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TALLRITE BLOG
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| May 2007 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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ISSUE #152 - 27th May 2007 [475]
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Another
Nobel Peace Laureate Goes Native, Over Iran Mohamed El-Baradei is the widely respected head of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, which started out as the “Atoms for Peace” organization in 1957.
During the pre-Iraq-invasion period when the UN's chief weapons inspector Hans Blix was giving himself a fit of the vapours and saying anything that he thought might foil the imminent war, Mr El-Baradei was the voice of reason, prepared to not just examine the evidence for WMD but to weigh up realistic probabilities as well. Moreover, as an Arab, he was trusted among the Middle East regimes much more than other UN apparatchiks. Recognising his contribution to nuclear safety, he and his agency were jointly awarded the 2005 Nobel peace price for their efforts both to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way. Thus, what he says today carries a great deal of weight. So when he says that Iran probably needs “three to eight years” to produce a nuclear bomb, he should be believed. But he recently followed this up by arguing that the West could and should deter the development of nuclear weapons by rogue states such as Iran not by threatening sanctions and military force, but by slashing their own arsenals, to set a benign example. When he says
he is making the case that Iran should be allowed to continue enriching uranium in breach of no fewer than three UN resolutions. Let me see if I understand this correctly. The best way to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons is to allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons, because threats will only encourage Iran to develop nuclear weapons. If you want to check how Iran behaves when it is given a free pass on bad behaviour, it has provided plenty of examples over the years...
Iran has made it abundantly clear it has not the slightest intention of slowing down, much less abandoning, its uranium enrichment programme, which will eventually put nuclear weapons into its hands. And it has also given plenty of notice that the vaporisation of Israel is its first objective. There can be little doubt that terrifying its neighbours and the West is the next objective, nor that nuclear proliferation among those neighbours will be an inevitable result. As John Bolton said in a recent, brilliant BBC interview (minute 3:45) in which he eviscerates his supercilious left-wing interlocutor John Humphrys, Iran is “not going to be chatted out of” its nuclear programme. The so-called EU Three (France, Germany and Britain) have proven this conclusively over nearly four long years of fruitless “negotiations”. So if sweet talk doesn't work, and ignoring bad behaviour doesn't work, all you're left with is sanctions, threats and - ultimately, if they don't work - military action. Unless of course, you're relaxed about Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's maniacal plans for welcoming the 12th Imam back from the 13th Century. But I for one don't want to be in a world where he (Mr Ahmadinejad, not the preposterous 12th imam) can live out his fantasies. And, of course, an infidel like me not living in this world is just one of the many such fantasies he would like to bring about. Mr El-Baradei's puerile remarks about letting him away with his nuclear transgressions thus far, and never threatening anything unpleasant, will provide only comfort to the Iranian theocratic leadership. It will provide further proof - as if needed - of the West's failure of will when it comes to protecting its interests. Yet in my view, the West is like a drunken sleeping monster. He does not notice, or else ignores, a succession of slings and arrows from vindictive Lilliputians. But eventually, one of them just goes too far, he wakes up and wreaks a terrible vengeance. We saw that happen -
All three aggressors and their regimes suffered terribly from the rage of the awakened monsters. Similarly, I think the present acquiescence of the West in the increasingly dangerous and provocative nuclear behaviour of the Iranian regime will ultimately only increase the likelihood of an eventual military showdown of terrible proportions when the Western monster is eventually woken up again. Only sufficiently severe sanctions and belligerent enough threats applied now, whilst they can still have some effect, has a chance of averting a catastrophe. Maybe the Nobel Peace Prize goes to your head, and makes you think that no price is too high to pay for peace, even when “peace” means “appeacement” to a foul enemy that will show you no mercy. In the previous issue, my lead post, about how Noble Peace laureates John Hume (1998) and Mairead Corrigan (1976), through their recent speeches grovelling to terrorism are in fact exacerbating war, seems to support such an hypothesis. In other contexts, you'd call it “going native”. Mohammed El-Baradei, over Iran, seems to be the latest Nobel Peace laureate to go down that perilous path.
