Blogoir: June

A reader writes re my posting on Locally Employed Embassy Staff:

Yes, but you are rather glossing over the fact that a brutal regime can be far more brutal to its own nationals than it can to foreign diplomats. Indeed protection from brutality is the origin of the convention of immunity.

In Iran also you have the levantine history of "capitulations" which makes the whole question of protection of local nationals even more politically sensitive. In these circumstances is it right that the UK should take on employees knowing the kind of risk to which they could be subjected?

My reply:

Let's leave it to Devil's Kitchen to tear to shreds the latest utterances of the government in its plans to spend money it does not have on even more profligate scales than now.

Let's instead focus on something missed by D's K in the offending Telegraph article.

A juicy eggcorn:

Mr Balls, the Children's Secretary, has defied suggestions from Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, that immediate action was required to check the levels of public borrowing.

He indicated increased spending on front line services such as schools and hospitals, and hinted for the first time that the police may also be protected from the cuts.

The disclosure that ministers have little intention of reigning back on spending in the short term came as the Centre for Economics and Business Research warned that public spending was set to rise to 50 per cent of gross domestic product by the end of the next financial year.

Can you spot it?

Update: too easy! I'll try harder next time.

Mary Dejevsky (who should and I suspect does know better) has written about all the problems we create for ourselves by employing local staff in our Embassies.

Read it for yourself.

My reply as posted in a comment on the site:

I have written previously about the Slippery Slope metaphor:

The metaphor itself is so striking that it leads to confusion, giving a sense of momentum and inexorability which are not necessarily there.

Still, it captures the idea of one thing leading to another with no real way of staying Stop.

So, what if you are a country who sees its President scheming to extend his power and using illegal or at least legally dubious tricks to achieve that, such as trying to run an illicit referendum and shipping in ballot papers from another country known for playing fast and loose with democracy?

When do you stop him? And how?

What if he ignores court rulings and presses on anyway, hoping to use the power of the state machinery improperly to get his way?

Here's a plan. Just bundle him out of his office in disgrace.

The struggle against chavismo has never been about left-right politics. It is about defending the independence of institutions that keep presidents from becoming dictators. This crisis clearly delineates the problem.

If there is one thing we can be sure of in our weary world, it is that it is safe to want an outcome which is the most unlike the one clamoured for by Chavez/Castro, as alas supported absurdly by President Obama.

Stick with it, Honduras. 

A pertinent comment from Spy Blog (Watching Them, Watching Us) on my posting below, asking about diplomatic gossip about expellees and asking whether the absence of names of expelled diplomats 'taints' others who might be leaving normally.

First, gossip. You can't and shouldn't and won't stop gossip. But it's not a problem. Partly because it is just that - idle and often ill-informed chatter.  

More importantly, because in real life people move in very different circles which are not so easy to penetrate by 'outsiders' - try being a journalist attempting to get alongside gossiping Iranian diplomatic wives in London, and you'll see what I mean. Even garrulous gossipers close ranks against Mr Nosey.

Second, diplomats don't mind if they are suspected of having been expelled when they have not been. It's rather exciting, helping them cultivate an air of mystery and importance. HQ will know the truth, which in practice is all that matters in next-move terms.

Spy Blog cites the London Diplomatic List as a source of possible detective work in the Iran Embassy case. But that List is only as up-to-date as an Embassy wants it to be, or as the compilers can ascertain.

The list as given by Spy Blog lists 25 Iranian accredited diplomats, although there will be others among technical/support staff who are not accredited and who also might be ripe for expelling. Even taking that 25, assuming a 'normal' three year posting cycle some eight of them could move in any one year anyway. So not much help there either for amateur sleuths.

The fact is, if the two governments concerned want to keep the names of the expelled diplomats quiet, they are likely to be pretty efficient at doing so.

Which is why the Russian approach in the 'dead drop' rock drama in 2006 was typically interesting and innovative - naming various UK diplomats as involved and leaving them to twist in the media wind.

The UK's diplomatic problems with Iran have featured mutual expulsions of diplomats:

Britain is to expel two Iranian diplomats as a tit-for-tat response after Iran forced the same number of British diplomats to leave, Gordon Brown revealed this afternoon.

