Let's find out

The BBC reports on the US house vote to reduce contributions to the UN. Kofi Annan is not happy (as if he doesn't have enough to worry about already).

"[Mr Annan] believes that US engagement and leadership in this process is very important, but does not feel that withholding dues is a productive route to achieving reform," said spokesman Fred Eckhard.

I for one would like to find out for sure just how productive it might be.

TAE still pedantic?

The BBC today reports on this depressing story about a Californian man who was convicted of killing his nine children, some of whom were the product of his incestuous relationships with others of the children. As the BBC report put it:

A US court has convicted a man of killing nine of his children, many of whom he had fathered through incest.

Marcus Wesson, a 58-year-old religious zealot who ran his family like a cult, could face the death penalty.

The “religious zealot” characterization strikes me as odd. Reading on, the “cult” reference seemed reasonable (tyrannical control over the family, forbidding contact with the outside world, presenting himself as divinely inspired). But there was nothing to suggest that Wesson was driven by an excessive commitment to a particular religious doctrine. He is just plain disturbed. He seems more like a Charles Manson type figure, who himself headed a cult and even referred to himself as Christ, but who, as far as I am aware, was never characterized as a “religious zealot”.

I checked into other sources on the story – the AP and Reuters seem to be the primary source for all of them – and while all of them made the “cult” reference (as did the prosecutors at the trial), not one of them characterized Wesson as a “religious zealot”.

Am I being too pedantic, or is the BBC, in its general suspicion of and hostility towards religion (except, of course, Islam), vaguely laying the blame for this on religion rather than simply on a warped mind?

Pedantic TAE

Admittedly, this is a small, picayune, and in all ways largely unimportant point to make. But it bugs me, so I’ll make it anyway.

Today from The Guardian:

The US increased pressure on China to free an American-based academic who has been jailed on spying charges, with 40 senators, including John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, writing to President Hu Jintao yesterday demanding his immediate release.

You know, I was kind of on the fence as to whether it was all that important that 40 senators are demanding that Yang Jianli be released from the grips of an insular, oppressive, communist state, but if such moral icons as John Kerry and Hillary Clinton are involved, well, that’s pretty relevant information. Consider me on board, then.

We report; you decide

So, how is Tony Blair faring in Europe these days? That depends upon whether you write for The Independent or The Times.

Front page headline in today’s Independent:

EU summit: The dinner from hell
Blair isolated over Britain's rebate as vital EU summit begins in Brussels with acrimony the main course on the menu

Front page headline from today’s Times:

Europe turns on France as Britain wins new allies

And people in the media wonder why no one trusts them anymore.

Expensive Germans

So it turns out, according to The Guardian, that the NHS is paying “dizzying” sums to attract German doctors to come to Britain to cover staff shortages, even as the British Medical Association is demanding that African doctors not be recruited to come to Britain. Methinks there is an economics lesson to be had in that, somewhere.

As an aside, I was struck by this statement in The Guardian article, from a German doctor:

"We were told that British doctors can earn up to £250,000. In Germany you only earn this kind of money if you are a university professor."

Is that the kind of country to which British EU-niks really want to tie the fate of the UK?

Clueless doctors

There was a time in the not too distant past when an act of ethnic employment discrimination would have been considered deeply offensive. The British Medical Association is now trying to turn it into a virtue.

Nurses' and doctors' leaders have called on the UK government to tackle the "poaching" of overseas healthcare workers, at next month's G8 summit. They say staff migration from developing nations is killing millions and compounding poverty...Sub-Saharan African countries are some of the worst hit by the "brain-drain". The World Health Organization estimates that one million more healthcare workers are needed in these countries if they are to meet basic health goals, such as reducing childhood and maternal mortality.

And, of course, the inevitable:

The letter says: "The UK government has led the way in establishing a code of good practice for ethical recruitment. It is now essential that other developed countries, such as the US, make a similar commitment to address the issue."

It's always about the US, somehow. Maybe I'm missing something, but at a time when the US supposedly has such an image problem, preventing educated and skilled Africans from improving their personal lot by working in the US precisely because they are educated, skilled and from Africa doesn't strike me as a winning strategy.

Nor does it strike me as a particularly enlightened economic policy. This is, afterall, essentially an economic problem in the allocation of resources. And it seems to me that if you were looking for the best way to reduce the number educated Africans going into the medical profession, penalizing them for doing so by artificially reducing the scope of their personal employment opportunities would have to rank as one of the better plans. I think the British Medical Association ought to stick to taking care of sick people and leave the economic planning to someone else.

