We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
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There is an excellent article in the Telegraph by Charles Moore called What if Israelis had abducted BBC man?, addressing the morally demented attitude amongst the tranzi media and government set.
But just suppose that some fanatical Jews had grabbed Mr Johnston and forced him to spout their message, abusing his own country as he did so. What would the world have said?
There would have been none of the caution which has characterised the response of the BBC and of the Government since Mr Johnston was abducted on March 12. The Israeli government would immediately have been condemned for its readiness to harbour terrorists or its failure to track them down. Loud would have been the denunciations of the extremist doctrines of Zionism which had given rise to this vile act. The world isolation of Israel, if it failed to get Mr Johnston freed, would have been complete.
If Mr Johnston had been forced to broadcast saying, for example, that Israel was entitled to all the territories held since the Six-Day War, and calling on the release of all Israeli soldiers held by Arab powers in return for his own release, his words would have been scorned. The cause of Israel in the world would have been irreparably damaged by thus torturing him on television. No one would have been shy of saying so.
But of course in real life it is Arabs holding Mr Johnston, and so everyone treads on tip-toe. Bridget Kendall of the BBC opined that Mr Johnston had been “asked” to say what he said in his video. Asked! If it were merely an “ask”, why did he not say no?
Whatever one thinks of Israel’s policies on various issues, the nauseating double standards so consistently in play by so many ‘news’ organisations are something that need to be pointed out often and unapologetically. Charles Moore is to be commended for his article. Read the whole thing.
Guy Herbert this morning posted a piece commenting on Australian Prime Minister John Howard’s decision to “ban” the Australian cricket team from touring Zimbabwe later this year. I generally have little time for Mr Howard, but in this case I can not personally be very harsh on him. What clearly happened is that the Australian Cricket Board (which these days prefers to call itself “Cricket Australia”) begged him at length the make such an announcement, and he eventually gave in despite considerable resistance, and he did this because the alternatives open to him were probably worse. I have no disagreement with Guy that the outcome is essentially a dishonourable one, but the other easy options were worse. Some background.
In international cricket, there are only three countries for who the game is directly profitable. These are India, Australia, and England (in decreasing order of profitability). The other countries that regularly play international cricket make money by playing the national teams of these three countries, and then selling television rights and other sponsorship opportunities for these matches. Thus it is very important to (say) Sri Lanka for (in particular) India and Australia to regularly tour Sri Lanka and play matches.
In order to assure its members of some sort of regular cricket and regular income, the International Cricket Council (ICC) has in recent years created a mandatory tour program, requiring each of its members to play each other both home and away over a five year period. Reactions to this rule have varied, and compliance with it has been variable. The rule allows two sides to postpone a series if both are in agreement, which has allowed India and Australia to at times get their way by offering more money or more matches if the matches are played at some undefined “later”. However, if a team takes a hard line, then (at least theoretically) the other side must tour, or must pay a fine to the ICC which will be then forwarded to the host team as compensation for the lost revenues from the matches that were to have been played. The ICC’s rules allow for two situations in which a fine is not payable: firstly in cases where there is a genuine issue of safety – tours of both Sri Lanka and Pakistan have been called off for this reason in times of high political tension and terrorist threat – and in cases where a government forbids a tour. This second rule has come into play more in cases where Zimbabwe were potentially the touring side, most notably when Zimbabwean players were refused visas by the government of New Zealand.
Zimbabwe are a full member of the ICC. In the mid 1990s Zimbabwe had quite a decent cricket team (of mostly but certainly not entirely white players) but in the years since then Zimbabwean cricket has gone the way of most other things in Zimbabwe. At the demand of the government, white players were pushed out of the team, as were any non-white players who dared to say anything critical of the government. Officials who ran the game and actually cared about cricket were replaced with compliant government yes-men. The organisation of cricket in Zimbabwe became a shambles, and we are not sure right now to what extent the domestic cricket is even taking place. (The Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians has recently been complaining about being unable to get scorecards for the domestic Logan Cup, which it has documented with no trouble for over a century). Inevitably, the standard of the national team has dropped from “decent, but not world beating”, to utterly woeful. Their performance in the recently completed World Cup was dreadful, and they have dropped to 11th in the world rankings, way behind the rapidly improving Bangladesh, and behind even Ireland, a side just consisting of part time Australian and English expatriates and who are not a full member of the ICC.
