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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Even in times of impending conflict, the Pentagon never forgets that we are living in the information age:
“The US has dropped at least 10 million leaflets on Iraq, telling Saddam Hussein’s troops how to improve their chances of survival if war starts.
Allied planes dropped another 660,000 leaflets with half-a-dozen different messages on 11 sites in southern Iraq.”
But many Iraqis have found the deluge of leaflets to be less than welcome. Baghdad resident Tawfiq Al-Saba said:
“It is so tiresome. I have to shovel them away from my door just to get out of the house in the morning. There are leaflets for everything from Samsonite luggage to water purifiers and pizza delivery. Even credit cards and cheap loans!!
But a spokesman for the USAF defended the policy.
“Look, we’re just following up on our leads. All these people have requested more information on our products. They’re all on our mailing list.”
The USAF spokesman was not prepared to comment on rumours of aggressive salesman being sent in shortly to ‘close the deals’.
There are signs of an unwelcome strain of unilateralism in this country. It is leading to dangerous instability:
“A £10,000 motorway speed camera has been cut down with a blow torch and thrown off a bridge.
PC Adams said the camera was a write-off and the film inside would have been ruined.”
I wish it to be known that I am outraged by this senseless, fascistic attack on an innocent speed camera that was simply going about its lawful business. All civilised people should rise up in righteous anger and resolve that this kind of thing should never happen again!
I wanted to write something about this tale earlier, but have been rushed off my feet with work. Anyway, I think it notable that in an age marked by preening Hollywood celebs and British thespian luvvies spouting peacenik garbage about Iraq, it is heartening that in another aspect of life – sport – there are real examples of folk willing to take a stand where it matters.
Nasser Hussein, captain of the English cricket Test side, will not go down in history perhaps as a victorious cricket captain like Len Hutton or even David Gower. He will, however, go down as a man who stood on an issue of principle over Robert Mugabe’s vile regime in Zimbabe. Defeated, mabye, but not with dishonour.
Addendum: for our American friends who haven’t a clue about cricket, my apologies.
Newswires and television stations are reporting that two of OBL’s sons have been arrested in Southeastern Afghanistan. Spot gold prices are plunging. Hmmm, a lot of high-profile arrests recently.
As long term readers have no doubt noticed, I follow the DOD press transcripts on a regular basis. Through the wonders of 21st Century technology I can be virtually present at all the DOD press briefings and media appearances.
One of the stories I have been following for the last few months is the arrangement between media and military for coverage of the coming end of Saddam. You may not know it, but there are going to be reporters and even TV crews embedded with virtually every unit from the first wave front line troops to the division headquarters forces.
The DOD has decided the best way to fight back against the expected disinformation campaign Saddam will wage is to have reporters right in the face of the battle and in literally every corner of it. Perhaps not embedded with special forces, but certainly almost everywhere else. We are going to get battles live on TV this time around. I also suspect we are going to see more dead journalists than usual given their location in the thick of it.
The reporting will be more open than in previous wars but with critical restrictions on the release of information which would compromise a mission, or the showing or naming of dead and maimed soldiers before families have been notified. I can’t imagine any decent human being not understanding the latter. As to the former, if a reporter gives away operational information on their unit their own arse is on the line.
It seems like a good plan to me. We’ll get a perspective never before seen outside of the front line. The military gets a lot of protection against what Saddam is going to try to pull off 1. The media get a freer reign than they have had in decades and must only follow rules which would require either stupidity or inhumanity to violate.
There have been many briefings on this topic, but you may find this NPR discussion a good introduction to the pro’s and con’s. While you are reading, note the comments of the New York Times correspondent.
He’s everything you’d expect from them.
1 =There have been recent reports some elite Iraqi troops have been issued uniforms made to look exactly like the american ones and have been ordered to commit atrocities to stir up trouble. The troops in question are the same ones who have been responsible for beheading women in public places and who are seen in TV footage with faces covered in white masks. There are also reports explosives have been purchased, wells mined and that some oil wells have already been blown up. Trenches of fuel oil for smoke barriers have been filled and tested. Saddam might also order the intentional release of millions of gallons of crude per day into the Persian Gulf in an attempt to destroy the water desalinization plants and water tables of Kuwait and other water poor Arab countries.
Tony Millard writes about Nigeria, Cameroon and Russia from the middle of Tuscany.
Two days ago I got a typical Nigerian fraud scam email and, in a spirit of light-hearted humour, forwarded it to a few people with a preamble to the effect that USD$ 5,000,000 fee for giving my bank account details to someone in Africa was a good deal and should be pursued with enthusiasm as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I got the usual responses from the usual people (i.e. more or less polite trying to ‘appreciate’ the joke) but one stood out. It was from the wife of a friend of mine, who worked for the UN for many years in Africa.
