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]
|
Private military security companies have expanded their remit in recent years, raked in higher profits from governments using their services and started to undertake campaigns to legitimate their newfound status.
There are pros and cons to using such companies in wartime, and there is a danger that core defence spending is reduced in favour of such companies, when we could do with some poor bloody infantry and a lot less Eurofighters or useless frigates.
Is it War on Want‘s role to really demand that the government act upon this? Their charitable remit is stated as anti-poverty in their press release, and it is unclear why forcing legislation through Parliament would do anything to reduce poverty or alleged human rights abuses by such companies:
The challenge, from the anti-poverty charity War on Want, follows mounting reports of human rights abuse by mercenaries employed by private military and security companies in war zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Last October guards working for British firm Erinys International opened fire on a taxi near Kirkuk, wounding three civilians. In September mercenaries from the American private military company Blackwater killed 17 Iraqi civilians. Earlier a video published on the internet showed mercenaries from UK-based Aegis Defence Services randomly shooting at civilian cars from the back of their vehicle on the road to Baghdad airport. War on Want, calling for legislation including a ban on mercenaries’ use in combat, cites hundreds of incidents which have involved guards from Aegis and another British firm ArmorGroup in shootings. In the first four months of 2007 mercenaries working for ArmorGroup were engaged in combat action 293 times. Aegis mercenaries have been involved in combat action 168 times in the last three years and have seen eight employees killed, according to its chief executive officer, Tim Spicer. Spicer broke a UN arms embargo on Sierra Leone with his former company Sandline International, and was jailed in Papua New Guinea for earlier activities.
The calls for ‘democratic’ control of the private security companies are accompanied by demands that they are not allowed a role in combat. That seems to defeat the point of employing mercenaries and avoids looking at the problem: what rules are required for policing the actions of the private security companies.
The problem of abuse is clear and extends to any party involved in a war zone. Such matters are best dealt with through contract, rules of engagement and local law. If local law is unable to police the activity of mercenaries in a meaningful sense, then self-regulation and internal discipline are second best. If that does not work, then ensure that they are subject to the laws of those who hired them.
War on Want is unable to think beyond the normal route of political control, UN transnational imposition and legislative fiat. Democratic control is a staging post on the road to the complete abolition of such companies. When one sees the allegations, one wonders what states, the icons of democratic justice, have not committed far worse crimes. And their press release gives the impression that their worst crime is to make money, an unpardonable sin for the ethical crusader:
Iraq has turned this commercial opportunity into a huge money spinner, with UK companies among those making a real killing. British companies increased profits from £320 million in 2003 to £1.8 billion in 2004. Estimates have suggested the total income for the private security sector worldwide has reached $80-100 billion a year. In 2006, UK company ArmorGroup saw revenues totalling $273 million. The company earned $133 million in Iraq that year. Aegis and ArmorGroup have won valuable contracts with the US and UK governments in recent months. Aegis has won a new contract with the Pentagon worth $475 million dollars over the next two years. The US Army has favoured the company for a second time, following its earlier $293 million contract from 2004. In 2007 ArmorGroup won the UK government’s £20 million annual contract for security services in Afghanistan. Ruth Tanner, senior campaigns officer at War on Want, said: “Despite increasing evidence on human rights abuse by private military companies in Iraq, the government has failed to act. This free for all cannot be allowed to continue. David Miliband must act on this mercenary crisis as an urgent priority.”
When companies appear unaccountable and their employees free to abuse whomever they like, then there is a role for law: but a charity rationalises this as an improvement in social justice or poverty to undertake a politicised crusade that will not aid anyone apart from the puffed up conscience of the socialist.
The UN’s Office for the Co-ordination of Human Rights has recorded the death of 133 women in Basra, 79 for breaking ‘Islamic laws’ and 42 ‘honour killings’, though this does not add up to the total number of deaths. In 2007, the grip of conservative Shi’a militias on Basra tightened after the withdrawal of the British army and hastened the atmosphere of fear that grips the women of that city.
Sawsan, another woman who works at a university, says the message from the radicals to women is simple: “They seem to be sending us a message to stay at home and keep your mouth shut.”
After the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Sawsan says, the situation was “the best.” But now, she says, it’s “the worst.”
“We thought there would be freedom and democracy and women would have their rights. But all the things we were promised have not come true. There is only fear and horror.”
The control of the militias has resulted in barbaric and violent actions designed to cow the inhabitants of Basra and enforce the power of the gangs. The punishment of infractions is designed to ensure that the militias maintain their control over their neighbourhoods, their families and their women. Such examples are deemed to be required by the militia since well-educated, civilised women had more freedom and, therefore, more to lose. The insecurity of the militia fuels their violence:
One glance through the police file is enough to understand the consequences. Basra’s police chief, Gen. Abdul Jalil Khalaf, flips through the file, pointing to one unsolved case after another.
“I think so far, we have been unable to tackle this problem properly,” he says. “There are many motives for these crimes and parties involved in killing women, by strangling, beheading, chopping off their hands, legs, heads.”
