We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
The following stands out among the many comments to my previous post on Iraq.
How much is an Iraqi life worth? To me personally, about zero. Here’s why:
– I have no friends in Iraq (and doubt I ever will by the end of this post)
– No Iraqi signs my paycheck
– No Iraqi makes anything special that I can’t buy anywhere else (oil?)
– Iraq is on the other side of the globe
“But they’re being killed” you say. So are many other people. What about the North Koreans? What about the people who will effectively be killed because they cannot afford medical care due to this war? What about third world countries where parents have more children than they can afford to feed? Please make an objective, logical argument why the life of an Iraqi rates above (not just equal to) these others.
There are two issues in this comment. One is the old boring question “Why Iraqis and not North Koreans, or Chinese, or any other suffering people?” We have repeated countless times here on Samizdata.net that we do not consider lives of Iraqis above other individuals suffering elsewhere. Yes, I do want the world to be rid of North Korean, Chinese, Iranian and any other statist murderers. By yesterday, if you please. It’s long overdue and given that my taxes also pay for the army (or what’s left of it), I have no hesitation in supporting its use in cases when this becomes part of a government strategy.
The fact that the US and UK government policies are temporarily aligned with my view of the world does not redeem them in my eyes or make them somehow better entities. My objections to the state and my hatred of anything statist is not negated by my support of Bush and Blair in their determination to give Saddam his due. Samizdata’s eye will watch over the American attempts to establish democracy in Iraq with the same vigilance as ever and hurry to point out any misdemeanour by the inherently collectivist and kleptocratic state.
More importantly, the comment touches on an issue far greater than Iraq and the international pandemonium associated with it. Why do most of us hate to see people suffer? Why should we be moved by a sight of a child corpse, a woman tortured or a man shot? Why does the world remain shocked, moved and outraged by the suffering endured by those in Nazi concentration camps and Stalinist gulags (although unfortunately too few pictures serve to fuel the horror over those)?
I do not count myself among the emotionally incontinent (public expressions of grief) and the emotionally unsatiated (reality TV). My outrage comes from the belief that an individual is more important than a lofty idealistic concept, more so since every ‘utopia’ has built its edifice on a large pile of human bodies. The more idealistic and utopian the vision, the longer it takes to defeat it and the larger the ‘mountain of skulls’ left behind.
 
Savonarola’s Florence, Robespierre’s France, Stalin’s Russia, Hitler’s Germany, Mao’s China, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, Kim Jong-il’s North Korea, Saddam’s Iraq, note that there is an individual’s name attached to every totalitarian nightmare. We are forced to ‘care’ about them, whether we like it or not. If we are lucky, we have not been affected directly, but they certainly had an impact on the way we live today, simply as a result of the international politics shaped by their existence. → Continue reading: Old style morality…
Those who oppose war with Iraq on the grounds that that civilians would be killed fail to understand that people are already dying due to Saddam’s misrule. Saddam Hussein has not earned his name “the Butcher of Baghdad” for nothing. He has been ruthless in his treatment of any opposition to him since his rise to power in 1979. A cruel and callous disregard for human life and suffering remains the hallmark of his regime.
The repressive violence of Saddam’s regime is the norm and not something used by the authorities in exceptional circumstances as it is in many countries. The repression, imprisonment, torture, deportation, assassination, and execution are strategies followed by Saddam’s regime in dealing with Iraqi people. The following are few examples of these crimes:
- The killing of Sunni leaders such as Abdul Aziz Al Badri the Imam of Dragh district mosque in Baghdad in 1969, Al Shaikh Nadhum Al Asi from Ubaid tribe in Northern Iraq, Al Shiakh Al Shahrazori, Al Shaikh Umar Shaqlawa, Al Shiakh Rami Al Kirkukly, Al Shiakh Mohamad Shafeeq Al Badri, Abdul Ghani Shindala.
- The arrest of hundreds of Iraqi Islamic activists and the execution of five religious leaders in 1974.
- The arrest of thousands of religious people who rose up against the regime and the killing of hundreds of them in the popular uprising of 1977 in which Shia cleric, Agha Mohamad Baqir Al Hakim, the leader of SCIRI was sentenced to life imprisonment.
