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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I don’t expect isolationists who oppose George W. Bush’s policy of pre-emption to be converted by his State of the Union address last night, but this paragraph helped to tilt my mind in favour of the view that taking Saddam Hussein down is the right, if perilous, course:
Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restratint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.
Exactly.
Most of the British armoured vehicles being sent to the Gulf in preparation for war with Iraq’a Ba’athist Socialist regime will arrive not painted in the correct desert warfare camouflage, but rather in the European colours. Not enough money for paint? Did the fact the Army was going to go to Iraq somehow take the Ministry of Defense by surprise?
This shoddy state of affairs is a measure of the true attitude of the Labour Party towards the military they are about to order into action. Yet somehow they find money for welfare payment to asylum seekers and legal aid to burglars who want to sue householders who use force to defend their property.
The mighty N.Z. Bear has a splendid article about what he would do if he was UN Secretary General for a day, fisking UN Resolution 1441 and Iraqi non-compliance. Good stuff!
Salam Pax, as always, full of juicy goodness interspersed with a sobering discourse. Just go and raed.
Others may be interested in my evening reading: Apparatus of Lies, a recently published White House document.
It’s the first time I’ve read a full story on the bomb shelter filled with civilians we hit in Iraq during the last war. It turns out there was a lot more to this than met the News camera’s eye.
What’s the last thing you need while desperately trying to survive as your country is mercilessly bombed by a state-of-the-art US Air Force? How about a bunch of Western pacifists who can’t speak Arabic and don’t know their Dinars from their elbows standing around getting in the way?
The ‘human shield’ left for Iraq yesterday. In three Routemaster buses (the kind they stopped making around 1946, you see them in all the old movies). So at least we can assume it will take them several months to get there, which will be a relief to Baghdad because, as Adriana Cronin noted a few weeks ago, Baghdad residents like the always-interesting Salam Pax don’t actually want a ‘shield’ of pointless woolly Westerners making a burden of themselves. They would actually rather have proper help, like food and first aid on the border crossings, if anyone happens to feel like a bit of charity Gulf war work.
But this pack of doves’ real enemy is not American bombers or Western politicians: it’s you and me, the public. Although insistent that, “Nobody really wants this war except those who stand to gain from this by selling guns,” (well of course, there’s a stash of rifles ready and waiting up in my airing-cupboard right now) they are actually attempting to hold ordinary Western members of the public to ransom. Former US marine Ken Nichols-O’Keefe, founder of “The Truth Justice Peace Human Shield Action Group” is going on hunger strike, not until the war is stopped, but until more people join his cause.
Ten thousand supporters is the exact price he stuck on his own head.
“If we don’t get 10,000 people, I think this is a world that will be hard to live in for all of us” said Ken.
Well, at least he won’t be living in it; that should help a little bit.
“This conflict will lead to World War Three,”
…he went on, presumably in a burst of wishful thinking…
“We need to stop this war first and foremost, if we don’t, shame on us all and pity on us all.”
Shame and pity it is, then.
So, comrades, get yourselves out there with the Shield of Confusion, or the war vet snuffs it. What a choice. As shieldster Ube Evans said:
“Somebody’s got to save humanity from themselves. I’m very scared.”
Baghdad: be very afraid. These people are trying to help you.
Although, as the hunger strike isn’t scheduled until Ken arrives in Iraq, and as it will take them all so long to get there in the double-deckers, my guess is that T.T.J.P.H.S.A.G.’s (say it loudly with enthusiasm and people will think you’re speaking Arabic) real secret plan is to trundle up some time around Christmas when the war is over, have a little holiday, buy a few carpets, and fly back home again. Let’s hope so, for the Iraqi people’s sake.
Here is a fascinating comment from Sunday Fox News by DefSec Rumsfeld:
Rumsfeld: It — it certainly is not an act of peace or an act of cooperation. The coalition forces our — U.K. planes and our aircrews are constantly subjected to being fired at by the Iraqis. It’s been going on for some years now. It’s the only place in the world where we’re being fired at, as a matter of fact, on a regular basis, except for Afghanistan.
Snow: So, we’re already at war?
Rumsfeld: Well, technically, the state of war that began in —
Snow: Was never —
Rumsfeld: — 1980 — 91 — has never ended. I mean, the — that has still — there is currently a state of war with Iraq that has not ended.
