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My recent posting Can we agree? appears to have proved a point. No, we cannot. Consider this extract from Elliot Temple's contributions to the discussion that flowed from my piece:

Also, I think it's Perry's position that government is a threat to our liberties. Whereas, I disagree again.

I think Mr Temple will find that the view that government is a threat to our liberties is more widely held than by Perry de Havilland. Every form of anarchist would agree. So, presumably would the 55,000,000 people killed in the Second World War. The 1,000,000 murdered by the Soviet occupiers in "liberated" Eastern Europe. The Jews (3,000,000? 6,000,000? 10,000,000?) murdered by the Nazi German government. In Communist China is it "only one hundred million"? I remember one government official once claiming that "only one per cent" of his country's population died in labour camps.

Even where states are not deliberately violating freedom, governments are a threat simply by the scale of their power and the unintended consequences thereof. The US government in the 1960s did not set out to create a crime epidemic by offering welfare to single mothers, reducing prison sentences for juveniles, criminalizing drugs and introducing wage controls. Yet if the policy had been to force-feed children with crack cocaine, to napalm-bomb certain districts of major cities, to introduce the death penalty against men with low-incomes for staying with their pregnant girdfriends and to make it illegal for a shop-keeper to hire a student, the effect would have been pretty much the same by the mid-1970s.

If there is a reason why some states are less horrendous than others, it may just be that the better places are where more people are wary of the state as a vehicle for creating goodness, and in the worst, the state is busy "doing good".
To be a libertarian does not necessarily imply that one favours anarcho-capitalism, anarcho-syndicalism or anarcho-communism. But it does imply a generally sceptical attitude towards any claim that the state is an institution to be entrusted with ever greater power.

On that point at least, we should all agree. On this basis, some libertarians can support a U.S. attack on Iraq - for a variety of reasons. But if they are not letting their emotions cloud their judgement (especially fear and the desire for revenge) they should look beyond the war and ask themselves how much damage to freedom in the US, and elsewhere, the war will cause.

To give but one example: the US has rejoined UNESCO in an attempt to buy votes from other states for their support in a war against Iraq. If this process doesn't frighten you, ask yourself what governments wouldn't trade. The US is also paying subscriptions back-dated to UNESCO. This means that an organisation which is dedicated to the destruction of free-market education worldwide is about to receive a massive financial windfall, plus the official blessing of the US government. Goodbye private education in India. Hello global permanently subsidized illiteracy.

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Bianca Jagger addressed the Anti-War protesters assembled in London this evening thus:

No matter how terrible a nation is, the UN charter forbids just overthrowing the regime. The war against Iraq is unjustified.

In other words, if the National Socialist regime has confined its programme of genocide against the Jews to Germany and had not invaded other countries, war against Nazi Germany would have been unjustified.

And there you have it... THIS is where collectivist thought takes you. To hell with an individual's right not to be murdered by the state, because the state, the NATION, the collective, is what matters more.

Evil. Truly evil.

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Having managed to wangle a couple of front-row seats, my fellow reviewer Perry de Havilland and I made our way eagerly to Central London to witness the latest production of Lefties Labour's Lost presented by the Stop The War Theatre Company.

I always enjoy open-air theatre, especially when it's high farce. But, from the opening curtain, I had the uncomfortable feeling that this effort was not going to live up to my expectations.

I was impressed by the large, ensemble cast made up of a motley collection of old communists, new communists, greens, Islamists, socialists, peaceniks, beatniks, trade unionists, padres, cadres and a troupe of folk dancers from Somerset. As the drama unfolded, I thought I recognised some of the faces in the Chorus and, indeed, upon checking my notes, I was pleased to be able to confirm that much of the cast had been recruited from the highly successful 'Anti-Globalisation World Tour'.

Doubtless bonded by that experience, the director must have hoped that this cameraderie would add an extra dynamism to this production but, if that was the intention, then I regret to report that it was not achieved. The cast ambled through their paces determinedly but without much in the way of conviction leaving the audience with a sense of spectacle but nothing memorable.

The script was a total let-down. Directors of future productions should take note that drearily familiar lines such 'No war for oil' and 'Drop Bush not bombs' have to be delivered with pep and brio in order to have any impact at all. As it was, the cast opted for mere dismal repetition. This will not do. I was left with the impression that, perhaps, the best of their energies had been left in rehearsal.

Kudos must be accorded to the costume designer for splendid authenticity. Everywhere we looked there were muddy browns, washed-out blacks, dull greens and quite the most dizzying array of woolly caps imaginable. Many of the costumes were so profoundly soiled that , I do declare, they stood up and marched about on their own. An eye for this kind of detail is always appreciated.

Alas, it was not enough to rescue the piece which from terminal mediocrity. A flat and pedestrian rendition from an institutional cast lacked the oh-so important quality of spine-tingling zest necessary to truly move an audience. The kindest thing I can say about the direction is that is was formulaic; utterly devoid of anything approaching a radical innovation.

By the interval, both Mr.de Havilland and I were hard put to stay awake and, indeed, we both slipped out quietly before the final curtain.

Notwithstanding the plethora of pre-publicity, this performance fails to live up to its billing. There is some sound, surprisingly little fury and, in the final analysis, it signified nothing. I predict a short run.

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Kudos to Steve "SteKwack" and his friend for passing these enhanced images along to me. In Steve's words:

"I saw your weblog entry relating to the shuttle damage, and saw a long range photo which I suspect was taken by one of these targetting systems. A buddy cleaned up the picture and vectorised it. The pictures clearly show some form of plasma streaming off the left wing, along with what may be turbulence caused by damage on the front of the same wing."

Now let's see what he is talking about. First we have a "solarized image".

We are seeing the shuttle from below, so the wing at the bottom is the port (left) side where the problems occurred. The double delta wing plan shows up clearly on both sides of the fat and blunt-ish fuselage; the squared off thing at the stern is the body attached elevator which sits directly underneath the SSME's (Space Shuttle Main Engines). The OMS pods may be the cause of the apparent rounding of the elevator; the tail is either hidden in this view or too thin to show at this resolution.

What leaps out at you is the double bump at the boundary between the two parts of the double delta. Given the level of detail I see elsewhere this is a huge break not only in the leading edge, but in the front wing structure itself.

The more amorphous deformation of the trailing edge is a plasma trail that should not be there and which shows only on the damaged port side.

Next we see a vectorized version of the same image:

The green line faithfully shows the fuselage center line. For control to be possible, the centers of Lift, Thrust, Drag and Mass should lie along this line. The blue vectors show a flow line through the damaged leading edge to the plasma tail coming off the trailing edge.

Finally, they put them all together:

Whether the break at the division between the two delta planforms is entirely structural or a combination of damage and turbulence, it should be apparent to anyone this spaceship is already deep into its' final death throes. I do, in fact, expect the deep notch is plasma on either side of a structural break in the wing at that point. 2000 degree Fahrenheit plasma is most likely ripping through the wing interior from the tip of the notch. Wires are burning, aluminum frame members are weakening and total structural failure is imminent.

Note: If Steve would like credits added for himself and his friend, I'd appreciate it if he would comment and give me full names to use.

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Not much commentary is needed really about his protest in London, but judging from the placards, more people seemed interested in Palestine than Iraq.

A rolling river of political incontinence

I guess they want to give Saddam time to develop nuclear weapons, thereby giving themselves someone else to protest against

... but Saddam Hussain not wanted for murder by Socialists Workers apparently

At least this one is amusing

I wonder if they could find Iraq on a map?
Hell, I wonder if they could find Britain on a map

Actress & pro-totalitarian activist Vanessa Redgrave

One protester made the serious tactical blunder of assuming David Carr was in agreement with the marcher's objectives. He explains the error of her ways.

