Author: Pablo

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Assad Channels Videla.

Bashar Assad has likened the civil war in Syria to a surgeon performing messy emergency surgery. Much blood is spilled but it is in the best interest of the patient’s survival that it do so. In this case the patient is purportedly Syria (but in actuality the Alawite regime), and the surgery is required because of the gangrenous actions of foreign-backed “terrorists” and extremists.

That comment brought back some unhappy memories. On March 24, 1976 the military dictatorship known as the “Proceso de Reorganizacion Nacional” (Process of National Reorganization) was installed in Argentina. Over the next seven years it killed over 30,000 people and tortured, imprisoned and exiled at least that many more. It refined the concept of “disappearing” people without a trace (although it was later revealed that many of the disappeared were sedated and dumped from aircraft over the South Atlantic). It was a very bad moment in Argentine history, and the psychological and social scars of that sorry time are still evident to this day.

Assad’s surgical analogy struck an unpleasant chord with me because that is exactly the language used by the “Proceso” to justify its actions. In one of its first proclamations the Junta spoke of the need to rid Argentina of the “malignancies” of subversion, economic instability, social disorder and moral decay, and that in order to do so it would have to “extirpate without anesthesia” the cancers afflicting the Argentine body politic (on this see “Acta fijando el proposito y los objectivos basicos para el Proceso de Reorganizacion Nacional,” Republica Argentina, Boletin Oficial, 29 March 1976 and Republica Argentina, Documentos basicos y bases politicas de las fuerzas armadas para el Proceso de Reorganizacion Nacional. Buenos Aires: Junta Militar de la Nacion, 1980). It seems that when it comes to “organic” parallels between the state and society, Arab and Argentine dictators think alike.

It might behoove Mr. Assad to remember the fate of his Argentine counterparts. Their regime collapsed under the double-barreled weight of popular unrest and foreign conflict (the Falklands/Malvinas War, which was staged by the Junta as a diversion from its internal problems). The generals who commanded that regime were all eventually tried and convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to lengthy prison terms, where several have died. Argentine justice certainly was not swift or completely fair, but in the end the self-professed “surgeons” were found guilty of homicidal malpractice rather than lauded as the triage medics of the country.

Assad has that double-barreled weight now resting upon his regime. His conflict is internal rather than external, but the involvement of external actors is substantial and not limited to UN proclamations, jihadist infiltration or covert military assistance to the Syrian Free Army. He is therefore well on the path to following his Argentine counterparts down the road to collapse and overthrow, and it is now more a question of whether he will die in a prison cell or on the street rather than if he will fall. After all, once the dictator starts talking about emergency surgery on the body politic, it may be the case that he is the worst tumor of them all.

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The Crown Gets Its Pound of Flesh.

I am surprised by the jail sentences handed down to Tame Iti and Te Rangikaiwhiria Kemara in the Urewera 4 case. I had expected substantial fines and at most community service sentences for all of the defendants. The same day the Urewera 4 were sentenced a doctor was fined $1000 for firing a crossbow at a tree 3 meters from a tent of sleeping children at a DOC camp site, so it seemed reasonable to me that people who discharged firearms in the vicinity of no one other than themselves would receive sentences in line with the good doctor’s. But, as it turns out, the Judge in the Urewera 4 case had a different line of reasoning, and it is worrisome.

Even though the Urewera 4 were not found guilty on criminal conspiracy charges, the judge who sentenced them, Rodney Hansen, repeatedly referred to them as if they had been. He spoke of an armed militia with leaders and followers, and he mentioned molotov cocktails–the possession and use of which they were not convicted of–as proof of something sinister going on the outskirts of Ruatoki. But the sentences were supposed to be for violations of the Firearms Act alone–six in the case of Iti, Kemara and Emily Bailey and five in the case of Urs Singer. So why did the judge bring in a line of reasoning at sentencing that is more appropriate to a guilty verdict of criminal conspiracy, and why the relatively harsh penalties for violations that, quite frankly, are fairly routine in some sectors of New Zealand society? In fact, the sentences do not distinguish between the types of firearms used by different individuals, so that those who handled a sawn off shotgun were treated the same as those who handled a bolt action .22. Bringing up the subject of molotovs, militias, purported bombing (but not bus-flinging) plans at sentences for Firearms Act violations is irrelevant and prejudicial.

