The sight of the last convoy of US troops crossing the Iraqi border into Kuwait and the safety of the US army camp's McDonalds there was greeted with applause by nearly all Americans at home and a fair proportion of Iraqis in what they see as their now liberated home. No public doubts in America though there are likely to be in the Pentagon and other thinking parts of the political machine but a few more in Iraq, particularly amongst the now potentially disadvantaged minority Sunnis.
Nobody has yet dared to attempt a full audit of the war, what Iraq was like before the invasion, what it is like now and what went on and at what cost in lives and money in between. America needs a favourable verdict for domestic consumption especially amongst the relatives of the 4,500 dead military and the much larger number of maimed and irreparably wounded ones. Getting that verdict is going to be extremely difficult especially when the much larger numbers of Iraqis in both catageories is added to the account. Then there is the ruined infrastructure of what was a viable, functioning state , the wrecked hospitals and schools, the lost years of education ..and... and... The bill mounts with each thought and scan of the mental radar. Could it all really have been worth it to topple one man and his cronies when surely cheaper and more clinical remedies were at hand thanks to the state of modern very high tech electronics, drones, smart bombs and the like? Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party were dreadful people and organisations but they posed little or no external threat. Iraq was a secular state, a buffer against Iran's ever present Gulf intentions and had a largely pro western history . Anti Israeli sabre rattling was largely orchestrated and cosmetic and it was doubtful if the country would go to war over it despite macho talk about that bogeyman the weapons of mass destruction. Saddam certainly had no truck with the Al Quaeda franchise, nothing at all to do with 9/11 and made sure that any signs of extremist trouble from out of line clerics were swiftly dealt with.
Now it's all over the academics and historians will come out of hiding and start to really examine the nuts and bolts of it all, hold the entrails up to the light and , along with the accountants and statisticians have a field day. The military and social analysts will be in there too. The origins, objectives, strategy, organisation and conduct of the war and its hideously expensive aftermath will receive the full glare of objectivecase studies at universities, military academies and political interest groups all over the world. Thumbs up or down? The betting has to be largely the latter as the bill in all respects just looks too big for the objective,- or stretching a point,-objectives.
Meanwhile what do the American troops and politicians take home with them and what do they leave behind as their personal legacies? Perhaps the fact that almost to a man or woman , after 9 years they still call the country I-rak says much of it. "We went there to make them do it our way. They can call themselves what they like but to us it's I-rak. They can like it or lump it." They didn't get much new cultural awareness or understanding of the realities and shape of the world for all that expenditure and nor did they successfully sell "The American way" to their hosts. In you go auditors of war. Let's see what's in the accounts and what it all adds up to. A mammoth headache could be coming down the track.
Sunday, 18 December 2011
Friday, 9 December 2011
Brussells - Cameron presses the button. A new future sprouts.
Clearly David Cameron read Twigaview and went off to the all nighter in Brussells which followed the EU leaders non austerity dinner (banquet in normal parlance ) with a clear head and new vigour.
The hand wringing and whining to the tune of "we are marginalised" by the likes of Labour and the twittering David Owen this morning tell us that the prime Minister has done the right thing. Only on Wednesday were Labour warning against weakness in the face of Euro adversity and here they are out to play again dancing to their inevitable flipside tune.
To many commentators, the UK's stance this morning has been all about simply protecting the financial services industry. That is not true and misses the point entirely.
Ever since the EU was established there has been a barely hidden Franco/German agenda of eventually politically uniting Europe under in effect their dominant leadership. Part of France's motivation, but not Germany's, has been the marginalisation of the politically disliked Britain. For most British the idea of an overarching European superstate reducing national parliaments to the equivalent of county councils has never been acceptable and is unlikely to be for a very long time. All parties have known this and as result the federal powers of the EU have only been introduced very slowly. Stealth has been key and the federalists have always been careful to ensure that has never been quite an important enough issue or proposed single power grab to justify throwing toys out of the pram at any particular moment.
