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July 30, 2006
obesity
Australia appears to have lost the battle of the bulge with more than half of adults now admitting they are either overweight or obese--according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The Bureau of Statistics figures show that the proportion of adults classified as overweight or obese rose in the past 10 years from 52 per cent to 62 per cent for men and from 37 per cent to 45 per cent for women - giving a combined rise for both sexes from about 44 per cent to about 53 per cent.
Obesity now affects more people than smoking, heavy drinking or poverty. We are a fat nation by world standards. Despite seven reports since 1997 into obesity, Australia had failed to attack obesity as a chronic condition and Australians would continue to get fatter at a high social cost.
The modern supply of cheap, energy-rich food made it difficult for many people to temper their intake Yet the commonwealth government has said no to the regulation of the advertising of the junk food industry, which was advocated by the states. Both John Howard, the Prime Minister, and Tony Abbott, the Health Minister, say that weight control is a matter of personal responsibility and does not require govenment regulation or intervention.
Is this benign neglect?
If weight control is a matter of personal responsibility means that consumer responsibility in health promotion and prevention is now accorded a central role in achieving affordable care, then what is needed is creating an an environment that favours healthy weight. One shot solutions---ie., a single cause-single remedy public health problem---are not going to work because of the complexity of the causes--food, lack of excercise, tv advertising, urban design. For instance, the places where children's most important food choices are made (school and family) need to be targeted.
Paul Goss argues that fatty foods shouls be banned in canteens, school report cards would proide information on a children's body mass index, parents and childrern would recieve far moe educaion about appropriate eating and governments would provide more in-school and after school exercise opportunities.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 7:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 29, 2006
groundwork for a ceasefire?
We know that the Bush administration's unwillingness to pressure Israel to halt its military campaign in Lebanon is rooted in a view of the Middle East conflict that is sharply different from that of his predecessors.
As Michael Abramowitz in the Washington Post writes that Bush holds that Israel is in the right. Hezbollah is in the wrong. Terrorists have to be eliminated, and he sees Israel fighting the war he would fight against terrorism." Israel's action against Hizbollah are a key part of the global war on terror – and Israel as the most important ally in that war.
Tandberg
Yet there are grounds for a ceasefire in the Hizbollah/israeli conflict that are different from the US-Israeli design to remap the Middle East according to the interests of Israel.
The first steps would be:
a) a truce, that is to say a suspension of military operations by both sides, to allow help to reach the hard-pressed Lebanese population;
b) an exchange of prisoners (including some Lebanese prisoners who have been held in Israeli jails for nearly 30 years);
c) require Hizballah to withdraw from the immediate border area in exchange for an Israel withdrawal from the Shebaa Farms (an enclave of Lebanese territory occupied in 1967.)
Could not these moves lay the groundwork for a more permanent ceasefire? The next steps would involve the United States ultimately accepting the legitimacy of Hezbollah. This means that the US backs away down from its current demonization of Hezbollah as terrorist pure and simple, and accepts that Hezbollah in many ways meets the description of a national-liberation movement.
Alas, I cannot see this happening. The Bush adminsitration is in favour of Hezbollah neutralization. Nor can I see Howard government breaking with the Bush Administration over its support for Israeli strikes that cause death and misery amongst innocent civilians. Or argue that 'a continuation of such military tactics by Israel could destabilise the already fragile Lebanese nation. Or question the logic of destroying Lebanon and then saving it.
So we are left with the Bush Adminstration and the Howard Government supporting the neocons and the Israel lobby urging the Israelis to go on bombing the hell out of Beirut. That is the road of folly.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 2:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 28, 2006
just asking
I see that inflation in Australia is edging up again (4% annual rate) to the point where another interest rate rise may be on the cards, with the possibility of a fourth rise latter in the year. If so that increase will hit heavy debt-servicing households hard.
Inflation is being represented as caused by increases in the price of bananas and petrol, and so the government is not responsible. Hence we have blame deflection and political distancing by the Howard government. Isn't there another kind of international dimension working here ----the big resource boom that is confronted by skills shortages and tight labour markets?
Strangely, bananas have been signaled out. Isn't the Howard Government committed to free trade? If so why cannot it import bananas to help reduce the 250% increase in the domestic price of bananas since the crop was destroyed by cyclone Larry earlier in the year? Isn't that refusal to allow bananas to be imported a form of protectionism of Australian agriculture?
Wasn't Australia arguing for reduced protection for agriculture by the EU and Japan at the WTO's Dohra round of negotiations? Does that imply Australia is in favour of open competitive markets? So why does Australia close its markets?
Isn't the Howard Government responsible for that anti-free trade position? So why do we continue to represent the Howard Government as being in favour of trade liberalisation.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 11:38 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Condelezza Rice's new Middle East
There is more than American indifference to Lebanese suffering isn't there? Condelzza Rice, the US Secretary of State, may represent the Lebanon war as the "birth pangs of new Middle East but the Lebanese interpret the war as foreshadowing a dystopian future of the Middle East: Israel exercising hegemony over the region, exploiting Arab resources and manpower while stripping away the remnants of Arab and Muslim identity.
And the Arab states that are friends of the US? What are they reckoning? One interpretation:
Will the corrupt and repressive Arab regimes---the axis of pro-American dictatorships such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc--- jump ship under pressure from the Arab street? These pro-American Arab states (including Jordan) publicly aligned themselves against Hezbollah and Iran (and implicitly with Israel and the United States), even in the face of clear public opposition. They blamed Hezbollah for the crisis and failed to act to defuse the conflict.
Can these regimes continue to ignored public opinion? Will they shift to demand an immediate ceasefire? When will they publicly express disappointment at the attitude of Washington and the international community toward the Israeli aggression against the Lebanese people? This pro-American bloc, which includes Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, is losing popularity by the day.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 12:03 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
July 27, 2006
accidental on purpose?
I've been in the bush on holidays the last couple of days and I've only managed to catch bits and pieces of news on very snowy free-to-air television. Despite the Israeli air power the Hizbollah rockets are still falling on Haifa and across northern Israel, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is still saying that it is "too early" for a ceasefire. As Lebanon burns the diplomats at the international summit in Rome fiddle. America looked pretty isolated at the Rome conference from what I could see.
I heard about this:
Alan Moir
as well as the surgical air strike on the unarmed UN post on the Lebanese border that had been being fired upon throughout the day by the Israeli army, despite being told it was a UN post. United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan described the air strike as apparently deliberate."
It is yet another indication of how the Israeli attack is a massively disproportionate reaction. The war party in Israeli is in firm control isn't it. Let loose the firepower so we more scenes of Lebanese civilian death and destruction and pound Hizbollah into ground. I gather that Hizbollah is winning the battle for the hearts and minds of the Arab world -- on both the Shi'a/Sunni sides of the divide.
Yet Israel cannot destroy Hizbollah through a ground battle. Nor can Israel disarm the Lebanese militia by itself.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 11:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 25, 2006
a flawed energy policy
Tim Colebatch in an op.ed. The Age makes two good points about Australia's current energy policy, which is currently run by the coal and intensive energy industries that aim to contain renewable energy and limit renewable electricity production. He says:
The PM said Australia needed a "pragmatic, rational and flexible energy policy". So it does. But let's be honest: we don't have that now. Our policies are driven by interest groups, irrational and inflexible. And so they will be until we get the fundamentals right, by adopting a mechanism for the market to find its own way to reduce greenhouse emissions.He then states:
To be pragmatic and rational in this debate, the starting point is that if the scientists are right, then global warming implies colossal risks for mankind, and policies should actively try to minimise them.Then the task is to achieve the most effective response at the minimum cost. Governments can help foster technology development, as the Howard and Bracks governments are doing - but the real job is to put in place a structure that will see those technologies used.
The coal industry is committing significant funds to take clean coal technologies from the lab to the power stations. What would happen if the technology works but at a higher cost than doing things the old way. Colebatch asks: 'what happens then'?
He answers:
With the policies we have now, nothing would happen as there is no a price mechanism to give firms an incentive to choose (and retrofit) new low-emission technologies. Without a carbon tax (or emissions trading system), there will be no take-up of the carbon capture and storage technology the Government wants.
That's the key point in the whole debate isn't it.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 9:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 24, 2006
a media question
Does Murdoch really wield the unhealthy influence his enemies claim, skewing the Australian political debate thanks to the sheer number of his media outlets - or is he just one among many voices, and one that, so News Corp insiders protest, is often ignored by the Government?
Or is Murdoch dead as a political force? An old style media baron being left behind as an innovative media company? Or do Murdoch's tabloids still rule politics?
What is interesting about Coonan's media reforms is that they were concerned with the old infrastructure--more versions of the same free-to air-channelsb to keep the moguls happy. They were divorced from the new infrastructure of the internet and broadband. Surely it is only a matter of time before producers put television programmes straight on the internet. If that is the case won't what comes over free-to-air televison become ever more marginal to consumer's viewing habits?
Isn't broadband as an infrastructure issue – as an absolutely essential factor in the delivery of future digital media services to consumers. Won't the investment in this infrastructure will be recouped many times over from the services that can be provided over it.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 9:24 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
July 23, 2006
Israel's war of choice
Israel's military response by air, land and sea to what it considered a provocation last week by Hezbollah militants is unfolding according to a plan finalized more than a year ago.
Springs
So though George Bush thought that the conflict had broken out because Syria used Hizbullah to create a provocation, the war was a long-planned Israeli war of choice. Will Israel's conventional military superiority e deliver the security it seeks.?To de-fang Hezbollah implies the effective dissolution of the Shi'ite community in southern Lebanon. Yet Hezbollah is likely to survive as a political player in Lebanon and that is something the US and Israeli are going to have to accept.
