9/11 was more successful than often credited, but not successful enough

It was lunchtime, 11th September 2001. I was doing bicep curls in the Broadgate Exchange gym in London. Toby, a web designer colleague came over and tapped me on the shoulder. "Paul, you gotta come and see this, someone's flown a plane into the World Trade Center. It was 13:53 (8:53am in New York) and by the time I got to the treadmill in front of the TV one tower was burning. At the time it was thought (according to the scrolling commentary at the bottom of the screen) that it might have been just a massive misjudgement by a pilot. What happened 10 minutes later proved that in itself to have been a similar massive mijudgement of the situation.

I hadn't brought my headphones, so I wasn't able to listen to the TV, and I still remember the noise as the second plane entered the left hand portion of the screen and headed towards the other tower. It was essentially a strangled cry of amazement, combined with "Oh my G-d"s and other expletives reverberating around the gym. I think everyone knew the significance of that second plane. Due to a big meeting elsewhere in the country I happened to be the most senior person in the office that day, so I ran from the gym to get changed and get back to it. I'm not going to claim I knew that things would never be the same again as I made my way back. The shock was too great for that.

By the time I got back to the office, the TVs were all on and the staff were gathered around them watching in stunned silence. During the next hour I remember dealing with collegues exhibiting a range of emotions. Some of them wanted to go home, some of them were angry, some of them were terrified, some of them were bewildered. We heard that London might also be a target and Canary Wharf was being evacuated. I called my boss, the MD of the company, to ask if I should let people go. He insisted that we didn't panic. Given we were located in a non-descript, old building near Liverpool Street which I had already wryly concluded any terrorists flying around looking for targets would think had already been hit he was probably right.

But I do remember one of the girls who worked on customer service saying something in anger which was a sign of just how effective the attack would be in its aims. "I tell you what, if I see a bhaji on the train goin' home I'm gonna given him what for" was what she said. Putting aside the ridiculousness of using a pejorative term for an Indian to denote who she thought was responsible, this was exactly the reaction Osama Bin Laden was looking for. Not just in normal people either. He was hoping to goad the politicians who ran the Western World into wanting to 'give Muslims what for'. Or at least to be appearing too. I doubt even he could have thought he would be so successful. Maybe he knew George Bush and those around him better than many give him credit for.

Bin Laden had tried for years to rouse the Muslim community into action through his words, detailing the grievances they should have with the West. His actions, including the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, the US Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998 and the USS Cole in the same year, had been aimed at attempting to rouse Bill Clinton's USA government into precipitous action in revenge. Bin Laden's ultimate aim was to goad the Western World into actions against the Muslim community which would in turn goad the Muslim community to rise up in defence of itself  - a "Holy War" or "Jihad" as he called it. But it hadn't worked.

9/11 was different. 9/11 worked. 9/11 got the over-reaction he wanted, and then some.

Going into Afghanistan without a credible exit strategy or understanding of the unlikeliness of there ever being one was the first. We forget now but the Taliban were given 30 days to hand over Osama Bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda fighters they were harbouring, at the end of which the USA and many other countries went in, backed, remember, by the United Nations, to find them. But you have to really understand Afghanistan to know the extent to which it is a collection of disparate tribes with little to bind them together. Suddenly there was a common enemy to bind them together against. That was what Osama Bin Laden wanted.

Meanwhile, on the streets of the USA, hundreds of Arab Americans, Muslims and, lets not forget, turbanned Sikhs were targetted in revenge attacks. A man has only recently been executed for killing a convenience store clerk during a 'revenge rampage'. That was what Osama Bin Laden wanted, mainly because had it carried on without being stopped by law enforcement, the Arab American community would have had to defend itself.

Then there's Iraq. I have written about the Iraq War in previous blogs. I remember trying to use international relations theory to try and explain it and finding it just about impossible. It will probably remain an anomaly in global political theory because in 100 years politics teachers without an agenda will still struggle to explain to their students why it happened. I imagine in his wildest dreams, and I imagine he DID have some pretty wild dreams, Osama Bin Laden never thought he would be handed such a propaganda coup on a plate. From that point, every swivel-eyed idealogue had one word to speak to prove to those they were trying to radicalise that the Western World were against them.

It certainly helped motivate those who planned the 7/7 bombings on tube stations in London. You can still see their videos now as they talked of the reasons behind their plans. Previously, particularly before 9/11, there was a list of spurious excuses for actions. Remember, around the time of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center there was a peace accord between Israel and Palestine and the USA's army were not involved in any muslim country (in fact over the next few years their involvement was to save the Muslim community in Bosnia. Now though, you could just say 'Iraq' and you had a holy army form.

On 21/7 , which was the failed bombing of the Underground, only a fortnight after the successful first, I have to admit Bin Laden nearly got me. What I mean by that is that for about 2 minutes, when the thought entered my head that we might be dealing with bomb attack after bomb attack and I decided that it might be better if the country had no Muslims in. 2 minutes. That's all it was. I'm not proud of it, in fact I'm very embarrassed, but I understand how it happened. By constantly trying to catalyze these actions, Bin Laden was trying to get the British people to attack Muslims around them, thus causing a backlash. But, to the credit of the British people, it didn't happen.

Because, and let's never forget this, the atrocities I talk about were carried out by people who say that they are doing so in the name of the Muslim people, but actually they besmirch the name of those they claim to represent.

Bin Laden's aim was to make us forget that. Bin Laden's aim was to draw the Western World into a Holy War. He came very close. But as long as sensible Westerners remain proud of the liberal democracies we live in, he will fail.

Ratko Mladic reminds me why we are in Libya

I'll always remember their faces when I told them about Bosnia. I once taught a group of boys, the majority of whom were Muslim. We had some fascinating conversations about foreign policy, particularly around the time they were going on the protest marches against Israel's actions in Gaza. They were in the middle of insisting that it was another example of the Christian world sitting back once again whilst Muslims are massacred.

I asked them to explain to me why then Tony Blair and Bill Clinton had intervened in Bosnia to stop the Christian Serbs killing the Bosnian Muslims. They sat, and they stared at me in complete incomprehension. I asked them the question again. Blank faces. It began to dawn on me that they had no idea what I was talking about. Bosnia didn't fit with 'the narrative', so they hadn't been told about it by those in their community who were (for reasons I won't guess) been fuelling their victim complex. It had simply been erased from history as an inconvenient anomaly. Or so I thought.

After the weekend they came back into class with triumphant looks on their faces. "Why Sir did the UK and USA wait until after so many Muslims had been killed before interveneing? Why did the West allow Sebrenica to happen?"

This conversation (and the faces of my former pupils) came into my head when I heard that Ratko Mladic had been arrested in Serbia this week. It was he and Radovan Karadzic who had led the Sebrenica massacre in 1995. It was three more years before the UK and USA intervened.

And this leads to the situation in Libya. It seems the mission has crept, in that the words of Barack Obama and David Cameron this week suggest they will not leave until Muammar Gaddafi is 'removed' as leader of the country. They call this 'removing the war machine' but many call it 'regime change'. The problem, of course, is that the West went into Libya without really understanding what would mark the end of the campaign. That gives useful fuel to those who question why we actually went into Libya in the first place, and why we are there but not doing anything about similar issues in Syria and Bahrain.

The facile answer is that we are in Libya because it has oil and Syria doesn't. (Bahrain DOES have oil but again probably not useful for 'the narrative').  I say facile because it is easy to say but hard to prove. The Arab League itself had asked the Western World to intervene in Libya and Gadaffi and sons had loudly proclaimed their intention to go "house-to-house" killing people in Benghazi.

This put David Cameron in an awkward position. If he believes in muscular liberalism then he had little choice but to intervene in Libya given from what Gaddafi was saying there was about to be a massacre in Benghazi. The trouble was that, had Kosovo and Sierra Leone been the last examples of liberal interventionism it would have been consistent to have also got involved in Libya. Alas, Iraq and Afghanistan had made it far more complicated.

Also making it far more complicated was the inability to understand the consequences of intervention. In one day a few weeks ago I read two articles in different broadsheets. One argued that getting involved in  Libya would be a recruiting tool for Islamic terrorism as we would end up killing Muslims. The other argued that not getting involved in Libya would be a recruiting tool for Islamic terrorism as we would be doing nothing about the killing of Muslims.

If you think that sounds ridiculous, let's go back to the conversation in my classroom over two and half years ago. The 6th form boys I was talking too said that it was as much a problem that the West was killing Muslims in Iraq as it was that the West allowed Muslims to be killed in Bosnia. Damned when we do, damned when we don't.

At the end of the day, there is a reason why most of Parliament (I believe it was less than 10 MPs who voted against) voted for intervention in Libya. It's because of one of the more impressive lines David Cameron has come up with so far. "Just because we can't do everything doesn't mean we should do nothing". We simply can't afford to be in Bahrain and Syria as well, so does that mean we let people die in Libya?

If we had we would have learned nothing from Sebrenica. And that, for me, would have been a worse crime.

Egypt - "May God help everyone"

The words of Omar Suleiman, at the end of his terse speech announcing Hosni Mubarak's resignation as Egyptian President, could not be more poignant. I for one am praying for the people of Egypt - that they get what they want and that they are safe. Trouble is - they will probably need divine intervention to come out of this situation with either.

International Relations theory is dominated by the two main schools of thought, realism and liberalism. Both appear to accept that the international political system is anarchical. Realists believe that this anarchy neccessitates a self-help system in which states maximise their security and relative power position. Liberalists, however, believe that the best way to respond to anarchy is for states to co-operate, using international organisations and trade to create a situation where states have too much to lose if they enter conflict with each other.

As part of this, Liberalists believe in cosmopolitanism -  the ideology that all human ethnic groups belong to a single community based on a shared morality - and a major part of that is democracy. This is why so many in the West have been so excited about what is going on in Egypt. From a military backed dictatorship we see the possibility of democracy emerging and it seems important to everyone that democracy is allowed to flourish.

Here is the problem though, and the best way to introduce how much of a problem it is would be by pointing out that George W Bush was a neo-liberal who also believed democracy and cosmopolitanism was best. Iraq after the 2003 invasion contained none of the institutions you need to grow a democracy from. There was no independent judiciary, no experience nor Parliamentary set-up where government could be held-to-account and scrutinized, and no distinterested forces for social order either (e.g. army and police). Hence the difficulties you see today.

The above three characteristics hold in Egypt too, and therein could lie a problem. We in the West could help them, but will they accept our help? Remember, we have (because of a realist belief that General Mubarak could serve our purposes in the region) supported the dictatorship they have shown to so detest for the last 30 years. So who would they trust?

Realists have spotted a further problem here. It's the "careful what you wish for" problem. If the Egyptian people get a free vote they could well vote in a government hostile to the West. This doesn't necessarily need to be an Islamist party such as the Muslim Brotherhood either, because there are new powers in the region that you don't have to be Islamist to get into bed with. Saudi Arabia threatened to replace every penny of aid that the US were threatening to withdraw last week, because they could. The US know that and the competing parties in what will hopefully be a peaceful upcoming election know that too.

Which is why need to turn to the Muslim Brotherhood. Hitherto banned in Egypt they have gone down the well-trodden line of working very hard on social projects to build up support all over the country - leading to them having something like 25% of the vote in their pockets already. This could grow should they offer a viable governing programme.

Is the Muslim Brotherhood what the Liberalists wanted? We don't know a huge amount about them. Knee-jerk realists argue that Islam is not compatible with democracy so the Muslim Brotherhood would go the same way as Hamas have done in Gaza (throwing opposition politicians off the top of buildings just doesn't count as allowing yourself to be held to account in my book).

BUT Indonesia has a thriving democracy and is a Muslim country, so we can't make generalisations. The Muslim Brotherhood have been making the right noises. Added to that, they will know the world is watching, and may want to show that Islam IS compatible with a fully functioning democracy. We will see. We certainly need to be careful about any interference in the election and need to work with whoever wins.

That leaves Israel. Binyamin Netanyahu started off making noises about putting his country on alert but was told in no uncertain terms by the UK and USA to tone down his rhetoric. The Muslim Brotherhood have promised to have a look at the treaty that Egypt has with Israel. They say they want to put it to a vote of the Egyptian people. They have never been able to vote for it before and for all we know Mubarak was essentially paid to support it instead of believing in it.

My advice to Israel is not to make the same mistake as I feel they have done with Hamas. Not negotiating with a group that don't recognise Israel is the wrong way round, you need to negotiate to persuade them TO recognise Israel. They should offer to work with whatever government is voted in across the Sinai border. The Liberalists in Israel should hold sway over the realists.

Whatever happens - Omar Suleiman is right - may God help everyone.

Tony Blair and shades of Grey

Unlike most people who have an opinion on Tony Blair's autobiography, I have actually read it.

This is an important distinction that can now be made when discussing Blair, his actions, his decisions, his mistakes and his successes - we do actually have his view on it, his thoughts at the time and his opinions now. The distinction can be made between those who think that judgement can be passed after hearing only the case for the prosecution, and those who are at least prepared to hear the defence before deciding on guilt.

There is nothing I find more frustrating when teaching, thinking or talking about politics and economics than those who see only black or white. There are umpteen shades of grey, and I like to explore them all before coming to a decision on what I think. I meet far too many people who think, say, 'black' on an issue, read only 'black', consider only 'black', and talk only 'black'. They then consider themselves to have formed an opinion. I don't regard them as being capable of doing so properly.

This has two consequences for me. First of all it means that it may take longer for me than for most to form an opinion, because I insist on reading as much as possible of the different views on it before doing so. Second it means I can and will change my mind on an issue, and I don't see this as a weakness.If I read a view or see evidence which causes me to doubt my previous position, I feel it's not a problem to reconsider.

Yet far too many people I have come accross during my life, and especially my career in education, be they students, teachers, parents, friends - have their view of the world and that's it. It may be the same view that their parents have, or that their favourite teacher has, or that their friends expect them to have, or it may be one that they have developed through reading books and newspapers that lean hard to one particular point of view. What I have found in too many people is an unwillingness to consider that there may be another legitimate point of view. They won't read another point of view, they won't even consider any evidence, to the point of wilfully ignoring its existence, just in case they find themselves doubting the position they think they have to have.

I find this intellectually cowardly and immensely annoying, and I must emphasise that I find it happens on both sides of the political spectrum, whether people are talking about the UK economy, UK politics, or the Global economy and international relations (particularly the Arab-Israeli conflict).

I've been trying to work out for a while why this happens. Is it because people are lazy? Yes, some of them. Is it because they are scared, maybe of what their friends or parents or colleagues would think if they were showing signs of developing independent thought? Definitely happens. Is it because they are worried about what they would think of themselves if their convictions wavered? I think so. Is it because they 'know they are right' and everyone who disagrees with them is not just wrong but a wicked person? I have come across too many for my liking who are like this.

The problem this causes is that it weakens the standard of debate around the country, and around the world. It means that we don't develop the understanding of each others' points of view that allows conflict to be resolved through sensible discussion. It means in this country too many people sleepwalk into voting for a party because "we're a Tory family, or I'm Labour and I always will be" instead of thinking about which policies may be better for the country at the time, mainly because they have no idea what other party policies actually are. I've voted in 5 elections in my life, for 3 different parties, depending on what, after much thought, reading and debate, I think would be best for the UK. When I decide what I think would be best, I'm not "right", that's just my opinion at that time.

Even if you think you will never change your view of an issue, there is nothing wrong with becoming as au fait as possible with contrary views, if only to strengthen your ability to argue against them using other tactics than just repeating your point louder and louder every time, or resorting to personal insults because you've run out of sensible points to make. You might, just might, change the view you have. Don't be scared, it's OK to do so.

I started with Tony Blair's autobiography so I'll end with it. I'm fed up to the back teeth of people saying "I'm not going to read it - it's all lies" or "I'm not interested in what that war criminal has to say". He was there, he was responsible for our country's safety, he made a decision, whether you think he is a hero or a war criminal it is important you read his views and the evidence he saw and used to make his decisions.

I've changed my position on the Iraq War many times - with different views on whether it should have happened (I think it's difficult to argue that the management of the aftermath has been anything other than a disaster). I've gone from the gung-ho - "let's kill them there terrorists" -  to the doubting - "why is regime change necessary there but not in places like Zimbabwe where people are dying but there's no oil" -  to "wouldn't the world be a worse place in 2011 if Saddam was still there?" to "really, given he was no danger to us, haven't we just contributed to a lot of muslim deaths? No surprise it's been such an effective recruitment tool".

Throughout my oscillations I relied on newspaper articles, books, films, interviews with those involved - all of these written with one bias or another. Tony Blair's autobiography is just another piece of evidence, which has obviously been carefully written with a view to the fact that he will be answering questions on this issue for the rest of his life. In it he quotes from UN inspector reports, from the UN security council resolutions and from conversations he says he had with different figures around the time.

He will have been just as selective in the information he provides as anyone, but the difference between him and others who have written about Iraq is that it was actually Tony Blair that was there. He made the decision, and we all sit in judgement of that decision, and to judge we need to hear from him.

The same people who talk about civil liberties and people being innocent until proven guilty tend also to be those most likely to decide that they have no need to read what he says. Well, until they do, they are not in a position to judge him or his decision.

As for me, having read extensively in preparing for an A-level Global Politics course and for my general interest in politics, I'm of the opinion that it was a war entered into for honest motives, but using seemingly dishonest means to persuade others of the case.

I'll read the Chilcot report too, and so will people who supported the Iraq War, no doubt, should the Chilcot report come out in favour of the decision to go to War. Should the Chilcot report come out against the decision, I'm sure those also against the War will read it. Sad that it won't be read by everyone whatever it says. But true.

Why "Climate change agreement" may be an oxymoron

At the end of a lesson on environmental politics last summer a student slammed her textbook on the table and wearily commented that "the study of global politics is basically learning why nothing will ever get better". To be fair to her, we had just covered poverty and global warming, both topics rather doom-laden, but in some ways she was right.

Look at the attempts to claim that the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) in Cancun that finished this weekend was a success: If you had told activists two years ago that they would claim that a 2010 agreement that covered adaptation financing (which accepts climate change is happening and prepares countries for it) and technology transfer (sharing the knowledge and skills to make production greener) but doesn't commit anyone to a monitored reduction in emissions they would have thought you mad. But the car crash that was Copenhagen has refocused expectations - and it has left the simple fact that the UN is actually capable of facing in the right direction on climate change as a sign of real progress.

So why is it that we can't get a global agreement on such an important issue as how to stop climate change?

1) The question of the science - despite the sheer weight of science available to prove that climate change is happening and that it has been caused and can be reduced by human behaviour there are many who are sceptical about the science. The science community itself hasn't helped itself by seeming so unwilling to discuss and publish any sceptical studies and there has also been the "climate-gate" scandal of last year involving the alleged hiding of data which suggests there was something to hide. Something to think about is this: If climate change IS happening and we DON'T do anything about it, the results could be catastrophic for all. If climate change ISN'T happening and we DO something about it, the result could be slower economic growth for many countries. Which is worse?

2) The tragedy of the Commons - the term was coined by Garret Hardin in 1968, who said that  - "where there is unrestricted access to a resource owned by no-one, there will be an incentive for individuals to grab as much as they can, and if the resource is finite there will come a time when it is ruined by over-exploitation as the short-term interests of individual users overwhelm the longer-run collective interests" - The resource in this case is our atmosphere and the pollution caused by emissions is the problem. Hardin's solution was to 'privatise' the resource - as if someone owns something they will be incentivised to look after it long-term, and then have central world government regulate their use.  BUT the emissions causing climate change are a 'transboundary' problem - in that it crosses national borders AND it is physically impossible to enclose the area which is being polluted AND there is no effective global governance available, mainly because so many countries will not allow their sovereignty to be infringed by global governance. Many will point to the way that the 'Montreal Protocol' solved the problem of the hole in the ozone layer 20 years ago. But this was a "point-source issue" - we managed to isolate the cause of those (CFCs from aerosols and fridges) and resolve the problem. With global warming there is debate over the causes and the sources and so it is much more difficult to know what will resolve the problem.

3) Sovereignty and the national interest - the three principles of sovereignty are that nation states are responsible for their subjects' security, liberty and prosperity. During a recession in the USA is it really possible to tell senators from "rustbelt" states dependent on coal mining, steel manufacturing and heavy manufacturing that they must sign up to action on climate change which could cost many thousands of jobs? Are UK citizens going to sign up to electricity bills rising by 25% and be happy to see the economy shrink by 1% by 2020 in order to achieve emissions targets (as Lord Turner - the government's climate change adviser has admitted)?Are China's government ever going to be persuaded to allow international monitoring of their emissions, given they won't allow even internal monitoring of their actions?

4) Will governments take on consumers? - Western democracies value choice. Will consumers REALLY accept having their choices dictated by government - which is ultimately what will need to happen in order to persuade companies to change production techniques enough make the necessary emissions reductions? Given numerous surveys still put climate change as low on voters' priorities, wouldn't the restrictions on energy use required not be politically unpalatable? Will banks accept being directed to lend money for green infrastructure projects without government guarantees? Terry Leahy of Tesco says that given they operate in such a competitive market they need to give customers what they want - so he needs customers to change first. Will they do so without government coercion? Will they accept that coercion?

5) Common but differentiated responsibities - the 1992 UNFCCC ('Rio Summit') developed the key principle that although all nations had to accept responsibility for the world's climate, it was developed nations that were immediately responsible as they had benefitted from the industrialisation which was regarded as the cause of the excess CO2 emissions which had caused the climate change. The USA emits around 25% of the global total but has only 4.5% of the world's population. Chinese figures are 14% and over 20% of the world's population. The 35 least developed nations emit under 1% yet account for over 10% of the world's population. So it would have to be the developed countries that lead the way in making reductions. The Kyoto Protocol in 1997 then committed only developed countries to make reductions. This led to the US Senate passing the Byrd-Hagel resolution making it clear it would not ratify any agreement where developing nations - many of whom were already economic competitors to the US, did not also have to make emissions reductions. They have said that they want China and India to commit to emission reductions - leading to an Indian Foreign Minister saying this was like "Guys with gross obesity telling guys just emerging from emiaction to go on a major diet". Common but differentiated responsibilities sounds ok in theory but will it happen in practice?

6) The primacy of economic development - As I mentioned in an earlier article on them, China has 200m inhabitants still living in absolute poverty. The priority of their government is to remove them from that poverty. The UK once had many inhabitants in absolute poverty. They solved it by industrialising on a massive scale, regardless of the emissions that result. So did the USA. So did most of the West. Now we're expecting countries like China and India to introduce costly energy saving measures at the same time as they need to grow to take their population out of poverty. We are now at the situation where the USA won't adhere to a climate change regime without China and India signing up to it but they don't see why they should, and have a strong argument that it is not in the best interests of their population to do so.

At the end of the day we are trying to create a regime that will deal with climate change. These problems above have put us at an impasse. Any ideas?

Wikileaks, Assange and What ifs

My main problem with Wikileaks and it's founder, Julian Assange, is that I just can't work out what he is trying to achieve.

Giving him full benefit of the doubt, he is genuinely trying to create a more open political and security culture, allowing the general public to see all the information they are denied access to and to let them judge for themselves the actions of those who rule them - eventually asking those countries to take responsibility for actions that may or may not be illegal, and if not, possibly immoral.

There is certainly an importance in some of what he released recently through carefully selected media outlets. The release of the convicted Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Al-megrahi, back to Libya was so suspicious that if Assange's leaks can prove one way or another whether it was related to trade or government pressure that information will do a great deal to stop things like that happening again.

But I do have the following questions, which if answered would help me make up my mind more fully on the issue.

1) How does Assange select the information Wikileaks releases, and why does he select that information? Wikileaks has released a lot of information on the conduct of the many countries on one side of what is an assymetric war. Nation states governed by the Geneva Convention are fighting terrorist organisations who will not have to explain themselves to anyone. Are Wikileaks showing us the information that incriminates one side for torture but holding onto information that might also incriminate the other side? Does Assange hold political views? Is he anti-American? Is he anti-West? How does this affect the information he seeks and then leaks? Some of what he has released puts all Westerners and those who work with the West in actual danger. This is important to know, as politics students need to question the sources they use to develop their opinions and take account of any bias before the evaluate the importance of that source to their argument. Assange complains about censorship. Is he censoring what we get to see?

2) Given Assange has said that states need to take responsibility for their actions and be held to account, why isn't he going to Sweden to face the charges of sexual assault that have been levelled against him? I am finding this whole part of this story very strange. Yes, there could be a motive behind a western government finding a way to generate a false charge against him - but Sweden? It's not their style. We have had the quite astonishing reaction of the extreme left-wing, who wish us to take every allegation of rape seriously, apart from this one.

Speaking out for Assange this week has been John Pilger. On the one hand I like politics students reading Pilger as he writes so passionately and interestingly about the issues he is shining a light upon. But I find it frustrating when students stop there and don't attempt to look at the opposite side of the story. Auberon Waugh coined the term "to Pilger" and defined it as "to present information in a sensationalist manner to reach a foregone conclusion" and Pilger certainly has a way of using only statistics that support his views whlist ignoring any that may inconveniently weaken his argument. Stepping into the Assange saga this week, Pilger offered to pay a portion of his bail, saying that although he didn't know Assange (an inconvenient statistic if there ever was one) he knew he was innocent of all charges, with little answer to the inconvenient question of how he knew this. Assange can't choose his friends, but if he wants credibility for being simply a torch shining a light on truth and freedom of information, he doesn't need Pilger as his bedfellow. 

I have been uncomfortable with many parts of this case. What Julian Assange is saying and doing, but also how it is being covered by the media and how the US authorities in particular are reacting (Robert Gates, US Defence Secretary, openly laughing when he heard that Assange had been arrested on a sexual assault charge was almost chilling).

What if Julian Assange didn't sexually assault these two women? What if the information he has released changes the way states interact for the good? If this is the case then we all need to support what he is doing.

But what if he DID sexually assault them? And what if what he really wants is the West to be crushed? The prime role of a sovereign state is to protect the security of its' subjects.

So many what ifs. Watch this space......

World Cup 2018 and 2022 - The shifting sands of global politics

The World Cup went to Russia and Qatar for partly because it hasn't been to those areas before but there are three other reasons - each with significant repercussions for global politics and economics. The Freedom of the press, location of natural resources and the consequences of an indebted West and cash-flush 'Rest' were laid bare yesterday.

1)  The results of the bids for 2018 and 2022, and especially 2018, were in inverse correlation to press freedom in that country. I would bet quite a fair amount that for the next 8 years any Russian journalist who investigates or questions FIFA will find themselves on  'holiday' in Siberia. One of the most fascinating items I read about the problems those on the FIFA committee had with the machinations of the English Press was that they assumed the criticisms of them came directly from the UK government because in many of their countries the government IS the press. In particular, their understanding of the independence of the BBC is limited so trying to explain that it isn't merely a mouthpiece of the government would be very difficult. If the World Cup came to England, the FIFA committee would expect 8 years of extreme scrutiny, and the likelihood is that their behaviour doesn't stand up to even the smallest amount of scrutiny so going to Russia and Qatar made a lot of sense. For instance, the World Cup in England would generate a lot of profit for FIFA, but they demand that any income they make during the World Cup is tax free. In a time of cuts and deficits this would not have looked good.

2) Russia is the World's largest exporter of natural gas. Qatar is the World's third largest exporter of natural gas. The World is becoming more and more dependent on natural resources as it develops and FIFA seems to have recognised the importance of this.

3) Global political power is now officially on the move. From the heavily indebted importers of the West to the cash-rich exporters of the Near, Middle and Far East. This is the clearest sign yet that the creditor is King now.

Going back to number 1. I have no problem with the accusation that the BBC and the media "lost" us the World Cup. Good. I'd rather lose the bid honestly than win it because I offer FIFA 12 years of protection from tax and press scrutiny. If the BBC had been pressured into moving their Panorama investigation and we'd won it would have been a dirty win. At the end of the day, the UK may have had the best bid, but 'best' is just different now.

The China Conundrum

Interesting watching David Cameron attempting to negotiate his trip to China through the clarion calls for him to speak up about human rights abuses. As was rightly pointed out on 'Question Time' last night, he does have a choice between 'money' and 'human rights' in that if he wants trade deals with China right now that might lead to jobs being created in the UK through China's export demand he needs to prioritise that over the human rights issue.

There is a point to be made there that right now the priority IS jobs. We've just come out of a recession and have a large amount of unemployment and a huge deficit and we need demand to come from somewhere given the cuts in the public sector.

But actually for me this is not about David Cameron, who will probably be damned whatever he does, but about China. It is about what we in the West regard as the most important human rights, and what we in the West expect of countries who are yet to develop fully economically.

There is a lot of misunderstanding in the UK about China. First of all - they may have the World's second highest GDP but this is shared amongst such a large population that they have a GDP per capita of around $3,000 a year (World Bank estimate). Ours in the UK is over $40,000. Most of all - they have over 200 million of their population still living in absolute poverty. That means they survive on less than $1.25 a day, the amount the World Bank feels is needed to enable a person to fulfill their needs of food, water, shelter, warmth and clothing.

That is their priority. Simple as that. We can make trite comments like that of an unnamed US negotiator who returned from last year's failed Copenhagen climate conference having not achieved any kind of agreement with China and muttered that it "shows what happens when you try to negotiate with a nation of only children". Or we can understand the following:

1) China's priority needs to be developing their country to the stage where they do not have citizens in absolute poverty.

2) As part of this they need to provide jobs for their population, food for their population and energy for their population.

3) Committing to a deal to limit their carbon emissions at the expense of their development would be tantamount to a form of 'sovereignty suicide' - their first priority is the prosperity of their citizens, given they have very little security issues. Their citizens need the fruits of development and growth and need them now, far more than we do in the UK.

4) Futhermore, they may also need to import food, raw materials and energy from countries regarded by the West as 'rogue'  states. They can get those vital resources cheaply and they can provide them for a population that actually needs them to live.

5) China's idea of 'human rights' may well be the right to live. It is generally thought that democracy may not be appropriate at times of either war or where economic development needs take priority. They do take priority, so when China complain that people don't understand the concept of 'human rights' the same as they do they are probably right.

I am not an apologist for the way China treats its' citizens who ask for democracy. I am not an apologist for their actions over Tibet. I am, though, prepared to understand from an economics point of view why China acts they way it does.

Sometimes, those who complain the loudest about China  need to put themselves in the position of their leaders. Leadership is an onerous responsibility, and sometimes you have to make unpalatable choices.

Do we really have any better ideas? 200 million people would like to hear them.