Scary reading
George Monbiot's latest article, about the power of Christian fundamentalists (I believe the technical term is "dispensationalists", but I could be wrong) in the US: their beliefs are bonkers, but they are at the heart of power.
If US foreign policy seems insane at the moment, it is because it is being driven by and for loonies. And really, there's no other way to describe people who believe that they must start a world war so they can sit at the right hand of god...
Shrinking coalition watch
Honduras is out. Their troops were working with the Spanish, and are following their lead in withdrawing "in the shortest possible time".
Bulgaria meanwhile hasn't pulled out - but has allowed its soldiers to leave if they want to. So far 15% of them have voted with their feet, and more are likely to follow. They're also having trouble finding volunteers for the next deployment. So much for the support of the people of "New Europe"...
More on growth and values
Kiwipundit has an in-depth response to my post on growth and values. To respond to some of his points:
The graph shows that 67% regard economic growth as either very important or important, and only 4% regard it as not important. You can make anything seem unimportant if you rank it in a list that also includes things like health and quality of life. Countries with high GDP per capita have better health and education systems, cleaner environments, better working conditions and higher quality of life generally. The notion of a tradeoff between economic growth and other goals is misguided.
The GIAB analysts clearly believe that the "very important" results tell their own story, and I agree with them. There's an enormous disparity and clear demarcation between a top-tier of values (things like quality of life and the environment) and a lower tier. You can claim that this is because the top tier issues are just motherhood and apple-pie, but I'd say the same about economic growth - in fact, practically all the issues in that part of the survey were apple-pie. And what's clear is that we favour some types of apple-pie more than others.
However, support for economic growth is not just weak in relation to other goals; it's weak when looked at in isolation as well. Just look at the distribution of answers to the question of "how much do you support or oppose [economic growth] as a primary goal for New Zealand to pursue?" (this is on a 0 to 10 scale as before):
I'll let the report speak for itself here:
in response to a first up question about support for economic growth, New Zealanders generally responded in the affirmative. Their response has the character of 'polite support' and lacks passion. Graph 3 illustrates this point. Few register as opposed to growth, but a significant number are at the 'lukewarm' end of positive.However, this apparent familiarity and support belies deeper concerns. Once questioned in depth, particularly in the focus groups, attitudes to economic growth become more fragile.
Whatever way you look at it, this is not good news for the proponents of growth uber alles...
I agree that countries with high GDP are generally better in all sorts of ways; the problem is that the policies promoted as giving New Zealanders a higher rate of economic growth (cuts in government services, lowering of the working standards and removal of environmental regulations) are seen as being highly destructive of the very things growth is supposed to deliver. This creates very definite tradeoffs - as does the sheer existence of multiple values. Denying that is simply denying reality. That said, it is not necessarily a zero-sum tradeoff, and policies may be found which both promote growth and our other values.
The survey respondents didn't say that income inequality was a negative effect. In fact the list of 'negative effects' includes 'more immigrants coming into New Zealand' and 'an improved balance between work and family life'. The 'negatives' label reflects the prejudices of the survey authors, not the views of the respondents.I don't know where NRT gets his claim that 40% don't believe higher growth will deliver significant tangible benefits [...]
"A growing gap between rich and poor" (that's "income inequality" for those not in denial) was one of the two negative factors that was seen as more likely (as measured by number of "very important" respondents) than any of the positive factors, or indeed any other negative factor, the other being traffic congestion. It was identified as a negative effect by the initial focus groups, not by the survey authors.
(The inclusion of "work-life balance" in negative effects is I think due to concerns that growth would be destructive of that balance - that we'd all have to work harder. Interestingly, more people think that we will get a better balance than a worse one. This is perhaps something for the advocates for growth to work with...)
