Night slugs.
Labels: bass music, dubstep, funky, miscellany, music, Night Slugs, non-politics, youtube video posts
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Saturday, October 30, 2010
Friday, October 29, 2010
Stepping out of the shadows while wanting to remain in the dark.
One of the glorious things about the British state has always been the notion that the hoi polloi should be eternally grateful when our social betters deign to either visit or talk to us. For the most part this has thankfully broken down, both due to the fracturing somewhat of the class structure and the shattering of the notion of deference. The only real times such attitudes still apply are when it comes to the senior royals, and even more bizarrely, when our intelligence chiefs briefly step out of the shadows to inform us all of just how deeply moral and ethical they are, saving countless lives and foiling the dastardly plans of the evil minority amongst us. We should be privileged, it seems, that they take time out of their schedules of saving the world from impending doom to lecture us on how deeply unfair it is that anyone dares to second guess what they do.
The reality is that such speeches never take place in a vacuum. When Eliza Manningham-Buller whilst still head of MI5 briefly entered the limelight she told of us of how they were monitoring up to 30 active plots, with there being around 1,600 individuals of interest to them who wished us ill. It is doubtless down to the sacrifices of MI5 that of those 30 plots causing active concern, and those 2,000 individuals dedicated to thinking up new and imaginative ways to kill us that there has not been a successful terrorist attack here since 7/7. Then again, perhaps not: figures released yesterday made clear that over the last two years, no one has been held for longer than 14 days without charge under anti-terrorist legislation. Either the terrorist threat has been consistently over-egged, to say the least, or MI5, MI6, the police and everyone else is doing a fantastic job keeping us safe from harm.
Yesterday Sir John Sawers, the current "C", or for those of us who've never much liked James Bond, the head of the Secret Intelligence Service, delivered a speech which was, and this was highlighted by everyone so we must also do so, televised live. His aim in doing so was to answer two questions, the second of which was presumably the whole point of his turning up. In the light of the completely untrue allegations made against the security services by those whose innocence has never been proved, how can the public have confidence that work done in secret is lawful, ethical, and in their interests?
It's a tricky one, isn't it? Sir John thankfully had the answer: because he said it is. In fact, it was even better than that, as his speech itself makes clear:
It is really rather gobsmacking: here is the head of our foreign intelligence service first putting forward the hoary old chestnut that is the "ticking time bomb scenario", where the human rights of the suspect conflict with the opportunity to save lives, then immediately afterwards stating categorically that torture is illegal and abhorrent and that they have nothing to do with it. It's not difficult to see the conflict between these two statements, as Craig Murray most definitely has. We're back it seems to plausible deniability - putting the argument plainly and strongly for exactly the sort of abuse which has been documented post 9/11 - then stating equally plainly and strongly that they would never ever do such a thing.
If for some unfathomable reason you don't trust the word of MI6, then well, you're pretty much stuffed. For Sir John is firmly in favour of the "control principle", where by you don't release information you've received from others without their permission. This was supposedly breached when the "seven paragraphs" concerning the mistreatment of Binyam Mohamed were ordered to be published by the Court of Appeal. It doesn't matter to MI6 that the main reason for doing so was that a legal ruling in the US had already established beyond doubt that Mohamed was tortured, using information from the CIA; the principle rather than shining the light of truth on such "abhorrent" practices by our closest allies is far more important. Sawers looks forward to a green paper which will set out "some better options for dealing with national security issues in the courts", for which it's impossible to read anything other than an end to courageous judges exposing what was done in our name.
Although it reflects a Blackadder joke, Sir John Sawers is right in saying secrecy is not a dirty word. We need intelligence services, as is demonstrated by the packages which have been intercepted on cargo planes today. Openness it seems however is a dirty word. Sawers can talk all he wants about the useless Intelligence and Security Committee and two former judges who act as commissioners; their work simply doesn't provide anywhere near enough oversight into services which routinely do perform heroics, but which can equally also find themselves complicit in activity which makes us less safe, not more. What is needed is a wholly independent body, similar to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which would conduct yearly reviews and also have the powers to investigate allegations of abuse, producing reports which would be as lightly censored as possible. For all their recognition that they can no longer hide in the shadows, the intelligence services still want to remain in the dark, and are actively fighting to do so.
The reality is that such speeches never take place in a vacuum. When Eliza Manningham-Buller whilst still head of MI5 briefly entered the limelight she told of us of how they were monitoring up to 30 active plots, with there being around 1,600 individuals of interest to them who wished us ill. It is doubtless down to the sacrifices of MI5 that of those 30 plots causing active concern, and those 2,000 individuals dedicated to thinking up new and imaginative ways to kill us that there has not been a successful terrorist attack here since 7/7. Then again, perhaps not: figures released yesterday made clear that over the last two years, no one has been held for longer than 14 days without charge under anti-terrorist legislation. Either the terrorist threat has been consistently over-egged, to say the least, or MI5, MI6, the police and everyone else is doing a fantastic job keeping us safe from harm.
Yesterday Sir John Sawers, the current "C", or for those of us who've never much liked James Bond, the head of the Secret Intelligence Service, delivered a speech which was, and this was highlighted by everyone so we must also do so, televised live. His aim in doing so was to answer two questions, the second of which was presumably the whole point of his turning up. In the light of the completely untrue allegations made against the security services by those whose innocence has never been proved, how can the public have confidence that work done in secret is lawful, ethical, and in their interests?
It's a tricky one, isn't it? Sir John thankfully had the answer: because he said it is. In fact, it was even better than that, as his speech itself makes clear:
Suppose we receive credible intelligence that might save lives, here or abroad. We have a professional and moral duty to act on it. We will normally want to share it with those who can save those lives.
