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also needed an echo chamber. She got one in Patrick Lang, former Middle East chief of the Defence Intelligence Agency, who supplied quotes endorsing her story. He sent an email to several journalists, enclosing the transcript of the Kwiatkowski-Steinberg interview. ‘Jeff Steinberg is a first-rate scholar,’ Lang wrote. ‘I am not concerned where he works.’

Lang popped up again, last week with the claim that he had learnt from his associates that Chalabi and his defectors were an Iranian intelligence scam, ‘one of the most sophisticated and successful intelligence operations in history’.

I assume Lang, who is widely admired in Washington, would not knowingly disseminate inaccurate information. But it is possible his political beliefs may make him credulous. The Pentagon, he said, had been seized by extremists, ‘Zionist revisionists’, whose goal was to ‘de-Arabise’ the Middle East. Ariel Sharon’s Likud party had in effect directed America’s invasion of Iraq, and the way to visualise Likud’s power was as ‘a steel barbell, with one ball in Israel and another in the Pentagon, among the neo-conservatives’.

It is, I suppose, interesting that such groups exist, if we can take Rose’s word for it, but this is lunatic fringe stuff – Lyndon Larouche; the Likud party directing America’s invasion of Iraq. The strongest language Rose manages about this is that it’s “contentious”, which seems a little understated.

It’s certainly true though that there are hidden agendas within the media as far as Iraq is concerned. Take Rose himself:

Now, with the war fought and Iraq on the brink of catastrophe, does any of this matter? It does: for the propaganda battles continue to resonate politically. Disinformation helped to drag Britain and America into a war.

On the brink of catastrophe? Don’t you just wish. And this line about disinformation dragging us into the war….wasn’t there something about Saddam not complying with UN resolutions? Just a vague far-off memory now of course, as the media line hardens around the idea that the sole reason for war was that Tony lied to us about Saddam having WMDs ready to fire in 45 minutes….

s not, as it turns out, a particularly interesting or unusual development; the history of psychoanalysis is full of splits and internal wranglings, and this one doesn’t appear to have any interesting characters or outrageous behaviours to recommend it. I was, however, struck by this little snippet:

[A]ll psychoanalysts share certain beliefs: the importance of the unconscious, for example. And Freud’s own legacy is still central. His sense of mistreatment by Viennese academics is one reason psychoanalytic training still goes on mostly in private institutes rather than in university departments.

That must also, I imagine, be the reason that Scientology training isn’t taught in university departments: because L Ron Hubbard was so upset at the way he was treated by academia….

For a more penetrating look at Freud’s legacy, check out this at butterfliesandwheels.

en it comes to the anti-war vote he’s on a winner:

Mr Livingstone, who did address the CND peace hustings last night, questioned how serious Mr Norris was over the Iraq issue. “Though Steve Norris is saying he is against the war, I didn’t see him at any of the marches,” he said.

Meanwhile:

Mr Livingstone said: “I’m worried about the safety of our boys and girls. That’s why I want to bring them home.”

Our boys and girls? Oh please…

Other than these two, there’s Lib Dem Simon Hughes, a Green candidate, Lindsey German for the SWP……… I like to exercise my democratic rights, but this is a tough one to get enthusiastic about.

p people in the street to ask for direct debit pledges.

A powerful code of conduct will ban collectors from stepping in front of pedestrians to force them to stop.

In addition, a new licensing regime will allow councils to bar charities from certain streets at particular times to stop overcrowding. The collectors will also be forced to tell would-be donors exactly how much from each gift goes to charity, and how much to the professional firm running the operation.

Ministers are closing a loophole which allows chuggers to operate without regulation because they do not collect cash.

The measures were unveiled as the Home Office published its draft Charities Bill to update the way the voluntary sector is regulated. The code of conduct will be voluntary at first, but will be made legally binding if widely ignored.

Voluntary at first? Yeah, that’ll work.

Update: Well yes, voluntarily might work in fact, now I think about it. After all, the charities must be aware that this sort of hard sell is damaging to their image, and if that image gets tarnished they’re in trouble. Also the numbers of these “chuggers” seems much reduced recently, though maybe it’s a seasonal thing and they’ll come out in force again in the warm weather.

Ever Slept With”.

The question arises, of course: why can’t she just make another one? Presumably she’s now slept with a few more people, so the work will be that much bigger and more valuable. Though apparently she claims that the 100-odd names were strictly sleeping partners, and she only ever had sex with a few of them. Just in case, you know, people might think she was some kind of slapper.