"It is with regret that I should inform the House that Iran yesterday took the unjustified step of expelling two British diplomats over allegations which are absolutely without foundation," Mr Brown told MPs.

"In response to that action, we informed the Iranian ambassador today that we would expel two Iranian diplomats from their embassy in London. I am disappointed that Iran has placed us in this position."

But names of the expellees are not given.

Why not?

Tradition?

Spy Blog last year tried to use the Freedom of Information Act to get names of diplomats expelled in the UK/Russia tit-for-tat expulsions. But they failed:

Every foreign Embassy in London and in Moscow, and therefore every other Government and intelligence agency in the world, will have been informed, directly or indirectly which of their fellow accredited diplomats were expelled, if only for official protocol and seating arrangement purposes at formal functions and ceremonies

Actually, this is not correct. It would not be the custom in Moscow or London or anywhere else to spread around the diplomatic community the names of those concerned.

Partly because it's just not done that way. And partly because in fact when people are expelled there is often a process of oddly polite but private negotiation about how/when it happens.

See my own account of the expulsion of various UK diplomats from Moscow in 1996 and how the Brits responded (at page 29 or so). The expellee(s) may be allowed to leave in lesiurely time for personal reasons or when the posting concerned comes to its expected normal end, depending on how the whole business is being done.

Which is why amateur detective work as done by Spy Blog of comparing successive Diplomatic Lists to try to guess who might have been ejected does not really work.

That said, the reasons given to Spy Blog for not revealing the names are pretty feeble.

And in this UK/Iran case, once again the public may never know who has been heaved out from where...

Stephen Robinson in the Evening Standard looks at the Iranian Embassy in London and the capacious UK Embassy in Tehran, with a rather gloomy assessment of the current Iranian Ambassador:

Shortly after Ahmadinejad's electoral victory, Hossein Adeli was recalled and replaced with His Excellency Rasoul Movahedian Attar, who the Foreign Office have found largely useless in their dealings.

He is regarded in Whitehall as the dullest regime hack, who is unable to smooth things over because he is so absolutely in thrall to Tehran.

When summoned to the Foreign Office for ritual dressing downs, he takes his punishment but seems unable to offer any solutions.

Nor does he speak to the wider British public at this time of crisis in his homeland, possibly because, it is said, he has yet to master English three years into his tour. It is no surprise, therefore, that the embassy's annual party has become one of the coldest tickets on the diplomatic circuit, and not just because only tepid soft drinks are served.

Phone calls and emails to the embassy staff have gone unanswered since the crisis in Iran flared, and queries have been referred to a government website in Tehran.

We UK diplomats have never experienced the British government facing the sort of domestic protests which the ruling caste in Tehran now face. Nonetheless, when the domestic political situation gets difficult in our system the diplomatic machine tends to slow down as people at all levels wait for Ministers to resume concentration on their jobs, not on their own survival.

So I can imagine that the Iranian formal diplomatic machine will be close to grinding to a halt, with people back at HQ uncertain as to what instructions to send and people at their Embassies unwilling to use any initiative in case their moves are held against them by whoever comes out on top.

But the extremist secret police network will be alive and well, keeping an eye and reporting faithfully on colleagues within Iran's diplomatic missions and on what local Iranian ex-pat opinion is doing and saying.

The article also starts:

It was the sort of response that shows the other side holds all the cards. "Unacceptable," said the Foreign Secretary of the Iranian government's arrest over the weekend of up to nine locally hired Iranian staff working at the British embassy in Tehran.

Personally I dislike the sort of metaphor which says that in a case like this “the other side holds all the cards” This gives the impression that (a) we are in a game of some sort, (b) involving luck and/or skill.

In this case there are few rules, and it takes no skill on the part of some or other nasty creature in the Iranian system to beat up on some local Embassy employees to show just how tough they really are.

The BBC website picks up the musty tone of David Miliband's recent speech on Europe in a headline which strongly suggests a direct quote from something or someone:

Iran 'must free UK Embassy staff'

The ensuing piece about an EU Foreign Ministers statement on the arrest by Iranian police of some locally employed British Embasst staff (probably Iranian nationals) in fact does not have this expression in it.

