Driving into town today I was listening to an interview with Peter Stothard, a former Times editor who was embedded with Tony Blair for 30 days during the months of March and April and present during all the key meetings leading up to and during the wear in Iraq. You can listen to it here, and Stothard has written a book about the period as well called "Thirty Days - Tony Blair and the test of History". What I found interesting was that he had a very clear analysis for one of the problems that many have been struggling with and that is the issue that Blair in many ways is so like Clinton, yet he seamlessly adapted to the new guy in the White House, called George Bush. The key, according to Stothard is that Blair like Bush is a man of convictions and beliefs. While Clinton spent an inordinate amount of his efforts in life in getting power, he did very little with that power once he had obtained it. In fact Clinton squandered much of it when in office. It is there that Blair apparently cooled on Clinton and where he became determined to use the power he gained to achieve something and leave a meaningful legacy. September 11 was the defining moment for Blair and in Bush he found someone, although cut from a different political cloth, with exactly the same certainty and beliefs.

This is not entirely new but the assumptions I have made about Blair and his likeness to Clinton needed some adjustment. So here it is.

A reader pointed out to me that in my post about Idi Amin yesterday, I mistakenly identified two German terrorists responsible for the hijacking of the Air France airbus that ended up in Entebbe as members of the Baader-Meinhof gang. They were not, they were part of the so-called Revolutionary Cells, a splinter group that however was in someway linked to other left-wing radical groups in Germany during the 1970s. It may be hard to believe today, but there was a time when Western Europe was in the grip of violent left-wing terrorism and the Baader-Meinhof gang, the Red Army Faction and Italy’s Red Brigades were daily front page news. As a child I was shocked and intrigued by the actions of these groups, especially when a few members of these groups were arrested in two separate incidents in Amsterdam after shoot-outs with Dutch police. It was evident from a very early stage that these groups were not only fighting a lost cause but that they were extremely dangerous and many innocents died at their hands. They also linked into other terrorist groups such as the PLO and its subsidiary gangs, and after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 it became clear they had received considerable support from the communists in East Germany. The BBC recently did a documentary on Baader-Meinhof and this is a quote from the director, Ben Lewis, a classic quote really:

This was the German answer to the Rolling Stones. Typically, Germans couldn't come up with the Rolling Stones because they have to be very serious about things; so they came up with a terrorist group rather than a rock group.

Today, there are quite a few violent lefties out there but nothing compared to the well-organized “red” groups that operated primarily from Germany, Italy and Japan, the latter spawning the violent Red Army. Imagine today that academic Marxists or other left-wing ideologues start to organize and kill prominent bankers, lawyers and politicians as part of their struggle against what they deem is a ruling class. It is telling that these violent communist groups emerged from the three countries that were part of the Axis powers during the Second World War and Ben Lewis points in the direction that many German youths acted out of guilt of what happened in Germany’s recent past and his conclusions may well be applicable to the Italian and Japanese chapters of left-wing terrorism. Absolving that guilt may have been a driving force; the groups in the end achieved absolutely nothing. A concentrated effort to destroy these groups contributed significantly to that, the collapse of communism and the triumph of free-market capitalism in the late 80s and early 90s relegated the remnants of these groups to oblivion. In 1998 the German group formally disbanded and what is left is history, innocent victims and the knowledge that cross-border terrorism aimed at destroying freedom and democratic values is not exactly something of the recent past.

I knew this moment would come and I was therefore prepared for the inevitable, Peaktalk is, after a three-month period, coming off Den Beste’s blogroll. I was pleasantly surprised when he put me on his roll at the end of April, and I hope that those readers who have found their way to this site via his USS Clueless will continue to visit Peaktalk. Traffic to this site has increased significantly and I have landed on a number of other blogrolls thanks to Steven’s link. I think his approach to linking is commendable as he gives new blogs that try to produce original content on an ongoing basis exposure that they otherwise would not get. He also limits that exposure to a specific timeframe in order to give other newcomers on the blogging scene the same chance. It may be an example that others, in particular more prominent blogs should follow, and I do notice many other blogs these days who try to give particular attention to a blog or a group of blogs through a “Site of the Week”, “Site of the Day” approach or in my case a “This Month” section.

So I have graduated and all I can say is: Thanks Steven!

The Saudi situation continues to bother me and I am not the only one. Ken Adelman a former assistant of Donald Rumsfeld during the Ford years and arms control director under Reagan is clearly upset as to why the Bush administration does not want to declassify 28 pages dealing with Saudi involvement in the 9/11 attacks. The pages are part of the Joint Intelligence Committee report on 9/11 that was released last week. The Saudis are equally upset, however after a meeting yesterday between Bush and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal at the White House it transpired that the Saudis would not longer dispute the President’s decision to keep the file closed. The latter is probably not an entirely relevant piece of news as Bush has probably disclosed some if not all to al-Faisal, and the contents have no doubt encouraged the Saudi Foreign Minister to keep quiet for the next little while. This affair begs the question as to what the contents are of these pages and why it is so vital that they are not released to the public at large. The New York Times last Saturday commented that:

“Some people who have read the classified chapter said it represented a searing indictment of how Saudi Arabia's ruling elite have, under the guise of support for Islamic charities, distributed millions of dollars to terrorists through an informal network of Saudi nationals, including some in the United States.”