The 40% figure came from this part of the report:
The survey then looked at whether respondents believed growth would result in tangible benefits in such key indicator areas as better health and education, more secure jobs, more interesting and rewarding jobs, better pay and conditions of work. While a majority believed this would happen, a substantial minority, around 40%, is neutral or negative. This neutral/negative response climbs to around half when asked if growth will result in a better health system. This is a significant level of doubt making it difficult to build consensus messages around growth, as it is currently constructed or viewed.
KiwiPundit objects to my claim that "Politicians trying to sell economic growth and 'getting back into the top half of the OECD' as an end in itself are pushing shit uphill" by pointing out that "all parties except the Greens claim their policies will grow the economy". This is true - however, they're not all promoting it as an end in itself (maybe I should have emphasised that in the original). They're not all suggesting welfare cuts, reductions in government services, rolling back the ERA and RMA, and turning the whole of the West Coast into a giant open-cast coal mine. And that's where the difference lies.
Something I should have pointed out in the original is that the GIAB's take on this is actually quite positive, as can be seen from their conclusions and the subsequent press releases. They believe we can build a vision for (or version of) growth which supports and is supported by our values, rather than one which stomps all over them. "Kiwis will support growth if it supports Kiwiness" is one of their slogans, and it pretty much sums it up. That's a goal I - and even the Greens - support. The attitudes revealed here are only a threat if you believe that economic growth is fundamentally incompatible with, or should be pursued regardless of the cost to, our other values.
One Big Mac too many?
The CEO of McDonalds has died... of a heart attack.
Would you like irony with your burger?
"A man of enormous experience and skill"
George Bush has appointed John Negroponte to be the new US ambassador to Iraq, calling him "a man of enormous experience and skill". Experience at what?
Previously Negroponte had had a distinguished career as the US ambassador to Honduras, where he armed the Contras and covered up the activities of the Honduran government's death squads. But it wasn't just a case of lying to the US public, media and congress - in 1994 the Honduras Human Rights Comissioner "specifically accused John Negroponte of a number of human rights violations".
If Bush thinks Negroponte is the right man for the job, then Iraqis should be very, very worried.
Cake
One of the metaphors commonly used for economic growth is "growing the pie" or "making the cake bigger", the idea being that a bigger cake means that everybody gets a bigger slice. Of course, the 80's and 90's have shown that this isn't necessarily true - a rising tide does not lift all boats (to use the other metaphor). Most of the new cake goes to those who already have the lions share, with most people seeing little or no increase in the size of their slice. Worse, some people get even get less than they had before. Stripping away the metaphor, free markets exacerbate existing inequalities, and funnel wealth to the already wealthy.
This is interesting when thinking about the GIAB survey. We already have a large class of people who, because they see no benefits for themselves in economic growth, have no reason whatsoever to support it (and, to the extent that it will reduce their position relative to their neighbours, every reason to oppose it). Now we find out that there are also many people who want to have their cake and eat it too. And to the extent that business leaders and right-wing politicians say "you can't", they too have no reason to support growth. After all, if you can't eat it, then what's the point of having cake in the first place?
If you listen to our business leaders, making the cake bigger requires concerted social effort. And this presents them with something of a problem, because they need the support of those people who don't want cake, or want it, but aren't getting any.
The obvious solution is to buy us off. Let people eat their cake, and distribute new cake so that everyone's share grows. Or, to strip away the metaphor again, promote policies encouraging quality of life, environmental protection and work-life balance; commit to funding extensive education and health services; and distribute the benefits of growth more widely, either directly as higher wages and better working conditions, or indirectly through benefits and better government services.
Or else, to put it bluntly, nobody's getting any more cake.
Growth and values
There was an interesting series of articles in yesterday's Sunday Star-Times about the results of the Growth and Innovation Advisory Board's survey of our attitudes to economic growth. The results are pretty startling, as should be obvious from the graphic below:
(Graphic stolen from GIAB's research summary)
Economic growth, and the economy in general, are not a central concern for most New Zealanders. We care far more about "soft" factors such as quality of life, the environment, education and health instead. Questions of how important these issues are to the country as a whole give similar results; environment and quality of life come out on top, with economic and financial issues again taking a back seat (though less of one).