At the heart of Israeli policymaking today lies a faith in the benefits of unilateral action over diplomatic engagement; in tactical military redeployments over comprehensive military withdrawal, and in conflict "management" over conflict resolution.
The Washington neo-cons still thunder away: what is happening in the Middle East now is an Islamist-Israeli war, part of the wider war between Islamist totalitarianism and liberal democracy and moderate Islam. To fight this war, the US has to confront not just terror networks but the states that sponsor them. Israel is dealing with Hamas and Hezbollah: America should be going after Syria and Iran. Unilateral action by the US - including the threat and use of force - is deemed to be the key to fighting the war against global radical Islamism.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 8:23 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
July 22, 2006
a long war of attrition?
It is now clear that the Israeli strategy is to bomb the radical Shi'ite movement Hezbollah into submission and "change the equation" to end further missile attacks over the Lebanese border. The calculation is that tas Lebanese infrastructure is shattered and the death toll mounts - 330 Lebanese killed, mostly civilians, and more than half a million displaced -the grassroots population will be progressively inclined to throw their weight behind moves to rein in Hezbollah.
The Australian media continue to focus on the evacuation of Lebanese Australians which is one effect of a conflict that is turning into a long and deadly war of attrition:
Tandberg
However, Israel's only effective means of destroying the Hizbollah's military capability is with ground troops and occupation of the areas in southern Lebanon used to fire missiles into Israel. Presumably, Israeli would push about 30 kilometers to the north and establish defensive positions along the Litani River, thereby creating a buffer zone.
IDF is not only targeting Hezbollah strongholds. As Sami Moubayed points out in his 'Bunkered down for a war of attrition' in Asia Times Irsael wants every Lebanese to suffer so he or she can blame Nasrallah and Hezbollah. It has hit a church in Rashayya, landed a missile in the Ashrafiyyieh neighborhood of Beirut, and targeted a base for the Lebanese army....it hopes to create conflict - and perhaps violence - between the Shi'ites and the rest of the Lebanese, disrupt the support for Nasrallah, and turn public opinion in favor of a ceasefire, even if it were at the expense of Hezbollah.
Yet Hezbollah, like Hamas, has mass support. The past few weeks have created and radicalised many Arabs and Muslims, and created intense new hatreds against Israel and the US. Hezbollah cannot be written off as a "terrorist" organisation. The Arab world sees its forces as freedom fighters resisting colonial occupation. So Israel and the US blame Syria and Iran for Israel's latest offensive.
Moubayed goes to say that:
Washington will continue to support this war of attrition until casualties and humanitarian disaster ruin the lives, morale, finances and psychology of the Lebanese people. Then they will push Hezbollah back into the Lebanese heartland, and lobby for UN peacekeeping troops on the Lebanese-Israeli border. With that done, Hezbollah would have no battleground from which it could launch a war on Israel. Its arms would be useless. It would have no choice but to transform into a 100% political party in the Lebanese political system, with no military agenda. If the US continues to place full support behind Olmert, this very well might be the last military battle of Hezbollah.
That's as good a call as any I've seen. That would create Lebanon as an Israeli-American protectorate on the Jordanian model. A fractured UN public disavowal of the organisation's primary humanitarian and protection mandates meant it has lost more standing in the Arab and Muslim world .
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 11:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 21, 2006
Israel's military strategy needs a rethink
Paul Rogers has a good article on the strategy of the Israeli massive bombing of Lebanon at Democracy Now. He says that the history of conflict has resulted in Israel being a very strong and militarised society with a pervasive sense of vulnerability and a culture of responding with massive force to threats to its security.
He says Israel's response to Hizbollah's rocket attacks is true to its long-term strategies, seeking not just to cripple Hizbollah directly, but to do massive damage to the Lebanese economy as a whole. On present trends this will continue until Hizbollah runs out of munitions and may well extend to exemplary raids on Syria and even Iran. Washington will not counsel against either.
Tanberg
It speaks that the kidnapping of two soldiers is 'an opportunity' for Israel to settle accounts with Hizbollah (and probably with Syria too) and to alter the balance of power between Israel and its two most active enemies, Hamas and Hizbollah. The region has been here before: the 1982 Lebanon war was to change the balance of power between Israel and the PLO. The result was not the abolition of the PLO, but the creation of Hizbollah.
Rogers adds that to Israeli military strategists it may appear that there is no alternative, but to a detached analyst Israel's course and strategic thinking is potentially disastrous, for two major reasons.
The first is that it will produce a wave of further antagonism across the region against Israel and the United States, leading to further radicalisations in the years and even the decades to come.
That is pretty right. Bombing--or invading--- Lebanon is making enemies not friends in Lebanon and deepens the support for Hizbollah.
Rogers says that:
The second reason is more subtle and potentially much more dangerous for Israel. In the first week of this war, we have already seen longer-range rockets hitting Haifa and an anti-ship cruise missile wrecking one of the world's most modern warships Such weapons are coming on to the world's arms markets in increasing numbers and with greater sophistication. The Israelis have long known this, and they have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into anti-missile research and development since the 1991 Gulf war. The results have had little effect against Hizbollah's capabilities and the overall international race between offensive missiles and defensive systems is very much on the side of the former.
Rogers adds that as this trend develops over the next decade or more, Israel and the United States will probably attempt to spread their zone of preventative control even further beyond the borders of Israel; but it is a race they will not be able to win, especially as the civilian destruction being experienced in Lebanon is replicated in other parts of the region.
So the old style military strategy of responding with massive force to threats to its security is self-defeating. Israel needs to embrace political options.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 1:39 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Telstra v the public interest
Fred Hilmer had an op. ed. in the Australian Financial Review last Wednesday where he argued that policy makers should not allow Telstra to protect its income at the expense of competition and national economic groowth. That is good economic sense. Who could argue against it apart from Telstra? From the government's perspective the most important concern is the national interest--the provision of a widely available high speed broadband at the cheapest possible price.
Hilmer's argument is that the regulatory function should be in the public interest and that there are a number of aspects to public interest:
Impact on the value of an enterprise owned by government is one part, but generally only a small part. The wider impact on the economy via GDP growth and incentives for new investment both in the industry being deregulated and industries that it services or buys from is more important. And, third, there are the impacts on local communities.
Most of the concern has been about the commercial interests of Telstra and its share price at the expense of a robust competitive envirronment in telecommunications.
Hilmer adds that:
A net assessment needs to be made of any diminution in the value of Telstra versus an increase in the wealth of the community as a whole because of the benefits that flow from the wide wide and economical access to broadband infrastructure.
We have not seen such an economic asessment. All we have heard is the decreasing value to Telstra due to what it calls a lack of regulatory certianity on acceptable terms before investing in its fibre-to-the-node network.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 11:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 20, 2006
bigoted conservatism
Four Corners had a story on the bigoted conservatism of brattish, drunken Young Liberals in NSW. They loudly sung "God save the Queen" over an Aboriginal elder's speech and went around chanting, "we're racist, we're sexist, we're homophobic". Australian conservatism has turned quite nasty, but Miranda Devine saysthat it is just a bunch of young Liberals rocking the status quo.
Another example of bigoted conservatism is Piers Ackerman's postings at the Daily Telegraph. Addressing the effects of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon he says:
The latest Middle East conflagration has flushed out a new class of dual nationality super-snivellers who believe mere possession of an Australian passport guarantees them security in their “other” homeland...While this bunch of insufferable ingrates whinge and whine, the stressed and overworked team at the hard-pressed Australian Embassy in Beirut is pulling out all stops to arrange evacuation aboard a ferry chartered at extortionate cost to all Australian taxpayers...Apparently 400 of the dual citizens demanding assistance to leave are in southern Lebanon, that part of the nation occupied by the Iranian and Syrian-backed Hezbollah terrorist organisation, which, with the Palestinian Hamas terrorists, has long been dedicated to erasing the nation of Israel from the map. Presumably, some of these Lebanese-Australians vote in the Lebanese elections and, just as probably, also voted for Hezbollah candidates, though the group is listed by the Australian Government as a terrorist organisation.
These Australian citizens can go to hell is the mesage. We don't care about their plight. They deserve it. There is no mention of Hezbollah being a legitimate political party in Lebanon's liberal democracy. No concern for the dire humanitarian situation or the civilian casualties due to the Israeli bombingof a sovereign nation. No mention of Israel occupying the Shebaa Farms or the way that it frequently incite and intimidate the Lebanese population with military operations, sonic booms, border attacks, and the abduction of Lebanese civilians.
The inference is that these Australian-Lebanese citizens are traitors. How dare they criticize the Howard Government. There's bigoted conservatism for you. It appeals, and gives voice to, the bigotry of the Daily Telegraph's audience. Just like Alan Jones and Tim Blair.
As we read further on this post at Akerman's blog the paranoia takes over:
And while the coverage in the Sydney Morning Herald goes out of its way to blame Israel for belligerence, intransigence and even, most laughably, for a lack of “proportionality” in its response to aggression, it must not be forgotten that this current crisis was triggered by a Hezbollah raid into Israel and the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers.This is not a war of Israel’s making. This is part of the ongoing jihadist war to dominate the world.
World domination huh? Work up the fear. We are not safe. It's a suitable case for psychoanalysis, don't you think, given that it is the US that is the global hegemon.