We also have a duty to do what we can to ensure that a partner service will respect human rights. That is not always straightforward.
Yet if we hold back, and don't pass that intelligence, out of concern that a suspect terrorist may be badly treated, innocent lives may be lost that we could have saved.
These are not abstract questions for philosophy courses or searching editorials. They are real, constant, operational dilemmas.
Sometimes there is no clear way forward. The more finely-balanced judgments have to be made by Ministers themselves. I welcome the publication of the consolidated guidance on detainee issues. It reflects the detailed guidance issued to SIS staff in the field and the training we give them.
Torture is illegal and abhorrent under any circumstances, and we have nothing whatsoever to do with it. If we know or believe action by us will lead to torture taking place, we're required by UK and international law to avoid that action. And we do, even though that allows the terrorist activity to go ahead.
It is really rather gobsmacking: here is the head of our foreign intelligence service first putting forward the hoary old chestnut that is the "ticking time bomb scenario", where the human rights of the suspect conflict with the opportunity to save lives, then immediately afterwards stating categorically that torture is illegal and abhorrent and that they have nothing to do with it. It's not difficult to see the conflict between these two statements, as Craig Murray most definitely has. We're back it seems to plausible deniability - putting the argument plainly and strongly for exactly the sort of abuse which has been documented post 9/11 - then stating equally plainly and strongly that they would never ever do such a thing.
If for some unfathomable reason you don't trust the word of MI6, then well, you're pretty much stuffed. For Sir John is firmly in favour of the "control principle", where by you don't release information you've received from others without their permission. This was supposedly breached when the "seven paragraphs" concerning the mistreatment of Binyam Mohamed were ordered to be published by the Court of Appeal. It doesn't matter to MI6 that the main reason for doing so was that a legal ruling in the US had already established beyond doubt that Mohamed was tortured, using information from the CIA; the principle rather than shining the light of truth on such "abhorrent" practices by our closest allies is far more important. Sawers looks forward to a green paper which will set out "some better options for dealing with national security issues in the courts", for which it's impossible to read anything other than an end to courageous judges exposing what was done in our name.
Although it reflects a Blackadder joke, Sir John Sawers is right in saying secrecy is not a dirty word. We need intelligence services, as is demonstrated by the packages which have been intercepted on cargo planes today. Openness it seems however is a dirty word. Sawers can talk all he wants about the useless Intelligence and Security Committee and two former judges who act as commissioners; their work simply doesn't provide anywhere near enough oversight into services which routinely do perform heroics, but which can equally also find themselves complicit in activity which makes us less safe, not more. What is needed is a wholly independent body, similar to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which would conduct yearly reviews and also have the powers to investigate allegations of abuse, producing reports which would be as lightly censored as possible. For all their recognition that they can no longer hide in the shadows, the intelligence services still want to remain in the dark, and are actively fighting to do so.
Labels: Binyam Mohamed, complicity in torture, Intelligence and Security Committee, MI5, MI6, security services, Sir John Sawers, torture
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Thursday, October 28, 2010
Scum-watch: How to take advantage of a parliamentary misunderstanding.
We all know how dearly the Sun loves "Our Boys", even if the feeling is not necessarily mutual. It's therefore hardly surprising that it's instantly leapt to their defence, having apparently been accused by Labour MP Paul Flynn of committing "atrocities in the name of the British people". The problem is that almost every single thing about the report by Tom Newton Dunn in which the claim is made, and the leader comment which accompanies it, is wrong.
Despite what the Sun says, there has been no new leak to Wikileaks concerning British troops and their presence in Afghanistan. The reports it refers to have in fact been released by, err, the Ministry of Defence themselves, after a Guardian Freedom of Information request based on the incidents first detailed in the US war logs leaked to Wikileaks. Far from being wild smears, these are the MoD's version of what happened; surely the army's own account is more believable and reliable than the second hand one which the US recorded?
Flynn, as you might have guessed, has done nothing of the sort. The Sun has taken only a half quote and turned on its head, as the Guardian didn't provide a full one in the first place. Here's how it reported his remarks:
Not perhaps the most cautious of statements to make, but also clearly not one where he was directly accusing troops of committing atrocities.
It's pretty apparent then that the statement the Sun has William Hague as making had nothing whatsoever to do with the information released by the MoD. Here's where the misunderstanding seems to have originated from. Hague's comments were made in response to a question from Tory MP Stephen Mosley after his quarterly statement to parliament on the "progress" in Afghanistan, who seems to have confused the Iraq war log release at the weekend with the FoI release reported in yesterday's Guardian:
Hague's answer was then a general condemnation and a just as inaccurate one, as he talks of the treatment of detainees, none of which applies to the 21 incidents in Afghanistan. He doesn't correct Stephen Mosley, but his stock condemnation of the release of unauthorised information suggests that he realised his mistake, even if he didn't mention Iraq. Hague's praise for British troops which the Sun quotes comes from the statement, and so has been taken entirely out of context.
Paul Flynn is not referred to anywhere in Hague's statement to the House or the debate that followed. It's clear then that Newton Dunn or someone else, despite obviously reading the report in the Guardian still failed to realise that Stephen Mosley had got the wrong end of the stick. Or did they? After all, the story's nowhere near as good if the information, rather than being leaked, came from the Ministry of Defence themselves. Why not then go along with what was said in parliament, while disingenuously attacking Flynn? This seems to be what the paper's done.
