Blogoir: September

Is Zimbabwe's political power-sharing agreement good or bad for Zimbabwe?

If anything is deemed to be better than total collapse, it might be seen as good (for the time being, until it isn't).

But it sets a wretched precedent.

It has all the moral stature of a deal between a reasonably honest citizen and the mugger who attacks him. To keep the peace and 'prevent more bloodshed', the mugger gets to stay gripping the citizen's arm to stop him moving freely - and to keep a large share of the money he stole from him.

Should my and your taxpayers' money go to prop up this absurd situation?

Not in any serious quantity.

Maybe as in the case of utterly incompetent banks looking to go bust, honourable attempts to stave off the worst only make the worst even worse when it finally happens?

What is the precise mechanism which makes people start to talk in arch post-modern jargon?

Like this:  Labour needs to provide a convincing new narrative if left-of-centre politics are to remain the driving force in Britain.

Or this:  Mr Brown and Mr Darling must find new ways of telling a story ... a change of narrative will not be easy for them.

And this:  An effective Labour narrative on the environment can help us win back many of the middle-class voters...

Polly:  A new leader urgently needs to find a way to tell Labour's narrative anew.

Countless tragic Labour narratives around at the moment, but a cursory Google search reveals that the Conservatives have plenty too.

I railed against this horrible n-word when it started being used by the European Directorate of the FCO.

It conveys a sense of unserious sly, slippery subjectivity.

Of made-up fiction, not hard facts. Of fleeting disloyalty to Ideas as to Purpose.

"Wo, that narrative is not working, so let's get another one."

Memo to next Government:

Send back crossly any submission or draft speech with this odious word used in that creepy sense.

Have policies, not stories. Take responsibility for them.

How bad is it getting as the global financial system takes another big hit as Lehman Brothers tank?

The reasonably optimistic case for the US economy is here.

And the sprawling mess of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is scarcely a crisis of private enterprise - rather a result of the unhealthy relationships which had developed between these organisations and Big Government.

Look at the politicians they supported financially.

Some, hem, familiar names towards the top of the list?

All that said, my pitiful holding of equities has taken a dive.

Eeek.

At times like this, the basics come back in fashion:  "don’t lend people money who can’t pay it back."

Right now, for me, gender trumps everything else.

Therefore, what?

Greetings Britblog Rounduppers.

Number 187 hosted by Liberal England is here.

It links to my post on European Parliament instincts to 'validate' bloggers:

Charles Crawford offers a voice of sanity here:

Above all there is a way to 'validate' the best bloggers.

It's called the marketplace, millions of judgements by millions of people, evolving over time, exploring what makes sense and what does not.

Sounds pretty sane to me.

If you are in a political race, you want to exploit whatever tendency your opponent's supporters have towards craziness.

Since the crazier your opponent's noisiest fans behave, the higher the chances that neutrals may start to wonder if your opponent is just a bit crazy too, and so tend towards voting for you.

So, how best to do it?

If you can, find a way to provoke them into screaming repeatedly "We are not crazy!" Their frantic denials of craziness of course will come across as ... fairly crazy.

Alternatively, behave in a non-crazy way and try to goad them to scream "You're crazy!" Those screams too when contrasted with your genial mien will be  unconvincing.

Sarah Palin's appearance in the US Presidential race has (so far) flummoxed the Democrats in this sense.

Grappling to find a way to dent her evident feisty womanly appeal to millions of Americans, they make attacks on her which are so weird as to say more about the attackers than about her supposed demerits.

Thus, call me a British fuddy-duddy if you will, but I just don't think that implying that Sarah Palin preys on teenage boys is going to win over many people in the US political centre.

Is inexperience for high office in the United States a problem?

Or a design feature:

If we implicitly think uncertified citizens are unfit for the highest offices, why do we trust those same citizens to select our highest officers through free elections?

Russia's PM Putin and President Medvedev have been hosting groups of Western journalists, to quite good effect from the Russian point of view.

Even if some of the language used by Putin might have been a bit ... overvivid.

A tendency also visible these days in the robust style of Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov?

These three top Russian leaders are each confident, intelligent, hard and eloquent men. They work up national Russian positions untrammelled by the need to 'consult partners' or to worry overmuch about public opinion.

And they have canny media advisers suggesting ways of complicating the emotional and intellectual responses of the Western journalists they talk to - Putin ended his briefing session with a minute's silence for the victims of 9/11. 

That said, the Putin/Medvedev briefings seem to have offered a toned-down, would-be reassuring, definitely non-imperial account of Russian motives in partitioning Georgia. They stressed that they wanted no new Cold War - just Understanding.

