The Green Ribbon

"Cheap propaganda tricks" - The neocons on Obama

Tony Karon points us to a remarkable attack on Barack Obama by Edward Luttwak in the New York Times:

As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother’s Christian background is irrelevant.

Of course, as most Americans understand it, Senator Obama is not a Muslim. He chose to become a Christian, and indeed has written convincingly to explain how he arrived at his choice and how important his Christian faith is to him.

His conversion, however, was a crime in Muslim eyes; it is “irtidad” or “ridda,” usually translated from the Arabic as “apostasy,” but with connotations of rebellion and treason. Indeed, it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit, worse than murder (which the victim’s family may choose to forgive). (New York Times)

Luttwak reckons this would 'compromise the ability of governments in Muslim nations to cooperate with the United States in the fight against terrorism.'

Pat Lang suggests that this argument doesn't pass the smell test:

The drumbeat against Iran

Spinwatch has a new blog by former US Air force Colonel Sam Gardiner. In his latest piece, Gardiner picks up on the recent Sunday Times article suggesting the US is planning to hit training camps in Iran.

Meanwhile at Sic Semper Tyrannis, Col Pat Lang picks up the same paper's report that Sir John Scarlett is due to meet with Mossad.

In the comments, londanium offers a word of caution:

It's called propaganda, it crops up whenever US aircraft carrier groups cross over during their rotation into and out of the fifth fleet area, and at sundry other points in the diplomatic schedule ( ie IAEA board meetings, EU-Iran sessions, UNSC P5 meetings to discuss the Iran dossier/further sanctions ).

The Friedman unit is truly the default measure of US historical and current affairs amnesia.

That might fit with the more hopeful interpretation offered recently by Jim Lobe:

some analysts believe that Petraeus' promotion to Centcom was actually engineered by Gates and Mullen not only because he is likely to enjoy exceptional influence with Bush, but also because, despite his championship by neoconservative hawks, they consider him a fellow-realist who shares the conviction that war with Iran would be a major strategic error.

Postscript: The optimistic scenario here doesn't exclude one worrying possibilty, a proxy conflict in Lebanon.

Wendy's u-turn

OurKingdom has my thoughts on Wendy Alexander's decison to come out in favour of a Scottish Independence referendum:

Her actions were widely seen as sidelining the Calman Commission, which was largely her creation. However, It now looks as if any referendum is likely to come after the Commission has reported. It’s proposals will be crucial to the unionist case. That is a powerful incentive to offer Scotland as much autonomy as possible, rather than risk losing the union altogether.

Alexander's move prompted some interesting exchanges at Holyrood today.

The Litvinenko Affair revisited

David Habbakuk will be familiar to readers of Col Pat Lang's blog Sic Semper Tyrannis. He has some very interesting thoughts on the November 2006 death of Alexander Litvinenko over at Yuri Mamchur's Russia Blog:

Uncritical acceptance of claims by [Oleg] Gordievsky about how Litvinenko died is particular bizarre -- given that he has made different and incompatible claims at different times, so as a simple point of logic some of what he has claimed has to be false. A further curious feature of Gordievsky's accounts, however, is that much of what he has claimed directly contradicts central elements of what has become the official British version of Litvinenko's death. And in fact, while one would be ill-advised to take anything Gordievsky says at face value, some of what he has claimed fits in distinctly better with the publicly available evidence than the official version does.

DUP looks to a hung parliament

Slugger's Fair Deal became the latest contributor to the OurKingdom blog today, with some interesting thoughts on the direction of the DUP under its new leader Peter Robinson:

Nationally, the relationship with Gordon Brown is probably the coolest of all, mostly at his own behest. Brown was indifferent to Blair’s peace project,  gave short shrift to proposals for a better financial package and the DUP has been angered by the in-out (usually out) attitude to Northern Ireland in Brown’s Britishness project.

Beyond devolution, Unionism is eyeing the possibility of a hung parliament. If it does occur, Robinson will do business - but for a much higher price than the UUP in the Callaghan and Major eras. In that scenario Brown may rue his present approach. (OurKingdom)

American Comintern: Six decades of covert operations in Britain

[My latest piece at Spinwatch.]

Is the Cold War the best guide to how Britain should deal with Islam? That is what Charles Moore suggested in a speech to the Centre for Policy Studies last month:

Think of the long debate about how best to deal with trade union militancy and with its relationship to Communist infiltration during the Cold War. It was not, in fact, the Conservatives who first tried to tackle this. It began as a conflict within the Labour movement in which a few brave souls, like Frank Chapple of the Electricians, would not bow to the extremist tactics.

