Osama Bin Laden is dead

I don't cheer at the deaths of my enemies, but I hope this gives some closure to all those who haven't had it.

Full credit to some very gutsy US operatives.
And to the Obama administration. It has to be said, because elements of the American Right have been drooling for an attack to blame on him just as they will now deny that his administration is due any credit for this.

The money behind terror, and Neocon failure

Loretta Napoleoni is an Italian economist, political analyst and author who is an expert on the financing of terrorism.

She's in Australia at the moment and speaking at the University of Sydney.

Some of her commentary puts an interesting persective on what the so called war on terror has cost us...

Napoleoni writes... " The interdependency between terrorism and the global economy goes well beyond the credit crunch, the recession and the euro crisis. Since September 11 it has been extending the boundaries of a shadow world which threatens to replace our own if we do not break away from the legacy of the ''war on terror''. Bringing the troops home is not enough; we need to focus on the true target of this war, on the lifeline of terrorism - we need to focus on the money. "

Along the way she takes a swipe at some of the Bush administrations more egregious failures and inattentions...

She notes the Patriot Act didn't do a thing to stop terrorist financing, but it did prompt Muslim investors to switch investments worth $US1 trillion from the dollar to the euro. The global demand for the greenback retreated drastically in the wake of this.

Previously too, interest rates were the method of counteracting recurrent economic crises - such the Asian financial crisis. Too-low interest rates only hide problems.
However, for a war-chest going into Iraq, the Bush administration sold billions in treasury bonds, and to make that debt competitive, the Federal Reserve progressively slashed interest rates, which fell from 6% before 9/11 to 1.2% by mid-2003.

Bush and co were asleep at the wheel in the economy, as in everything else, and paid little attention to signs of an overheating globalised economy - the housing boom and growing personal debt.

They also paid too little attention to how terrorism is financed. Perhaps it just wasn't heroic and pyrotechnic enough for neocon tastes.

Others have commented on this neocon attitude that things are only worthwhile if they cost the earth. Or someone's blood.
Dr William Coleman, of the department of Economics at the Australian National University, notes of neocon attitudes: "...heroism is only heroism if it is costly. And the more costly it is, the more valuable it is. Thus a hostility to cost amounts to a hostility to heroism."

That is, it has to be said, a lethal circle.

I'll leave the last word with Napoleoni... " Washington's fixation with military intervention also prevented the formulation of an effective policy to thwart terrorist financing, which nobody ever regarded as a real priority. "

Observation of the evening

"The main goal of terrorist attacks anywhere is to drive the victims crazy: to goad them into doing stupid, violent things that ultimately play into the hands of those who planned the attacks. Terrorism is a kind of political jiu-jitsu in which a relatively weak group (like al-Qaeda) attempts to trick a far stronger enemy (like the US government) into a self-defeating response.
.... The last thing al-Qaeda wants is for the infidels to go home."

- Gwynne Dyer, independent journalist.

(Real) terrorism alert for India

" The Australian government has warned of an imminent terrorist attack in the Indian capital Delhi just months before the Commonwealth Games are held in the city. Strong terrorism alerts for Delhi were issued by several Western governments, including the US, yesterday. ''Specific and credible information indicates that terrorist attacks in New Delhi, especially in markets, may be imminent...'' "

- Matt Wade, reporting in New Delhi for The Age.

For "terrorist attack" read shooting and or explosions in crowded places.
Not illegal immigration, not people smuggling, not refugees....
Rather... People who want to KILL you - not who want to have a job like yours, and have a refrigerator full of food, like yours.

Keep America Safe for Justice

Liz Cheney is apparently is not familiar with the notion that a trial is meant to be conducted by professional lawyers and that justice requires the accused have a competent defence.

She has been royally smashed from elements of both political vectors over the "al Qaeda Seven" slur.
Deservedly, although the comparison to McCarthyism is held at arms length on the conservative side.

I don't think I could - were I a lawyer - stomach being the defence lawyer for a lot of people in this world. Yet because of that... the more I recognise the professional detachment, commitment to the rule of law and the moral courage of those who do.

I note with amusement that the Keep America Safe site has a link to none other than Rush Limbaugh defending Liz Cheney.
No professional legal defence for Liz - just a Youtube of drug-addled shock jock instead.