France in particular seen the Euro crisis as a magnificent opportunity to significantly push the extension of EU powers forward. It is the potentially the biggest grab yet,- all in everyone's best interests of course to save the Euro. The UK has had the courage to say "Hey, - Not so fast" and said simply "No,- this isn't where we want to go". It's not that the Merko combine didn't know that. They just didn't believe he would finally stand firm amidst all their moralising about the collective good, this not being the time for discord etc. and declare his answer loudly. They would know that he was faced with all sorts of Foreign Office and other chaff about "loss of influence" and how dreadful that would be, the British Eurocrats wouldn't be invited to the cosiest lunches and dinners in Brussells and calculated that he would buckle. Sarkosy though probably wasn't fussed either way.
Sometimes it is necessary to cause a crisis so as to get a resolution. Cameron, alone amongst his peers has had the vision to see beyond the Euro crisis and the dangers of quick fix substantially changing the nature of the EU. In doing so he has moved a long way from being where we saw him yesterday as not giving the leadership needed to break through from a suffocating one sized fits all solution into the reality that a two tier or two type Europe is the best answer. Those twin but libnked organisations of the 1950s -"The Six" (EU) and "The Seven " (EFTA) look very much the solution for the 2010s. Far from being marginalised as the pundits will howl today, Britain could emerge much stronger as the leader of the more liberal free trade only group. The remainder could continue towards the superstate, though at a high risk of it failing much more disastrously not long hence. The EU core could not afford to put up trade barriers against the others as they need the reciprocal to in particular the UK's very open markets.
The British Prime Minister should therefore return home deserving a pleasant weekend. It's likely that his deluxe festive gift hampers from Europe are at this moment be being downgraded to boxes of crackers. If so he would do well to have them checked out before pulling.
Footnote: On reaching home Mr Cameron may well find Lib Dems on his doorstep. They are much more in favour of Peace in our Time solutions and love and brother/sisterhood in Europe . This could be a coalition problem. More of that later. Let's watch the falling dust first.
The hand wringing and whining to the tune of "we are marginalised" by the likes of Labour and the twittering David Owen this morning tell us that the prime Minister has done the right thing. Only on Wednesday were Labour warning against weakness in the face of Euro adversity and here they are out to play again dancing to their inevitable flipside tune.
To many commentators, the UK's stance this morning has been all about simply protecting the financial services industry. That is not true and misses the point entirely.
Ever since the EU was established there has been a barely hidden Franco/German agenda of eventually politically uniting Europe under in effect their dominant leadership. Part of France's motivation, but not Germany's, has been the marginalisation of the politically disliked Britain. For most British the idea of an overarching European superstate reducing national parliaments to the equivalent of county councils has never been acceptable and is unlikely to be for a very long time. All parties have known this and as result the federal powers of the EU have only been introduced very slowly. Stealth has been key and the federalists have always been careful to ensure that has never been quite an important enough issue or proposed single power grab to justify throwing toys out of the pram at any particular moment.
France in particular seen the Euro crisis as a magnificent opportunity to significantly push the extension of EU powers forward. It is the potentially the biggest grab yet,- all in everyone's best interests of course to save the Euro. The UK has had the courage to say "Hey, - Not so fast" and said simply "No,- this isn't where we want to go". It's not that the Merko combine didn't know that. They just didn't believe he would finally stand firm amidst all their moralising about the collective good, this not being the time for discord etc. and declare his answer loudly. They would know that he was faced with all sorts of Foreign Office and other chaff about "loss of influence" and how dreadful that would be, the British Eurocrats wouldn't be invited to the cosiest lunches and dinners in Brussells and calculated that he would buckle. Sarkosy though probably wasn't fussed either way.
