by Alex Evans | Nov 14, 2007 | Conflict and security, UK
Unreal. On this morning’s Today programme, Security minister Lord West said:
I want to have absolute evidence that we actually need longer than 28 days. I want to be totally convinced because I am not going to go and push for something that actually affects the liberty of the individual unless there is a real necessity for it… I still need to be fully convinced that we absolutely need more than 28 days and I also need to be convinced what is the best way of doing that.
And then just a couple of hours later, the Home Office releases a statement from him which says:
I am quite clear that the greater complexities of terrorist plots will mean that we will need the power to detain certain individuals for more than 28 days. Already six individuals have been held over 27 days and the number of plots, and their growing international nature, will only make them more complex to investigate. I was stating this morning that there will need to be scrutiny in the system, and robust evidence against individuals, to safeguard their rights. I am convinced that we need to legislate now so that we have the necessary powers when we need them.
It’s a tough climbdown for Lord West to have to have made, but an incredibly useful development for opponents of the move to extend how long police can hold suspects without trial. Lord West’s comments follow the publication earlier this week of a report commissioned by Liberty, which says that extending the maximum period of internment (let’s call a spade a spade, shall we?) to 56 days would make Britain’s the longest such period of any democracy.
I don’t follow civil liberties issues as much as I should, but I do think that the Government has really not made an effective case for increasing the period of detention before charge of terrorist suspects. As stories like the one I discussed last week show, the supposed cure can all too easily increase the very sense of grievance that causes the illness in the first place. But more than that, I was astonished to read earlier this week that back in 2005, George Churchill-Coleman of all people had said:
I have a horrible feeling that we are sinking into a police state, and that’s not good for anybody. We live in a democracy and we should police on those standards… I have serious worries and concerns about these ideas on both ethical and practical terms. You cannot lock people up just because someone says they are terrorists. Internment didn’t work in Northern Ireland, it won’t work now. You need evidence.
When the former head of counter-terrorism at Scotland Yard says that kind of thing, it’s really time to worry…
by Alex Evans | Nov 7, 2007 | Climate and resource scarcity, Europe and Central Asia
ECFR has a new report out today with a provocative message: “Despite its economic strength and military might, the European Union has begun to behave as if it were subordinate to an increasingly assertive Russia”. The reason, they say: disunity among the EU’s member states, which fall into five different categories:
- ‘Trojan horses’ like Greece and Cyprus who “often defend positions close to Russian interests, and who have been willing to veto common EU positions”;
- “Strategic partners” like Germany, France, Italy and Spain who “have built special bilateral relationships with Russia, which has sometimes cut against the grain of common EU objectives in areas such as energy and the EU Neighbourhood Policy”;
- “Friendly pragmatists” comprising Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Finland, Hungary, Luxembourg, Malta, Slovakia, Slovenia and Portugal, who “have a less close but still significant relationship with Russia, in which business interests come first”;
- “Frosty pragmatists” – the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Ireland, Latvia, the Netherlands, Sweden, Romania and the United Kingdom – who keep business interests high on the agenda but “have not refrained from criticising Russia’s human rights record and failings on democracy”; and finally
- “New Cold-warriors”, Poland and Lithuania, who have “developed an overtly hostile relationship with Moscow and are willing to use the veto to block EU negotiations with Russia”.
For some useful additional context, compare all of this with the interesting conversation that Gideon Rachman reports having with a “senior administration official” in DC in mid-October, in preparation for his trip to Russia:
As this particular American sees it, the only solution to a newly assertive Russia is western solidarity. But he is worried that not everybody in Europe sees this. The French, the British and the German Greens are praised by him for “thinking strategically”. Angela Merkel was praised for her handling of Mr Putin. But the German SPD were condemned as “acccomodationist”.The EU’s major strategic vulnerability, as the Americans see it, is its growing dependence on Russian gas. The administration official mused that sometimes the Americans seem more concerned about this than the Europeans themselves.
“Europe”, he said “needs a serious gas policy, with a major high level EU push to get Caspian gas out on a pipeline that does not go through Russia.” That means that Europe must make the building of the Nabucco pipeline through Turkey, a “top strategic priority”. It also means continuing to support the independence of Georgia, for strategic as well as ideological reasons. If Georgia is brought back within the Russian ambit, then it becomes impossible to build a pipeline that is outside Russian control – unless (gasp) you go via Iran.
Europeans also need to develop their links to Norwegian and North African gas. And they should “revisit the decision to build the Schroder pipeline” – the shorthand name for the under-sea gas pipeline linking Russia and Germany, but bypassing Poland and the Baltic states.And what happens if we in Europe don’t do any of this? “The biggest medium-term risk is that Europe becomes irreversibly dependent on Russia and Russia starts rolling back freedoms gained in the former Soviet Union – starting with Georgia and then moving onto Ukraine.”
by Mark Weston | Nov 6, 2007 | Middle East and North Africa
If you ever have to choose a country for your worst enemy to run, you should strongly consider Turkey.
Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, the current Turkish Prime Minister (known to both friends and enemies simply as Tayyip), is in the US asking for help in controlling the Kurdish rebels who are attacking his country from northern Iraq. Tayyip’s instincts are not to invade – he knows the operation is unlikely to succeed, and that what the Kurds need is “more democracy”, not more oppression. But Turkish public opinion, fanned by nationalist paranoia, is bellicose and the army is determined to invade in a bid to claw back some of its diminishing clout.
Tayyip has other balancing acts to grapple with too. Take Europe, which he has steered Turkey towards by giving more rights to Kurds and reducing the army’s power, but which unhelpfully keeps raising the bar for entry. Europe’s duplicity offends Turkish pride (yes, that nationalistic streak again), so Tayyip is forced to use the prospect of stronger ties with Iran and Syria as a negotiating weapon. (more…)
by David Steven | Nov 6, 2007 | South Asia
In Slate, Lee Smith paints the Pakistani army as the last bulwark against the Islamic hordes:
The Pakistani military, as is the case with most armed forces in the Muslim world, is the citadel of the country’s modernity, its most significant secular institution and protector not only of the modern nation state but the idea of the nation state itself. Still, that is a mighty thin green line standing between 1,300 years of Islamic military principles, many thousands of years more of tribal and ethnic rivalries, and a nuclear arsenal.
Condi Rice, meanwhile, is guilty of emasculating President Musharraf, just when she should be supporting his brave fight against terror:
Rice is compromising Musharraf’s only sources of political legitimacy—U.S. support and his status as a military man. Maybe she believes that the general should surrender his sidearm as well.
“If the secretary of state is concerned that Pakistan is falling behind in its commitment to democracy,” Smith lectures, “she should recall that there is no democracy without the institutions of a nation state, and if Musharraf falls, there is no telling what would happen next.”
But isn’t that the problem? That Musharraf has chosen to attack precisely those ‘institutions of a nation state’ – the media and the courts – that have most legitimacy? And that by ‘standing by Musharraf’, the US has been complicit in destroying whatever popularity he may once have had?
Update: Gideon Rachman makes a similar point:
The history of the cold war demonstrates that the best way to entrench anti-Americanism for generations is for the US to support an unpopular dictatorship. And the polls show that Gen Musharraf – who once commanded quite a lot of support – is increasingly unpopular within Pakistan. His approval ratings are now in the low 20s – and that was before the declaration of a state of emergency.
by David Steven | Nov 4, 2007 | South Asia
Reacting to the crisis in Pakistan, Ali Eteraz, over at the Guardian, argues that only opportunistic opposition politicians, a handful of lawyers, and decadent democracy-addled Westerners are likely to get too upset by events of the past few days.
Ordinary people yearn for stability, he says, and are enjoying the economic good times Musharraf has inspired. Even ‘democracy-promoting analysts’ (spit) are forced to admire the President’s economic management, he argues.
Victor Davis Hansen, writing from the other side of the Atlantic (and across a rather big political divide), is a reluctant supporter of democracy (‘ultimately our only choice’), but an ardent critic of Pakistan and its people:
It would be hard to think of a bigger mess than Pakistan: nuclear; half the population radically Islamic; vast sanctuaries for the architects of 9/11; a virulent anti-Americanism in which aid and military credits are demanded but never appreciated; dictatorship at odds with America’s professed support for Middle-East constitutional government.
But are these beliefs backed up the facts?
According to the best available polling – conducted every six three months by the International Republican Institute – no. According to the latest poll (pdf), conducted in September, when the situation in the country was deteriorating, but not yet critical:
Pakistanis were deeply concerned by the direction in which their country was heading, with 73% believing things were getting worse. What is striking is how rapidly pessimism had grown. Only 44% had believed things were going downhill a year ago; 59% just three months back.
Contrary to Davis Hansen’s belief, the population seemed highly agitated by rising extremism. 74% agreed that it was a serious problem for the country, only 21% disagree. 57%, meanwhile, believed that Taliban and Al Qaida operations in Waziristan were a serious challenge.
However, economic concerns were much more pressing. Asked about the key issues they’d vote for in an election: inflation came top (37%), followed by unemployment (20%); poverty (11%); and law and order (10%).
But contra Eteraz, Pakistanis were hurting economically. 56% believed they were worse off financially than a year before (up from 34% three months previously).
Little surprise then that Musharraf’s approval rating, which was above 60% in 2006, had tanked to 21% (this would be bad even for George Bush).
In September, most people thought their President should go, with 70% sure he should resign and another 8% thinking that maybe he should. Only 23% wanted him re-elected President even if he had ‘doffed’ his uniform. No matter – the President bullied his way back into power, keeping the uniform on.
A state of emergency, the poll suggests, will have gone down like a lead balloon. In September, only 8% thought declaring an emergency would be a good idea, while 62% wanted the army completely out of politics.
In justifying suspending the constitution, Musharraf went out of his way to attack the media (“contributed to this downslide, this negative thinking, this negative projection”) and the courts (“the judiciary has interfered”).
The media and the courts are, of course, Pakistan’s most popular institutions, with an 80% and 77% approval rating respectively.
So, in a country whose population is demoralized and suffering economically, we have a spectacularly unpopular President taking on the country’s two most trusted institutions.
So where will Musharraf get his support? From the army? Maybe, but even it is losing its lustre (approval down to 70% from 82% in three months).
Or parliament? He’s left the National Assembly in place (a ‘shrewd move’ Eteraz reckons, which will keep people off the street), but it has an approval rating of only 42%. And let’s hope he doesn’t need the police. They are the most hated of all at 13%.
“If I have your companionship,” he told the Pakistani people yesterday in the Urdu portion of yesterday’s televised address. “I have no doubt, God Willing, Pakistan will be back to the forefront and this derailed train will be, God Willing, back on track.”
Perhaps Musharraf will get away with this desperate attempt to cling to power. But companionship with the people? That, I think, is one eventuality we can rule out.
