Joy to the world, Bin Laden's dead

It’s weeks like this that make me wish I did more than one blog a week. Fortunately most weeks I’m thankful that I only do one a week because I have trouble enough filling one blog post, let along two. The reason I say this is that there are two news stories I think ought to be covered this week, the first is the resounding ‘No’ the British people gave to the referendum on AV this week. Those with a decent memory will remember my series of posts about the General Election and how utterly insane our electoral system is. Given that I’ve not been in the country as this campaign has been going on, I haven’t been subject to the incredible ignorance and cynicism spewed forth from the ‘no’ campaign, and to a lesser extend the ‘yes’ campaign as well, had I been, this blog would probably be looking rather different. As it is my distance from the events has meant that I will only note in passing my disapproval and disappointment with this outcome.

The second piece of news that I would like to cover is the news that Osama Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan early this week. A team of US Navy Seals conducted a raid on a compound in Abbottabad in North-West Pakistan early on Monday morning, killing Bin Laden. Almost ten years after 9/11, the leader of Al-Qaeda and the mastermind behind the attack has finally been killed. I want to qualify what I’m about to say by saying that the world is a better place with the death of Bin Laden. His death, in itself, is a good thing. However the manor in which he was killed and the reaction to it by many people in the USA raises some interesting questions.

There is no doubt that Bin Laden was an evil man guilty of tremendous atrocities. His death is a good thing, but it might not be justified in the context in which it happened. In an ideal world, Bin Laden would face trial for his actions and be sentenced accordingly. He should have faced proper justice from an internationally recognised court. We may never know exactly what happened in that compound, and we should certainly not blame the Navy Seals for shooting Bin Laden, but we have to question the intend behind the raid. Was the intention to kill Bin Laden, or to capture him? If it is the latter, then we must ask why he was killed, given that the details given thus far seem to suggest that shooting Bin Laden dead was not proportional to the direct threat he presented. If the intention was to kill Bin Laden, then whoever gave that order should be held accountable.

The basic principle of justice on which any civilised, democratic state is built, states that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. ‘Proven’ means in a court of law, in this case, when dealing with war crimes on an international scale, an international court. In order for someone to be proven guilty, he must face a trial and be given the opportunity to defend himself. If Bin Laden was ordered dead, then he was not given the opportunity to face trial. Of course, there is no doubt that Bin Laden was guilty, but that does not change the fact that he should have faced trial.

The main issue with this is that it sets a very dangerous president. A government cannot simply murder someone without trail any more than a civilian can simply cold-bloodedly murder a wanted criminal. The US is fighting a war against terrorist who use violence in order to force people into doing what they want. Their main weapons are fear and violence. In order to fight this war, the civilised world has to adhere to its principles and offer a clear alternative to violence and terror. The way to do that is by acting on principles of justice and democracy, by bringing people to trial, not simply killing them.

Now, of course, the circumstances of Bin Laden’s death are somewhat cloudy and will always remain so. There is no way to be certain that his death was the intention. However, I would like to see US officials show some remorse that Bin Laden was not brought to trial. Instead, the reaction to Bin Laden’s death has largely been celebratory, with a healthy dose of self-congratulation.

I can understand that people are happy that Bin Laden is dead, as I said earlier; I’m not exactly upset, but the thing that I find difficult to understand is the sheer force of the joy shown by many. The Whitehouse has been right to try to limit the celebration and Obama has been very gracious in his reaction, but much of the rest of the country has, in many ways, acted in a way that is not entirely appropriate.

People were literally dancing in the street when the news was announced. To me, that sort of outlandish celebration does not seem appropriate. What I think it shows more than anything is the depth of the wounds inflicted on America as a country by 9/11. As someone who does not live in North America, I find the fact that 9/11 is still very raw to many Americans very interesting. As far as I’m concerned it was a great tragedy, but I now see it more in terms of the effect it has had on international politics and airport security. 9/11 is a turning point, one of those cataclysmic events in history that set wholesale changes in motion, equivalent to the French Revolution, or the Nazi invasion of Poland. Obviously, I am living through these changes and observing them, rather than just learning about them in retrospect, but even so, it is very similar. In the months and even years after 9/11 it was still raw and shocking, I was a little too young to have really appreciated it, but even so, I was aware of how cataclysmic it was. Now, however, almost ten years on, I see it as part of the past, something that doesn’t really affect me directly.