I have never seen so many Arabs in London

This chap wants the world to look like that paragon of human rights and civic virtues, the Palestinian Authority

Socialist Dictators of the World Unite! And another guy was waving a Soviet flag (the picture of that did not come out unfortunately)

No, war will cease when men no longer stand up to fight against tyranny

Your intrepid blogger can feel his brains being sucked out...

All the usual people really. Yawn.

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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]

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David Carr and I are off to take pictures of the Pro-Saddam Hussain/Anti-Liberation of the Iraqi People demonstration in London this afternoon... I hope to have a report up this evening.

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I have a message for all British cigarette smokers and for those thinking of taking up smoking: when you next pop down to the supermarket or your local tobacconist for a packet of smokes, why not try Richmond Superking Lights for excellent quality and flavour at a very competitive price.

You may also be interested to note that, since I am not making this recommendation in the course of a business, I have not broken the law:

"The government's long-awaited Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act comes into effect on Friday 14 February.

The Act outlaws ads in magazines, newspapers and on billboards.

Like most other petty prohibitionist tyrranies this one has been foisted on us by Brussels. Inspired and enacted, I daresay, by people who think of themselves as the 'great and the good' and believe themselves to have been charged with the task of rescuing us from our own atavistic tendencies towards self-destruction.

I realise that I can do nothing to deflect them from their mission, but I can do my bit to help undermine them.

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One of the best things about the British Channel 4 television slot is its history programmes. I recall watching a number of programmes about the Napoleonic wars, and they ended with a remarkably Euro-sceptic take on the different visions of social order as evinced by British Prime Minister Pitt the Younger and politician Edmund Burke on the one hand, and those of Robespierre and his fellow totalitarian psychos, on the other. So maybe Channel 4 is not quite the haven of idiotarian marxoid nonsense I used to think after all.

Further proof of that view came last night in the end of the series Empire, a series on the British Empire by historian Niall Ferguson, who also has a good book out.

Anyway, last night's programme ended with a comment much to the effect that for all its faults, the British Empire spread the English language (good thing), the rule of law (same), capitalism (yep, good thing again), and team sports (ditto). And although it eventually broke up, our influence is still large, albeit indirectly, via the US, although the US dare not call its reach of influence an empire.

In other words, Ferguson has gotten the Anglosphere bug. This meme is spreading fast. Where will it go next, I wonder?

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Last weekend I watched some good tennis from some young British players. True they were hammered by the best male tennis player in the world, one of the fastest servers in the world, and one of the all-time great doubles players. But the Australian tennis team would have fancied their chances against any comers on a surface of their own choosing, in front of a partisan crowd.

An Australian paraded a banner which listed a series of sporting indignities heaped upon the British in the previous year: massacres in the cricket, rugby league etc. But neither football (soccer), nor rugby union were mentioned. Patrick Crozier, writes about the novel indignity of being beaten by the Australian soccer team: nicknamed the "Socceroos", so what they call the England team I shudder to even think.

However, Patrick, like many British people goes from one extreme to the other. Just because the English invented soccer over one hundred and forty years ago, there is supposed to be something shameful about defeat to a newcomer. The same attitude exists in all areas of British endeavour since the mid-19th century. First it was an inferiority complex with Germany and the USA, later with Japan, then Germany and "Europe". In most cases whether it is the navy, the health system, schools, food, beer, state television, industry, Britain is always assumed either to be "the finest in the world" or it ought to be.

If there were anything remotely approximating the amount of effort put into achieving these ideals as there is spent on moaning about failure, perhaps these delusions would at least be productive. Instead we get whingeing succeded by overbearing gloating, then back again. Little wonder that for any foreigner that regularly competes against the English, there is great pleasure in victory.

But this time things have got truly out of hand. The England rugby union team has been beating the supposedly superior New Zealand, South Africa and Australia teams for several years. The latest round of matches was a professional execution of southern hemisphere pride. So instead of bleating about a soccer match, English sports fans would do better to find out what the rugby team is doing right. England deserve to be favourites to win the rugby world cup this year.

Sadly [not!], the English rugby team faces a truly superior force tomorrow at Twickenham: the French national side, who I have no doubt, will rub snotty English noses into the cold Middlesex mud. I shall of course observe this with my usual detachment... and resist wrentching my phone and pestering every English rugby fan I know for at least two minutes.

Then you'll have something to moan about!

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Patrick Crozier writes the editorial that The Times didn't publish:

No right-thinking Englishman can fail to be shocked by the unspeakable events that took place at Upton Park on Wednesday. Wednesday 12th February 2003 will long be remembered as a day of national shame; the day when the flower of English manhood, opened a can of beer, sat down in front of the television and watched aghast as its champions, men they trusted, allowed themselves to be beaten by Australians at football.

There will be those, ignorant of the ways of the world, who will say "Hey, the Aussies beat us at cricket, rugby, tennis and just about anything else so why should we bothered about a game of football?" Oh Lord, have mercy on them for they know not what they do.

Football is far more than just another sport. Football is sport. All others are mere distractions. Literally. The whole purpose of inventing minor sports was to give undesirables something to do and Australians something to win at while we, silently and imperiously, continued to hog the main prize. Now, even that is under threat.

There have been worse times to have been an Englishman. Oh, hang about, there haven't. But we have been humiliated before (remember Norway, remember Calais?) and we recovered then. The task now is to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down and prepare for the fightback. Quite simply we must show the World who's boss.

We must begin by conducting a full enquiry into what happened. We must look at all aspects that led to this defeat with the intention of ensuring it never happens again. We must end the club versus country conflict. We must allow our champions to rest. We must consider whether it is time to rid ourselves of clapped out has-beens like David Beckham, Rio Ferdinand and Michael Owen and find room for the young stars of tomorrow. We must put pride aside and scour the world for the coaching techniques and tactical savvy that will restore our game to its proper place. No stone must go unturned. No sacred cow unslaughtered.

And having restored our team we must right the wrong. We must put piffling concerns such as European Cups, European Championships and Gulf Wars to one side. We must challenge the Australians to a series of footballing tests (perhaps we could call it a Test Series). Anytime, anywhere, any number of games. Let them choose the ground so that when we beat them none shall doubt our superiority - just like the Canadians did in '72.

There are dark days ahead but we can take inspiration from the words of Field Marshal Haig in 1918: "With our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight on to the end. The safety of our homes and the freedom of mankind alike depend on the conduct of each one of us at this critical moment."

Patrick Crozier

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I am no expert on the general state of current events, national politics, etc., so I will (try to) keep this short. Basically, I was watching This Week on BBC1 last night, and they (Michael Portillo, Diane Abbott, Andrew Neil) were saying that Tony Blair is in real trouble. We have become so used to Blair being badmouthed by his lefties that this time we might be missing that it may actually matter.

I believe that the underlying story is that the Conservatives are now in such unprecedented disarray, or are thought to be, that the lefties now reckon they will have a five-to-maybe-even-ten-year run of doing their worst before the voters come to their senses and switch to someone else – someone else dull, sexually bizarre, bald, embarrassing, in a word Conservative, but someone else. Whether the lefties are correct about this isn't the point, it's what they now think. The same underlying fact explains why Labour now feels that its stealth taxes don't any longer need to be so stealthy. Blair's problem is that he has done such awful things to the Conservatives that the Conservatives no longer function as a threat to wave in front of his lefties, the way they have since the mid-eighties until about three months ago. In other words this could be another of those "sea changes" you read about, the last one being when Labour got its act together in the late eighties. Now the Conservatives are regarded as more hopeless than ever before, and the lefties are getting bored with merely humiliating them. That's no fun any more. They want some lefty action.