Lew and I have written previously at some length about the discrepancy between this prosecution and the seemingly blind eye the Police and Courts cast on very similar bush antics by right-wing extremists who make no secret of their hatred for assorted ethnic and religious groups and who have proven histories of violence against those they hate. I shall therefore not repeat what we have said. But what I can say is that these sentences confirm to me that this Crown prosecution was about punishment and deterrence, not justice. One way or another the Crown was going to extract its pound of flesh from at least some of the original defendants, a process that not only involved lengthy delays in providing the defendants with their day in court (by over four years) and the admission of illegally obtained evidence,  but which also is designed to serve as a warning to others who might be of similar ideological persuasion and direct action mindset. As I have said before, the process was the punishment for the original 18, and these sentences are the final act in that process. It has not been fair, it has not been just, and other than assuage the primordial fears of conservative Pakeha such as Louis Crimp, the National Front and the closet Klansmen that inhabit the right-wing blogosphere, it does nothing to advance respect for the law and the concept of equal treatment for all.

Given that the sentences for Iti and Kemara appear to be disproportionate to the crimes committed, and that the judge’s reasoning was at least in part based upon tangentials that should not have been admitted at the sentencing phase, I would hope that they will be appealed and eventually reversed. Otherwise the conclusion to Operation 8 looks like another case of Pakeha utu on people who dare speak truth to power in unconventional, theatrical and ultimately silly ways.

 

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They Never Learn.

There is an old rule in politics that states that it is not the original sin that gets politicians in trouble. It is the cover-up or lying about it that does them in. The examples that prove the rule are too numerous to mention and span the globe. This week we have another classic case in point: Shane Jones and his explanation as to why, as Associate Minister of Immigration (the Minister of Immigration at the time, David Cunliffe, had earlier refused to revoke Liu/Yan’s residence visa and for some reason unknown to me was not involved in the granting of citizenship), he ignored expert legal advice and granted a Chinese fraudster expedited citizenship.

According to Jones he did so on humanitarian grounds because he was told by an unnamed Internal Affairs official that the applicant–he of at least three different names and an Interpol warrant out for his arrest–would be executed and his organs harvested if he were sent back to China. Forgive me if I cough. That is up there with Annette King’s claims that no one in the Labour government knew about Operation 8 until the weekend before it began.

Others have already torn Mr. Jone’s supposed rationale to shreds. Beyond the fact that not even the Chinese execute people for common fraud, even if they are members of Falun Gong (a claim supposedly made by but never proven by Mr. Liu/Yan), a legitimate fear of a politically-motivated death sentence would result in an asylum request, not a citizenship application based  upon a business visa. Nor would Mr. Liu/Yan speak of traveling back to China with a delegation of Kiwis in order to explore business opportunities in the PRC (as it is claimed he did in his conversations with immigration officials now testifying at his trial on false declaration charges). But according to Shane Jones, not only was he facing certain death but also certain organ harvesting (which raises the question as to how the unnamed Internal Affairs official could know this in advance given that the Chinese do not harvest organs from all executed prisoners because the health of the condemned varies). Put bluntly, Mr. Jones is simply not credible, and unless that unnamed official comes forward to take responsibility for the bogus claims (which Mr. Jones could have ignored), his justification simply does not wash. Add in the fact that Mr. Liu/Yan had donated considerable sums of money to Labour coffers in the lead-in to his citizenship application, and the smell of something fishy permeates the affair.