Here's the paper's leader:
The leader then simply takes the same (deliberate) inaccuracies and magnifies them again, further misquoting and taking out of context Flynn's quote, gets the source of the new information completely wrong for good measure, and then finally uses Hague's own mistake to attack the hapless Labour MP further. The only people apologising should be the Sun for conniving in a misunderstanding in parliament in order to attack an MP for quite rightly wanting a proper inquiry into what happened.
P.S. The Sun also does its usual bang up job of promoting the witterings of the friends of Anjem Choudary, this time reporting in depth Abu Izzadeen's remarks on being released from prison. It's this sentence and claim though that catches the eye:
Would the Sun care to explain how Abu Hamza was there cheering him on when he's currently being held at Belmarsh prison awaiting deportation to the United States, or was he allowed out for the day in able to attend? This extra detail is missing from the Daily Mail's report of Izzadeen's release, unsurprisingly.
WIKILEAKS and a Labour MP were accused of giving the Taliban "a propaganda gift" yesterday by spreading wild smears about Our Boys.
Foreign Secretary William Hague mounted a passionate defence of troops in southern Afghanistan after reports were leaked to the website saying British soldiers had shot at civilians 21 times in four years.
Despite what the Sun says, there has been no new leak to Wikileaks concerning British troops and their presence in Afghanistan. The reports it refers to have in fact been released by, err, the Ministry of Defence themselves, after a Guardian Freedom of Information request based on the incidents first detailed in the US war logs leaked to Wikileaks. Far from being wild smears, these are the MoD's version of what happened; surely the army's own account is more believable and reliable than the second hand one which the US recorded?
The MoD said on each occasion the troops were under grave threat of suicide attack or vehicles being driven at them had failed to stop.
Despite this, anti-war Labour MP Paul Flynn jumped on the statistic to brand the incidents "atrocities".
Mr Hague hit back: "I condemn the unauthorised release of information which can endanger our forces and give one-sided propaganda - a propaganda gift, for insurgents."
He also hailed British troops, saying: "They are the finest any nation could hope to have."
Flynn, as you might have guessed, has done nothing of the sort. The Sun has taken only a half quote and turned on its head, as the Guardian didn't provide a full one in the first place. Here's how it reported his remarks:
The Labour MP Paul Flynn called for an inquiry into the conduct of the units in what he said could be "atrocities in the name of the British people". "Truth has a cleansing function," he added.
Not perhaps the most cautious of statements to make, but also clearly not one where he was directly accusing troops of committing atrocities.
It's pretty apparent then that the statement the Sun has William Hague as making had nothing whatsoever to do with the information released by the MoD. Here's where the misunderstanding seems to have originated from. Hague's comments were made in response to a question from Tory MP Stephen Mosley after his quarterly statement to parliament on the "progress" in Afghanistan, who seems to have confused the Iraq war log release at the weekend with the FoI release reported in yesterday's Guardian:
What is the Foreign Secretary's assessment of last weekend's WikiLeaks reports, which made reference to 21 incidents in Afghanistan involving British troops?
Hague's answer was then a general condemnation and a just as inaccurate one, as he talks of the treatment of detainees, none of which applies to the 21 incidents in Afghanistan. He doesn't correct Stephen Mosley, but his stock condemnation of the release of unauthorised information suggests that he realised his mistake, even if he didn't mention Iraq. Hague's praise for British troops which the Sun quotes comes from the statement, and so has been taken entirely out of context.
Paul Flynn is not referred to anywhere in Hague's statement to the House or the debate that followed. It's clear then that Newton Dunn or someone else, despite obviously reading the report in the Guardian still failed to realise that Stephen Mosley had got the wrong end of the stick. Or did they? After all, the story's nowhere near as good if the information, rather than being leaked, came from the Ministry of Defence themselves. Why not then go along with what was said in parliament, while disingenuously attacking Flynn? This seems to be what the paper's done.
Here's the paper's leader:
AS if facing death from the Taliban wasn't enough, our Forces have to face snipers back home.
Labour MP Paul Flynn accuses Our Boys of committing "atrocities in the name of the British people".
His basis for this slur? Irresponsible and unsubstantiated internet leaks claiming British troops fired on Afghan civilians.
The Defence Ministry insists this would only ever have happened in self-defence when our soldiers came under threat of suicide attack.
Our troops have spent nine years doing their best for Afghan civilians, laying down their lives for them.
As Foreign Secretary William Hague says, these smears are a Taliban propaganda gift.
Ed Miliband should order Flynn to apologise.
The leader then simply takes the same (deliberate) inaccuracies and magnifies them again, further misquoting and taking out of context Flynn's quote, gets the source of the new information completely wrong for good measure, and then finally uses Hague's own mistake to attack the hapless Labour MP further. The only people apologising should be the Sun for conniving in a misunderstanding in parliament in order to attack an MP for quite rightly wanting a proper inquiry into what happened.
P.S. The Sun also does its usual bang up job of promoting the witterings of the friends of Anjem Choudary, this time reporting in depth Abu Izzadeen's remarks on being released from prison. It's this sentence and claim though that catches the eye:
His every word was cheered by a flock including sidekick Anjem Choudary and jailed hate cleric Abu Hamza.
Would the Sun care to explain how Abu Hamza was there cheering him on when he's currently being held at Belmarsh prison awaiting deportation to the United States, or was he allowed out for the day in able to attend? This extra detail is missing from the Daily Mail's report of Izzadeen's release, unsurprisingly.
Labels: Afghanistan, Paul Flynn, Scum-watch, Sun-watch, tabloid mendacity, tabloid stupidity, William Hague
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Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Book review: Voodoo Histories by David Aaronovitch.
