Four Lions trailer
Still no news on an Irish release date, but the first feature film from ground-breaking broadcaster Chris Morris is poised to hit British cinemas very soon.
Expectations born of madness
Top US officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have been calling for the military to go after the militants in these regions.
All this comes at a time when Pakistan’s government is already under a great deal of domestic criticism.
This is mainly due to increased missile strikes by the US targeting Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders in the tribal areas.
These have turned a sometimes ambivalent tribal population against the Pakistan military.
Analysts say the tribesmen see the strikes, which have claimed more lives of civilians than of militants, as contiguous with the military operation.
I was imagining a scenario where the roles were reversed back on September 11th 2001. How different everything would be. If an extremist group of fundamentalist Christians had crashed a cargo plane full of explosives into The Great Mosque in Mecca. And now, almost a decade on, unmanned drones adorned with Islam’s Crescent Moon are levelling homes in Texas and Utah. Sometimes, killing sympathisers and extremists. More often, killing regular American families.
Embracing the insanity of their predecessorCan you imagine how much pressure the world would need to put on the US government to make them turn a blind eye to this bombing campaign? Which is exactly what America expects of the Pakistani authorities.
And would the people of America see these raids as justified? Or would they instead swear bloody vengeance on the perpetrators, and view the complicity of their own government as the most despicable betrayal in American history?
Expecting the government of Pakistan to accept the regular killing of innocent civilians — people whose interests they are supposed to represent — by a foreign military. Even when that killing is done in error…
It’s unreasonable. And it is a demonstration, among many, of the psychotic nature of The War Against Terror and of modern politics in general.
Chris Morris, film director
It’s a nailed-on certainty that the Daily Mail is going to have an outrage-athon when it’s released (the premiere is tonight at The Sundance Festival). But if the first feature film from Chris Morris (Day Today, Blue Jam, Brass Eye, etc.) is half as funny as this clip implies, then it’s also a nailed-on certainty that it’ll be worth seeing. Four Lions is being described as “jihadist comedy”.
A free Mann
Equatorial Guinea is a pretty awful place to live. Unless, of course, you happen to be a member of the ruling elite. Despite experiencing recent economic growth thanks to the discovery of oil, the population largely live in poverty with almost all of the petroleum revenue being appropriated by President Obiang to fund a luxurious lifestyle for him and his inner circle, as well as ensuring the military are paid well enough to keep him in power. Although there are occasional elections, they are quite obviously loaded in Obiang’s favour and nobody is under any illusions about him being willing to relinquish power voluntarily. He is a dictator in all but name, and while he probably isn’t responsible for quite as much bloodshed and tyranny as the guy he overthrew, that’s really not saying much given the record of Francisco Macías Nguema. Macías reputably had a penchant for mass public executions to the soundtrack of Mary Hopkin’s Those Were The Days. His regime was nightmarish in the most literal of senses… terrifying and surreal all at once, like a David Lynch film writ large.
If you’re an ordinary person in Equatorial Guinea, you have a difficult life and probably quite a short one.
It’s worth pointing out that when people describe Equatorial Guinea as “oil rich”, it’s a statement that needs to be placed in some context. In fact, with estimated recoverable reserves of a little under 2 billion barrels, Equatorial Guinea represents a fraction of one percent of global oil. However, with a population of less than 650,000 that should, in the right hands, be enough wealth to provide the country with a more than adequate health, education and social welfare system. Given their oil resources in proportion to their population size Equatorial Guinea could be a very pleasant place to live given radically different circumstances.
It’s the sort of place that could desperately do with a change in government.
And about five years ago, a group of men decided to try do just that. A bunch of South African mercenaries led by Simon Mann (a former British SAS officer turned soldier-for-hire) were preparing to launch a coup d’état when they were seized enroute to Equatorial Guinea. The Zimbabwean government intercepted their chartered plane when it touched down in Harare to take on supplies and Mann was extradited to the small West African nation to stand trial. During the trial allegations were made that Mann’s coup attempt was being backed by members of the British establishment including Sir Mark Thatcher (son of a certain ex-Prime Minister) and Jeffrey Archer (baron, bad novelist, prominent tory and all round git). These remain “allegations”, though Thatcher’s involvement in providing logistical support has been proven despite his insistence that he was unaware of the details of the plan and had no idea Mann and his private army were up to anything dodgy.
The details of the operation are obviously a little vague, but the basic plan seems to have been to overthrow Obiang and install either Mann himself or a local puppet as President of the country whereupon those who organised, financed and took part in the coup would reap the rewards in much the same way that Obiang currently does. I feel confident that largescale infrastructure projects and a redistribution of the oil wealth to the general populace wasn’t on the cards.