Ulster Says NO (to Hot-Pursuit) If you are a criminal, the EU can be a bit of a nuisance. In the good ol' days, you robbed a bank and then raced over the border for safety in the neighbouring country, with the pursuing police halting in frustration at the frontier. If Mexico were not a safe haven for fleeing crooks, escaped convicts and assorted gangsters, Hollywood would be out of business for want of movie storylines. The Americans even go a step further, and forbid hot pursuit over State lines, never mind international ones. But the EU has been trying to do something about this as far as member countries are concerned. That's why it set up Europol in 1999, to share criminal intelligence in order to improve effectiveness and co-operation of the members' police forces in combating terrorism, drug dealing and other serious forms of international organised crime, such as counterfeiting, piracy and human trafficking. Combined with improved extradition arrangements, this has, to the criminals' chagrin, made it it much more difficult for fugitives from one EU state to live it up in another on the proceeds of their ill-gotten gains. For example, you no longer see British ganglords flaunting their wealth (and their women) in the once aptly-nicknamed Costa del Crime in southern Spain, for with Europol and other EU legislation, they can't rely on those pesky mañana police to leave them alone any more. And yet, hot pursuit, regardless of circumstances, is still a taboo throughout the EU. National sovereignty is sacred. In one way, you can understand this, since even the Americans forebear to hot-pursue terrorist suspects in Iraq once they race across the border into the safe embrace of Iran or Syria. Yet this is probably the single biggest mistake of the war, that Iran and Syria remain unscathed and unpunished regardless of the mayhem they promote and facilitate in Iraq. So why would they stop? Nevertheless, to its credit, the EU has been trying to further toughen up the existing legislation. It has drafted a new law which, to foster even more police co-operation, would enable EU police forces to share fingerprints, DNA and vehicle-registration data more easily. But the key innovation is to allow hot pursuit across country borders where life or limb is endangered. Apart from spoiling the plots of future EU movies, such hot-pursuit is a thoroughly admirable development. Gunmen and terrorists should not be able to escape the gendarmerie simply by strolling across from France into Germany. Under the Schengen agreement, there are no restrictions or barriers whatsoever between these two nations, which means anyone cross whenever he/she wants, in either direction, without challenge or even being counted. Except the police of one state whilst chasing criminals who flee into another. This is a truly odd state of affairs, which the EU is trying to reverse. The EU is now a club of twenty-seven members and 490 million people. Yet somehow, just 1.7m of them have managed to torpedo this new legislation. And no, it's not one of the triumvirate of EUrodots - Cyprus, Luxembourg and Malta. It's the population of Ulster, of Northern Ireland. They can't bear the idea of the Republic's police force, the Garda Síochána, charging into their jurisdiction in hot pursuit, regardless of how dangerous the prey might be to life or limb. So, in the interests of the recently delivered peace process and avoiding upsetting any of the prima donnas who are at its centre, both the UK and Ireland have sought an opt-out from the hot-pursuit clause. Better, they believe, that someone loses his life to a border-crossing criminal than that Northern Ireland's precious “sovereignty” be violated. The other 25 members, however, are so disgusted at the attempted opt-out that they are planning to drop the entire package of legislation altogether. Criminals across Europe must be toasting their Ulster compadres in smuggled champagne for their success in protecting their cross-border boltholes from pursuing cops. And the EU movie industry can breathe a little more easily. For years unionists opposed to the peace process have thrilled to the rallying call: “Ulster says NO!”. And it's not gone away, y'know.
The catfish is a curious creature from prehistoric times. It is characterised by its barbels - slender, whiskerlike, tactile organs near the mouth - which resemble cat's whiskers, which give it its name. Some mistake the barbels to be arms, weapons for attacking their prey. But they are not; they are simply the means by which the fish tastes its food before pouncing on it.