Other results are that economic growth is seen as having significant negative effects (particularly with regards to income inequality and traffic congestion) and as primarily benefiting future generations and younger New Zealanders (who, interestingly, don't agree with this at all), and that a shocking 40% of people don't believe that higher growth will deliver significant tangible benefits to them in health, education, jobs etc.
What does this mean? The obvious conclusion is that the neo-liberal program in New Zealand is dead. We just don't believe that shit anymore, if indeed we ever did. Politicians trying to sell economic growth and "getting back into the top half of the OECD" as an end in itself are pushing shit uphill.
The alternative strategy is to sell growth as a means to an end. Don Brash in particular has taken this line, arguing consistently that growth is the way we get and pay for the things we want. The problem with this line is that a) so many "business-friendly", pro-growth policies seem to be destructive of those other, more highly-valued goods; and b) a huge segment of the population don't believe it will have significant benefits to them. If there are no benefits, then why support it?
The temptation for the right will be to dismiss these attitudes as stupid, ignorant, or "ill-informed" (Brash calls them "worrying"). I'd welcome that, because I can think of no surer way to guarantee the right another three years in opposition than to deny the validity of people's values and abuse them for believing the evidence of their own experiences. No-one who lived through the 80's and 90's can seriously believe that wealth "trickles down" or that "a rising tide lifts all boats". No-one living through the aftermath can seriously believe that economic growth is an unquestionable good with no social costs. And no-one but an economist can seriously believe that the sole good human beings pursue or ought to pursue is private profit.
The flip side of this is that the survey reported some very positive results about individual attitudes. New Zealanders place a high value on ambition, hard work and innovation - values seen as central by business leaders. We seem to be relatively pro-business - except "big business", who we think are parasitical wankers. And we're keen enough to get ahead in our personal lives; we just don't see it as the be-all and end-all of existence. We will accept economic growth, just not at the cost of other goods we value. The challenge for growth's advocates is to find ways of growing which don't undermine those goods.
Keeping his promises
Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero was sworn in as Spanish PM, and just hours later he was ordering his defence minister to "do what is necessary for the Spanish troops stationed in Iraq return home in the shortest time possible". Hopefully this will rule out their helping the Americans do something stupid at Najaf.
At the same time, he is promising to double the number of Spanish troops in Afghanistan. "Soft on terror"? Hardly.
Update: It gets worse. One of Kos's commentors translates Zapatero as saying that the troops are being withdrawn because "it is not forseeable that the UN is going to adopt a resolution that would accord with the reasons set out for staying". He's originally said "put the UN in charge or we leave"; now he seems to be saying "you've fucked things up so badly that the UN can't fix them". Ouch.
Defending United Future
This column by United Future's Marc Alexander seems to have attracted some comment. Alexander begins by lambasting the government's policies for being driven by "liberal ideology", but then goes on to say:
United Future did not choose to work with Labour because we find Labour's policies irresistible, we simply work with the hand that voters have dealt because we are committed to our country. The alternative was to pass up on our responsibilities, shout from the sidelines with everyone else and abdicate the opportunity to contribute.The past failures of the National / NZ First and the Labour / Alliance coalitions made us determined that stability must be assured for the good of the country. The result has been a reasonable working relationship demanded by the new MMP realities.
Darkness clearly sees this as just making excuses. United Future "have supported the government throughout" - how can they then disclaim responsability for that government's policies? I think the answer is obvious - United Future have indeed supported the government throughout on confidence and supply. Legislation is another matter entirely, and they have very clearly not lent their votes to support the legislation Alexander attacks. The support of other parties (particularly the Greens) have allowed the government to pass it anyway, despite United Future's opposition.