Sometimes it is necessary to cause a crisis so as to get a resolution. Cameron, alone amongst his peers has had the vision to see beyond the Euro crisis and the dangers of quick fix substantially changing the nature of the EU. In doing so he has moved a long way from being where we saw him yesterday as not giving the leadership needed to break through from a suffocating one sized fits all solution into the reality that a two tier or two type Europe is the best answer. Those twin but libnked organisations of the 1950s -"The Six" (EU) and "The Seven " (EFTA) look very much the solution for the 2010s. Far from being marginalised as the pundits will howl today, Britain could emerge much stronger as the leader of the more liberal free trade only group. The remainder could continue towards the superstate, though at a high risk of it failing much more disastrously not long hence. The EU core could not afford to put up trade barriers against the others as they need the reciprocal to in particular the UK's very open markets.
The British Prime Minister should therefore return home deserving a pleasant weekend. It's likely that his deluxe festive gift hampers from Europe are at this moment be being downgraded to boxes of crackers. If so he would do well to have them checked out before pulling.
Footnote: On reaching home Mr Cameron may well find Lib Dems on his doorstep. They are much more in favour of Peace in our Time solutions and love and brother/sisterhood in Europe . This could be a coalition problem. More of that later. Let's watch the falling dust first.
Wednesday, 7 December 2011
A Simple Guide to EU and Euro Pains and Strains- and a simple solution.
There is a lot of rushing about and huffing and puffing going on around the EU, the Eurozone, the Euro and where the UK stands. The is also much shouting and breast beating about "The Euro mustn't be allowed to fail","The UK will lose influence if it stays out of the melee/doesn't at some time join the Euro/Eurozone/sign up to this and that". For the UK itself there is the sight of Leader Dave, one moment resolute that some powers ,particularly those over City regulation and employment law, must remain totally in UK hands and promising that he will stand firm on these demands. The next moment he is off again to see Merkozy and saying that the return of powers isn't that important and he must do what it takes to stay at the table,- even if maybe well below the salt. Today's performance in the Commons was robust as it had to be amongst the baying hounds of Prime Ministers' Question Time on all sides. How though will he handle tomorrow's EU summit and the ever mounting list of controls being floated out from the Merkozy camp?
It's all very confusing and often irritating. One can not guarantee always being able to avoid throwing a shoe through the TV screen.
So, just to untangle the apparent complexity and make it all simple, what's really going on, who is up to what, can the Euro or even the EU, stay in business and would it really be a disaster for the UK or anyone else if it didn't or both changed their form? Some of it is a bit murky but let's have a go and see if we can sleep any easier. To do that we will have to go back a bit,- right to the 1950s in fact.
With everyone exhausted and well nigh bancrupt after World War 2, maybe the last of the old legacy wars originally fought on horseback with legions of supporting "poor bloody infantry" but just moved along a bit with smarter land kit, new aircraft and less leaky ships, it was time to take stock. It was quite clear that a succession of massive slaughterfests had historically achieved nothing and everyone would have been more prosperous without them. That's even without considering the effect of the decimation of the best of two generations of young men. In 1939 there had evetually been little option but for "the Allies" to go to war with Germany to prevent a rolling genocide by a rogue regime (as opposed to the German people per se) but the cost in lives and money was appalling and everyone other than maybe Stalin recognised that this sort of conflict had to be avoided ever again.
The result was a rise of interest in some kind of unity in Europe on the basis more or less of the Chinese philosophy of constraining potential enemies by "embracing the bear", the basis of many alliances in business, politics and other human interactions. You don't like the school bully? Neutralise him either by force (tried and proven too dangerous) or by smothering him with mateyness. It had to be the latter.
There was some disagreement about what degree of embrace was necessary to do the trick. France and Germany favoured political union from the start although they recognised that the process would have to be gradual, reasonably well disguised, and never put starkly to their citizens who would be scared stiff of the idea. This group became the founders of the EEC, later the EU and were known as "The Six". It would have been seven but France's General de Gaulle, no lover of the British despite their leadership of the efforts to give him back what he saw as his country in 1944, made sure that they didn't get in. The other European grouping, which now included Britain and was a much more natural home for it was The European Free Trade Area, EFTA. They became "The Seven" and favoured a looser, less smothering form of cooperation,- simply a free trade area.
