Monday, December 31, 2018
Tuesday, December 25, 2018
On the first day of Christmas
Saudi Arabia's military forces have an investigation team that looks into allegations of civilian casualties and disproportionate force in Yemen. The team held its latest news conference today, and the investigations cleared their forces in all cases. This is par for the course, but the Christmas Day touch is especially deft.
Sunday, December 23, 2018
Through the looking glass
Excellent article in the Financial Times (subs. possibly req'd) on the debate over whether the rolling news format of BFM TV has fed the high viz jacket protests:
But the “BFM phenomenon” is shaking up both traditional media outlets and methods. “A BFM journalist will give the microphone to anyone on the street without doing any research on the credibility of the person being interviewed,” said Olivier Royant, editor of weekly magazine Paris Match. “BFM TV is very good at finding one sentence and having everyone react to this one controversy and then labelling it as news. “BFM is a very reactive media. A small event can become the most important topic. Then all the other media have to decide whether or not to follow BFM TV.”
But the “BFM phenomenon” is shaking up both traditional media outlets and methods. “A BFM journalist will give the microphone to anyone on the street without doing any research on the credibility of the person being interviewed,” said Olivier Royant, editor of weekly magazine Paris Match. “BFM TV is very good at finding one sentence and having everyone react to this one controversy and then labelling it as news. “BFM is a very reactive media. A small event can become the most important topic. Then all the other media have to decide whether or not to follow BFM TV.”
Sunday, December 16, 2018
Bashar and Omar compare notes
#السودان #سونا| عاد إلى البلاد مساء اليوم #المشير_عمر_البشير رئيس الجمهورية بعد زيارة للجمهورية العربية السورية استمرت يوما واحدا حيث كان في وداعه الرئيس السوري #بشار_الأسد وعدد من أعضاء حكومته.https://t.co/ThrQQi4d6s pic.twitter.com/xW8NKckRGq— SUDAN News Agency (@SUNA_AGENCY) December 16, 2018
Saturday, December 15, 2018
Apres moi, l'expense report
Henry Olsen, who specializes in working class conservatism, explains the virtues of Brexit to Washington Post readers:
Monday, December 03, 2018
Diplomacy over the decades
May 4, 1987. This photo, via Saudi Press Agency, shows Saudi Arabian King Fahd having successfully gotten bitter rivals Moroccan King Hassan II and Algerian President Chadli Bendjedid into the same room to discuss their proxy war in Western Sahara. The room in question was actually one of several tents erected on the Morocco-Algeria border for the summit.
Saudi Press Agency has resurrected the photo in a retrospective on diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Algeria given the Crown Prince's visit there today -- under very different circumstances.
As this Washington Post story, contemporaneous with the 1987 summit, notes, this was an energetic period for Saudi diplomacy, as they also got Hafez al-Assad and Saddam Hussein the same room in Jordan -- all part of an effort to air the grievances before an Arab summit.
It would take a few more years before things somewhat de-escalated to a cold peace between Algeria and Morocco. But just over three years after that other below-the-radar meeting between Hafez al-Assad and Saddam Hussein, George HW Bush would be convincing al-Assad to join his coalition against Saddam Hussein. Luckily, no one was sufficiently dug in to previous positions to impede the necessary adjustment.
Sunday, December 02, 2018
Move it to the Trump hotel
Wall Street Journal on the G20 communique processology:
Negotiations were so fraught that when the U.S. negotiator asked if leaders really have to say that the International Monetary Fund is “at the center” of the global financial system, the EU negotiator replied: “Yes, it’s in Washington.”
Negotiations were so fraught that when the U.S. negotiator asked if leaders really have to say that the International Monetary Fund is “at the center” of the global financial system, the EU negotiator replied: “Yes, it’s in Washington.”
Saturday, December 01, 2018
Now that's realism!
This New York Times story from September 1990 is written by Tom Friedman (yes, that Tom Friedman) and reports on the visit of George H.W. Bush's Secretary of State James Baker to Damascus to (successfully) get Hafez al-Assad to join Bush's military coalition to eject Saddam Hussein from Kuwait.
Anthem for George HW Bush
At about the 3:45 mark, Neil gets into the lyrics that use the Bush catchphrases.
Friday, November 23, 2018
Imperial Preference
The DUP's Jim Shannon in the House of Commons discussion of the Bombardier job losses --
Has the Minister had discussions with Bombardier about its intentions to bring back from Mexico and Morocco the work on parts that were once made successfully in Belfast to reflect the high level of investment the Government have made?
What does he think Belfast's competitive prospects with Mexico and Morocco are outside the European Union?
Has the Minister had discussions with Bombardier about its intentions to bring back from Mexico and Morocco the work on parts that were once made successfully in Belfast to reflect the high level of investment the Government have made?