In its many sub-species, the catfish varies in length from 15 cm (the Candirú) to nearly 3 metres and 300 kg (the endangered Mekong Giant). And on an individual basis it has remarkable survival skills. It'll eat anything, and the bigger ones grow at an astonishing 2 kg per month. Though they are either freshwater (mainly) or saltwater specialists, many can survive in either. And indeed on dry land as well, for long periods, which makes them hard to kill when caught. They are also known to come ashore and wriggle across land for tens of metres to find a more propitious body of water. The catfish's scavenging, eat-anything voracious diet is the reason many people refrain from eating it. It is a specialty in the southern US, but eschewed as dirty in the Caribbean. Much loved in West Africa, but viewed with suspicion in the Philippines. But if you don't want to eat him, he will be more than willing to eat you. A couple of weeks ago, 38-year-old Phil Tanner, fishing off a pier in southern England, got a shock as he reeled one in – and the fish decided to fight back. His catch bit him on the nose and wouldn’t let go. “It was agony,” he wailed, “I could feel it chomping as if it wanted me for its last meal”, which I am sure it did. It reminded me of a true story some years ago when I lived in Nigeria. I was invited to a cocktail party in Port Harcourt and got talking to the prominent hostess, whose anonymity and blushes I will, er, spare since she is married to the president of OPEC. When I remarked on a bandage on her upper arm, she told me that the previous day she had gone to the fish market to buy a suitable specimen for the party. She selected a large catfish and brought him home to the kitchen. However, as she wielded her knife to gut him, he suddenly demonstrated his ability to survive for long periods out of water by leaping out of the kitchen sink and plunging his teeth deep into her arm. No amount of manipulation, stabbing or screams would persuade him to let go, so she drove straight to the nearby hospital with the fish still relentlessly attached. There, only by decapitation (an operation not routinely performed in A&E), could the fish be removed, and then only after the complete dismemberment of his dead jaws using scalpels and pliers. The nasty wound on her arm was cleaned, stitched and bandaged up, she was
given a tetanus shot, and sent on her way. But not before she
demanded the immediate return of her fish.
There was an altercation with the medical staff as patients do not usually demand the return of body parts. But Mr Catfish was expensive, she explained, and she had a big party the next evening. So they reluctantly fished him out of the hospital waste, rinsed him off and handed him back to her. I'm glad she hung on to him, just as he had hung on to her. Cut into chunky pieces and deep fried in batter, he was delicious, arm or no arm.
In its final glory, it comprised two outer circles of 60 massive stones of up to 25 tons, within which stood a horseshoe of fifteen similar stones, with every two vertical stones supporting one horizontal lintel. Whilst the purpose of the monument remains a mystery, an even bigger mystery is how people transported the stones and erected them. Most theories are based upon the use of sledges, pulleys, levers and raw manpower, but no-one has yet managed to emulate those ancient construction workers. But Wally Wallington, from Flint in Michigan has come up with a completely radical approach, which postulates that Stonehenge could have been constructed by just one man. Yes, one man. And to demonstrate this, he is single-handedly building, in his own backyard, his own Stonehenge, comprising eight uprights and two lintels, each of them a ten-ton cast-concrete monolith. Have a look at the video clip below, and then learn more here.
Thanks Vincent Huggins for putting me on to this.
Week 152's Letters to the Press Two letters, the one about Bertie's character rather pathetic, the other more serious. The second might eventually get published once the editor checks the veracity of my little history lesson, which few seem to be aware of, least of all Palestinian leaders.
Quote: “We all wish that foreign troops would leave the region [ie Iraq and Afghanistan] and give a chance to countries in the region to establish security themselves.”
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at a meeting with
You can bet that Mr Ahmadinejad would just love Quote: “The vaunted international community would prefer the World Bank to allow rampant corruption to flourish in developing nations than see a reviled neocon [ie Paul Wolfowitz] succeed as its president – just as there are plenty of opponents of the Iraq war who would rather let a murderous civil war rip than give Bush the satisfaction of seeing democracy take root in place of a dreaded tyranny. In their own way they are both uncomfortable versions of the truth.”
Columnist Sarah Baxter commenting on Quote: “We cannot just be overtaken by globalisation.” New French president and pocket-dynamo, Nicolas Sarkozy
EU Commission president Manuel Barroso replies. Expect fireworks ahead. Quote (Minute 8+ in this audio clip): “You have no views at all. Your brain is empty, you have no views at all. Is that right?”
In a hilarious interview on the BBC's flagship
Today
“It trivializes divorce”
commented Rick Tivers,
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ISSUE #151 - 13th May 2007 [451+273=724]
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Professional Peacemongers Exacerbate War We all (well, most of us) believe in peace, prosperity and happiness for everyone. That's what citizens of western Europe have enjoyed since the end of the second world war in 1945. Though many are loath to admit we have America to thank for that.