Over time, 3 of the 7 ,including Britain, have moved across to become EU members, leaving just 4 small states as the remnants of EFTA which lives on as, funnily enough a sort of tier 2 EU. There is a great opportunity for this to enlarge again as this concept of a 2speed EU becomes more and more likely in the form of the 17 Eurozone countries remaining in a deadening, inflexible embrace and the other 10 gravitating to a much less rigid and free wheeling free trade area. This would be ideal so long as the centralisers of the 17 didn't pull up the trade drawbridge. They would be very unwise to do so as Britain in particular with its genuinely very open markets is a big buyer of their industrial products. Cutting off noses to spite faces not impossible though when there is an underlying desire to punish Britain for its non conformist behaviour. Given the right links between the 17 and the 10, business would flow across the 27 borders but centralist political and fiscal control would not. That would remain the preserve of the 17 who seem to like that sort of thing. Cameron's best move now would be to come out openly and declare that the UK can not live within the straitjacket of a European superstate and lead the split in a constructive way. The more states he could take with him the better. The bigger "New EFTA" is the less the core EU can do without its business so the stronger would be the free trading bridge.
The main reason for the fractured EU and worse, the Euro problems, is that the two concepts of a United States of Europe and the single Euro currency are fundamentally flawed. Europe is not the USA. Each country has a long history and deep culture of its own. Most have been at war with, invaded by or occupied at least temporarily by all sorts of combinations of each other. The early settlers in America were different. They had the unifying feature that they were fleeing the suffocation of Europe with oppression, persecution of just lack of opportunities at home and wanted a completely fresh start. Even then it wasn't all plain sailing and the collision between two rival groupings had to be broadly resolved by the Civil War. Subsequently the federal structure of the USA has preserved some independence for each state and not all love each other too much. The overall single nation relationship has through been close enough to demand a strong common federal currency and the US dollar has been extremely successful.
The European Union is nothing like the USA. It is not a natural single political entity to which all its citizens have at one time escaped and therefore willingly signed up . As result it is even less a natural single currency union. The laws of dynamics mean that efforts to tighten it produce more strains and stresses than strengths. Any structural engineer will tell you what naturally and unavoidably happens to such edifices. There is a period when they can be kept up by strengthening, adding a bit here and a bit there but each of these adds weight and diminishes the efficiencies of the whole and generally just transfers the potential break point to somewhere else. The reinforcement patches also mean ever increasing costs and higher and higher maintainence, so that more and more good money is poured after bad. People say things like "It must be kept up at all costs" rather than "Let's design a new one to replace it and once in place we will let the original fall down or be blown up".
It is the "It must be kept up" line about both the EU and the Euro that is being shouted by not only the Merkosy core but also by the UK's David Cameron. Cameron is missing the biggest and most revolutionary trick of all. He should be trying to keep it all simple and easily understood by all and saying "It's not working so let's replace it with version 2.0 and start again recognising historic, current and future realities." The clarity of a return to a separate high cost beaurocracy driven EU and a lower cost, more free wheeling EFTA would be ideal and give the component nations the oppirtunity to decide which model they really want rather than being swept along with the creaking one size fits all EU superstate and all its attendant costs and limits on individual sovereignties. The UK should go for that without further ado and ignore Foreign Office hand and other parts wringing about "loss of influence in Europe". Leadership of the EFTA group would give the country a much more significant role in European politics than its alternative sidelining within an unreconstituted EU.
Any odds on Mr Cameron going that? Not good we suspect. As a manager rather than a leader, he isn't strong on vision and isn't driven by a passionate political philosophy. He is more inclined to back away from the conflict and settle for a wordy fudge in Brussells today. If he does though he should beware the assorted rotteweiler pack awaiting him back home. Hello Boris,the Eds and the rest.
