I have been watching the situation in the Wisconsin legislature for the last week or so, and as small-time and parochial as it may seem in the context of the current upheavals in the Middle East, I feel that it is far more important to the trajectory of democracy in the world than whatever happens on the North African coast.
The short version is that the State of Wisconsin (like most of the rest of the USA) is broke, and has to make cuts; lots of them. The (Republican) governor Scott Walker has recognized that the expense of public employees is one of the biggest drains on the treasury and wants to remove their ability to engage in collective bargaining.
Your reaction to that (under the circumstances that there isn't enough money to pay all these people what they expect to be paid) will sort you into either the Right or Left camp. All over the world we have run into that sticky point for Socialists that Margaret Thatcher warned about; we have pretty much run out of other peoples' money. If you are the source of that money (taxpayer) you will have a different idea of how this should play out than the recipients of it will.
This is standard Big Government/small Government stuff. What makes this situation important for the future of the liberal democratic system is the nature of the legislative opposition to the bill; the opposition went AWOL and called its' partisans out into the streets.
This sort of things happens all the time in tin-pot republics the world over: don't like the results? Protest and say that your opponent cheated, is illegitimate, etc. thus paralyzing the political system. This is what the 14 Democratic state senators from Wisconsin are doing by hiding in a neighboring State. By being absent and across State lines, they are preventing a quorum and subverting the will of the electorate by preventing the functioning of the legislature.
This could not happen in Canada or many other places, but the quirks of the US constitution which enable this farce throw the political stability of the most powerful nation in the world into question. This is that "Shining city upon a hill" that is supposed to be the beacon of liberty throughout the world?
Back to the aspiring democracies in the Mediterranean and the mid-east most likely next post (still very fluid; Qaddafi still hanging on as of today) but we ignore the current mob rule in Madison Wisconsin (of all places) at our peril. For want of a nail...
Friday 25 February 2011
Tuesday 22 February 2011
Revolution dominoes
The dust is still really well suspended in much of the Middle East (like some constitutions in the area), but I've gone long enough without updating the blog. Waiting for results is always fraught, as it's often difficult to recognize them except in hindsight.
Since my last post, Mubarak has been eased out, and the Egyptian Army will probably make sure he's allowed to live out his days in his country. The Army is in charge there for the foreseeable future and short of "less political repression" I won't make many predictions as to what will happen there.
Yemen, Djibouti, Algeria, Morocco and Bahrain are all in various states of insurrection, the latter for reasons that rather escape me. The rest of them range from manageable (Morocco) to basket case (Yemen), and have less-than-ideal governments, at least as far as you can measure that sort of thing empirically. Iran is hotting up again, and people in Lebanon are not universally pleased by Hezbollah's coup d'etat. This will not happen in Syria any time soon, for the same reasons as are being demonstrated in Libya at the time of writing.
Gaddafi has no plans to retire and has for the moment the backing of enough of the security forces to hang on, at least in the west of the country. His control of the armed forces however is unravelling rapidly and many are predicting a civil war. When he's referring to Tianamen Square you know that this will more likely turn out like Saddam Hussein than Hosni Mubarak.
Libya needs a change of management but it's already bloodied getting it, and it will be worse before it gets better. This however is not what I try to write about; I'm looking for the big picture which is separate from the breaking news. So let's try this: what do all of these revolutions expect to accomplish? Sure, regime change, but to what?
Tunisia went first, but bugger all has really happened since then, and the same can be said for the next domino, Egypt. The chronic problems are:
A lot of the world's problems would be solved if there were a lot less of us, but this isn't an apocalyptic Malthusian blog, so I won't get into that. Suffice it to say that there are certain fundamental problems (mainly frustrated young men) that no mere change of government will solve. I'll end with that thought for now, since this situation is very fluid and I can't pretend to tie it off just yet. I'll be back in a few days when I've discerned any sort of trajectory to all of this.
Since my last post, Mubarak has been eased out, and the Egyptian Army will probably make sure he's allowed to live out his days in his country. The Army is in charge there for the foreseeable future and short of "less political repression" I won't make many predictions as to what will happen there.
Yemen, Djibouti, Algeria, Morocco and Bahrain are all in various states of insurrection, the latter for reasons that rather escape me. The rest of them range from manageable (Morocco) to basket case (Yemen), and have less-than-ideal governments, at least as far as you can measure that sort of thing empirically. Iran is hotting up again, and people in Lebanon are not universally pleased by Hezbollah's coup d'etat. This will not happen in Syria any time soon, for the same reasons as are being demonstrated in Libya at the time of writing.
Gaddafi has no plans to retire and has for the moment the backing of enough of the security forces to hang on, at least in the west of the country. His control of the armed forces however is unravelling rapidly and many are predicting a civil war. When he's referring to Tianamen Square you know that this will more likely turn out like Saddam Hussein than Hosni Mubarak.
Libya needs a change of management but it's already bloodied getting it, and it will be worse before it gets better. This however is not what I try to write about; I'm looking for the big picture which is separate from the breaking news. So let's try this: what do all of these revolutions expect to accomplish? Sure, regime change, but to what?
Tunisia went first, but bugger all has really happened since then, and the same can be said for the next domino, Egypt. The chronic problems are:
- Corruption: endemic, but susceptible to amelioration with a change of personnel;
- Repression: see above, and;
- Unemployment/economy/poverty
A lot of the world's problems would be solved if there were a lot less of us, but this isn't an apocalyptic Malthusian blog, so I won't get into that. Suffice it to say that there are certain fundamental problems (mainly frustrated young men) that no mere change of government will solve. I'll end with that thought for now, since this situation is very fluid and I can't pretend to tie it off just yet. I'll be back in a few days when I've discerned any sort of trajectory to all of this.
Thursday 10 February 2011
When things get tough, you find out who your real friends are.
Obama and his staff have made a complete mess of the situation in Egypt (still deadlocked between protesters and government at time of writing), so the following is no real surprise:
Hugh Tomlinson Riyadh
February 10 2011 12:01AM
Saudi Arabia has threatened to prop up President Mubarak if the White House tries to force a swift change of regime in Egypt. In a testy personal telephone call on January 29, King Abdullah told President Obama not to humiliate Mr Mubarak and warned that he would step in to bankroll Egypt if the US withdrew its aid programme, worth $1.5 billion annually. America’s closest ally in the Gulf made clear that the Egyptian President must be allowed to stay on to oversee the transition towards peaceful democracy and then leave with dignity. “Mubarak and King Abdullah are not just allies, they are close friends, and the King is not about to see his friend cast aside and humiliated,” a senior source in the Saudi capital told The Times.
There is one lesson that the USA's erstwhile allies have learned from bitter experience over the last 50 years or so, and that is that they'd better have a backup for when the US abandons them. Mubarak doesn't want to end up in Gen. Pinochet's shoes for his last months or years, and there are some at least who don't intend for that to happen. Since Mubarak's not likely to get nukes (the only certain way to keep the American from driving you out) a new "sugar daddy" is a necessity to maintain the current regime with or without him.
Any kind of order in Egypt in the near future is dependent on the Army and armies are expensive to keep running, so somebody's money is required. This is an even better example of the retreat of America from the world stage than my previous post; they were too clueless to see this coming (though it did come quickly after Tunisia) and compounded that by waffling in their line on the situation. Nature abhors a vacuum, and a sudden decapitation of the government in Egypt would have fearful local and geopolitical consequences.
The Saudis are not blinkered by "democracy" and therefore keep their finger on the pulse of their neighbourhood. I can't be certain, but I think the House of Saud may be regretting the export of so much fanatical religion. It has certainly come home to roost in the Arabian peninsula causing them no end of headaches, and the Ikwhan (Muslim Brotherhood) taking over Egypt would not help their theoretical coreligionists. Or anyone else that we'd like to see helped, for that matter; think of the Suez Canal in the hands of Hamas for a worst-case scenario.
Let's play that out for a bit. MB takes over, the Army supports it (I'm not saying this is likely, btw) and Egypt repudiates the treaty with Israel. The return of the Sinai after the '67 (and '73) war was part of that deal. Were I the Israelis in this or similar situations, I'd take it back, and I'd lay money on it that unless there's a major upheaval in the Gulf states, they'd at least keep their mouths shut about it. The people would likely bleat (the usual suspects anyway) but kingdoms keep an eye on the horizon, not just at their feet as they trip over them. I can't see a best case scenario where that's true for the Americans.
As I noodled on about that I almost passed over the fact that Saudi Arabia is now telling the President of the USA what's going to happen in the Middle East. The Bushes in particular were tight with the Saudis; and whatever else you might say this would never happen if someone like that was in office in the White House. Obama is on track to do the most damage to US standing in the world of any president, ever. Alliances and arrangements are already re-aligning, and in the world lunchroom the Americans will be left more often than not standing around looking stupidly as the seats at all their usual tables are taken by others.
Hugh Tomlinson Riyadh
February 10 2011 12:01AM
Saudi Arabia has threatened to prop up President Mubarak if the White House tries to force a swift change of regime in Egypt. In a testy personal telephone call on January 29, King Abdullah told President Obama not to humiliate Mr Mubarak and warned that he would step in to bankroll Egypt if the US withdrew its aid programme, worth $1.5 billion annually. America’s closest ally in the Gulf made clear that the Egyptian President must be allowed to stay on to oversee the transition towards peaceful democracy and then leave with dignity. “Mubarak and King Abdullah are not just allies, they are close friends, and the King is not about to see his friend cast aside and humiliated,” a senior source in the Saudi capital told The Times.
There is one lesson that the USA's erstwhile allies have learned from bitter experience over the last 50 years or so, and that is that they'd better have a backup for when the US abandons them. Mubarak doesn't want to end up in Gen. Pinochet's shoes for his last months or years, and there are some at least who don't intend for that to happen. Since Mubarak's not likely to get nukes (the only certain way to keep the American from driving you out) a new "sugar daddy" is a necessity to maintain the current regime with or without him.
Any kind of order in Egypt in the near future is dependent on the Army and armies are expensive to keep running, so somebody's money is required. This is an even better example of the retreat of America from the world stage than my previous post; they were too clueless to see this coming (though it did come quickly after Tunisia) and compounded that by waffling in their line on the situation. Nature abhors a vacuum, and a sudden decapitation of the government in Egypt would have fearful local and geopolitical consequences.
The Saudis are not blinkered by "democracy" and therefore keep their finger on the pulse of their neighbourhood. I can't be certain, but I think the House of Saud may be regretting the export of so much fanatical religion. It has certainly come home to roost in the Arabian peninsula causing them no end of headaches, and the Ikwhan (Muslim Brotherhood) taking over Egypt would not help their theoretical coreligionists. Or anyone else that we'd like to see helped, for that matter; think of the Suez Canal in the hands of Hamas for a worst-case scenario.
Let's play that out for a bit. MB takes over, the Army supports it (I'm not saying this is likely, btw) and Egypt repudiates the treaty with Israel. The return of the Sinai after the '67 (and '73) war was part of that deal. Were I the Israelis in this or similar situations, I'd take it back, and I'd lay money on it that unless there's a major upheaval in the Gulf states, they'd at least keep their mouths shut about it. The people would likely bleat (the usual suspects anyway) but kingdoms keep an eye on the horizon, not just at their feet as they trip over them. I can't see a best case scenario where that's true for the Americans.
As I noodled on about that I almost passed over the fact that Saudi Arabia is now telling the President of the USA what's going to happen in the Middle East. The Bushes in particular were tight with the Saudis; and whatever else you might say this would never happen if someone like that was in office in the White House. Obama is on track to do the most damage to US standing in the world of any president, ever. Alliances and arrangements are already re-aligning, and in the world lunchroom the Americans will be left more often than not standing around looking stupidly as the seats at all their usual tables are taken by others.
Arithmetic on the North-West Frontier
As the Americans go through the early stages of Imperial Overstretch, the calculus of a competent empire in decline would involve which satrapies and allies to cut loose to consolidate diminishing resources and influence. There is no evidence of the USA having been at any point a competent empire (nod to Jerry Pournelle for use of his term) so it is no surprise that they are not getting any cannier about their foreign policy as they begin the slide from Superpower to mere Great Power.
The recent violation of Diplomatic Immunity of a US consular official in Pakistan gives the US State Department a fleeting opportunity to grow a pair and begin this process of retrenchment. Pakistan is fucked and is absorbing a lot of $US for no useful return; to accept this sort of treatment from a fundamentalist Islamic country that you have poured billions of dollars into in the last decade is embarrassing. There are certain standards that civilized countries hold themselves to, and this is not within that.
That particular situation is of course a molehill, but you can see the mountain from it. There is nothing in Pakistan or Afghanistan which is worth the life or limb of our soldiers or the money of our taxpayers. If they want to descend into another Islamopocalypse and drive out the last of the “infidels” the only useful thing we could do is to help those Christians, Hindus and Sikhs who remain to get somewhere safer.
The most effective way to do that will of course not happen, since it’s known variously as a pogrom or ethnic cleansing. Problems with violent Muslims in Indian Kashmir? Push them all over the border and repopulate with people who need to get out of Pakistan in a hurry. I of course don’t have a plan for that (another Indo-Pakistani war would figure prominently), but it would be 1947 all over again.
That seems a bit of a tangent, but it illustrates the whole “Clash of Civilizations” thing, and the fact that we are best off working with people who are not inimical to our way(s) of life. India has problems but one of its problems is China and another is Pakistan, both on Western radar as trouble for us. The adversary of our troublesome geopolitical adversaries should be a very close friend. More importantly, India is not in the grasp of an ideology that wants our civilization destroyed.
This is the big-picture stuff that Emperors have done for millennia, at least when other groups were too powerful to conquer easily and/or more useful as allies. There are few direct parallels as modern transport and communications have changed “The Great Game” in all respects, but the key part is ensuring the interests and thereby the longevity of your kingdom, etc. This is something that modern democracies are fundamentally incompatible with and that the Americans prove themselves time and again incapable of grasping at almost every level of government.
For the United States of America today, a snippet from the late Victorian Age:
God of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget!
Change the scenery a bit and you have the U.S. sphere of influence today, much of it the British empire of Kipling’s heyday. America has lost much face and will be doing well to salvage any reputation with its allies, let alone hold the places that don’t like it to begin with. Some new leadership (REAL leadership) in the U.S.A. could stop the rot, but it’s looking more and more all the time like this:
Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget!
The recent violation of Diplomatic Immunity of a US consular official in Pakistan gives the US State Department a fleeting opportunity to grow a pair and begin this process of retrenchment. Pakistan is fucked and is absorbing a lot of $US for no useful return; to accept this sort of treatment from a fundamentalist Islamic country that you have poured billions of dollars into in the last decade is embarrassing. There are certain standards that civilized countries hold themselves to, and this is not within that.
That particular situation is of course a molehill, but you can see the mountain from it. There is nothing in Pakistan or Afghanistan which is worth the life or limb of our soldiers or the money of our taxpayers. If they want to descend into another Islamopocalypse and drive out the last of the “infidels” the only useful thing we could do is to help those Christians, Hindus and Sikhs who remain to get somewhere safer.
The most effective way to do that will of course not happen, since it’s known variously as a pogrom or ethnic cleansing. Problems with violent Muslims in Indian Kashmir? Push them all over the border and repopulate with people who need to get out of Pakistan in a hurry. I of course don’t have a plan for that (another Indo-Pakistani war would figure prominently), but it would be 1947 all over again.
That seems a bit of a tangent, but it illustrates the whole “Clash of Civilizations” thing, and the fact that we are best off working with people who are not inimical to our way(s) of life. India has problems but one of its problems is China and another is Pakistan, both on Western radar as trouble for us. The adversary of our troublesome geopolitical adversaries should be a very close friend. More importantly, India is not in the grasp of an ideology that wants our civilization destroyed.
This is the big-picture stuff that Emperors have done for millennia, at least when other groups were too powerful to conquer easily and/or more useful as allies. There are few direct parallels as modern transport and communications have changed “The Great Game” in all respects, but the key part is ensuring the interests and thereby the longevity of your kingdom, etc. This is something that modern democracies are fundamentally incompatible with and that the Americans prove themselves time and again incapable of grasping at almost every level of government.
For the United States of America today, a snippet from the late Victorian Age:
God of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget!
Change the scenery a bit and you have the U.S. sphere of influence today, much of it the British empire of Kipling’s heyday. America has lost much face and will be doing well to salvage any reputation with its allies, let alone hold the places that don’t like it to begin with. Some new leadership (REAL leadership) in the U.S.A. could stop the rot, but it’s looking more and more all the time like this:
Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget!
Saturday 5 February 2011
Only one arm tied now...
David Cameron isn't the first European leader to say that Multiculturalism (as a policy) is dead, but the backlash from the usual suspects wasn't long in coming. First, Cameron:
"Let's properly judge these organisations: Do they believe in universal human rights - including for women and people of other faiths? Do they believe in equality of all before the law? Do they believe in democracy and the right of people to elect their own government? Do they encourage integration or separatism?
Or is it? Later from Cameron's address:
"We need to be clear: Islamist extremism and Islam are not the same thing," he said.
And this is where he loses focus and the spotlight gets wobbly. Not everyone who goes to the Mosque on Friday is a terrorist, but the religion puts itself ahead of everything else. There is no “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” in the Koran or the Hadiths. Speaking of the latter:
42 Al-Miqdad heard Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) as saying: There will not remain upon the surface of the earth a mud-brick house or a camel's-hair tent but Allah will instill into it the word of Islam, bringing both mighty honour and abject humiliation. Allah will either honour them by making them worthy of it and those whom He humiliates shall have to render submission to it. I said: The religion will then be entirely for Allah.
This is what we're up against. There is lots of foolishness in (especially) the Old Testament too, but Christianity (and Hinduism, Sikhism, and especially Buddhism) doesn't have a problem with secular governance. Alone amongst the major religions, Islam is NOT compatible with Rule of Law. It's a fundamental problem (not just "Islamic extremism" or other convocations of Islam) and it can't be danced around.
Let me be clear about what I'm saying here. You can believe WHATEVER you want, as long as it doesn't become MY problem. Forcing your religion on me violates that right out of the gate, so keep what you believe to yourself, and certainly out of public policy that I as a taxpayer am paying for.
I don't see Stephen Harper saying anything like this in the near future, but we don't yet have the sort of problems with multi-culty that Europe and the U.K. do . Hopefully they can manage their problems with this and we can avoid ours getting worse. This is a good start for the U.K. but Cameron needs to drop the gloves and tell everyone flat-out that Religion (that means yours too, Jack!) and the State will remain separate. Have no fear though; even if we whip this problem (not likely) there are plenty left to keep life interesting.
"Let's properly judge these organisations: Do they believe in universal human rights - including for women and people of other faiths? Do they believe in equality of all before the law? Do they believe in democracy and the right of people to elect their own government? Do they encourage integration or separatism?
"These are the sorts of questions we need to ask. Fail these tests and the presumption should be not to engage with organisations," he added.
So far, so good. However, look at the list of traits we're validating here, and it's pretty obvious that there is a major religious group whose very basic tenets specifically deny those "universal human rights". Again, guess who. Well, here's part of the other side to spoil your fun figuring it out:Meanwhile, the Muslim Council of Britain's assistant secretary general, Dr Faisal Hanjra, described Mr Cameron's speech as "disappointing".
He told Radio 4's Today programme: "We were hoping that with a new government, with a new coalition that there'd be a change in emphasis in terms of counter-terrorism and dealing with the problem at hand. In terms of the approach to tackling terrorism though it doesn't seem to be particularly new. Again it just seems the Muslim community is very much in the spotlight, being treated as part of the problem as opposed to part of the solution."
"Part of the problem"? Who keeps blowing things up and killing people for insulting their religion? Muslims, that's who. Any other groups are vanishingly small statistical anomalies in the group violence which threatens our transport and general security. Until that changes, the spotlight is where it should be.Or is it? Later from Cameron's address:
"We need to be clear: Islamist extremism and Islam are not the same thing," he said.
And this is where he loses focus and the spotlight gets wobbly. Not everyone who goes to the Mosque on Friday is a terrorist, but the religion puts itself ahead of everything else. There is no “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” in the Koran or the Hadiths. Speaking of the latter:
42 Al-Miqdad heard Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) as saying: There will not remain upon the surface of the earth a mud-brick house or a camel's-hair tent but Allah will instill into it the word of Islam, bringing both mighty honour and abject humiliation. Allah will either honour them by making them worthy of it and those whom He humiliates shall have to render submission to it. I said: The religion will then be entirely for Allah.
This is what we're up against. There is lots of foolishness in (especially) the Old Testament too, but Christianity (and Hinduism, Sikhism, and especially Buddhism) doesn't have a problem with secular governance. Alone amongst the major religions, Islam is NOT compatible with Rule of Law. It's a fundamental problem (not just "Islamic extremism" or other convocations of Islam) and it can't be danced around.
Let me be clear about what I'm saying here. You can believe WHATEVER you want, as long as it doesn't become MY problem. Forcing your religion on me violates that right out of the gate, so keep what you believe to yourself, and certainly out of public policy that I as a taxpayer am paying for.
I don't see Stephen Harper saying anything like this in the near future, but we don't yet have the sort of problems with multi-culty that Europe and the U.K. do . Hopefully they can manage their problems with this and we can avoid ours getting worse. This is a good start for the U.K. but Cameron needs to drop the gloves and tell everyone flat-out that Religion (that means yours too, Jack!) and the State will remain separate. Have no fear though; even if we whip this problem (not likely) there are plenty left to keep life interesting.
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