Here is what I take to be the definitive text of the EU Ministers' statement:

The Foreign Ministers of the European Union remain seriously concerned about events in Iran. They condemn the continued arrest and detention of peaceful demonstrators and journalists, and the increasing restrictions on both the domestic and foreign media. EU Foreign Ministers condemn the unjustified expulsion of two UK Diplomats and the detention of several Iranian staff working at the British Embassy in Tehran.

They call on the Iranian authorities to release these Embassy staff immediately and to offer full protection of all staff working in EU Embassies in Tehran in accordance with the Vienna convention and Diplomatic norms. They make clear to the Iranian authorities that harassment or intimidation of foreign or Iranian staff working in Embassies will be met with a strong and collective EU response.

Not bad as such things go, although I wonder what strong and collective response they in practice might be ready to accept if things get worse.

But as you can see, the 'must' word is not there. Instead they 'call on' the Iranian authorities to release these people and talk in general terms about the strong collective response but without linking it to this episode specifically.

Sensible drafting. Don't box yourself in unless you want to show that you are deliberately reducing your options to raise the ante.

Since a statement which says that "The Iranian authoriries must release UK Embassy staff" merely invites one brisk retort:

"Oh we must, must we? And if we don't?"

Looking at Ann Althouse's marvellous site I spy the following Instant Poll:

Good questions all.

Is here. At Philobiblon, often Green, always feminist.

A couple of links caught my eye.

Can a blogger be a credible candidate for Parliament, or are there likely to be too many free-thinking hostage to fortune quotes on the blog for oponents to dig out? Libertarian Lib-Dem Charlotte Gore reckons it's too difficult for her at least, which seems a pity - the feisty arguments she puts out deserve an airing, and even if not enough to win they might do better than she suspects?

Should a woman sell out feminism by taking her husband's surname on marriage? Or keep her father's name instead? Very British dude lets fly.

Finally on Feminazery some strong views on crudely suggestive advertising of hamburgers:

No, Burger King, I don't want your seven inches in my mouth

Mind you, Americans from the top down seem a lot more relaxed about this imagery - Bill Clinton's greatest contribution to modern mores? 

I am tasked to prepare some ideas on the problems which may arise between civilian and military 'cultures' in trying to help fragile or failed states. See the Center for Global Development on the subject.

The basic problem is that things are what they are.

Fragile states are fragile, because they lack the qualities needed to make them not that. Hence, the question: under what circumstances can outsiders turn up and help them acquire the unfragile qualities?

Take eg Bosnia and the Paradox of Intervention. The more we tell the locals what to do, the less inclined they are to take any responsibility themselves. Why pass a resolution in Parliament if the HiRep is going to sweep it aside?

And our old friend the Bad Leaders Conundrum: better to work with a few awful people who are part of the problem but can make things happen, or the mass of moderate/normal people needed to make a society function but who are outgunned by the awful people?

Death by Timescale: it will have taken a long time for a territory to acquire its current level of fragility/failure. How long are the interveners prepared to hang in there to try to make things better? When does humanitarian intervention morph into ... colonialism?

Gangsters: in a fragile state the least fragile phenomena will be gangsters/mafia/ and maybe terrorists. How to cut them down to size without flattening everything else at the same time?

So, readers, a Request.

If anyone out there has any ideas based on personal experience on what has really been quite good and effective in terms specifically of civilian/military cooperation in eg Sierra Leone or Iraq or Afghanistan or anywhere else, please drop me your thoughts asap. Ditto horrible mistakes to avoid.

All contributions most welcome: mail@charlescrawford.biz

Thanks.

This is a legal maxim:

No-one gives what he does not have.

The basic idea is that if you do now own eg a car but you pretend you do and sell it to someone else, that person can not acquire ownership of the car through that transaction.

OK, there are exceptions (of course). But the core idea is sound.

Anyway, here is Toronto lawyer Murray Teitel busy in the Guardian selling something he admits he does not have, namely insight on economic issues.

I can not follow his deft analogy with sardines at all. But this is at least clear:

That, in a nutshell, is why we are experiencing a global economic meltdown. Our economy was based not on producing goods and services people would pay for, but on producing financial transactions.