- The execution of 21 Ba’ath Party leaders in 1979 in Iraq , the assassination of Hardan Al Tikriti former defence Minister in Kuwait in 1973, and the former Prime Minister Abdul Razzaq Al Naef in London 1978
- The arrest, torture and executions of tens of religious scholars and Islamic activists in such as Qasim Shubbar, Qasim Al Mubarqaa in 1979.
- The arrest, torture and execution of Shia cleric Agha Mohamad Baqir Al Sadr and his sister Amina Al Sadr (Bint Al Huda) in 1980.
- The war against Iran in 1980 in which hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed, and many more were handicapped or reported missing.
- The arrest of 90 members of Al Hakim family and the execution of 16 members of that family in 1983 to put pressure on Agha Mohamad Baqir Al Hakim to stop his struggle against Saddam’s regime.
- The occupation of Kuwait which resulted in killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and injuring many times that number in addition to the destruction of Iraq.
- The assassination of many opposition figures outside Iraq such as Haj Sahal Al Salman in UAE in 1981, Sami Mahdi and Ni’ma Mohamad in Pakistan in 1987, Sayed Mahdi Al Hakim in Sudan in 1988, and Shaikh Talib Al Suhail in Lebanon in 1994.
It is well documented that Saddam’s regime has produced and used chemical weapons against the Iraqi people and against neighbouring countries. Here are some examples of his use of such weapons:
- It is widely known that Saddam’s regime dropped chemical bombs by air fighter on Halabja in Northern Iraq in 1988. The reports of the UN, other international organisations and Western governments confirmed that more than 5,000 thousand civilians were died within a few hours. Eye witness accounts, photos and films have verified the horror of this attrocity.
- Saddam’s regime used chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers during Iraq-Iran war. Many of them were sent to Europe to receive medical treatment and they were seen on TV across the world.
- General Wafiq Al Samarae, the former director of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, admitted in his book Eastern Gate Ruins that Saddam’s regime used light chemical weapons against Iraqi people in the cities of Najaf and Karbala to crush the popular uprising of March 1991 which followed the defeat of Saddam after his invasion of Kuwait.
- After the crushing of the uprising, large number of people took sanctuary in the Marshes of Southern Iraq. In 1993 Saddam used chemical weapons against those hiding there in order to crush resistance.
 
Now tell me again that Bush or Blair are worse than Saddam…
I have no time for the those who took to the streets this weekend, de facto, in support of Saddam’s murderous regime. These are people who feel the need to soothe their morally atrophied consciences deafened by political correctness, the modern obsession with emotion and the life of comfort and material excess1.
Their act of protest is a far cry from a reasoned consideration of facts, the reality of international politics, of Iraq and the suffering of its people under Saddam or Iraq’s threat to the Western world. Theirs is a response based on emotions only, without thinking of the consequences of such action. Hate America? Join the protest. Hate Bush and the Republicans? Join the protest. Hate Tony Blair and the government? Join the protest. Hate Israel? Join the protest. Hate politicians? Join the protest. Hate the fact nobody takes you seriously? Join the protest. Hate your mediocre existence? Join the protest. Hate rational discourse? Join the protest. Miss the marches of the communists, peace movements, anti-Vietnam protesters etc of the Cold War era? Feel inadequate or need to feel important? Join the protest.
In fact, ‘peace and motherhood’ have very little to do with the global protests against the US and UK determination to remove Saddam. What is the point of peace, if the price paid for it is someone else’s pain and suffering? Proclamation of support for all things pink & fluffy and for general concepts of ‘goodness’ is the perfect anchor for those drawning in moral vagueness unable to reason their way out complex issues that defy simple solutions.
How much easier it is to look away, or to hastily cover the offending sight with excuses, defensive answers and idealistic slogans or level accusations against those who try to point out unpleasant facts. This type of anti-rationalism prefers slogans to serious consideration of complex reality.
However, this is a luxury not afforded to those who battle for their survival – physical and moral – wrestling the remnants of their humanity from the daily tyranny, whether they live in Iraq or Iran, North Korea or China. It is a fight that they are almost certain to lose without help, their oppressors poised to pounce on any expression of integrity and purpose as a sign of defiance. No-one can undo the suffering already inflicted on them. I protest against those who deny them the chance of living like humans for the rest of their lives.
