Danger, part-timer at work - by Richard... Thursday, December 01, 2011

Danger, part-timer at work - by Richard... Thursday, December 01, 2011

Even a moron can get things right occasionally, witness the latest piece by Peter Oborne about the preposterous Osborne.

Oborne is telling us that the man-child is only a part-time chancellor, in a tense situation which, one would have thought, would have demanded every waking hour. But Osborne's day job, it would appear, is running the Tories' political strategy. And he doesn't seem much good at that either.

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Never mind the evidence - by Richard...

If Climategate II tells us nothing else, it is that evidence is an optional extra, to be invoked only when it agrees with your a priori assertions. You would think that Dellers would understand that … but no! Here he goes, suggesting that, because there is no evidence of a sea-level rise, sea levels haven't risen.

Silly boy!

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Synchronised departures - by Richard...

One could be cynical and suggest that the reason we are seeing so little published about Afghanistan is that the MSM is keeping its powder dry. With 390 military deaths stacked up so far, it needs ten more to bring the figure to the magic 400, when we may expect an orgy of gushing press about "our brave boys".

More recently, we did actually see a longish piece in the Failygraph from Thomas Harding,reflecting on what had been achieved by the Army in the five years since it had been deployed to Helmand province.

And if to some his report seemed overly optimistic, that unfortunately is what you get when you rely on the MoD for your access, and have to pay lip service to the Army "spin doctors" in order to ensure continued access. In truth, though, if you want to find out what is going on in Afghanistan, the last thing you should do is ask the military, or an embedded journalist.

For a more sanguine appreciation, you would be better off reading the latest piece from Matt Cavanagh, who takes a cool look at the region as US troops continue to withdraw.

And what we do or achieve in Afghanistan is very much "under license" from the United States for, without the airpower, the logistics and the heavy lifting in some of the more bitterly contested areas, the UK forces would be a small, besieged outpost, achieving very little at all.

In his piece, Cavanagh notes that the public's attitude seems to be one of "weary resignation" and also notes that, while fatalities amongst British and other international forces are down on last year, civilian casualties are up 15 percent on last year, itself 15 percent higher than the year before.

Although modest by Iraq standards, this contradicts the pledge given by Gen. McChrystal to reduce overall civilian casualties, and marks one of the many coalition failures in a failure-strewn campaign.

But on top of the steady toll from suicide bombs and, this year we have seen a series of high-profile "spectaculars", the attacks in Kabul, notably the siege at the Intercontinental Hotel in June, the storming of the British Council building in August, a 20-hour shoot-out near the US embassy in September, and a bomb killing seventeen international troops and contractors in October.

At the same time, writes Cavanagh, the campaign of targeted assassinations has continued, including among its victims General Daud, the pre-eminent regional police commander; Ahmed Wali Karzai, the president's half-brother and de facto boss of Kandahar; Burhanuddin Rabbani, former president and lately head of the peace council charged with reaching out to the Taliban; and a number of district governors and town mayors.

Interestingly, and worryingly, American and British officials stick doggedly to the line that the spectaculars and assassinations are irrelevant, or even encouraging.

And then we have that great [transport] expert, Philip Hammond, the new defence secretary, tell us that his "military advice" is that the insurgency is on "the back foot", and argues that these "so-called spectaculars … rather suggest desperation".

Such an assertion might have more credibility if we had not heard something similar when the Taliban switched from direct confrontation in the platoon house phase, to asymmetric warfare, majoring on the IED.

While it caught the military flat-footed – despite plenty of warning – the brass excused its own inadequacies with such comforts, while the politicians pushed them into taking on protected vehicles and adopting other counter-measures which took the sting out of the Taliban's initiative.

But what it did demonstrate was that the Taliban was capable of thinking flexibly, and responding to changing circumstances, with a speed that leaves our Sandhurst warriors struggling.

And so it is with the "spectaculars" and assassinations. We see here, almost an echo of the Viet Cong tactics in 1960s Saigon, but with a guiding mind that clearly recognises that the coalition forces are no longer strategically relevant. The battle is now on to dominate the population once the foreign troops have scuttled back home, their chests full of medals.

Cavanagh thus offers some useful correctives to the usual shallow thinking that passes for strategic wisdom, including the caution that we should not be attempting to backfill for the Americans when they leave.

Rather than pretend we have an independent role, we should be planning to align our drawdown more explicitly with the Americans, recognising that, as they depart, so should we – and in phase. If our tactics in theatre have not always been in harmony, we need at least to synchronise our departure plans.