What does he think Belfast's competitive prospects with Mexico and Morocco are outside the European Union?
Getting Attention
Reuters on the downhill slide in Tanzania and why it only recently became the topic of external interest:
But for Murithi Mutiga of the International Crisis Group, the populist alarm bells were already there. “The world has only begun to pay attention to the situation after Magufuli weighed in on social wedge issues that typically attract media coverage, “ he said. “But the direction of travel in which he was taking Tanzania was clear from the start.”
But for Murithi Mutiga of the International Crisis Group, the populist alarm bells were already there. “The world has only begun to pay attention to the situation after Magufuli weighed in on social wedge issues that typically attract media coverage, “ he said. “But the direction of travel in which he was taking Tanzania was clear from the start.”
When the cat's away
UAE news agency description of the delegation members accompanying Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman --
... Khalid Al Humaidan, Head of General Intelligence ...
You bring the intelligence chief with you on a foreign trip if you're worried about what he would do at home if you were gone.
... Khalid Al Humaidan, Head of General Intelligence ...
You bring the intelligence chief with you on a foreign trip if you're worried about what he would do at home if you were gone.
Friday, November 16, 2018
Ulster Volunteer Farce
From the House of Commons debate on the UK withdrawal agreement --
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I stand here with a heavy heart and great sadness. Does the Prime Minister recollect the biblical story of Jacob and Esau, in which Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of pottage? Does the Prime Minister see the similarity in that she is attempting to sell my children’s and grandchildren’s birthright and my constituents’ rights to be British for a despicable and shoddy deal? As Rudyard Kipling said: “Before an Empire’s eyes The traitor claims his price. What need of further lies? We are the sacrifice.” Prime Minister, we will not be your sacrifice. We will not agree to give backstop control to the EU or to the Republic of Ireland over Northern Ireland—never.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I stand here with a heavy heart and great sadness. Does the Prime Minister recollect the biblical story of Jacob and Esau, in which Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of pottage? Does the Prime Minister see the similarity in that she is attempting to sell my children’s and grandchildren’s birthright and my constituents’ rights to be British for a despicable and shoddy deal? As Rudyard Kipling said: “Before an Empire’s eyes The traitor claims his price. What need of further lies? We are the sacrifice.” Prime Minister, we will not be your sacrifice. We will not agree to give backstop control to the EU or to the Republic of Ireland over Northern Ireland—never.
Sunday, October 28, 2018
How we got here
Maureen Dowd in the New York Times today --
Naomi Wolf told Bill Clinton, and later Al Gore, they should present themselves as the Good Father, strong enough to protect the home (America) from invaders.
It must have taken a lot of effort from the NYT editors to get her not to mention "earth tones" -- a ridiculous detail from her linked 1999 article which encapsulated the trivia of the media coverage of that election.
Naomi Wolf told Bill Clinton, and later Al Gore, they should present themselves as the Good Father, strong enough to protect the home (America) from invaders.
It must have taken a lot of effort from the NYT editors to get her not to mention "earth tones" -- a ridiculous detail from her linked 1999 article which encapsulated the trivia of the media coverage of that election.
Saturday, October 20, 2018
Schism needed
In his justification for his favourable stance towards Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia MBS, Tom Friedman explained as follows:
It had to do with how I defined our most important national interest in Saudi Arabia since 9/11. And it is not oil, it’s not arms sales, it’s not standing up to Iran. It’s Islamic religious reform, which can come only from Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam’s holiest cities, Mecca and Medina.
And that becomes his basis for saying that whatever the complicity of MBS in the Khashoggi murder and his eventual fate in royal power politics, that agenda has to continue.
So the analysis is that the state is the means to reform the religion.
Among the revealing sights in the news today is a long list of obsequious statements from "official" Islamic bodies praising the way that the government of Saudi Arabia has handled the Khashoggi revelations (e.g. Muslim World League, Organization of Islamic Cooperation).
So is the problem that the religion has contorted the state, or that the state has contorted the religion?
It had to do with how I defined our most important national interest in Saudi Arabia since 9/11. And it is not oil, it’s not arms sales, it’s not standing up to Iran. It’s Islamic religious reform, which can come only from Saudi Arabia, the home of Islam’s holiest cities, Mecca and Medina.
And that becomes his basis for saying that whatever the complicity of MBS in the Khashoggi murder and his eventual fate in royal power politics, that agenda has to continue.
So the analysis is that the state is the means to reform the religion.
Among the revealing sights in the news today is a long list of obsequious statements from "official" Islamic bodies praising the way that the government of Saudi Arabia has handled the Khashoggi revelations (e.g. Muslim World League, Organization of Islamic Cooperation).
So is the problem that the religion has contorted the state, or that the state has contorted the religion?
