Rolls-Royce minds? - by Richard... Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Rolls-Royce minds? - by Richard... Wednesday, November 25, 2009

One does not always agree with Patrick Cockburn, who was one of the many journalists who covered the Iraqi war and occupation from the very start.

Like so many of his colleagues, he was transfixed by the greater drama and violence in the US sector. He thus took his eye off the ball, misreading what was going on in the south – mislead in part by the official disinformation which the British were churning out.

However, his "take" on the first day of the Chilcot inquiry seems spot on. It suggests, he writes, that British mandarins of the day had little more idea of the mechanics of Iraqi politics than the most rabid and jingoistic neo-cons in Washington.

What is so striking about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he writes, is that the British foreign policy establishment seems to have lost its sense of what is dangerous and what is not. It may be that following dutifully behind the Americans is so ingrained that the capacity for independent judgement has atrophied. Cockburn adds:

In both Washington and Iraq before the invasion of 2003, there was a sense of British politicians and officials being slightly out of the loop. Perhaps this was inevitable once Mr Blair had promised to support the US regardless. But it is unfair and not very useful to blame Britain's misfortunes over Iraq all on him. It was British foreign policy-makers as a whole who seemed to forget the dangers of fighting wars in countries they had not taken the trouble to understand.

The accuracy of this is very evident from retrospective analysis. Even to this day, many official commentators believe that the insurgency in the South started to develop after the violence erupted in the US zone, and was in part triggered by it.

But before the British had even occupied Basra, the Shi'a were planning a take-over, first of the south and then of the whole country. First, in Basra, they conducted a merciless campaign of ethnic cleansing, driving out the Sunni – which the British did nothing to stop.

Then, under the leadership of Moqtada al-Sadr, the Mahdi Army fought first the rival militias and then, increasingly, the British, in an attempt to dominate the region. 

Writes Cockburn, of the Inquiry , which heard from Sir William Patey, head of Middle East policy at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office at the time – plus two other mandarins - "At no time, going by their evidence, did British officials in 2003 realise that the invasion of Iraq meant revolutionary change in the region." As so many times before, these "Rolls-Royce minds" of the FCO have been vastly over-rated.

IRAQ THREAD

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Mandy who? - by Richard... Tuesday, November 24, 2009

"Climate scientist at centre of leaked email row dismisses conspiracy claims", headlines The Guardian. This is Phil Jones, but then he would, wouldn't he?

CLIMATEGATE THREAD

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Scare of the day - by Richard...

Life would just not be the same withoutThe Daily Telegraph and its "scare of the day".

The paper's latest offering is that levels of greenhouse gases have risen every year since detailed records began in 1998. And Michel Jarraud, the head of the World Meteorological Organisation, is warning that the pace of increase is quickening. Announcing the agency's analysis of data for 2008, he said: "Concentration of greenhouse gases continued to increase, even (increased) a bit faster ... Action must be taken as soon as possible." 

Jeepers! The man has ten year's of data and he wants to stop the planet? On the other hand, he could read the Wall Street Journal, and then go away and boil his head. But then, how would The Daily Telegraph fill its pages?

Don't count on the US electronic media to fill the gap though. It seems it is swimming in thatNorth African river. 

CLIMATEGATE THREAD

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More harm than good - by Richard...

Having a go at Mary Riddell is a bit like pulling legs off flies – after they have been swatted with fly spray (the flies, that is). Even then one wonders though why her newspaper bothered to send her on a jolly to Afghanistan, for what good her vapid piece actually does.

Fully aware that people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, I nevertheless find somewhat appropriate the comments of this writer, who rails against "... books and articles written by authors who, after flying through a country in a week or a few days, ignorant even of the language of the people, write large volumes on the secrets and hidden policies, feelings and motives of the people of the country."

"These books and articles," the author continues, "are considered great authorities by the public, who should know better than to trust the information contained in them, for they do more harm than good, giving as they do utterly false ideas of the country ... its institutions and its people."

The interesting thing about this passage is that it is taken from a book published in 1900. Its author is Abdur Rahman, who just happened to be ruler of Afghanistan at the time – so I suppose he knew what he was talking about. Rather presciently, he was writing in the context of Russia, and "the difficulties that attend going to war against Afghanistan."

But then this is the man who wrote: "To treat kindly those who disturb the peace is being an enemy to those who love peace." I guess he did know what he was talking about.

COMMENT THREAD