Maybe they had grasped that the Georgia exercise was not cost-free:

The benchmark RTS index has lost 46 percent of its value since its peak in May, representing a paper loss of about $700 billion for Russian companies.

Putin reportedly even offered a new, flexible position on Ukraine/NATO, which he might come to regret in the future:

On Ukraine and its possible future membership of Nato, Mr Putin warned that there was no public majority in the country itself [Note: ie in Ukraine] in support of this... 

The one-time head of the rebranded KGB, the FSB, bemoaned what he described as Russia being "embattled and encircled" by a "hostile West", accompanying his compaints with occasional sighs of frustration. Mr Putin said that Russia strongly opposed Nato membership for its western neighbour but for the first time said that if the Ukrainian people voted to join Nato, "that would be their decision". In which case, "so be it", he added. This was a sharp change from his position two years ago when he accepted Ukraine might join the EU but expressed outright opposition to it joining Nato.

One way or the other, these top Russians are all on top of their game.

And very good at being Russian.

"If someone truly understands how to create menace and uncertainty and mistrust, then how to exploit and magnify the presence of these disconcerting elements, the loop can be vicious, a terribly destructive force, virtually unstoppable in causing panic and confusion and -- Boyd's phrase is best -- 'unraveling the competition.' ...

The most amazing aspect of the OODA loop is that the losing side rarely understands what happened."

Fighter pilots need to be good at this sort of thing.

One of them is?

Clinton strategist Mark Penn:

I think here the media is on very dangerous ground. I think that when you see them going through every single expense report that Governor Palin ever filed, if they don't do that for all four of the candidates, they're on very dangerous ground.

I think the media so far has been the biggest loser in this race. And they continue to have growing credibility problems.

And I think that that's a real problem growing out of this election. The media now, all of the media — not just Fox News, that was perceived as highly partisan — but all of the media is now being viewed as partisan in one way or another. And that is an unfortunate development.

Not really.

The Unfortunate Development has been the US media being or becoming partisan and this not being noticed.

Now that it has been noticed, maybe the media will try to do an honest job.

This, in fact, is easy. When interviewing a candidate for high office, broadcast the questions and answers as given - not cut and paste the answers in ad hoc TV clips to make the politician concerned look bad.

Surely the media are not that clueless/biased?

Oh yes they are.

Reminds me of the Elvis Costello song Invisible Man:

Never mind there's a good film showing tonight,
Where they hang everyone everybody who can read and write.
Oh that could never happen here - but then again it might...

So many examples, so little time.

Try this one.

An EU Embassy in London wants to move away from its expensive and old-fashioned practice of employing only people from its home country for every job (ie to have a mixture of 'home-based' staff and 'locally employed' staff').

It approaches the FCO to ask for background on how we manage the practicalities and policy of this round the world.

Eventually a terse letter appears to this effect:

Unfortunately the FCO is not resourced to deal with questions like this.

This sort of thing spreads like wildfire round the Diplomatic Corps in London.

It is a textbook example of the unique combination of prissy unhelpfulness which has come to infect civil service procedure over the past decade.

Why? Because under unrelenting Treasury pressure civil servants spend hours filling in meaningless forms/spreadsheets/surveys on targets/goals/objectives and have so many drivelling 'priorities' they end up not doing their job - and (worse) being sanctimonious about their inadequacy.

Memo to next government:

Put a line through all that on Day One.

Issue a new instruction to the whole civil service thus:

Your first objective is to be courteous and helpful to everyone who shows up.

Then sack anyone who tries to hide behind 'pressure of work' or 'stress' as an excuse for being useless.

And see how morale and the quality of service soar.

Help!

The US media are being manipulated! By Sarah Palin!

And they are getting cross about it.

But how convincing is their fury?

Not very:

When Howie claims he's getting really really mad, I wonder if he realizes he sounds like Elmer Fudd warning Bugs Bunny "You're making me vewy vewy angwy" right after he's shot his own butt off.

Craig Murray is having more problems getting his views published, this time on various important African issues.

He complains at great length that various concerns expressed by his lawyers and publishers about passages in his new book amount to 'censorship' and a massive suppression of free speech:

... under this country's crazy libel laws you cannot even retell things you did yourself unless you have other objective evidence that you did it. And you may not express opinions that are not mainstream, or which may upset the government or the rich and powerful.

I think the position in fact is that if Craig wants to publish his views and run a risk of a heavy libel suit, no-one is stopping him.

It's just that the publishers he has chosen have taken legal advice and (it seems) would prefer not to risk getting entangled in all that with the text as it stands.