Friday, October 19, 2018
Inside job
The credibility of the burst of late night announcements from Riyadh about the Khashoggi case -- timed for the Friday news dump cycle in the USA -- is somewhat affected by the fact that the head of a committee looking into the need to restructure the general intelligence agency is ... Crown Prince Mohammed!
Minor update: also on the committee is Ibrahim al-Assaf, one of the former ministers caught up in the Ritz-Carlton swoop last year.
Minor update: also on the committee is Ibrahim al-Assaf, one of the former ministers caught up in the Ritz-Carlton swoop last year.
Saturday, October 13, 2018
Now we are getting somewhere
Late night statement from Saudi Arabia Minister of Interior:
That is a carefully crafted American PR firm style denial. It is not denying Jamal was killed. It is denying an order to kill him.
UPDATE 19 October: Confirmation on the importance of the word "orders:" Reuters story that there were no specific orders to kill, but there is a standing order to return critics to Saudi Arabia.
UPDATE 19 October: Confirmation on the importance of the word "orders:" Reuters story that there were no specific orders to kill, but there is a standing order to return critics to Saudi Arabia.
Friday, October 12, 2018
Kanye's World
Kanye West made his own news yesterday (the transcript is captivating) so there's probably been enough said about him. So here instead is one of his occasional collaborators, Lupe Fiasco, from 2006. When George W. Bush was President.
Saturday, October 06, 2018
The cold war in Istanbul will not remain cold very much longer
Now, in re Jamal Khashoggi, where exactly would the Saudis have gotten the idea for a brazen hit, just murky enough to be deniable, but just transparent enough so that everyone who needs to know knows what you did?
Above: Crown Prince MBS visits Vladimir Putin at the start of the World Cup.
Quote of the (Kavanaugh) Day
Pierre Bourdieu, The Force of Law (1987) --
When combined with the specific effects of professional training, such a background helps to explain that the magistracy's declared neutrality and its haughty independence from politics by no means exclude a commitment to the established order. The effects of such unanimous tacit complicity become most visible in the course of an economic and social crisis within the professional body itself. Such a crisis arises, for example, in an alteration of the mode by which the holders of dominant positions are selected. At such a moment, professional complicity of the sort just discussed collapses. Certain newcomers to the magistracy, by virtue of their position or personal attitudes, are not inclined to accept the traditional presuppositions defining the magistracy. The struggles they undertake bring to light a largely repressed element at the heart of the group's foundation: the nonaggression pact that links the magistracy to dominant power. To this point the professional body is held together in and by a universally accepted hierarchy and consensus concerning its role. But increasing internal differentiation leads to the body's becoming a locus of struggle. This causes some members to repudiate the professional pact and to openly attack those who continue to consider it the inviolable norm of their professional activity.
When combined with the specific effects of professional training, such a background helps to explain that the magistracy's declared neutrality and its haughty independence from politics by no means exclude a commitment to the established order. The effects of such unanimous tacit complicity become most visible in the course of an economic and social crisis within the professional body itself. Such a crisis arises, for example, in an alteration of the mode by which the holders of dominant positions are selected. At such a moment, professional complicity of the sort just discussed collapses. Certain newcomers to the magistracy, by virtue of their position or personal attitudes, are not inclined to accept the traditional presuppositions defining the magistracy. The struggles they undertake bring to light a largely repressed element at the heart of the group's foundation: the nonaggression pact that links the magistracy to dominant power. To this point the professional body is held together in and by a universally accepted hierarchy and consensus concerning its role. But increasing internal differentiation leads to the body's becoming a locus of struggle. This causes some members to repudiate the professional pact and to openly attack those who continue to consider it the inviolable norm of their professional activity.
Friday, October 05, 2018
His offer is this
Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) in an interview with Bloomberg News --
Bloomberg: It does seem to be his [Trump] opinion that the kingdom should pay more for its security. So do you agree with that?
MBS: Actually we will pay nothing for our security. We believe that all the armaments we have from the Untied States of America are paid for, it’s not free armament. So ever since the relationship started between Saudi Arabia and the United States of America, we’ve bought everything with money.
Bloomberg: It does seem to be his [Trump] opinion that the kingdom should pay more for its security. So do you agree with that?
MBS: Actually we will pay nothing for our security. We believe that all the armaments we have from the Untied States of America are paid for, it’s not free armament. So ever since the relationship started between Saudi Arabia and the United States of America, we’ve bought everything with money.
Up the Republic, Slight Return
From Brett Kavanaugh's bid for a few Hail Marys as penance for all his yelling last week --
Our independent judiciary is the crown jewel of our constitutional republic.
That bizarre sentence appeared in Donald Trump's original introduction of Kavanaugh as the nominee, so now we know where it came from. Bizarre because, for a group -- conservative lawyers -- that insists in the intrinsic meaning of words, it makes no sense to refer to a republic as having crown dimensions of anything.