It's all very confusing and often irritating. One can not guarantee always being able to avoid throwing a shoe through the TV screen.
So, just to untangle the apparent complexity and make it all simple, what's really going on, who is up to what, can the Euro or even the EU, stay in business and would it really be a disaster for the UK or anyone else if it didn't or both changed their form? Some of it is a bit murky but let's have a go and see if we can sleep any easier. To do that we will have to go back a bit,- right to the 1950s in fact.
With everyone exhausted and well nigh bancrupt after World War 2, maybe the last of the old legacy wars originally fought on horseback with legions of supporting "poor bloody infantry" but just moved along a bit with smarter land kit, new aircraft and less leaky ships, it was time to take stock. It was quite clear that a succession of massive slaughterfests had historically achieved nothing and everyone would have been more prosperous without them. That's even without considering the effect of the decimation of the best of two generations of young men. In 1939 there had evetually been little option but for "the Allies" to go to war with Germany to prevent a rolling genocide by a rogue regime (as opposed to the German people per se) but the cost in lives and money was appalling and everyone other than maybe Stalin recognised that this sort of conflict had to be avoided ever again.
The result was a rise of interest in some kind of unity in Europe on the basis more or less of the Chinese philosophy of constraining potential enemies by "embracing the bear", the basis of many alliances in business, politics and other human interactions. You don't like the school bully? Neutralise him either by force (tried and proven too dangerous) or by smothering him with mateyness. It had to be the latter.
There was some disagreement about what degree of embrace was necessary to do the trick. France and Germany favoured political union from the start although they recognised that the process would have to be gradual, reasonably well disguised, and never put starkly to their citizens who would be scared stiff of the idea. This group became the founders of the EEC, later the EU and were known as "The Six". It would have been seven but France's General de Gaulle, no lover of the British despite their leadership of the efforts to give him back what he saw as his country in 1944, made sure that they didn't get in. The other European grouping, which now included Britain and was a much more natural home for it was The European Free Trade Area, EFTA. They became "The Seven" and favoured a looser, less smothering form of cooperation,- simply a free trade area.
Over time, 3 of the 7 ,including Britain, have moved across to become EU members, leaving just 4 small states as the remnants of EFTA which lives on as, funnily enough a sort of tier 2 EU. There is a great opportunity for this to enlarge again as this concept of a 2speed EU becomes more and more likely in the form of the 17 Eurozone countries remaining in a deadening, inflexible embrace and the other 10 gravitating to a much less rigid and free wheeling free trade area. This would be ideal so long as the centralisers of the 17 didn't pull up the trade drawbridge. They would be very unwise to do so as Britain in particular with its genuinely very open markets is a big buyer of their industrial products. Cutting off noses to spite faces not impossible though when there is an underlying desire to punish Britain for its non conformist behaviour. Given the right links between the 17 and the 10, business would flow across the 27 borders but centralist political and fiscal control would not. That would remain the preserve of the 17 who seem to like that sort of thing. Cameron's best move now would be to come out openly and declare that the UK can not live within the straitjacket of a European superstate and lead the split in a constructive way. The more states he could take with him the better. The bigger "New EFTA" is the less the core EU can do without its business so the stronger would be the free trading bridge.
The main reason for the fractured EU and worse, the Euro problems, is that the two concepts of a United States of Europe and the single Euro currency are fundamentally flawed. Europe is not the USA. Each country has a long history and deep culture of its own. Most have been at war with, invaded by or occupied at least temporarily by all sorts of combinations of each other. The early settlers in America were different. They had the unifying feature that they were fleeing the suffocation of Europe with oppression, persecution of just lack of opportunities at home and wanted a completely fresh start. Even then it wasn't all plain sailing and the collision between two rival groupings had to be broadly resolved by the Civil War. Subsequently the federal structure of the USA has preserved some independence for each state and not all love each other too much. The overall single nation relationship has through been close enough to demand a strong common federal currency and the US dollar has been extremely successful.