Note1: I have nothing against comfort and life of excess, the point is that those who have it should not claim the moral high ground in deciding what is better for those who have to face different and starker kind of reality.
The French prime minister, Jacques Chirac, had visited Baghdad in December 1974 amid much pomp. Vice President Saddam offered to take care of Chirac’s visit and in their several meetings the two men enjoyed an unexpected rapport, much to the surprise of the traveling French entourage. At the end of the visit the French prime minister warmly embraced Saddam, calling him ‘a personal friend’, a returned home with a sheaf of lucrative contracts (for weaponry) worth 15 billion francs. One of them was the deal to supply the brand new reactor.
– Brighter Than the Baghdad Sun,” published in 1999, page 74
[Thanks to The Invisible Hand for the quote]
Yesterday France, Germany and Belgium announced that they are invoking an unprecedented NATO procedure to prevent the United States lending support to Turkey to defend its border with Iraq. Washington was disconcerted and dismayed by last week’s move. Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, described the Franco-German action as a “breathtaking event” that would “reverberate throughout the alliance”.
Turkey has invoked Article 4, that requires members to consult together when, in the opinion of any of them, their territorial integrity, political independence or security is threatened. It is the first time this has been done in the history of the alliance, thus ensuring an urgent and high level debate over the Franco-German action. The impact of that action is questionable for a number of reasons.
John Keegan has an insightful analysis of the reasons for the rift and the potential fall-out.
- Turkey has bilateral defence agreements with the United States, which allow military aid outside the NATO relationship.
- The Patriot missiles offered to Turkey are under Dutch sovereign control and so not subject to NATO interference.
- America could provide the Awacs early warning aircraft if NATO refuses to send its own.
There is nothing new about the French being obstinate towards the United States in general and NATO in particular. France withdrew from NATO’s military structure in 1966 to pursue an independent foreign and defence policy. Later it attempted to revive the military role of the Western European Union, NATO’s long sidelined precursor, and then tried to invest the European Commission with defence responsibilities.
As long as the United States perceived the drive for European unity to be economic in thrust, the French efforts to create a parallel military structure within the western European NATO area were tolerated. It was the disputes over authority in Bosnia and Kosovo that eventually caused Washington to see the purpose of French policy as intended to weaken NATO. American acquiescence was eroded and led to hostility.
I whole-heartedly subscribe to Keegan’s view that the United States created NATO and has fostered its development and welfare devotedly over 50 years and that the alliance is, without question, the most important, successful and creative foreign policy initiative of the United States since the Second World War.
The French and Germans, not to mention the insignificant Belgians, seem simply, like tiresome neighbours, to be demanding attention. In so doing, they are inflicting damage on the organisation that secured their safety during the Cold War, and affronting the ally that guaranteed it, to a degree that cannot easily be forgotten or forgiven.
Several NATO members are unshakeable in their loyalty. They include this country, Turkey and probably Italy and Spain. Several of the new NATO states, Poland foremost, would be eager to offer basing facilities to troops withdrawn from Germany soil. The Belgians do not count. The Dutch seem solid. Denmark and Norway are, with reservations, good NATO citizens.
A map of NATO with a hole where Germany had been would look odd; but the map has looked odd for 40 years since the French went their separate way. Now that the Soviet threat is no more, Nato does not really need Germany, except for purposes of internal communication. Germany’s armed forces are in disarray, as are those of France.
An Anglo-Saxon NATO, plus Turkey, plus Scandinavia, plus Italy and Spain would still have the bases necessary to command the key strategic positions and the strength to keep the peace in the northern hemisphere.
I just hope the United States does not budge and ensures that the French and German leaders get exactly what they deserve for their unprincipled and self-interested behaviour. To me that would be France and Germany finally occupying positions on the international scene that are commensurate with their true significance rather than based on some historically misplaced delusions of grandeur.
The question of why the US is gearing up to fight Iraq and not North Korea has been explored at length, mostly by those who would like the US do nothing about either. The reasons given here are convincing but there is an even more likely scenario. North Korea’s power to blackmail the rest of the world by threatening or invading its neighbours is correctly put into perspective.