However, through all this Zimbabwe has maintained its full membership of the ICC. Zimbabwe has been “temporarily suspended” from playing test matches due to its declining standards, but it is still playing one day international cricket, and other teams are expected to tour in order to play these games. Australia was scheduled to tour Zimbabwe this year.
The obvious thing to do would be to expel Zimbabwe from the ICC, not necessarily on political grounds explicitly, but simply because cricket in Zimbabwe is no longer being administered and organised properly, that the board is no longer independent of government, and because selections are no longer taking place on the basis of merit. However, there are two reasons why this has not happened. The first is that there is a “third world” versus “first world” divide in international cricket, and some aspects of the administration of the game are a post-colonial nightmare. For many years Australia and England (and, prior to their expulsion from international cricket in the apartheid days, South Africa) had the right of veto over any decisions made in the ICC, and the other countries still have a lingering resentment of this. Once this veto was abolished, the Asian cricketing powers were eager to elevate other countries to membership of the ICC so as to gain a voting majority against the former “colonial” powers, and this is one factor that led to the elevation of Zimbabwe in the first place. Expelling Zimbabwe would increase the voting power of the “first world” bloc, and many people in India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka do not want this.
Secondly, what are the objections to Zimbabwe playing international cricket? For one thing, Zimbabwe is ruled by a dictatorship that restricts civil liberties. Well, other members of the ICC include Bangladesh and Pakistan, who are not exactly wonderful on this score either. South Africa is ruled by people who consider Robert Mugabe to be one of their old comrades in arms. If Zimbabwe were kicked out of world cricket on these grounds, then this would “set a bad example” to Pakistan and Bangladesh in particular. Did I mention that the governing body of cricket in Pakistan is traditionally a branch of the army and the head of its board is usually a general? That complicates matters further, and rules out the “We should expel Zimbabwe because the government controls cricket in the country” argument. The government of Sri Lanka appoints that nation’s cricket board too (although not through the army). As for “Zimbabwe selects players on something other than merit”, well, South Africa does that too. (Affirmative action with respect to black and coloured players). One would think that “Zimbabwe should be expelled because Zimbabwean cricket is a shambles” might be enough, but the organisation of cricket in a number of countries is a shambles (most notably Pakistan again, also (sadly) the West Indies). The ICC is also a shambles, having demonstrated in its organisation of the recently completed World Cup that it is an organisation that could not collectively get pissed in Porto)
Australia was scheduled to tour Zimbabwe later this year. The Australian players did not want to make the tour. The Australian government definitely did not want the tour to go ahead. → Continue reading: On cricket, Zimbabwe, John Howard, the ICC, Pakistan and Bob Woolmer
This news makes me happy that I have no hopes for ‘victory’ in Iraq, beyond having a battlefield for European Islamists to go and die on far away from European and American cities.
Banning your own side from telling your side of a war is pretty dim, especially when the MSM is effectively scouting for the other side. It does not seem beyond the competency of the US armed forces to issue its bloggers with a “Do Tell” and “Don’t Tell” list.
As for the pretext that bandwidth is the problem, it reminds me of the British grocery store in the 1960s that stopped stocking up on a certain brand of bread “because we keep running out…”
The tyrant of Baghdad is dead. His successors are dead. That’s all that can be hoped for under the existing rules of engagement.
There is a very interesting article in The Weekly Standard by Stephen Schwartz called The Balkan Front, describing the struggle between Saudi backed Wahhabi Islam and the very moderate Bektashis and Rumi Sufi traditions in various parts of the Balkans.
These are forms of Islam antithetical to the Wahhabis, and they are in the majority in places like Bosnia-Herzegovina (I have gotten drunk with enough Bosnians to know). Supporting them politically, financially and militarily, plus encouraging them to evangelise in areas infested by the Wahhabi pestilence, is surely a strategic move that should be supported by anyone who sees the spread of intolerant radical Islam as one of the major threats to civilisation in the world today.