Andrew West in New Matilda (subscription required) says that:
Piers Akerman in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, Andrew Bolt in Melbourne’s Herald Sun.... do not consider themselves independent commentators. They consider themselves part of the ‘movement’ whose duty it is to echo, through (very skilful) populist repackaging, the official line of the current Federal Government, be it on industrial relations, the Iraq war, or national security laws.....This form of ‘movement’ commentary/activism is lifted straight from the playbook of American conservatism, which has worked so well for its practitioners. You disperse your supporters throughout the media and think tanks and make sure they all parrot the same line..... this chorus helps build a momentum, a feeling of inevitability and unanimity for certain policies.
He's right about this about the movement and the publicity machine. West says that these strategically placed commentators dutifully echo the party line to achieve a common aim — the perpetuation of the Howard Government.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 2:50 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack
what if?
Well the Howard Government is one hundred per cent right behind the Israel destruction of Lebanon and adopts the same position as the Bush Administration ----the talking points are all about Syria and Iran and Israel needing more time to destroy Hezbollah, which is a terrorist organization. So why bomb hospitals, or Greek Orthodox churches and milk factories far from Shiite areas?
The spin from the Howard Government is that the Israeli assault on Lebanon is not as bad as it is, and that there is no need to criticise Israeli tactics:
Alan Moir
It is not clear if Lebanon will survive from Israel's disproportionate response to the kidnapping of two of its soldiers by Hezbollah--ie., gradually reducing Lebanon's infrastructure to rubble whilst killing and maiming its civilian population. It appears that the Israeli campaign is designed to ensure that Lebanon is economically poor and weak for decades to come and beyond to break the back of Shiite villagers in southern Lebanon. The American neo-con hawks are saying that the war in Lebanon can't end until Israel destroys Hezbollah once and for all, and that means knocking Syria and Iran around. If so, then the broad action against so much of Lebanon is wrong and strategically flawed. The inference is that the political endgame is that Israel becomes a regional superpower.
I presume that if Israel the goal is to degrade Hizbullah's military capability, then more land operations are likely.If the Israelis exit quickly, creating a free-fire zone in the border area so Hizbullah cannot return, then this might allow the international community to facilitate the deployment of an expanded United Nations force with the Lebanese Army to the South. Yet that presupposes that Hizbullah would first have to agree to surrender its weapons. Deploying the Lebanese Army, a multinational force or both along the border, is in Israel's interest and perhaps Lebanon's, but not Hezbollah's and certainly not Iran's.
So what happens if Lebanon collapses? What happens if Israel cannot accomplish the destruction of Hezbollah? Doesn't that create an unstable region? How is an unstable region with failed states an improvement? Is this an example of short term tactics at the expense of long term strategy?
Is there a public and critical debate about the point of the war in Israel? One about the reasons, the motives, the responsibility of the Israel Defense Forces and the government, as well as about the results and the implications of the war and the alternatives?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 8:48 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
July 19, 2006
an imperial presidency?
Sidney Blumenthal's article, 'The rule of law vs the war paradigm,' over at Democracy Now is interesting in its account of the war paradigm. This refers to the Bush administration endeavours to concentrate power in the Presidency to create an imperial presidency. Blumenthal says that the origins of the "war paradigm:"
can be traced to vice-president Dick Cheney's experience with the thwarting of Richard Nixon's imperial presidency and Cheney's subsequent decades-long effort to recreate it on a new basis. The attacks of 11 September provided the casus belli for the concentration of power in an executive unfettered by checks and balances. Legal doctrines developed by neoconservative theorists, who happened to be appointed to key posts in the justice department's office of legal counsel (OLC) were applied.
The key principle is that the president as commander-in-chief can set or obey laws as he wishes.
Blumenthal says that the Supreme Court's decision in Hamdan v Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, et al., on 29 June 2006 has thrown Bush's war paradigm into profound crisis. he ruling is sweeping in its rejection of Bush's claims; it leaves none of the precepts of his war paradigm standing. In its wake his imperial presidency, at least before the majesty of the law, is a ruin. The Executive is bound to comply with the rule of law.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 4:17 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Israel's strategy in Gaza
Petty has it about right. Whatever may be the the Israeli army's war in Gaza is not about fate of the captive soldier Gilad Shalit. The Israeli army was preparing for an attack months earlier with the goal of destroying the Hamas infrastructure and its democratically elected government.
Bruce Petty
David Knoll and Geoffrey Zygier, of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, had an op. ed in the Sydney Morning Herald in which they say that:
Israelis are tough and determined, and Israel will continue to offer a two-state solution to the Palestinians, but to achieve that, the Palestinians have to learn to love their children more than they hate their neighbour.
Is that the case? Do Israeli actions in Gaza suggest that Israeli is working towards a two state solution?
Tanya Reinhart, a lecturer in linguistics, media and cultural studies at Tel Aviv University and the University of Utrecht, says that:
Israel does not need this piece of land, one of the most densely populated in the world, and lacking any natural resources. The problem is that one cannot let Gaza free, if one wants to keep the West Bank. A third of the occupied Palestinians live in the Gaza Strip. If they are given freedom, they would become the center of Palestinian struggle for liberation, with free access to the Western and Arab world. To control the West Bank, Israel needs full control of Gaza. The new form of control Israel has developed is turning the whole of the Strip into a prison camp completely sealed from the world.
Ironic isn't it. A democratically elected government is being attacked by Israel in a way that goes beyond the self-defense jusfitication routinely advanced by Geoffrey Zygier. Israel continues to systematically target infrastructure and governmental institutions, to undermine the Palestinian political system.
As Israel and the United States use the capture of three Israeli soldiers to justify civilian massacres in Gaza and Lebanon, nearly 9,000 Palestinians are held in Israel's detention facilities. Of these, 126 are women and 388 are children below the age of 18. Reinhart says that:
Since ending the occupation is the one thing Israel is not willing to consider, the option promoted by the army is breaking the Palestinians by devastating brutal force. They should be starved, bombarded, terrorized with sonic booms for months, until they understand that rebelling is futile, and accepting prison life is their only hope for staying alive.
Both Israel and the Bush administration conjoin the escalating wars in Lebanon and Gaza into a single war against a unified "axis of terror", linking Hizballah and Hamas to Damascus and distant Tehran. By lumping together the different struggles of Hizballah and Hamas, Israel casts resolvable political crises as unfathomable, irrational hatred.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 8:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 18, 2006
Bush's moment
It is around five years since President George W. Bush declared victory in Afghanistan and said that the terrorists were smashed. Since 2001, a smorgasbord of international military and development forces has been increasing in size. How is it, then, that Afghanistan is near collapse once again?
Garland
I presume the short answer is Iraq. It has provided an opportunity for a revived Taliban movement to make a third of the country ungovernable. Together with al-Qaeda, Taliban leaders are carving out new bases on the Afghanistan–Pakistan border.
Hell is truth seen too late, as Hobbes said.
Update: 19 July
The US neo-cons gathered around National Review have become quite warlike. They want a third front in the war on terror opened up immediately. Michael Rubin over at National Review Online (NRO) is calling for the eradication of Hezbollah and Hamas, and after their paymasters pay a terrible cost for their support. He adds that:
There will never be peace if Syria and Iran are allowed to use Lebanon as a proxy battlefield safe and secure in the knowledge that they will not pay directly. If the peace is the aim, it is imperative to punish the Syrian and Iranian leadership.
What does 'eradiction' mean when Hamas is part of the government? The US neocons have gone from advocating that the US's Middle East policy is about moderating democratically elected parties (like, say, Hamas) to, simply eradicating them.
Andrew McCarthy at National Review Online says:
Hezbollah is Iran. It is Iran’s wholly owned proxy warrior. It is fighting Israel. It is an enemy of the United States, because its master, Iran, is an enemy of the United States. This is our war. The same war we finally engaged five years ago. That, it is worth remembering, was the war on terror — World War IV, as Norman Podhoretz aptly dubbed it. Democracy promotion is a worthy long-term aim, but the immediate imperative of this war is to defeat America-hating jihadists.
Jonah Goldberg reckons its WW4 as well Michael Ledeen says that it's a choice between dishonor and war. It's time to go after the terrorist training camps in Syria and Iran. Chamberlain is put into the mix just to make sure you get the point.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 8:13 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
listening in on Bush & Blair
This is the fullest transcript (the BBC's version) of Bush and Blair informally discussing the Middle East at the recent G-8 summit in St Petersburg whilst sharing some food over lunch Their conversation is an eye opener for "incisive" geopolitical analysis.
Bush and Blair assume that Hezbollah and Hamas are the tools of Syria and Iran and that the big blow-up is Syria's fault, for putting Hizbullah up to provoking Israel.
There is nothing in the transcript about Israeli actions in Gaza. There is no reference to the destruction of Lebanon's infrastructure by the Israeli air force. Israel is not a protagonist. It is justing reactiing to provocation. If Hezbollah and Hamas stop provoking Israel then the big blow-up quietens down.
Blair's poodle status is there for all to see---his preparing the ground justification of a trip to the Middle East in advance of Condoleezza Rice is cringe-making.
There was nothing about the possibility of Israel actually engaging in mediation to secure the release of its soldier by offering the release of some Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in exchange. Nope, nothing.
The disportionate Israeli response is accepted as a given. It's just a case of getting 'Syria, to get Hizbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over.' Simple isn't it? Bush is so incisive.
The transcript sure does gives you confidence in these guys. Maybe we should start thinking that they have little idea of what is actually happening? Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbulla , is saying that vowed no military operation will return the two soldiers, and that only another prisoner swap will secure their freedom.
