Hmmm
Being somewhat facetious—but isn’t this sort of thing something that should only happen to folks who have sided with the evil empire: Mac OS X: Highly critical security flaw?
» 1 day ago
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Couple of things
What a wonderfully snarky mood Daniel Davis of Crooked Timber was in today when writing this about James Wolfensohn:
If I were to criticise James Wolfensohn as a World Bank President, then I’d say that if he has a failing, it’s probably that he errs on the side of being a worthless globetrotter far more adept at schmoozing politicians than getting his hands dirty with policy issues, blaming his staff for failures while taking personal credit for successes and that his nine years at the WB have been associated with a general slump in morale that would make Field-Marshall Haig look like Anthony Robbins. Apart from that, he’s pretty much sucked.
And, as a bonus at the same place, this from John Quiggin:
It’s striking to observe that the Daily Mirror has more stringent standards of personal responsibility than the Blair government (or, for that matter, any government in the Coalition of the Willing).
» 2 days ago
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Found
Anyways, just a few things I found here and there:
- Why People Are Irrational about Politics by one Michael Huemer. “Perhaps the most striking feature of the subject of politics is how prone it is to disagreement—only religion and morality rival politics as a source of disagreement.” Well, that and soccer, I guess.
- The Bonassus on agricultural protection. ”[...] one of the biggest factors in the continuing failure of so many poor economies is the high level of agricultural subsidies and tariffs in the rich world. How big are these subsidies? As the William & Flora Hewitt Foundation has explained, they’re VERY BIG.”
- Edward of Obsidian Wings on Silence and the Moderate Muslim. “Let me begin by acknowledging the perception: the Muslims of the world are not as vocal about these acts of terror as we want/need them to be.”
And, oh, this tidbit:
“I’m entitled to my opinions”. What rubbish! Whether you are or are not entitled to hold and express an opinion on a subject depends on whether you have thought long and hard about it, are familiar with the evidence, and can handle objections. As a rational being, you are entitled to think for yourself, and to try to arrive at a settled view for yourself. But this is a right to think for yourself, to form your own opinion – it is not a right to affirm and defend any old prejudice.
It’s actually advice for students (Writing a Philosophy Essay)—but does seem quite appropriate for bloggers, too. Or, at least, some bloggers.
» 3 days ago
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Corporate warriors
When the outrage over Abu Ghraib has died down, and the outrage over the outrage, or lack of of, or whatever, let’s hope that there will be some public discussion about some of the issues that the incident made us painfully aware of. For example, this:
During the 1991 Gulf War there was one private soldier (or “contractor”) for every 100 regular soldiers. In contrast, in today’s occupied Iraq there is at least one private soldier for every ten regular soldiers—with 10,000–15,000 private soldiers deployed in that country alone. The United States is currently spending a gargantuan $400 billion a year on the military. Yet the market revenue of the private military industry has already risen to about a quarter of that total and is skyrocketing.
and:
Behind the dramatic growth of these private military firms lies a vast shift in world power that began with the end of the Cold War. The demobilization that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall meant that states at the beginning of this century employed far fewer soldiers than in 1989. Over the same period, marked by the triumph of capitalism worldwide, the incidence of civil wars has doubled, while the total number of combat zones around the world has vastly increased (Singer, Corporate Warriors, p. 50). From a market perspective this means that supply and demand forces are favorable to the growth of private industry in this sector. Propelling this tendency still further is the “privatization revolution.” Thus in 2002 Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared that the Pentagon would “pursue additional opportunities to outsource and privatize” (quoted in The Guardian, December 10, 2003).
and:
Right now the number of private military firms is multiplying rapidly. But in line with the normal pattern of capital accumulation there will eventually be a shakedown of firms leading to concentration and centralization, with a relatively small number of firms, such as Kellogg, Brown & Root (Halliburton), emerging as the dominant corporate entities. Such giant private military firms will no doubt engage in their own unique version of what Schumpeter called “creative destruction.” We have no way of knowing what the actual result of all of this will be. But it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the privatization of war, if it continues to gather momentum, will contribute massively to the expansion of barbarism in the world as a whole. This after all is the basic tendency of capitalism in our time.