As Moore admits, 'the analogies between British trade unions and an ancient world religion are inexact, to put it mildly.' Nevertheless, the anti-communist paradigm is becoming increasingly influential as a template for dealing with Islamist extremism. Moore's Policy Exchange colleague Dean Godson wrote in 2006:

During the Cold War, organisations such as the Information Research Department of the Foreign Office would assert the superiority of the West over its totalitarian rivals. And magazines such as Encounter did hand-to-hand combat with Soviet fellow travellers. For any kind of truly moderate Islam to flourish, we need first to recapture our own self-confidence. At the moment, the extremists largely have the field to themselves.

As I have noted previously, the Information Research Department and Encounter were both covert operations, created as part of a wider effort known as the 'Cultural Cold War.' The CIA ran Encounter through the Congress for Cultural Freedom, which was secretly funded throughout the 1950s and early 1960s to carry out propaganda among European intellectuals. Some of those involved had carried out similar activities for Moscow in the 1920s and 1930s as agents of the Comintern.

One former Comintern delegate was Jay Lovestone, the one-time head of the American Communist Party and disciple of Nikolai Bukharin. His Communist Party (Opposition) faction of the 1930s became over time an anti-communist network with close links to the US Government.

Great Hatred, Little Room by Jonathan Powell

My review of Jonathan Powell's account of the peace process, Great Hatred, Little Room, is now online over at OurKingdom.

Update 11 April: David Frum points us to a review by Dean Godson in the Spectator. Godson's more critical view is in line with the terms of the debate described in my OK piece.

Reform or retrenchment? Wendy Alexander on the constitution

Scottish Labour leader Wendy Alexander made a bold bid to take back the Scottish constitutional agenda on Sunday with the launch of her policy document, Change is What We Do:

From my latest piece for OurKingdom.

Goldsmith at odds with the spirit of Good Friday

As the tenth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement approaches, there is growing evidence that the inclusive vision of 1998 is being undermined by the Government’s more recent obsession with a narrower and more prescriptive identity politics. Lord Goldsmith’s citizenship review provides the latest example.

From my latest piece at OurKingdom

 

Amnesty: Belfast and Beyond

The newest addition to Amnesty International's stable of blogs is worth keeping an eye on. Among other things, Belfast and Beyond has some interesting material on the CIA's use of Shannon Airport.

DUP deal on detention?

Anthony Barnett points us to an important detail of the Government's strategy for securing 42 day's detention:

The decision to delay the second reading came amid speculation that Smith, a former government chief whip, may rely on the nine votes of Democratic Unionist party MPs to push through the legislation in the face of a substantial Labour rebellion.

The DUP, whose leader Ian Paisley will step down in May, is thought to be willing to enter into talks over support for the measure in return for delaying the devolution of policing and criminal justice in Northern Ireland. (Guardian)

Update: I have some more thoughts on this over at OurKingdom.

Sic Semper Tyrannis: A Nuclear Proliferation Network in Washington?

Interesting series of posts over at Sic Semper Tyrannis, about the case of Sybil Edmonds, a former FBI translator Sybil Edmonds who claims that the Bureau is sitting on evidence that corrupt US officials are part of an international network trading nuclear secrets.

Col. Pat Lang picks up The Times' reports on the case:

There are a number of countries sponsoring espionage against the US government.  Espionage is a felonious crime in the US whether it is on behalf of a "friendly" state or an enemy.  Some people think that unauthorized delivery of US classified information to a US national is not espionage.  They are mistaken.  One could be charged with a lesser crime, but that is at the option of the government. (Sybil Edmonds: an Unresolved Case?)

David Habbakkuk suggests that the network may have been penetrated by the US and allowed to run:

a key statement in the original Sunday Times story is that the nuclear network Edmonds describes 'has been monitored for many years by a joint Anglo-American intelligence effort. But rather than shut it down, investigations by law enforcement bodies such as the FBI and Britain's Revenue & Customs have been aborted to preserve diplomatic relations.' In addition to this, there is the 'small team' investigating the 'same procurement' network referred to in the third story -- to which Valerie Plame belonged, and for which Brewster Jennings was a front company. One quite possible explanation for the appearance of this story in the Sunday Times is that important elements in this 'joint Anglo-American intelligence effort', either in London, or in Washington, or in both, decided they wanted this network shut down, and saw the disclosures by Edmonds as a means of securing this end. (Sybil Edmonds 2 by David Habbakkuk)

This kind of penetration operation sounds very similar to the one Richard Tomlinson claimed he was involved in, infilitrating the Nahum Manbar network for MI6.

 

After Paisley

A short piece over at OurKingdom.

A Lib Dem olive branch to Salmond

A couple of Holyrood notes to catch up with:

• GORDON BROWN is refusing to call the body tasked with reviewing devolution a "commission" because he believes it would give an "incorrect impression about its status".
  
  The prime minister used that phrase at a Downing Street summit on the Union, a full account of which has been leaked to this newspaper.
  
  He also backed a review of Holyrood's financial powers only after he was pushed on the issue by UK justice secretary Jack Straw and Scotland secretary Des Browne. {Sunday Herald)

Paisley to go in May

Slugger has the news, and also a thread on the succession.

Clinton, Obama, and America's Mercenary Army in Iraq

Jeremy Scahill has been doing some good work trying to pin down the US Democratic contenders on the issue of mercenaries in Iraq (hat tip:The Spy Who Billed Me):

A senior foreign policy adviser to leading Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has told The Nation that if elected Obama will not "rule out" using private security companies like Blackwater Worldwide in Iraq. The adviser also said that Obama does not plan to sign on to legislation that seeks to ban the use of these forces in US war zones by January 2009, when a new President will be sworn in. Obama's campaign says that instead he will focus on bringing accountability to these forces while increasing funding for the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security, the agency that employs Blackwater and other private security contractors. (Hillary Clinton's staff did not respond to repeated requests for an interview or a statement on this issue.) (The Nation)

In the wake of Scahill's article, Hilary Clinton issued this statement:

Promises, Promises

'Managing the crisis is almost impossible for the [London] mayor’s army of spindoctors because they don’t know where the next revelation is coming from,’ Newthound informs us in the latest edition of Private Eye.

One gets the impression that Newthound knows where the next 'revelation' is coming from. So too, apparently, does Nick Cohen:

Just a rumour but I heard second hand that there’s an attack biography on Livingstone ready to roll so maybe one of the Sundays have it. I’m not a betting man, and my source may be duff, but perhaps it’s worth buying Johnson before the first editions are out a 8. 

by Nick Cohen March 1st, 2008 at 5:40 pm (politicalbetting.com)

I've said before where I think this kind of thing is coming from.

Update 4 March

It seems that Newthound at least has been as good as his word:

'General' Jasper's torrid e-mails to 'sexy Kazzi'

Perhaps the interesting question is how the Standard got those emails?

Kosovo, Europe and Scotland

The FT has an article today that will make unwelcome reading for Scottish nationalists. Nevertheless, even though it comes from the usual suspects at the Constitution Unit, it warrants serious consideration:

The diplomatic fallout over recognition of the newcomer has ominous implications for the separatists in minority government in Edinburgh. Half a dozen European Union states fear the example that is being set for ethnic minorities within their borders. If Scotland ever votes for independence these states could easily make an example of it by blocking Scottish membership of the EU. (Simon James, Financial Times)

Of course, an independent Scotland would be in a fundamentally different position from Kosovo since it would almost certainly be applying in the wake of an agreed secession in line with international legal precedent.

James' point is that Scottish membership of the EU might nevertheless be blocked by governments obstinately determined to make a point. In reality, taking such a stance against an agreed secession, might only strengthen the hand of unilateral seccessionists.

It would in effect impose Spain's reactionary constitution on the European Union, since their would be no democratic way for national communities to pursue their aspirations, even where they are in the majority, and remain in the EU. Such an approach might repress secessionist movements in the short run, but ultimately it would make the union a dangerously rigid structure.

Paisley era coming to an end

Ian Paisley Jr became the first Minister to resign from Northern Ireland’s Stormont administration this week. His departure is widely seen as a signal that his father’s retirement as First Minister is only months away.

On one level this is a significant demonstration that democratic accountability is possible within Stormont’s cross-community coalition system. Yet it also reflects a new threat to the stability of the Executive.

From my latest post at OurKingdom.

Milliband facing legal challenge over mercenaries

Just wanted to belatedly note this story from earlier this week, and given the week that's in it, perhaps this is one area where the Northern Rock trend for nationalisation might usefully be extended:

Foreign secretary David Miliband today faces a legal challenge over his failure to ensure democratic control over private military companies – only days after he promoted Britain spreading democracy around the world.

The challenge, from the anti-poverty charity War on Want, follows mounting reports of human rights abuse by mercenaries employed by private military and security companies in war zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan. (War on Want)