(Obviously none of that legislation has been bad enough from United Future's perspective to be a deal-breaker and undermine the confidence agreement - though this is mostly because they want to establish themselves as a serious party rather than a bunch of Winstons, and in the end because the existence of alternatives (the Greens) would reduce it to a gesture. While the potency of that gesture should not be underestimated, it could also easily backfire, and isn't something to be done lightly.)
MyRight, meanwhile, attacks them for "swinging with the polls on each issue". I don't think this is the case at all. United Future clearly has a core set of principles which they advocate, centering around traditional family values and being "business friendly". They've consistently sought to push government legislation in the direction of these values, and haven't been afraid to oppose it when there is conflict (for example, in the case of the changes to holiday entitlements or the minimum wage). In answer to MyRight, I think that this will allow them to brand themselves come electiontime - they have some policy victories to point to, and their defeats, while defeats, allow them to say "and we're not just patsies for the government" (of course, how effective this is won't be known until the votes are counted).
Overall, I think United Future has adopted a mature, MMP-style attitude. They fight their corner, and accept that they'll win some battles and lose others. And while they support the present government, it is clear that they'll support whichever party is largest and try and act as a moderating influence. I don't see any dishonour in this at all; hell, isn't it how Parliament is supposed to work?
Tedium
Pointless and Absurd comments:
I've been finding the likes of Russell Brown, NZPundit, No Right Turn, etc, etc a tad tedious of late, and this is why.
Yep, it does all get the same after a while, hence the comings and goings and silences and people dropping out. But hey, newsgroups and BBSing were no different, and neither is bitching about the State of The World around the coffee table with your friends. Eventually everyone's opinions become known and predictable.
I don't think that's a good reason for people to shut up, however.
Five hundred days
Today marks the 500th day of Ahmed Zaoui's imprisonment. That's 500 days without charge and without trial, many of them spent in solitary confinement.
Today I am not proud to be a New Zealander.
Taking the Piss (part II)
Last week's Employment Court judgment allowing Air New Zealand to drug test its employees, but only in safety sensitive areas is a victory for common sense...which is good because neither the airline nor the unions had showed any up to this point.
The court judgment means that they will have to come to an agreement over what drug testing will be carried out...which is what they should have done in the first place and saved everyone all this bother.
That said, for reasons mentioned in my post back in October when the case started, I think that unless they are very careful there could be a sequel to this case the first time they try to sack someone for a failed test. (See Taking the Piss 8/10/2003)
On the road again
I'm travelling again, so there'll probably be nothing substantial until monday afternoon. Unless I find a terminal, that is...
Why Iraq is rebelling
An Iraqi has died of his wounds after US troops beat him with truncheons because he refused to remove a picture of wanted Shiite Muslim leader Moqtada Sadr from his car, police said today.
Full story here.
As an interesting aside, while US soldiers have been prosecuted for mistreating POWs, none have ever faced charges for mistreating or killing Iraqi civilians.
China
What's my opinion on the government opening free-trade negotiations with China? Well, we should at least consider it. We should look at what we'll get out of it and what we'll lose and whether we're morally comfortable with expanding links to an abhorrent regime.
Easy pros:
Easy cons:
We should also recognise that this is not really about trade, but politics. What the Chinese really want from us is not access to our markets, but our "endorsement" that they are ready to fully join the international trading community. New Zealand has a reputation as a consistent supporter of multilateralism and free-trade and a member in good standing of the international community. Merely agreeing to talk about an FTA allows China to point to us and say "New Zealand thinks we're OK"; actually signing one gives them ammunition to use in negotiations with other nations. That's incredibly valuable to them, and we should not sell our reputation lightly.
More on mercenaries
NZPundit seems to think that my comments on mercenaries apply to people like this man. I repeat: "Bodyguarding journalists and third parties is probably OK" - it's difficult to construe that as participating in armed conflict, especially when you are forbidden by your employer to carry weapons (as is the case with BBC security staff). Guarding the CPA, OTOH, is a whole different kettle of fish...
Royalist sycophancy
National wants Prince Edward to be our next Governor-General.