“Singer, Corporate Warriors” is this book: Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry, but a shorter, previous article from Singer can be downloaded here: Corporate Warriors: The Rise and Ramifications of the Privatized Military Industry.
It does get murky, does it not? Brad DeLong asks: Doesn’t Anybody Read Max Weber Anymore?:
The state is that organization that claims a monopoly over the legitimate use of violence within a prescribed territory. An effective state enforces that monopoly by punishing—using violence—against those whom it judges have engaged in the illegitimate use of violence. A modern state operates through (a) bureaucratic routines that are standard operating procedures for dealing with situations, and (b) a chain-of-command, by which lower-level functionaries are commanded by and responsible to higher level functionaries all the way up to the fount of sovereignty itself (which is, in most modern states, a prime minister responsible to a democratically-elected legislature).
The government of the United States of America claims—by virtue of U.N. resolutions and by right of conquest—to be, on a temporary and caretaker basis, the state ruling Iraq. But does it claim a monopoly over the legitimate use of force and violence in Iraq? Not at all. Proconsul Bremer’s guards are not soldiers—are not legionnaires—but hired contractors. Blackwater and Erinys and CAI and Titan and all the others threaten and use violence without any contact with the chain-of-command.
It is easy to get confused then:
The Washington Post reports that a private contractor killed in Iraq was posthumously awarded a Purple Heart and Bronze Star. While the U.S. military says it was a mistake, “The confusion demonstrates that in many situations soldiers and civilian contractors have become virtually indistinguishable—and interchangeable—in postwar Iraq.”
(via Cursor.org)
And, finally, once we start, were do we end? War and Piece has the story of one Viktor Bout. Arms dealer par excellence. At work in Iraq.
Whaddayaknow? This is the lost post—finally showing up. Is the MySql server just velly slow? Hrmf. Anyways, the previous post still stands.
» 3 days ago
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Blogging blues
Ah, I just wrote the perfect (you’d better believe it, dude) post, clicked “Publish”, only to see it all go down the great drain that is the Internet: instead of being returned to the nice, cozy administrative interface of Textpattern, I got an error page. Duh. As usual, I had not taken the precaution of actually copying the post before trying to publish. Should have. I don’t really know if the culprit is my increasingly erratic hosting provider, or the often weirdly behaving proxy I am behind right now—vanish it did. It was good, though.
Of course, I could recreate it. But I won’t. Who cares, anyway? I know I don’t. I would, of course, if I had any delusions of these words actually having any effect other than being my own, private vent. I would, if I had the delusion that it mattered, as in being a political, social or other action to write stuff here. But it doesn’t. Those activitites have other outlets, thank you.
Recently, one of my newer colleagues had the misfortune of being alloted a temporary office, next to the rest rooms—which are only a very thin wall away from her. As she said: “There are things I would rather not know about my colleagues.” I guess that is somewhat how I feel about blogs, these days. That and the futility and the delusions of grandeur. Not that those misgivings apply to the same blogs at the same time, but as the total set of my feelings about it all.
Yet I check my Bloglines account every other hour. Funny that.
» 3 days ago
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Some reading
The often excellent Danish Webzine RÆSON has two articles that are worth a perusal:
- Torturens betingelser—by Rune Engelbreth Larsen. Although I don’t usually have too much in common with Mr. Engelbreth Larsen and the party he represents (the so-called “Minority party”—if anything, a party catering to the petty bourgeois conscience), this article does address the issues raised by the events at Abu Ghraib in a sensible way. However, his dismissal of the idea that “rogue elements” perpetrated this because of the evil lying dormant in all of us (as I see it, a meme that is now being spread by some of those whose first reaction was denial) goes hand-in-hand with a much too broad shifting of the “root cause” to something that is “inherent in modernism”, is, at least in the form in which he articulates it here, peculiarly bereft of historical and sociological analysis—and, ultimately not much more useful than the search for “root causes” in human nature.