Scant non-partisanship

In an article about a Democratic congressional publicity stunt, the BBC today sings from the American-left songbook regarding the infamous Downing Street Memo. As the BBC says:

The affair has received scant coverage in the mainstream US media, although left-wing bloggers have had some success in bringing it to public attention.

Scant coverage? Perhaps the BBC does not consider the New York Times (9 stories since May 16 that include the phrase "Downing Street Memo"), The Chicago Tribune (7 stories since May 17, including this one), or The Washington Post (35 stories just this month) to be part of the "mainstream US media. (Oh, if only that were true!) The problem is not scant coverage. It is scant interest. Consider this reaction from Michael Kinsley, sydicated columnist, editor of the LA Times, and certainly no friend of either Bush or Republicans:

But even on its face, the memo is not proof that Bush had decided on war. It says that war is "now seen as inevitable" by "Washington." That is, people other than Bush had concluded, based on observation, that he was determined to go to war. There is no claim of even fourth-hand knowledge that he had actually declared this intention. Even if "Washington" meant actual administration decision makers, rather than the usual freelance chatterboxes, C is saying only that these people believe that war is how events will play out.

Simply put, the memo just doesn't say what Democrats want it to say. But that won't stop them, nor will it stop the BBC from taking them seriously.

And then there is this, also from the BBC piece:

Gold Star Families for Peace, a non-partisan group, has expressed its support for the hearing.

"We want our Congress to stand up, to identify and investigate the lies and follow it wherever it goes," Celeste Zappala, who lost a son in Iraq, told AP.

Curious about this, and a little worried my understanding of words had left me, I looked up both the word "partisan" and the home site of Gold Star Families for Peace. This is what I found in the dictionary:

partisan: A fervent, sometimes militant supporter or proponent of a party, cause, faction, person, or idea.

Then, on the front page of the GSFfP website, I found this by co-founder Cindy Sheehan:

Iraq has been the tragic Lie of Historic Proportions of Washington, DC since before the first gulf war. For years, Saddam was one of our government’s propped up and militarily supported puppets. Many people have seen the famous footage of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam. I suppose the two are smiling so big for the cameras because they are kindred spirits. After all of the hand-shaking and weapon brokering, when did Saddam become such a bad guy to Bush, Cheney, Halliburton and Co.? (Insert your favorite reason here).

During the Clinton regime the US-UN led sanctions against Iraq and the weekly bombing raids killed tens of thousands of innocent people in Iraq. Many of them were children, but since one of her children didn’t have to be sacrificed to the homicidal war machine, Madeline Albright, thinks the slaughter during the “halcyon” Clinton years was “worth it.” More lies.

Apparently, in the eyes of the BBC, being non-partisan means attacking both Republicans and Democrats as lying killers and kindred spirits to genocidal maniacs. More from Sheehan:

The evidence is overwhelming, compelling, and alarming that George and his indecent bandits traitorously had intelligence fabricated to fit their goal of invading Iraq. The criminals foisted a Lie of Historic Proportions on the world. It was clear to many of us more aware people that George, Condi, Rummy, the two Dicks: Cheney and Perle, Wolfie, and most effectively and treacherously, Colin Powell, lied their brains out before the invasion.

Indecent and traitorous bandits? Treacherous criminals? Well. Thank goodness Ms Sheehan is not, as the definition says, a "fervent supporter" of her cause. Imagine what she then might have said.

It's good to see the BBC keeping its audience in touch with the feelings of mainstream, "non-partisan" Americans like the GSFfP.

UPDATE: My apologies for the faulty Chicago Tribune links. I hadn't realized you need to register in order to see them. Registration is free.

Americans in the UK....

Test to see how British you've become by taking the BBC quiz on the government's Life in the United Kingdom, a booklet to be handed out to immigrants to the UK. Sample question:

Life in the UK explains what to do if you spill someone's pint in the pub (we're not making this up). What, according to the book, usually happens next?

A: You would offer to buy the person another pint
B: You would offer to dry their wet shirt with your own
C: You may need to prepare for a fight in the car park

(I got 10 out of 15)

At last

The BBC has finally discovered something about America that it likes. Is it individualism? Economic liberalism? Baseball? Nah. It's yellow school buses!