I think it makes great reading and confirms what we already know, that the UN is a pointless bloated gravy train that has nothing to do with Africans, who seem to be written off by them as some sort of cattle, and everything to do with driving around in large 4x4s and going to self-serving meetings at my and your expense.
I reproduce is the email below in full, witholding the name of the person as the couple are good friends, despite their employment history…
Dear Tony,
I just read your mail “Blessing In Disguise”. I suppose it is a joke, not being very good at sensing British humor. But in case it is not, I just want to share a few things from my own experience. You know that I have worked in Africa with different missions for the UN in the 90s, the longest one being in Cameroon, a country neighboring Nigeria. Camerooneese are very violent people and my life was several times in danger. However, compared to Nigerians, they are angels. I have been told by UN and World Bank officials never to set foot in Nigeria. It is a country where pistols and knives are used daily especially in Lagos. I have heard of people having rented a car who had to go to their hotels naked, stripped from their clothes, their money and car stolen. Even the Cameroonese avoid Nigeria.
When I came back from Cameroon to Paris, the only Cameroonese woman I trusted there, a young lady employed by the government, called me to let me know that she was arriving in Paris for a visit. I was gearing up to do everything to help her but immediately upon her arrival, I received an official call from the UN people inquiring if she was staying with me and telling me to get rid of her immediately. Apparently, after my departure from Cameroon, she together with a group of other women, had visited the police to lodge a complaint against me, accusing me of spreading propaganda against their government.
Imagine that! I worked for their government. My contacts at the World Bank later told me that once I were back in Cameroon, I’d be chucked in the underground of the airport where they would probably let me rot for days in the horrendous heat (for comparison, Tuscany temperatures in the middle of the summer are positively winter-like there).
The problem with the people in these countries is that corruption, violence and deception are ubiquitous and not addressed by the police, as such behavior appears to be the norm in their mind. You cannot trust anybody. Frankly, I’d rather go today to Iraq than any time to Cameroon or Nigeria.
Btw, similar precautions apply to any deal in which the Russians are involved…Our good Lithuanian friend, when he was doing business in Russia, never travelled without a pistol in his pocket and always accompanied with two ‘gardes du corps’…
Tony, let me know very quickly that this is a joke so that I stop worrying.
XXX
So, just three things here so far today, one very short and two rather serious. So here are a couple of curiosities.
First, there is this map, which was originally claimed to have been taken posthumously by Columbia before it burned and crashed. You want this to be true, don’t you? As did Michael Jennings. But as I commented at Michael’s, those killjoys at snopes.com have now killed this particular joy. But it is still a thing of beauty, and certainly has my little country looking its best. Snopes says it is “false”, but their map is even bigger than the one Michael put up, so they liked it even as they trashed it.
And the other is a beating heart, courtesy of b3ta.com. Who are those guys?
When you consider all the metaphorical baggage that has been loaded onto the human heart over the centuries, it turns out to be very small and yucky, and you can swap yours for another with “you” carrying on pretty much as usual. It’s just a pump.
And a picture is just a picture.
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said on Tuesday that it was unlikely Moscow would abstain on a U.N. vote on authorizing war against Iraq and strongly indicated it will use its Security Council veto to stop it if necessary.
At a joint news conference with Jack Straw yesterday the Russian softened his stance slightly. “The Iraqi issue is one that is unlikely that one of us would abstain…We have not ruled out using a veto over the crisis.”
The French/Chirac’s interests in Iraq have already been examined in some detail but I am yet to see a comparable analysis of the Russian motives. At the moment it seems that Russia is giving itself ample room to support America and Britain in future military action despite declaring its opposition to war in Iraq.
It is clear that Moscow expects to extract maximum amount for its support of military action in the UN. Perhaps the price has not been high enough. They will want guarantees that Russia’s economic interests in Iraq will be preserved, particularly its contracts to develop rich oil fields once sanctions are lifted.
Also, Iraq is one of Russia’s traditional allies. Russian hardware makes up 95 per cent of Iraq’s arms and the two developed strong ties in Soviet times. It is hard to believe that they do not see that they would be much better off supporting the US and the UK in its strategy.
The problem seems to be not only the Russian government’s need to protect huge investments and deals already made but also its inability to recognise that the kind of blackmail Iraqis are trying on them, is not necessarily ‘understood’ by the Bush administration.
Last year, a week before Christmas, a row broke out between Russia and Iraq when Baghdad declared “null and void” a �200 billion deal with Lukoil to develop the West Qurna oil field.
