it is not the legislation at all. It is that the White House has failed to communicate the key elements of the health care legislation clearly.

I beg to disagree.  I think that we, the electorate, understand the legislation, but we do not like it, and do not want it.  We do not want it shoved down our throats; we do not want our tax dollars used to blatantly buy off votes for the legislation; we do not want our voices to be ignored.

And the White House knows that the public has turned against this legislation because it now knows more about the bill, not less.  Why else would they endorse the secretive, closed-door sessions to draft the language of the bill?  Why else would they want to hide the legislation from the light of day, from the scrutiny of the press and the public?  Because the less we know, the more likely it is that this shameful legislation will slither through and  become law.

So, spare us, White House.  The reason people do not like the health care legislation is not because you haven’t communicated it clearly enough. It’s because we understand it all too well.

By Sherry Jarrell

The UK, China & Tibet

A sad story just becomes …. well, sadder.

Only the most discerning of news-followers will have picked up the fact that the British government has recently abandoned a long-held position on Tibet and now fully recognizes China’s direct rule over the country.

Map of Tibet

A recent article in the British newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, explains all this far better than I could, but what intrigues me is WHY this has been done now and WHAT concessions have been made by China.

In truth, the Chinese Communist Party is not renowned for making concessions, so one suspects that the Tibetans have simply been sold down the river to gain general political kudos with the Chinese government, even though the former have an extremely good case in their claim for autonomy within China (independence having been abandoned in the cause of realism). Of course, Britain, France, the US and other western states are the world champions of freedom, democracy and the right to self-determination, aren’t they? Well, perhaps not …..

As far as Learning from Dogs is concerned, the main question is that of integrity. Should we simply change our political policies for convenience? Labour government ministers and indeed even Chris Patten, former Conservative Governor of Hong Kong, have referred to the previous view on Tibetan independence as “a quaint eccentricity”. However, I very much doubt whether the Tibetans – who after all live there and form the majority (or at least DID until they were ethnically-swamped by the Han Chinese) – would consider as an eccentricity the overnight and unheralded abandonment of yet one more hope in their fight for justice.

If the previous position was right for nearly 100 years then why is it suddenly wrong? What happened? Were we wrong all that time and have suddenly seen the light? That couldn’t be for reasons of expediency, could it?

Tibetan girl

And what HAVE the British gained? Apparently, there was no attempt to gain anything, since “The Chinese were not pushing for this.” Well, if they weren’t, then why give it? As it happens, the rather pathetic Dalai Lama is engaged in yet more “negotiations” with the CPP. I can just imagine the smirks on the Chinese side. The Tibetans didn’t have many cards to start with; now their only  Ace has been well and truly trumped.

By Chris Snuggs

A Government’s “Economy with the truth”

Citizens being let down by the standards of their governments.

Every so often – but sadly with a certain inevitability and one senses greater frequency – there descends from above the nasty stench of hypocrisy, cover-up and fraud.

No, I am not referring to the conviction recently of a British Minister for using a mobile telephone while driving, even though she was Minster of Justice when the law banning this was passed.

No, the case in question is that of the RAF Chinook Mark 2 helicopter that crashed on 2 June 1994 en route from Northern Ireland to Inverness, killing the special forces crew and 25 senior members of Northern Ireland’s intelligence community in “the worst RAF helicopter accident in peacetime.”

Now accidents happen, but from what has been said very clearly in a variety of sources (SEE HERE IN PARTICULAR), there seems no doubt that the pilots were made the scapegoats in the ensuing enquiry.

This is the key question. Of course, NOBODY may have been “to blame” OR it may be impossible to determine who was to blame, but on the other hand, someone MAY have been to blame, and if that person or persons is in the Ministry of Defence or the Government then it is clear that there may have been the temptation to fix it so that someone ELSE took the blame, in this case the dead and therefore defenceless pilots.

A synopsis of the official report passed to me by a fellow old-boy (alumnus!) with a scientific background in avionics summarizes the main points in this tragedy:

a) There is certainly no evidence to suggest that the pilots were at fault.

b) There is a lot of evidence to suggest that the Government hindered the enquiry.

Some key points:

  • The pilots were worried about the MKII aircraft and asked for a MKI version for this mission. The MoD declined this request.
  • The aircraft was flying low, in a straight line towards the Mull. 18 seconds before impact the pilot requested a left hand turn to miss the Mull. The aircraft never turned.
  • The FADECs (Full Authority Digital Engine Control) were programmed to record ‘failures in flight’. Looking at the FADEC’s memory after the crash showed no failures. This was the main evidence against the pilots. However, there had been several instances where other MKII pilots had lost control of the aircraft and the FADEC showed no ‘failures’. In their assessment of the code after the crash, EDS said that the error reporting software had been coded incorrectly.
  • The problem with the FADEC that had been seen by several pilots was the fact that the rotors started to rotate to 120%. (Faster than they should).
  • Two key personnel who should have given evidence at the enquiry (an engineer FADEC expert and a pilot who had experienced problems whilst flying the aircraft) were not allowed to give evidence.
  • Prior to the accident the Government were actually in the process of suing the FADEC manufacturer because of its failings.

Two points in particular strike me personally:

A) Point SIX above; the government was AT THE TIME of the accident SUING the FADEC manufacturer because the electronics were defective in some way. Now, as a layman, it seems to me bleedin’ obvious that modern aircraft are extremely dependent on their electronics. If there were such severe faults with the fundamental instruments on this plane as there seem to have been with the FADEC (the top pilot refused to fly the craft and the govt were suing the software providers; does it get more serious than that??!!) then WHY WAS IT ALLOWED TO FLY IN THE FIRST PLACE?

B) So, KNOWING all the above, WHO authorised this aircraft to fly in poor weather conditions (it was foggy) with 25 KEY intelligence personnel on board? Apart from the personal tragedy for so many families, the loss of these key people was a devastating blow to the then government in its campaign against terrorism in Northern Ireland.

Well, despite all the above it was the two dead pilots who got the blame for what seems to have been appalling management over a long period. The Chinook’s electronics were clearly known to be dodgy yet the machine had not been grounded. You cannot imagine this happening in the civil aviation business (I HOPE!), but this is not the first time that the British government has sought to exempt itself from the strict standards it imposes on the private sector.

But the bottom line is, it is pretty clear that JUSTICE has not been done and those whose poor management and decisions almost certainly led to the accident have never been brought to account.  The British Conservative party has pledged to re-examine the case. One has to ask why the CURRENT party has refused to do this. Could they themselves have something to hide?

IS this – as it seems to be – a genuine Government cover-up? and if so, do they do this sort of thing because they think that:

A) the public are idiots or B) they can get away with it? Or of course both.

We are not talking about a faceless, fascist bureaucracy here, but about BRITAIN, where standards of decency, honesty, openness and Justice are supposed to apply – or at least once applied. As for the MOD (Ministry of Defence) not only has it NOT accepted any responsibility for this accident but they are now paid BONUSES! Yes, just like City Bankers ….. And this at a time when I am unaware of bonuses being paid to soldiers fighting and often dying in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The families of those killed deserve the truth. Without the truth being primordial in our society, we descend into the realms of a banana republic or Central Asian dictatorship.

By Chris Snuggs