Our independent judiciary is the crown jewel of our constitutional republic.
That bizarre sentence appeared in Donald Trump's original introduction of Kavanaugh as the nominee, so now we know where it came from. Bizarre because, for a group -- conservative lawyers -- that insists in the intrinsic meaning of words, it makes no sense to refer to a republic as having crown dimensions of anything.
Saturday, September 22, 2018
Bobama
New York Times on the premium music tour style pricing for Michelle Obama book events --
Anand Giridharadas, the author of “Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World,” a critique of modern philanthropy, said the Obamas should not be held to a higher standard than other former public officials who have made money after holding office, but he added that he was still taken aback by the planned rollout. “As the first African-American president and first lady, I am very wary of arguments that they should not do something everybody else was allowed to do,” Mr. Giridharadas said. “But an arena with tiered seating is a powerful metaphor for everything they presumably want to destroy. What this illustrates to me is that cashing in has become our common culture in a way we don’t realize. It’s the water in which we’re all swimming.”
To understand what's happening here, you don't need to look any further than a case of the resolution of Status Income Disequilibrium.
Anand Giridharadas, the author of “Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World,” a critique of modern philanthropy, said the Obamas should not be held to a higher standard than other former public officials who have made money after holding office, but he added that he was still taken aback by the planned rollout. “As the first African-American president and first lady, I am very wary of arguments that they should not do something everybody else was allowed to do,” Mr. Giridharadas said. “But an arena with tiered seating is a powerful metaphor for everything they presumably want to destroy. What this illustrates to me is that cashing in has become our common culture in a way we don’t realize. It’s the water in which we’re all swimming.”
To understand what's happening here, you don't need to look any further than a case of the resolution of Status Income Disequilibrium.
They don't make them like they used to
A classic New York City obituary in the New York Times for Anne Russ Federman. More social history in this than you'd get in entire books.
Saturday, September 15, 2018
Quote of the Day
In the FT, Henry Mance wonders if the sudden change in style at the Daily Mail could happen in other newspapers:
Saturday, September 08, 2018
What happened in Islington didn't stay in Islington
The news of the separation of Boris Johnson and Marina Wheeler makes it worth recalling that, had that separation happened 3 years ago, Brexit, or at least the disorderly version of it, might not have happened at all. Because, as David Allen Green has pointed out, the obsession with the European Court of Justice seems to have metastasized within the Johnson - Wheeler household!
Saturday, September 01, 2018
The check is in the mail
From the Gulf coalition statement accepting very limited responsibility for the botched air strike in Yemen that hit a school bus --
The Joint Committee will be mandated to consider granting voluntary assistance to those affected in Yemen by contacting the legitimate Yemeni government to determine the identities and names of those affected so that they can be assisted in accordance with the procedures.
The casualties occurred in a rebel area. How will compensation sent through the "legitimate" government get to them?
The Joint Committee will be mandated to consider granting voluntary assistance to those affected in Yemen by contacting the legitimate Yemeni government to determine the identities and names of those affected so that they can be assisted in accordance with the procedures.
The casualties occurred in a rebel area. How will compensation sent through the "legitimate" government get to them?
Fake News
This blog has been approached by advocates for a McCain - Lieberman presidential run in 2020 to use the slogan "Best of Both Worlds."
Monday, August 27, 2018
The idiot dissenters
Yes, we posted on this same topic 5 days ago but it doesn't get any less outrageous. Today, a UN panel investigating the Rohingya atrocities in Myanmar recommended that there are sufficient grounds to investigate the Myanmar military leadership, including commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing, for genocide.
Here is the aforementioned general in a very jolly meeting in Moscow last week with the Russian minister of defence, Sergei Shoigu. A particular "outrage" cohort obsessed with events in Israel/ Palestine and the rightness of Bashar al-Assad snored through this event.
Thursday, August 23, 2018
Common Factor
Very good Financial Times analysis of why Australian politics has such high turnover at the top --
Rupert Murdoch’s stable of News Corp Australia titles wield immense power in the country, which some critics blame for destabilising Mr Turnbull and previous Labor governments. The rise of social media and the 24-hour news cycle have ramped up the pressure on political leaders and intensified criticism, denting their image and undermining trust among the electorate.
Of course, Murdoch is present at the scene of deep polarization and personalisation of politics in other countries too ...
Rupert Murdoch’s stable of News Corp Australia titles wield immense power in the country, which some critics blame for destabilising Mr Turnbull and previous Labor governments. The rise of social media and the 24-hour news cycle have ramped up the pressure on political leaders and intensified criticism, denting their image and undermining trust among the electorate.
Of course, Murdoch is present at the scene of deep polarization and personalisation of politics in other countries too ...
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