This is a subject on which the Serbian, Bosnian and Albanian governments, not to mention peoples, should be making common cause. It is in the interests of everyone who wants stability in the Balkans to oppose the presence of corrosive Wahhabi Islam and the Islamo-fascist politics that come with it. Tolerating Saudi money flooding into the region is like someone prone to cancer smoking cigarettes but given the areas fratricidal recent past, perhaps the malign Saudis can do a service by providing the Balkans’ fractious factions with something long needed: a legitimate and loathsome common enemy.
Rather like the current mania for ‘socially responsible investment’ (not investing in ‘sinful’ industries), and carbon emissions trading, another strong trend in the financial world these days is sharia-compliant finance. There are sharia-focused hedge funds (I kid you not), sharia bonds, sharia companies. It all boils down to how devout Muslims who want to raise finance or invest in business can do so while negotiating the complexities of their religious code and its ban on usury.
On one level, I have no quarrel with any of this so long as no coercion is involved and there might even be unintended benefits. If the capital markets can make it possible for people to live their lives in ways they feel ethically comfortable with, then that surely demonstrates the enormous flexibility and benefits of the market (it is as well to remember that anti-capitalist ideologies, be they religious or secular, rarely return the compliment in this way). Of course, in as much as sharia financing does screen out interest on loans, one suspects that the returns on such investments must logically lag behind those of regular capitalist activity, if certain money-making practices are deemed off-limits but then if Muslims wish to surrender some money to comply with their own beliefs, they are entitled to do so, just as environmentalists sacrifice some returns by refusing to put money into businesses such as oil or whatever.
I cannot help but feel there is something rather rum about all this sharia financial wheeler-dealing. Many of the financial instruments that are used for the purposes of sharia-compliant finance look awfully similar to regular capitalism to me. In fact, it is hard to see what is really the difference on ethical grounds between speculating on certain types of assets, such as gold, and lending money to a company in the hope that the firm will profit and repay the interest. It strikes me as being the financial equivalent of splitting hairs.
I also suspect, as this article at Bloomberg lays out, that a lot of people putting themselves around as sharia ‘experts’ are making a huge amount of money out of this trend and yet their motives appear in some ways to be as ‘selfish’ as that of any regular capitalist, not that I have a problem with the honest pursuit of long-term self interest, quite the opposite.
The moral prejudice against usury always struck me as irrational. Here is a good piece on the subject.
I wish I understood Turkish politics better than I do. There was a large pro-secularism rally in Ankara, which is surely a good thing. The fact these people are backed by the army is an even more encouraging sign.
On Friday evening military chiefs said in a statement they could intervene if the election process threatened to undermine Turkish secularism.
EU politics however, I understand just fine. The usual halfwits have moaned that the Turkish army is interfering with democracy because they made it clear they will not tolerate Turkey becoming an Islamic state. Yet strangely all manner of constitutional limitations on the democratic will of the majority exist in many countries (the USA and Switzerland, for example) and yet that does not seem to attract the displeasure of the fools who live off our tax money in Brussels.
In Turkey, the army is probably the best bulwark against Islamism and the fact the same €uro-spokesmen allegedly responsible for working towards integrating Turkey with the EU want to weaken the role of the main opponent of Islamist political aspirations in the country is… astonishing.
It is all so clear to me now and I must say that I feel like such a fool for having been so taken in by the pantomime of ‘co-operation’ that was put on by our 15 naval personnel for the benefit of their Iranian captors and the wider world. Yes, I use the word ‘pantomime’ because what we all perceived to be a humiliating milquetoast submission was, in fact, a mere ploy to disguise a fiendishly brilliant plan to kill all the Iranian Guards by means of death from dehydration as a result of relentless and uncontrollable vomiting:
That was the last time Arthur saw Faye for six days as they were both put in solitary. Guards tried to make Faye crack by cruelly telling her she was the last of the 15 being held captive.
But, speaking of the moment they were reunited, he told how he wept and begged the 26-year-old for a hug. Arthur said: “I missed Topsy most of all. I really love her, as amumand a big sister. Not seeing her and not knowing if she was safe was one of the hardest parts of the whole thing.
“Then on the sixth day, when I was just about giving up hope, I was pulled from my bed in the early hours of the morning.