Not obviously unreasonable. They are in business to make money, and the fun (and profit) of doing that with a new Craig Murray book may be diminished by a volley of expensive litigation.

If no other publisher is willing to take it on, Craig has the route of publishing and distributing a pamphlet to get his views out, as in the infamous Count Nikolai Tolstoy case.

Or there's the Internet. And some good ideas from people commenting on Craig's own site.

Lots of choices, in fact.

Some potentially more lucrative - but potentially more costly - than others.

Isn't having a wide and subtle range of choices a good part of what Freedom is all about, for writers - and publishers - alike?

I am off to London to seek my fortune, as it appears that people with fortunes are selfishly loath to share them with me.

Back on Saturday.

It makes little sense to fly an aircraft half-empty, or play to empty concert-hall seats.

But how to deal with the information management problem of filling those seats as the start deadline looms?

Maybe like this?

A good piece about Stalinist persecution of a fine scientist whose views were ideologically inconvenient.

And the long-term disaster this brought to Russia.

Sometimes being an Ambassador is excruciatingly painful.

Back in 2006 the marvellous Croatian Ambassador in Warsaw Nebojsa Koharovic hosted a group of us to watch Croatia play England. I was given a front-row seat as Ambassadorial Guest of Honour.

It was not going well, with Croatia a goal up.

Then this happened: 

Horror.

But what goes around, comes around.

And all the more charming and enjoyable when it does.

Brian Barder describes a failed attempt to pull together a letter to The Times from a group of British ex-Excellencies about 'the profoundly mistaken policies of the British and American governments' towards Russia/Georgia:

... some of those who had occupied key positions in the area during their diplomatic careers, and whose signatures were needed if the letter was to make any significant impact, now hold post-retirement appointments in both the public and private sectors, some actually in Russia, and are consequently precluded from joining in controversial expressions of opinion of this kind...

Hmm. Not to mention some who had occupied key positions in the region and flatly disagreed with the line proposed?

Brian does share with us the draft of the sort of letter being cranked up, a laborious effort with at least one very strange angle:

... Russians have historically always been preoccupied by fears of encirclement by a potentially hostile west, and concerned that their immediate neighbours should never fall under the influence of a potential great power adversary. Whether such fears are well founded in Russia's experience over centuries is irrelevant: as the saying goes, just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they aren't out to get you. 

Huh?

Wrong! Seriously, really wrong.

It is hugely 'relevant' whether such fears are well founded.

Are we dealing with basically reasonable European-minded people whose concerns are heartfelt but sincere, albeit misguided ?

Or with something much darker, feverishly anti-Western Red-Brown national-socialist extremists, wound up by the former KGB?

Is not the point rather that 'just because you claim to be paranoid, it doesn't mean that they are out to get you'?

The final paragraph of Brian's blog entry on all this has an extended sentence sprawling far across Siberia, part of which runs that Russia did more than any other to defeat Hitler when all Europe and much of Asia was in danger of being overrun by fascism...

True. But misses the vital point which Putin's Moscow want us to miss.

Who unleashed the fascist onslaught on Europe to start WW2, and why?

Yes ... it's all coming back.

Former Weatherman Bill Ayers explains himself - in a (not very) comic strip:

Way to go cool 1960s' Radical Left politics ("I don't think violent resistance is necessarily the answer...") albeit a bit gaunt now.

Need to work on the grammar of that final sentence, Bill.

But he does manage a magnificent compassionate head-tilt...

I previously linked to Christopher Hitchens and Michael Totten analysing why the Kosovo case is quite different from the cases of either S Ossetia or Abkhazia, rendering spurious/dishonest Russia's recognition of the latter two as new states.

Here for good measure is former US Ambassador to Zagreb and Belgrade, my friend Bill Montgomery, who points up some similarities and concludes:

While Western leaders will be quick to point out what they view are profound differences between these cases (and also point out the brutal crushing by Russia of the attempted independence of Chechnya located in the middle of Russia as an example of a cynical Russian double standard), the reality is that the Kosovo case has opened the door for what has now followed. We are, at least to some extent, "hoisted on our petard," as the English would say.

[US/UK linguistic rivalry note: in fact we English say 'hoist'.]

Here is my view on this Kosovo Precedent issue.

There are in fact different sorts of precedent at play as between these three situations. They are not discrete or even conceptually coherent - in diplomatic and political life they overlap and get entangled in all sorts of ways.

1   Precedents of Fact:

These are factual similarities which give rise (or are seen as not giving rise) to good reasons for the states round the planet to deal with Case B as Case A has been handled.