Russia’s energy and foreign ministries reacted furiously to the news. Tariq Aziz, Iraq’s deputy prime minister, said the cancellation was to punish Lukoil for negotiating with America over its future interests in the region. Given Iraq’s record, the cancellation of the deal was probably a crude attempt to blackmail Moscow into offering greater diplomatic support during the crucial developments in the UN in the coming months.
At that time Igor Ivanov, the Russian foreign minister, called for talks on the deal. If America had offered Moscow the guarantees it was seeking for Lukoil, the balance of power (or rather of obstructiveness) might have looked rather different today. Russia’s aim is to get the US to convince it that Saddam’s downfall would be to its economic advantage. Or in other words, pay them now or in future lucrative contracts, or else. Who said that the UN was a street market of sordid bargains?
Update: Earlier today on MTV, Mr Blair said that in a post-conflict Iraq, the country’s oil should go into a UN supervised reserve which would be for the benefit of the Iraqi people. Oh dear, oh dear…
What’s that old saying? ‘A week is a long time in politics’? If that’s true then what about 6 years? That must be a really long time in politics. But, maybe, not long enough:
“Hillary Clinton is emerging, among Democrats and political observers, as the favourite to be the candidate for the 2008 presidential race.
Until recently, Senator Clinton had maintained a fairly low profile in Washington but she is now being identified as the most likely opponent to the Republican challenger.”
Now Democrats I can understand but who are these ‘political observers’? Just a polite euphamism for the Independent editorial staff? I smell a bit of early British-left campaigning.
“Most observers worry, however, that Mrs Clinton, who has been manoeuvring to portray herself as a centrist, remains a highly polarising figure. While she may have won the affection of many New Yorkers, in more conservative corners of the country she attracts emotions verging on outright hatred.”
It’s those ‘observers’ again. The ‘worry’ is a dead give-away. That combined with the understatement. If our US readers are anything to go by then the above-mentioned emotions go way beyond outright hatred.
Still, can anybody put their hand on their heart and tell me that the thought of Hilary Clinton in the Whitehouse doesn’t send a cold shudder down your spine?
On March 6, 1950 the first egg of Silly Putty was sold.
Modern Architecture just gets better and better – although when you think how bad it was three or four decades ago this has not been hard to contrive. It looks as if I will be writing about new London architecture a lot on my new Culture Blog, and my most recent post there is about a superb new London building that is now nearing completion.
This is 30 Saint Mary Axe, formerly know as the Swiss Re Building (Re meaning Re-insurance), and still known unofficially as The Gherkin, which is a bit unkind because it is a deal more elegant than that, I think. My congratulations to Sir Norman Foster and his partners. This elegant new tower makes a distinctive contribution to London’s skyline, and is just as impressive close up.
I know that these things are a matter of opinion, but I think that this building is extremely beautiful. I also believe that the chances – on the whole and with many exceptions – are improving all the time that the next big new building where you live will be likewise. It didn’t use to be at all like this, but now, it is.
Why all this beauty, all of a sudden, and in a style that used to be the very definition of brutish ugliness? Big question. Short answer: they are now, at least, trying to do beauty.
British taxpayers it seems, are not very clued up about the upcoming raids on their wallets, according to this article.
A recent survey showed a high number of ordinary investors do not know that dividends paid out on equity ISAs (tax-free plans which are a bit like 401K plans in the US) will be liable for tax from next April. Brilliant. The government launches a tax-free investment scheme to get us folk to save and hey presto! – whacks us for tax a few years’ later!
The background to all this, of course, is the ongoing slow-motion car accident that Gordon Brown’s stewardship of the British economy is beginning to resemble. Brown has enjoyed about four to five years of a relatively muted press, outside of the most partisan ranks, a flourishing economy coming off the back of the 1990s boom and the Tory reforms.
Now it is going horribly pear-shaped. It would of course be grossly unfair to pin all this on the dour-faced Scot, but his reckless jacking up of spending last year, even while stock markets were cratering, has proven a gross folly. His star is waning. My guess is that if PM Tony Blair does fall because of the Iraqi crisis – and I pray he doesn’t – then it is far from certain that Brown will inherit the keys to 10 Downing Street.
But lest I be accused of partisanship (perish that thought), I should add that the Tory Party’s MPs, such as shadow Chancellor Michael Howard, have not exactly raised the decibel count over such matters as the tax on savings or else. The party is still seemingly wedded to the idea that if they mention tax cuts they’ll be accused of letting Granny starve in the streets.
If any Tory party readers off this blog want to correct me on the above, I’d be delighted to see it in the comments section.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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