- Right War, Wrong Time, Wrong Way—an interview with Joseph Nye (there is an English version, too – in MS Word. ). He defends the viewpoint of the title, and gives some valuable insights into the various factions in the Bush administration, and why staking out a policy when your own administration is deeply split is difficult and destined for failure. Curiously lacking from his views is the sole reason (as far as I can see it) that there is a “pro-war left”, namely that Saddam needed to be disposed of sooner rather thah later, and a democracy established. Anyways, there is also some interesting comments about the Israel-Palestine conflict.
» 8 days ago
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Lomborg: movie critic
Bjørn Lomborg debuts as a movie critic: These Hollywood special effects may cost the world $15 trillion. He apparently believes that people who see the movie he “reviews” are unable to see it as a rather fictional entity, and that they will (including any politicians amongst them) run out from the theatre, screaming “Implement Kyoto now!”
Yeah, sure: movies do get their science wrong, more often that not. And, anyway, Mr. Lomborg fails to distinguish “scientists” and “scientists”: it does seem as if he believes that “scientists” are only those who agree with him; anybody who does not cannot be one. Gee, I must go back and look at his critics once again…
While at the Telegraph, be sure to take in Barbara Amiel’s War is a minefield for any democratic government—and then see John Quiggin’s response: Time to repeal Godwin’s Law ?
So much fun to be found at that newspaper in just one day.
» 10 days ago
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Intelligent design
So, William Dembski is visiting little old Denmark. The article I link to is an opinion peice in our flagship conservative paper, written by one Jakob Wolf, theologian. Predicatably, it is quite impressed by Mr. Dembski. As in:
The description of the organism as intelligently designes is open towards a religious interpretation. It makes it possible to view it as a manifestation of a transcendent cause. This religious interpretation is not part of the theory, but only a possibility it opens up. [...] The “intelligent design” theory is a renewal of an old tradition, and the renewal consists of a clarification of the old argument. This clarification takes place in two ways. Firstly, it consists of a precise critic of the Darwinian teaching. Secondly, it consists of a clarification of the analogization between the humane-created machine and the complex biological system.
The fawning article fails to point to some of the critics of Dembski, so consider these two links a public service—they are excellent starting points for looking into all that:
Sure, I support freedom of speech and all. I support hearing the arguments of the opposition. Still, it is a little unnerving to see that Dembski will appear at, among other places, the Niels Bohr Institute and the Technical University. Strangely enough, there is no information about the event at the Web site of either institution, so it is hard to figure out exactly who invited Mr. Dembski over.
» 10 days ago
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Some final thoughts
I guess I have said what I needed to say about Abu Ghraib—so many others say more, and say it better, that I feel tempted to let it rest now. However, a few final remarks would be in place, if, for nothing else, then for my own sake.
For sure, the “left” has had some hard thinking to do. Let us discard the petty bourgeois pseudo-left (and that would include, say, George Galloway and the SWP, and the similar tendencies here in Denmark (say, the ridiculous Worker’s Communist Party of Denmark)—but, and that is, of course, a broad and sweeping claim, any real “left” has never been in doubt that the sooner Saddam Hussein could be gone, the better. The schism between the pro- and the anti-war “left” has then been whether the Bush/Blair coalition could be trusted to do the job.
As Harry himself said a while back in a comment thread (and, yes: I have lost the exact link) the hope of the pro-war left was, in extremis, that the US army would be “the militia of the Iraqi communist party”—being that said party (or parties, as it happens) are about the only truly secular forces in Iraq with any mass appeal and credibility.
I, for one, was doubtful before the war about the feasibility of this. Although things, for a while, seemed to work out better than predicted by the anti-war left, recent events—and that is not only Abu Ghraib—casts deep shades of doubt upon this. Although “told you so” is not very productive, it is also quite true.
So while the “left” has had its internal discussions about this, the “pro-war” camp, then, also existed of a number of different factions with different goals and ambitions. Exactly who has the “pro-war left” gotten themselves in bed with—and do they feel the in the least queasy about it?