The Christian Science Monitor - not exactly a force for Left-leaning dialogue - notes John Adams himself wrote that his defence of enemy British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre was “one of the most gallant, generous, manly and disinterested Actions of my whole Life, and one of the best Pieces of Service I ever rendered my Country.”

Defending terrorism suspects did not come without cost to those who did it in the military justice system either...

Lieutenant Colonel Michael Mori - then a Major - was the military lawyer for David Hicks.

David Hicks is an Australian man who was captured by the Afghan Northern Alliance in December 2001 and turned over to US Special Forces. He was then detained in Guantanamo Bay till 2007. In a very murky and controversial process of legal bargaining he was given over to Australian authorities in May 2007 and finally released in December 2007.

Major Mori was passed over for promotion twice subsequent to taking on the Hicks case.

Incidentally, Hicks alleges that while at Guantanamo Bay he was beaten, forced to run while shackled which causes ankle injury, injected without consent and subject to sleep deprivation, and that he witnessed attack dogs being used to maul detainees.
He was subject to a control order after his release, but 12 months later the Australian Federal Police declined to renew it.
Hicks has since married and has lived a quiet life in Sydney.

The Australian Lawyers alliance awarded Mori a civil justice award for recognition "of unsung heroes who, despite personal risk or sacrifice, have fought to preserve individual rights, human dignity or safety".

Mori was in time promoted and is now a senior military judge. He was very critical of the military justice system and at lack of promotion was considering retirement. Since promotion he has decided to continue his career. His criticism is also "more guarded" now.

I wonder what he would say of it had he not been promoted...

"Excuse me, we need your identity to kill someone..."

How would you feel.... if you were innocently living your life and discovered that your identity had been stolen, used in the assassination of a senior leader of Hamas, and then your name and face sprayed all over the world as being connected?

Dubai police have released the names of the holders of 26 Western passports they say are suspects in the killing of Mahmud al-Mabhuh, electrocuted and suffocated, in a Dubai hotel room on January 20th.

Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan of the Dubai police stated he is “99, if not 100 per cent” sure that the Israeli eternal intelligence agency, the Mossad, was behind Mabhuh's death, and said there was evidence, including wiretaps, of their role. Israel has only said there is "no evidence" linking them to the killing.

I'm basically pro-Israel in as much as I recognize the country's right to exist, and defend itself within ethical limits.
That does not extend to potentially framing my countrymen for murder, or anyone else's for that matter.

The fake passports were British, Irish, French, German and those of two Australian men and one Australian woman.
Five very pissed off governments.

Australian foreign affairs minister Stephen Smith called in the Israeli ambassador this morning. He warned Israel that its relationship with Australia could be damaged if evidence is found it was involved in forging Australian passports.

Smith said "I've made it crystal clear to the ambassador that if the results of that investigation cause us to come to the conclusion that the abuse of Australian passports was in any way sponsored or condoned by Israeli officials, then Australia would not regard that as the act of a friend".

Ronen Bergman, a security analyst writing for the Yediot Aharonot newspaper in Israel commented:

"Was Mabhuh worth this? It depends whom you ask. Most of the people involved agree that the enormous risk, whose full details will never be revealed, would have been justified only if he himself had been smuggling a nuclear warhead from Tehran to Gaza....Other than that, there is no terror activist who is worth it."

How about we ask the 26 passport holders if they think it was worth it?

Sydney terrorism suspects convicted

Between 2005 and 2006, ASIO (Australian Secret Intelligence Organisation) identified a plot to mount a major terrorist strike on Australian soil.

9 men were arrested, 4 pleaded guilty to lesser offences and the other 5 were found guilty and sentenced today to 23 to 28 years in prison in the biggest terrorism trial yet seen in this country.

They were all Australian Muslims, found guilty on the evidence of stockpiling chemicals and weapons, and were in possession of a mass of propagandist paraphernalia, including videos of ritual executions. When sentenced, they all smiled.

I should point out that the Australian Muslim community in general denounces terrorism in all forms and actively works with police and moderating influences. These men were the exception and not representative of the vast majority of Muslims.

The trial went for 10 months. The court heard the five jihadists wanted to terrify and intimidate the Australian public and Government in retaliation for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where Australia is a close ally of the United States.

Never revealed was the target. It's not totally clear whether this is because one had not been decided, or it has been deemed better that it not be revealed. Either way the prosecution did not reveal it, which I find curious. The jury heard from 300 witnesses, examined 3,000 exhibits, watched 30 days of surveillance tapes and listened to 18 hours of phone intercepts.