“They led me down a corridor and into a room, where I saw Topsy in a corner.
“I can’t describe how that felt…just every emotion rolled into one. I ran up to her, threw my arms round her and cried like a baby.
“When I’d calmed down, she asked, ‘Do you need another hug, a mother hug?’ and I said, ‘damn right’. She was just as pleased to see me because they’d told her I’d been sent home.
“Topsy said she’d always be there for me, to protect me and look after me.
Here endeth the lesson, Ahmedinejad. Those Iranian johnnies will never again make the mistake of underestimating the heroic professionalism and grim resolve of the Royal Navy.
Iran can called for the UK government to make a ‘goodwill gesture’ towards Iran in return for them freeing the fifteen naval personnel they abducted in Iraqi waters. This is entirely reasonable and the UK should respond by promising that if the Iranian government will keep control of the Pasdaran (a military organisation that relates to the regular Iranian military in a similar way to which the SA or SS related to the Wehrmacht), the UKGov will make sure that ‘rogue elements’ of the Royal Navy do not mine Iranian harbours or start torpedoing Iranian shipping.
Of course as Iranian weapons keep finding their way into Basra and killing British soldiers, perhaps a different sort of exchange is really needed. After all, as there are no shortage of internal opponents to the Iranian regime, surely it is well past time that UK weapons started turning up in the hands of Iranian anti-government elements as well… think of it as another way of furthering globalisation and international trade.
The author of an article I read this morning wonders if the approach of the USS Nimitz Forced Iran’s Decision to release the British hostages. It is an interesting read but I can personally neither confirm nor deny the truth of it.
I do not think the regime in Iran is going to have a long life. Between their economic problems and falling birth rates they have serious problems, ones which a theocracy with delusions of grandeur will simply not be able to deal with.
Following the release of the 15 British sailors from Iranian captivity, the Prime Minister Tony Blair has issued the following statement:
“I am sure that I speak for everyone when I say how delighted I am that the Iranian goverment has released our 15 naval service personnel. This has obviously been a traumatic ordeal for all of them and their families and an extremely trying and difficult time for everyone else in involved in this unfortunate episode. Thankfully, common sense and cooler heads have prevailed. I must, however, make it categorically clear that we did not, nor would we ever, make any concessions, strike any bargains or agree any deals in order to secure their release. It is the unwavering policy of Her Majesty’s government to stand firm in the face of threats and to strenuously resist any attempts at blackmail or intimidation of any kind. That said, all that remains for me to do is join in with the rest of the nation in offering up our prayers and thanks to merciful Allah and his last prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him. Thank you.”
There is a sense of familiarity to all of this. Iran, hostages, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad… Perhaps Mahmoud has reached the point in his life where reality has diverged so far from his youthful dreams that he must resort to the reliving of fond memories. True, there was no easy way to collect a group of American diplomats for real fun, but hey, a bunch of young British sailors? Why not?
Let us never forget who this man is and what he represents. Some American diplomats still remember his face from their long ordeal in Iran almost 30 years ago.
One problem for Mahmy this time around is the lack of a Jimmy Carter. Jimmy certainly has to be in the running for the worst President the United States has ever had. I do not think Tony Blair, whatever else you may think of him, is an incompetent fool. Neither he nor heir apparent Gordon will deal with this blatant kidnapping in such a way as to damage their political prospects for the next election.
Even if they manage to make a total bollocks of this hostage crisis and turn the public against them… David Cameron is no Ronald Reagan.
On the one hand, she could be deliberately downplaying expectations:
Hopes for the imminent release of 15 sailors and Royal Marines held in Iran were dampened yesterday when Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, urged “caution” over the chances of a swift end to the crisis.
But, and on the other hand, I am reluctant to give this woman credit for any degree of calculation that is not immediately connected to the furtherance of her own career. Let’s just say that nobody seems to have any idea as to how long our hijacked naval personnel will have to continue celebrating Iranian culture. That leaves us only with speculation.
So, who thinks that the RN personnel will be released:
A. Before the end of this month?
B. Before the end of this year?
C. Within 2 years?
D. Within 5 years?
E. Within 10 years?
F. Within 20 years?
G. Never?
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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