Bill's article lists some pertinent similarities here, such as UNSC Resolutions, unilateral declarations of independence, use of (or threat of use of) force by the former capital against the territories concerned, historic struggles for ethnic identity.

As Michael Totten points out, the legitimacy of the now-existing facts may differ - a territory which chases out one ethnic group to try to proclaim itself independent is not coming to the issue with clean hands. (Note: indeed, as some people argue was the case for the state of Israel.)

Basically, in most of these circumstances facts can be ambiguous or contested or denied as being relevant. Therefore recognising new states is an issue fraught with politics and operational complexity, even though in international law theory one basic test of qualification for statehood sounds rather 'objective':

The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.

2   Precedents of Law:

This is the interpretation of facts as entered into international law norms through decisions or practice. If it can be shown that where facts A, B, C and D apply a state has been recognised, that makes it harder for those opposing recognition where such facts also apply. The whole 'legal' business in this area is of course highly political - hence general lack of recognition of Taiwan. See also Kurds, passim.

3   Precedents of Process:

These are earlier examples of how tricky recognition issues in fact have been handled previously. They are called in aid (or denied as being relevant) as necessary. One easy example is where a state divides in two via an uncontested divorce: see eg the emergence of Czech Republic and Slovakia from the former Czechoslovakia, or more recently the independence of Montenegro.

For a very different scenario, the Canadian Supreme Court has given some solid hurdles for Quebec to pass if it is to secede from Canada - an example not unfairly cited in Belgrade against the way Kosovo has been dealt with. And, of course, see Taiwan.

4   Precedents of Outcome:

How have different independence bids in fact fared? Failure to secure independence (and thereby general international recognition leading to UN membership) even in reasonably propitious circumstances may lead to a legal and actual mess, which both deters others from trying and deters states from recognising those who do try.

OK, OK.

Therefore what about Kosovo and S Ossetia/Abkhazia?

Where key Western powers went irrevocably wrong on Kosovo was (I think) on the Precedent of Process, although the Precedent of Law was also dodgy.

Following the end of the Cold War there had been a general and basically successful collective understanding in Europe (and therefore round the world) that new countries would emerge in Europe if 'all concerned were happy (or happy enough)'. This also linked in to the principles of the historic 1975 Helsinki Final Act, where respect for territorial integrity is writ large.

The core (accurate) conclusion of Washington and most EU capitals was that in the Kosovo case the prospects for Kosovo staying peacefully within Serbia were zero. This in turn led them to conclude (unwisely) that an enforced divorce now - and, vitally, solely on the terms demanded by Kosovo - was the only credible option.

They also took the view (wrongly) that Russia, Serbia and others known to be unhappy would come round to agreeing, or could safely be ignored huffing and puffing away inconsequentially in the corner.

To pursue this approach Kosovo had to be dealt with outside a Helsinki-style consensus framework, in a weird sort of 'multilaterally-unilateral' way. The first time this had happened since 1975.

We see now that this conclusion represented a serious misjudgement of Putin's Russia, and also of the capacity of Belgrade to drum up diplomatic support round the planet playing on old Non-Aligned Movement friendships. Failure to secure consensus for Kosovo's independence even within the EU merely piles on the embarrassment.

Having messed up on the Precedent of Process, the 'pro-Kosovo' Western powers have allowed Russia to pounce.

In Georgia's case Russia can make a sort of case that similarities between Kosovo and S Ossetia/Abkhazia tick the Precedents of Facts box, and that it is merely following Western examples on Precedents of Law and Process.

The very unconvincingness of the global community's recognition (not) of Kosovo makes the Russian move easier. Had the world community quickly moved to recognise Kosovo the Russians would have had to think hard about the fatuous independence claims of S Ossetia and Georgia, as they would have had no chance of achieving a similar result.

As it is, Russia more or less alone recognises these puny territories. And says "oh shucks, it will take time to secure general international recognition of Kosovo - just as in these two cases. But we are realistic - and patient..."

NB Moscow in fact scarcely cares whether anyone else does recognise as well! Maybe better if they don't.

The point of Moscow's policy is not to tick international law boxes, or to care about S Ossetia or Abkhazia or Kosovo or Serbia.

It is to put a political-psychological Russian force-field round these scraps of territory, separating them decisively from Georgia and keeping open the option of absorbing them into the Russian Federation if that is an easier way to deal with them down the road

That sets a lively new Russian Precedent:

"You do what we don't like, we do what you don't like. In our back yard (which, by the way, we define in rather expansive terms) we'll rearrange the post-Soviet demarcation lines as and when we choose to do so. Don't expect you to like it. But tell us - what exactly do you plan to do about it?"

So far?

Not much.