Surprisingly, this didn't come up in the BBC coverage.

Credit to the BBC

The BBC' s Stephen Evans has put together a worthy story about American generosity.

There is a smug view in Europe that the United States is particularly mean when it comes to helping poor countries. Whatever list you make of generosity to those less fortunate than themselves, the Americans will be near the bottom of it.

But it's not quite as simple as that - and certainly not the way the Americans see it.

Evans cites the same Carole Adleman statistics that I highlighted two days ago, and even gives credit to religious organizations. (Although he can't resist the typically BBC-ish backhanded knock on religion, noting happily that much of their generosity even comes without "theology". Is generosity that comes with "theology" somehow less worthy?)

Evans points out that:

Americans do not give like other people do. They don't assume the government knows best and leave generosity to politicians and officials. The figures do not show America as the world's most generous people, but nor do they show Americans as the meanest.

On that last point, he doesn't cite which figures he is talking about, but he probably means figures based on giving as a percent of GDP, which has become the standard measure of national generosity since the Earth Summit in 1992, at which it was proclaimed that .7% of GDP was the "proper" amount of foreign giving.

Of course, measuring generosity in this way, whether including private giving or not, while ignoring absolute values is fairly meaningless. For example, in 2004, Norway topped the list of Official Development Assistance as a percent of GDP at .87%. That amounted to $2.2 billion. Official US assistance, which was ranked 2nd to last, came in at .16% of GDP, or $18.99 billion. So, which country's (official) assistance is doing more to help the world's poor? Or, put another way, if you were in charge of a foreign aid agency, whose contributions could you more afford to do without? The answer, of course, is obvious.

In any event the BBC deserves credit for taking a look at private American giving in order to give some perspective to the myth of American miserliness. Well done, Beeb.

UPDATE: In the comments, Richard John makes the excellent point that government spending ought not count as generosity at all. Says RJ:

When my taxes get spent on aid I am not being generous as I have not made the decision to spend the money. This is the case for everyone whose vote in the election is not determined by foreign-aid policy (i.e. more or less everyone). Therefore government aid is no indicator at all of a peoples generosity. A figure that may be interesting is the private giving as a proportion of after-tax income. If such tables are worth anything at all then this would be interesting. Of course, this does not measure "time" or other forms of help that goes beyond the placing of money into a tin cup.

Rumsfeld redux

The BBC did two articles based on the Rumsfeld interview, here and here. Neither is entirely faithful to the actual tone of the interview.

In the first, the BBC quotes Rumsfeld as saying "I think the US is notably unskilful in our communications and our public diplomacy," and trumpets in its headline "Rumsfeld points to image problem." But, as it turns out, he didn't. The image problem was raised not by Rumsfeld, but by interviewer David Frost, who went on to ask Rumsfeld how to fix it. In responding, Rumsfeld did suggest that the US does a poor PR job, but he also strongly rejected the image as false, and even suggested that he's not at all sure that improved PR would accomplish anything, two points which the BBC left out in order to hype the "unskillful" sentence. This was the exchange:

Q: What about these polls that come out with rather depressing news? There was that poll of 15 countries where there US was level as a threat to world peace with two of the countries we've been talking about, Syria and North Korea. What can you do to improve the figures of these polls, or the reality behind it?

Rumsfeld: I suppose, in partial answer to your question, that I'm not the best one to ask. But I thinks it's always been true that the large country, the most powerful country tends to be the one that people would like to bring down or tweak, and that's always going - I also think that the United States is notably unskillful in our communications and our public diplomacy. I think that we need to do a better job. Now, what that will accomplish, I don't know. [there is an obvious cut at this point away from something else Rumsfeld says]

Q; So you think that America doesn't do as great a job as it could?

Rumsfeld: But the idea that America is what is wrong with the world, it seems to me just isn't supported by the facts. If one looks at, what is the country that people want to come to, and to live, and to work? The Untied States has long lines. What's the country that people look to for assistance? The US has a record of doing that. Which is the country that did the most in the tsunami? [another cut]

I think this gives a significantly different tone than the spin placed on it in the BBC article.

In the second article, the BBC's headline shouts "Iraq 'no more safe than in 2003'"'. Despite the BBC's use of quotation marks, that is not what Rumsfeld said. Again, here is the exchange:

Q: Do you believe the security situation in Iraq is better today than it was on the day after the war ended?