“When I came to Basra a year ago,” he says, “two women were killed in front of their kids. Their blood was flowing in front of their kids, they were crying. Another woman was killed in front of her 6-year-old son, another in front of her 11-year-old child, and yet another who was pregnant.”
The killers enforcing their own version of Islamic justice are rarely caught, while women live in fear.
Boldly splattered in red paint just outside the main downtown market, a chilling sign reads: “We warn against not wearing a headscarf and wearing makeup. Those who do not abide by this will be punished. God is our witness, we have notified you.”
The security forces in Basra are unable to protect the population from the actions of the gangs. Western charities may wring their hands and salve their threadbare consciences by blaming the security forces for not achieving miracles. Yet, these militia members are cowards and maim or kill their victims because they are defenceless. These barbarians would think twice about inflicting pain if their victims were well-armed rather than unarmed and could shoot back.
It is of lasting shame that Britain scuttled back to the airport and left Basra in the hands of these lunatics.
The perception of Islamic science, perhaps properly called natural philosophy, has been shaped by Bernard Lewis and his strong programme of senescence instead of renaissance. The development of scientific knowledge follows a pre-ordained path to scientific revolution and those cultures that failed to ignite need to be explained. Is not exceptionalism the oddity? A review in the Times Literary Supplement adds to our understanding:
After all, the scientific and industrial revolutions did not occur anywhere in the world except in Europe, and therefore one needs to explain the peculiarity of European history, rather than adduce some kind of Islamic brake or blinker.
→ Continue reading: Islam’s long siesta
We were thinking of challenging the Taliban to a game of football on Christmas day, but I’m not sure they’d get the joke.
– Sgt Kraig Whalley, 29, Royal Military Policeman
There is a huge plume of smoke rising from Stratford, east of the City. Nothing on the news as to the origin of this. Mobile networks are already becoming overloaded.
UPDATE: Spectacular plumes, but terror motive “discounted”. Any jokes about London’s taxes going up in smoke can be made in the comments.
Only Musharraf could have made lawyers popular. No law, no liberty.
One of the more attractive elements of the Libertarian Alliance conferences is the enjoyable lunches, often served by attractive totty from Eastern Europe. After second-guessing the blackmailed royal, our conversation veered towards the compulsory testing of genetic material on the part of individuals.
After all, they are the Royal Family and if we are to be subjects, I do want to be sure that they are descended from the Queen. Without indulging in tittle-tattle on the unorthodox descent of facial features in the Windsor opera, we do have a right to ensure that the line remains pure. My own take was that this would involve a minor amendment to the Act of Settlement, alongside the abolition of the papist prohibition.
This does beg the question of how far back we should go if the present line proves to be a collection of interlopers and carpetbaggers descended from a priapic Keeper of the Privy Purse. My personal preference is for Alfred and a clear line of descent from Wessex and the Heptarchy. I would go back to Cunobelin if I could. Others prefer the continental certainties of the Normans.
Ensuring the demand that the heir to the throne is a lineal descendant of their father or mother seems a useful task for our new technologies.
The BBC is a strong brand for reasons that I dislike. Yet we must recognise that the Corporation straddles a paradoxical position. Some aspects of the Corporation are very good and provide a superior listening or viewing experience to its commercial rivals. Radio channels 3 and 4 may have declined in recent years but the stations still stand above their rivals. The contribution of the BBC to the nation includes a shared cultural and national experience that binds all four nations from Churchill to Blair, until alternatives undermined the cohesive agenda of public-sector broadcasting.
Discussing the parasitical coercion of the BBC’s institutions and its output today in Borough Market with Michael Jennings, the pessimism was palpable. As technology undermines the reasonable expectations of the licence fee, our views diverged. Michael thought that the levy would be converted into a tax, as the Political Class grasped at cultural hegemony. I was more sanguine, viewing the abolition of the licence fee as a cheap populist act for a government facing a public sector borrowing crisis. After all, people no longer ‘need’ the BBC, if they ever did.
This left a quandary. What shall we do with the BBC? And the answer is that the Corporation should be sold to Google. Like all public sector corporations there are strong centres of quirky innovation that could thrive in such a culture. Google has already linked up with the BBC and competes in certain media. Google could derive profit from providing premium services on worldwide subscription. It is a very valuable brand that no private sector owner would wish to dilute. The rush of creative abilties into the private sector from BBC redundancies would stimulate our media industries that are currently stifled by the dominant oligarchies of various publicly funded and regulated channels.
And households would save over one hundred pounds every year. It is a win-win.
Joseph Rowntree, like other Victorian Giants, campaigned against social evils in the footsteps of William Wilberforce, the abolitionist. The list of evils are clear, universal, puritanically nonconformist and relevant to the twenty-first century.
When Joseph Rowntree, the chocolate baron, established his charitable trust in 1904, he charged it with seeking out and curing the great scourges of humanity
It should pay particular attention to war, slavery, intemperance, the opium traffic, impurity, and gambling, he said.