No wonder we all hate them.
Europeans prefer to believe that their peace and prosperity began with the founding in Paris in 1952 of the European Coal and Steel Community, direct progenitor of the EEC (1957), the EC (1967) and European Union (1992), and that these institutions are what have fostered the good and peaceful times. It's easy to forget that the EU's ability to spend vast sums on its own development, not to mention super-generous welfare systems, would not have been possible without neglecting its own security, earmarking just 1-2½% of GDP for military spending. With the menace from the Kremlin, this was possible thanks only to the paternal umbrella of America, spending over 4% of its GDP on defence. Even today, protective American troops in their tens of thousands are stationed on EU soil. Of the Europeans, only Greece spends a chunky amount on soldiery - 4.3% - but that's only because America is not prepared to guarantee its security against its main threat (and NATO ally!), Turkey, which spends 5.3%. The sainted EU, as part of its Golden Jubilee celebrations (50 years since since the birth of the EEC), anointed 9th May as something called “Europe Day”, and invited to Brussels thirteen assorted Nobel Peace Prize laureates, including two pairs from Northern Ireland. Here's part of what two of them said in their formal speeches. Mairead Corrigan, co-winner in 1976 for campaigning against violence in Northern Ireland (under the banner “Women for Peace”), had a go at North European and American involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Indeed there are; how very perceptive she is.
But that, of course, is not what Ms Corrigan means. She means that Mullah and Saddam should have been invited to a round-table discussion, perhaps in Belfast under the joint chairmanship of Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams, after which, with much hugging and kissing, they would have willingly and gaily converted their countries into jubilant democracies. She also, I suspect, considers the lethal marketplace bombs exploding in Afghanistan and Iraq are the fault of the Americans, who are trying to prevent them, not the deranged Islamicists who are actually setting them off. This woman has taken leave of her senses, and of her morality. Then there was the contribution of John Hume, a true hero who over many long and lonely years, who midwifed the Northern Ireland peace-process, only to see, once the peace really began to gain traction, his political party, the (nationalist) SDLP, destroyed in the polls in favour of Sinn Féin. He was deservedly co-awarded, with David Trimble, the Nobel Peace Prize in 1998. But his fatuous observation in Brussels was that
Does he think the US and EU are fighting a war against each other? Doesn't he know other parties are involved in the struggle? Now I know that he, like the rest of us, does not particularly relish the notion of his head being sawn off without anaesthetic on prime time Al Jazeera TV. But can he really not know that the Islamicists of - inter alia - Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Pakistan, Algeria, Indonesia, Hezbollah, Hamas and others have been engaged, since at least the Iranian revolution of 1979, in an openly declared global jihad aimed at the Koranic murder, enslavement or conversion of all infidels? Or does he think that that is a perfectly legitimate cultural aspiration, just like Irishmen who would prefer to see Ireland reunited? Shouldn't his priority be to demand that the jihadists be the ones who “should come together to create a world without war”. If he can't figure this out, or is to too afraid to enunciate it, he should at least stay silent and enjoy his well-earned retirement, not add petrol to the flames. It is treasonous to give comfort to the enemy by pretending that the Americans and Europeans have precipitated the war against Islamism, when the very opposite is plainly the case. What they are doing is defending western values of democracy, freedom and rule-of-law against the Islamists who would destroy them. In Afghanistan and Iraq, overwhelming majorities have freely voted for a democratic future. Why do both these laureates, Ms Corrigan and Mr Hume, think such defence is somehow wrong? They, along with many of today's self-styled anti-war campaigners in the West (in practice pro-war pro the other side campaigners), suffer from the same sanctimonious blind-spot as other well-meaning and successful activists such as Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King. The non-violent resistance of the latter two champions was successful solely because, notwithstanding their bravery, their adversaries - respectively the British and American nations - were democratic and behaved in a civilised fashion. Had they tried the same non-violent approach against, say, the Nazis, or the Soviets, or Mao, or Pol Pot, or Castro, or Saddam, or Mullah Omar, they would have been machine-gunned without compunction, and died as forgotten failures. Northern Ireland's Nobel winners, who clearly see themselves as professional peacemongers, have evidently never encountered and cannot imagine state machinery that is less gentlemanly than that of a typical Western democracy. And therefore they irrationally conclude that those Western democracies which behave more robustly, such as America and Britain, are inherently thuggish and bad. It is an extreme case of moral equivalence married to geopolitical ignorance, and serves only to exacerbate war not lessen it. I am shocked. From such revered people, so much more maturity and morality are expected. They should realise that Northern Ireland's peace process, and thus their own expertise, hold very few lessons for the war against Islamism.