This in fact is hardly new, but the fact that the Bush administration is desperately trying to keep these 28 pages under wraps is news. The administration will surely have ways to protect some of the sources for the information and ways to protect various methods of information gathering. It is telling that Senator Shelby, one of the ranking Republican members on the committee responsible for the 9/11 inquiry, believes that 95% of the pages in question can be released. Frantic attempts to salvage the uncomfortable relationship with the Saudis raises the eyebrows as the relationship had started to unravel long before 9/11. Any claim to a “special relationship” is debatable as the Saudi economy is in desperate shape and needs to pump oil, and the US no longer needs the country as a launching pad for an attack on Iraq. What is more, to the extent that we need the Saudis we should be dictating the terms of the relationship and with renewed terrorist warnings we may indeed need their assistance in rooting out terrorist cells. If that is the case and if we need to keep some documents closed in order to secure that co-operation then the Bush team may playing its cards wisely, but for now we have not seen any evidence of this. The administration’s performance of last week as well as the Saudi role in all of this raises a lot of questions.

At the same time over in Canada the government is also conducting secret negotiations with the Saudis. They have commented that it is confident that Bill Sampson, a Canadian sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia for a deadly car bombing that he apparently did not commit, will be released after three years in solitary confinement. This is definitely progress but it surprises me that it has taken this long. I believe that shortly after the bombings in Riyadh a few months back the Saudis had announced their intention to release Mr. Sampson as well as some of the others implicated in the same bombings. We are still talking about this to the Saudis?

It appears most of the west’s dealings with Saudi Arabia take place behind closed doors. For those that are apparently innocent and remain in Saudi cells to those who have lost loved ones in the 9/11 attacks it is time that these doors are unlocked and opened. The new balance of power allows us to pry open these doors and lift the veil of secrecy.

Over at Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics a very rich Carnival has gone up, make sure you check in on the goods.

One of the reasons why Vancouver is an interesting place to live is its multi-ethnic nature. As an example, there are many East Indians residing here and I encounter quite a few of them in business. To be clear, I am talking about people whose origins go back to a country called India, here they are referred to as East Indians in order to avoid confusion with native North American Indians. What struck me initially was that when I visited some of their offices a lot of times these were decorated with African art. Initially I did not quite understand that, I probably had expected something more oriental, and I always kept wondering about the prominent place African art was given in the location where they conducted business. After hearing some of their life stories it became clear they had been the victims of the ethnic cleansing that took place in the early 1970s when Uganda’s former dictator Idi Amin expelled the entire Asian community from his country. After their forceful eviction they spread out all over the world, and I have met and worked with a number of them in London, Hong Kong and now here in Vancouver. With Idi Amin in a coma and on deathwatch, his rule and legacy are front-page news again, and many examine his rule and legacy, like the Washington Post in this sharp editorial.

I can remember the Amin years well as the man and his style of governing were headline news during the 1970s. Together with Mobutu of Zaire and emperor Bokassa of the Central African Republic he was part of a group of extraordinarily brutal African dictators who were essentially psychotic cases, yet they could count on solid support from the west where they were often depicted as the bizarre end of African folklore, or in Amin’s case, as a village clown. The forceful exit of the Asian community and the expropriation of their assets for the benefit of Amin’s associates was only one of the many dark chapters of Amin’s rule from 1971 to 1979. His fellow Ugandans were equally the victim of torture, pillage and abuse, and the country to this date has not fully recovered from those dramatic years.

The other major drama that played itself out in Uganda was the hijacking of an Air France airbus on its way from Tel Aviv to Paris by a group of Palestinian and German terrorists, the latter members of the infamous left-wing Baader-Meinhof group. In those days terrorism was goal-driven, i.e. the terrorist always sought to accomplish a particular goal with the hope of exiting the terrorist effort alive. These days terrorist are also goal-driven, but given the fact that today’s acts center around killing and suicide they stand in shrill contrast to their colleagues from the 1970s. Yet the end result was very often equally bloody. The hijacked Air France jet ended up on the airport of Entebbe, Uganda’s national airport following intervention of Idi Amin after no country appeared to be willing to allow the plane to land for a longer period of time. The goal was to negotiate from a relatively safe base and secure the release of a number of Palestinian and German radicals. Things turned very ugly when the non-Jewish and non-Israeli hostages were released and negotiations stalled. Idi Amin had clearly sided with the terrorists and the Israeli government justifiably took matters into its own hands and liberated the hostages after a spectacular surprise raid on Entebbe. This lengthy piece from the IDF will give you a very detailed description of the events leading up to that raid. The one Israeli commando killed during the raid was Yoni Netanyahu, brother of Benjamin Netanyahu who would later become Israel’s Prime Minister. The unfolding of the hostage crisis on Entebbe was a major loss of face for Idi Amin and to some extent it accelerated his international isolation and ultimate downfall. The carnage that followed in Uganda where Amin felt he had to settle a score with those that could have prevented an Israeli raid is deeply disconcerting, even some meteorologists at the airport lost their lives after they had met with Amin’s henchmen.