What has become clear in the last few days is that ten years has done little to dampen the impact of 9/11 for Americans. It is clearly something that is very much at the forefront of the American consciousness. It still hurts, badly. It makes sense. Not only did thousands die, but it was the first time American civilians had been threatened by someone from outside the USA in a very long time. Not even during the Cold War, when large scale nuclear conflict was a serious possibility, did anyone actually attack the USA on their own soil. Americans are still smarting from the attack, they are still reeling and they still feel vulnerable because of it. Even ten years on, that is still true.

It is not exactly surprising, then, that the death of the man ultimately responsible for the attack has been so well received. The incredible outpouring of emotion is understandable, if a little alien to those observing from the outside. I hope that the death of Bin Laden will allow the USA to start moving on from 9/11 and that it can pass into history for them, as it has for the rest of the world. Of course, it will always be remembered and should always be remembered, but I hope that it will have less of a presence on the American consciousness in the future.

However, in reality, things are unlikely to change too much. While Bin Laden was the official head of Al-Qaeda, he has, for a long time, been just a figurehead. Other men will rise to take his place and their cause will continue to be fought for. Killing Bin Laden is not like beheading a snake. It is a victory which will boost morale, but it will not make it any easier for the west to win the War on Terror. Some commentators and politicians are calling this the beginning of the end, but the grim reality is that there is a long way to go in the current war.

Terrorism continues to be a threat and that threat cannot be countered simply through war. If anything this war has done much to alienate people who would otherwise not turn to extremism. If we are to put an end to the threat to the western world from extremist Muslims, we need to work on getting the moderate Muslims on our side, rather than alienating them by waging war in their country. But that is a whole other topic for a different blog post. In the meantime, we should be glad that Bin Laden is dead, but be sorry he was never brought to trial.

Leaky Pipes

As I’m sure you’re all aware, international politics has recently suffered a crisis of honesty with the leak of numerous documents, most of which detail American diplomats bitching about world leaders to their superiors. The more interesting and sinister ones detail the private dealings of America with various other world powers to manipulate international politics. Obviously the leaks have caused America and her allies to go rushing around smothering any dissent and trying to put the man who leaked the documents into the deepest jail cell they can find, while trying desperately to retain some kind of moral high-ground – and looking like petulant children in the process.

Now I could spend all day detailing all the amusing personal comments about various world leaders; calling Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, ‘paranoid and weak’, or accusing Prince Andrew of being ‘cocky’, or calling Silvio Berlusconi ‘feckless, vain, and ineffective as a modern European leader’ for example – most of which are probably true and not really news to anyone – but that’s not really the issue at hand here. Indeed these comments are largely irrelevant and unhelpful – they are private comments made in confidentiality. They should not have been published in the first place because they do little beside provide dirt for journalists and thus muddy the water, making it harder to actually focus on the important things being leaked.

Like documents detailing how America has been launching anti-terrorist attacks in countries like Yemen without even telling the international community, while the Yemeni president covers it up by lying to his government. Or orders for US diplomats to steal sensitive information like passwords, credit card details and DNA samples from supposed allies in the UN. Or the UK continuing to store US cluster bombs, despite their illegality. Or the US offering monetary and political incentives for countries to take prisoners in Guantanamo Bay off their hands.

All of the above revelations are either illegal, immoral or both. They are indicative of America’s arrogance and disregard for international law. It is also telling that America’s obsession with their own international dominance at the expense peace, justice and morality has not begun to fade since the Cold War days. More than anything I think this whole episode has highlighted the problem with politics, both internationally and domestically.