The European Union is nothing like the USA. It is not a natural single political entity to which all its citizens have at one time escaped and therefore willingly signed up . As result it is even less a natural single currency union. The laws of dynamics mean that efforts to tighten it produce more strains and stresses than strengths. Any structural engineer will tell you what naturally and unavoidably happens to such edifices. There is a period when they can be kept up by strengthening, adding a bit here and a bit there but each of these adds weight and diminishes the efficiencies of the whole and generally just transfers the potential break point to somewhere else. The reinforcement patches also mean ever increasing costs and higher and higher maintainence, so that more and more good money is poured after bad. People say things like "It must be kept up at all costs" rather than "Let's design a new one to replace it and once in place we will let the original fall down or be blown up".
It is the "It must be kept up" line about both the EU and the Euro that is being shouted by not only the Merkosy core but also by the UK's David Cameron. Cameron is missing the biggest and most revolutionary trick of all. He should be trying to keep it all simple and easily understood by all and saying "It's not working so let's replace it with version 2.0 and start again recognising historic, current and future realities." The clarity of a return to a separate high cost beaurocracy driven EU and a lower cost, more free wheeling EFTA would be ideal and give the component nations the oppirtunity to decide which model they really want rather than being swept along with the creaking one size fits all EU superstate and all its attendant costs and limits on individual sovereignties. The UK should go for that without further ado and ignore Foreign Office hand and other parts wringing about "loss of influence in Europe". Leadership of the EFTA group would give the country a much more significant role in European politics than its alternative sidelining within an unreconstituted EU.
Any odds on Mr Cameron going that? Not good we suspect. As a manager rather than a leader, he isn't strong on vision and isn't driven by a passionate political philosophy. He is more inclined to back away from the conflict and settle for a wordy fudge in Brussells today. If he does though he should beware the assorted rotteweiler pack awaiting him back home. Hello Boris,the Eds and the rest.
Thursday, 1 December 2011
Reaction to Clarkson's Comments,- Get a Grip everyone.
Jeremy Clarkson's comments on BBC's "The One Show" last night that he would take the day's public servants pension strikers outside and shoot them in front of their families drew 4,700 protests to the broadcaster and has sent the unions, ever up for expressing "anger" or other indignation, scurrying for legal advice.
Some free advice in a moment. Everyone, including the BBC, knows Clarkson and could have pretty well predicted what he would say. That is his signature and, like it or not, it is entertaining to many or maybe even most. To get worked up about it requires taking oneself dangerously seriously and veering towards an attraction to unsmiling, slab faced police states. The fact that young Ed has "felt their pain" and expressed disgust or something like that says all you need to know about what a fun place would exist under his unsmiling, grimacing premiership. Even Dave has felt obliged to say the remark was "silly". In the p.c world Britain inhabits it probably was,but it hardly merits a Prime Minister and Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition to even comment other than maybe to remark "Clarkson is Clarkson". Both would though have been better advised to say nowt.
The advice then: Get a grip folks. It was a J-O-K-E.
Some free advice in a moment. Everyone, including the BBC, knows Clarkson and could have pretty well predicted what he would say. That is his signature and, like it or not, it is entertaining to many or maybe even most. To get worked up about it requires taking oneself dangerously seriously and veering towards an attraction to unsmiling, slab faced police states. The fact that young Ed has "felt their pain" and expressed disgust or something like that says all you need to know about what a fun place would exist under his unsmiling, grimacing premiership. Even Dave has felt obliged to say the remark was "silly". In the p.c world Britain inhabits it probably was,but it hardly merits a Prime Minister and Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition to even comment other than maybe to remark "Clarkson is Clarkson". Both would though have been better advised to say nowt.
The advice then: Get a grip folks. It was a J-O-K-E.
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