Glenda Jackson (Oscar and bar but now also MP) did a very dramatic soundbite type speech in the Commons yesterday, along the lines of: "I'm not ashamed of my Party. It's my government I'm ashamed of." The times they may be achanging.

There's to be a big demo tomorrow in London against the "war", and it may actually be quite big.

Portillo (who does very well on Newsweek by the way – he is now the one true Conservative heavyweight performer, in my opinion) reckoned that if the UN doesn't oblige with another anti-Saddam resolution Blair might be f*%*ed. Only Chirac can save him, quoth Portillo. Which, it occurs to me, is not only an extremely bad position for Blair, but also for Britain (i.e. for all of us anti-EUers).

Chirac: we support your Guerre, you support EUrope on everything else. Blair: okay.

Parenthetically, it was also much discussed that the New Labour reputation for spin, culminating in that embarrassing "report" that was cut and pasted from something on the internet and then doctored embarrassingly, has resulted in our government simply not being believed about all this Heathrow security flapping. Just when they really need to be able to face the cameras and say this is for real, and be believed, they are being accused of using the Army as theatrical stage props.

Are you allowed to say at the end of a posting that you don't know if any of the above is true, but that in the meantime it sounds like it might be interesting and important? I hope so, because I just did.

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All I can say is that the comments confirmed to me what I had to keep to myself all semester: that most of you mental midgets are the most immature, sheltered, homophobic, sexist, racist, lying sacks of s—t I have ever met in my life. ... Seton Hall may be kissing you're a—es now, but out here in the real world, brats like you will be eaten for breakfast.
— Professor Mary Ann Swissler — responding to some complaints from her students about her Promotional Writing course — for more go here and here

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The above is also the title of a piece by Eamonn Butler of the Adam Smith Institute, about the principle of road pricing in the light of the London scheme (£5 per day) that is just about to come into force. I'm not such how long Eamonn's piece has been up at the ASI website, but thanks to Alex Singleton for bringing it to my attention.

Like Eamonn Butler, I'm strongly in favour of road pricing, for all the reasons he itemises, and which I have been going on about for many years. But also, like Eamonn, and like Patrick Crozier of Transport Blog, I am uneasy about the effect Ken Livingstone's London will have on this debate.

Eamonn and Patrick both fear the worst. Says Eamonn:

The London congestion charging scheme is a bad scheme. But if it fails, it will put back the debate on road pricing for another twenty years, until we're all in an even worse jam.

I'm a pathological optimist, so discount the following if you aren't, but I suspect that the logic of road pricing is so overwhelming, and the utter absurdity of any other road regime in places like central London – right under the noses of the people who will decide about the overall future of road pricing in Britain – so palpable, that there is nothing that even Ken Livingstone can do to stop this idea. On the contrary, the fact that he is at least attempting it will be what counts and what will get (is getting) the idea out there into the heads of intelligent people everywhere, and if the idea is regarded as not having worked for London, yet, the culprit will be identified as the way Livingstone did it, rather than the idea itself.

So what should have been and should be done about road pricing?

The obvious place to start is the busiest motorways, because they're busy, and because by their nature, motorways only have a very few entry points.

The simple principle to apply is: No payment, no passage. Clearly there would be a demand for payment systems that didn't interrupt one's journey, in the form of a kind of giant credit card attached to one's car, or something similar. Once everyone had got used to it, the same gadgetry could then be applied to much more complex situations, like central London.

To invent an untried system from scratch for central London, which is what Livingstone has done, is asking for trouble. His scheme involves photographing every car that crosses the line, and then sending out bills, based on knowing who the owner of the car is from the number plate. Trouble is already guaranteed, in the form of all the Nigerians in our midst (from Nigeria itself and of the home grown variety) who are applying their minds to this arrangement. Having bogus German number plates ought not to make any difference to a decent road pricing system, yet suddenly London seems to have many more German diplomats than formerly.

I live just inside the western boundary of the London payment area. Big Cs have been appearing on all kinds of roads near me, and for a while I just thought that C stood for me being Confused. I still don't know how it will all work, but will surely have stories to tell about it all, if not here then on Patrick's Transport Blog, for which I also write occasionally.

As for the Cut Taxes! part of my title, and of Eamonn Butler's, I think that's trickier than Eamonn makes it sound. There are two ways to do road pricing. You can do it a bit at a time, which makes sense but which makes car use tax reduction decisions hard to make sense of, because you can't reduce these taxes only very locally. Or: you can make a gigantic switch from free-at-the-point-of-use roads to priced roads, throughout the entire country, which would at least make tax reductions work okay and with reasonable justice, but which would be insane on just about all other counts.

That's to assume, of course, that the politicians can be trusted to cut car use taxes in the first place, having introduced road pricing, which of course they can't.

But even there, I am an optimist, in the sense that if all that road pricing means is a sharp increase in the price of motoring in certain places and along certain roads and nothing much else (the probable story), I think that would still be an improvement. Even that would be better than gridlock.

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So you thought that the impending war in the Middle East was about oil? Hah!! Or did you think it was all about zionist aggression? You dolt.

Thanks to Ron Liebermann, Illuminatus and Whistle-blower par excellence, the truth behind America's plans in the Middle East have been revealed to us: it's all about Euros:

"Simply put, the dollar has for several decades been positioned as the only way for an industrialized country to pay OPEC for oil. No matter who you were, you had to buy American dollars and then send those dollars to OPEC, who would then use the money to buy American debt, or American weapons.

It was the perfect set-up. Greenspan printed worthless dollars, and gave them to people who gave us free gasoline, and free TV sets, and free wicker furniture."

No war for wicker furniture, that's what I say.

"The game changed, however, when the Euro was introduced. Now, many oil-producing nations are accepting the Euro instead of the dollar. Saddam loves the Euro."

Why only the other day he declared it to be the 'Mother of all Currencies'.

"This new competition from the Euro makes Uncle Sam very angry. So Uncle Sam came up with a plan; he sent a secret message to all the Arabs: You will only accept American Dollars, or we will kill you."

And to which the Arabs replied,'Sorry we can only take Mastercard, or we will bill you'. Besides if that message was 'secret' how does Mr.Liebermann know about it?

"In spite of the threats, the Euro is continuing to gain in popularity. So what? You might ask. If oil sellers take one kind of worthless note instead of another, that’s no skin off our backs. But the American government can’t print Euros. It can only print dollars."

Mr.Liebermann, anyone with a packet of wax crayons and a photocopier can print Euros.

Oh but just hark at me quibbling with an analytical giant. Just read through to the end of the article but, a warning to you Americans; Mr.Liebermann has got some seriously bad news:

"No more Petro-Dollar reserve currency; no more free stuff for Americans."

Don't say you weren't warned.

[My thanks to Richard Poe for the link]

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In response to a contention that I made in the comments section of an earlier Samizdata.net article that 'wealth redistribution' was intrinsically immoral, a commenter replied:

Have you considered that many people consider wealth redistribution morally right, and consider it morally right to use violence to achieve it?

Well I happen to believe in objective (albeit conjectural) truth, and hence objective (and yes, conjectural) morality, so the subjective views of other matter little to me when deciding what is and is not a moral use of violence. I understand that statist people think it is 'moral' to take my money under threat of violence. I also know that some people think it 'moral' to prevent mixed marriages, 'moral' to kill Jews, 'moral' to treat women as chattels, 'moral' to jail people for sodomy. So what?