Politics is all about gaining power. The job of an American diplomat is to try to further America’s power and influence over the rest of the world, so that the USA might continue to be a political and economic superpower. It is not to try to find the solution which promotes the most peace, justice or democracy. They are not there to find the right solution that is best for both parties and will promote international peace and good will for years to come. They are simply there to look after America’s short term interests.

Now I’m not saying that America is the only culprit here; every country enters any international diplomatic situation with its own interests firmly in the driving seat. These interests; political and economic, are to be ruthlessly pursued at all costs, even if the end result actually lands the rest of the world in a lot of trouble that will eventually cause a lot more suffering and hardship further down the line.

For examples of this we only need to look at almost any international law created since World War 2. We could look at the laws on international trade for example, that allow Europe and the USA to monopolise world agriculture, despite having much higher wages than the third world, because they can afford to play subsidies and don’t let third world countries protect their own industries with import tariffs. This means that cheap produce can flood third world countries from the developed world, undercutting local products and meaning that farmers cannot make a living out of the land, causing untold poverty and drastically slowing the development of the countries in question. No change in this situation seems likely in the future, given that the international bodies which regulate these laws, such as the World Trade Organisation are dominated by developed countries which benefit most from these unjust laws.

Politics, then, has become, or always was, nothing to do with creating a better world, trying to arrive at solutions which benefit the entire world in a non-violent, well thought-out and virtuous way. Politics is all about looking after number one. It is entirely selfish and self serving. Now those of you who know me and my political views will no doubt be wondering why I, usually so adamant that self-interest can be a force for good, am criticising selfishness. I must explain by saying that there are two kinds of selfishness; rational self-interest, which promotes one’s own interests without threatening the interests of others – indeed, it usually promotes the interests of others as well as one’s own – then there’s the kind of irrational, unthinking selfishness which is the kind that everyone criticises and it, unfortunately, predominant in politics. It’s the kind of short-sighted, ill-considered selfishness that leads to greater problems down the line, which are in turn only solved by temporary fixes which bring short term gains at the expense of long term interests.

This leads to international politics becoming based not on reason and the long term interests of the world, but based on who has the most power and from whom smaller nations can whore themselves out to; usually the USA. These leaks are mostly indicative of the countries either sucking up to the USA in order to gain political favour – like the Cluster bombs, Guantanamo Bay and Yemen cases – or attempts by the USA to manipulate world politics in their favour, like the spying case. Either way they’re all a rather chilling and deeply disturbing insight into the world of politics – a world that quite desperately needs to be cleaned up if the world is ever to become a place of widespread peace and prosperity.

Inevitably the USA and her allies have tried to cover up these leaks, shut down the website, fix the pipes and generally try to make themselves out to be the victim. In a completely flagrant disregard for anything they might have done wrong, US politicians are accusing the man who leaked the documents – Julian Assange – of causing irreparable damage to international relations and causing untold setbacks in the cause of world peace. While of course this is true, all Assage is doing is being the messenger; he is simply telling the world about all the dishonest, self-serving and largely illegal behaviour of the US and her allies. It is rather rich for the US to be accusing him of causing all this damage when it is simply the truth about their behaviour that has caused the damage.

Immediate self evaluation would be far too much to expect of a political system which has shown itself again and again to be incapable of changing without enormous pressure from voters – and even then there’s never any real change. One would hope that these leaks will at least enlighten the voters about just how shockingly corrupt and self-serving their politicians are. Whether this will cause any change, given that the only way to change the system if from within and the only way to get into the system is to be a part of the corruption and culture of selfishness in the first place, is highly doubtful. Nevertheless these revelations are incredibly important, even if they only serve to prove, once and for all, that a politician will never change his stripes and politics will always be an exercise in self-aggrandisement at the expense of virtue.

The United... Republic?

A couple of weeks ago the UK and indeed most of the rest of the Commonwealth was hurled into a torrent of joy, patriotism and nostalgia with the news that Prince William was to marry Kate Middleton; his long term girlfriend. I know this is old news, but one blog a week isn’t enough to keep up sometimes. I’m also sorry that this is so late; I’ve had a busy weekend.