(BenSix asked for my views on Voodoo Histories, so you've got him to blame for this rather hefty post. His own review, which I've tried not to overlap with too much, is here.)
Iraq only warrants 9 page references in the index of David Aaronovitch's Voodoo Histories, his contribution to the recent welcome if not entirely successful number of tomes aimed squarely at challenging conspiracy theories and other similarly unsound or lazy thinking, yet the war looms as large over the book as it did over the last decade's politics.
Fair or not, Aaronvitch simply can't escape from his ill-fated support for the invasion. In fact, it's not really his support for the invasion which he can't escape from, which was always a reasonable position to take, having stuck with the argument made by many other "decent" left-wing opponents of the war that the WMD and terrorism justifications were secondary to getting rid of a brutal dictator through the liberal interventionism most famously set out in Tony Blair's speech in Chicago in 1999, but rather one of his almost certainly now regretted formulations which he made shortly after the overthrow of Saddam. Responding to how American advocates of the war were already saying that it didn't matter much if WMD weren't found after all, Aaronvitch took the opposite view:
It therefore feels legitimate to doubt whether it really was Kevin Jarvis, the cameraman-producer Aaronvitch was working with and who articulated his doubts about the legitimacy of the Apollo 11 moon landings which set "the hare running" and led inexorably to the publication of Voodoo Histories. Notably, he doesn't actually deal with the conspiracy theory that holds that we never went to the moon anywhere outside of the introduction, as you perhaps think he might have done, even if it was more the fact that such a well-educated young man could believe such egregious nonsense which really made him worried. Instead, it seems more of a reaction to that fated paragraph - if even he could never again believe anything the government said, how could anyone else? Voodoo Histories almost seems to be Aaronvitch attempting to convince himself that governments can be believed, by lining up a whole host of assorted conspiracy theories and knocking them down whilst putting them in their historical context.
Regardless of its origins, VH is not wholly successful due exactly to that slightly confused mix of aims. Neither a true debunker's handbook or a history of the development of the theories dealt with, it fails to satisfy on both counts. It also heads almost immediately into trouble: before he even sets out what he defines a conspiracy theory to be, he's quoting Daniel Pipes, "author of two books about conspiracy theories". Could this possibly be the same Daniel Pipes who set up Campus Watch, has been incredibly outspoken about the threat of radical Islam and has most recently suggested that Barack Obama used to be a Muslim, something that could definitely be categorised as a conspiracy theory? Why yes, it is. Shouldn't this have been mentioned, perhaps, considering how Campus Watch was described as McCarthyite, especially as Aaronvitch dedicates a decent section of a chapter to exactly the hysteria and conspiracy which a certain section of the American right fell into between the 30s and 50s? Apparently not.
On surer ground is Aaronvitch's introduction of Occam's razor, one of my own favourite implements and its ability to cut through to the simplest explanation, as is his recognition of Iran-Contra alongside Watergate as one of the few well established conspiracies which have been uncovered. Why though not dedicate a chapter to the former, rather than just a few lines, to show that governments are capable of such backhanded deviousness, putting it in its proper historical context? Or would that perhaps undermine the book's well structured argument and conclusion that conspiracies themselves are not powerful when it's the idea that in fact is?
Also dubious is one of the characteristics he defines as helping conspiracy theories propagate. While his first, historical precedent, is beyond doubt, as it nails how many conspiracy theorists don't just believe in one disconnected theory but often every single one going (proof of this if it was needed is this thread on of all places, dubstepforum.com, where I wasted my time trying to argue, increasingly desperately, with a whole load of 9/11 sceptics). Far less sinister is the practice Aaronvitch associates with those who set themselves up as expert witnesses, which is worth quoting:
Err, yes. It's also what those who agree with each other tend to do normally. Bloggers of all shades link to those with similar views; those who prefer certain sources of information tend to disregard those who espouse the opposite. Hell, there's an approving quote on the inside cover of VH from Francis Wheen, himself partial to a bit of debunking as well as being a supporter of the invasion of Iraq. He also alongside Aaronvitch complained to the Guardian about an apology to Noam Chomksy following an interview in the paper in which Emma Brockes tackled him over his views on the genocide in Bosnia. A charming form of solidarity, or just like-minded folk sticking together?
This isn't to suggest that in its best chapters VH isn't an excellent contribution to the current number of books on conspiracies. The very first, on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is superb: tracing their progress from fiction to supposed non-fiction and the massive influence which the Chekist-forgery had across Europe and America it almost justifies the book's arguments on its own of how dangerous such theories quickly become when combined with those who already have a grievance. It loses its way somewhat in the chapter on the Stalinist show-trials, which could perhaps have been pruned and seems to have been dug into mainly because you suspect Aaronvitch already knew much of the detail having come from a socialist family, as well as originally being something of a firebrand himself, before picking up again through the chapters on the origins of McCarthyism and the assassination of JFK, although even that one could have done without the meander onto Marilyn Monroe. Also fascinating is the delve into the now foolish looking theories surrounding the death of Hilda Murrell, capturing the spirit of the time effortlessly, although some of the judgements on those who suspected foul play (Tam Dalyell and Nick Davies among them) seem harsh when they had and continue to have got so much else right.