To say my property is there for others to help themselves to is to negate the very existence of several (i.e. 'private') property, which is of course what paleo-socialists are quite up front about wanting to do and modern socialists want to do in the fascist manner (i.e. allow 'private' property whilst regulating its use to the point ownership becomes a meaningless notion).

Yet without several property, there is no modern western civilisation, let alone liberty, so taking my money is not just theft, it is an assault on civilisation itself, and I have no objection to using violence to defend it. I am all in favour of shooting burglars that a home owner finds in their house, so my views on tax collectors and the people who sent them (i.e. anyone who legitimises what they do) should not be hard to figure out. The only reason I am not out shooting people and putting bombs in cars is a purely utilitarian cost/benefit analysis that it is not the most effective way to secure my liberty and the liberty of others. Those who love liberty can (mostly) play a waiting whilst economic reality has its way with the nations just as it did with the Soviet Union, but that does not mean fighting figuratively and literally for liberty is not moral. In fact, it is really one of the most moral reason for fighting there is.

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Here are four pieces of advice. The first two are evil, the last is prudent
and the third is, um, British I suppose.
- James Knowles

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Well, the days roll by and the uncertain drumbeat of war continues. Counting myself as a marginal pro-war type, I must say I have begun to wonder about how far and for how long a military campaign in the Middle East will spread. Will Bush's pre-emption doctrine end with Iraq, or be applied to other nations? (France - heh-heh!). What about Saudi Arabia? And there are dozens of other countries, not especially chummy with the West, which could be places where folks are cooking up WMDs which could get into the hands of thugs of various descriptions. Just how far could the war on terror go? 100 years?

Here's an idea: I think one key strategy for encouraging people to depose odious regimes and bring in something better must be a continuous push for greater free trade. I am not being naive, I think. Trade is the great solvent of social strife, while protectionism tends to be the harbinger of such strife.

For example, I'd be happier with the case for going into Iraq if it were tied to a clearly-stated willingness, on the part of the US government and its allies, to immediately lift ALL restrictions on imports of Iraqi goods (such as they are) in the event that Saddam and his thugs fall from power, as in "We will bury Saddam for you for a fistfull of dollars".

And given that Iraq is probably one of the most secular states in the Middle East, a concerted campaign to promise Iraqis that they can join the capitalist party once Saddam has gone is sure to make it easier for his regime to crumble under pressure. This sort of policy may even encourage people in Iran, for example, who are currently trying to depose the Mullahs, to re-double their efforts.

There's been a lot of debate about how much "stick" we should apply to defeat terror. I don't think it idiotic though, to debate the merit of a bit more "carrot".

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You've probably all heard about the bin Laden martyrdom tape by now. In it, OBL says he will probably die in a martydom operation this year.

OBL is the leader and financial backer of al Qaeda. It is difficult to believe he would voluntarily remove himself unless there were a good reason to do so. I posit several possibilities.

1. He's actually been dead since Tora Bora. The new leadership has found him a useful bogey man against the West. They have tried to make the Afghanistan front look like a US failure by saying OBL escaped. They can't run the game forever. As in a soap opera, they must remove the character eventually but wish to do so in a story enhancing way. If there is a successful and terrible attack on the US, they may claim OBL was personally responsible. If no identifiable bits are found, they claim he ascended bodily into heaven like Jesus. At the very least they create a Legendary Mythic Figure; at best they Deify Him.

2. OBL's kidney problem or complications from it due to his Tora Bora stay or perhaps injuries are such he has only a limited time to live. He has decided he will do more for his cause by becoming Mythic than by dying in a bed.

3. OBL is having internal problems as has been hinted. We have been wrecking his organization and morale is bad. He is stepping aside and will use his death to become a Mythic rallying point for existing forces. He would expect a spectacular death, whether it was true or not, would bring in a flood of new recruits.

4. OBL is simply a religious fanatic and wants to go to Allah and claim his houris. Perhaps, but I do not read him as stupid. He is probably willing to die in his cause but only if - in his eyes - it advances his over all cause.

5. We have fatally disrupted his network. He prefers death to the humiliation of capture. If he does so spectacularly, he becomes Mythic and Immortal. He may hope to inspire another to arise and take up his cause in the future.

We should be prepared for the Diefication card. It's not been played in centuries.

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British soldiers currently stationed in Kuwait have broken with military tradition in order to deliver what they believe is a powerful message to the world.

Stripping off their desert khakis the men of the 7th Armoured Brigade laid down in a sand dune and spelled out the phrase, 'SADDAM IS TOAST' by arranging their own naked bodies to form the letters.

Lance-Corporal Steven Rowsley said afterwards:

"We were a bit embarrassed at first. And doing the 'S' was a bit tricky. But we think it was worth it in the end. My whole unit was really up for it."

The officer in charge of the demonstration, Captain Roger Hackwood said:

"We realise that it's a bit unorthodox and we know that some people will be shocked. But we couldn't think of any better way to get the strength of our feelings across to the anti-war movement back home"

The Ministry of Defence has declined to comment.

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I'm certain all have been following the Orange Alert in the US. If, as
George Tenet said today, these threats are about radiological or chemical attack on the US to occur this week then the Weasel Axis are following a very, very dangerous course.

If the headlines on one day are "France blocks NATO protection of Turkey" and the next day it is "10,000 feared dead in DC Attack" then France can expect to recieve a level of anti-frenchism verging on pure hatred. The damage would last until the American youngsters of this generation are dead and gone.

And worst of all for the dirigiste... they will have to defend their own the next time, something they have proven summarily incapable of in the past.

Maybe the Germans will help them.

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So the British TV tax has gone up by another £4.00 (1.5% above inflation) to provide the unelected lefty-establishment BBC with an extra hundred million for lavish lesbian costume dramas and unintelligible Open University nonsense.

As someone who could rather do with a cheque for £116 (the new license fee) right now, I seriously resent the assumption that tricking ever more money out of people is justified or good. As a capitalist, I think stealth-taxing is undermining our economy, putting people out of work and creating extra poverty. And as an arty-farty, I can see with my own eyes that the BBC does not deserve the cash: there is nothing on BBC1 that one can not find on ITV, and nothing on BBC2 that Channel 4 does not do just as well and with the exact same political bias.

I went to the BBC’s own website to see what they had to say about it, and found this:

"Why doesn't the BBC take advertising? Because this keeps the BBC independent of advertisers and other commercial pressures."

Actually, the BBC is stuffed full of advertising: mostly advertising for itself and its own products. But do the plotlines of 'Coronation Street' (ITV soap) get bent out of shape by endless sponsorship references, while 'Eastenders' (BBC soap) remains impartially naturalistic? Of course not. And I doubt that all the commercial TV and radio stations would accept that their news is rubbish because their journalists are influenced by advertisers, either.

"The BBC's Governors ensure instead that it is run in the general public interest. They are accountable for the BBC's independence, and also ensure that it reflects British culture and minority interests."

So the BBC’s governors know what is good for us better than we know ourselves: paying them £116 a year is good for us, and choosing to watch the independent, erm, commercial channels clearly rots our minds. Minority groups don’t buy advertised products, therefore they don’t watch non-BBC TV, therefore non-BBC TV does not show anything they might like to watch.

"If the BBC carried adverts or sponsorship, commercial pressures would dictate its priorities instead of the general public interest."

