We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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.
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
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.
- America is indeed on the warpath. Is this because:
- They just decided that they want to dominate everybody in the whole world and enslave them for ever and steal all their resources?
OR
- They might just be trying to prevent another 9/11 type terrorist attack on their country?
- 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:
- American warmongering and ‘bloodlust’ for power?:
OR
- 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?
- 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:
- ‘Innocent’ Iraqi victims of the American terror machine?
OR
- About as deserving of our sympathy as the Waffen SS?
→ Continue reading: If this is Rothbard, count me out
The question of why the US is gearing up to fight Iraq and not North Korea has been explored at length, mostly by those who would like the US do nothing about either. The reasons given here are convincing but there is an even more likely scenario. North Korea’s power to blackmail the rest of the world by threatening or invading its neighbours is correctly put into perspective.
The maximum damage North Korea could inflict on the world, even with tactical nukes, would be to destroy the economy of South Korea. Certainly, a tragedy for the South Koreans but its catastrophic impact on the country and its population is not likely to spill over to the rest of the world to the extent Iraq’s success would, as I argue below. This scenario, of course, assumes rather vaguely that the South Korean army would not annihilate the 1950s-style North Korean army in the first encounter. Tactical nuclear devices are horrendous, however, with so much at stake, South Korea would put everything it has into defending its territory and ultimately free existence. Further, it is likely to be a one shot event, so to speak. Yes, the destruction of the South Korean economy would plunge the world economy into recession but ultimately even if Seoul is destroyed, it could be rebuilt just as the Japanese rebuilt their cities.
The point I want to make is that the same kind of ‘local incidents – global effects’ reasoning should be used for thinking about Iraq. My conclusion is frightening and adds an extra urgency to the removal of Saddam and disarming of Iraq. This is because Iraq armed with nuclear weapons, tactical ones that is, could not only destabilise the Middle East, it could hold the Western world to ransom for the foreseeable future. I am pretty sure it would. Here’s how: → Continue reading: It’s all about oil, after all
It must be something in the air today… couldn’t be the smoke from the controlled explosion across the street from me last night… I doubt that could have wafted over London yet. I was intending to write a longish article on the evils of Saddam. Most of what I wished to say has already been said today so I will just point out why I was going to say it.
I finally found time to read the Home Office report on human rights abuses in Iraq. I knew the Iraqi leadership were truly bad news. I knew they tortured some people, beheaded a few are were really quite beastly. I was totally unprepared for the magnitude of it.
Saddam and family don’t quite make it into the first rank with Adolf, Joe and Pol, at least not with the information we have so far. But give them time. They are working on it.
Read it if you haven’t already. You will be thoroughly appalled and ready to volunteer to release the trap door on them… or more satisfyingly, place a .38 between Saddam’s eyes so he can watch while you pull the trigger the first 5 times.
That would be a memory to treasure for life.
Reflections of a former British civil servant on the likely war against Iraq to replace Saddam Hussein. A measured and calm overview of the reasons for and arguments why we should remove Saddam Hussain… and kill the murderous, ruthless son of a bitch!
The upcoming war to remove Saddam Hussein was planned in the aftermath of the 11th September attacks in Washington and has been supported more-or-less willingly by the British Government. It would appear that London and Washington decided that, for a combination of reasons, the containment of Saddam’s regime was no longer enough, and that he must be removed. As far as an outsider can gather, this conclusion was not reached for any individual reason, but because the cumulative force of a number of individual factors made the risks implied by Saddam’s continuance in office too great. The reasons encompassed Saddam’s past, present and possible future acts:
- Saddam might acquire nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, particularly since the weapons inspectors had been banned from Iraq since 1998. Many of the weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) that he was supposed to destroy under UN Security Council Resolution 687, the ceasefire which ended the 1991 Gulf War, are unaccounted for.
- Saddam might pass such weaponry onto terrorists. He has a long pedigree of helping terrorists, such as Abu Nidal, who died in Baghdad, and the PLO, and of sanctioning his intelligence services to commit acts of terrorism when it suits his interests – the murder of Gerald Bull in Brussels, the attempted murder of George Bush senior in Kuwait in 1993 and the assassination of some Iraqi opposition leaders.
→ Continue reading: Let’s do be beastly to Saddam
A law firm with a fetching name, Public Interest Lawyers intends to prosecute Prime Minister Tony Blair for war crimes at the new International Criminal Court (ICC), if an Iraqi war goes ahead.
Phil Shiner of the law firm is leading a campaign to prosecute leaders in the seven-month-old ICC, if military action goes ahead without a second United Nations resolution expressly authorising force, or if any Iraqi civilians are killed in bombing campaigns.
“The ICC brings a new international context to war – Blair now has to consider his individual accountability.”
The ICC’s independent prosecutor can initiate proceedings at the request of a state or can receive evidence from anyone, and then decide whether to prosecute, subject to advice from three of the court’s 18 judges. The prosecution will be based on the fact that national leaders could be held individually responsible for war crimes and be tried as ex-Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has at a separate court for former Yugoslavia.
The United States fiercely opposes the ICC, saying it would infringe U.S. sovereignty, but Britain has ratified its treaty and would have to give up any citizen the court wanted to try.
“The ICC will now place a serious constraint on Blair.”
Oh really?! That must make Blair quake in his boots. I fervently hope he ignores the self-righteous and attention-seeking bunch of idiotarians. The International Criminal Court, what a brilliant idea, I hear people cry, just like the UN. The picture comes into focus once the client of Public Interest Lawyers’ who initiated the proceedings is revealed! Enter CND, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament! And I thought they were all in Iraq making sure Saddam gets disarmed and prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons. You can’t rely on anybody these days.
But there is a serious lesson for Blair and the UK government in this farcical episode – next time read the small print on all those treaties and agreements and codes and declarations you are signing, in case the Tranzis decide you are not dancing to their tune. It seems that in this case, the US knew better…
The Australian Herald Sun reports there was more found in Finsbury Mosque than items you’d find in the average American woman’s purse:
“Scotland Yard and MI5 detectives had kept the discovery of the nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) suits secret.
They feared disclosing it would spark panic.”
No wonder Tony Blair has been snapping at reporters and back-benchers lately…
Forty-two US Nobel Prize winners have signed a declaration denouncing any unilateral, pre-emptive strike by the US against Iraq:
“The undersigned oppose a preventive war against Iraq without broad international support. Military operations against Iraq may indeed lead to a relatively swift victory in the short term. But war is characterized by surprise, human loss, and unintended consequences. Even with a victory, we believe that the medical, economic, environmental, moral, spiritual, political, and legal consequences of an American preventive attack on Iraq would undermine, not protect, U.S. security and standing in the world”.
The Nobel laureate who wrote and circulated the declaration is chemist Walter Kohn of the University of California at Santa Barbara, a former adviser to the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Other signatories include physicists behind the nuclear research that ended the Second World War. Hans Bethe was an atom bomb designer and Norman Ramsey was part of the Manhattan project to build an atom bomb.
“We are a group of bright people who have had very relevant experiences. We hope to contribute to the sharpness of the discussion.”
Yeah, right, we wish. However, all is not lost. Apparently, six Nobel laureates refused to sign the declaration. According to Kohn their reasons were a lack of faith in the UN, a desire to avoid mixing science with politics and a fear of appeasing Iraq. Seems like a sound bunch of scientists to me (I am, of course, only assuming that they are scientists). Unfortunately, I could not find their names anywhere as the only source of the report seems to be New Scientist. If anyone knows who they are and what they said, I would be interested to read their comments in full.
In any case, it looks like the well-meaning Nobel-prize-winning professors have struck a bonanza in signatures. Last time I looked their support form had about 1360 signed and counting in just a couple of days! Well done. Only, it seems that most of the ‘signatories’ appear to be Raelians adding their own garbled and emotionally incontinent messages…
They are all stark raving mad. Bloody marvellous!
Many thanks to Instapundit for pointing me to this article by Trent Telenko. The whole article and all his links are interesting reading, but this one is evidence for the nightmare scenario. I very strongly suggest everyone read it. Tell everyone you know: some of the first round UN inspectors believe Saddam already had nukes in 1997 and prevented them from getting at the things. This is enough to give you chills.
I just pray (for what its’ worth from a nonbeliever) we don’t lose a city before we cure the problem at source.
There are two anti-war movements… and I think both of them are wrong, though for quite different reasons. But it is the Old Left’s anti-war sentiments regarding Iraq which Janet Daly takes to task in her article in the Telegraph Answer this: do the people of Iraq deserve freedom?. Although I am not a huge fan of “hang ’em an’ flog ’em” conservatives like Janet Daly, I find myself in broad agreement with her on this.
Whilst I realise isolationists (many of whom are on the conservative right or are paleo-libertarians) who oppose the destruction of the Ba’athist regime are often a different intellectual kettle of fish and do not see themselves as give aid to a tyrant, it is the questions like the ones Janet Daly poses which cause me to describe the left wing/paleo-socialist ‘anti-war movement’ as the ‘Pro-Saddam Hussain/Anti-liberation-of-the-Iraqi-people movement’.
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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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