Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

The latest Wikileak brings this back on the agenda. In my book 2010 A Blueprint For Change, I had quite a bit to say about this. There are four elements to the aftermath of the tragedy. The first is who did it. The second is the grief of the bereaved. The third is justice for the guilty and the fourth is was this a spontaneous act or a planned reprisal? Unfortunately the grief and the justice have become entangled in a fashion which causes distress without any certainty of justice. This needs to be looked at.

First, it is very unlikely that this was a spontaneous act of terrorism. It was certainly a reprisal for the unlawful bombing of Col. Gaddafi’s palace by American planes, refuelled in England, which missed the target but killed one of his children. It is also very likely indeed that the shooting down of an unarmed civilian airliner from Iran, flying in its own airspace by an American warship six months earlier, resulting in the deaths of all on board, all civilians and including over sixty children, was a factor in the plan. This plan was elaborate, punctilious, tragically effective and almost certainly hatched by more than one state and certainly by more than one man.

Al Megrahi may have been involved in part. The nature of his trial, in a piece of Holland ceded to Scotland for the purpose, without a jury and based on evidence initiated by the CIA, was not a fair trial by the standards of the United Kingdom, nor for that matter the United States. The desire for vengeance is not a licence to reduce the standard of transparent justice upon which both nations are founded to practice and proclaim. We therefore do not know whether Al Mergrahi was actually guilty. The Judges thought so, based on what they were told. Distinguished campaigners, including some of  the kin of the victims, believe he was not.

Gaddafi has paid out $billions in compensation to relatives willing to receive it; substantially, by a wide margin, more than the U.S paid the relatives in Iran. It was and is significantly in the national interests of the U.K and U.S that relations with Libya (and Iran for that matter) were put on a better footing. Even the bellicose Tony Blair could see that. Once Megrahi be came ill pressure built for him to be repatriated. All the papers thus far leaked or released  show that the British Government wanted him released but the Scottish government had the jurisdiction under its own law. It declined the Libyan blandishments but followed its proper legal process, just as in the England the authorities had released the great train robber to die of cancer at home.

The fact the Al Megrahi has lived longer than expected is obviously due to the fact that he is not in prison (who would have the motivation to fight the Big C when incarcerated for life?), but also because he is now receiving the best treatment the world can offer and oil rich Libya can buy.

Grief is one thing. Vengeance is another. Justice is something else. Compassion is a quality only the best can exercise. They must not be confused, one with the other. Each stands alone.

The Euro Zone finance Ministers are now on their way home. There was no agreement to increase the size of the bail out fund nor to introduce a Euro zone bond. Germany opposed both. More important, if you want to look beneath the surface, is the number of German voters who want to quit the Euro, or for Germany to effectively take control of it.

Clearly this currency cannot go on as it is. It will do so for the moment but there are very big troubles ahead. This is because although policians speak in robust terms of the solidity of the Euro and their determination to defend it at all costs, they no longer have the political consensus behind them to make the changes which would make that survival possible. The predictions in the previous post may be coming true already.

NATO Plans

The latest Wikileaks contain an interesting plan for the defence of Poland and the Baltic states from a Russian attack. On the one hand this is just military  preparedness for any eventuality. On the other it is stoking tension to no purpose.

Russian military doctrine, though nervous of NATO encirclement, no longer sees a NATO attack as likely or realistic and the proposed modernisation of Russia’s somewhat creaky armed forces, recognises this. Above all it knows that  Russian attack on Western Europe to create some huge Russian Empire in the west, according to the earliest and wildest dreams of the early Soviet revolutionaries, is as daft as Britain setting out to reconquer Africa.

Unfortunately the U.S. military has always played a disproportionate role in the direction of the United States, upon whose success the very foundation of the country rests. Thus instead of a wind down after the end of the cold war, there was a cranking up, given fuel by 9/11. British foreign policy needs now to exercise a more restraining hand on the Pentagon. We have to go back to our Viet Nam posture. Do it if you want but we are not with you. Thus there should be no British division in this rash Nato plan. France has already said no.

No wonder the Russians have a network of spies. They do not trust the west and with good cause. Yet it is not Western Europe which is the problem It is the U.S..  President Obama has done  quite a bit to ease relations with Russia and build bridges. He needs to do more of the same. Meanwhile we all need to remind ourselves of the difference between WWII and WWI. Fighting Hitler and the Nazis was justified and necessary for the preservation of freedom and decency. It was a fight against one of the most bestial, cruel and tyrannical regimes ever to blacken the pages of history.

WWI was not like that at all. There was no great ideological divide. There were rivalries and jealousies and over powerful militaries. There was much more to be lost by fighting than by not. Civilisation, or European civilisation, was not in fact under threat. It was an entirely useless war for no honourable purpose, whose only lasting outcome was carnage of young lives on an unimagined scale and the creation of the conditions which made the second world war, not only certain but necessary, with even greater carnage across the globe.

There is nothing meaningful to fight for from one end of Europe to the other now and we should use all our powers of planning to make use of the peace which past suffering has bequeathed us. It is time for the U.S. to shrink the Pentagon establishment by a quantum and concentrate on the problems in its own backyard. These are considerable and growing.

Euro Zone Bond

This is the latest idea for bringing a more uniform approach to sovereign debt, supported by some countries but opposed by Germany. So that is that. Even more so, if non- euro members of the E.U. were to be asked to guarantee such a bond. There is absolutely no chance of the U.K. agreeing.

For the moment the pressure has eased and Euro finance ministers are cautiously optimistic. Stock markets have recovered from their fright of two weeks back when Ireland was on the brink. But for how long? The problems remain and remain the same. The Euro has a central bank, but no unified government. It has no common economic policy; only various rules, which are regularly violated by its members when the fancy takes them.

There are two options ahead, neither of which is accepted by those in the zone. Without a unified system of economic management the Euro will eventually conk out. The other is that such a system is put in place and the Euro is secured. It has to be either the one or the other. Well not quite.

There is a third option. Nothing is agreed but, bit by bit, everybody has to go with whatever Germany wants, because it is the paymaster and it is calling the tune. The Euro has always been Germany’s currency shared, but now it will begin to claw back control. Indeed it has already begun to do so. Thus the Euro will have a central government and a unified economic policy but it will be in Berlin.

Those who gain advantage from this will remain. These will include the smaller countries and the old communist states of the east. The others, including the Mediterraneans like Spain, Greece,  Italy and Portugal will leave. So may Ireland. The interesting one is France. If she stays there will be a Franco German dominance. If she goes, there will be German dominance on its own.

Curbing the Banks

There are reports of earnest and productive talks going on between the banks and the government to improve relations and find common ground for a way froward. The apparent curb on bank bashing, an important talisman for all the parties in the general election, seems to be about needing the banks to achieve economic recovery.

That is self evident. Nobody, certainly not this Blog, is saying or has said that we do not need the banks. What we do not need are banks that are only marginally solvent, which favour property to all other form of lending thus inflating assets beyond their worth to the detriment of living standards and the economy, which engage in wild and ridiculous speculations for which they do not have capital to cover losses when they go bad and who then come begging the taxpayer for help, threatening they are too big to fail, after they have already stashed their own pockets with remuneration little short of preposterous.

We need a sound and socially useful banking system which is financially secure, prudently run and able to play an important role in the re-design of a shatterd economic model, which can then be re-built into a secure and lasting recovery. Such banks will value the national interest as highly or beyond their own, as this is an element, little mentioned, of any attempt to create a big society. Such banks will also separate their speculative trading into ring fenced companies which can and will be allowed to fail, in which such failures both the bankers and their shareholders, who have profited to excess from these gambling activities, will then lose  all.

Latest Wikileaks

This blog has been relaxed about Wikileaks thus far. Mostly they have been about who thinks what of whom in diplomatic cables mixed with analysis of foreign governments, which does not accord with official statements. This is not unhelpful in modern democracy, in which  there are too many hidden secrets which are not secrets at all, or if they are, too often classified to protect political positions rather than true national security. Voters have a right to know what is really being done by the people they vote for.

Today’s batch of revelations is rather different. This includes a list of various installations around the world that the U.S. regards as central to its national security. There are two implications. Although none of the locations is a secret establishment according to initial reports, providing a handy list may very well help some terrorist organization, many of which are relatively unsophisticated and under resourced, as well as under pressure both from security agencies and their own followers.

Another reason is that many of these locations are in countries with a lower, or much lower, rating as a potential terrorist target than the United States itself. It would be wrong for them to be moved closer to the firing line because they have a facility which produces something the U.S. needs, or thinks it needs. For example the strategic importance of Australian anti-snake venom is unclear.

It is now important for Wikileaks and the newspapers involved in the publication of highlighted documents, to consider very carefully whether what they do really is good for democracy and freedom or whether it is bad for both those things but good for selling newspapers. There is a Rubicon here and it must not be crossed.

Lib Dem Difficulties

This is bad weekend for Liberal Democrats. There appears to be tension between Clegg and Cable over tuition fees. The latter has been buffeted by seemingly the inexplicable logic of hinting he may vote against his own policy. The voting public, uncluttered by the quite complex psychology of being a Lib Dem in government when most of them come from a mould of perpetual opposition, look on in mild confusion. Students who voted Lib Dem on a promise, one which they were told could and would not be broken, find that it is about to be.

Nick Clegg thinks it is a jolly good policy anyway, is airy fairy  about reneging on his signed pledge and thinks future generations will applaud the u-turn. They may do, but they are unlikely to be Liberal Democrats. Indeed one or two more mishaps and there may be no such thing by then anyway.

It is all the more peculiar to now learn that a popular  Lib Dem M.P. employs as his researcher a glamorous  young lady who is not only Russian but alleged by MI5 to be a spy. I do not think state secrets are involved; more likely indiscretions, opinions and nuances similar to the American diplomatic cables. I am all for getting closer to the Russians and I think we are rather out of date in our view of them. After all, many support a football club and read newspapers owned by Russians. However I wonder how many English people are helping in the Kremlin.

All in all it is going to be a difficult week for the Liberal Democratic party. The question to resolve is not how its M.Ps vote on a contentious issue, but whether the party is actually cut out for government at all.

The Shadow of Labour’s Past.

This is going to become a mounting difficulty for Labour. I think Ed Milliband knows it. The stack of problems waiting for the bonfire is growing. There are some good bits to keep. Devolution, Northern Ireland, Freedom of Information and Human Rights are the best. Against this we have a disastrous foreign policy, two wars and a compltely shot economy. But there is something else emerging. In some ways even worse.

Labour has always had an unquenchable thirst for making new laws and regulations. It contributed to the end of the Attlee government after a mere six years, when it was the greatest reforming government in our history. The new Churchill government got the economy moving and the welfare state functioning, by ditching  tons of rules and by disbanding what Churchill described a collection of inspectors, snoopers and busybodies larger than any peacetime army.

As this country has fallen victim, once again, to its inability to function in snow, those of us who can remember 1947 and 1963 have noticed a sharp deterioration in the quality of the remedial services, especially in country areas. Here farmers stand ready, as in the past, to clear roads with their tractors, but are prevented from doing so by absurd new requirements, including special clothing, hard hats, white diesel and insurance policies covering them, literally, for  £ millions of public liability.

Even the considerable personality of the Local Government Secretary, Eric Pickles, is having trouble sorting this nonsense out, in order to take the heat of his colleagues at the transport ministry. They must all have our sympathy. The reason that Labour may find its fortunes sinking in opposition, as Attlee did, is that it is becoming more and more apparent that in the rush to define every detail of life in some new law ar regulation, New labour came close to creating a Lunatic State. The two year policy review needs to come up with a much less invasive form of Democratic Socialism

The U.S. and Wikileaks

Now that we getting used to our new breakfast diet of the latest Wiki leak, we can get this whole drama in a better perspective.  It is not as big as it seemed and, in the view of many including  this Blog,  America has nothing to be embarrassed about, or ashamed of, in the  disclosures. They tend to show some shrewd, often prescient, assessment of world leaders and events.

Nobody is surprised by the sometimes unflattering portrait of politicians, whose sense of self importance can often do with a prick. Somebody was  right to describe the British fetish about the special relationship as corrosive, especially when it provokes fawning acquiescence, when candour of the kind in which the American diplomats engage would be more helpful to everyone.

I have many times said that common heritage and blood ties make America more than a relationship to Britain. We are family. Families sometimes fall out and sometimes disagree, but in the end they are family and will always be there. Once we descend into staying awake wondering if the U.S. President will visit London before Paris or Berlin, we end up wasting our own time and theirs. There are some areas where America’s interests and ours combine but others where they do not. We must get our judgements to a practical rather than emotional level. I speak with a foot in each camp. My grandparents and mother were naturalised Americans and two of my children are U.S. citizens by birth.

Americans have a natural courtesy and good manners and do not like to offend. With this in mind they should restrict this diplomatic traffic to those who really need to know; that cannot be between two and three million people down to the rank of corporal. Hilary Clinton has been tireless in her efforts to smooth offended egos, but there really is no more need. She can go back to her day job. With her head held high. Those cables need to carry on flowing.They are really very good.

U.S. view of U.K Army.

Wikileaks reveal that America thinks what this blog has always suggested; our army is not very good at fighting either in Iraq or in Afghanistan. This is not to question that our troops are of the highest calibre of bravery and dedication. What is at fault is their equipment, their leadership and their strategic political direction.

This is not new. Down through the pages of history the army has a mixed record. Wars have been won, but many battles lost. This is because we are not a land power. For that reason it is wrong for us to project such land power and invade other countries. It represents a foreign policy way out of line with the reality of military capability. What is very wrong indeed, wicked even, is the sacrifice of young lives in this way. War can be glorious. But if brave troops are sacrificed because of failings higher up or flawed objectives, it comes close to murder. Of our own. We need to stop and think about that.