Norman Geras says something very poignant (and, I must add, it is a great relief to see him be so clear about this):
Amidst the general feelings of abhorrence brought forth by the revelations about the torture and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, those of us who supported the war in Iraq as a liberation of the Iraqi people from Baathist dictatorship have had a more particular reason to feel appalled. For it was precisely because that regime was one which permitted and practised torture and other unforgiveable crimes on the scale it did that it was an appropriate object, for us, of external intervention and removal. The project to remove it which it was right to support, and whose completion through the achievement of a sovereign, democratic Iraq it remains right, even now, to see through, has been shamefully and irreversibly tainted by what was done by American soldiers in that notorious prison. It is not to the point to say that the abuses were not, either in nature or scale, comparable to the crimes of the Saddam Hussein regime. The practice of torture, just as such, is an unmixed and inexcusable evil; it is an abomination.
That is, of course, a clear and principled answer from somebody who identifies himself as being “pro-war left”. Compare this with the shenanigans of the “pro-war right”—downplaying the problem, ascribing it to a few rogue elements, using idiotic comparisons with totally unrelated things. As, for example, the not-very-esteemable Joe Lieberman. Atrios’s comment is short and to the point:
Lieberman is making one of two points. Either he’s just saying “USA! Not quite as bad as the worst people on the planet!” Or, he’s saying “I just want to point out that some brown people unconnected to this event did some bad things!”
So, being “pro-war left”, there sure is a few things to be uncomfortable with. But long before all this, it was quite obvious that not everybody in the “pro-war” camp has the noble intentions that, e.g., Norman Geras or Harry have. Let me quote the resident ideologue of the Danish People’s Party, speaking in parliament in April 2003:
I shall confirm [...] that it is a correct understanding that our opinion is that there is a fundamental difference between the Kosovo war and the Iraq war. The Kosovo war was [..] a sort of an evangelizing armed mission for human rights. This is something that always carries with it the totalitarian perspective or interest, consisting of knowing better than others what is really at stake. And this would have also have been evident if the Iraq war had solely been, as they say, a matter of liberating Iraq.
But this was, as I said, a defensive war for Western interests against an Islamic terrorism that has shown itself to be willing to hit us where it can. And being self-defense, it is proper. If it had been an attempt to “liberate” distant countries, then you would be out there where you always claim to act in the interest of others, and this remains where the totalitarian motive and interest is.
Therefore, it is necessary to stress that one instance was an honest defensive war, and the other armed evangelizing.
I dare say this speaks for itself—but this is the kind of person the “pro-war left” finds itself riding along with. Not exactly somebody who cares much about the plight of the Iraqi people, eh? I don’t suggest that the fact that some pro-war righties have views like this (or like Lieberman’s) taints the nobler visions of the “pro-war left”. But I do suggest that the “pro-war left” do need to delineate how they differ from this (much as the sensible “anti-war left” need to distance themselves from, as mentioned above, Galloway etc.)
Anyway—and if you cared to read this far, you will relieved to hear that—I shall conclude this rambling rant with a couple of links that address the idea that what we have on our hands is sole instances of rogue behavior:
- The sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison was not an invention of maverick guards, but part of a system of ill-treatment and degradation used by special forces soldiers that is now being disseminated among ordinary troops and contractors who do not know what they are doing, according to British military sources.
- Support the troops
- The two military intelligence soldiers, assigned interrogation duties at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, were young, relatively new to the Army and had only one day of training on how to pry information from high-value prisoners.
Oh, and by the way, the increasingly bizarre Socialism in an Age of Waiting suggests that the fact that the “pseudo-left” (their term, not mine) does not speak out against Chinese abuses in Tibet somehow… I dunno: somehow, probably, has something to do with Iraq. Sort of a one up on Lieberman, if anything (and I am not so sure that “the left” does not speak out against China—and that it is, indeed, the “liberators of Iraq” that are quite happy to do a little trade there. Anyways.)
» 10 days ago
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What this guy said
Update: This Danish so-called “national-conservative” blogger makes me wanna puke. Your typical armchair wanker. Phew.
» 14 days ago
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