But people choosing what to buy is the general public interest: it's ordinary people doing what they want with their own money. If people don’t buy any more revolting liqueurs because of "Sex and the City" sponsorship, the sponsorship will stop and the annoying mini-ads will go. But the point is, however annoying those ads, who do you know who would choose to pay £116 a year to opt out of seeing them? Exactly. Which is why it's illegal not to pay for the BBC, even if you only ever watch commercial channels and cable.

What I loathe most of all, however, is the idea that living off coerced money rather than earning it like everyone else makes you a superior benevolent authority better able to judge and further the 'interest' of the people you stole from. That’s why Marxism is the same as organised crime, except worse.

I want my £116 back.

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Drop what you are doing and follow Instapundit's link to the Washington Post article on German Minister Joschka Fischer's past.

To be fair, many, many people at the time would have been involved to some level or have known some of these people. I imagine more than one amongst us cringe at the memory of things they did as kids. Why, I knew a person who knew Bernadette Dohrn (later of the Weather Underground) when she was a teenager. This was a status conferring thing. We'd sit around the Student Union and say "Wow, man, like you really, like knew her? That's like, really far out! Pass that over would you?"

There was a certain cachet about those who "did something". None of us would have dreamed of doing anything really destructive. We even had a team clean up the administration building (Warner Hall) before we handed it back in the morning [we took it over the night after the Kent State murders]... all tidied up and us on our way just in time for the staff arrival at 8am. Wouldn't have been nice leaving all our coffee cups and candy wrappers laying about from the overnight demonstration, now would it? Such was CMU.

I particularly remember the Coke machine on the second floor (first floor in the UK). If you gave it a sharp punch in just the right place, a cup dropped into the dispenser, a relay clicked and you got a Coke. Free. By the end of the night almost everyone had mastered this student survival art.

I'm afraid the youthful Joschka and his violent friends would have laughed at us for our bourgeoise values.

It was another time and place and has little connection with today's world. For many of us they are fond memories of a time past. It was fun. Sadly, there are those who are forever sitting in the Student Union of their minds. They have not moved on. They do not live in the world that is.

I'm not saying Joschka is quite that stuck, but the Washington Post story does tell us "where he is coming from".

MORE:Glenn posteda link to an even worse bit of Joschka's past straight from the mouth of General Ion Mihai Pacepa, a former Nicolae Ceausescu intelligence chief. Fischer is connected via a number of insider sources to a Libyan terror operation run by Carlos "the Jackal".

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The French libertarian movement is split over war with Iraq, though needless to say, not for the purely venal reasons of Chirac, the bespoke purveyor of nuclear technology to national-socialist dictators.

Most of the French libertarians I have been in touch with seem torn between a quasi-Randian view: "exterminate all practitioners of violent irrational beliefs" and the absolutist horror of any state violence. With a president like Jacques Chirac (imagine a cross between Richard Nixon, Walter Mondale, Bill Clinton and George Bush senior: with NONE of their redeeming features), such scepticism about the morality of one's own government seems reasonable. My fear about America is that unlike most Americans, I assume that the next US president could be almost as bad. But that's another issue.

A distinctive voice in France right now is Jacques Garello - a French Catholic economist of the Austrian school. Professor Garello has hosted the summer university of the "nouvelle économie" at Aix for twenty five years, probably the most significant event of it's kind in Europe. Here M. Garello considers the case for a "just" war:

The error consists in talking of a war against Iraq, when it really is a war against terrorism, and a legitimate case of self-defense of universal civilisation against barbaric forces which happen to find support and encouragement in Iraq.

He goes on to suggest that the real purpose of French diplomacy in refusing to side publicly with the US is the fear of the millions of potential Islamic militants in France: they would rather ignore the problem than fight it.

*= The Other France

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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.

1. Turkey has bilateral defence agreements with the United States, which allow military aid outside the NATO relationship.

2. The Patriot missiles offered to Turkey are under Dutch sovereign control and so not subject to NATO interference.

3. 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.

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Arguments are getting quite heated among libertarians about the claim that the US is a potential threat to freedom versus the view that the US is the best guarantor of freedom in the world today. I happen to agree with both statements.

It would be absurd to claim that the US is a worse place to live than peacetime Iraq, unless one happened to enjoy being part of a quasi-fascist police state. It is reasonable to worry about the potential threat to freedom posed by the world's only superpower: there is no one to overthrow that state if it should go rotten.

I am disappointed in the complacency of some US libertarians and conservatives who ought to remember that wartime is the time when most encroachments on freedom can be justified. I have been accused of hype for using Hillary Clinton as an example of what a horrible US could be. Surely there can't be anyone who thinks that none of Presidents Lincoln, Wilson, Hoover, F.D.Roosevelt, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Bush senior and Clinton were ever a threat to freedom? Or that no one will ever be elected to the US presidency who is a bad person?

I certainly wish the US forces in the Middle East a speedy and successful trip. I equally hope that the plan is to remove the tyrant with no or low civilian casualties, both for humanitarian reasons, but also because a post-Saddam Iraq will be less resentful of US troops if there hasn't been carpet-bombing, or bad target intelligence.

I remain convinced that the British forces will either be as symbolic or ineffective as the Piedmont-Sardinian contingent during the Crimean War, or worse that they are headed for a repeat of Isandlwana, Majuba Hill, or Dunkirk. Bluntly the best troops in the world are cannon fodder when they run out of ammunition, the comms equipment doesn't work and their boots have melted in the sun.

As for ID cards for use against terrorism. Yes they can help. Yes they are also a violation of personal liberty. But I would be rather more convinced if the British government weren't providing safe havens for terrorists whether leftist, Islamist or Irish.

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Good theories are sticky, but they still need advocating. Slowly, slowly the low-fat mantra is being replaced by acknowledgement in public places that constant blood-sugar swings mightn't be very good for us. Slowly, slowly, free-market capitalism and libertarianism will stop being the standard butt of establishment sneers.
- Emma, in a comment on a posting by Alice Bachini

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Okay cricket. There's a World Cup on, and it is focussing attention on Zimbabwe, and on Mugabe – extreme nastiness of. So cricket is worth explaining to people whom I wouldn't normally bother to bother about it.

For example, in their first game of the tournament two of the Zimbabwe cricketers, Andy Flower and Henry Olonga made a protest on behalf of their fellow countrymen:

Before the Group-A match started Monday, Andy Flower and Henry Olonga donned black armbands and released a statement condemning the worsening violence and famine in their country, as they mourned what they called "the death of democracy."

Brave men.

So anyway, I'll assume you know roughly what baseball is, and I'll assume I do, and I'll describe cricket basically by saying how it differs from baseball.

First, the similarities, and (I'm guessing) the common ancestry. Both involve a guy propelling a ball in the direction of a batter, and the batter trying to hit the ball.

A cricket ball is not so extremely different from a baseball ball, but I'm guessing it's a bit bigger and more than a bit harder and scarier to get hit by. Corrective comments on that welcome. (I've not done much with a baseball. All I know is what I've seen watching baseball on British Channel 5 TV.)

However, the manner in which a cricket ball is propelled at the batter is very different to baseball. In baseball, the pitcher stands in one place and throws the ball. In cricket, the "bowler" runs towards a fixed spot and when he gets there he "bowls" the ball at the "batsman". Important: the bowler must keep his arm absolutely straight, as he swings it round and lets go of the ball. If he doesn't do this, and instead is believed to be throwing it, baseball-style, even a little, this can cause an international diplomatic incident. If a bowler is "no balled" for throwing, i.e. yelled at by one of the umpires as soon as he does it, this is a huge deal for the bowler, for the bowler's entire career, for his team, for cricket, and for all cricket fans everywhere. Cricket fans like me can still remember the names of bowlers no-balled for throwing years and even decades after it happened: Griffin of South Africa, Meckiff of Australia ... You have to keep your arm straight!!