Rumsfeld: Well, statistically, no. But clearly it has been getting better as we’ve gone along. In other words, at the end of the war, the army fled, was captured in many large – thousands, tens of thousands were captured and the country was defeated. The insurgency then built over a period of time and, it’s had it ups and downs, and clearly they made an effort during the election period, on January 30th to try to derail the election and prevent it from happening, but the Iraqi security forces now number 169,000, the efforts on the part of the coalition countries have shifted from counterinsurgency to helping the Iraqi security forces, and they’ve had some important political milestones. They’ve had an election, they’ve got a government, they’re now working on a constitution and a lot of the bad things that could have happened have not happened.

Clearly, on the statistical point, Rumsfeld is responding to the specific question put to him, but the BBC article makes it appear that Rumsfeld is making a statement about progress in Iraq more generally, which it accomplishes by hiding both the actual question which prompted his response and his more extensive explanation. Indeed, by not including his full explanation, the BBC makes Rumsfeld appear incoherent. It quotes him saying that "Statistically, no," the security situation had not improved, but that "clearly it has been getting better..." Taken in isolation, these two assertions make no sense. However, within the context of his full response, they do. He is making a distinction between a statistical reality and a political reality. His point is that, of course on the day after Saddam fell, since there was no insurgency yet in existence, there could be no deaths due to the insurgents. Hence the statistical fact that the number of deaths has increased. However, in political terms, great strides have been made towards a more general seucirty of the nation - the creation of a domestic security force and a democratically elected government clearly provide more security than having no domestic security force and no goverment.

It's subtle and nuanced, but fairly typical of the way the BBC (and the media in general) removes quotations from their context in order to hype the story they want to tell instead of the story that being told to them. To be fair to the BBC, they did link to the interview so it could be seen in context, but how many readers will take the time and effort to do so?

More BBC on Rumsfeld

Regarding my earlier post about the BBC's dowdification of the Donald Rumsfeld quotation, it appears that at least someone at the BBC has a conscience. The quotation has now been removed and replaced with another, albeit without any kind of acknowledgement that a change has been made.

I've also finally had a chance to see the actual interview with Rumsfeld and, needless to say, seeing it leaves one with a distinctly different impression than reading the BBC's characterization of it. But I am having some trouble posting links, so I'll try to post my observations tomorrow.

FYI

The Pauline Kael of Britain has discovered TAE...and doesn't like it. My in-box, no doubt, would further surprise him.

Rubbing salt in an American's wounds

Back in February 2003, the odious London congestion charge, brainchild of Mayor “Red” Ken Livingstone, came into effect, costing me (and other commuters who cannot vote against Red Ken)£5 per day for an 8 minute car journey through a small part of the congestion area. After a week of the charge, in an article headlined “No increase in congestion charge”, the BBC reported:

There will be no increase in the fee paid by drivers to enter central London for at least 10 years, Mayor Ken Livingstone has said. Summing up the first full week of congestion charging, Mr Livingstone said the scheme's success meant that "£5 was enough".

Last autumn Livingstone clarified that what he actually had in mind was 10 dog years. As the BBC reported:

London's congestion charge should be increased to £8, mayor Ken Livingstone has proposed. Mr Livingstone has asked Transport for London (TfL) to begin consulting on a £3 increase for a private car to enter the central zone.

Today, I had a peek at the Transport for London website and discovered, after some considerable searching, hidden away as a footnote on the payments and penalties page, this:

PLEASE NOTE: From July 4th 2005 the existing daily charge amount of £5 will increase to £8.

July 4th, the anniversary of a rather famous revolt against British taxation without representation? The renowned British sense of irony is alive and well in Ken Livingstone.

Adam Smith likes TAE

The Adam Smith Institute has selected TAE as its blog of the week.

For those of you who may be unaware, as it is described on their homepage:

The Adam Smith Institute is the UK's leading innovator of free-market policies. Named after the great Scottish economist and author of The Wealth of Nations, its guiding principles are free markets and a free society. It researches practical ways to inject choice and competition into public services, extend personal freedom, reduce taxes, prune back regulation, and cut government waste.

The Institute is politically independent and non-profit. It works through research in policy options, publications, conferences and seminars, and helping to shape public debate in the media and among opinion-formers.

TAE is thankful and proud to have been noticed by such clear-thinking people.

Beware the ellipses

The BBC today dowdifies a quote from Donald Rumsfeld.

Qouth Rumsfeld:

You just can't hear day after day after day after day things like that that
often aren't true, with a lack of balance, and not come away thinking, gee, that
must not be a very good country.

And after coming through the BBC quotation grinder:

You just can’t…not come away thinking, gee, that [the US] must not be a very
good country.

To be totally fair, the mangled quote appears in a quote box on the side of the article, and the body of the article does contain the full, proper quote. But the quote box is highlighted and in bold, and is the first thing the eye is drawn to apart from perhaps the headline and the photo of Rumsfeld. And in it the BBC has altered what is an implicit criticism of the media into an unqualified and derogatory observation about the US itself.

Mark that as another par on the BBC scorecard.

A few things missing...

I noticed a few statistics that The Indpedendent failed to include on its front page yesterday:

• While constituting 4% of the population, the US is responsible for 22% of the UN's operating budget and 27% of its peacekeeping budget
• American taxpayers provide more funds to the UN than any other nation, and more than China, India, and Japan combined, which together constitute 39% of the world's population
• US taxpayers fund 57% of the UN's World Food Program budget, more than all other taxpayers on the face of the earth, and in doing so help to feed 104 million people in 81 nations
• Privately, Americans are profoundly generous:
• US foundations provide $1.5 billion in foreign charity per year;
• US businesses provide $2.8 billion in foreign charity per year;
• US religious organizations provide $3.4 billion in foreign charity per year;
• US universities provide $1.3 billion in in scholarships to foreigners every year;
• US NGOs provide $6.6 billion per year in grants, goods, and volunteers;
• In 2000 alone the US economy created $1.8 billion in funds that were eventually remitted by immigrants and foreign nationals from the US to foreign countries
• In the months following the Asian tsunami in December of last year, private American giving accounted for $1.48 billion in tsunami aid, in addition to the $850 million ponied up by US taxpayers
• Amerian workers are among the most productive in the world, ranking 2nd in GDP per capita
• Total US GDP in 2003 was $10.95 trillion, accounting for more than 30% of the world's GDP, more than twice that of the next closest nation, and more than that of the UK, Germany, France, and Italy combined.
• Finally, there are 9,387 Americans buried in a 172.5 acre patch of land in Normandy, France, accounting for 2.3% of the 407,000 Americans who gave their lives over a 3 year period defending Europeans and Asians from tyranny on their own soil, not in America.

Just thought I would mention it.

You make the call

Regarding The Times story I wrote about the other day, The Times has posted a partial transcript of the Cabinet office paper – partial because apparently the final page was missing. Judge for yourself whether or not The Times did it justice.

The Times characterization:

The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair’s inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was “necessary to create the conditions” which would make it legal.

The actual text of the paper:

We need now to reinforce this message and to encourage the US Government to
place its military planning within a political framework, partly to forestall the risk that military action is precipitated in an unplanned way by, for example, an incident in the No Fly Zones. This is particularly important for the UK because it is necessary to create the conditions in which we could legally support military action. Otherwise we face the real danger that the US will commit themselves to a course of action which we would find very difficult to support.

In regards to the simply put “regime change was illegal”, this is what the Cabinet paper actually says:

11. US views of international law vary from that of the UK and the international community. Regime change per se is not a proper basis for military action under international law. But regime change could result from action that is otherwise lawful. We would regard the use of force against Iraq, or any other state, as lawful if exercised in the right of individual or collective self-defence, if carried out to avert an overwhelming humanitarian catastrophe, or authorised by the UN Security Council. A detailed consideration of the legal issues, prepared earlier this year, is at Annex A. The legal position would depend on the precise circumstances at the time. Legal bases for an invasion of Iraq are in principle conceivable in both the first two instances but would be difficult to establish because of, for example, the tests of immediacy and proportionality. Further legal advice would be needed on this point.

12. This leaves the route under the UNSC resolutions on weapons inspectors. Kofi Annan has held three rounds of meetings with Iraq in an attempt to persuade them to admit the UN weapons inspectors. These have made no substantive progress; the Iraqis are deliberately obfuscating. Annan has downgraded the dialogue but more pointless talks are possible. We need to persuade the UN and the International community that this situation cannot be allowed to continue ad infinitum. We need to set a deadline, leading to an ultimatum. It would be preferable to obtain backing of a UNSCR for any ultimatum and early work would be necessary to explore with Kofi Annan and the Russians, in particular, the scope for achieving this.