Glenn Reynolds put me on the trail of this one: EMP weapons.
I personally don’t know what all the fuss is about. New Scientist published an article a year or three ago which shows how to build one of these in your garage. Perhaps getting things right for targeting from a moving cruise missile and accurately controlling the output energy are the special part… but the main concept is dead easy.
If you are interested, go dig it up yourself. I’m not going to tell you how.
Once WWIII is over with… perhaps.
Five police officers have been stabbed, one fatally, during a raid on an apartment in Manchester:
“The operation was linked to the discovery of the deadly poison ricin in a north London flat last week and to the Metropolitan Police anti-terrorism operation, police have confirmed.”
‘Linked’ in which way? Sadly there is not enough information here to fill the back of a postage stamp. Probably with good reason.
I wonder how deep this rabbit hole goes?
Following last week’s ricin incident it seems that the British authorities have decided to come clean with the public:
“British ministers have been warned by their security advisers that a west European city is “likely” to be the target of a terrorist attack using a chemical or other non-conventional weapon in the short-to-medium term.
They have also warned that they cannot be sure they know the identity of more than 50 per cent of people in the UK who might carry out a terrorist attack on behalf of al-Qaeda.”
Just how long, I wonder, is that ‘short-to-medium’ term? And just how many is ’50 per cent’? Is that two people or ten thousand people? Any clue?
Is this true and we’re being softened up to endure the worst or is it hogwash because the authorities have a fairly good idea who these people are but don’t want to let on that they know? Beats me.
I will say, however, that if the claim in the second paragraph turns out to be correct then, leaving aside the possible ghastly consequences for a moment, it really does illustrate the extent to which the British internal security apparatus has been woefully misdirected these last few years.
We live in a country with more CCTV cameras per square mile than any other country on earth, our police and customs officials have surveillance and information gathering powers that the KGB would envy and, because of Money Laundering Regulations, it is almost impossible to function in our society without having to prove identity. If I failed to send in my VAT Form at the end of this month, the state will be all over me like bluebottles on a dog-turd. Yet we could, conceivably, be playing host to scores or maybe even hundreds of potential mass-murdering terrorists and the response of the security services is to shrug and say ‘sorry, guv, haven’t got the foggiest’.
Any chance of a re-assessment of priorities in future?
Archbishop Desmond Tutu has attacked Tony Blair for his “mind-boggling” support for the US over a possible war in Iraq. He was shocked and saddened America was being “aided and abetted” by Britain as the British Government is expected to announce later this week that it is planning to deploy troops to the region, reportedly numbering 27,000. When does compassion, when does morality, when does caring come in? The dissident frogman has an excellent take-down of such idiotarian rhetoric.
There has been some discussion on the Libertarian Alliance Forum about “if they know where the weapons are, then why don’t they just tell the inspectors where to go?” I will attempt to tackle this question from a tacticians’ point of view.
Iraq is big: about the size of France and a hell of a lot emptier. There are miles of underground facilities. We can’t possibly be one hundred percent certain we’ve found everything. No matter how long the inspectors take there is uncertainty for the Searchers. However there is also uncertainty for Saddam. He can’t know what our spies have found out, if anything.
So we have a mathematical “game” with two players that might be likened to “battleship”, but is far more complex. It’s also deadly serious. There are potentially hundreds of thousands of lives at stake.
One player has assets on his hidden board and the other player is trying to find them. The second player knows where some of the assets are but can’t even be sure what percentage they know of; the other side knows all of its’ assets but can’t be sure how many of them the other side knows. This gives us a matrix of four possibilities:
- Searcher knows of the asset : Owner believes the Searcher knows of it.
- Searcher does not know of the asset : Owner believes the Searcher knows of it.
- Searcher knows of the asset : Owner believes the Searcher does not know of it.
- Searcher does not know of the asset : Owner believes the Searcher does not know of it.
What is the best strategy for each player?
The owner will be as helpful as possible on all the sites they believe the Searcher knows of. They can clean them out in advance and pretend great surprise at the inspection. The pretense also assists them in their game playing over the other three categories. → Continue reading: Why doesn’t the CIA tell them?
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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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