The maximum damage North Korea could inflict on the world, even with tactical nukes, would be to destroy the economy of South Korea. Certainly, a tragedy for the South Koreans but its catastrophic impact on the country and its population is not likely to spill over to the rest of the world to the extent Iraq’s success would, as I argue below. This scenario, of course, assumes rather vaguely that the South Korean army would not annihilate the 1950s-style North Korean army in the first encounter. Tactical nuclear devices are horrendous, however, with so much at stake, South Korea would put everything it has into defending its territory and ultimately free existence. Further, it is likely to be a one shot event, so to speak. Yes, the destruction of the South Korean economy would plunge the world economy into recession but ultimately even if Seoul is destroyed, it could be rebuilt just as the Japanese rebuilt their cities.
The point I want to make is that the same kind of ‘local incidents – global effects’ reasoning should be used for thinking about Iraq. My conclusion is frightening and adds an extra urgency to the removal of Saddam and disarming of Iraq. This is because Iraq armed with nuclear weapons, tactical ones that is, could not only destabilise the Middle East, it could hold the Western world to ransom for the foreseeable future. I am pretty sure it would. Here’s how: → Continue reading: It’s all about oil, after all
Sir Humphrey: “Minister, Britain has had the same foreign policy objective for at least the last 500 years: to create a disunited Europe. In that cause we have fought with the Dutch against the Spanish, with the Germans against the French, with the French and Italians against the Germans, and with the French against the Germans and Italians. Divide and rule, you see. Why should we change now when it’s worked so well?”
Jim Hacker: “That’s all ancient history, surely.”
Sir Humphrey: “Yes, and current policy. We had to break the whole thing [the EEC] up, so we had to get inside. We tried to break it up from the outside, but that wouldn’t work. Now that we’re inside we can make a complete pig’s breakfast of the whole thing: set the Germans against the French, the French against the Italians, the Italians against the Dutch. The Foreign Office is terribly pleased, it’s just like old times.”
– Yes, Minister, British comedy series
A law firm with a fetching name, Public Interest Lawyers intends to prosecute Prime Minister Tony Blair for war crimes at the new International Criminal Court (ICC), if an Iraqi war goes ahead.
Phil Shiner of the law firm is leading a campaign to prosecute leaders in the seven-month-old ICC, if military action goes ahead without a second United Nations resolution expressly authorising force, or if any Iraqi civilians are killed in bombing campaigns.
“The ICC brings a new international context to war – Blair now has to consider his individual accountability.”
The ICC’s independent prosecutor can initiate proceedings at the request of a state or can receive evidence from anyone, and then decide whether to prosecute, subject to advice from three of the court’s 18 judges. The prosecution will be based on the fact that national leaders could be held individually responsible for war crimes and be tried as ex-Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has at a separate court for former Yugoslavia.
The United States fiercely opposes the ICC, saying it would infringe U.S. sovereignty, but Britain has ratified its treaty and would have to give up any citizen the court wanted to try.
“The ICC will now place a serious constraint on Blair.”
Oh really?! That must make Blair quake in his boots. I fervently hope he ignores the self-righteous and attention-seeking bunch of idiotarians. The International Criminal Court, what a brilliant idea, I hear people cry, just like the UN. The picture comes into focus once the client of Public Interest Lawyers’ who initiated the proceedings is revealed! Enter CND, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament! And I thought they were all in Iraq making sure Saddam gets disarmed and prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons. You can’t rely on anybody these days.
But there is a serious lesson for Blair and the UK government in this farcical episode – next time read the small print on all those treaties and agreements and codes and declarations you are signing, in case the Tranzis decide you are not dancing to their tune. It seems that in this case, the US knew better…
The Centre for Policy Studies published a report warning that the National Health Service is “on the brink of implosion” as government plans for a record 40 billion pound cash injection risk being squandered on bureaucracy. The author of the report, Dr Maurice Slevin, is a cancer specialist at a top London teaching hospital:
“I have seen at first hand the steady decay of a great public institution … The NHS is on the brink of implosion.”
Slevin, who came to England from South Africa and now works at Barts and the London NHS Trust, said he was full of enthusiasm when he started working for the NHS 24 years ago. But today it was clear that the quality of care delivered in Britain was far below that of other western countries. He warned that without major reforms, the 40 billion pound promised for the NHS over the next five years would “simply disappear into deeper and deeper layers of bureaucracy, with more and more monitoring of more and more targets.”
“Waste is endemic. The Department of Health itself admits that up to a fifth of the NHS budget is lost through waste, fraud and inefficiency.”