Anyway, I think I was about the only one in the Commonwealth who wasn’t either very excited at the prospect of a royal wedding or at least apathetic to the whole thing. Ok that isn’t strictly true, but doubters were pretty hard to come by. The fact that so few people seem to think that the continued existence of the royal family is an affront to justice and democracy is almost as worry as the continued existence of the royal family.

‘An affront to justice and democracy’ is a pretty bold statement to make, so it deserves some form of explanation. Let’s define terms first; justice is the concept of getting what you deserve. If you work hard, you’ll be more successful that if you bum around; if you commit a crime, you will be punished; if you treat other with dignity and respect, they will treat you likewise. It’s a basic concept which forms the basis of any society. When if fails, you are left with either tyranny or anarchy. In short justice forms the basis for society.

One born, or indeed married, into the royal family is born, or married, into undeserved and unearned privilege. Palaces and luxury are yours by birthright. From the moment you first draw breath you are destined for wealth and high office. Royalty are destined for privilege that no other citizen can even dream of attaining, no matter how hard they work, and yet they have to do nothing to earn such honour.

Unearned wealth and privilege goes against any rational definition of justice and the royal family embody unearned wealth and privilege. Of course the same can be said of any kind of inheritance, and I would agree with you, however this inheritance is such a gross and overwhelming one that all others pale in comparison. There is no way that any of the royal family could possibly attain what they inherit by their own efforts.

We must not forget also that royalty does not only embody wealth, but also high office. Here is where the democracy comes in. The ideal of democracy is that those deemed most able by the populace is appointed to lead them for a select period of time. It is, in many ways, an extension of justice – a collective choice of leader is made of he who is most deserving and, depending on how good the decision was, the people are either served well or badly. If things go badly, they only have to blame themselves.

The royal family are destined for high office. Prince William, so long as he doesn’t die before hand, will eventually inherit the throne. That means he becomes the official diplomatic, military and political leader of the UK and the rest of the Commonwealth. The people over whom he rules have no say in the matter and have no constitutional capacity to depose him. He will have done nothing to deserve it beyond simply being born for it. His wife will have done nothing beyond being lucky enough to be the object of his affection.

Unelected, indefinite power is not democracy. Sure the King/Queen has no real power – that lies with Parliament, but they still have a significant diplomatic and official role in the country. They often act as our spokesperson and act on the world stage in a very significant way. We cannot possibly call this democracy.

So the royal family is clearly and demonstrably undemocratic and unjust, so why do so many people celebrate their ongoing existence? Most of it is a rather fond nostalgia, harking back to the days when Britain was the world’s only super-power, rather than an increasingly isolated and insignificant island, neither in Europe, nor outside it. This is complemented with a rather large dollop of conservatism.

These arguments are impossible to refute, because they are, at heart, an emotional response that can only be refuted with introspection. There are some arguments, largely straw-men, which can be tackled head on.

The most significant of these is the appeal to tourism. It is argued that the royal family and all the pomp they represent are good for the tourist industry. They are a veritable magnet for visitors to the UK and Buckingham palace is on every tourist trail worth following. The problem is that if you go to France, the Palace of Versailles is just as popular, and yet no living monument to bygone days squats there. No tourist would shun the palace if it were to become an empty shell of our history, rather that a living piece of it.

I don’t think we should shun and forget the rich and long history that the UK has, of which the royal family has played an integral part, but there is a different between celebrating history and living in the past. Just like the monarchies of ever other European country, the gross injustice of monarchy belongs in the past. It should be remembered and the deeds of the great men and women who occupied the position should be celebrated – just as the deeds of the rather worse men and women (of whom there are just as many) should be bemoaned.

The rulers who occupy the pages of history should be studied so that we might understand how the UK came to be the way it is today, but they should not continue to be written into the history books. They have no place in a modern society in which justice and democracy rule, because they contradict both. No amount of nostalgia can fix that.

Speaking of nostalgia and how it is no excuse for progress, you might notice the rebranding. I have a new name for this blog because I didn’t like the old one. The content will not change, but now I won’t be quite so embarrassed by the title.