Now, the Rowntree Trust has become dissatisfied with traditional social evils. They are probably too fuddy-duddy and fail to move the charitably inclined. But Julia Unwin, the Trust Director, who also deputises at the Food Standards Agency, has a list…
The ambitious 18-month project will be launched with a lecture at the Royal Society of Arts tonight by Julia Unwin, the trust director.
She said: From the very start our founder had amazing far-sightedness in predicting that both the causes and manifestations of social evils would change over time. We are asking people: ‘What is it that really appals you?’
Miss Unwin, deputy chairman of the Food Standards Agency, was reluctant to sway public opinion but said many new social problems arose from our growing affluence, including over-consumption; an ageing population; obesity; integration; alienation and political apathy.
You can add your vote here.
So, disgust with politics and choosing not to vote is now a social evil. How we can see the voluntary charity worker is now transformed into the professional disciplinarian, the whip of the public sector professional class, with all three mainstream parties as their political wing.
Is Blairism infectious? Our glorious leader (former) waltzed around Tripoli with his grin and imparted wisdom to the monarch of that realm. For we live in an age of usurpers, where dynasties conform to the current demand for popular sovereignty, and sons succeed fathers as Presidents.
Once Gadaffi had talked to the maestro, his own ambitions knew no limits.
Colonel Gaddafi yesterday called for the creation of a United States of Africa, and appeared to be positioning himself to be its first leader.
Flanked by his usual coterie of female bodyguards and wearing a shirt covered in images of African presidents, he said: My vision is to wake up the African leaders to unify our continent. Long live the United States of Africa. Long live African unity.
I fear that he lacks his idol’s penchant for suits, ties and hairdressers. But, perhaps his authentic look of the tyrant as scruff and the Byronic hair will open doors that remain closed to the Emissary.
Brussels Journal had a recent article on Vlaams Blok and contended that the political party did not receive playing field treatment. Such news no longer surprises and one can count down the days when a constrained political environment enters the UK, as politics is domesticated.
Next Sunday, the Belgians go to the polls. For various reasons the elections can hardly be called fair and democratic. Today the leadership of Vlaams Belang, Belgium’s largest party which strives for the independence of Flanders, Belgium’s Dutch-speaking northern half, met a delegation of OSCE observers to complain about various violations of the rules as outlined in the OSCE’s 2005 “Election Observation Handbook” (referred to below as EOH).
VB Senator Jurgen Ceder listed ten serious violations:
- Electronic voting without certification procedures
- Discrimination in campaign financing
- Candidates and political parties do not have access to the media on a non-discriminatory basis
- The state media are clearly biased
- Paid political advertising in daily newspapers is available to all parties, except one
- One political party cannot hold meetings in the capital
- Intimidation of candidates
- One party has been banned. Next step will be exclusion of certain candidates from the right to participate in elections
- The number of representatives is not proportional to the size of the electorate
- The elections in the Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde constituency are unconstitutional
Who would be their first target in the UK: UKIP? BNP?
I am an avid reader of science fiction, and the use of futuristic fiction as a source of ideas is a welcome development. The best science fiction is that which explores the boundaries of our concepts whether in the mind, the computer or how we relate to each other. This is one of the advantages of defending the freedom of the mind, the expression of which is usually described as freedom of speech
Anti-terror chiefs in the United States have hired a team of America’s most original sci-fi authors to dream up techniques to help them combat al-Qaeda.
Ideas so far include mobile phones with chemical weapons detectors and brain scanners fitted to airport sniffer dogs, so that security staff can read their minds.
The writers have also put government scientists in touch with Hollywood special-effects experts, to work on better facial-recognition software to pick out terrorists at airports.
The Department of Homeland Security has set aside around $10 million – one tenth of its research budget – for projects dreamt up by the best brains in futuristic fiction.
Whilst DARPA is a useful channel for futuristic ideas, ten percent of a research budget handed over to any project is not such a good idea. Once the institutional apparatus is set up, with a secretariat to flesh out the innovative ideas, and the bureaucratic accretions which turn gold to mud, what will be left. A few nuggets from the civil service quicksand.
More useful is the Sigma organisation set up by Andrew Arlen some years ago, if it survives the seductive sirenic call of the public sector:
Mr Pournelle said the facial recognition plan was one of a number that aimed to replicate ideas seen on television shows such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and NCIS, a similar show. "In real life, the computers are still nowhere near as good as they are on TV," he said. "It’s just one of several high risk, high pay-off projects we have suggested.
He is a member of Sigma, a group set up by fellow writer Arlan Andrews to pursue "science fiction in the national interest. Mr Andrews, who predicted handheld, electronic books long before they became a reality, said: “We spend our entire careers living in the future. Those responsible for keeping the nation safe need people to think of crazy ideas.”
How unusual that CSI, paraded as an authentic and naturalistic program, can be classified as science fiction, on the grounds that the technology deployed is probably three or five years ahead of our current capabilities. Yet, the same confusion may dazzle the Department of Homeland Security. The politicians will reach for science fictional solutions when actual success probably stems from incremental graft on current processes and clear procurement and privatisation.
Research is often touted as a PR solution for public sector problems. Treat this with scepticism.
|
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.
|