After a rather needless further kicking of the "facts" behind the Da Vinci Code, we come to the 9/11 chapter, which is also somewhat lacking. Not only does it not really engage in any actual debunking, although to be fair I myself find the idea that anyone other than al-Qaida carried out the attacks to be completely ludicrous, in it Aaronvitch launches a misguided attack on the use of asking "cui bono?" (who benefits?) when it comes to attempting to understand what has just happened and why. True, if you start out from a basis of highly questionable assertions when doing so it does lose its ability to see things clearly, yet it can also be used as another way of debunking conspiratorial thinking. Ask for instance who would have benefited from the death of Dr David Kelly, the topic the next chapter deals with, and you certainly wouldn't give the government as the first answer. Indeed, the Hutton inquiry, even though it placed most of the blame for the circumstances which led to Dr Kelly taking his own life on the BBC and not the government, resulted in most (rightly) taking the view that the entire exercise was a whitewash and that the government had behaved abysmally, so dedicated was it to maintaining the fiction that there had been no "sexing up" of intelligence dossiers.
Aaronvitch, despite even using "Cui bono?" as one of the chapter's headings, fails to challenge the alternative theory in such a way. It is however the most forensic and devastating of all the chapters in how it disparages those who believe there was foul play in Dr Kelly's death, to such an extent that you suspect he took great personal delight in the monstering given to Norman Baker MP, author of the main conspiratorial tome alleging such. Certainly Baker's casual, hurtful dismissal of Kelly's surviving relatives' views is risible, yet Aaronvitch deals with him with more venom than almost anyone else in the book, including those who have committed far worse offences, both real and intellectual. Again, you're left wondering whether this isn't all something to do with his own being taken in by the exact same government that left Kelly in such a terrible emotional state.
It isn't then the scattergun approach of the book which most lets it down, rather that which it passes over. As we have seen, Iraq is both everywhere and nowhere. Extraordinary rendition, the first major uncovered true conspiracy of the 21st century also doesn't receive a mention, even when the first allegations were made it was the politicians whom rubbished those investigating by claiming that it was all a conspiracy theory and therefore, by association, the ravings of lunatics. The United States of America operating a worldwide network of black site prisons which detainees were transferred around and tortured at? Who could possibly believe such a thing? When governments tell such obtuse lies or get things so wrong (if we're being very, very charitable on the WMD fiasco), who can be surprised when conspiracy theories gain such currency and become almost more accepted than the reality? Try as he might, and boy does he try, Aaronvitch simply can't put the genie he himself unleashed back in its bottle.
Iraq only warrants 9 page references in the index of David Aaronovitch's Voodoo Histories, his contribution to the recent welcome if not entirely successful number of tomes aimed squarely at challenging conspiracy theories and other similarly unsound or lazy thinking, yet the war looms as large over the book as it did over the last decade's politics.
Fair or not, Aaronvitch simply can't escape from his ill-fated support for the invasion. In fact, it's not really his support for the invasion which he can't escape from, which was always a reasonable position to take, having stuck with the argument made by many other "decent" left-wing opponents of the war that the WMD and terrorism justifications were secondary to getting rid of a brutal dictator through the liberal interventionism most famously set out in Tony Blair's speech in Chicago in 1999, but rather one of his almost certainly now regretted formulations which he made shortly after the overthrow of Saddam. Responding to how American advocates of the war were already saying that it didn't matter much if WMD weren't found after all, Aaronvitch took the opposite view:
But it won't do.
...
But the weapons were the pretext on which the invasion was sold to a lot of people in this country, and was attempted to be sold to the people of the world.
...
These claims cannot be wished away in the light of a successful war. If nothing is eventually found, I - as a supporter of the war - will never believe another thing that I am told by our government, or that of the US ever again. And, more to the point, neither will anyone else. Those weapons had better be there somewhere.
It therefore feels legitimate to doubt whether it really was Kevin Jarvis, the cameraman-producer Aaronvitch was working with and who articulated his doubts about the legitimacy of the Apollo 11 moon landings which set "the hare running" and led inexorably to the publication of Voodoo Histories. Notably, he doesn't actually deal with the conspiracy theory that holds that we never went to the moon anywhere outside of the introduction, as you perhaps think he might have done, even if it was more the fact that such a well-educated young man could believe such egregious nonsense which really made him worried. Instead, it seems more of a reaction to that fated paragraph - if even he could never again believe anything the government said, how could anyone else? Voodoo Histories almost seems to be Aaronvitch attempting to convince himself that governments can be believed, by lining up a whole host of assorted conspiracy theories and knocking them down whilst putting them in their historical context.
Regardless of its origins, VH is not wholly successful due exactly to that slightly confused mix of aims. Neither a true debunker's handbook or a history of the development of the theories dealt with, it fails to satisfy on both counts. It also heads almost immediately into trouble: before he even sets out what he defines a conspiracy theory to be, he's quoting Daniel Pipes, "author of two books about conspiracy theories". Could this possibly be the same Daniel Pipes who set up Campus Watch, has been incredibly outspoken about the threat of radical Islam and has most recently suggested that Barack Obama used to be a Muslim, something that could definitely be categorised as a conspiracy theory? Why yes, it is. Shouldn't this have been mentioned, perhaps, considering how Campus Watch was described as McCarthyite, especially as Aaronvitch dedicates a decent section of a chapter to exactly the hysteria and conspiracy which a certain section of the American right fell into between the 30s and 50s? Apparently not.
On surer ground is Aaronvitch's introduction of Occam's razor, one of my own favourite implements and its ability to cut through to the simplest explanation, as is his recognition of Iran-Contra alongside Watergate as one of the few well established conspiracies which have been uncovered. Why though not dedicate a chapter to the former, rather than just a few lines, to show that governments are capable of such backhanded deviousness, putting it in its proper historical context? Or would that perhaps undermine the book's well structured argument and conclusion that conspiracies themselves are not powerful when it's the idea that in fact is?
