Free the Al-Jazeera journalists, but what about Qatar?

There is no doubt that it reprehensible for the Egyptian government to prosecute English language journalists of Al-Jazeera for "terrorism".  The campaign #journalismisnotacrime is quite right in what it calls for. As much as I support the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood autocracy that appeared to have the view that democracy means "one vote once" in its drive to create a theocracy, it does not justify the new regime suppressing free journalism.  The response to criticism should be rebuttal, not to throw people in prison.

However, looking a little bit further behind the campaign some big questions deserve to be asked...

1.  What press freedom does Al Jazeera's owners offer in its home country?  The answer is very little. Reporters Without Borders ranks Qatar as 113th in press freedom globally.  Of course, if you're Al Jazeera journalists who dare to report critically about Qatar, you at best wont last in your job long, at worst you'll end up in prison too.  This is a country where there is a proposed crime to spread "false news".  Qatar itself gets a "not free" ranking by Freedom House, which notes that:

"Al-Jazeera generally does not cover Qatari politics and focuses instead on regional issues."

2. What about journalists arrested in many other countries?  Reporters Without Borders notes that 170 journalists have been imprisoned in over 30 other countries this year.   That includes 32 in China, 28 in the largely ignored Eritrea (the north Korea of Africa), 21 in Iran and 16 in Syria.  Why pick on Egypt?  Is it because, unlike the others, it gets US backing, rather than because journalists per se mater?

3.  Why is international attention paid to Al Jazeera journalists working for Al Jazeera English, but not when those who work for Al Jazeera Arabic are arrested?  Doesn't this feed the concern of the Anglo-centric bias of so much of the mainstream media?  Few of the journalists imprisoned in other countries work predominantly in English.  Why should that matter?  

4.  How do people working for broadcasters, owned by dictatorships that intervene in other countries, expect to be treated in those countries?  I don't doubt that many journalists who work for Al-Jazeera are professional in their outlook, and wouldn't want to act as mouthpieces for their owners, but when your employer's owners are directly funding and arming the authoritarian opposition (and former government) in a country, and you're in the country reporting on it, don't you think it raises some issues about independence?

Iraq, Iran and what now

The dominant discourse as of late about Iraq has been the opportunity for those who opposed the Western intervention in Iraq to gloat, to repeat the largely vacuous claims that the war was "illegal" (when it was legally authorised by the governments concerned and to grant any legal status to the psychopathic Saddam Hussein regime is to abrogate any notion of needing law at all) and to blame the recent ISIS successes on Tony Blair and GW Bush.

The grain of truth in that is important, but it is not the key point at this stage

It is true that whilst the West was very capable, with aplomb even, in overthrowing the Hussein regime, and indeed few think that was bad in itself (although Saddam Hussein's chief sycophant George Galloway thinks so, but he has since gone on to lick the blood stained boots of Bashar Assad and Vladimir Putin), but was woeful in establishing a new order and constitutional framework on Iraq.  It was completely morally correct to overthrow the regime, which itself broke international law across many fields (international aggression, use and development of weapons of mass destruction and human rights) and was egregiously evil.   However, to expend over US$1 trillion in taxpayers' money and thousands of Western soldiers lives and not have an effective plan for a peaceful future (except for the relatively successful Kurdish region, which had spent over a decade effectively protected by a UNSC endorsed No Fly Zone), was grossly negligent.

It is for that, that Bush, Blair and the supporting leadership of those administrations deserve to be damned.

Let's be clear, had the bulk of Iraqis been imbued with the belief that all other Iraqis, regardless of what sect of Islam they followed (if any) or their background, deserved to live their lives in peace, then it would have been easy.

Britain matters to Germany

One of the reasons given as to why many in continental Europe do not understand the British lack of enthusiasm for the European Union is that no other country in the EU was bound by being the victor in World War Two.  The war, and being on the right side, was and remains a common cause of pride and identity for the UK.  Not for the UK is there a smidgeon of guilt over what happened in World War Two.  