The purpose of financial transactions should be to enable the creation of goods and services. When financial transactions become an end in themselves, and goods and services exist only to enable financial transactions (rather than the other way around), as sure as night follows day you are headed towards an economic catastrophe.

His is a teleological ignorance:

The purpose of financial transactions should be to enable the creation of goods and services.

No. No.

The 'purpose' of such transactions as with any other transactions is to enable the people concerned to do deals they all think are beneficial. That's it.

And from that simple pursuit of self-interest emerges a wider order coming from spontaneous human creativity which may or may not give us goods and services.

Once we start thinking that the system has a Purpose, it is a simple step to asserting that it is not fulfilling that Purpose and needs to be steered or even compelled to do so.

And wrecking the whole thing.

So we turn to Tim Worstall:

I see, you don’t understand what the financial system exists to do.

It’s really about two things.

Firstly, the moving of risk from those who don’t want it to those who do. For example, farmers selling wheat futures moves risk from the farmer to the speculator. The existence of a bank moves risk from the depositor (well, almost all of it anyway) to the bank shareholders. Pension companies, annuities and the like from the long term saver to the shareholders of the pension company.

Secondly, about intermediating in the time preference differences between depositors and borrowers. Banks, by definition, borrow short and lend long (I think it was Brad DeLong who said that if you borrow short and lend long then you’re a bank, if you don’t, you’re not).

From those two basic ideas you can build pretty much the entire financial sector. And you have to be very careful indeed about insisting that this or that not be allowed in the financial sector for you’re at risk, high risk, of stopping people being able to do these two highly desirable things.

A rather more persuasive analysis than those sardines, I think.

It seems that we are to have a new national Cyber Security Strategy.

The excellent Spy Blog asks some pertinent questions about operational accountability, showing some sharp insight into the way things work or not in practice:

Does either the Office of Cyber Security or the Cyber Security Operations Centre

• have a elected Cabinet Minister directly responsible for it, and democratically accountable for its failures (or, in theory, responsible for its successes) ?

   

• have even a junior elected Minister directly responsible for it, and democratically accountable for its failures (or, in theory, responsible for its successes) ?

   

• have even a senior Civil Servant of Permanent Secretary rank directly responsible for it, and professionally accountable for its failures (or, in theory, responsible for its successes) ?

   

• have any independent budget to spend on Cyber Security ? If so, then how much ?

   

• replace any of the other existing bureaucratic agencies, offices, departments, quangos, non-departmental government bodies etc, ?

   

• have any planned strong statutory legal enforcement powers i.e. criminal prosecutions with fines and or prison sentences ?

   

• have any planned weak statutory legal enforcement powers e.g. like the Information Commissioner ?

   

• have the power to cancel or amend Government IT projects and IT contracts if they are fail the Cyber Security standards ?

And concludes:

So what is the Cyber Security Operations Centre going to do , which the other existing agencies and quangos are not already doing e.g. CESG, CPNI, CERT, CEOP, SOCA, MI5, Police Computer Crime units etc?

Answers please, someone.

What would you think if you were told to work for someone else for half the year, then allowed to work for yourself?

Sounds a bit like serfdom? Yes:

A freeman became a serf usually through force or necessity. Sometimes freeholders or allodial owners were intimidated into dependency by the greater physical and legal force of a local baron. Often a few years of crop failure, a war or brigandage might leave a person unable to make his own way.

In such a case a bargain was struck with the lord. In exchange for protection, service was required, in payment and/or with labour. These bargains were formalized in a ceremony known as "bondage" in which a serf placed his head in the seigneur's hands, parallel to the ceremony of "homage" where a vassal placed his hands between those of his lord. These oaths bound the seigneur to their new serf and outlined the terms of their agreement...

Hmm. Did not that sort of thing die out a long time ago?

No.

The main practical argument for skewing the law to protect a blogger's anonymity in such cases as the Night Jack one is that honourable anonymous or pseudonymous bloggers working within public service might be silenced. And the public would lose a flow of helpful insights.

True enough, in some distinguished cases at least.

Here is another undercover police blogger, from the LAPD no less, whose erudite insights into the California crime scene and its accompanying politics have enlightened National Review Online readers for some years now.

