Author: Mick Hartley

r the whole truth will ever emerge, especially whether a wider “network” of establishment figures was involved.

Expectations are frankly low. “For the truth to come out you need names, the other names,” argued Brussels engineer Jose Gazeau. “And that’s not going to happen. The whole thing is just too politicised.”

And, if the crimes themselves are one half of a stomach-churning tale, the other is the shameful catalogue of official bungling, turf wars, buck-passing and perhaps worse that allowed them to go undetected and unpunished for so long.

As someone with family connections in Belgium, I can vouch for the corrosive cynicism which is felt for the whole business. The general feeling seems to be that, because the investigation has been so incompetent, and so prolonged, there must be bigger fish involved. This of course may be true, but officials can be incompetent without being corrupt. It’s tempting to blame the cynicism as a natural reaction in a society where the state is expected to provide all the answers. In the circumstances it’s clear that Dutroux will play up to this cynicism. He could name all the senior officers in the Liege police force as accomplices and half of Belgium would believe him.

that. […]

A number of adults who came into contact with Victoria, including neighbours, raised concerns about the child’s welfare and the likelihood of abuse. But the transformation of child protection from everyday acts of human compassion to an industry of professionals actively discourages people from intervening in situations themselves.

A climate of suspicion that encourages us to see potential abuse in every home, and see every stranger as a potential threat to children, can only undermine the spontaneous human compassion and contact that could have saved Victoria’s life.

It was not the absence of a highly visible, vigilant and centralised child protection industry that allowed Victoria to die a lonely drawn-out death. It was the lack of two basic human instincts: compassion and common sense.

would guess that the phrase “it is far less common than the two men believe” will turn out to be something of an understatement. There is though a good case for identifying Munchausen’s Syndrome by Doctor, when doctors give a ludicrous name to something they don’t understand in order to draw attention to themselves.

y had fooled him into believing in non-existent weapons. My experience, and the character of day to day life in Iraq, indicate just the opposite. We at the MOST have been trying to put 8000 scientists and engineers back to work without their Baathist enforcers and “project managers.” It has been a Herculean task. While the scientific knowledge of the individuals is intact, actually managing complex programs is well beyond the reach of these people.

To assert that the scientists bypassed the Baathist infrastructure, the Iraqi Intelligence Service, and Special Republican Guard commanders, all the while fooling Saddam is, to put it mildly, a real stretch. To this day, many still fear the consequences of cooperating with the ISG. We would need to see the detailed rationale for Dr. Kay’s conclusions on this matter to gauge if Saddam was really fooled by scientists scared to death of him and the Baath Party, or if he ran one of military history’s most successful deception operations. If he did the latter, we must also ask why he would risk the toppling of his regime, and his death or capture, over non-existent WMDs. The only alternative explanation to these two questionable scenarios is that WMD stockpiles did in fact exist, but that they have been hidden, and/or spirited out of the country.

Dr. Kay and the ISG have already proven that Iraq was in violation of several UN resolutions. Their findings include, among others, that Iraq was involved in manufacturing of the biotoxin Ricin “right up to the end,” the restarting of Saddam’s nuclear program, and the development of BW “seed” agents, such as botulinum, that could be used to regenerate stockpiles of BW agents once UN sanctions were lifted.

y praised the decision to drop The Fat Slags, at which point Viz promptly reintroduced it, but the details are hazy), nevermind Roger’s Profanisaurus and the copious adverts aimed at a young male market obsessed, as is Viz itself, with, um, bodily fluids and getting rid of them. So anyway, The Guardian had to go, and my life is now much richer without Steve Bell. I just wonder if those adverts aimed at teenage testosterone-driven lads hide the fact that a large proportion of Viz readers are in fact sad middle-aged men like, er……well, like me.

Last night’s Panorama on Zimbabwe, and the indoctrination camps where a whole generation of teenagers are being brutalised into pro-ZANU zombies, was absolutely chilling. The programme ended by referring to the evil of what’s being done, and the word was entirely appropriate.

There are quite a few interesting stories in the outside world. The crisis in Haiti; Zimbabwe’s indoctrination camps; the LRA in Uganda with their worst atrocity yet; China getting nervous about democracy in Hong Kong, while demonstrations in Taiwan notch up the tension; Putin amassing more and more power to himself: the Democrat leadership contest in the US, plus the gay marriage furore – and in Iraq, there’s the unfolding story of the UN oil-for-food scandal.

So what do we get in our Sunday broadsheets? It’s all about Clare Short; Katherine Gun; was the war illegal? who was bugging who? and on and endlessly on. “Army chiefs feared Iraq war illegal just days before start” is The Observer line. The Sunday Times reports how Claire Short has vowed to bring down Tony Blair. The Independent – virtually a one issue newspaper now – has “Revealed: Attorney General changed his advice on legality of Iraq war”. Turn on the BBC and either Robin Cook or Clare Short is being interviewed.

The line seems to be that the Iraq war keeps coming back to haunt Blair, but clearly that’s only because these journalists – the liberal establishment – are determined the issue won’t go away, especially after the Hutton Report wasn’t to their liking. Clare Short is certainly out to destroy Blair, but she’s helped by the fact that the press are right behind her.

At least the Sunday Times is aware of the problem:

Margaret Thatcher famously dismissed a critical question over the retaking of South Georgia in the Falklands with the words: “Rejoice, rejoice!” There is plenty of evidence from the polls that many voters are irritated by the constant digging around in the war’s entrails — a chattering-class issue — and would rather the prime minister also said “rejoice” and got on with other things. The war removed an evil dictator who was a danger to peace and, by demonstrating the West’s willingness to use force, probably helped delay the most dangerous threat the world faces: nuclear proliferation that could result in these weapons getting to Al-Qaeda. Mr Blair, however, is no Thatcher. His weakness is that he tries to be all things to all men. The war was one of the tough choices he keeps telling us about. One day he will have to tell his critics, particularly in his own party, to stop carping and accept that reality.

Much as he would love to tell the Labour party to stop carping, Blair’s personal authority at the moment just isn’t strong enough for him to do that.

From previews of Panorama’s programme tomorrow (Sunday) night, it looks like Mugabe’s Zimbabwe is even worse than we feared (via Tim Blair):

President Robert Mugabe’s government has set up secret camps across the country in which thousands of youths are taught how to torture and kill, the BBC has learned.
The Zimbabwean government says the camps are job training centres, but those who have escaped say they are part of a brutal plan to keep Mugabe in power.

Former recruits to the camps have spoken to the BBC’s Panorama programme about a horrific training programme that breaks young teenagers down before encouraging them to commit atrocities.

A whole country is being brutalised, to keep Mugabe in power:

During covert filming inside Zimbabwe, Panorama also spoke to a camp commander who told the programme that youths in his camp had been sent to kill opponents of President Mugabe.

He said: “In the area I am covering I heard of two. My superiors instructed that the people must be eliminated.”

What is more frightening is that President Mugabe now wants every Zimbabwean youth to undergo training. We have been told they will be used to intimidate political opponents in next year’s elections.

The commander added: “These guys are going to be used by the ruling party to keep the opposition out of power.”

Meanwhile (via Harry’s Place):

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez praised Zimbabwe’s embattled President Robert Mugabe as a “freedom fighter,” bestowing the visiting African leader with a replica of South American independence hero Simon Bolivar’s sword.

“I give you a replica of liberator Simon Bolivar’s sword,” Chavez said Thursday after the two leaders signed an energy co-operation agreement.

“For you, who like Bolivar, took up arms to liberate your people. For you, who like Bolivar, are and will always be a true freedom fighter,” Chavez said. “He continues, alongside his people, to confront the pretensions of new imperialists.”

of the general mentality among the gay elite. It also gives the government and other people’s opinions far too much power over the quality of our lives and effectively eliminates our own responsibility for our happiness.

So, effectively, the evolution of an acceptable solution, in terms of maintaining the notion of marriage as applying to heterosexual unions, but allowing for civil unions with equivalent rights for gay couples, has been derailed by those like Andrew Sullivan and San Francisco’s Gavin Newsom, who want it all and want it now, otherwise they’ll feel rejected and outcast. Unsurprisingly this has lead to a reaction by Bush – but what did they expect?

harder for non-Western liberals, who will be seen as traitors slavishly following Western ways. There is indeed a worldwide clash going on, but the fault lines do not coincide with national, ethnic, or religious borders. Moderate Muslims in Indonesia and Pakistan are as much the targets of Islamist zealotry as Westerners. It is indeed the Westernizers in their midst who provoke the greatest rage among the religious revolutionaries of the Middle East and beyond. The war of ideas is in some respects the same as the one that was fought several generations ago, against various versions of fascism and state socialism. This is not to say the military war is the same, or that all the ideas overlap. In the 1940s, the war was only between states. Now it is also against a disparate, worldwide, loosely organized, mostly underground revolutionary movement.

The other intellectual trap to avoid is the paralysis of colonial guilt. It should be repeated: European and American histories are stained with blood, and Western imperialism did much damage. But to be conscious of that does not mean we should be complacent about the brutality taking place in former colonies now. On the contrary, it should make us less so. To blame the barbarism of non-Western dictators or the suicidal savagery of religious revolutions on American imperialism, global capitalism, or Israeli expansionism is not only to miss the point; it is precisely an Orientalist form of condescension, as though only Westerners are adult enough to be morally responsible for what they do. […]

Where political, religious, and intellectual freedom has already been established, it must be defended against its enemies, with force, if need be, but also with conviction. What should be clear is that we have not been witnessing the Manichaean history of one civilization at war with another. On the contrary, it is a tale of crosscontamination, the spread of bad ideas.