Compare that to Germany, which has spent the post-war period being reminded that it was the land that started two wars in the 20th century and committed the world's first modern industrial level form of genocide.  Whereas other states on the continent were either allied to the Nazis, neutral towards them or defeated by them.  Unlike Britain, the idea that the EEC and then the EU would ensure that these countries would never fight each other again, is powerful and is fed, in part, by a sense of national guilt that their ancestors either didn't do enough for peace, or were themselves cheering on the militarism that consumed the continent.  The UK can firmly be sure that it didn't start the war, it wasn't neutral and it wasn't defeated, even if geography helped that (Ireland remained neutral, as it was solipsistically focused on its own bloody independence, rather than seeing the evil on the continent).   

Don't underestimate the different psychological effect that Britain takes for granted, in having its war veterans appear on D-Day, telling their stories, with pride and heroism.  Feeding the nationalist pride of just victory, is not something that happens on the continent.  At best some resistance fighters, at worst those who fought for fascism, genocide and totalitarianism, denies the strength of identity based on such history, refocusing pride on more benign identity points, such as language, older history and post-war culture, and the EU as the antidote to the guilt.

It understandably, is never discussed.  Indeed, the new EU Member States that once lay under the jackboot of the USSR have similar issues, with so many in those countries who were a part of systems that oppressed their fellow citizens.

So when Angela Merkel yesterday said "What would have become of Europe if the British people had not found the strength to put their existence at risk in order to save Europe?" it was a welcome sign that, despite the arrogance and smug self-satisfaction of the EU, some in continental Europe will say what is known - Europe today would not be free if it had not had the UK (and the USA) to fight against Nazism and keep Stalin behind an iron curtain.

There is no need to be repeatedly grateful for winning the war, after all most of those alive across Europe bear no responsibility or guilt for what their ancestors did.  I didn't win the war or do anything to help, so I shouldn't claim any esteem from what happened.  

However, it would do well for others in Europe to note the differences in history, and the reasons why the UK does feel confident about its own national sovereignty, history and ability to avoid declaring war on its neighbours.

I'm not voting UKIP in the European elections

Why?

It said it was libertarian, it isn't, but that's not what's most important.

It campaigned on making immigration equal with all nations, then its leader singled out it being acceptable to "fear Romanians".

so despite the strong attraction to putting two fingers up the establishment, especially the utterly vile Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green parties, I'm going to vote Conservative.

I explain why on my UK blog.

Forgotten posts from the past: The lovers of violence on the NZ left

For a while I have read Maia's blog, partly out of curiosity and an attempt to understand the thought processes of someone on the left who, I tended to think, generally had a good heart. I've come to the conclusion that she is living in a world of naive delusion.

Some of those arrested on firearms charges in the Ureweras include her friends. However, like the rest of the so-called peace loving left, she refuses to condemn the evidence presented in the Dominion Post on its content. She wont say that it is wrong to advocate assassinating John Key or President Bush, or wrong to murder people for political ends, or wrong to vandalise power stations.

Maia rightfully is appalled by much violence, specifically rape. I don't disagree. However, why do so many on the left hold within them the anger and the moral belief that initiating force is justified against peaceful people? How can they look themselves in the face and condemn some violence, but not others?

Is it that, fundamentally, their politics are all about initiating violence against others to create the "just world" they seek?

After all, the Greens talk often about peace and non-violence, but their approach to almost all issues is to pass a law to ban something or make it compulsory.  Their approach to foreign policy is to turn a blind eye to atrocities committed by authoritarian governments that share their socialist philosophy.

How do they reconcile claims for being non-violent, but sympathy towards those who are, and advocacy of violence against peaceful people?

Forgotten posts from the past: Introducing the Airbus A380

The world's biggest airliner, the Airbus A380, has been creating some attention because of its sheer size. It is quite an achievement to build something so big that can fly with so many people.