What is amazing is that when confronted with the evidence presented in court, David Shearer continued to back Mr. Jones and even allowed him to go public with is ridiculous justification. That violates a second rule of politics, which is that when smoke begins to surround a politician on ethical issues his or her party needs to move swiftly to prevent a full-fledged fire from erupting by distancing the tainted one from the party as a whole. By not doing so immediately and only leaving open the possibility of standing Jones down if an investigation proves him guilty of wrong-doing in the Liu/Yan affair, Mr. Shearer has failed the basic test of leadership that involves saving the party from further uncomfortable scrutiny on the issue of campaign financing and political donations.

Once again, let us remember the iron law of oligarchy that governs all political parties: the first duty of the party is to preserve itself. Individual political fortunes come second. Legalities aside, it is the appearance of unethical behavior on the part of Mr. Jones that is at play here.

What is even more amazing is that this comes on the heels of the John Banks-Kin Dotcom scandal and John Key’s equally egregious mistake in not removing Banks from his ministerial post while the Police investigated whether Banks violated political finance laws in his dealing with Mr. Dotcom. Regardless of whether the press played this sequence of events on purpose, the scenario unfolded as follows: National was on the ropes in the weeks leading up to a dismal budget announcement, beleaguered by policy and personal conflicts and dogged by an increasingly assertive mainstream press. Rather than strike a contrast in approach that would give it the moral high ground that would allow it to score major political points against its weakened rival, Labour’s response to revelations of the dubious ethics of one of its senior members in a past government–dubious ethics that are being aired in court for crikey’s sake–is to bluster and blow more smoke on the matter. Do they never learn?

Just as Mr. Key should have removed Mr. Banks from his ministerial position as soon as his denials and lies about his relationship with Mr. Dotcom were exposed, so Mr. Shearer should have moved quickly to demote Mr. Jones until such a time as an independent investigation exonerated him. Given the passing of a few news cycles and the issue would have faded into the political “bygones be bygones” category. By not doing so Mr. Shearer has allowed the Jones-Liu/Yan relationship to become a distraction away from National’s peccadillos and policy failures. He has, in fact, thrown National a life line in the days before the budget announcement and the decision to demote Banks (who could stay in government but not be a minister pending the resolution of the Police investigation), and I would imagine that the National caucus are high-fiving and back-slapping each other in delight.

Of course there are political calculations in all of this. By-elections are costly, list candidate replacements are unproven or unreliable, internal Party factional disputes run the risk of being aggravated or exposed.  National is clearly waiting for the Budget to be announced before moving on Banks. Labour does not want to lose a senior figure who “ticks the boxes” of important internal constituencies. And yes, there is a difference between illegal and unethical activity.

But in putting these calculations ahead of ethical considerations given the appearance of impropriety, both parties have once again shown their contempt for the NZ public. And on this score, Labour’s contempt is much worse. After all, Mr. Banks was just a greasy-palmed private citizen seeking to be mayor when he approached Mr. Dotcom for support. Mr. Jones, on the other hand, was a Minister of State who apparently used his office to bestow special considerations on an individual in exchange for, uh, party “favors.”  Both actions were slimy, but it is the official nature of Mr. Jones’s intercession that makes his behavior worse. Which is why he should have been stood down straight away, because rightly or wrongly, it is the attempt to downplay or cover up past impropriety, rather than the potentially unethical or illegal behavior itself, that will cling to the Labour Party long after Mr. Liu/Yan’s case is adjudicated.

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ACT and National Front to announce merger.

That is about all I can figure after reading this about Louis Crimp, Act’s largest individual donor in the 2011 election. The line about Invercargill is priceless but there are several other gems as well. Mr. Crimp appears to be getting PR advice from Kyle Chapman or Jim Beam, so why keep up the pretense any more and not just announce the merger of the two white rights movements?  Better yet, once John Banks gets the inevitable boot from parliament, perhaps the AKKKT Party can dip into some of that NF talent pool for a replacement.

AKKKT–a political cough in the larger scheme of things, but a full throated sputum of the NZ Right.

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Whining John.

Late last year a friend of mine who works in the media said to me that the press had turned on John Key over the Teapot Tape affair. Key’s attempt to have the photographer prosecuted, following on his defamatory and/or contemptuous treatment of individual members of the press corps, was seen as the last straw. My friend noted that the press had generally been kind to Mr. Key during his first term and had avoided digging into a veritable trove of scandal and mischief simply because Mr. Key was riding high in the polls and they did not want to get off-side of a popular PM. That, my friend said, changed after the election, and the press would take a more critical stance with regard to Mr. Key and his government.

To my mind that was welcome news, because it seemed to me that Mr. Key had been treated with kid gloves during his first term and I felt that he needed to be pushed a bit on matters of National policy as well the behavior of some of his party entourage.

In the first quarter of 2012 a number of questions have been raised to Mr. Key that appear to support my friend’s prediction. None of these questions are particularly damaging by themselves, but a pattern has emerged in Mr. Key’s responses. Slowly but surely, as each new mini-scandal or crisis was revealed, Mr. Key began to drop his smile and wave optimism and replaced it with a surly, if not seething disdain for his questioners. Although he keeps his nice persona sharp for staged interviews on TV and radio, his guard drops when doing the impromptu stand-up Q&A with the press gallery. This was very evident when he was asked on one such occasion about the No Asset Sales hikoi, where he clearly struggled to reign in his contempt before saying that he did not concern himself with the opinion of 1000 people.

Now it appears he has had enough with the press in general and the NZH (and to a lesser extent the SST) in particular. He complained  to a rightwing talkback microphone jockey that the press was aggressive and sensationalistic and singled out the NZH as scandal-mongering in its treatment of him and his government in order to raise flagging sales of newsprint.

I do  not have any particular affection for the NZH, SST or the NZ MSM in general–in fact, just yesterday the TVNZ evening news borrowed without attribution a phrase I had used in a discussion about drones with Chris Laidlaw the day before(a phrase I did not coin or copyright but which I nevertheless introduced to the NZ discussion of the subject, which just happened to be the subject of the news item in the TVNZ One broadcast). Since such behavior is increasingly the norm in the NZ MSM, the standard of NZ journalistic training and ethics is, in my opinion, in the main less than optimal (needless to say there are some exceptions to the rule). But I find it ludicrous that Mr. Key is upset about the “aggressive” and “antagonistic” nature of the press approach towards him as of late. Shoot, he got the press equivalent of a free pass for the first three years in spite of often equivocal, deceptive or disingenuous answers to anything other than patsy questions. Why should he get upset when the questions begin to develop a harder edge? Does he not think such questioning comes with the job? Does he think that he is entitled to be treated differently than other politicians?

Of course, all politicians complain about their treatment in the media and past NZ prime ministers have not been above attacking the messenger or interrogator. But it seems to me that Mr. Key is being very rich when he complains about his recent treatment in the press. It may not be the solicitous if not supplicant posture of the first term, but the press approach to Mr. Key is also not anywhere close to the hostile negativity and contrariness of press corps in a wide range of democracies (I think of the partisan jousting that goes on in places like Argentina, the Philippines, the US, Spain, Taiwan and Italy, where the relationship between sections of the press corps and government executives is often very strained, if not toxic).

Thus I have come to the conclusion, following on previous posts about Mr. Key’s demeanor and attitude, that he is a pampered whiner with a royal’s sense of entitlement. He simply does not see himself as having to be accountable to a critical press, and as a result complains to the lapdog press that he is being treated unfairly. Not only is his accusation untrue. It is also politically stupid because it now has the media dissecting his complaint in public. If he thought he was going to win sympathy from anything other than his diehard base, he needs to think again.

Whatever calculus he may or may not be employing, I have one thing to say to him: harden up and do your friggin’ job, which includes fronting up to hard questions from time to time. After all, you do not get the big bucks just to smile and wave.

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Thought for the day: Bank Economists as media expert commentators.

This may sound mean but having bank economists talk about global macro-and political economics on major NZ news outlets is like having pedophiles talking about childcare. Having them speak authoritatively on the “news” skews public perceptions of economic matters towards the preferred constructs of finance capital. Leaving aside the matter of finance capital’s interest in deregulation of capital flows and currency manipulation, using bank economists may be fine when discussing banking take-overs or interest rates in local markets. But there are many other economic interests at play that deserve mention when it comes to issues of political and macro economy and bank economists are ill-suited for a robust discussion of them. To the contrary, their “expert”opinions masquerading as informed commentary in the news media are often poisonous to the integrity of public debate on economic matters.

Is there not a single non-banker economist in NZ who could be used instead? Are all the Economics, Business and Management departments in local universities full of useless PBRF worshippers devoid of real world experience? Are there no economists in research centers, institutes or government agencies who could present a dispassionate and non-vested perspective on the state of global economic play? I find it hard to believe that is the case.

Just saying…

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Showing The Money versus Making Numbers Work.

That simple phrase “make the numbers work” catches John Key’s approach to the perennial tension between efficiency and transparency in a democracy. To simplify things, it can be said that the more democratic and transparent the policy process, the less efficient it becomes. That is because the more actors are involved in policy decisions, the more likely that additional decisional sites and veto points will be placed in front of policy choices. They key is to find an appropriate balance between efficient policy formulation and implementation and open participatory representation by all potential stakeholders. If forced to choose, democrats err on the side of representation. Authoritarians prefer efficiency.

The corporate world has no objective need for balance. What matters are balance sheets in the black. Firms are structured so that decision-making is hierarchical rathe than horizontal, with decisions flowing from the top rather than as a result of inputs from the bottom or from external parties. Managers rule, workers obey, and shareholders or owners reap profits. Given the sensitivity of any given project, public consultations might be invited and consideration might be given to mitigating factors that impinge on profitability, but the bottom line is that the numbers work in favor of owners, investors and share-holders.

John Key came from (and is likely to go back to) such a world. In fact, with a personal net worth of around $60 million he is a small time member of the “Masters of the Universe:” the network of financial elites (stock brokers, money managers, currency traders, hedge fund administrators and bankers) built up in the 1990s and headquartered in London, New York, Geneva, Hong Kong and Singapore who made the calls on how global liquid assets should be invested. Theirs is a world of numbers, not morality or ethics, and their worth to the network was and is their ability to make the numbers work when constructing investment deals. They answer to themselves and their clients without regard to the public interest because, quite frankly, they are interested in private gain rather than the public good.

With that in mind the self-styled CEO of NZ Inc., John Key, advised himself that changing gambling laws so that SkyCity can have another 500 slot machines in return for building a convention centre on adjacent land at no tax payer expense was a neat deal that was in both the private and public interest (the public presumably being interested in the tax revenues and ancillary benefits that will accrue from having the convention centre up and running, which is a whole different story). By that logic the numbers work.

In order to come to this conclusion, however, NZ’s self-styled CEO had to ignore the counsel of the Auckland City Council, local iwi, problem gambling-related mental health organizations, the Police, traffic authorities, tourism operators and a host of other potential stakeholders (I mention these because the proposed site of the convention centre involves a myriad of urban planning considerations and is only handy to the Casino and not to the Viaduct, Cloud, Winyard Quarter, Ponsoby, Newmarket or other entertainment districts that depend on tourists). When I say “ignore” I mean that he chose not to solicit advice from any of these parties rather than turn his back on advice already given. Mr. Key’s self-advice also told him to order an end to all other tenders once SkyCity got involved, some of which might have contained the input from non-investor interested parties such as those mentioned above. But as a minor Master of the Universe why should he bother with pretenders and outsiders when he could seal the deal with SkyCity for a small change in an industry-specific law? The Hobbit saga taught him that allowing non-investors to have a say could well kill the deal, so this time around he made sure that negotiations were kept quiet.

Clearly Mr. Key is a man who understands numbers and efficiency. But perhaps he spent a bit too much time in Singapore, where public input into policy decision-making is inconsequential to the point that it is not even considered even when it comes to large public works projects (such as the expansion of the MRT train lines currently underway, which have displaced thousands without any input from them and with compensation determined not by market value but by government fiat). In Mr. Key’s world he does not have to waste time and money listening to the blather of a host of obstructionists and self-interested losers (because, after all, he only deals with winners). He is there to crunch the numbers and do the deals. In the pokies-for-convention-centre trade he has done so, efficiently.

No wonder it is rumored that he is tiring of the job. Here he is, cutting deals and helping commercial players make serious money just like in his good old days in the private sector. But now he has to put up with ex-post whingers and other plebians who all want a voice without a full command of the power of numbers. Plus, he is surrounded by career politicians who for the most part could not make a buck even if they won lotto, and the opposition is nothing more than a bunch of special interest namby-pambies who would not get past the lobby of his former corporate headquarters. Why should he stick around and have to listen to their nonsense about addiction, traffic and other social costs?

You have to feel for Mr. Key. Once he was in the stratosphere, unaccountable to anyone but his corporate masters and the private interests that they served. He made money off of money without having to add value or increase production anywhere, and he got rich doing so in part because he made his name in an authoritarian country in which numbers, not people, matter most. Now he has to smile and wave to a bunch of provincial hicks self-absorbed in some weird Antipodean PC navel-gazing where everyone has a say and little gets done.

Then of course there is John Banks, and how he reads the numbers. For Mr. Banks the deal is not about making public and private numbers work. It is about private interests showing him the money in order to advance his political fortunes. Whereas Mr. Key was looking for a way to balance a specific private actor’s desire with a vague public interest (again, assuming that a convention centre adjacent to SkyCity is in the public interest), Mr. Banks was looking for campaign contributions. Presumably there was a quid pro quo involved with at least two known private parties, SkyCity and Kim Dotcom (there are plenty of others who donated “anonymously” to Mr. Banks but let’s focus just on these since they are in the news). What the expectations were for deliverables from Mr. Banks is as of yet unknown, although whatever they were it appears that Mr. Dotcom now feels that he was stiffed on the deal and is exacting his revenge by releasing details of his donations to Mr. Banks’ mayoral 2010 campaign. Whatever it was it was not in the public interest unless one thinks that granting Mr. Dotcom special favors is a collective good.

In the end, what Mr. Key did was not very democratic but it was legal and efficient as far as the tightly defined numbers behind the deal are concerned. Mr. Banks, on the other hand, had no public interest in mind when he solicited funds from Mr. Dotcom and accepted those from SkyCity, even if the latter’s donation was the same as the amount donated to Len Brown at the time (to his credit Mr. Brown reported the donation from SkyCity to his campaign, which mirrored that given to Mr. Banks “anonymously”). SkyCity was just papering both sides of the mayoral aisle with its symmetrical donations to the two leading candidates, and whatever favor was purchased was bound to be equally small given the amounts involved no matter who won the election. But Mr. Dotcom was an individual who papered only one candidate as far as we know, and he did so in excess of the corporate entity known as SkyCity. He was, in other words, trying to purchase individual favor by backing one candidate over another.

That is why there is a difference between the two men. Mr. Key is an authoritarian-minded money man who thinks he knows what is best for the country without regard to the naysayers and whiners, and who makes the numbers work in favor of his preferred vision. Mr. Banks is an egotistical “show me the money” weasel. With the possibility of more revelations about Mr. Banks forthcoming, it could well be the case that the weasel brings down the money man, or at least accelerates his departure from office.

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Leaving Bamiyan.

It looks like the NZDF will pull out of Afghanistan next year, one year earlier than originally planned. According to the government the situation is so good in Bamiyan Province that responsibility for security has been turned over to local Afghan forces and the NZDF has downscaled its armed patrols as it concentrates on packing up. The Hazaris who populate Bamiyan are said to be happy with what the NZDF has done with the Provincial Reconstruction Team and will assist the UN and other international organizations in continuing the reconstruction work once the NZDF has left the theater. According to the NZDF and National government, the PRT experience in Bamiyan has been exemplary and is a model for such military-led reconstruction efforts in other future theaters.

But there appears to be wrinkle in this happy picture. Five Afghan translators who worked with the NZDF have unexpectedly approached Defense Minister Jonathan Coleman during a press junket to the PRT (which also saw MSM types like Garth Bray along for the photo op dressed nattily in body armor while posing in front of dusty military hardware and encampments). They did so to request political asylum. The translator’s approach was unexpected, which speaks to the NZDF not being aware of their intentions in advance of the Minister’s visit (which left him at loss for an answer since refugee issues are not part of his portfolio–not that such subtleties matter to Afghans). That suggests a failure in communication between the NZDF and the people it relies on to convey its message in Bamiyan, which is problematic because since one would assume that the relationship between the translators and their patrons would be close and trusting. That the translators kept their concerns a secret until the Minister arrived speaks to underlying differences between them and the NZDF command in Bamiyan.

The translators claim that they will be harmed or killed once the NZDF leaves Bamiyan. Eh? What happened to that much vaunted security situation? If the NZDF did such a good job and was well received by the locals, why would these men fear for their lives? More generally, did the NZ government give any thought to the post-withdrawal security concerns of its closest Afghan interlocutors? Did the NZDF command in Bamiyan flag any such concerns to the government? If the security situation for allied locals in Bamiyan is not as good as has been announced, did the NZDF or NZ government mislead the public as to the truth of the situation?

The translators want special consideration rather than wait for the UN refugee-granting process to take its years-long course (by which time, if their fears are true, they might well be dead). In other words, the translators want to jump the queue because of their extenuating circumstances. That puts the NZ government in a difficult position. If it denies their claim and tells them to get in line like everyone else, they might die as a direct and immediate result of their association with NZ troops. If they get favored treatment then it opens the government to accusations that it responds opportunistically and plays loose with the rules for granting political asylum.

The government has already caused itself a problem. Minister Coleman, caught off-guard by the request on what was supposed to be an easy Anzac Day-related “meet and greet” with the troops, said that NZ has a responsibility to the translators because of their service to the NZDF. That opens a can of worms, because if NZ grants the translators refugee status on special grounds, that sets a precedent for anyone else in Afghanistan who worked with the ISAF coalition to make similar claims based upon fears for their post-withdrawal security. Cooks, cleaners, drivers, translators, lovers–the list of people who could claim persecuted status based on their association with ISAF is bound to be long. NZ offering asylum to these men consequently becomes a thorny diplomatic issue not only with its ISAF coalition partners (who face the possibility of being inundated with similar requests), but also with the Afghan National Government that is supposed to be capable of guaranteeing security once ISAF is gone.

Whatever the decision on the translator’s request, the episode has raised more questions about conditions in Bamiyan than the NZDF appears willing to answer. One thing is certain. No matter what the outcome someone is bound to be left in the lurch, and that includes the NZ MSM types who failed to realize the full significance of what they witnessed when the translators were introduced to Mr. Coleman.

 

 

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Missile Envy (with postscript).

So let’s get this straight: North Korea attempts to launch a ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and the international community goes ballistic, claiming it is a serious provocation that has grave consequences for regional and world peace. The UN condemns the launch and humanitarian assistance is suspended in retaliation for it. The North Koreans, who have twice tried to detonate an underground nuclear device with only partial success, fail yet again with their missile test (the booster misfired three minutes into the test flight and fell harmlessly into the Yellow Sea where it undoubtably is the object of foreign salvage efforts). In doing so they confirm that they are a considerable ways off from posing a nuclear-armed ballistic missile threat to anyone. That does not mean that they are not paranoid, bellicose and dangerous, but if that is the criteria by which states are measured than pretty much anytime the US has a Republican president it should be subject to UN sanctions and international boycotts.

A week after the North Koreans embarrassed themselves with that fizzle launch (the best technical term for the mishap that I have read is “projectile dysfunction”), the Indians did it right. They successful tested a ballistic missile with a range of 5000 kilometers that is designed to carry a nuclear warhead. The range of the missile means that it can strike targets in Europe and Central China. It is, in a phrase, a full-fledged Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). The Indians, of course, are already a nuclear capable state, having successfully conducted dozens of tests both above and below ground. Like the North Koreans, India shares a “hot” border with a long-term adversary, Pakistan, that is also nuclear-equipped (the North Koreans are confronted by nuclear-armed US troops as well as South Korean conventional forces). It has fought conventional wars with Pakistan and border skirmishes are fairly common. And yet the international community has remained placidly silent about what is a clear message of aggressive intent on the part of the Indians.

Why the hypocrisy? If the international community is really serious about nuclear non-proliferation its should be condemning ALL ballistic missile testing. If that seems unreasonable given that the boosters can also be used to launch satellites, then it is patently unreasonable to froth about the North Korean test and ignore the Indian one (and the latter was not construed as anything but a military application). The hard truth is that the Non-Proliferation Treaty is a porous joke that is enforced–and I use that word very loosely– selectively against a few pariah states such as Iran and North Korea but not against others. Nor does it do anything to disarm nuclear-capable states. What reductions in nuclear arsenals have occurred have happened as the result of bilateral negotiations rather than within the framework of the NPT.

I am not a fan of the Kim regime in North Korea. I cannot say I am too enthused about Iran acquiring a nuke. But I understand fully why they attempt to do so. Nuclear weapons are designed to be deterrents, and if that fails to be used as a response to aggression by military superior forces or in the face of imminent conventional defeat. Given their circumstances and the balance of forces in with they operate, North Korea and Iran are eminently rational in their pursuit of that deterrent, as is India even if its threat environment is not as dire (after all, ongoing low-level cross-border clashes with Pakistan cannot be considered to be in the same league as having hostile US carrier task forces and large ground-based contingents just off-shore and across the border) .

That makes the hypocrisy of the international community all the more salient. India is no more and no less rational a state actor than Iran or North Korea. It has interests that it seeks to advance via military capability as well as diplomatic and economic means. Iran and North Korea do not have the diplomatic and economic weight of the Indians–far from it–so they emphasize the military aspect of their defenses. That includes rhetorical broadsides that are designed for domestic consumption and to demonstrate resolve to potential adversaries.

I would think that if the international community was serious about stopping the Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapons development programs it would start by moving to enact restrictions on all ballistic missile testing that is not clearly designed for satellite launching purposes. It could also work a bit harder, within the NPT, to reduce extant nuclear arsenals in places like India, Pakistan, Israel and the great powers. Readers will undoubtably think “that is never going to happen,” and they would be right. But is that is the case, then it is unreasonable to expect that Iran and North Korea stop their ambitions with regard to producing an indigenous nuclear deterrent. They may not conform to international standards of behavior as defined (mostly) but the West, but they are eminently justified, on realist-deterrence grounds, to pursue that option.

Interestingly, that champion of nuclear non-proliferation, New Zealand, has been silent about the India ICBM test even though it condemned the North Korean launch. I get the feeling that under the current government NZ righteousness with regard to non-proliferation is inversely proportional to the possibilities of securing or maintaining a trade deal with states engaging in such testing. Thus, with regard to India there is silence. With regard to Iran there are meek pleas for “cooperation” with the IAEA. And with regard to North Korea there is a chorus of boos no doubt in part occasioned by the fact that South Korea enjoys a favored bilateral trade status with NZ whereas North Korea does not.

It is said that diplomacy is the art of disguising hypocrisy and self-interest in moral-ethical appeal. When it comes to the issue of nuclear proliferation, it seems that particular costume has worn threadbare thin even in places like NZ.

PS: And sure enough, true to form, Pakistan responded to the Indian test with one of their own. So there you have it: two nuclear armed states sharing a border that have fought conventional wars with each other and which continue to maintain a simmering territorial dispute that has involved the use of unconventional armed proxies sequentially test multi-stage long range boosters that are clearly designed to carry nuclear warheads. One of the countries is a major source of armed violent extremism and a safe haven to militants of various stripes. The international community remains silent.