Meet self-styled Jack Dunphy. (Are all police bloggers drawn to the name Jack for some reason?)

Here he gives his own views on his possible 'outing':

Thanks to another pseudymous public sector blogger at The Camp of The Saints for the link. Check out his pictures of Julie London. Phew. They don't make 'em like that any more.

Here (h/t Samizdata) is a good review of H G Wells' ever more calamitous and influential ideas as they evolved over some forty years.

His great idea was contempt for the masses, who needed visionary, purposeful leadership from visonary, purposeful people. Such as himself.

At first he did not like communism and fascism:

As the bootsteps of both fascism and Communism began stamping down his influence, Wells wrote a 1924 essay, “The Spirit of Fascism: Is There Any Good in It at All?” The answer: a resounding no. “Moscow and Rome are alike in this, that they embody the rule of a minority conceited enough to believe that they have a clue to the tangled incoherencies of human life, and need only sufficiently terrorize criticism and opposition to achieve a general happiness,” Wells wrote.

As elitist as his rivals but nonetheless liberal, he explained that “neither recognizes the enormously tentative quality of human institutions, and the tangled and scarcely explored difficulties in the path of social reconstruction.”

At the same time, both fascists and Communists were too democratic for Wells, having attained power, as he saw it, by an ill-advised appeal to the masses. “The underlying fact in all these matters,” he concluded, was that “the common uneducated man is a violent fool in social and public affairs.”

But he came round to seeing some good aspects of their work:

... drawing again on Marx’s “utopian” predecessors, he promised an anodyne adaptation of Soviet central planning shorn of police-state thuggery. He called for a “great central organization of economic science,” which “would necessarily produce direction; it would indicate what had best be done here, there, and everywhere.” But “it would not be an organization of will, imposing its will upon a recalcitrant race; it would be a direction, just as a map is a direction.”

... In a talk at Oxford provocatively titled “Liberal Fascism,” he called for liberalism to be “born again.” After his customary denunciation of parliamentary politics as an anachronism, he let out his frustrations, calling for fascist means to serve liberal ends by way of a liberal elite as “conceited” and as power-hungry as its rivals.

“I suggest that you study the reinvigoration of Catholicism by Loyola,” Wells said. “I am asking for a Liberal Fascisti.” It was also to Communism that “we shall have to turn—we outsiders, that is, the young people with foresight for enlightened Nazis; I am proposing that you consider the formation for a greater Communist Party; a western response to Russia.”

He met Stalin:

“I have never met a man more candid, fair and honest, and it is to these qualities and to nothing occult and sinister, that he owes his tremendous undisputed ascendancy in Russia. . . . No one is afraid of him and everyone trusts him.”

Wells summed up the differences between Washington and Moscow by arguing that “the one is a receptive and coordinating brain center; the other is a concentrated and personal direction.” The aim sought, “a progressively more organized big-scale community,” was “precisely the same.”

Mission accomplished.

Community Organisers now rule the roost.

Someone should write a book about all this. Oh, already done:

Polly Toynbee in the Guardian laments the anti-politics mood in the UK.

But the problem is not politicians and their crass policies and greedy expenses-grabbing.

It's voters, ungrateful for all the good things Government bestows upon them.

As for bloggers:

The blogosphere could have been a source for better information, but purveys even more rabid anti-politics bile

Read that one again?

The blogosphere could have been a source for better information, but purveys even more rabid anti-politics bile.

Hmm. I had not realised that I was a purveyor of rabid bile.

Can bile be rabid? And purveyed in any serious quantities?

Commenter Robin Yewall is on to something:

Here's the news Polly - we don't need politicians to make our lives better for us. We only need ourselves, and an absence of interference. We are not children, needing support and guidance. It is the interference of politicians and people like yourself that dis-empowers and impoverishes communities.

It is not the job of government to 'change society'. It is the job of government to do only those things that individuals or communities - usually for resource reasons - cannot do themselves.

This dreadful, interfering, infantilising Fabianism of yours and New Labour's is what is destroying society for everyone. If only you would all just go away, we would all be better off.

Sounds about right.

BBC director-general Mark Thompson is baffled:

The figures showed that the BBC's 50 highest-paid executives earned as much as £13.6million last year, with 27 paid more than the Prime Minister.