Meanwhile, back on the ground:
Bill Leak
Won't devastating Gaza only increase support for the Palestinian Hamas militants? Won't bombing Lebanon's infrastructure (its main and subsidiary airports, seaports, highways, bridges, communications systems, and water and power plants), completely blockading its ports and entryways and bombing urban areas only increase support for Hizbollah and undermine the already weak Lebanese government?
Oh, by the way, the two leaders reckon, things are going pretty well in the Middle East these days. I reckon the US is providing cover for Israel to fulfill its military objectives. Presumbly that means the US wants to give time to Israel to get rid of Hizbullah: a desire that fits in perfectly with the US's war on terror - (it considers Hizbullah to be a terrorist organization) and its vision of the Middle East. So the situation is not about to end soon. Presumably, we have a deep strategy 'that focuses on Israel's major adversary, Iran, and simultaneously strives to sustain Israeli hegemony over its neighbors.'
The Times says that it will have to be the Lebanese themselves who fix the Lebanon.
But that will depend on them excising Hezbollah from their territory and politics, something that they may not be able to do alone, and may not want to do at all.
In contrast an editorial in the Daily Star in Beruit is more incisive:
What has been missing is a consensus with sufficient strength and appeal to forge a genuinely Lebanese identity.
Hizbullah has always been the missing catalyst in that consensus, and the current crisis provides an opportunity to fulfill the resistance movement's potential as cornerstone of a new stability. This can only happen, though, if Nasrallah is able to keep his party's fate - and therefore his country's - from becoming intertwined with the problems that plague Iran and Syria's relations with the international community. He has the power to do this by empowering Lebanon's government - not Germany's or Egypt's or anyone else's - to negotiate on Hizbullah's behalf. Only thus can he begin to refute, once and for all, the suspicion that his priorities are regional ones, and that local issues and the people they affect are only tools and pawns in a wider game in which most Lebanese have little stake and even less interest.
The Israelis do have a right to "defend themselves," but defense cannot be achieved through indiscriminate warfare. The Israelis are drawing the Gordian knot of violence and retribution even tighter through escalation.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 1:12 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Howard's energy vision
I see that Quarry Australia is being reworked by John Howard into Australia as an "energy superpower" in a speech in Sydney to the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia. Aware that energy will profoundly shape geopolitics of the region, the PM says that Australia is positioned as a supplier to an increasingly energy-hungry world:
As an efficient reliable supplier, Australia has a massive opportunity to increase its share of the global energy trade. With the right policies, we have the makings of an energy superpower.
This involves fresh incentives to expand deep-sea quests for new petroleum deposits, nuclear energy and Australia using its vast coal reserves to continue to supply world power and fostering technological advances in producing clean coal. Renewable energy was mentioned as part of energy mix but there was little indication that the continual squeezing of federal funds and lessening support for renewable energy would stop. Realism is needed on this etc etc.
That means the states have to support renewable energy--- as Victoria is doing with its 10% mandatory renewable energy target and its support for a national emissions trading scheme. Howard appeared to dismiss with his line that the 'Australian government is not in the business of economic hairshirts, wishful thinking or empty gestures.'
On the issue of water John Howard said there was no reason for Australian cities to be experiencing a water crisis or tolerating restrictions.What needed to change was the belief that water should be used just once and stormwater should be allowed to drain into the sea or rivers:
The real issue is better management and adequate investment in water infrastructure...In many cases water restrictions, which are held out as designed to protect and preserve a scarce resource, have got more to do with protecting the cashflows and dividends of government-owned water utilities.
These observations about city water supplies are quite accurate. As the Canberra Times observes:
Sydney is a prime example. Far more water falls on Sydney as rain, and finds its way straight into the sea as storm water, than is ever captured in the catchments above Sydney. Nor has it made much in the way of effort to recycle waste even as grey water, though it should go much further than that. The water utility, with its host of mixed interests, has promoted fresh dams and new catchments, as well as desalination plants, to meet developing water shortages, and has resisted ideas of opening its system to competition.
Sydney is not the only coastal city with long-term water supply problems. So has Brisbane - which is also contemplating fresh dams - and Perth, with a sizeable number of citizens susceptible to strange ideas that water might flow thousands of kilometres from its north west by gravity. As the Prime Minister says, that water should be judged by its quality rather than its history.
Suprisingly, there is little about the rural use of water in Howard's speech--eg., the over-allocation of irrigation licences in much of the Murray-Darling Basin system, the fact that these licences probably amount to property and that a truly efficient restructuring of them might involve enormous compensation,
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July 17, 2006
Israel's disproportionate response
There is so much spin the mainstream media about the Middle East in Australia. We had two minor skirmishes on Israel's borders with Gaza (which despite Israel's formal withdrawal from the strip a year ago has, for all practical purposes, remained under its control) and on its borders with Lebanon.Yet Israel has overreacted, as it is using the abductions by Hama and Hezbollah to achieve a wider goal.
Geoff Pryor
The hawks are spinning madly. Ted Lapkin, from the AIJAC defends Israeli attacks in The Australian:
The right to self-defence is the crux of the Middle East crisis. It has been almost a year since Israel removed its troops and citizens from Gaza. And what have the Palestinians done with their new-found liberty? Rather than focus on the construction of their own society, the Palestinians elected a Hamas Government that is dedicated to the destruction of Israel.
The conflict has nothing to do with the occupation of Palestinian land by Israeli settlers? The Palestinians should elect a government that is acceptable to Israel and the US? The cause of the conflict the jihadists' unwillingness to compromise with a peace-loving, plucky Israel existing in the heart of a dangerous Middle East.
The editorial in The Australiansays that Israel's response to Hezbollah's hail of rockets was proportionate to the threat they pose to Israeli security. Lapkin, and The Australian justify and legimate the way Israel goes about exercising that right to its self defence--eg., continuing its assaults in Lebanon without regard to the consequences. For them its another round in the clash between good and evil.
The next step the hawks take is to lay the blame for a surge in Middle Eastern violence at the feet of Iran and Syria, and then say it is part of America's war on terror writ large. Colin Rubenbstein from the AIJAC in the Australian Financial Review takes the first step. He points the finger at Syria and Iran to to create an impression of a single implacable enemy, Islam, fighting a global war of terror in which plucky Israel is on the front line. In the US William Kristol outlines the implication--the second step--- when he says:
For while Syria and Iran are enemies of Israel, they are also enemies of the United States. We have done a poor job of standing up to them and weakening them. They are now testing us more boldly than one would have thought possible a few years ago. Weakness is provocative. We have been too weak, and have allowed ourselves to be perceived as weak.
He then says that President Bush can 'fly from the silly G8 summit in St. Petersburg to Jerusalem, the capital [sic] of a nation that stands with us, and is willing to fight with us, against our common enemies. This is our war.'
Amin Saikal, writing in The Sydney Morning Herald, has a more critical perspective. He says that Israel's disproportionate military response to the abduction of one of its soldiers and the killing of two more by Palestinian militants nearly three weeks ago and to similar action by the Lebanese Hezbollah last week has generated a regional crisis. Saikal then says that:
Israel is seeking to destroy not only Hezbollah, but also Lebanon. Its wider objective is to set back Lebanon's reconstruction by years so that it could never rival Israel politically and economically, as well as to undermine the chances of any US-Iran agreement over Iran's nuclear program.Israel has embarked on a dangerous game. Syria and Iran will not leave Hezbollah in the lurch.
America acting as 'honest broker' is doubtless 'quaint' notion these days isn't it. As Rami G. Khouri points out in the Daily Star we have four pairs of actors:
The four pairs are Hamas and Hizbullah, the Palestinian and Lebanese governments, Syria and Iran, and Israel and the United States.The more nuanced and complex reality is that all the actors in the four pairs collectively play a role in the ongoing fighting, as we witness the culmination of four decades of failed policies that have kept the Middle East tense, angry and violent.
This suggests that though Iran may indeed increase its support for Hizbullah and Hamas and eliminating the Iranian factor from the equation will not eliminate Hamas and Hizbullah. They will still function through other means and manage to acquire international support; Iran is not their raison d'etre.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 7:05 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
July 16, 2006
a regional war?
Why cannot Hamas say that the elimination of the state of Israel is not its goal. Could it not say that its political goal is a sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza? Why cannot the Israeli state acknowledge that in Gaza the fundamental casus belli is Israel's occupation that has now lasted for nearly 40 years? Why cannot the Olmert Israeli government say that it will offer the Palestinians a credible, non-violent political path to statehood; one promised in various international agreements.
Why not an exchange of prisoners? Or even that it is a struggle between two communities inhabiting the same piece of land?
The conflict is broadening with the Israeli air strikes in Lebanon, which have killed at least 27 civilians and closed down Beirut's international airport, in response to Hizbollah's assault across Israel's northern border with Lebanon. Yet Israel troops were ambushed on Lebanon's side of the border with Israel. Hezbollah, which commands the Lebanese south, immediately seized on their crossing. They arrested two Israeli soldiers, killed eight Israelis and wounded over 20 in attacks inside Israeli territory. So Israel declares war on Lebanon and is currently escalating its assault on Beirut.
Why does a justified war against Hezbollah become an unjust and unwise war against the Lebanese nation?
As Gordon Levy says:
Regrettably, the Israel Defense Forces once again looks like the neighborhood bully.A soldier was abducted in Gaza? All of Gaza will pay. Eight soldiers are killed and two abducted to Lebanon? All of Lebanon will pay. One and only one language is spoken by Israel, the language of force. The war that the IDF has now declared on Lebanon and before it on Gaza, will never be considered another "war of no choice."...This is unequivocally a war of choice. The IDF absorbed two painful blows, which were particularly humiliating, and in their wake went into a war that is all about restoring its lost dignity..