Speaking of which...

The Daily Ablution has a nice riff on The Independent cover, asking "Do Angry Teenagers design Independent Covers?":

In a highly daring and original graphical statement, the blue field is composed of ... dollar signs! That's to show that, y'know, everything Americans do is, like, driven by dollars. I'm surprised that the editors resisted what must have been the nearly overwhelming temptation to use swastikas instead.

Good stuff.

Today's Independent

Below is a picture of the front page of The Independent today. The quality is not great, because I could not find a picture of it on the web, and so had to scan it in myself. It is not clear from the picture, but the blue corner of the flag is comprised of $ signs and I've included the text which comprises the stripes below the photo. To those who are reading this back home, while it clearly lacks the subtlety of the BBC or the style of The Guardian, this is precisely the type of anti-American propaganda that regularly infests the media here in the UK.




From The Independent, in the stripes:

"THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTES 4 ER CENT OF THE WORLD POPULATION – IT IS RESPONSIBLE FOR A QUARTER OF ALL CARBON DIOXIDE EMISIONS – AMERICAN CITIZENS RELEASE MORE CARBON DIOXIDE EVERY YEAR THAN ANY OTHER NATIONALITY – THE HIGHEST OF ANY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD, AND MORE THAN CHINA, INDIA AND JAPAN COMBINED – AMERICANS USE 50 MILLION TONS OF PAPER ANNUALLY – CONSUMING MORE THAN 850 MILLION TREES – THERE ARE MORE THAN 200 MILLION CARS AND LIGHT TRUCKS ON AMERICAN ROADS – ACCPRDING TO THE FEDERAL DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, THEY USE OVER 200 MILLION GALLONS OF PETROL A DAY – MOTOR VEHICLES ACCOUNT FOR 56 PER CENT OF ALL AIR POLLUTION IN THE UNITED STATES – A STUDY PUBLISHED IN THE JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION IN 2002 CONCLUDED THAT PEOPLE LIVING IN THE MOST HEAVILY POLLUTED METROPOLITAN AREAS HAVE A 12 PER CENT INCREASED RISK OF DYING OF LUNG CANCER THAN PEOPLE IN THE LEAST POLLUTED AREAS – 32 OF THE BUSIES US AIRPORTS CURRENTLY HAVE PLANS TO EXPAND OPERATIONS – EVERY YEAR US INDUSTRIES RELEASE AT LEAST 2.4 BILLION POUNDS OF CHEMICALS INTO THE ATMOSPHERE – DESPITE HAVING JUST 2 PER CENT OF KNOWN OIL RESERVES, THE US CONSUMES 25 PER CENT OF THE WORLDS OIL PRODUCTION – 16 PER CENT OF THE WORLD OIL PRODUCTION GOES INTO AMERICAN CARS ALONE – APPROXIMATELY 160 MILLION PEOPLE LIVING IN 32 US STATES LIVE IN REGIONS WITH SMOG AND SOOT LEVELS CONSIDERED DANGEROUS TO HEALTH – THE NEW CLEAR AIR INTERSTATE RULE AIMS TO CUT SULPHUR DIOXIDE BY 73 PER CENT AND NITROGEN OXIDE BY 61 PERCENT IN THE NEXT 10 YEARS – AROUND 50 MILLION NEW CARS ROLL OFF US ASSEMBLY LINES EACH YEAR – THERE ARE ALREADY MORE THAN 20 MILLION FOUR-WHEEL-DRIVE VEHICLES ON US ROADS – MORE THAN 1.5 MILLION GALLONS OF OIL WERE SPILT INTO US WATERS IN 2000 ALONE – ONLY 1 PER CENT OF AMERICAN TRAVEL IS ON PUBLIC TRANSPORT, AN EIGHTH OF THAT IN THE UK AND AN EIGHTEENTH OF THAT IN JAPAN – AS MUCH AS 5.99 TONNES OF CARBOND DIOXIDE IS EMITTED PER AMERICAN PER YEAR, COMPARED WITH .31 TONNES PER INDIAN OR .05 TONNES PER BANGLADESHI – THE US HAD 16 MAJOR OIL SPILLS BETWEEN 1976 AND 1989, WHEREAS FRANCE SUFFERED SIX AND THE UK FIVE – THE AVERAGE AMERICAN PRODUCES 864KG OF MUNICIPAL WASTE PER YEAR, ALMOST THREE TIMES THE QUANTITY OF RUBBISH PRODUCED ANNUALLY BY AND ITALIAN."

Poor Copy Cats

If The Guardian is going to crib its stories from other media outlets, the least it can do is crib the whole thing. Today it gives us this report, headlined 90% of terror arrests fail. It is basically a replication of a Washington Post story from yesterday, only stripped of any context, background and balance, presumably so as to place Bush and his justice department in the most negative light possible.

The story is ostensibly about the lack of effective prosecutions against suspected terrorists and how the reality of those prosecutions does not match the rhetoric coming out of the Bush administration. But The Washington Post at least provides some analysis, and allows the justice department to defend both its use of the numbers, and to explain its view of them. For example, it allows counterterrorism chief Barry Sabin to explain that oftentimes suspects are ultimately prosecuted on lesser, immigration charges because either the prosecution is not confident of getting a conviction on more serious charges (and so they employ what is essentially the Al Capone tax evasion strategy) or because the defendant has provided useful information in exchange for a lesser charge. Perhaps this is just administration spin, but at least it gives the reader something to think about. Likewise, the Post gives the opinion of different “experts” each of whom have differing takes on the significance of the numbers.

The Guardian dispenses with all of this, well, reporting, and presents the Post story in the most simplistic and non-contextual terms. As a result, its readers are cheated out of what was actually an interesting story. (I have some questions about the Post story as well, but it was largely even-handed and objective.)

Of course, never one to pass up an opportunity to mount the Guantanamo hobby horse, The Guardian finds it necessary to insert this non-sequitur into what is otherwise a story about domestic arrests and prosecutions:

The administration's list does not include those held at Guantánamo Bay or under US jurisdiction elsewhere in the world.

I do wish they could make up their minds about Guantanamo. Do they think the people held there are prisoners of war entitled to the protections of the Geneva Convention, or are they domestic criminals against whom criminal charges are in order?

More DSM

The Weekly Standard has a good article out on the infamous Downing Street Memo showing that the outrage it has produced on the left is the result of an equivocal use of the word “fix”, and which contains this barb which made me chuckle (original emphasis).

It's striking that the Times's story hyping the memo makes no mention of the "fixed" passage until roughly its 26th paragraph, where the term goes unremarked. Far be it from me to suggest that the Brits have done a better job as custodians of the English language than Americans. But the Brits do at least know how they speak it.

Another thing about the DSM which seems to have gone largely unremarked upon in the media is that it tends to discredit the whole Bush Lied and Blair Lied story line. There are several passages which clearly indicate that the participants were under the impression that Saddam did indeed have WMD. For example, in the well-publicized quote in which Jack Straw characterizes the case for military action as “thin”, he goes on to point out:

Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.

Why would he speak of Saddam’s WMD capability being less than others if he knew it to be non-existent? Wouldn’t he just say that Saddam had no WMD capability?

And later there is a discussion about the consequences of Saddam using WMD “on day one” and where he might target with his WMD in the event of military action. Even Blair at one point refers to the fact that “the regime…was producing the WMD.” It seems clear that, whatever criticisms can be made regarding the failure to find WMD, there was a sincere belief at the time that he did posess them.

Much ado about nothing

The Sunday Times reports that, in the words of its headline, Ministers were told of need for Gulf war "excuse". Says the Times:

MINISTERS were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal.

The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier.

The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair’s inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was “necessary to create the conditions” which would make it legal.

Since The Times has not reproduced the actual text of the briefing paper, it is difficult for a reader to judge for himself, but I am skeptical about this report, which is based on a "leak". It is noteworthy, I think, that The Times chooses to use its own words to characterize the paper rather than quote directly from it. If the briefing actually said anything close to "since regime change is illegal", why wouldn't the Times simply use the briefing's words? And why does it stop directly quoting after the "necessary to create the conditions" clause and substitute its own words for whatever followed? Again, if the breifing said anything like "create the conditions necessary to make it legal", why wouldn't The Times simply let the paper speak for itself?

This is just speculation, but perhaps it is because The Times does not actually have the briefing paper, and is simply characterizing it in the way that the leaker characterized it. Which would certainly raise the issue of the motivations, and therefore interpretion, of the leaker.

Or perhaps the actual text of the brief lends itself to a less damning interpretation than The Times wishes to put forward. Another reason to think that the briefing paper might not be as definitive as The Times leads us to believe is the Downing Street Memo itself, which is a summary of the meeting for which the briefing paper was apparently prepared. In it the the Attorney-General is said to have put forward 3 legal bases for military action; self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. While the AG rejected the first two of these (why the second was rejected is beyond me) in the case of Iraq, he was less definitive with the third, only saying that relying on it would be "difficult". He did, of course, acknowledge that "the situation might change", which it did with the adoption of UN resolution 1441. So, while the AG might have argued that a desire for regime change in and of itself was not a sufficient legal basis for military action, he did not argue that no such legal basis existed. In this respect, the briefing paper, at least as portrayed by The Times, is not supported by the the arguments put forward by the AG.

If and when the paper is made public, perhaps we will find that it does say exactly what The Times says (or what the leaker told The Times it says). But for now I think there is sufficient reason to be skeptical.

Beyond this, however, it is not at all clear to me why we are fretting over the possibility that Washington and London were trying to manufacture a "legal" justification (to the extent that international law has any meaning anyway) to get rid of Saddam. There is a difference between a legal justification and a moral justification. If there is a moral justification to do something but no legal justification, then I don't see a problem with trying to create a legal justification which allows one to take a moral course of action. Do we fret over sting operations in which police essentially manufacture a crime in order to provide a legal basis to prosecute known criminals? No. Saddam was a known murderer and tyrant. If there was no internationally "legal" basis on which to destoy his regime, then that is a deficiency in international law, and I can't really get worked up over the fact that Bush and Blair tried to figure out a way to create such a justification.

Pollit Part II

After her ridiculous portrayal of abortion in America, Katha Pollit continues her descent into madness by pretending that birth control itself is about to be abolished in the land of the grand and glorious.

Emboldened by their many successes under the Bush administration, anti-abortion activists are going after contraception, too.

Hmmm. The “many successes” of the anti-abortion activists under Bush? Personally I can’t think of a single success that the anti-abortion movement has had in the last 5 years (apart from the fact that the abortion rate has been declining slightly.) But let’s assume that there have been some legal successes. What could Bush possibly have to do with them? The responsibility for abortion law currently resides in two places…the state governments and the Supreme Court. States make abortion laws, and the Supreme Court ultimately reviews them and either upholds them or invalidates them as unconstitutional. The president has nothing to do with the passage of state laws, and his only power over the Supreme Court is the ability to appoint justices when a vacancy arises. But no such vacancy has arisen during Bush’s tenure in office, so to invoke Bush’s name when discussing any “successes” the anti-abortion movement has is patently ridiculous.

Anyway, what is this about them “going after contraception too”? Well, according to Pollit:

Contraception has always been slightly suspect here: most women have paid for it themselves, because their private health insurance didn't cover it. By contrast, within a few months of its coming to market in 1998, about 60% of public and private health plans covered Viagra.

I’m a bit at a loss as to how having to pay for contraception means that contraception has been “suspect”. My insurance has never covered the cost of my toothbrush and toothpaste. Does that mean that brushing one's teeth has always been "suspect"? Anyway, my immediate reaction to the above is that, well, it’s private insurance. It’s not the government telling women they have to pay for their birth control while telling impotent men they don’t have to pay for their Viagra. But then we read this parenthetical:

(The blatant unfairness of this disparity, in fact, forced many state legislatures to pass laws requiring private insurers to include contraception in their drug coverage.)

I see. So this is the nefarious strategy by which the government plans to do away with contraception in America - force insurance companies to pay for it. How insidiously clever.

She finds it “truly frightening” when privately employed pharmacists exercise their personal religious beliefs by refusing to fill contraceptive prescriptions. Apparently it has never occurred to the far-too-easily-shaken Pollit to simply go to another pharmacist. It is a free country, after all. She finds it equally frightening that the FDA hasn’t granted over-the-counter status to Plan B. Apart from the fact that it being available through "prescription only" hardly makes it unavailable, perhaps she would not be so alarmed if she knew that the reasons she gives for the lack of OTC approval are not in fact the reasons given by the FDA itself.

But enough of this silliness. For hyperbole and breathlessness, Pollit probably cannot be matched. But if it’s an accurate portrayal of the abortion/contraceptive scene in America that you are after, ignoring Katha Pollit and The Guardian is a good starting point.