Being no balled for overstepping the mark and bowling from a few inches closer to the batsman than you should, well that's no big deal. You lose one "run" (which is what a point in cricket is called). You can't get a batsman "out" if you do it, but your cricket career won't be affected.

Next big difference: unlike in baseball, the ball once bowled then generally strikes the ground, in between the bowler and the batsman, and quite near to the batsman, before the batsman tries to hit it. Baseball, to a cricket fan, looks like an endless succession of "full tosses", that is, balls that never hit the pitch and which for a cricket batsman are extremely easy to hit.

Because the ball strikes it just before the batsman tries to strike the ball, the nature and state of the pitch makes a huge difference in cricket. It can vary a lot from match to match, and during a match. A good pitch for batting means that the ball bounces predictably off the pitch and is thus easy to hit. A "difficult" pitch means that the ball can sometimes deviate when it hits the pitch, and so when the batsman tries to hit the ball he's liable to miss, or to miscue.

Like baseball, cricket also has its equivalent of "curve" balls, or whatever they're called, in that a cricket ball in the hands of a skilful bowler also deviates in the air, when on its way towards the batsman. How greatly it does this depends a lot on the weather. With the possible exception of golf, there's probably no other game in the world where the weather counts for more than it does in cricket.

There are broadly speaking two ways to bowl. You can bowl fast, and make the ball swing in the air and deviate from the pitch. And you can bowl slow, and make the ball spin in the air and deviate a lot when it hits the pitch. For international bowlers fast means 80 mph and more, and slow means about 50 mph.

To cope with all the complexities caused for him by the bowler, the cricket batsman has one huge advantage over his baseball cousin. His bat is wider, and it is flat. It's not a stick. It's more like a big and very thick paddle. Hitting the ball quite often is not that difficult, and a good batsman will reckon on hitting the ball pretty much as often as he tries to.

The batsman scores "runs" by hitting the ball out amongst the fielders, and running the length of the pitch from where he started out to the other end, where the bowler bowled from. Every length thus travelled is worth one run. He can also hit the ball to the boundary (quite a common occurrence) and get four runs. Or (much rarer) he can hit it, home run style, over the boundary, and get six runs. There are two batsmen out on the pitch at any one time, one at each end. If one scores a run, that means they swap ends, and the other one then faces the next ball. Bowlers take it in turns to bowl balls in sets of six, switching ends after each set of six (after each "over).

Whereas baseball scores seldom go to more than a dozen runs, cricket matches typically involve totals of one, two, even three hundred, and sometimes more. In the game that opened the World Cup, for example, in which the West Indies narrowly defeated South Africa, both sides scored getting on for three hundred runs each.

How does a batsman get "out"? Answer, he's guarding his "stumps" (a line of three sticks stuck in the ground that stand about waste high behind him when he bats) and if he misses the ball when the bowler bowls it and the ball hits these stumps, the batsman is out "bowled". If the ball strikes the pads that the batsman wears on his legs for protection, and the umpire decides (after much yelling and gesticulating by the fielding side) that the ball would have hit the wicket, the umpire gives the batsmen out "leg before wicket" (lbw). And, if the batsman hits the ball in the air and a fielder catches it before it lands, the batsman is out "caught" – as is the rule with baseball, yes? And if the batsmen, when trying to complete one of those "runs" don't manage to cross before the fielding side picks up the ball and throws it at and hits those stumps, then the batsman who failed to make his ground is "run out", again, much as a baseball player is dismissed for failing to reach his next base before the ball does.

Each team has eleven players, all of whom bat, so when the fielding team have got ten of them out, that's it, the team is "all out", and the other guys take a turn. Whoever makes the most runs wins.

Cricket now comes in two versions. There the type that lasts a day, which is the kind they're playing now in the World Cup, and then there's cricket that lasts a seriously decent length of time, like three, four or five days.

One day cricket, a relatively recent invention not liked by purists of the old school, has a winner and a loser. Each team receives a set number of balls, and the team that gets the most runs wins. But in the original, longer version of the game, the contest can end in a draw. In that, both teams bat twice. Suppose that in the final "innings" the team batting second is trying to make two hundred runs to win. If it does that before all its guys get out, it wins. If all its guys get out before they reach a combined total of 200, they lose. But if time runs out before either of those things happens, it's a draw. Five solid days of desperately competitive action can end with no one winning.

I could go on, but I'll answer just one more important question about cricket, which is really a criticism rather than a question. This is the one that goes: Cricket, that's a game for a bunch of pansies and cissies, right? Only "gentlemen" play cricket, not regular guys.

If this is what you think, I can't stop you. But a word of advice. If this is what you want to go on thinking about cricket, don't ever play it. A long spell of bowling really takes it out of a man, and as for batting …!

Put it like this, how would you like it if a man ran straight at you as fast as he could and then propelled a heavy, potentially very hurtful ball at you at a speed that can sometimes get quite close to 100 mph? Trust me, you'd scared. Yet the proper way to bat is to get your body directly in line with this horror story, so that if the ball doesn't hit your bat, it is extremely likely to hit you.

Don't confuse the fact that the moments of the fiercest sort of cricket action can sometimes be rather, er, occasional, with the notion that when the action does happen it doesn't amount to anything. For a serious cricket fan like me to be watching a good tight run chase, with batsmen clouting fast bowlers to all parts of the field, well, life doesn't get any better.

Just before World War 2, there was a huge scandal in the world of cricket, know to this day as "Bodyline". Bodyline was a particularly scary way of bowling that was aimed right at the bodies of the batsmen, even more directly than usual. And who was doing it? The English. That's right. The gosh-I'm-most-frightfully-sorry – more-tea-vicar? – after-you-no-I-insist-after-you – English were bowling this bodyline stuff.

And our guys were bowling their Bodyline bowling at Australians. And the Australians were the ones saying that our guys were being too rough and nasty. That's right. Those rugged, crocodiles for breakfast, brave-hearted Australians were the ones saying that the English weren't playing fair, and with some justice I might add. It got very serious, with cabinet ministers on both sides getting dragged in and insults flying around in all directions, some of them even being uttered in the House of Commons.

I sometimes think that if Adolf Hitler had paid a bit more attention to cricket he might not have been so casual about letting that World War 2 thing get started, that I mentioned earlier, that broke out a few years after Bodyline.

By all means be baffled by cricket, and if you were when you started reading this, you almost certainly still are. But don't you dare try telling me that it's not a game for Real Men to be playing. I've played it, and I have the scars and the broken teeth to prove it. And when English teeth of my vintage got broken they stay broken.

When I heard last night about Olonga and Flower making their protest, I was mightily impressed, but I wasn't surprised. Cricket is a tough game, and the people who play it are tough, gutsy people.

Watching cricket is a different thing entirely. That can get very dull, no matter how many cucumber sandwiches are available, and getting people to do that, at any rate in England, is getting harder by the year.

On the other hand, I recently heard it said that in India they have more cricket fans than Europe has people, so the game clearly has a future for a good while yet.

For more cricket blogging, try Michael Jennings.

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The music industry has just been hit with a massive class action suit for price fixing. Fox News reported on the details today.

Glenn Reynolds, a law Professor at the University of Tennesee, has been expecting this for ages. He's gone so far as to say even industry insiders feel they are vulnerable to a RICO.