What then are the Israeli goals of war in Gaza and Lebanon? What we are seeing yet again is the use of military prowess to cow and pacify Arab defiance and anger. According to Israel the reason why Lebanon's airport is bombed and Israeli naval vessels have enforced a full naval closure on Lebanon, is that Lebanon cannot control Hezbollah. So we have a replay of shock and awe that concentrates on the destruction of the most primitive infrastructure in the occupied territories and the relatively well-developed civilian infrastructure in Lebanon. It sure looks like Israel and the US are trying to put the Lebanese government in the position of confronting the resistance and thereby transform the war into a civil conflict.
William Kristol interprets what is happening in terms of:
....an Islamist-Israeli war. You might even say this is part of the Islamist war on the West--but is India part of the West? Better to say that what's under attack is liberal democratic civilization, whose leading representative right now happens to be the United States...The war against radical Islamism is likely to be a long one. Radical Islamism isn't going away anytime soon. But it will make a big difference how strong the state sponsors, harborers, and financiers of radical Islamism are. Thus, our focus should be less on Hamas and Hezbollah, and more on their paymasters and real commanders--Syria and Iran. And our focus should be not only on the regional war in the Middle East, but also on the global struggle against radical Islamism.
This is supported suported by David Ignatius.
The region is in turmoil. The US vetoed a UN resolution calling on Israel to pull out of Gaza -- the lone country to do so. This is not a defensive war that is being fought by a fearful Israel with support from the US. The Israeli responses are too disproportionate a response to kidnapped soldiers and Qassam and Katyusha rockets launched at Israeli border towns for that scenario. It's about destroying the Hizballah and Hamas once and for all, not about bringing home the soldiers says Ilan Pappe, a historian (of the radical revisionist school) at the University of Haifa; and an attempt to complete the unfinished business of 1948: the total de-Arabization of Palestine.
It is beginning to look as if he Middle East is spiraling into a regional war, isn't it?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 4:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 15, 2006
media reforms--yawn
The headlines in Friday's Australian Financial Revew say that Coonan's media reforms deliver a television revolution. What revolution? The reforms were a bit timid weren't they? They bowed to the political power of the free-to-air television oligopoly.
There was little attempt by Coonan to dismantle the free-to-air television oligopoly. They remained protected through legislation re multichannelling and delaying the introduction of digital television services until 2010-12. The free-to-air television oligopoly are the big winners in this package. Their fingers were all over the reforms. Their profits are safe Foxtel got very little--an easing of the anti-siphoning restrictions. And there is no fourth free-to-air channel. That really does protect the profits of the incumbents.
However, the grip of the free-to-air television oligopoly will slip as the new digital technologies the oligopoly have managed to keep at bay for so long begin to bite. This is a TV industry that is still reluctant to face the future. So the new digital technology is hobbled. Sensibly, the tight restrictions on what the ANBC and SBS can air on their second digital channels will be lifted, allowing them to show news, sport and drama. That's hardly a revolution. It's in line with a switch to the new digital technology that protects the favoured incumbents.
At the moment there is little for consumer choice. What we will have instead is lots of mergers, foreign takeovers and new media alliances leading to increased media concentration. amongst media public companies struggling to deliver growth for shareholders. The fear here is that a lack of competition will stifle dissenting voices, and undermine liberal democracy.
The increased choice for consumers is coming from the groundswell in blogs, wikis, podcasts, video-sharing websites and the like. The tendency for innovation is shifting from the publishers and broadcasters, who have historically controlled the distribution of information and programs, to the audience. If the mass audience is fragmenting - even the incumbent mainstream media will grant this - then what is not acknowledged publicly is that the segmented audience is leaving the mass media behind.
Meanwhile newspapers continue to cut jobs as part of a plan to reduce costs because net profit is falling because of a decline in newspaper advertising. The problem with just cutting costs is that it won't be enough to offset the inexorable decline in revenues and profits which are being eaten by the rise of new media. The old media is in decline, its growth is over, because mass media like big newspapers, commercial television and radio can no longer deliver increased mass audiences.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 5:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 14, 2006
CoAG main game
Despite all the fuss about federalism caused by the Treasurer's proposals for increased centralism that depowers the states cooperative federalism is still the main game. It is cooperative federalism that is driving the reform agenda though CoAG and it is the states, particularly Victoria that is pushing the reform process. Costello has been sidelined.
Alan Moir
CoAG's meeting today is concerned with boosting productivity and workforce participation especially by those left behind by the competitive reforms of the past two decades. Isn't this what the Treasurer's Intergenerational Report recommended four years ago. Shouldn't the Treasurer get behind this Report and negotiate with the states? Isn't this what CoAG is about behind the tug of war.
When CoAG works---as it is doing now---then that is an argument against the need for the commonwealth government to take over state responsibilities. Shouldn't the commonwealth work with the states to improve federalism?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 8:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 13, 2006
Telecommunications--strange commentary
There certainly does seem to be a lot of very pro Telstra commentary happening at the moment in the Fairfax Press. We have had Stephen Bartholomeusz and now Kenneth Davidson. Both are writing in The Age. What is going on? The Age is spinning forTelstra. Has The Age been captured by Telstra--fee for comment?
Notice what Davidson is saying:
...the insistence of both Labor and Coalition governments on imposing a competitive regulatory regime on Telstra, which forces it to sell access to its copper network at below replacement cost to its competitors, has simply created a clutch of arbitrageurs whose profits are generated by their ability to undercut Telstra's charges to fixed-line customers. Apart from Optus' investment of several billion dollars in a largely redundant duplication of Telstra's national network, the net result of the competition has been intrusive marketing, with a profusion of call centres and a plethora of deliberately confusing customer plans.
Telstra blocked Optus with the cable network to defend its monopoly position. What we have here is the same spin as Bartholomeusz and Chris Berg --the ISP 's that have been innovative and pushed competition in the telecomunications market are classified as 'arbitrageurs'.The words are different---Berg uses 'small, fly-by-night internet service providers' whilst Bartholomeusz uses 'would-be monopolists, free-riders' but the message is the same. Put a question mark over the innovative ISP's competing with Telstra to break an anti-competitive monopoly.
Davidson then turns to the next major technological advance-- the extension of the fibre-optic network to link with the copper-wire network, where fibre-optic cables would connect to the street nodes through which each of about 200 houses connect to the copper loop.He highlights the implication of the Telstra proposal:
the new technology would effectively bypass the local equipment put into Telstra's exchanges by competitors.This would make what limited investment they have made redundant — and make it impossible for them to collect their rents.In other words, Telstra's proposal would drive its nine competitors — AAPT, iiNet, Intermode, Macquarie Telecom, Optus, Primus, Soul and transACT — out of business.
That's right. It's a classic Telstra move to protect its monopoly position. So what does Davidson say?That the G9
report that attempts to justify competition by offering an alternative model in the form of a Gang of Nine-and-Telstra consortium. But the proposal is a camel...There is nothing in the report about who stumps up the capital. Clearly it is either the Government or the overwhelming majority will have to be raised by Telstra, which will be pretty much the same thing if the Government shelves the T3 sale.
Here is a report that attempts to establish an alternative to Telstra's proposal and to go beyond it being canned because it doesn't have thge financing in place. Shoyuldn't we be evaluatign the proposal vis-a-vis Telstra's to see which is the better model. Nope says Davidson:
The proposal is so cheeky, and the Government, the Opposition and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission are so mindlessly committed to competition, that this Tower of Babel might get up unless it is blocked by an outraged public opinion.
Huh? So competition is bad? Monopoly is better? The ACC is mindless? This sounds like Alan Jones or John Laws in its over the top rhetoric.
Davidson finishes thus:
But what the hell. As the report says, "FTTN is not an absolute good. If it comes at the cost of destroying competition, it is not worth having." I bet the saddlers said something similar when they saw the motor car was about to replace the horse and carriage.
Note the grotesque distortion. The G9 are talking about a different model of motor car (FTTN) to theTelstra one, not defending a horse and carriage (copper wires).
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 4:03 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
July 12, 2006
Howard and Menzies
In an op. ed. in The Age Wayne Errington and Peter Van Onselen contest the argument that John Howard's prime ministership "amounts to a fundamental betrayal" of the Liberal Party's founder, Robert Menzies. They say that this view, recently argued by Norman Abjorensen, well and truly overstates its case. They argue that Howard and Menzies have practised different policy scripts and that:
Howard is fully aware of the differences between his economic policies and those of his hero. Yet, Howard's more market-oriented platform is not the result of the triumph of a narrow NSW-based ideology, as Abjorensen asserts. It is part of a re-alignment of public policy in Australia over three decades driven by the demands of a changing world.
There are similarities as well as differences ----if John Howard has captured the language of nationalism to talk about national unity and social cohesion, then he continues to appeal to the moral middle class and to provide subsidies (though not tariffs) if industry screams loud enough, as it does.
Then we have this comment from Errington and Van Onselen:
John Howard has won four successive elections against a united and professional Labor Party through a combination of his small-government philosophy, pragmatism and tough decisions. Menzies would have approved of that. The suggestion that Howard and Menzies have practised different policy scripts is not new. Nor is overstating their differences.
Small goverment philosophy? That is not John Howard. As a political conservative he stands for big centralized government.