Singapore Airlines will be the second airline to operate Airbus A380s to New Zealand

It promises to provide new advancements for passengers at the front (in first and business class), and maybe some modest improvements in seat width and pitch for those in cattle class - but for most it threatens long queues at bathrooms and enormous waits for luggage and checkin as 500 plus passengers fill departure lounges and the like. Airbus has made much of the ideas of onboard bars, casinos, shops and the like, but the truth is that most airlines will simply squeeze in more seats.

The A380 has been dogged by delays, partly due to Airbus not anticipating in its design the desire by most airlines to have sophisticated on demand in flight entertainment systems, and so wiring needed to be redesigned. There have also been problems meeting the promises on maximum weight, so the whole programme is behind by at least a year.

Nevertheless, Singapore Airlines was the first to fly the new whalejets, between Singapore and Sydney, and then London and Singapore. Air France announced its internal configuration for the A380. Air France is buying 12, with the first three arriving in 2009. However, Air France is promising nothing too exciting - with 538 seats.

The lower deck will have 9 first class and 343 economy class, with the upper deck carrying 80 business class and 106 more economy class seats.

Emirates has since announced its configurations. There will be three, ranging from a relatively spacious... to a tight .... heaven help you on the latter, which will probably be used for connections to and from India and Pakistan. The lower density ones are likely to operate towards east Asia, Australia and New Zealand. However, Emirates has announced nothing special, other than it will have the latest seating already installed on its newest 777s.

Emirates flys A380s 3x a day into Auckland

For New Zealanders, Singapore Airlines, Qantas and Emirates will offer the best chances to fly on the Airbus A380, but probably not directly for some time. Emirates is the only airline out of those likely to fly the A380 to Auckland on a regular basis, as an extension of services between Dubai and Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.  

Certainly Air NZ has no routes consistently busy enough to justify buying the A380 in the near future.

All we know about Singapore Airlines is that its new business class (easily the best in the world and not seen on flights to NZ yet) will be seen on the A380, big wide seats that recline fully flat and not at an angle with the fuselage. Singapore Airlines is keeping what it does for economy and first class on the A380 under wraps. Others are doing the same, but it is clear Air France sees little need for the A380 to be a flagship for anything particularly special.

AND NOW

Forgotten posts from the past: Compulsory welfare - a quaint remnant of nationalism?

With the whole debate about welfare one question is rarely raised - why does compulsory state welfare only apply to the poor in your own country? Why are the poor in other countries less needy?

Now the obvious answer is that it would be unaffordable to tax everyone to pay for people in other countries to be relieved of poverty, then, in which case, as with anything that you fund, you prioritise.

What is more important, a family with a TV, bed, clothes, car and ample nutrition, or a starving family with nothing?

For to simply say it is "none of our business" you're admitting you're a nationalist.  Human beings not residing in the country you live in are a lower priority to you.

Don't get me wrong, I am not advocating a global taxpayer funded welfare system.  I don't advocate the state based one.

However, given it is the left that is the source of the welfare state and defender of it on moral grounds, on what moral grounds is there to give money to people who, by any measure, are better off than the vast majority of humanity?

Could it simply be that socialism is nationalist too?

and isn't that rather racist?

Chris Trotter: the Greens are the last hope for "we" ?

It is rare that a commentator on the left exposes so readily the fundamental difference in understanding and approach to politics as Chris Trotter most recently did in The Press.  In that article he posits almost exactly the narrative the Green Party would want you to understand - which is that the Greens, and only the Greens, are revolutionary and wise, and out for the good of the many, unlike the other parties out to sustain the status quo and the "counter narrative" of "neo-liberalism" - the pejorative term originating from the left, used to dismiss and debase any and all who promote capitalism.