Mann was placed on trial in Equatorial Guinea and found guilty of plotting to overthrow the government. In July last year he was sentenced to 34 years in prison.
Now, it’s fair to say that Equatorial Guinea probably doesn’t have the most robust or transparent judiciary. People like President Obiang rarely install that kind of thing in the countries they rule. Dictators can be funny like that. Nonetheless, there’s no question — given Mann’s own public statements — that the basic facts are as stated. Surprisingly (or not if you assume that some kind of deal was done… cf. not the most robust or transparent judiciary) Mann has just been released having served less than a year and a half of his 34 year sentence. He appears to be a guy with an axe to grind and is looking to get even with the other coup plotters who left him swinging in the wind.
Despite the obvious relish with which some are anticipating whatever he’s got up his sleeve for Thatcher, there are others; Merrick for instance; who point out quite rightly that “a vicious mercenary is now free to enjoy his millionaire’s lifestyle and work on his book deal and film options”. This is hardly very satisfactory and is a somewhat lamentable outcome to the entire affair.
John Band, on the other hand, via that horrid twitter service that irritates me considerably, makes the following comments…
Struggling to see why Merrick upset re S Mann – Eq Guinea one of Africa’s vilest regimes, so no biggie if overthrown
and then (because twitter insists on breaking simplistic soundbites down into absurd soundnibbles)
If he’d been overthrowing an (even vaguely) democratic or liberal government, *that* would actually matter
Taken at face value (and Twitter is doubtlessly doing John a disservice by reducing his position to two sentences of less than 140 characters each) that’s a pretty dreadful sentiment. It seems to be saying that so long as the regime is bad enough, it doesn’t matter if rich westerners storm into an African country, kill a bunch of people, overthrow the government and then syphon off the mineral wealth for their own benefit. It’s an endorsement of violent imperialism because the suggestion that Mann and his 70 heavily armed mercenaries were going to liberate the people of Equatorial Guinea from tyranny is risible.
Perhaps they’d have set up a regime that was moderately less oppressive? But that resolves into an endorsement of Obiang’s government given the fact that it is moderately less oppressive than the Macías dictatorship it replaced.
The reason we should be upset about the likes of Simon Mann and his establishment backers… the reason their actions should matter… is because military intervention and murder for personal gain should not be tolerated even if most of the dead were bastards. People like Mann are no different to the Obiangs of the world, even if he did go to Eton. And I’m a little taken aback that John seems to think it doesn’t matter if they go tearing around Africa pocketing the continent’s wealth at gunpoint.
Awww… it’s a little nuke
Over at U-Know! someone posted a link to an article in The Guardian from last November (Mini nuclear plants to power 20,000 homes). The article discusses a technology under development by Hyperion Power Generation in Los Alamos, New Mexico. It’s essentially a small nuclear reactor capable of powering tens of thousands of homes and costing a relatively modest $25m.
A quick search on google news reveals an article on Reuters as recently as this week (Hyperion Has a $100M Valuation for Mini Nuclear Power) which includes the paragraph:
Although nuclear power produces radioactive waste, it doesn’t release greenhouse gases and it has vocal supporters in the new administration, including Energy Secretary Steven Chu. So it’s not so far-fetched for investors to see the potential of Hyperion’s nuclear option.
Now those two articles and a reading of Hyperion’s website (mostly marketing bumpf investor relations) are the extent of my knowledge on this subject, so I don’t know enough about the specifics of their solution to offer a considered critique of the actual technology. However there are some generic criticisms of this approach to energy production that I feel are valid and worth highlighting. All the same, I’m flagging this post in advance as a “first thoughts / first impressions” thing. OK?
And on that basis… yikes!
Small enough to be transported on a ship, truck or train, Hyperion power modules are about the size of a “hot tub” — approximately 1.5 meters wide. Out of sight and safe from nefarious threats, Hyperion power modules are buried far underground and guarded by a security detail. Like a power battery, Hyperion modules have no moving parts to wear down, and are delivered factory sealed. They are never opened on site. Even if one were compromised, the material inside would not be appropriate for proliferation purposes. Further, due to the unique, yet proven science upon which this new technology is based, it is impossible for the module to go supercritical, “melt down” or create any type of emergency situation. If opened, the very small amount of fuel that is enclosed would immediately cool. The waste produced after five years of operation is approximately the size of a softball and is a good candidate for fuel recycling.
Perfect for moderately-sized projects, Hyperion produces only 25 MWe — enough to provide electricity for about 20,000 average American sized homes or its industrial equivalent. Ganged or teamed together, the modules can produce even more consistent energy for larger projects.
The Hyperion team is committed to helping make the clean and safe benefits of nuclear power — benefits that could assist in solving the worst of our planet’s problems — available in even the most remote locations. We hope you will enjoy learning about Hyperion through our web site!
“Nefarious threats”? They make it sound like they’re securing the place against attack from Dr. Evil. Or that we live in a world where the worst thing that could happen is Terry-Thomas might show up and attempt to do something dastardly. Poor copywriting aside, I believe that passage from their website, coupled with some of the claims being made in the media, should raise some serious concerns.
Thousands of little nuclear reactors encased in concrete, scattered all over the world, maintained and secured by the lowest-cost local contractors? There’s a whole bunch of things wrong with that.
First of all, this commits us to a heavily industrialised future which I’m not sure is a sensible decision (i.e. one in which uranium mining and processing is done on a scale that rivals the modern oil industry — how this squares with the claim in the Reuters piece that “nuclear power [...] doesn’t release greenhouse gases” is anybody’s guess). I’m not suggesting we abandon technology or automation or electrical energy; merely that we need to scale our usage of these things back dramatically if we wish to use them sustainably. Be far smarter and more selective in the technologies we adopt or continue to use.
Secondly, the waste management issues just give me the head-staggers. It’s one thing having a few secure, essentially semi-militarised, locations where the waste is produced and stored. Even that’s problematic in my view. But to handle a massively distributed network (“available in even the most remote locations”) with a reasonable guarantee that none of the stuff ever ends up in the local reservoirs? Significantly increasing the amount of highly toxic waste we produce when there are alternatives? Future history books will view such decisions as criminally negligent… beyond reprehensible and into pure evil. Always assuming there’s going to be history books chronicling our times and crimes.
Thirdly, I’m always worried when the person selling the technology creates a huge straw man regarding security. What’s he trying to distract us from?
‘You could never have a Chernobyl-type event – there are no moving parts,’ said Deal. ‘You would need nation-state resources in order to enrich our uranium. Temperature-wise it’s too hot to handle. It would be like stealing a barbecue with your bare hands.’Mini nuclear plants to power 20,000 homes, The Guardian
I’m not too worried about someone weaponising this stuff. North Korea’s already done that, and depending upon how the next few years go in Pakistan, some seriously hardline Islamists may get their hands on that technology too. Also, I’m not so sure that we can rely upon Israel to pursue a rational, evidence-based foreign policy and even the countries we view as being a relatively safe pair of hands are more than capable of rationalising a pre-emptive strike one of these days. So the “scary people with nukes” cat is very much out of the bag.
What worries me isn’t a nation state getting hold of this stuff and weaponising it, but a less organised bunch of psychos getting hold of it and poisoning wells and water-tables for several generations. See, I’m not sure exactly what part of “stealing a barbecue with your bare hands” would have prevented the September 11th hijackers doing so if it was part of their mission. For me the security risk of these things is a dedicated group of nutters — some of whom, perhaps, work for a local concrete supply company? — who don’t care about getting their hands burnt, metaphorically speaking. Unfortunately it seems there are plenty of people who’d be willing to expose themselves to a lethal dose of radiation as they steal a bunch of uranium “softballs” from one of the more remote clusters of these things.
Even if powdering the stuff and dumping it into a handful of municipal reservoirs was demonstrated to only raise the risk of childhood leukemia by 0.5% in those areas, how soon before you’ve got a bunch of ghost-towns? Ghost-cities? Millions of families won’t make a level-headed and rational assessment of the risks when the headlines scream “Radioactive Reservoir! Al Qaeda dumps uranium in Dallas water supply!”
The whole thing is fraught with the kind of “What Ifs” that just don’t enter the equation when you recommend a combination of renewable energy and a reduction in consumption.
But I’d be interested in having those “What Ifs” answered and I’ll look out for more information on this over the coming months should it start to gain credibility. Maybe this is the magic space dust we’ve been waiting for.
Official: terrorism = Islamic terrorism
As you may have read, a small bomb exploded in New York’s Times Square early this morning. It went off in an army recruitment centre, but thankfully nobody was present at the time and there are no reports of any injuries. There seems little doubt that the bomb was planted there and detonated deliberately (i.e. there’s no suggestion that the building contained any US military hardware that may have malfunctioned and exploded).
And yet…
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the bombing did not appear to be an act of terrorism but the investigation was in its early stages.
BBC News | Small bomb hits NY Times Square
I was under the impression that anonymously planting bombs in public / government buildings and then setting them off, would automatically come under the heading of “terrorism” (even if it was being done by some lone — white christian — nutter with a grudge against the government). Perhaps I’m missing something here, but the only way I can interpret the White House statement is by assuming the authorities have reason to believe that the bomber was not an Islamist extremist, and therefore not a terrorist.
Climate Change: A thought-experiment
First up, a cautionary note; this blog post may end up somewhere a wee bit extreme. I’d like to stress that it’s a thought-experiment and I’m certainly not proposing policy here. Thankfully my readership is small and consists almost entirely of members of the choir, so there’s little chance of misinterpretation and/or accusations of apologism for terrorism.
Secondly, let’s state an assumption. If you don’t share this assumption, then the question raised by this thought-experiment isn’t really aimed at you (though you may wish to pay attention to how others respond — not here but in general — over the next few years).
The assumption: Climate Change is a reality. The emission of large quantities of ‘greenhouse gasses’ (primarily, though not exclusively CO2) by human civilisation is resulting in a warming of the atmosphere. This warming is having a whole bunch of both predictable (melting polar ice) and unpredictable (shifting weather patterns) effects. But given just the predictable effects of atmospheric warming, we have good reason to expect significant death and destruction as a direct result.
[Note: for brevity, when capitalised, "Climate Change" specifically refers to 'anthropogenic climate change']
Anyway that’s the assumption. If you don’t share it, then could I ask you to perhaps hold off with your objections for a while? I’m writing a piece specifically on the subject of Climate Change Denial and I don’t want to get into it here. For this piece, we’re running with the assumption.
We’re Looking Out For The Whales
Merrick recently drew my attention to news that a Norwegian whaling vessel had been sunk by anti-whaling activists. I firmly believe that most of my readers will whisper a quiet “nice one!” when reading that story. The activists scuttled the ship while nobody was aboard, and did it in such a way that it took four hours to sink, so even if someone had been, the chances of them being in any real danger was negligible. It’s a perfect piece of non-violent direct action and I believe most people who oppose whaling would consider it quite legitimate. If I’m wrong about that then I guess it makes my views more extreme than I imagined, and it also makes the rest of this blog post entirely irrelevant. Sorry about that.
It goes without saying that I’m using a specific definition of “non-violent” action here. Clearly there’s a definition of the word “violent” that includes property damage. But I’m appealing to that a long-established principle within political activism that presumes ‘the tools of tyranny’ to be fair game. And yes, there are those who argue that “the police force” or “the army” or “management” are actually ‘tools of tyranny’, but as I understand it and use it here, non-violent political action includes a clear prohibition on interpersonal violence; “no action aimed at (or that has a significant likelihood of) causing physical harm to people”.
So yeah, assuming I’m not wrong, and most people see the anti-whaling action as legitimate, it raises an awkward question for me. Give it some thought, always bearing in mind the following three items:
- the unprecedented death and destruction that will result should we be insufficiently aggressive in tackling the threat of Climate Change;
- the outcome of the Ploughshares Legal Case, where peace activists wrecked a military aircraft built by BAe for the Indonesian airforce, but were acquitted in a British court when they successfully argued they were “preventing a greater crime”;
- the anti-whaling action mentioned above, where property destruction was achieved without endangering people, and which I contest most readers will feel is legitimate (on whatever “gut level” personal morality works).
The question is actually pretty obvious isn’t it? Context is everything, and by placing next to one another those three mildly controversial points, I pose a highly controversial dilemma. Specifically: are civil airliners, when grounded for maintenance (read, and take seriously, my previous point regarding non-violent direct action), entirely legitimate targets for acts of sabotage? And I’m talking here about legally legitimate as well as ethically. Combine items 1 and 2, above.
The Irish government, for instance, claims to accept the findings of the IPCC. However, the policies being implemented by our new greener government don’t even begin to reflect this. The same can be said of almost every government.
So if I can demonstrate (by the government’s own words) that Climate Change is a massive threat. If I can prove beyond question that current policies do not address the threat. Then if I show up at an aircraft maintenance facility and damage a 737 beyond repair, have I not done something both ethically and legally acceptable? Better yet, what if I and 5000 of my friends show up and wreck the entire facility? How can the destruction of commercial aircraft not be seen as direct action against Climate Change… as an attempt to prevent a greater crime?
Now, my suspicion is that while almost all of you were with me on the whaling ship thing, that I may have lost a few with the mass assault on the assets of the airline industry. It seems strangely less reasonable when it’s something familiar to us, something part of our lives, even though it may objectively be doing more damage. So it’s with some trepidation that I propose my real question…
Why stop with the planes… what about parked cars?