Though Howard is a market liberal he is not a libertarian or a classical liberal.The authority of the state has priority over individual freedom and unity and social cohesion place boundaries around, and contain, individual rights and freedom. Errington and Van Onselen only see the social conservatism Like other commentators they do not see the political conservatism. Or if they do they assume it is of no import.
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July 11, 2006
IPA spins for Telstra
Chris Berg, a research fellow at the IPA, had an op.ed. in the Australian Financial Review last week, which argued that the regulator telecommunication market (the ACCC) should butt out of shaping the development of fibre optic broadband network. I interpreted the piece as being opposed to the role of the regulator and as being very pro-Telstra.
Berg says that Telstra is a company that at least in theory should be aiming to maximise its financial returns. If a company, or individual for that matter, makes an investment in the market, they should be subject to their own judgement of what constitutes a fair return, not what a national regulator considers one to be. He adds:
The carrier built its copper-wire network under a government-imposed monopoly. It used taxpayers' funds to do so. Under these circumstances, it was perhaps reasonable to have a regulator open the network up to ensure at least the vestiges of competition. But there are very real problems with such a regulatory regime. Access-based competition encourages service providers, initially leeching off the monopoly provider's network, to step up the "ladder of investment" - slowly investing more and more in the existing infrastructure. This has its advantages in a marketplace with little innovation.
I would have thought that the introduction of ADSL2 by the small ISP's would be an example of innovation. It was Telstra that placed the bottleneck on innovation by capping the speed on its ADSL1 network and tried to spoil the competitive party. Berg, however, disparages this form of competition.
He says:
The ACCC's framework has encouraged the growth of small, fly-by-night internet service providers, whose business model is nothing more than a reliance on the ACCC-determined access prices. Country-wide, there are more than 250 of these ISPs, encouraged not by the whim of the free market, but by the decrees of the regulator. Given their perilous profitability, they are ill-equipped to withstand the rapid technological change of the sector.
Why so? These ISP's have been pushing the technological change after being provided with access to the copper-wire network that is part of Australia's public infrastructure. They have provided competition to Telstra. So the ACC has nurtured competition in telecommunications and has provided opportunites for better competition.The focus on supporting competition has given consumers new techologies (3G, fibre,wireless, broadband) more choice and better pricing.
Berg then shifts to the future proposals for fibre-optic broadband, Telstra is introducing this to future proof its network, which means defending its incumbent position, whilst planning faster broadband delivery to grow its business with its Fibre to the Node (FTTN network). Berg says:
But Telstra's competitors and the ACCC want to migrate the access-sharing framework, developed a decade ago for a monopoly network provider, onto a fibre-optic network developed by an entrepreneurial company with private capital. The FTTN network is highly speculative. Given the current state of technological innovation, it is a risky investment. Telstra must bear this risk alone.
So the regulator should butt out. It is the regulator stifling innovation and entrepreneurial investment. this does not make sense, as Telstra initially stated that it would only build its FTTN network if competitors were locked out, and subsequently put its plans on hold when it appeared unlikely that would happen. Telstra has also said that rolling out a FTTN network would "strand" the other ISP's investments in exchange-based DSLAM's, because the copper loop from the exchange to the "node" would be switched off by Telstra. Under pressure from the regulator Telstra has changed its position to to saying it would provide access on "reasonable terms".
The regulator, acting in the national interest, is trying to ensure fair access to the new fibre network in the absence of an alternative workable model to that proposed by Telstra. Australia needs some form of public infrastructure--that is the national benefit of FTTN can be significantly enhanced if the network is not exclusively owned by Telstra. Is this the first step in this direction---a consortium FTTP network being owned in part by Telstra, in part by other carriers and in part by investors? Should there be infrastructure competition? Should it be publicly owned?
Berg is spruiking for Telstra, isn't he?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 2:54 PM | Comments (10) | TrackBack
endgame
Ian McLachlan - the former defence minister and the third man at the leadership meeting on December 5, 1994 between John Howard and Peter Costello - released the note he has kept of that meeting:
"Meeting Monday Dec 1994. Undertaking given by JH at a meeting late pm in PC's room that if AD [Alexander Downer] resigned and Howard became PM then one and a half terms would be enough and he would hand over to PC. IMcL."
Mr McLachlan said that Mr Howard had made the offer to ensure Mr Costello did not challenge him to replace Mr Downer as leader in 1994. Howard and Costello came to an arrangement before Downer was tapped on the shoulder. So we have an agreement but not a deal? Calling it simply a discussion on the leadership succession is gilding the lily. Costello does not have the numbers to challenge Howard in 2006. So Costello tells the truth, adopts the high moral ground and achieves credibility at Howard's expense.
Matt Golding
So Howard has taken an extra couple of years and turned them into a decade in power. The leadership tussle represents a political crisis for the Coalition---a fracturing of its unity and an effective political partnership.
The Howard-Costello era is over. The endgame happens at a time when the Howard Governemnt faces an big challenge in selling its controversial industrial relations policy, and is experiencing an unprecedented restlessness among ministers and backbenchers. So the government starts to come apart.The Howard era is indeed drawing inexorably to a close.
So what happens now? Howard is still the Government's best chance of winning an election next year.
Costello moves from cabinet or his Treasury portfolio? This is the kind of politics the loves--it will feed on this issue for days. And that adds to the tensions within the government doesn't it--since all their actions will be assessed in the context of the leadership. Disunity is death.
Meanwhile CoAG beckons.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 8:26 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
July 10, 2006
the violent invasion of Gaza
The violence between Israeli and the Palestinians continues to worsen. The news reports justify the Israeli pressure on Palestinian civilians by saying that the problem is the Palestinians --they started the conflict. The violent Israeli invasion of Gaza is just a response to what the Palestinians started. Media coverage of events in Gaza illustrates how the Australian mainstream media privileges the Israeli narrative, and frequently ignores both Palestinian experiences and international law.
Gideon Levy comments on this Israeli rhetoric as follows:
"We left Gaza and they are firing Qassams". Israel is causing electricity blackouts, laying sieges, bombing and shelling, assassinating and imprisoning, killing and wounding civilians, including children and babies, in horrifying numbers, but "they started." They are also "breaking the rules" laid down by Israel: We are allowed to bomb anything we want and they are not allowed to launch Qassams. When they fire a Qassam at Ashkelon, that's an "escalation of the conflict," and when we bomb a university and a school, it's perfectly alright. Why? Because they started. That's why the majority thinks that all the justice is on our side. Like in a schoolyard fight, the argument about who started is Israel's winning moral argument to justify every injustice.
Why coudn't Israel release some of the Palestinian soldiers and civilians it has kidnapped in exchange for the captured israeli soldier Gilad Shalit? Would that not be appropriate and right?
The Israeli pressure on the Palestinians is meant to break the civilian population, isn't it. Israel's incursion aims to collapse Hamas and the Bush administration is basically sympathetic with Israeli goals. Having locked itself into the untenable position of rejecting the results of the Hamas election six months ago in Palestine, the Bush administration and Israel now find themselves facing a full-scale insurgency. Both countries have only a military solution.
And if Hamas fails, as Washington wants, what will happen on the day after? Chaos? Anarchy?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 9:07 AM | Comments (17) | TrackBack
July 9, 2006
a media baron
Rupert Murdoch was recently named the most influential Australian of all time by the Bulletin -- despite being an American citizen. I scratched my head at that cultural cringe. Murdoch had relinquished his Australian citizenship in 1985 to become an American citizen, thereby allowing him to clear a legal hurdle that blocked non-citizens from owning US television stations.
Tthe media mogul describes himself as an "agent of change"; albeit one who detests public television--the ABC in Australia or the BBC in the UK. We are increasingly moving our lives online and connectivity -will become standard as a part of any media offering. The future for the world's giant media conglomerates is far from clear, with consumers migrating from old to new media, downloading movies and TV programmes over the internet, and abandoning paid-for newspapers in favour of online news sites. Murdoch is remodelling his sprawling media empire for the broadband age. Will Murdoch's newspapers survive the shift of readers going online to read news and features?
The general News Corp answer is that people have to know who to trust in a multichannel digiital world Since old established brands equal strong relationships, so we readers will continue to read Murdoch's newspapers. Trust Murdoch? Whose kidding who?
Murdoch has been historically significant in the evolution of the media and he has been an agent for change. He broke the hegemony of the unions at Wapping; introduced competition in the popular press" by taking on Hugh Cudlipp's Daily Mirror with a revitalised Sun in 1969; dragged the Times into the modern age" launched Sky television in 1989 and established Fox News in the US, which tapped into a conservative zeitgeist that the mainstream media had hitherto ignored.
Yet the success of the Sky satellite broadcaster, which dominates the pay-TV industry and has almost 8 million subscribers, is the last big move. Murdoch is playing catchp these days. His pay television in the UK--BSkyB is considering offering free internet access for its top-tier subscribers, who pay more than £40 a month for its premium sports and film channels.That aggressively undercuts other broadband packages.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 5:11 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
July 8, 2006
new directions?
Warren Snowdon, Labor's member for Lingiari, based in Alice Springs, says that though things are bad in the Pitlands in SA there have been drastic improvements in tackling indigenous disease and illness. He adds:
That's because Aboriginal people get to own and understand their local health service. This is the key; do the same with education and employment, and progress can be made.
How does that approach sit with the new paternalism of the Howard Goverment?