The ringleader had stored enough ammunition to keep firing for 37 hours.

Blair unrepentant

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair says he had no regrets over the invasion of Iraq...

No matter the lack of WMDs, the intense public disquiet, the massive number of casualties and the subsequent debacle of a failing occupation... he thinks it was worth it. More troubling, he says Iran presents the same opportunity to mount pre-emptive slaughter.

As you will have worked out by now, I am of the opinion that the war was a catastrophe for the rule of law and the struggle against terrorism. For what little it counts, I was of this opinion before the coalition of the willingly fooled even went into Iraq.

"So you'd prefer Saddam Hussein was still in power?" is the inevitable cheap retort (and strawman argument).
The answer is "no, I would prefer he'd have been removed by means other than full scale invasion".
Tracking this hypothetical exchange to its next evolution, I would then come under attack for hypocrisy and "moral confusion"...

As if moral clarity automatically means "...invade". It does not.
There is nothing clouded about my morality: I think massive unnecessary death is a very bad thing. I think creating a beacon for terrorism in the Middle East was a very bad thing. And I think deception of the public about how, why and when the decision was arrived at... was a very bad thing.

Much has been made of Blair's religious bent in how he arrived at his decisions.

Matthew Parris, formerly a conservative MP, writes:

"Tony Blair is a Manichean, or dualist. He believes that the Universe is best understood as an eternal struggle between the forces of good and evil, in contention for dominance. Christians are supposed to believe that the battle is already won, and Mr Blair’s dualism is (paradoxically) closer to Islamic fundamentalism than to the Gospels. For Mr Blair at least “Axis of Evil” was not just a Bushite soundbite: it was a profound philosophical insight into the meaning of world history."

I'm personally not convinced that Christians are in fact supposed to believe the battle is already won, but whatever... rigid dualism in politics is dangerous, is the point.
All 'our' enemies are not, in fact, friends of one another. Acting is if they are, or as if the fact doesn't matter... is stupidly dangerous. It DOES matter. How destroying Al-Qaeda transformed into taking down a regime who were hated by Al-Qaeda and who had nothing to do with 9/11 will become a paradox of policy that will darkly entertain students, teachers and observers of political theory for centuries to come, should civilisation live so long (I like to think it will).

Parris categorises the different types of people who are bitter about Blair's lack of repentance into original opposers of the war (like me), hindsight critics, and another group: "most ominously of all, a number who have not really repented of their doctrine of muscular interventionism, are now eyeing up Iran, and badly need to distinguish between what happened last time and what might happen if we try it again."

Comments by Parris in The Times Online, sourced here.

Terrorism, as I remember it...

I came close to violent death twice during the time I lived in Japan.

Once would have been at the hands of low-level yakuza, who 'conveyed' me from a part of Tokyo where they were engaged in something private. They could in truth have cut me into little pieces and dumped the bits into the Sumida river. I should have shat myself on the spot... but the experience was so surreal and unexpected - and I was so young and stupid - that I didn't feel anything till my coffee was shaking in my hand an hour later in a cafe. Overall.... that's now just a strange thing that happened to me once, remembered by no-one else but me.

The second time was when I missed a train, and unfortunately this incident is infamous...

It was 1995 and Aum Shinrikyo (Aum Supreme Truth and now called Aleph) released sarin, a poison gas, into the subway near Kasumigaseki in Tokyo. Twelve dead and nearly a thousand affected. It could have been a thousand dead and twelve thousand affected, and it wasn't the last time they tried.

Aum were and are religious nuts. They weren't Right or Left. They were starting something they somehow thought would trigger Armageddon. Their pig of a leader took the concept from the book of Revelation.

There was such shock at the time... for this atrocity was not committed by devious foreigners or a loopy regime like North Korea... it was committed by educated and seemingly respectable people among their own citizenry.
Aum, among their other revolting features, were a hate group. The leadership bought into conspiracy theories about Jews ruling the world, and - needless to say - they were anti-government.

The police swooped. They were on to Aum already.
The public were singularly without outrage that homeland security was taken seriously, that religious cults were watched, and that people storing weapons were not regarded as patriots.

When their compounds were raided, it was discovered that they had imported samples of anthrax and ebola. They had a helicopter.
And a lot of guns.

Could that happen anywhere? Is it a relevant example?
There are a number of grieving families who would think so.