In other worlds, with departure on the near horizon, our politicians and military should avoid the temptation to indulge in a little local "top dogging", and concentrate on getting our people out in one piece, with as much credibility as possible.

That, at least, is what I take from Cavanagh's piece. He is perhaps a little too polite and gentle to point out how easy the military gravitates to disaster mode, especially when egos and careers are at stake. But above all, we need to recognise that the adventure is over and the only strategic gain it to recover as many warm bodies from theatre as possible, and to hold the body bags.

As for the broader politics, we have given up any hope of our dismal set of domestic politicians having even the first idea of what is going on in the region, and are fully reconciled to Afghanistan becoming a policy train-wreck within a decade of our leaving. But that is another problem, for another time. We have enough at the moment to keep us busy.

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Confused signals - by Richard...

Yesterday we had six central banks acting in unison, supposedly to prevent a global financial system meltdown – a state of affairs that got less coverage in some newspapers than the story of public sector strikers using their day off to go Christmas shopping.

With what appears to be open conflict between the IMF and ECB, there is now a further twist to an increasingly complex tale. Reuters, on the one hand, offers an exclusive report on how the "colleagues" are making a pitch for a treaty amendment, with the support of the British – who are no longer looking for a trade on the working time directive.

On the other hand, we have a report from AFP which talks of the European Council in nine day's time, when there will be "historic federal-style changes to save the eurozone, with France presenting its policy towards common budget control" and Merkel due to lay down her vision of how the EU should work, and her conditions, in a speech to the Bundestag on Friday.

On the proposed timescale, we cannot possibly be talking about treaty changes, but the clue is possibly in the use of the word "federal", implying a co-ordinated intergovernmental agreement, outwith the EU treaty framework, of the nature signalled by the Irish Examiner yesterday.

These, on the face of it, are contradictory options. The "colleagues" can hardly be going for treaty change and an intergovernmental agreement at the same time, although it is possible that an agreement could be followed later by a treaty change.

At the heart of the treaty option is Herman Van Rompuy, and he is planning to define what changes might be needed to the Lisbon Treaty before the European Council on 9 December. A further Council meeting in March could then give a mandate for limited treaty change, followed by an intergovernmental conference to draft the amendments.

This process, though, would not be completed by the end of next year, with ratification in 2013 – which is far too slow for the emergency action which is needed if there is going to be a serious attempt to save the euro, if that was at all possible.

The treaty change process, therefore, looks to be cosmetic, the clue to this coming from José Manuel Barroso, who says: "We believe treaty change can be a contribution to show one very important thing: that the euro is irreversible." In other words, they are looking for a confidence-builder, a statement of intent, while the real action goes on elsewhere.

That still leaves Merkel with her insoluble problems (in the short-term) with the constitutional court, limiting her freedom of action, in a situation which becomes more urgent by the day, not least as capital flight builds in intensity and currency values plummet against gold.

What we have as a result is a totally confused and even contradictory picture, with no clear messages coming out. When, on top of that, Greek strikers are claiming complete victory in their battle against EU-imposed austerity measures, there is now no coherent message to be taken from the torrent of events. And that tells its own story, not at all a happy one.

Anoneumouse says it all really (see pic above) ... to say nothing of the Boiling Frog, with a typically robust piece.

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Tory Fail! - by Richard...

After all the prattling, the "rebellion" of the europlastics, the stern editorials and all the rest of the garbage, what does it come to? Like absolutely everything else on "Europe" (and much more besides), when push comes to shove, the Tories don't deliver.

It was never going to be, anyway. Even as we speak, the "colleagues" are working on a by-pass, which allows them to bring in new rules without formally changing the treaties.

The Tory idea of holding the EU to ransom over an IGC - bartering changes in competences against our agreement on treaty changes affecting the eurozone – was always simplistic to the point of childish. One way or another, the Tory game was always going to fail.

But that is not what was supposed to have happened, according to the really clever people, people like George Eustice and Charles Moore. They knew soooooo much better than the rest of us. We were supposed to listen to them, stand back and believe.

Back in the real world, though, the Tories have failed, as predicted. The fun is in guessing not whether they fail, but how (and what excuses they trot out). Of all the options, a simple cave-in is the most boring – but on past record, should have been thought the most likely.

Still, I suppose we can at least say one thing of the Tories. They never fail to disappoint.