Also dubious is one of the characteristics he defines as helping conspiracy theories propagate. While his first, historical precedent, is beyond doubt, as it nails how many conspiracy theorists don't just believe in one disconnected theory but often every single one going (proof of this if it was needed is this thread on of all places, dubstepforum.com, where I wasted my time trying to argue, increasingly desperately, with a whole load of 9/11 sceptics). Far less sinister is the practice Aaronvitch associates with those who set themselves up as expert witnesses, which is worth quoting:
Another aspect of this fudging is the tendency among conspiracists to quote each other as to suggest a wide spread of expertise lending support to the argument. Thus, over the events of 9/11, the French conspiracy author Thierry Meyssan cites American conspiracy author Webster Tarpley; Tarpley cites David Ray Griffin and David Ray Griffin cites Thierry Meyssan. It is a rather charming form of solidarity.
Err, yes. It's also what those who agree with each other tend to do normally. Bloggers of all shades link to those with similar views; those who prefer certain sources of information tend to disregard those who espouse the opposite. Hell, there's an approving quote on the inside cover of VH from Francis Wheen, himself partial to a bit of debunking as well as being a supporter of the invasion of Iraq. He also alongside Aaronvitch complained to the Guardian about an apology to Noam Chomksy following an interview in the paper in which Emma Brockes tackled him over his views on the genocide in Bosnia. A charming form of solidarity, or just like-minded folk sticking together?
This isn't to suggest that in its best chapters VH isn't an excellent contribution to the current number of books on conspiracies. The very first, on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is superb: tracing their progress from fiction to supposed non-fiction and the massive influence which the Chekist-forgery had across Europe and America it almost justifies the book's arguments on its own of how dangerous such theories quickly become when combined with those who already have a grievance. It loses its way somewhat in the chapter on the Stalinist show-trials, which could perhaps have been pruned and seems to have been dug into mainly because you suspect Aaronvitch already knew much of the detail having come from a socialist family, as well as originally being something of a firebrand himself, before picking up again through the chapters on the origins of McCarthyism and the assassination of JFK, although even that one could have done without the meander onto Marilyn Monroe. Also fascinating is the delve into the now foolish looking theories surrounding the death of Hilda Murrell, capturing the spirit of the time effortlessly, although some of the judgements on those who suspected foul play (Tam Dalyell and Nick Davies among them) seem harsh when they had and continue to have got so much else right.
After a rather needless further kicking of the "facts" behind the Da Vinci Code, we come to the 9/11 chapter, which is also somewhat lacking. Not only does it not really engage in any actual debunking, although to be fair I myself find the idea that anyone other than al-Qaida carried out the attacks to be completely ludicrous, in it Aaronvitch launches a misguided attack on the use of asking "cui bono?" (who benefits?) when it comes to attempting to understand what has just happened and why. True, if you start out from a basis of highly questionable assertions when doing so it does lose its ability to see things clearly, yet it can also be used as another way of debunking conspiratorial thinking. Ask for instance who would have benefited from the death of Dr David Kelly, the topic the next chapter deals with, and you certainly wouldn't give the government as the first answer. Indeed, the Hutton inquiry, even though it placed most of the blame for the circumstances which led to Dr Kelly taking his own life on the BBC and not the government, resulted in most (rightly) taking the view that the entire exercise was a whitewash and that the government had behaved abysmally, so dedicated was it to maintaining the fiction that there had been no "sexing up" of intelligence dossiers.
Aaronvitch, despite even using "Cui bono?" as one of the chapter's headings, fails to challenge the alternative theory in such a way. It is however the most forensic and devastating of all the chapters in how it disparages those who believe there was foul play in Dr Kelly's death, to such an extent that you suspect he took great personal delight in the monstering given to Norman Baker MP, author of the main conspiratorial tome alleging such. Certainly Baker's casual, hurtful dismissal of Kelly's surviving relatives' views is risible, yet Aaronvitch deals with him with more venom than almost anyone else in the book, including those who have committed far worse offences, both real and intellectual. Again, you're left wondering whether this isn't all something to do with his own being taken in by the exact same government that left Kelly in such a terrible emotional state.
It isn't then the scattergun approach of the book which most lets it down, rather that which it passes over. As we have seen, Iraq is both everywhere and nowhere. Extraordinary rendition, the first major uncovered true conspiracy of the 21st century also doesn't receive a mention, even when the first allegations were made it was the politicians whom rubbished those investigating by claiming that it was all a conspiracy theory and therefore, by association, the ravings of lunatics. The United States of America operating a worldwide network of black site prisons which detainees were transferred around and tortured at? Who could possibly believe such a thing? When governments tell such obtuse lies or get things so wrong (if we're being very, very charitable on the WMD fiasco), who can be surprised when conspiracy theories gain such currency and become almost more accepted than the reality? Try as he might, and boy does he try, Aaronvitch simply can't put the genie he himself unleashed back in its bottle.
Labels: book review, conspiracy theories, conspiracy theorists, David Aaronovitch, Iraq, miscellany, politics, rendition, Voodoo Histories
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Tuesday, October 26, 2010
The not so slow death of the BBC.
Rightly overshadowed last week by the far more grievous cuts being made to government spending, the surprise capping of the BBC licence fee at its current level until 2016/17 still came as a nasty shock, and one apparently foisted on the corporation by the government with little warning. We were solemnly informed that negotiations that would usually take a year of back and forth between government and managers, with input from outside interests and the public were conducted in just three drama-filled days, with everyone other than the BBC left out in the cold. Indeed, S4C, the Welsh-language channel which the BBC agreed to takeover the funding of was only told about its new erstwhile owner after the deal had been done.
While criticism was relatively muted, mainly due to how the BBC was at the bottom of most people's priorities as they tried to digest exactly what the cuts and benefit changes might mean for them, it was still apparent that the BBC had came out of the battle for the worse. The only bright spot was that it had managed to fend off having to fund the free TV-licences for over 75s introduced under Labour, which had it gone through would have meant more than £566m being sucked out of the corporation's £3.6bn yearly budget in an instant. Instead it managed to negotiate, supposedly with the help of sympathetic Liberal Democratic MPs, to take on the cost of running the World Service and BBC Monitoring from the Foreign Office, as well as the aforementioned S4C. Even saved as it was from having to impose such potentially draconian cuts to services, this still leaves the corporation having to look for further savings of £140m a year, the equivalent of a 16% cut in real terms over the duration of the fee settlement, slightly below the average 19% cut in government departments' spending.
The very making of that comparison is something that previously the BBC would have resisted. It might be funded by the taxpayer, but its independence from government always has been and supposedly remains cherished, even if it's the government that decides what the licence fee will be during each charter review. Simply involving the BBC proper in the spending review and not just its sections which it had control over was an attack on that independence. As the Guardian argues, that independence may always have been a mirage, yet it's always been and remains one which should have stayed in place. If that alone wasn't enough, then the incorporation of the World Service into the BBC's News output proper raises just as many questions and contradictions. The BBC is essentially being asked to act as the Foreign Office's limp propaganda arm whilst at the same time remaining scrupulously impartial. The public certainly wasn't asked as to whether they would like a portion of their licence fee to be spent on overseas broadcasts which have little to no relevance to them. The only real winners are those listening abroad, who can now have confidence that the message they're listening to is funded by the British taxpayer rather than the government itself, with all the massive difference that will entail.
Mark Thompson, attempting to recast the BBC's submission to becoming all but just another government department in the best possible light, deployed every favourable point in his armoury yet still failed to make a convincing case for having made the best possible deal. True, as he states, it both prevents an active cut in the licence fee itself, something much feared, and puts the BBC on a stable footing until after the next general election, outside of further political manoeuvring. That however is the best that can be said for it. Thompson claims that the BBC couldn't expect to be "untouched by the wider pressures facing the country", yet it already had been prior to the further cuts decided on the bounce at the end of the spending review, agreeing not to take up the rise in the fee which had been pencilled in under the previous government, while its "Putting Quality First" report was a retrenchment strategy before it knew it had to make any extra efficiencies. Thompson said in his MacTaggart lecture that "[A] pound out of the commissioning budget of the BBC is a pound out of UK creative economy", something which he appears to have turned full circle on in a little over two months.
The only other incredibly slight positive that can be taken from the deal is that it doesn't leave Sky in quite the massively advantageous position they must have hoped for, and which the Murdochs must have trusted on gaining in reward for their slavish adherence to Cameron during the election. Make no mistake though, come 2016-17 the difference between the still coasting BBC and its competitors is going to be massive. The BBC was already planning on cutting back its spending on both foreign imports and sports rights, and with the savings having to come from somewhere while the costs of the former increase exponentially, you can see all but the few protected events crossing to satellite. Sky has already bought up the rights to all of HBO's back catalogue, and snapped up the next series of Mad Men more recently. While it's already become apparent that many managers at the Beeb will soon be leaving their posts, finding £140m of savings a year purely from their oversized pay packets and through efficiencies is a nonsense. 6 Music, saved from closure by the BBC Trust, will almost certainly be back in the firing line, as will other services which the private sector simply can't or won't provide. With no pay rises being possible without cutbacks in programme budgets, the workforce itself will either have to be cut further or will be militantly unhappy, as it already is over the changes to the pension system.
All this bodes ill for public service broadcasting in general. The innovations that will inevitably surface between now and 2016-17 will further constrain the BBC as it finds itself unable to find extra funds to provide content for them. This, along with the all but of end of its independence is what will most hurt the corporation. Remove its ability to change with the times, abolish its defining feature of rigorous impartiality and you have something which will fade into irrelevance and simply end up all but asking to be put out of its misery, which seems to be exactly what the Conservatives had in mind from the beginning. They seem to be playing just as long a game as Thompson and friends themselves thought they were. The BBC's slow but inevitable death has just come a step closer.
While criticism was relatively muted, mainly due to how the BBC was at the bottom of most people's priorities as they tried to digest exactly what the cuts and benefit changes might mean for them, it was still apparent that the BBC had came out of the battle for the worse. The only bright spot was that it had managed to fend off having to fund the free TV-licences for over 75s introduced under Labour, which had it gone through would have meant more than £566m being sucked out of the corporation's £3.6bn yearly budget in an instant. Instead it managed to negotiate, supposedly with the help of sympathetic Liberal Democratic MPs, to take on the cost of running the World Service and BBC Monitoring from the Foreign Office, as well as the aforementioned S4C. Even saved as it was from having to impose such potentially draconian cuts to services, this still leaves the corporation having to look for further savings of £140m a year, the equivalent of a 16% cut in real terms over the duration of the fee settlement, slightly below the average 19% cut in government departments' spending.
The very making of that comparison is something that previously the BBC would have resisted. It might be funded by the taxpayer, but its independence from government always has been and supposedly remains cherished, even if it's the government that decides what the licence fee will be during each charter review. Simply involving the BBC proper in the spending review and not just its sections which it had control over was an attack on that independence. As the Guardian argues, that independence may always have been a mirage, yet it's always been and remains one which should have stayed in place. If that alone wasn't enough, then the incorporation of the World Service into the BBC's News output proper raises just as many questions and contradictions. The BBC is essentially being asked to act as the Foreign Office's limp propaganda arm whilst at the same time remaining scrupulously impartial. The public certainly wasn't asked as to whether they would like a portion of their licence fee to be spent on overseas broadcasts which have little to no relevance to them. The only real winners are those listening abroad, who can now have confidence that the message they're listening to is funded by the British taxpayer rather than the government itself, with all the massive difference that will entail.
Mark Thompson, attempting to recast the BBC's submission to becoming all but just another government department in the best possible light, deployed every favourable point in his armoury yet still failed to make a convincing case for having made the best possible deal. True, as he states, it both prevents an active cut in the licence fee itself, something much feared, and puts the BBC on a stable footing until after the next general election, outside of further political manoeuvring. That however is the best that can be said for it. Thompson claims that the BBC couldn't expect to be "untouched by the wider pressures facing the country", yet it already had been prior to the further cuts decided on the bounce at the end of the spending review, agreeing not to take up the rise in the fee which had been pencilled in under the previous government, while its "Putting Quality First" report was a retrenchment strategy before it knew it had to make any extra efficiencies. Thompson said in his MacTaggart lecture that "[A] pound out of the commissioning budget of the BBC is a pound out of UK creative economy", something which he appears to have turned full circle on in a little over two months.
The only other incredibly slight positive that can be taken from the deal is that it doesn't leave Sky in quite the massively advantageous position they must have hoped for, and which the Murdochs must have trusted on gaining in reward for their slavish adherence to Cameron during the election. Make no mistake though, come 2016-17 the difference between the still coasting BBC and its competitors is going to be massive. The BBC was already planning on cutting back its spending on both foreign imports and sports rights, and with the savings having to come from somewhere while the costs of the former increase exponentially, you can see all but the few protected events crossing to satellite. Sky has already bought up the rights to all of HBO's back catalogue, and snapped up the next series of Mad Men more recently. While it's already become apparent that many managers at the Beeb will soon be leaving their posts, finding £140m of savings a year purely from their oversized pay packets and through efficiencies is a nonsense. 6 Music, saved from closure by the BBC Trust, will almost certainly be back in the firing line, as will other services which the private sector simply can't or won't provide. With no pay rises being possible without cutbacks in programme budgets, the workforce itself will either have to be cut further or will be militantly unhappy, as it already is over the changes to the pension system.
All this bodes ill for public service broadcasting in general. The innovations that will inevitably surface between now and 2016-17 will further constrain the BBC as it finds itself unable to find extra funds to provide content for them. This, along with the all but of end of its independence is what will most hurt the corporation. Remove its ability to change with the times, abolish its defining feature of rigorous impartiality and you have something which will fade into irrelevance and simply end up all but asking to be put out of its misery, which seems to be exactly what the Conservatives had in mind from the beginning. They seem to be playing just as long a game as Thompson and friends themselves thought they were. The BBC's slow but inevitable death has just come a step closer.
Labels: BBC, BBC idiocy, Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, Jeremy Hunt, licence fee, Mark Thompson, media analysis, Rupert Murdoch, spending cuts, spending review
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Monday, October 25, 2010
The day musical satire became obsolete.
Tom Lehrer famously said that political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize. Musical satire isn't as wide a movement or genre as political satire, outside of the output of a few individual bands and parodists, yet if there was a music awards ceremony similar to the Ig Nobels where tongue being held firmly in cheek was the guiding principle rather than just recognising the objectively bad, you might perhaps, if you were really pushing it, give an "innovation in sound" award to say, Mark Ronson. You could probably just get away with giving the "best track" award to You Got the Love by Florence and the Machine. The "best act in the world" award, less controversially, should go to Kasabian, while the "best new act" prize could be given to say, Mumford and Sons.
As it turns out, such an awards ceremony clearly doesn't need to be invented, as we've already got the Q Awards, although apparently satire isn't their aim. Yes, they really did give the "Innovation in Sound" award to Mark Ronson.
(Apologies for the shitty blogging. No excuses offered, will get back on it properly tomorrow.)
As it turns out, such an awards ceremony clearly doesn't need to be invented, as we've already got the Q Awards, although apparently satire isn't their aim. Yes, they really did give the "Innovation in Sound" award to Mark Ronson.
(Apologies for the shitty blogging. No excuses offered, will get back on it properly tomorrow.)
Labels: Florence and the Machine, Mark Ronson, music, music industry, non-politics, Q Awards, satire
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Saturday, October 23, 2010
Quote of the week.
And yet it has also been a week in which there has been at least one glowing reminder of the pleasures and the pride that should accompany being employed by Manchester United and the impression left is this: whatever you think of Sir Alex Ferguson, his hypocrisies, the frequent mistruths and the even more frequent rages, how can anyone not have at least begrudging admiration for that shrewd, political mind, still as sharp as a tack as we approach the beginning of his 70th year?
So sharp it seems that he can be run rings round by a 24-year-old widely regarded by the media, when it's being polite, as "thick". How can anyone not have at least begrudging admiration for someone who has just doubled the already obscene pay of a footballer currently in the worst form of his career, a footballer whom this week insulted both his club and his team mates and threatened in a fit of apparently money-induced pique to go to their fiercest rivals, coincidentally at the exact same time that the rest of the country was introduced to the coming austerity measures?
P.S. Daniel Taylor is the author of This Is the One: Sir Alex Ferguson - The Uncut Story of a Football Genius.
Labels: Alex Ferguson, Daniel Taylor, football, miscellany, non-politics, quotes, Wayne Rooney
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