John Browne's Body of Lies A-Smoldering A few years ago, I wrote a piece entitled “It’s the Lies that Get Them - Every Time” which recounted how, when prominent people commit a faux pas, it is rarely the original sin that gets them into trouble. It is the lies they weave when they try and hide their peccadillo. Recall ...
In each case, they got into trouble (respectively tears, resignation, resignation, impeachment, prison) because when their sordid little stories came to light they lied about them, denying the truth. You would think that the mighty and the good would learn from the misery of their peers, but it appears not. Here in Ireland, the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, currently on the campaign trail for a historic third term, is dodging and weaving from questions about his personal finances when he was Finance Minister in the early 1990s.
He has just about got away with the first cock-and-bull story, but the second is still live. The longer his preposterous explanation floats in the wind the more likely investigative journalists will seek out the flaws. The obvious answer is that Mr Ahern asked the “Landlord” to buy the house for him in trust because, for whatever reason he didn't want his name appearing on the deeds.
Mr Ahern should seriously contemplate the case of Lord John Browne, whose glittering career has just disintegrated in a flash.
For 12 years he was chief executive of BP, but by the end of his tenure he had also become
Whew! You would wonder how he ever had time for his day job. Perhaps he didn't, for his achievements were not unmarred.
Yet the share price today, at around £5, is pretty much what it was back in 1999. Moreover, a catastrophic 2005 refinery fire in Texas which killed fifteen people is blamed on BP's over-zealous cost-cutting, as is a dreadful 200,000 barrel oil spill from a ruptured pipeline in Alaska in 2006. Nevertheless Lord Browne has always been held in
extremely high esteem, both within and outside the company.
For years, it has been an open secret that he's gay. Yet no-one cared. However he recently fell out with his boyfriend, who then went to the press with his kiss-and-tell story. In the course of legal proceedings to prevent publication, Lord Browne lied, under oath, about how he first met Jeff Chevalier: he said it was in Battersea Park whereas they found each other via an internet escort agency. I mean, who cares? He also told a string of lies about Mr Chevalier's drink and drug habits. For a fortnight, John Browne's body of lies a-smoldered in a grave of silence. But when the truth at last came out, the Judge was incensed at his perjury and castigated him as if he were an errant schoolboy. The Lord was forced to resign from BP in ignominy, and with immediate forfeiture of £15m in retirement benefits. Being born a homosexual? That's not his fault. Hiring rent-boys? Frankly no-one gives a damn. But telling porkies. Now that's unforgivable. When will they ever learn?
When I give talks about safety management, I always stress the importance of attitude. Attitude, which costs no money, is often the crucial difference between safe and unsafe behaviour, between workers going home to their families in one piece, or stopping en-route for a couple of weeks in the local hospital's intensive care unit. It is no good knowing what to do and having the skills to do it, if you don't have the attitude to do it properly. For example, when I drive my car, my personal attitude and nothing else determines whether I keep to the speed limit or break it. Attitude is a hugely powerful human force, whether for good or ill. It can often mean overcoming extraordinary odds, as countless sportsmen, not to mention military heroes, can attest. The same goes for the animal kingdom, where a smaller or weaker creature, even a vegan, can use attitude alone to defeat a thuggish predator. A pet tortoise chasing cats off a lawn? A rabbit hounding a killer snake up a tree? A zebra drowning a lioness? These are truly animals with attitude. See for yourself!
A tortoise with attitude defends his home territory (2 min 14 secs).
A very determined rabbit sees off a vicious snake (57 secs).
A zebra with attitude doesn't always end up as lunch (2:44).
Week 151's Letter to the Press One letter this week, and it was published, in the Sunday Times. Also, a letter I wrote a week ago about an Irish politician's |