God, couldn't they think of anything else to do with him?
Najaf is next
The shaky truce around Fallujah seems to be holding, but meanwhile the Americans are busy gearing up to go into Najaf. They've deployed 2,500 troops around the city, and just seem to be waiting for the right moment to go in and "capture or kill" Moqtada al-Sadr.
The problem? Sadr is reportedly headquartered in the Shrine of the Imam Ali. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is practially Mecca for Shi'ites (obviously it's not Mecca, but it's bloody close); Ali was the founder of the sect, the guy Shi'a think should have been Caliph instead of the Caliph. US soldiers stomping round in there would piss off every Shi'ite in the world. Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani, the eminence grise of Iraqi Shi'a, has warned the US not to set foot there. If they piss him off, it really will be all-on.
Fallujah has already become an Iraqi version of the Alamo - a rallying cry for further resistance. A similar massacre in Shi'a Islam's holiest shrine will provide an even louder one. Quite apart from the loss of life involved, it would be a political foot-bullet of tremendous proportions. Is that really what the Americans want to do?
Must Read
Empire Notes, reports from someone on the ground in Iraq. Particularly his post on his trip to Fallujah...
Falling behind
Hugo nominations are out - and in a sign of my continuing failure to keep up, I haven't read any of them. Worse, I don't even own any of them. S'funny - I thought I'd bought plenty of SF last year; my unread book stack has certainly grown. Have I been buying crap, or just doing backfill?
(Actually, looking at the nominees, there's an obvious answer: Robert Sawyer? Robert Charles Wilson? I wouldn't be seen dead with these guys on my bookshelf. The only guaranteed buy in there is the Stross, and I just haven't seen a copy. In other words, those bloody Americans are voting for crap again. Philistines!)
Ah well, time to get my arse over to Infinity Plus and see whether any of the shorts are online...
Balls
The Whig writes:
Still, if America has to make a complete balls-up of the war on terror, at least with the balls up you can see that Dubya actually has some.
Needless to say, I don't think that "showing you have balls" is worth the death of even one civillian, let alone ten thousand.
Zaoui update: whispers and suspicion
Over the weekend, the Herald published a pair of articles citing unnamed "European intelligence sources" accusing Zaoui of acting as a "bridge" between the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) and the Armed Islamic Group (GIA). These allegations have been raised constantly since Zaoui arrived in the country - but as the Herald's reporter points out, "none of these suspicions features in any publicly accessible evidence in the Zaoui case in Europe".
I think its important to point out here that Zaoui has never been convicted of (or even charged with) terrorism. While he was convicted in France and Belgium on charges of "criminal association" and possession of stolen passports, the Refugee Status Appeals Authority has cast doubt on the safety of those convictions. Absent real evidence, all we have are whispers and suspicion. And suspicion is not enough. We would not tolerate the police imprisoning people on this basis, and neither should we tolerate the SIS doing so.
The demand of Zaoui's supporters has always been "freedom or a fair trial". If there is evidence against Zaoui, then it should be assessed in court where it can be properly examined. If the government is unwilling to do that, then they should release him. That's the bottom line in human rights terms, and it is simply shameful that our government is refusing to acknowledge it.
The British view
While Blair pledges his eternal support to Bush, the British Army don't seem to be so keen. In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, a "senior Army officer" lambasts the Americans for casual racism and a disproportionate use of force:
"My view and the view of the British chain of command is that the Americans' use of violence is not proportionate and is over-responsive to the threat they are facing. They don't see the Iraqi people the way we see them. They view them as untermenschen. They are not concerned about the Iraqi loss of life in the way the British are. Their attitude towards the Iraqis is tragic, it's awful."The US troops view things in very simplistic terms. It seems hard for them to reconcile subtleties between who supports what and who doesn't in Iraq. It's easier for their soldiers to group all Iraqis as the bad guys. As far as they are concerned Iraq is bandit country and everybody is out to kill them."
The Americans respond aggressively to any threat, using helicopter gunships and artillery in residential areas; the British are restricted to firing only if fired upon, using minimum force and only at identifiable targets. Which response is more effective at winning hearts and minds and preventing future attacks is left as an exercise for the reader.
"We did not sign up to fight Iraqis"
One of key strategies of the US occupation in Iraq has been "Iraqification" - getting the Iraqi police and newly reformed army to carry more of the burden of handling security duties. The problem? When push comes to shove, these forces side with their fellow Iraqis, rather than with the CPA. A freshly trained battalion of the Iraqi army reportedly refused to join the fighting in Fallujah, saying "we did not sign up to fight Iraqis". Overall, around 25% of local security forces have deserted or changed sides over the last few days.
This is bad news for the Americans. Without local stooges to stand between them and the Iraqi people, they'll have to do all the oppressing themselves. This not only exposes them to higher casualties; it also fatally undermines their political strategy. What sort of "handover" will it be on June 30th, if it is still American boots kicking down doors and American soldiers dragging people off to Abu Ghraib? Why, none at all...
The Iraqi resistance have apparently released the three Japanese hostages. Good. They should be leaving civillians out of it, not using them as bargaining chips.
Update: Obviously I spoke too soon. Bloody One News...
Kiwis flout rules to moonlight as security in Iraq
New Zealand soldiers and police are taking extended leave or simply perfing out to work in Iraq as "private security contractors", and a former Diplomatic Protection Squad officer is actively recruiting more.
This is interesting in light of the Mercenary Activities (Prohibition) Bill currently progressing through Parliament. The bill would outlaw participating in mercenary activities, as well as recruiting, using or financing mercenaries - and establishes extraterritorial jurisdiction to allow prosecution of New Zealanders working overseas.
The bill defines a mercenary as anyone fighting in armed conflict (or a concerted act of violence, such as a coup) for private gain, who is not a member of their side's armed forces (or a citizen or resident), and who is paid substantially more than ordinary soldiers of equivalent rank. The only point of contention for those wanting to work in Iraq is whether what they are doing is actual fighting - and I think that in many cases, it is. "Private security contractors" are increasingly used to guard CPA facilities, and not just in a "guy with a white shirt and big torch" fashion. They are working as soldiers (albeit with defensive duties), not security guards. Bodyguarding journalists and third parties is probably OK, but waving guns for the CPA runs a real risk of prosecution when this bill passes.
The smoking gun?
The controversial memo, "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US", is now online.
More on Iraq
The Independent's Patrick Cockburn has an excellent series on current happenings in Iraq, named (appropriately enough) "Apocalypse Now":
Apocalypse now? Part 1: The War Front
Apocalypse now? Part 2: The White House
Apocalypse now? Part 3: The Home Front
Also check out Juan Cole for the views of an expert on the region.
Twitchy
The gas incident in Sofia is now being described as an accident - someone accidently dropped a personal tear-gas sprayer, and gassed a room full of people.
Guess it shows how twitchy we all are...
Not-so-new Kiwi blog
ACT MP Heather Roy's The Right Prescription has moved from BlogSpot to BlogNZ. It has some new content, even. I guess we'll have to see whether it continues to be updated, or whether it just gets a speech every couple of weeks.
Shock, elation, horror and hope
I didn't have access to a TV while I was away (in fact, due to a screwup by the power company, I didn't even have electricity on my first night), so I had to get all my news on the uprising in Iraq from the Net. I spent my infrequent logins siting there being progressively more and more shocked by what I read. Demonstrations greeted with gunfire. Clashes between US troops and Shi'ite militia. A bloodbath in Ramadi. Guerillas actually seizing control of Najaf and Kut. Fallujah being strafed by AC130s (can you get any more indiscriminate?), leading to hundreds of civillian casulaties. Hell in a handbasket, practically overnight.
