There’s been a lot of discussion about the ‘Australianisation‘ of the Conservatives election campaign in Britain, as represented by very lightly coded appeals to xenophobia and racism. But now the issue is settled. The Tories have pinched their slogan from B1 and B2

Actually, after posting this I realised that my blogtwin Tim Dunlop had beaten me to it ages ago, though he didn’t bother to spell out the Bananas in Pyjamas angle. But it’s still too good a story to miss.

Update 14/4 A day after this blog and weeks after Tim D, the Oz picks up the story

There’s been a lot of discussion of the late Pope, including whether he should be given the appellation “Great”. Historically, the honorific ‘Great’, when applied to monarchs, including Popes has not meant “Good”. Rather it’s been applied to those who’ve been successful in extending their monarchical power.[1] This is certainly true of Leo and Gregory, the popes currently regarded as Great. Although they’re both saints, neither of seems particularly saintly to me: rather they were hardheaded and successful statesmen.

In this interpretation of the term, it’s very hard to claim greatness for John Paul II. The church has lost ground throughout the developed world to secularism, and in Latin America to evangelical protestantism. Although there have been some modest gains in Africa and Asia, they’ve largely been in countries where the church had a strong presence dating back to colonial times.

Claims that the number of Catholics has risen greatly under JPII look dubious to me. This BBC file gives the basis of claims that there are more than 1 billion Catholics, and includes claims for more than 90 per cent of the population of Italy, Poland and Spain, based primarily on baptism. I suspect many of these are either nominal or lapsed.

If there has been growth, it’s largely due to natural increase in Catholic countries. To the extent that anti-contraception teaching has kept birth rates high, I suppose the Pope was partly responsible for this, but the same teaching contributed greatly to the collapse of the church in former strongholds like Ireland.

If you wanted to make a case for greatness for JPII it would be one of a fairly successful defensive action in unfavorable times.

In any case, judging by those who’ve been awarded the title by common consent, beginning with Alexander, Greatness is not a quality I admire much. And if we’re going for Goodness, I think John XXIII would be a more appealing candidate.

fn1. Fielding has great fun with this in Jonathan Wild, the story of the infamous ‘Thieftaker-General’, who became the Godfather of early 18th-century London.

After months of delay and dispute, the BBC reports that the Iraqi Parliament has finally mustered the two-thirds majority needed to nominate a president and two vice-presidents. These positions are largely ceremonial, but the deal presumably implies an agreement to select a Prime Minister, after which an interim government can finally take office, with the task of drawing up a permanent constitution. Some good news is that the Allawi group has been kept to the marginal position its weak electoral support implies.

There are still plenty of big problems ahead – the delays reflect fundamental divisions between Kurds and Shias about the future of Iraq and, except for some token appointments, the Sunnis have been excluded altogether. And the insurgency continues with little letup, having no doubt found many recruits among the refugees from Fallujah, almost completely destroyed in the November campaign there. Still, it seems reasonable to hope that a reasonably democratic, and only moderately Islamist government will eventually emerge.

Assuming this happens, was the invasion worth it? Definitely not, in my view.
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Responding to the latest inquiry into bogus intelligence on weapons of mass destruction, Bush says

“Our collection and analysis of intelligence will never be perfect, but in an age where our margin for error is getting smaller, in an age in which we are at war, the consequences of underestimating a threat could be tens of thousands of innocent lives,” Bush said.

But in the real world, the threat was overestimated and tens of thousands of innocent lives were lost[1].

fn1. If anyone wants to argue about numbers, they’re probably better off doing so over at Tim Lambert’s blog, but I’ll add just a few. The Iraq body count aggregates media reports of at least 17 000 civilian (including in this context, Iraqi police and troops killed in insurgent attacks) deaths arising from either US military action or insurgent attacks. These are lower-bound estimates, since many deaths have undoubtedly gone unreported. And the ordinary soldiers on both sides who died were also innocent of anything other than obeying the orders of a president who told them they were defending their country against a deadly threat.

This poll showing that 57 per cent of Australians thought US foreign policy to be as great a threat as that of Islamic fundamentalism provokes a variety of thoughts. I happened to read the poll results on the same day as this NYT story about Maher Arar, whose ‘extraordinary rendition’ has been covered in detail at Obsidian Wings.

There are various ways of assessing threats, and most Australians rightly regard terrorism as an overstated danger. But, as far as terrorism is concerned, there can be few instances more horrible and terrifying than the kidnappings and televised beheadings we’ve seen in Iraq. There are, however, equally awful things going on that are not televised, and that are carried out by the United States government.

An unknown number of people have been kidnapped, then shipped to torture chambers in unknown locations. We’ve found out about this from cases like that of Maher Arar, who was eventually released after his captors gave up on the idea that he was a terrorist, but it’s likely that in most cases, the victim simply disappears and is never seen again. Arar was in transit through the US when he was grabbed, but there have been similar kidnappings in Italy, Sweden and Macedonia and of course, countries like Iraq and Pakistan are free-fire zones.

As with quite a few of the worst policies of the Bush administration, the practice of extraordinary rendition apparently began under Clinton, but has been greatly expanded by Bush[1].

As far as I’ve seen so far, all of the victims in this cases have been Muslims. If that comforts you, perhaps you ought to read Martin Niemoller

As long as extraordinary renditions and similar practices continue, Australians are right to regard at least some aspects of US foreign policy as a threat comparable to that of Al Qaeda.

An update In the comments thread at Crooked Timber, Katherine observes, correctly I think, that arguments about moral equivalence are counterproductive. As she says ‘“Are we better or worse than Zarqawi and Bin Ladenâ€? is the debate people like James Inhofe and George W. Bush want us to have. ” So, I shouldn’t have said “equally awful” above. But what is being done is awful, and such things are contributing greatly to the fear of US foreign policy I referred to.

fn1. Supporters of the Clinton Administration might usefully think about this the next time they are tempted to take a small step on the slippery slope of curtailing civil liberties. Supporters of the current Administration might want to give some thought to the likelihood that the practices they are now defending or assiduously ignoring will sooner or later be directed by Hillary Clinton, who might well choose to use them against the vast right-wing conspiracy linked, at its extremities, to Oklahoma City (the apparent starting point of extraordinary rendition) and to terrorist attacks on abortion clinics.

One thing that’s struck me about the recent wave of triumphalism regarding good news from the Middle East is how rarely Turkey is mentioned[1]. Yet Turkey’s progress towards full-scale Western-style democracy over the last few years has been by far the most hopeful development in the region over this period.

And the Bush Administration has played a positive (if occasionally unsubtle) role here, strongly backing Turkey’s application to join the EU, which is the main motive for reform. Yet this never seems to get a mention, while the fact that the absolute monarchs of Saudi Arabia have decided, like their counterparts in Communist China, to permit municipal elections is presented as if it’s a democratic revolution.

For those interested, The Economist has an excellent survey.

fn1. Except in the context of Thanksgiving.

Last week there was a lot of triumphalism from parts of the blogosphere regarding anti-Syrian protests in Lebanon, which was cut rather embarrassingly short when the pro-Syrian PM was re-installed following a huge pro-Syrian demonstration. I thought that the likely cause of these developments was internal to Lebanon rather than the inspirational example of GW Bush, though I was too ignorant of recent Lebanese politics too say much more. As usual, many others did not feel constrained by ignorance from drawing firm conclusions.

For those who’d like to inform themselves, The Head Heeb has a lengthy series giving some of the background. One important point is that the withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces from South Lebanon back in 2000 set in motion many of the forces that are operating today and, in particular, undermined the legitimacy of the Syrian occupation and the maintenance of a militia by Hezbollah.

As mentioned previously, there has been a general increase in repression in Iran in recent years, and several bloggers have been arrested and imprisoned Similar repression is taking place in Bahrain. You can keep up with developments and suggested actions with The Committee to Protect Bloggers.

This is worth thinking about in relation to the current euphoria about positive developments in Lebanon and Israel/Palestine (and some positive gestures in Egypt and Saudi Arabia), and attempts to tie all this to the elections in Iraq.

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