Kudos to Glenn and his crystal ball!

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Samizdata voted No. 1 Group Blog by a fairly large group of the great and the good of the blogosphere (or the mad and the bad, depending on your p.o.v.) Nice. True. Stiff competition, too.

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Andrew Sullivan has some rather sharp things to say about George W. Bush and the ballooning budget deficit.

About time! Sullivan has tended, I think, to give the President a fairly easy time on a lot of issues, perhaps on the basis of natural loyalty to a conservative pol and hatred of the other side. But there's no getting away from the fact that the US budget deficit is set to grow at an alarming pace.

At the core of the problem is the raft of domestic programmes Bush feels obligated to support or which the GOP in the House and the Senate refuse to kill off. At least the defence spending aspect to the budget can be justified by the war. But although I support Bush's tax cuts, especially the abolition of tax on dividends because of the economic benefits, he could be storing up trouble unless some discipline is imposed.

Why am I, as a Brit, fretting about the US deficit? Well, given the enormous importance of a vibrant US economy, it is in my interests that Bush doesn't fall asleep at the wheel on this issue. There are no excuses.

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Apologies are due for my short sabbatical away from the Samizdata but I'm afraid the prosaic concerns of keeping a roof over my head required attendance.

Having returned this evening, I have had an opportunity to scroll through the items posted since my last visit and, also, the comments appended thereto. It is among the latter efforts that I discovered this outpouring of hysterical claptrap:

"You are evading the fact that the United States Government is the foremost terrorist organisation in the world at the current time and its war plans are not designed to protect yours and my liberties but rather to extend its own power at the expense of me and you in terms of our money, liberty and increased risk of attack and at the expense of the lives of the innocents in Iraq who are about to be bombed.

For a moment, I thought we had been honoured with a visit from Noam Chomsky, but the actual author turned out to be Paul Coulam who I had, until now, credited with a bit more common sense. I won't go as far as to say that I am shocked but I am disappointed; not because Paul is clearly against any attack on Iraq but because he has elected to employ the ludicrous rhetoric of the far-left in order to express that opposition.

If Paul honestly believes the things he has written then there is probably nothing I can do or say that will serve to change his mind but I am inspired enough to conduct a little Q&A session in which Paul and everybody else is invited to participate.

1. America is indeed on the warpath. Is this because:
   1. They just decided that they want to dominate everybody in the whole world and enslave them for ever and steal all their resources?

      OR

   2. They might just be trying to prevent another 9/11 type terrorist attack on their country?

2. Paul is quite right to be outraged at the erosion of his civil liberties and the plundering of his wealth but are these processes occuring because of:
   1. American warmongering and 'bloodlust' for power?:

      OR

   2. Because the majority of his (and my) fellow Brits keep electing socialist kleptocrats into Westminster and they, in turn, are only answerable to even bigger kleptocrats in the EU?

3. Thousands of Saddam's 'Republican Guards' will be deliberately targetted by allied forces in any attack on Iraq. These are the men who have tortured, murdered and terrorised a nation at the behest of their tyrant boss. Should they be regarded as:
   1. 'Innocent' Iraqi victims of the American terror machine?

      OR

   2. About as deserving of our sympathy as the Waffen SS?

Of course, I have my own answers to these questions (can't you tell?).

On a slightly different tack, I also note that Paul chose to play the 'Switzerland' card in his arguments with US foreign policy>

"If the US had followed a similar foreign policy to that of say Switzerland we would be much safer, freer and richer than is currently the case."

Excuse me, Paul, but did you put even a jot of thought into that statement before you posted it? Had the US followed the foreign policy of, say, Switzerland then we would now be living under the shadow of either a Nazi or a Soviet Europe. 'Safer' 'freer' and 'richer' are not exactly the three words I would use to describe that state of affairs.

Besides which I assume it's the internationally-recognised Swiss neutrality that is actually at the heart of the matter and I do wonder why Rothbardians are always insisting on such neutrality for the USA? Swiss neutrality has been respected largely because of its geography and unique position as a small country in the heart of a continent. Neutrality is no defence against war (both Holland and Belgium declared neutrality at the outbreak of WWII) and is not a realistic model for a huge trading country like the USA (or even Britain for that matter). Swiss neutrality is, I'm afraid, uniquely Swiss.

And let me turn to another ridiculous, but widely echoed, assertion:

"Would Saddam or Osama or any of the rest of them be remotely interested in us if our governmnets hadn't sought to continually intervene in their affairs."

Spoken as if the Middle East was some tranquil oasis of civil society and free trade before all these meddling 'Gringos' showed up, and not an imperial playground or a tapestry of super-power client states. Still, let us not get bogged down by the sorry history of that sorry corner of the world because when Paul appeals for an end to 'intervention' in the affairs of the region he undoubtedly means a withdrawal of all the soldiers, spooks and subsidies.

That may be a good idea but it would not be an end to 'intervention' because commerce is also a form of intervention, especially when it is commerce between developed and undeveloped countries. Whenever Coca-Cola open a canning plant in Damascus, that is 'intervention' in the region; if BMW open a dealership in Amman that is 'intervention' in the region, especially when the 'white men in suits' start showing up with suitcases full of cash ready to power-broke with local potentates. Rothbardians may not see MTV Satellite broadcasts as a provokation but people like Osama Bin Laden most certainly do.

So, when people like Paul call for the West to stop intervening in the region let's be clear what is actually being called for: not only does the military hardware have to be pulled out but Exxon, Shell, BP, IBM, Hewlett Packard and Britney Spiers etc all have to be pulled as well. Who knows, perhaps Western governments would have to sanction their own corporations from doing any business in the region at all.

Is this what the Rothbardians want? Somehow, when push comes to shove, I rather doubt it.

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Imagination without skill gives us contemporary art.
- Tom Stoppard in his play Artist Descending a Staircase

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The Cricket World Cup started today with the opening game, in which the West Indies narrowly defeated South Africa. However, as the Guardian reports, the big story for many concerns whether or not England will play their opening fixture in Harare next Thursday.

[England] Captain Nasser Hussain was said to be opposed to playing the game for fear of violent protests, according to a source accompanying the team. Vice-captain Alec Stewart is understood to be leading a minority 'pragmatist' faction, a group of players keen to go ahead.

The threats, issued by a previously unknown group called the 'Sons and Daughters of Zimbabwe' have pledged violence against the players and their families if they fulfil their fixture against the Zimbabwean national side.

Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe and of the nation's cricketing body, is anxious to see the game played. A successful World Cup will be widely seen as an endorsement of his regime. Tomorrow Zimbabwe are due to play Namibia

This is all extremely depressing. These "Sons and Daughters of Zimbabwe", by threatening violence to the England players (rather than merely disruption to the event) may perhaps have achieved their own purposes, but so far as British public opinion is concerned, they have done themselves no favours. At one stroke they may have turned the Zimbabwe issue, in British eyes, from "vicious dictator murders millions of his own people" to "those Africans, they're all as bad as each other".

Meanwhile, although the England players who don't want to go may be having their doubts because of the support that they fear they may be giving to the detestable Mugabe, what they are actually saying is that his regime is insufficiently repressive. Their objection, or at any rate their excuse for objecting, is that their own safety can't be guaranteed, because protestors may turn out to be insufficiently under the control of the Zimbabwean 'authorities', i.e. roaming gangs of murderous thugs.

Anything that keeps Zimbabwe on the front pages is worth something. But this muddle of messages, together with the preoccupation of the rest of the world with Iraq, could hardly have turned out better for Mugabe. His days in power will surely soon end, but how many other Zimbabweans will have to die before that end comes?

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Martin Cole takes a Popperian cudgle to the deadening hand of the emerging Euro super-state

Pericles in his famous funeral oration for the slain warriors of democratic Athens, among many other ringing statements in favour of democracy, pertinently said the following:

Although only a few may originate a policy, we are all able to judge it. We do not look upon discussion as a stumbling block in the way of political action, but as an indispensable preliminary to acting wisely.

The above is quoted directly from Karl Popper's book The Open Society and its Enemies published in paperback by Routledge Classics (ISBN 0-415-23731-9). It should be required reading for all members of the convention chaired by Vallery Giscard d'Estaing on the future structures of the European State.

Others following these debates are also recommended to the book, but for those unable to obtain a copy, or spare the time to read it, I give below a brief summary of what I consider to be the most salient points as concerns the dangers Europe now faces if the convention proceeds as seems likely. In my opinion, never will the outcome of such a debate be likely to affect so many millions of people, and rarely can there have been such reluctance to openly discuss the frightening implications of the decisions being taken.

Plato is the early villain in Popper's analysis for the ever present drive against democracy and equalitarianism. The author describes, with detailed logic, the elitism, racialism and totalitarianism that can eventually result in a Society that follows the 'chosen people' concept, intrinsic to much of Plato's writings.

Popper makes an excellent case that the critical divide in governance of a geographic entity, whether city, nation (and it follows, super-state) is between collectivism and individualism.

The argument made by Plato that the state be placed higher than the individual and the suggestion that justice is synonymous "for that which is in the best interest of the state" now apparent in the structures of the EU, must be refuted at, virtually, any cost.

Anti-democratic forces malign the case for individualism by falsely asserting that collectivism is synonymous with altruism, while individualism is blackened by being equated to egoism.

"Who should rule?" Plato asks and gives his own reply, "the wise shall lead and rule, and the ignorant shall follow?" Popper proposes that the very question "Who shall rule?" itself, becomes the problem and proposes an alternative question:

How can we so organize political institutions that bad or incompetent rulers can be prevented from doing too much damage?

I would suggest that the above question is the one that the present convention on the future Europe should be considering.

As Popper argues "all theories of sovereignty are paradoxical". For instance we may have selected 'the wisest' or 'the best' as a ruler. But 'the wisest' in his wisdom may find that not he but 'the best' should rule, and the best in his goodness may decide that 'the majority' should rule.

By emphasising who should rule, or indeed on what basis our ruler should be appointed or by what limited constituency he should be elected, we are driven up a blind alley. We should be debating the checks and balances which should be imposed on those who rule us, bearing in mind that only by the best of good luck will any of our future leaders be anything other than reasonably competent. The majority will be incompetent and we will for sure, be subject to the occasional tyrant reaching the pinnacle of pan-European power. How could such a despot be removed? Popper asserts:

A theory of democratic control can be developed that is free from the paradox of sovereignty. The theory I have in mind is one which does not proceed, as it were, from a doctrine of the intrinsic good or righteousness of a majority rule, but rather from the baseness of tyranny: or more precisely it rests upon the decision, or adoption of the proposal, to avoid and resist tyranny.

Continuing with this theme Popper argues that there are two forms of government, those that can be got rid of without bloodshed (such as in general elections) and those that require a successful revolution to replace, or not at all. He labels the first sort 'democracies' and the second 'tyrannies'.

What facilities will the new European super-state supply for the replacement of its rulers… none that I have yet seen proposed, we would thus appear to be heading towards tyrannical, non-democratic rule as labelled by Popper!

Debating who should rule avoids the subject of democratic checks and balances, and leads to further problems clearly evident in the French system of government, such as, that the qualities of leadership may be believed to be identifiable at a young age and an elite education provided, tailored along the lines of those attributes considered important by the existent ruling clique. Self-perpetuating incompetent rule, or worse appears to me the inevitable result.

France nevertheless clearly remains a democracy within Popper’s definition, is this likely to remain the case for the Union of Europe if a French model is imposed on the already un-democratic institutions of the existing EU? The first draft constitution clearly places the State above the individual, inter alia, by granting rights beyond its gift to give, or power to protect.

It would be a major mistake for the new Europe to follow a Platonic pattern of government, but a mistake that daily appears more likely. The existing EU is already the kind of elitist, non-accountable, non-removable nightmare against which Popper warned when he wrote his book in the early nineteen forties. It is incredible how little Europe seems to have learned from those wartime years and the events leading to them.

I have frequently heard it boasted, the EU would not have advanced this far, (or?) to 'ever closer union', had democratic authority been sought at every step!

The present difficulties of the common currency and acceptance of the latest expansion amongst the general public, should amply demonstrate to the extreme federalists who make such remarks, that the limits of such non-democratic coercion have now been reached. Proceeding with further imposed integration, and consequent diminution of national democratic protections, could threaten the whole project of future European unity. Rumblings of discontent abound in all three of the major EU States I have recently visited!

I appeal directly to the Chairman of the convention, who, probably co-incidentally, incorporated my earlier minimum requirement in his initial constitutional draft, to read Popper’s excellent book and consider its implications. To achieve lasting renown, requires a bold step in favour of democratic fundamentals which will be strongly resisted by the various Brussels and National elites! Courage mon brave!

Should Europe’s new institutions be directly controlled by 'the majority' using the new tools available from the revolution in information technology?

Why is the major topic of discussion in the Convention, not about how the people of Europe may periodically remove their leaders and avoid the new organisations such as the ERRF and Europol becoming the instruments of a despot?

Are, perhaps, the tyrants already in control?

These are the questions that need to be addressed. Using Popper's labels of societies, they can be democracies or tyrannies, if the EU is to take on the full characteristics of a State, as the majority in Europe seem to believe is desirable, test whether this statement is true with a pan-European referendum. If the answer is Yes!, then build a Democracy for which all should wish, and of which they can be proud.

If No!, then at least the convention and its Chairman will not have lent their name, to the creation of perhaps the largest tyranny the world has yet to see!

Against whom will the name of Vallery Giscard d'Estaing be set in history… Pericles or Plato?... and for the creation of what kind of European Union, one of democracy and freedom or Popper's only alternative…?

Martin Cole

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As a dual national I have a French national identity card. As a British national who doesn't have a driving licence and whose passport expired in December of last year, I have no state approved form of identifying myself.

Naturally I have never been asked to produce a form of identification in France by a state official except when crossing a border. Equally naturally I have been asked numerous times by police officers in the United Kingdom to identify myself (despite this being illegal without some probable cause, but then I suppose I have a shifty look).

Therefore I fear that a British identity card will become the pretext of even more bullying of white middle-class people by the low-life pigs that pass for law-enforcement officers in the UK today.

During the Second World War, I am told that a well known local dignitary in Ulster was chatting to a police officer at a railway station whilst waiting for a relative to arrive from Belfast. After twenty minutes the police officer said to the local businessman he'd known for years: "Mr Smith, please show me your identity card." He then proceeded to arrest Mr Smith for failing to carry proper documentation. I suspect that a Gestapo officer would have shown more common-sense.

The chances are that the present loutish types will not behave better than the Royal Ulster Constabulary's treatment of a Protestant businessman in 1942. Unfortunately, there is a genuine security advantage to identity cards (even when they can be forged). They provide an audit trail for car hire, bank accounts etc.

But of course in France, of course no self-respecting hotelier would dream of asking a single male for identification, unless they wished to cash a cheque...