Shocked, but also elated, because Iraqis were fighting to free themselves from an occupation which long ago lost any pretence of moral legitimacy. The people doing so may be thugs and fanatics, but I cannot condemn their efforts. A little more than a year ago I said that I wanted the Iraqi people to win, and I stand by that: Iraq should be ruled by and for Iraqis. The United States has worked against that goal at every turn, undermining the possibility of elections and attempting to install an unelected puppet regime to rubberstamp their decisions. They deserve to be overthrown. To steal a line from Bush, any future the Iraqi people choose for themselves will be better than what Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and Achmed Chalabi have chosen for them - simply because it will be their choice, rather than that of their occupiers.
There's also horror as well, because (to state the blindingly obvious) people are being killed and injured, and the vast majority of them are civillians. I prefer bloodless revolutions as a rule, such as those which occured in Yugoslavia and Georgia (OK, while neither was entirely blodless, both were much closer to the ideal). But civil disobediance and mass protest only work against governments which are "nice", and I'm not sure that the US Army with its twitchy trigger-fingers and emphasis on force protection really qualifies.
And finally, there's hope. What ought to be scary for the Americans is that this is no longer about "Ba'athist diehards", "foreign fighters", or "Islamic fundamentalists"; it seems to have become a true popular uprising which has united both Sunni and Shi'a. That is something of an achievement for the Americans, though a rather ironic one. Last year, everyone was worried about Iraq disintegrating into civil war - now it looks as if shared struggle against the occupation will be what holds it together.
Four emotions, deep ambivalence. I don't like bloodshed, but I can't condemn the people commiting it. Insofar as they are working to free Iraq, and not killing too many people in the process, their cause is just. Which is more than I can really say for the poor US soldiers being sent in to put them down.
Holy shit!
Someone has attacked a police station in Bulgaria with poison gas. The chemical used was chloropicrin, a lung agent used in WWI, and now used as a pesticide (in other words, not exactly impossible to obtain). It's not a particularly effective weapon, so there's only one dead.
Police have apparently arrested the person responsible, but there's no word yet on motive. The obvious conclusion would be that this is an attempt to punish Bulgaria for its contribution to the Coalition of the Willing, but that may not be the case. More news in the morning, I guess.
Corruption at Immigration
As if the Immigration Service didn't have enough bad press, now they've got more, with One News reporting widespread fraud and corruption:
A report by consultants KPMG reveals that while Lianne Dalziel was in charge of immigration, staff falsified documents, sold information and gave preferential treatment to their friends.[...]
In just two years from 2001-2003, the report said some 49 staff members were involved in corruption. So far, 13 staff have resigned or been sacked
At first glance, 49 people doesn't sound like many, but the Immigration Service only has about 750 staff. While its over a three year period, we are still talking about around 5% of the service as a whole. And by New Zealand standards, that's "widespread"...
This simply isn't good enough. The concentration of power and need around immigration means that it will attract corruption, or at least attempts at it - any fool can see that. So why weren't we watching our bureaucrats? Why weren't staff subjected to background checks and high levels of scrutiny to ensure honesty? The problem and the solutions are so blindingly obvious that there's just no way to see this as anything other than a gross failure by the government - even if previous governments didn't put them in place, the present government should have.
But blame aside, the Immigration Service needs a shakeup, if not a full-on purge. They have a toxic internal culture, a hostility to public and government oversight, and a history of continued incompetence. None of this should be tolerated in our public services; we should spare no effort in rooting it out.
Catching up
Seems a lot happened while I was away - Iraq has gone to hell in a handbasket, with the US fighting the nightmare of a popular Shi'a uprising, the government has released its foreshore and seabed policy and pleased no-one, and Leto has decided to give up blogging for a while.
Hopefully I'll get round to commenting on some of this soon, after I've caught up on the news and on sleep - the night train isn't exactly comfortable.
This is just daft. The Royal Australasian College of Surgeons should really stick to talking about medicine. They've called for New Zealand's 1400 level crossings to be removed to put an end to accidents.