Snowdon quotes comments by David Martin, a fellow of the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at the Australian National University, about the new direction in federal Indigenous affairs policy. Martin says:
Much of the support for the new policies is predicated on the ... assumption that Indigenous people naturally desire the lifestyle and values which correlate with economic integration, or that if they don’t, a carrot and stick approach can be used to achieve it. However, the evidence shows that while many ... do indeed seek to take advantage of better economic opportunities, and while cultural change is a feature of all societies ... there is a widespread resistance amongst Indigenous people to what they see as attempts to assimilate them into the dominant society economically and socially.
It is about building community governance isn't it.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 5:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 7, 2006
taking control
If unemployment has fallen since the 2004 election, then interest rates have risen twice and inflation is nudging the 3 per cent mark. Another interest rate rise looks likely, as fuel prices keep driving up inflation, before next year's election.And Labor looks as if it has Howard on the back foot, thanks to the industrial relations laws which are irrevocably tied to Howard.
Geoff Pryor
The political landscape is shifting, is it not? Just a bit? You can see the cracks in the earth from the "triple whammy" assaulting the electorate: rising interest rates, high petrol prices and an aggressive new industrial relations policy. Some commentary at philosophy.com about political receipes.
I prefer Pryor's pirate imagery to that of the horse race favoured by mainstream commentators. The former captures the friends/enemies conception of politics and the seizing of power.
Update: 10 July
Ross Fitzgerald, in an op. ed. The Australian, also say that the ground is finally moving under the decade-long federal Government:
For 10 years Howard has occupied the middle ground. He has skilfully managed an alliance of voters spanning the ultra-wealthy through to the socially conservative, economically vulnerable battlers of the suburban fringes. The Prime Minister's IR changes strike right at the heart of this coalition, giving Howard's battlers permission to look elsewhere for a middle-of-the-road leader who understands and will support them. It's an opportunity to reconsider what has become an almost habitual vote for Howard. And it's an opportunity federal Labor won't miss.
Beazley has the experience and resilience that conservative voters require for reassurrance.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 5:44 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
July 6, 2006
David Flint sings his song
David Flint, the former chairman of the Press Council and the Australian Broadcasting Authority, says the following in an op. ed. in todays Australian:
I admire Alan Jones. My admiration is based on the fact that Jones is a principled and superbly effective communicator and a successful radio identity. He takes on an extraordinary workload. He is compassionate and charitable to those in need. And he eloquently speaks for the silent majority on issues from his opposition to the politicians' republic and an apology to Aboriginal Australians to his strong support for border protection and the war on Islamic terrorism. To be sure, I don't agree with everything he says. His support for protectionism and agrarian socialism, for instance, are just a little left wing for my taste.
It's a nice compliment isn't it.
Bill Leak
What a mo, isn't this the same Alan Jones who was up to his neck in the 'cash for comment' scandal. That was where Jones pocketed big bucks from corporations seeking positive comment. They made secret payments in return for positive coverage, or an end to negative coverage.
I presume Jones' success in this is what makes him such 'a principled and superbly effective communicator.' Flint was in charge of the regulator (ABA) ensuring that this kind of media corruption did not happen. Flint's ABA held a public inquiry and it concluded that 2UE, where Jones (and John Laws) worked together at the time, had breached the Commercial Radio Codes of Practice 95 times. But Jones stayed. Does that mean commentary on commercial radio sings the tune of whoever is paying?
Flint really doesn't like the ABC. Referring to the Chris Master's Jonestown manuscript, which was to be published by ABC Books before the plug ws pulled, Flint say that:
...the ABC had decided to target its commercial rival in a way it has targeted no one else. The indications clearly are that a purpose from the outset - indeed, the primary purpose of this enterprise - was not so much the public interest but to do damage, if not mortal damage, to Jones.... the result for the ABC is an unmitigated disaster. Its jealousy and hatred made it blind to what it was doing. ...This blunder will only add more substance to the justified charge that the ABC needs not simply reform, but that it may have reached the point where it is beyond reform.
The cause of the rot? The left-wing collectivist culture of the national broadcaster. This undermines national cohesion by pushing a soft Marxist narrative that sees Australia as a racist and sexist country founded on a crime. So thunders The Australian
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 2:49 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
July 5, 2006
obesity, market failure, neo-liberalism
Ross Gittins had an article on obesity in The Age a week or so ago. Looking at it from an economic perspective he argues that the fundamental causes of the developed world's obesity epidemic are economic, that it is a case of market failure, and that government intervention is required.
As Harry Clarke points out at Kalimna the 'extent to which you want the state to intervene in people's lives is a major issue distinguishing different camps of political philosophy.' Samuel McSkimming over at Catallaxy says that Gitten's argument for state intervention is incoherent. Is it?
So let us look at Gittin's argument, and then we can see how far the debate has progressed beyond the idealogues saying that privatising socalised medicine is the grand solution or that nothing should be done. Gittins says that the obesity "epidemic":
...constitutes a damaging side effect of technological advance and economic growth....the sudden surge in weight seems to be better explained by developments on the consumption side. According to a study of obesity in America by two economics professors at Harvard, David Cutler and Edward Glaeser, in the 1960s, the bulk of food preparation was done by families that cooked their own food and ate it at home. Since then, there's been a revolution in the mass preparation of food. Technological innovations — including vacuum packing, improved preservatives, deep-freezing, artificial flavours and microwaves — have enabled food manufacturers to cook food centrally and ship it to consumers for rapid consumption. This greatly reduced the "time cost" of food production, both at home and commercially.
That is about right. The way we prepare and consume food has changed with industralization in late modernity ---today we eat more snacks, and these are more likely to be mass-produced, high-kilojoule (that is, high-fat, high-sugar) treats and as processed snacks from the supermarket.
Gittins then highlights the consquences for public health:
I need hardly remind you that our growing obesity problem has serious implications for our health and the cost of health care. It's leading to increases in type 2 diabetes (what used to be called late-onset diabetes until kids started getting it), heart disease, several types of cancer, musculoskeletal disorders, sleep apnoea and gallbladder disease.
That is about right too, in spite of those who say that junk food is just a matter of personal taste or that fat is okay.
Gittins then makes a move that many would disagree with. He says that what we have here is an unusual but serious case of "market failure" as a result of 'capitalists using all their wiles to flog their food and make a quid is major social and economic dysfunction.' That inference strikes me as about right. As the consequence is rising health costs, then prevention is the best health policy to contain the health costs. So governments have an interest in doing something to prevent obesity. Gittins then makes the classic social democratic response to market failure. He says:
When market failure is demonstrated, and is known to have serious consequences, the case for government intervention is established. One obvious corrective would be to limit the use of advertising to induce over-consumption — particularly by children.
That is a limited response for sure. You could also change the food sold in the tuckshops in public schools, or regulate to put health warnings on the fatty foods. Gittins concludes that 'there's ample precedent for government intervention to protect our health against the excesses of an unfettered market: tobacco control (pricing, advertising and promotion restrictions, smoke-free restrictions), road trauma minimisation (mandatory seat belts, speeding and alcohol restrictions) and injury prevention (restrictions on firearms, fireworks and safety regulations).'
The neo-liberal response is to deny market failure and the usefulness of government regulation. Thus Chris Berg, writing in reponse to Gittins in The Age, disputes the conclusion that government intervention is needed, as it is a matter of individual responsibility. He says that we are getting heavier (not necessarily fatter) and that:
Part of this is to do with the composition of our diet. But most of the recent growth in weight is not directly attributable to our food. A study by the economists Darius Lakdawala and Tomas Philipson found that only 40 per cent of weight gain since the 1970s is due to changes in diet. Rather, the large part of our weight increase can be attributable to changes in lifestyle and work practices.Contrary to what Gittins has argued, this is not an opportunity for government to intervene.
What about food? Or encouraging companies and bureaucracies to help their workers to increase their exercise during the lunch hour?
Berg's response is to say that government regulation doesn't seem to work, (citing Sweden), that the market is remarkably good at educating people on the negative consequences of their decisions, and that consumers are becoming more aware of the consequences of fatty and unhealthy food. A few books do not counter the advertising of the junk food industry. As Harry Clarke points out information is a public good so we can expect it to be underprovided unless it services a private interest. Thsi avoids the implication of the libertarian argument that those consumers who get fat are flawed--stupid; ie., a small minority of pathetic fools.
Berg concludes the neo-liberal case:
The notion of a government regulating to protect people against obesity used to be unthinkable, used as a parody of anti-tobacco legislation. Unfortunately, it shows us how far the political debate has moved from personal responsibility to government responsibility. But is there a clearer area in which individual responsibility must take the fore than when choosing what we eat? Government regulation is not the solution to the obesity crisis.
So if its all a matter of individual responsibility, then how do we deal with junk food, fat people and lack of exercise and so prevent called late-onset diabetes heart disease, several types of cancer, musculoskeletal disorders,with their implications for the cost of health care? We should be concerned because they cost all of us more in health costs’. A substantial component of health costs will be taken up with obese people with diabetes.
Samuel McSkimming at Catallaxy adds to this neo-liberal position by saying that:
My general view is that provided consumers face the correct price signals (and arguably they currently do not), they can do whatever they like - including smoking/drinking/eating themselves to an early grave.
There is no market failure.The problem from a liberal perspective is that though we have the failings (self-harm) of a significant minority of the population, the rest of the population are able to control their desires. So though there is a market externality, there is no market failure, because those who rarely eat junk food suffer no negative effects. Hence the problem for the libertarians becomes one of fat people getting cheap donuts.
Why not introduce a tax on junk food as has been done with cigarettes? The libertarian response is that you impose costs on people who consume the food occasionally, which means that in effect, those of us who like the occasional indulgence (eg., McDonalds or Hungry Jacks as a treat) are subsidising those with no self-control. So? They can choose to eat something else than McDonalds, if they do not want to pay extra for their luxury indulgence.