In addition, they spent tens of thousands of pounds' worth of public money on entertaining each other, staying at top hotels around the world and showering gifts on actors and other employees.

One executive sent a £100 bouquet of flowers to Jonathan Ross, while another spent £1,137.55 on a dinner to mark Sir Terry Wogan's knighthood.

But Mr Thompson, whose basic salary is £647,000, said: "Every one of these expenses in my view was reasonable and was justified..."

Including these little expenses by BBC TV chief Jana Bennett as well as her £100 bouquet for the vile Jonathan Ross:

In June 2005 she claimed £85.25 for a pair of engraved Tiffany cufflinks for the star.

In all Bennett, now the director of BBC Vision, claimed about £60,000 over the past five years - more than any other board member except Mark Thompson, the director general.

In February she claimed £500 towards the cost of the contents of her handbag, which was stolen from her "while on official business".

She also claimed thousands of pounds for gifts for other BBC staff, including £600 for two cakes bought to celebrate the end of the 'Joseph'-themed talent show 'Any Dream Will Do' and the Sport Relief charity event...

So, to be clear.

These absurdly overpaid people are spending what is in effect taxpayers' money buying gifts and treats for each other. And they don't see what's wrong with that.

No.

They don't.

Few people know that I hosted Michael Jackson at the Residence in Warsaw, not too many months before he died.

I had not had the pleasure to meet him previously, but despite his evident battle with ill-health we and some of his close friends had an excellent lunch as he told many amusing stories away from all the media clamour about the alcohol industry's life and times.

I was sad to hear of his death in August 2007. A brilliant and witty man was lost.

And if you really want to read about the dreary former entertainer by the same name, whose timely demise the BBC website has had splashed across its front page all day today, try this:

He spent his childhood singing adult love songs with the Jackson Five. He spent his adulthood pretending to be a child.

For a while, he liked to hang out at Disneyland with Mickey Mouse, one of the few A-list celebrities with whom he had anything in common - not least the white gloves, squeaky voice, snub nose, bizarre albino face bearing no relation to the jet black surround, and a penchant for hanging out with kids even though you’re well into middle age...

... It was like a racial variation on Dorian Grey: He got whiter, but his finances were an ever blacker hole...

... When asked whether he’d proposed to Elizabeth Taylor, his lips remained sealed, although that may be just an unfortunate side-effect...

Who else but ..?

A final thought on that David Miliband speech in Poland.

It's his use of the words 'must' and 'need'.

This is what he says the EU 'must' do. It must:

• adapt once again to the changing geopolitical context we face
• set itself a goal of creating a single, low-carbon, energy market across the EU
• be prepared to speak with a strong voice so that it can engage the main global powers
• support political reforms
• adapt to new insecurities

On top of that 'we' must:

• regulate to make our homes and industries more efficient
• confront the fact that the desire to enlarge Europe is facing increased opposition
• make the case [for enlargement]
• avoid two dangers. One is denial about the scale of the [economic] problem.  The second is quack remedies

Last but not least:

• there are still major obstacles to effective [EU] engagement with key partners, in particular NATO, which must be overcome

The verb need/needs is also used a startling 21 times in the speech. Thus 'we need':

• a compelling positive case for the European Union
• bold strokes
• to deepen cooperation and incentivise reform
• to diversify our energy supplies
• more solidarity between Member States
• to prepare better for energy shortfalls
• to make G3 cooperation – US, China and the EU - work
• to get better at formulating genuine strategic responses to the really difficult policy questions
• to be a key player on the global stage 

This strange repetitive exhortatory language detached from any real analysis of the problems is reminiscent of the communist apparatchik from Party HQ standing on a barren collective farm field and addressing the workers.

He hectors them to even greater efforts to bring about the triumph of socialist productivity. They stare blankly at him, lost in their own thoughts and the disappointed emptiness of their blighted lives.

The fact is that after twelve years of New Labour diligence and all sorts of ringing EU declarations, all these basic issues as described by the Foreign Secretary are unresolved.

So maybe the real point is that there 'must' be a reason for that?

And that maybe the political elites round Europe 'need' to think about that rather more deeply than has been the case?