Where this is not possible they want to install automatic boom gates, rumble strips, warning signs with flashing lights and speed restrictions. They also want crossings illuminated when being used and railway vehicles to have reflective markings.
Have these people been prescribing themselves drugs? As the report says, you might as well ban intersections to stop car accidents. Reflective markings??? How the fuck can you fail to see a train? They do tend to stand out a bit. Who would pay to put underpasses in instead level crossings anyway?
People die because they don't bother looking...if they didn't die on a level crossing they'd probably get killed crossing the road anyway. People will happily drive around the barrier arms to avoid having to wait for the train. The underlying problem here is stupidity...no matter how much money (other people's money incidentally) is spent its not going to change this.
At some point people have to be responsible for there own actions and their own safety you can't wrap the entire country in cotton wool.
Opportunity goes begging in Iraq
I had pretty much stopped reading about Iraq...its just too depressing but since I promised to hold the fort while Idiot is in Auckland, here goes.
If you can't stomach reading Robert Fisk anymore, this excellent article by Naomi Klein gives a good perspective of what is really happening down at street level in the new Iraq.
Meanwhile, Colin Powell has acknowledged that the "most dramatic" part of his presentation to the United Nations making the case for war on Iraq was based on flawed intelligence.
It makes it sound so innocuous though, doesn't it?
"Whoops, those silly duffers at the CIA gave me shonky intelligence info and made me look like a bit of a muppet in front of the UN...oh well no harm done."
The thousands of people maimed and injured because of this conflict, the children who have been horribly injured due to the coalition's indiscriminate use of cluster bombs, the families of the 10,000+ civilian casualties, unknown numbers of Saddam's poorly equipped cannon fodder or the 600 dead American military personnel will be comforted to know that America went to war because of some bureaucratic mistake (and that's being charitable).
Some people think that the ends (ousting Saddam) justified the means (giving the UN the finger). No Right Turn disagrees for reasons that Idiot has already gone into. But despite the dubious legality of the Invasion, America had a fantastic opportunity to make a difference in the Middle East.
Building a prosperous democratic Iraq would have shown the Arab world that America could be a friend and partner and that Western values weren't so bad after all. It could have helped fix the perception on the Arab street that America was just a tool of Tel Aviv. They could have done a lot to address the root causes of Islamic terrorism and reduce the support for these extremists as our memes took root and spread throughout the area.
Once Saddam was toppled they had a blank slate to work with and a population who, while stopping short of throwing a carpet of rose petals down in front of their tanks, were largely happy to see them.
One year on its all gone to custard. Despite getting rid of Saddam's evil regime, the Americans are despised to the point where in places, it is no longer safe for Westerners to go there lest they get killed by a suicide bomber, have their hotel blown up or worse, be set upon by a mob, burned, hacked up with shovels and hung from a bridge (I think that was how it went...I was trying not to watch).
Due to the actions of the occupiers Iraqi citizens have been radicalised and delivered into the hands of extremists...Al Qaida couldn't have done it better themselves if they'd tried...nice one George.
We're getting out of Iraq
...in September. However, the New Zealand provincial reconstruction team will be staying in Afghanistan for another year.
This is fair enough. Thanks to American mismanagement, Iraq is simply getting too dangerous for us to continue to play a role. And we are better to direct our limited resources to places where we can actually help, rather than wasting them trying to clean up Bush's messes.
Processes
Helen Clark has given her strongest signal to date that the laws surrounding oversight of the SIS will be reviewed. However, what's strange is her insistence that the review will not happen until after the Zaoui case is resolved. If the process is so grossly flawed as to need serious revision, then the outcome of that process in the Zaoui case must surely be in doubt.
Justice will not be served by continuing to expose Zaoui to a flawed and secretitive process. The government would be better to move the whole case to the courts, rather than continuing to rely on the SIS Inspector-General. That's the only way we can have any confidence in the outcome.