So it’s not more money that needs to be thrown at the public services as some community minded people would have us believe. The NHS is a strange institution, rooted in the meta-context of the collective effort the British nation experienced during the WWII and resisting any rational discourse by both the politicians and the public. Horror stories of patients suffering at the hands of NHS are part of regular reporting routine and yet, it still seems to be a political suicide to talk about real modernisation and de-nationalisation of the health care system.
Public services, being the most direct way for politicians of bribing the public into voting for them, have always been the most sensitive political issue. I have this horrible vision of the entire GDP disappearing into the NHS blackhole before the British public acknowledges the failure of the NHS as a system of health care provision and confronts the gruesome reality of public services.
Hear a speech declaring a holy war and, I assure you, your ears should catch the clink of evil’s scales and the dragging of its monstrous tail over the purity of the language.
– Dr Cruces, head tutor of the Guild of Assassins in Pyramids by Terry Pratchett
Forty-two US Nobel Prize winners have signed a declaration denouncing any unilateral, pre-emptive strike by the US against Iraq:
“The undersigned oppose a preventive war against Iraq without broad international support. Military operations against Iraq may indeed lead to a relatively swift victory in the short term. But war is characterized by surprise, human loss, and unintended consequences. Even with a victory, we believe that the medical, economic, environmental, moral, spiritual, political, and legal consequences of an American preventive attack on Iraq would undermine, not protect, U.S. security and standing in the world”.
The Nobel laureate who wrote and circulated the declaration is chemist Walter Kohn of the University of California at Santa Barbara, a former adviser to the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Other signatories include physicists behind the nuclear research that ended the Second World War. Hans Bethe was an atom bomb designer and Norman Ramsey was part of the Manhattan project to build an atom bomb.
“We are a group of bright people who have had very relevant experiences. We hope to contribute to the sharpness of the discussion.”
Yeah, right, we wish. However, all is not lost. Apparently, six Nobel laureates refused to sign the declaration. According to Kohn their reasons were a lack of faith in the UN, a desire to avoid mixing science with politics and a fear of appeasing Iraq. Seems like a sound bunch of scientists to me (I am, of course, only assuming that they are scientists). Unfortunately, I could not find their names anywhere as the only source of the report seems to be New Scientist. If anyone knows who they are and what they said, I would be interested to read their comments in full.
In any case, it looks like the well-meaning Nobel-prize-winning professors have struck a bonanza in signatures. Last time I looked their support form had about 1360 signed and counting in just a couple of days! Well done. Only, it seems that most of the ‘signatories’ appear to be Raelians adding their own garbled and emotionally incontinent messages…
They are all stark raving mad. Bloody marvellous!
Professor Malcolm Law, a leading nutritionist in Britain, proposed a solution to obesity increasingly prevalent among children. As with most health professionals who are given a public platform in this country his proposal reflected the spirit of our statist age. Faced with evidence that Britons are fatter than ever and that increasing numbers of children are classified as clinically obese, he argued that politicians should seize the initiative and force food and drink manufacturers to reduce the size of products.
Professor Law believes that nothing less than an end to the ’20 per cent extra free’ culture will stave off the kind of nationwide obesity which in recent years has swept across America. He pointed to a study carried out last year which revealed that diners who ate a large meal at one sitting felt no more hungry after eating a smaller portion – if the plate was full, in most the cases the diner felt satisfied with their meal.
“Forty years ago the Government forced the tobacco companies to reduce the tar content of their cigarettes in the interests of public health. A similar approach needs to be taken today with ice creams, chocolate bars and other products.”
Note the language that our learned friend uses: “If we don’t cut down on the size of our portions we will find that in future we have a much higher incidence of obesity and heart disease. There is likely to be a large public health impact.”
This is the kind of attitude that has kept the NHS (Britain’s National Health Service) in place and indeed as long it exists the ‘public health impact’ will always be an argument for the health fascists. As long as the taxpayers are required to cover the cost of the consequences of other people’s actions, that is, a state-funded health system having to pick up the bill for the treatment of diseases associated with obesity, the ‘statist’ wolves in ‘public health’ clothing can make demands on the government to control our eating (drinking, smoking, living etc) habits.
And we know that the state is not your friend.
|
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.
|