The notion that the Greens are fighting a lonely vanguard in a fundamental struggle is understandably appealing to an aging Marxist, who has witnessed with almost endless bitter dismay, at the edifice of New Zealand's own - and dare I say carefully worded - national democratic socialism - crumble after it nearly bankrupted the country.  You see the autarchic, egalitarian, isolationist, "full employment" "golden age" Trotter harks back to, is reminiscent of the same sort of nationalist "golden ages" that autocrats all over the world point to.  An age that was destroyed by traitors to the cause, who "sold us out" to foreign capital.

Never fear, the Greens are here, because the new threat is global annihilation, and they alone are "dedicated to the practical application of ecological wisdom".  The "politics of ecological denial boasts some extremely powerful backers".

What untrammelled nonsense.   A ridiculously simple view that fits the intellect of someone who regards The Simpsons as a comprehensive social narrative, but one that doesn't actually fit facts.  It isn't Montgomery Burns vs. the people, as much as Trotter wishes it were.

Forgotten posts from the past: Nicky Hager's communist sympathies

Remember Nicky Hager?  Called "journalist" by so much of the NZ broadcast media, but who would be called at best an "activist" elsewhere, well hardline anti-communist activist Trevor Loudon has outed some of Nicky Hager's radical leftwing past. 

I started writing about him, but simply got bored.

It's well known Hager is the poor little rich boy, who has been able to avoid having a real job through his family's comfortable assets - accumulated through capitalism, which he has since spent much time criticising taking a fairly standard hard-left, anti-Western line politically.  Most recently being known for his book that claimed to be outing a "scandal" that the National Party hired consultants to assist in campaigning strategy.  The xenophobic boogie man that New Zealand voters were conned by lying politicians on the right - which stopped them voting for the parties that are really in their interests - i.e. the Greens.

Besides supporting the Sandinistas in Nicaragua (hey Helen Clark did too), he also was a key contact in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament - a pro-Soviet organisation that largely lamblasted the US, UK and France for their nuclear arsenals, calling for unilateral disarmament by the West (but never expecting the USSR, nor China, to do so).   He allied himself with the late Stalinist Ron Smith.

Of course anything Hager utters should be seen in the light that he is just a political lobbyist, he is no more "investigative journalist" than any other activist, but a supporter of the Green Party and everything he produces is intended to further his political goals.   Therefore, you'd hope that when he next comes out with some "shock horror" probe into how awful some business, centre-right politician or Western power is, that a real journalist would ask him some probing questions and take a critical look at his work.

However, such journalists are literally the proverbial hen's teeth in New Zealand.

Does Nigel Farage love Vladimir Putin?

No.

However, it looks that way, and in politics that's almost all that matters.

He's made a blunder, in his venal hatred of the EU he's made it the scapegoat and the driving force for the revolution in Ukraine.

Unfortunately, he is wrong and hopefully he wont make the mistake again, as I write on my UK blog.

Crimea matters, for all sorts of reasons

I don't know what has appalled me more - Putin's cynical opportunistic land-grab of Crimea, the almost complete abrogation of the Budapest Memorandum on Security Guarantees for Ukraine by the UK and US, or the extent of leftwing and rightwing moral relativism about the whole thing.

I started by writing an article about how Crimea is what happens when isolationists are in charge.  However, the reaction of much of the public is not just the isolationism that has been bred by the left (the "the West is evil as as bad as anyone else" brigade) and the right ("we're safe, they aren't coming for us, just our friends, who we can ignore"), but the moral relativism attached to what is going on.

In this age of competing media, it is easy to turn on Kremlin propaganda in English from Russia Today, and for critics of the status quo on left and right to cynically dismiss reports from the plurality of Western media sources as propaganda, but it's naive and delusional.  What is going on in Ukraine is old-fashioned power politics, because Vladimir Putin has sniffed weakness from the West and knows it will do little - as long as Barack Obama is in power, David Cameron remains beholden to the appeasement loving Liberal Democrats and the Germans remain paralysed by their own history.

So let's first knock out some of the lazy assertions, promoted by Putin's regime: