Where Worlds Collide

God's Unfinished Business

Richard Hall's Economics and Theology blog reviews John Wilding's God's Unfinished Business: Evolution of Humanity. I thought I'd mention it, because not only am I related to the reviewer, I also know one of the authors.

Terrorists Amongst Us

TWO Pendle men have appeared before Pennine magistrates accused of having "a master plan" after what is believed to be a record haul of chemicals used in making home-made bombs was found in Colne.

What race and religion were those accused terrorists? South Asian Muslims, perhaps? Well, no. It turns out that they're members of the neo-Nazi BNP.

This story is all over the British blogosphere, on sites like Pickled Politics and Harry's Place. Even some American blogs have picked up on it. But so far the national media has completely ignored the story. No screaming headlines in the racist Daily Express of the sort we'd be seeing had those two would-be terrorists been brown people.

Torture

The British media hasn't made much of the ugly 'deal' between George Bush and the US Congress, which legitimises torture in all but name, and defines 'Enemy Combatant' so dangerously broadly that it could include just about anyone that George Bush doesn't like.

Patrick Nielsen Hayden has collected a lot of blogosphere responses, culminating with this quote from Jim Henley

It is now official United States policy that our security depends on hiding people away and torturing them, said decision to be made in secret without review. This is what the United States says about who we are.

Dave Neiwert, who the usual suspects amongst the Freepi dismiss as a tinfoil-hat conspiracy theorist, is not the only person to use the F-word.

Fascists are particularly fond of torture because it represents such a complete expression of the fascist will to power. So when a nation adopts torture as an officially condoned policy -- as the United States has just done -- it immediately raises the specter that, indeed, it may be descending into the fascist abyss.

Neiwert goes on to look at Robert O. Paxton's nine "mobilizing passions" of fascism, and compare them with what's happening with the American right. The conclusions he comes to are disturbing.

The appearance of legal torture as part of the American landscape is a profound change, and certainly signals the approach of the totalitarian state, though it may not herald its actual arrival. And considering that a right-wing regime is involved, discussing the specter of fascism is not only appropriate but necessary.

Even if it does not signal the actual arrival of fascism, it's the clearest warning sign of its approach yet. Torture is a quintessentially fascist act; codifying it means that the massive brick in the wall that it represents has been plunked into place. And it's the kind of brick that can be the cornerstone of a massive national pathology of apocalyptic proportions.

The terrible truth is that those of us who consider outselves 'liberal' are fighting a war on two fronts. The Jihadi are a genuine threat; there really are nihilist fanatics out there trying to kill us. Anyone who thinks that the July 7 London bombings were some kind of false flag operation is off in tinfoil hat land. But the authoritatian elements within our own ruling elites represent just as big a threat to freedom and democracy. They're using the fear of Islamist terror as a pretext for a power grab of their own.

And don't think it just applies to America. Some of the recent utterances by John Reid are little different from the words use by Republican senators supporting the torture bill.

As commenter "Midwesterner" said on Samizdata.net

If a 21st century superpower can't defend itself from 7th century jihadists without sinking to their level, (or even sinking appreciably) we are doomed and might as well fold our hand now.

The conduct of terrorists and torturers does not make it acceptable conduct for us.

Ian Macwhirter on John Reid

The Herald and Sunday Herald journalist Ian Macwhirter on John Reid in Comment is free:

Most didn't notice, but in his farewell speech Tony Blair set out Reid's leadership prospectus by saying that Labour should attack David Cameron for being soft on criminals and too anti-American. This was a direct appeal to Reid as the only man willing to take on the Tories from the right, rather than the left.

Tony Blair was extravagant in his praise for Reid conference speech, the opening bid in Reid's campaign for the leadership. But if Labour installs him as its leader, the party will complete its transition to an authoritarian party of the populist right. It will mean riots at home; new wars abroad. There will be imprisonment without trial, a massive increase in police powers, curbs on immigration.

This must not happen. If Reid becomes leader, I will be voting for David Cameron.

This is the man who two months ago threw Britain's airports into chaos, disrupting the travel plans and wrecking the holidays of tend of thousands, not because there was any real immediate thread, but just so he could play the role of the strutting he-man.

This makes me glad I live in a Liberal Democrat held constituency (Cheadle). Having come of political age during Thatcherism, and suffering daily from the results of railway privatisation, I'd really have to hold my nose in order to consider voting for the Tories.

I wonder what will Ming Campbell will do in the event of a hung parliament with a Reid-led 'Labour' as the largest party? I hope he has nothing to do with this Stalinist thug.

Quote of the Day

From Slacktivist

If you feel your religious tradition has been slandered, falsely accused of promoting violence and the "command to spread by the sword the faith," then it's probably best not to respond to such remarks violently. Bombing churches tends not to be an effective way of convincing others that your religion has not become corrupted by the adoption of violent coercion as a means of spreading/defending the faith. It may, in fact, be counterproductive -- reinforcing and providing evidence for the negative criticisms of your faith.

Also: If you're upset with something said by the Roman Catholic pontiff, then it makes no sense to take out this anger with violence against a 1,425-year-old Greek Orthodox church. That makes about as much sense as invading Iraq in retaliation for Sept. 11.

And while we're on the subject, Rob has discovered the ultimate reality show

More tales of chaos

Yet another Heathrow horror story, again showing that the BBC and other mainstream media have been giving a ridiculous rose-tinted version of how bad things really were. I think we've going to be seeing more and more stories like this in the coming days

If there really was a serious threat (something that's looking increasingly unlikely), BAA's correct response should have been to close the airports and cancel all flights, at least until the extent of the threat was known.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Calder reminds us of a Guardian profile from four years ago about the Stalinist John Reid.

In private, for none will speak on the record, Reid's enemies in the party accuse him, among other things, of being: over friendly with a wanted war criminal, an unprincipled dogmatist, both a vacuous New Labour hack and a back-stabbing Old Labour schemer, and a man so in love with the sound of his own logic that he never stops to examine his false initial premise. Worse yet, Reid is a lone Blairite traitor within the ranks of the Scottish Labour party. He remains a relatively isolated figure even within New Labour. Without Blair's blessing, he'd be in the wilderness. He is more of a functionary than a potential leader; an apparatchik. If we had a Politburo instead of a cabinet, Reid would probably be running the State Security Division. And he'd probably be good at it.

That sounds much like the sort of man we're seeing at the moment, shedding crocodile tears about the large-scale human misery his authoritarian overreactions have caused, and claiming all the delays, lost luggage, missed weddings and broken laptops is a price worth paying to keep us safe from evil terrorists.

Travelling Light

A few days ago, Norm proposed this:

You'll laugh at the idea. Please feel free. Everybody else has - family and friends to whom I've put it. But it's an idea I've had for many years - certainly from way back before 9/11 - and I feel I should go public with it finally, with the restrictions announced today on hand luggage for those travelling by air. Here is the proposal: airline passengers to travel lightly clad and without any luggage at all, other than essential documents, medicines etc.

It would be very inconvenient, of course. You'd have either to buy what you needed at your destination, or mail it ahead of time, or borrow from friends if you have them there. A new line of business might emerge hiring out stuff to visitors from other countries. I haven't done a full cost-benefit analysis of the proposal. But you'll have grasped its core rationale by now. It would make terrorist assaults on passenger planes much more difficult. You read it first on normblog.

Little did he know that this was precisely what was happening on Thursday

Around 10,000 bags checked in by British Airways passengers have gone missing at airports since the UK security alert began, the airline says.

More worryingly, there were reports on Channel 4 news about large-scale theft of valuables from passenger's luggage, exactly as seasoned travellers had predicted. Either this is an 'inside job' by crooked baggage handling staff, or unauthorised people are getting into secure areas to steal stuff. The first implies that any security vetting of baggage staff is woefully inadequate. The second implies the same about physical security within the airport. If they're failing to screen out thieves, who has any confidence that they'd be any more successful at screening out terrorists? Will the next terrorist attack on an aircraft involve a bomb smuggled on board in baggage handling?

Airline Meltdown Continues

There is a total disconnect between what I'm hearing from most of the media, and what everybody bar the wingnuts is saying on the blogosphere. On the media we're seeing straggling lines of travellers in the rain in Heathrow car park, with talk of 'stoic Brits' with implications of the Blitz spirit. Nobody is interviewing the thousands of people who have cancelled their trips, or any the large number of people who have had their valuables lost, destroyed or stolen in baggage handling. We did have the head of Ryanair on Channel 4 News publically questioning the baggage rules that threaten the very survival of his business, and implying that security bureaucrats didn't have a clue. That man was angry. Justifiably.

Amadán and Dave are both pretty scathing of events from a US perspective, with Dave fisking one of the morons who is accusing anyone that questions the official hogwash as 'selfish' or 'endangering the lives of thousands of people'.

Security expert Bruce Schneier has a fairly level headed commentary on why the current security theatre isn't going to save any lives.

Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan who knows a lot about the dark side of the 'war on terror', speculates that this is closer to the real story than the official line being spun by the government.

Then an interrogation in Pakistan revealed the details of this amazing plot to blow up multiple planes - which, rather extraordinarily, had not turned up in a year of surveillance. Of course, the interrogators of the Pakistani dictator have their ways of making people sing like canaries. As I witnessed in Uzbekistan, you can get the most extraordinary information this way. Trouble is it always tends to give the interrogators all they might want, and more, in a desperate effort to stop or avert torture. What it doesn't give is the truth.

. . . .

We then have the extraordinary question of Bush and Blair discussing the possible arrests over the weekend. Why? I think the answer to that is plain. Both in desperate domestic political trouble, they longed for "Another 9/11". The intelligence from Pakistan, however dodgy, gave them a new 9/11 they could sell to the media. The media has bought, wholesale, all the rubbish they have been shovelled.

Tinfoil hat territory? Maybe. But his story is at least as credible as the line being officially spun.

As for the loathsome Home Secretary, John Reid:

For those who don't know, it is worth introducing Reid. A hardened Stalinist with a long term reputation for personal violence, at Stirling University he was the Communist Party's "Enforcer", (in days when the Communist Party ran Stirling University Students' Union, which it should not be forgotten was a business with a very substantial cash turnover). Reid was sent to beat up those who deviated from the Party line.

If the Government really are spinning a line which is mostly hyperbole and lies, as Murray suggests, that I pray that it all unravels sooner rather than later. And I hope that unravelling takes this vile man down with it.

Paranoia's Poison Door

So the police manage to foil an alleged terrorist plot, but they still decide to enforce draconian security restrictions on all air travellers. Now you couldn't even take a book on board a plane, let alone an iPod or laptop. All this was dropped on the airlines with two hours notice, sending the airports into total meltdown.

I wonder how many people will attempt to stave off the boredom of a long-haul flight with no reading material by getting blind drunk? And that will improve safety exactly how?

I can't help feeling that a lot of this is pointless 'security theatre' which does nothing to reduce any real threat, but gives a facade that Something Is Being Done. The brutal fact is that if a bunch of terrorists are determined to kill large numbers of people, there's virtually no way of stopping them in a free society other than infiltrating their networks and capturing them before they strike (which is exactly what the British police appear to have done). Ever more cumbersome and disruptive security measures against last week's preferred terrorist targets will just divert them to attack softer targets. Keep them off planes and they'll just blow up something else, like nightclubs and sporting events.

Of course, the timing is wonderfully convenient for Tony Blair. Up until this blew up there was the feeling that he was in the final days of his premiership, like the last days of Thatcher. The British people have by and large completely lost confidence in him, large parts of his own party now realise he's an electoral liability. But all of this is now forgotten. Look over there! Evil terrorists!

While all this paranoia-driven security theatre is in place, there's no way I'm going to be flying anywhere. I travelled by air to Switzerland a few weeks ago; If I travel there again next year I will be travelling by train, even though the journey may take twelve hours. If people just shrug, and put up with all this, like all the sheep-like individuals interviews by the media, this nonsense will get worse and worse. People must vote with their feet and their wallets.

Cory Doctorow also thinks the whole thing is completely ridiculous.

The point of terrorism is to make us afraid. The UK response to a foiled plot is to create an unspecified period during which fliers are arbitrarily deprived of iPods, novels and dignity.

If this is a good idea now, then why won't it still be a good idea in a year? A decade? After all, terrorist plots will always exist in potentia (can you prove that no terrorist plots are hatching at this moment?) Until they handcuff us all nude to our seats and dart us with tranquilizers, there will always be the possibility that a passenger will do something naughty on a plane (even then, who knows how much semtex and roofing nails a bad guy could hide in his colon?).

I flew from the UK to the US about fifty times in the past 36 months. Speaking as someone who's neck would be on the line if a terrorist got onto a plane, I'd take my chances with the iPods and novels and dignity.

Charlie Stross wonders what the real motivation for all this security theatre might be.

It used to be said that patriotism was the first resort of the scoundrel. Now terror-mongering is giving it a close run for its money. When someone tries to scare you, the first question you should ask is "who benefits?" Al Qaida and their friends carry out terrorist acts in order to terrorise you, with a specific political agenda in mind. Why are the US and UK governments trying to do the terrorists jobs for them? And what is their fear-facilitated agenda?

Jonathan Calder looks at the recent speech by Home Secretary John Reid, and thinks he has the answer to Charlie's Question

So the problems we face are the existence of politicians who disagree with the government, an independent judiciary and a free press. In short, the central institutions of a liberal democracy.

Faced with this it is hard to forget that John Reid received his political education in the Communist Party of Great Britain in the early 1970s. That is after Hungary, after Czechoslovakia, after all but the most deluded had seen through the nature of the Soviet system.

It is usual, while observing that many central figures in New Labour came from the hard left, to remark that they left all their ideological baggage behind, retaining only their talent for organisation and belief in party discipline.

Yet reading the report of Reid's speech, the marxist echoes sound clearly

In other words, what we have is a real live 1970s East German-style Communist, using the exaggerated threat of terrorism as a pretext for an authoritarian power grab.

We've always been at war with Eastasia.

Bush Losing Core Supporters

It's bad news for Dubya

President Bush appears to be losing support among a key group of voters who had hitherto stood firmly with the president even as his poll numbers among other groups fell dramatically. A new Gallup poll shows that, for the first time, Bush's approval rating has fallen below 50% among ....

Warning, link contains naughty words! (from Making Light)