I do not see that the libertarian case against state intervention has been made. It is a case of both individual and government responsibility, not an either or. The question then becomes, what kinds of intevention are best?
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 8:28 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
July 4, 2006
Israel: might makes right
It wasn't so long ago that Israel disengaged from Gaza and talked about withdrawing from most of the Occupied Territories. That made Gaza a semi-autonomous sovereign territory. Today the Israeli army has invaded the Gaza Strip, while in the West Bank it has arrested a third of the Palestinian government: 64 legislators, cabinet ministers and officials, members of Hamas all. Doesn't that make the Israeli commitment to recognizing an independent Palestinian nation a sham?
The pretext given for the invasion was a raid led by the Hamas military wing on June 25, in which two soldiers were killed and one captured from an army post close to the Gaza Strip. Preumably Israel aims to create a new political reality based on nullifying the Hamas victory in the January elections.
Bill Leak
I say pretext because the Israeli military intervention looks premeditated and planned. It is more than reprisals" and "retaliation" that justifies the suffering the Israeli army is now inflicting on the Palestinian population for the "escalation" by the Palestinian militants. Israel's is a disproportinate response. The reasons?
By taking members of the Hamas government hostage Israel has shown its indifference to democratic elections and the development of a Palestinian state. Israel has allowed the Israeli military to inflict a policy of collective punishment against the impoverished civilian population. The Israeli defence force has destroyed Palestinian property and infrastructure that serves the basic needs of 1.4 million innocent civilians in Gaza eg., vital road bridges, the main power station and factories.Since Gaza's public water supply is pumped by electricity the taps, too, are dry, and there is no sewage system.
The US has continued to offer protection to Israel for these kind of activities despite them contravening articles 3 and 33 of the Geneva convention, which prohibit collective punishment, reprisals against protected persons, and the destruction of private properties belonging to individuals, groups, organisations or official bodies.The US says that "Israel has the right to defend itself". Don't the Palestinians also have that right? If Hamas is to be held account for its words and actions. The same applies to Israel.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 8:56 AM | Comments (8) | TrackBack
July 3, 2006
a lap dog media
At long last the mainstream media in Australia is becoming a little more honest about how it operates in terms of its relationship to political power. There has been little critical reflection on the media's relationship to democracy. Maybe that is beginning to change with the acknowledgement of the dripfeed--or the drop with strings attached.
Anne Davis writing in the Sydney Morning Herald says that:
Next time you see an "exclusive" tag on a story about state politics, stop and have a closer look. The chances are that the story, far from being a feat of journalistic endeavour, is what we call in the trade "a drop". You'll be able to tell it's a drop because it's likely to quote one side of politics only. This is often a condition of the drop. It's also likely to be getting a prominent run. Sometimes the story uses the quotes from the next day's press release, although as a reader this will be more difficult for you to spot.
She says that for the Lemma Government in NSW - the drop has become standard operating procedure. Isn't that the case for all state governments and the federal government? Davis usefully distinquishes the drop with strings attached to the strategic leak in the national media (eg., budget leaks). 'Strategic leak' and 'the drop ' do reinforce the lapdog role of the mainstream media and its lack of a critical voice about its current role of being a funnel for Government press releases.
What has happened to the watchdog role? Davis says that it has gone:
...simply running the Government's announcement before it is made, without any serious critique, comes perilously close to being advertising for political parties. It may be of mutual benefit to newspapers and politicians, but it's certainly not in the public's interest.
Isn't lapdog the standard operating procedure?That's the carrot. The stick comes whenyou don't pay ball and criticize the government--- then you are cut off the government's fax stream and your calls to its media advisors are not returned. Being a lapdog is an inditement of the mainstream media in a liberal democracy isn't it. What has changed is the mainstream media now publicly recognize themselves as effectively being lapdogs.
Nothing is said by Davis about the media establishment as political players. Little is said about the parliamentary press gallery doing any research on public policy and public administration. I presume that it is accepted that they don't as it is not part of the job description.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 8:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 2, 2006
a shag on a rock
David Hicks is an Australian/British citizen, at Guantanamo Bay. He has committed no offence against Australian law, yet the United States has held Hicks along with the other 450 prisoners at Guantanamo for over four years ---enough time to gather evidence to prove his guilt – if that evidence exists to convict him.
Ditchburn
The Howard Government has been very determined to ensure the continuation of extreme punishment for Hicks.It does this knowing that Hick's imprisonment and treatment was illegal under international law, that the military commissions deny the basic rights to an independent and impartial trial, and that the interrogation procedures do not exclude evidence obtained by coercion, including the use of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
Michelle Grattan's op ed in The Sunday Age points a finger on a key issue.
Grattan says that:
Hicks' training with al-Qaeda did not break the Australian law at the time. It didn't produce any terrorist act, or plan for one. It [the Howard Government] can't justify the extreme punishment to which he has been subjected.Yet nothing shakes the Howard Government's conviction, or its willingness to go along with what George Bush wants to do about the Guantanamo prisoners. It remains unswayed by the intense and mounting international criticism of Guantanamo Bay. It reacts to legal setbacks by sounding more shrill about the need for legal action.
Astonishingly, the Howard Government is willing to say that Hicks is guilty, it defends this kind of imprisonment (brutalising someone until they confess); says that the commissions were appropriate way to judge their citizens; and that they would provide a fair trial for those imprisoned. The Howard Government, in effect, provides whatever cover it can for the Bush Administration's illegal actions at Guantanamo Bay, and the illegality of the military commissions. The Australian government is unconcerned about the basic rights of one of its citizens.
In Hamdan v Rumsfeld, the Bush administration argued before the Supreme Court that the Geneva conventions did not apply to Hamdan, or to anyone at Guantanamo. Bush lost. The Supreme Court said the Geneva conventions absolutely do apply – and not just to the men in Guantanamo, but to anyone imprisoned through the war on terror. The Bush asdministration also argued that those imprisoned in Guantanamo had no right to challenge their imprisonment or the military commissions in federal court. Bush lost.
The Howard Government has played up the sense of urgency and danger in the war on terrorism and it avoids anything that would send a message that Australia is soft on terrorists. Invoking the war on terrorism plays upon fear and invokes strong meaures to ward off the lief-threatening danger. If national security requires a weaking in democracy or citizenship that is the price that needs to be paid. David Hick's has to be sacrificed for political reasons.
This kind of response to Hicks and Guantanamo expresses a political mindset about the use fo political power. The ALP should call for the closure of Guantanamo Bay as a way to challenge the neocon mindset that it is our duty to defer to the executive's, authority and military and foreign policy judgment.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 12:10 PM | Comments (12) | TrackBack
July 1, 2006
US Supreme Court reaffirms the rule of law
By 5-3 the US Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that the US military commissions, which the US had set up to hear the cases of those inside the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba violated, and were illegal, under both military justice law and the Geneva Convention. Some comment here in The Guardian and here in the New York Times.
The Australian Government has steadfastly maintained its trust and faith in the ability of the tribunals to deliver justice to the prisoners, especially David Hicks - the Australian who was due to be the first suspect to face the tribunals. By implication the Howard Government has supported Guantanamo Bay and the sidestepping of the Geneva Convention. Yet evidence has mounted over the years that many of the detainees at Guantánamo were picked up randomly in Afghanistan or turned over for reward in Pakistan, and are being held as "enemy combatants" with essentially no evidence at all.
The Court expressly declared that it was not questioning the government's power to hold Salim Ahmed Hamdan "for the duration of active hostilities" to prevent harm to innocent civilians. But, it said, "in undertaking to try Hamdan and subject him to criminal punishment, the Executive is bound to comply with the Rule of Law that prevails in this jurisdiction."
This indicates that President Bush cannot act unilaterally to create a system of law from thin air. He is bound by the rule of law. As Alan Wolf over at Political Animal observes, this is a challenge to the Bush administration's view of the world. According to this view, Wolfe says:
Americans face unprecedented threats from terrorists that can only be met by granting to the president the authority to respond in any way he determines to be in the national interest. Consultation, negotiation, power-sharing – all of which are part and parcel of ordinary democratic politics – become luxuries we can no longer afford. Only resolute action can stop an attack before it occurs.
The Supreme Court ruling has given Bush Administration a fall-back position - that of going to Congress to seek its imprimatur for a continuation of the tribunal process. This passes power to Congress not to the Court.
As Jack Balkin argues this is democracy forcing, as
...it has limited the President by forcing him to go back to Congress to ask for more authority than he already has, and if Congress gives it to him, then the Court will not stand in his way. It is possible, of course, that with a Congress controlled by the Republicans, the President might get everything he wants.
Balkin adds that nothing in Hamdan means that the President is constitutionally forbidden from doing what he wants to do. What the Court has done, rather is use the democratic process as a lever to discipline and constrain the President's possible overreaching. Balkin says that what the Supreme Court has done by forcing the President to ask for authorization is:
First, it insists that both branches be on board with what the President wants to do. Second, it requires the President to ask for authority when passions have cooled somewhat, as opposed to right after 9/11, when Congress would likely have given him almost anything (except authorization for his NSA surveillance program, but let's not go there!). Third, by requiring the President to go to Congress for authorization, it gives Congress an opportunity and an excuse for oversight, something which it has heretofore been rather loathe to do on its own motion.
Hence the Supreme Court reinforces the checks and balances of democracy.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 11:37 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack