Questions Of The Day (Politics)

[Mick Harper]

But for the moment, 'the international community' finds itself on the side of a curious coalition. It more or less has to back 'the internationally recognised government in Tripoli' because heaven knows it cannot find itself on the side of 'the warlord Khalifa'. I perhaps should explain that 'the international community' is a device for assuaging liberal consciences whenever it sees ickle kiddies suffering in hospital from shrapnel wounds and calls for ceasefires, peace talks and humanitarian interventions which makes sure that whatever war is going on goes on indefinitely because they normally stop when either one side wins militarily or one side is starved into surrender.

Since that can never happen because of the constant ceasefires, peace talks and humanitarian interventions, the ickle kiddies have to go on indefinitely with the shrapnel and the liberal consciences can be assuaged every evening. (They lose track of the precise war but the warm glow never leaves them.) But in practical terms, the international community is lined up with a) Tripoli b) Turkey c) Iran d) Hezbollah and e) the Palestinians. It will be interesting to see how this one plays out.

[Wile E. Coyote]

Seems to Wiley that a lot of these cock ups are down to the so called provisional national government (PNG) in exile or whatever they are called.

You don't believe me? Let's take a look. The PNG is normally comprised of some bod or bods that have gained a reputation for posing as a "democrat" (when in actual fact they have merely defected for plotting against a dictator), a displaced monarch or, in some cases, students who have not returned home after a scholarship to the west. Anyway these assorted guys develop links with intelligence agencies across the world and become so-called experts, to discuss with media agencies how bad things are back home.

Your PNG will of course be plotting to overthrow your average dictator so it makes sense for them in the west to pose as a democrat, and their nation mysteriously acquires a "middle class" with a historic love of democracy and the west. However, it is in the nature of things that folks suffering under a dictatorship are pretty reluctant to rebel, as this tends to lead to violent reprisals, the local police or army are not like your friendly British copper bending the knee, or running off when you start tearing down statues...

No, what is needed to overthrow a tinpot dictator is outside help, a call on the west, and others, to free their nation. However as per orthodoxy most western nations are not willing to take this risk (why would you?), without a reward. The obvious pledge for a PNG of an oil rich country is a percentage of their oil production or rights. Still there is actually plenty of oil and gas around so naturally folks in the west remain hesitant. Your provisional national government will have to make more and greater pledges to more nations. But no nations want to get involved, the condemnation of a flat out invasion is still way too great. For many years there is an impasse.

What changes all this is the "Arab Spring moment", suddenly there is a chance of an invasion under cover of a "heroic uprising" with the support of the international community. Operation Tank the Tinpot is a reality and all nations happily prepare for war.

There is just one problem, by now the various members and factions of the Provisional National Government have massively oversold their share of oil profits and development rights. It is, in short, Mel Brooks' "the Producers", they have sold 6 or 7 times 30% of the profits. Some of the invaders will lose out.

The French were first into Tripoli, the only problem was, when they got there, they discovered their share had been sold to others so they switched sides, to someone that would back their original deal. Better an honest warlord than a dishonest government. To be frank, most of these folks, on both sides, would have happily become the next Quadaffi type dictator.

[Mick Harper]

Ya hit the jacksplat there, Wiley. The 'provisional government' problem is why nobody should attempt somebody else's regime change without a better reason than, "I can." Take the last example: the US overthrow of Saddam. They installed Nouri al-Maliki who was (basically) a confidence trickster who had set up something only he called a government-in-exile. As a con man he knew exactly what the Yanks wanted to hear and being a bunch of twats who love overthrowing people but not hanging around afterwards, the Yanks installed him, then defended him against all-comers.

He was a predictable disaster -- all the Iraqis knew what he was but couldn't do anything about it while the Americans were still in the Green Zone, not pulling strings themselves, just making sure nobody else did. For ten long years Maliki fiddled while Isis burned. It was heart-breaking. Let's not forget that Iraq could have rebuilt itself twice over during those ten years of sky-high oil prices. And please note, Americans, built a Shia state to rival Iran.

More examples of the genre later.

[Mick Harper]

It will always be the case that 'the provisional government' will be either to the taste of the country it governs or to the taste of the country that has just installed it. But hardly both. This is supposed to be taken care of by the 'provisional' bit of the title except, generally speaking, countries in need of having governments installed tend not to be countries that have governments that are easily changed. Or are changed too easily.

If it is advanced countries like Germany or Japan, and just getting rid of Nazis or emperor-worshipping military loonies, nature can take its course but there won't be any of those ever again. If it is Afghanistan and you put in Hamid Kazai because he speaks good English and is in favour of women being educated, you had better be prepared to stay for the long haul because Afghans don't necessarily agree with this prescription.

But that's another aspect of the 'provisional government' problem. Wiley might emphasise getting the oil concession (and I agree with him that would be cheap at the price) but I am more interested in the noble aspirations of The Moral Foreign Policy of Blair & Bush. And the 'international community'. They are the ones that do the real damage. I've never come across a moral population. We're all complete bastards given the opportunity. Or at any rate there will always be enough of them around if you let them.

Imagine the Americans saying, "Well, the Taliban seem to have gone down pretty well by Afghan standards, so we'll put in a Taliban Mark II, the 'Islam in one country' faction, who don't espouse terrorism (except domestically). Then we can be off, and a job well done. Next!"

[Mick Harper]

The real toughies were the choices facing the Soviet Union after the war. You try finding enough Polish communists to run the country in the first place, never mind having liquidated them all in the thirties. You end up having to put in Marshal Rokossovsky -- well, he's got a Polish name. Then, once you've got them all nicely installed, you find they're all Jewish and you've just decided to be anti-Semitic at home because of Middle East politics, and they've got to go. Honestly, it's a dog's life herding cats in the Communist Party.

But at least Russians, Turks, Iranians and Arabs don't go in for all these improvement classes so beloved in the West. "If stamping on the face of the people is good enough for us, it's good enough for you."

[Mick Harper]

It is hard to avoid crocodile tears with all this exam results stuff. Since I disapprove of both compulsory education and universities I can't develop much interest in where they join. Even so I had better point out where everyone is going wrong.

The government ought to have announced, back in March, that this would be a year like no other, that teachers' assessments would be used in lieu of exam results and, since teachers are a bunch of lying toe-rags, an algorithm would be applied to make sure results would be as per normal. This would inevitably result in quite a lot of rough justice for individuals but tough bananas, either suck it up or spend an extra year doing it all over again. This is exactly what they did.

Then, when the moans started, they caved in and gave everyone an A-star. Now everyone's got to suck it up and spend the next year sorting it all out. Not too bad from my point of view.

[Wile E. Coyote]

Wiley predicts Justin Trudeau will remain popular even after black-facing and now proroguing parliament. Come on guys, he is a liberal lefty so must be cut some slack.

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

The most fatuous statement so far comes from Bridget Chapman of Kent Refugee Action Network

[Mick Harper]

I spoke too soon

[Mick Harper]

There's a mite too much conspiracy theorising over this new Russian poisoning. When a Siberian plane has to divert in an emergency and the victim is driven off post-haste to the nearest hospital it is pretty unlikely a) that the attending doctors are going to be Kremlin stooges and b) that they will have vast experience in diagnosing nerve agents. It is also highly reasonable that they will not immediately give permission for their patient, in an induced coma, to be whisked off in an executive jet for a ten thousand mile trip abroad. Their duty is to their patient, not politics.

Yes, it was probably Putin; no, we probably won't be able to pin this one on him.

[Wile E. Coyote]

One of the things I dug up whilst researching on Libya, was that both sides in the armed struggle, the so called Government of National Accord and the Libyan National Army, operate militias that operate illegal people smuggling operations. In fact the UN blacklists these militias and threatens named individuals with sanctions.

It turns out that it is an effective method of cleansing an area of young men that might turn out to be hostile. Your armed units conquer or threaten an area, and then offer safe passage to the young men to the west, via armed smuggling gangs for extortionate fees. You then use this to pay the militias and buy additional arms from the west. Apparently it works quite well.

The West is quite willing to sell the arms for profit to the rival armies (not the militias who do the dirty work, hell no way would we do that) and well-intentioned NGOs and charities will often save refugees crossing dangerous stretches of water, in fact there is some evidence they work with smugglers. These NGOs and charities then staff and support settlement camps and help process asylum applications. At the end of it all, when the asylum seeker finds himself stuck in a camp (Bulgaria,Greece, Hungary) in a country he does not want to be in, he then has to seek a new plan to get to Germany, UK, whatever.

There are those who can help, like container drivers, for a fee of course, (you can't expect them to take risks for nothing) and some of those in the back of the lorry are not from war torn areas at all but migrants from safer poorer areas simply seeking a better future. These so-called economic migrants ensure that our Libyan guy has less chance with his asylum claim as his story is less likely to be believed, and his application will be delayed for many years.

The good news is that he will, on arriving in Britain, be accommodated by NASS (National Asylum Support Service) but the bad news is that can be anywhere in the country, that is unless he claims to be under 18 in which case he will be picked up by social care as a child in the area he arrived, and put with a supportive family. They will arrive in a port, most likely Kent. So if your Libyan young man doesn't want to be dispersed to Glasgow, or worse put in a detention centre, either being 16 or claiming to be 16 is a good way to go. He gets the status of being classified in care, so will get free education, and looked after by a type of foster family until he reaches 18 which is expensive as the family requires paying for accommodating this child. Presumably this is why Kent are upset.

[Mick Harper]

One Libyan mystery was cleared up last night. After The Warlord Khalifa had conquered the whole of Western Libya except Tripoli which he laid siege to for several months, Turkish planes suddenly turned up and the hitherto unstoppable Khalifa reeled back to his own half of Libya. This made no sense at the time. It turned out that it was because he had refused to sign up to a Turkish/Russian sponsored ceasefire and hence his Russian 'mercenaries' all 'went home'. Everything returned to normal once he had learned his lesson. Though it looks as though he is being eased out in favour of 'The Speaker of the (Benghazi) Parliament' anyway. Too much atrocity on his hands for the Great Days of Peace. The changeover will require another, internal, civil war but no big deal.

Talking of arms, Wiley, (one of) the reasons why there are so many in the current West African wars is because Qaddafi used to hide caches all over southern Libya, for a rainy day, and they are constantly being 'found'. I put it in quotes because arms are so cheap there is no need to go in for elaborate provenances -- as per your own account.

Splitting Libya into its two tribal halves, east and west, is such a sensible idea it's off the table. Ditto Mali, north and south.

[Mick Harper]

It occurs to me that Europe is a) so desirous of not having economic migrants turning up in such vast numbers but b) even more desirous to avoid being criticised for adopting 'populist' anti-migrant measures, that it is our task to provide them with a cover story. Wiley's theory doesn't have to be true to work. "In order to stem funds going to militias in Africa we regretfully have to announce that all migrants arriving via people-smuggling routes will be returned to their country of origin." Etc, etc.