Of course the whole thing is highly suspicious. The Britart thing was/is a bubble which has been deflating for a while now, and the lost pieces are mostly garbage: a monument to the foolishness of collectors in general and Charles Saatchi in particular. So he collects on the insurance and sees his remaining few Britart pieces in the Saatchi gallery gain by becoming the definitive works of Britart (and yes, I will admit a liking for some of Damien Hirst’s stuff like his famous shark). The only problem with the compelling image of Charles Saatchi creeping through the East End with his box of matches is that it’s too bloody obvious: alas, he wouldn’t be that stupid.

and here) about a split between the US and the UK on the question of Iraqi sovereignty, and a defence of Bush’s plans for Iraq:

There are plenty of reasons to worry about Iraq. There are also many valid criticisms of the occupation. But I have yet to read any cogent criticism that offers any better future plan than the one president Bush outlined Monday night. John Kerry’s plaintive cries to “internationalize” the transition are so vacuous they barely merit attention. The transition is already being run by the U.N.; very few countries have the military capacity to cooperate fully with the coalition, and few want to; quicker elections would be great, but very difficult to pull off on a national level before the end of the year. So what are Bush’s opponents proposing? More troops now? But wouldn’t that undercut the message of transferring sovereignty to the Iraqis? A sudden exit of all troops? But no one – apart from right-wing and leftwing extremists – thinks that’s a wise move. Giving a future Iraqi government a veto power over troop activities? Done, according to Blair. The truth is: Bush’s plan is about as good as we’re likely to get. And deposing a dictator after decades of brutal rule could never have led immediately to insta-democracy.

Plus he’s written a piece on Susan Sontag in the New Republic which is well worth reading.

For some reason I can’t get this story out of my head. The guy shoots his own daughter, thinking she’s a car thief. You think, jeez what an idiot: he’s an ex-Springbok, a bull-necked Boer, not normally the sort of guy to inspire sympathy. But then…

He’ll be running an endless loop in his mind: wake up, hear the noise outside, someone trying to get into the car, the surge of anger, “right, this time I’ll get the bastards,” see a shadowy figure, rush to get the gun, take aim, fire… Why didn’t I see it was her? Why didn’t I aim high, low, to the side, just to scare? Why why why why. His own daughter for God’s sake. But whichever way he turns it, however often he asks himself why, it’s always going to come out the same. And now he’s being charged with murder. What circle of hell is this poor guy now living in?

blue-collar (not “white-trash”, because “white trash” is an inherently racist term, implying as it does that “trash” generally is black, and if you want to insult working-class whites you have got to be subtextually specific) soldiers turn out not to be perfect, and whole swaths of people — genders (female), classes (working), countries (the USA) — can instantly be dismissed as worthless.

Not strong enough for you? This is how she finishes:

And if anybody still believes that, because of Lynndie England and her friends, women should not have rights, the working class need to be kept firmly in their place, and the Western way of life is a total lie, there are always 22 Muslim theocracies where they could go and live, where the lack of decadent old choice and free will would suit them fine. And let people who would value and cherish their freedoms (some of the 80 per cent of the world’s migrants who are Muslims on the move, voluntarily, from Muslim theocracies to Western democracies, for instance — I think it’s called voting with your feet?) take their place. Go on — push off, you bed-wetting traitors, and let somebody else have a go.

t.

1. You take part in a political meeting in a hotel.

2. You are an adult male and you have sex with a 13-year-old girl.

a) Someone writes a flattering newspaper article about you.

b) You go to prison

If you answered 1b and 2a, well done, you have the mind of a “Muttawa”, reward yourself with a shawarma, a smoke, and a snooze.

If you answered 1a and 2b, you’re obviously still corrupted by decadent western zionist thinking, you don’t understand our unique traditions and culture, go back to the beginning and start again.

en being sexually assaulted on the grounds that such images graphically convey an infringement of their rights?

That the pictures which have emerged from Abu Ghraib are a disgrace both to America and to its allies is beyond question. The existence of these pictures undoubtedly should have been made public, as it eventually was. The pictures themselves should have been seen by a number of people, and these should almost certainly have included responsible journalists. But the decision, taken originally by American newspaper editors, to publish images of Arab Muslims being mocked, bullied and humiliated so that the degradation inflicted on them could be seen by all the world, is a very different matter.

Partly because belief in free speech is as unreflective in Britain and America as belief in an omnipotent deity is among devout Muslims, little if any thought appears to have been given to this question.

No doubt we’ll be seeing more and more of these pictures, their publication being greeted with smug satisfaction at the powers of a free press to expose the evils of Western power. We will not, however, see too many re-runs of, say, Nick Berg’s decapitation, or other gruesome reminders of anti-Western brutality. Too upsetting for the relatives… It’s this pursuit of a shamelessly partisan approach wrapped up in high moral language which I find so unpleasant.