What has always bothered me was that Idi Amin managed to escape justice since he was given a very comfortable asylum in Saudi Arabia after he was driven from power in 1979. His fellow tyrants Mobutu and Bokassa eventually also met their fate as rulers, but both had maintained warm ties with their erstwhile colonial masters. France in the case of Bokassa and Belgium in the case of Mobutu were always there to lend a helping hand, no matter the fact that these two tyrants raped and pillaged their peoples. The interests of the French and Belgians no doubt outweighed considerations about freedom, democracy and human rights. The British probably had little time for Amin. Expelling the Asian population certainly did not help and neither did the near execution of a British journalist who had written unflatteringly about Amin. But what finally led to a formal breakdown of relations was the death of Dora Bloch, one of the hostages on Entebbe. Dora, a 74-year old woman with dual British and Israeli citizenship had the misfortune to be taken into hospital in Uganda after some food got stuck in her throat while she was kept hostage at Entebbe. She recovered and stayed in the hospital when the Israeli commandos raided the airport and extricated all the hostages from Entebbe with a Hercules aircraft, including Mrs. Bloch’s son who must have felt deeply concerned knowing that his mother was still in Uganda. His concerns were justified as Idi Amin vented his rage not only on fellow Ugandans. Shortly after the raid Dora Bloch was dragged from her hospital bed by two Ugandan army officers close to Amin and murdered, her remains were discovered years later.

The moment Idi Amin passes away in his luxurious surroundings under the care and protection of the House of Saud, the world will no doubt reflect reflect and think about the victims of his rule. Victims, violence and terror always have a face. When I reflect on the carnage an innocent blood spilled in Uganda I look at, and think about, Dora Bloch.

I am taking a little blogging break. The weather is just too nice and there’s lots of activity on the business side. I will be back early next week.

The Hong Kong government is delaying the introduction of new security laws until September with no fixed timetable attached to it, reports the International Herald Tribune today. Again this is a major victory for pro-democracy forces in Hong Kong but what caught my eye though is this paragraph in the same article:

Also hanging over the democracy movement here is the experience of student demonstrators at Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989, whose protests spanned seven weeks. Chinese troops ended up scattering the demonstrators with tanks and gunfire.

Scattering demonstrators? How about killing, maiming and wounding? Although precise numbers have never been confirmed we know that hundreds died during those fateful days in Beijing. Yes, if you really want to stretch the meaning of the word scattering you could say that ‘killing’ is a form of ‘scattering’ but that is a pretty bizarre interpretation and it sounds to me that the IHT is very careful in how it reports on China. A little too careful I’d say. In any case the article goes on to discus Blair’s visit to Hong Kong yesterday:

Blair praised the peacefulness of the July 1 march, but also said he believed the Chinese leadership was dedicated to Hong Kong's constitutional development and stability.

Some in the pro-democracy camp in Hong Kong voiced their disappointment over the relative mild words from Blair and had expected stronger pro-democracy language from him. Well, Blair acted wisely in this case as the both Hong Kong and Beijing governments have suffered a defeat of historical proportions and there’s no need to rub that in further, attractive though that may sound. Both levels of government lost face in a spectacular way and now is the time to slowly capitalize on the gains the pro-democracy demonstrators have made. The international community, and in particular Britain as a signatory to the Sino-British Joint Declaration, should carefully cajole the process ensuring that it will not fly off the rails with disastrous results, which is what happened in mainland China in 1989.

The Zahra Kazemi case has not drifted away from the front pages as the Canadian government is stepping up pressure on the Iranian government announcing today it recalled its ambassador and is even willing to reconsider its economic relations with Iran. The demands are simple and clear: return Zahra’s remains to Canada and bring to justice those directly responsible for her death. These are definitely steps in the right direction but it is totally unclear as to why it has taken this long for Canadian Foreign Minister Graham to apply this level of pressure on Iranian officials. The seriousness of what happened should have triggered an immediate reaction two weeks ago; again someone carrying a Canadian passport was beaten to death while in custody. The reactive rather than proactive approach must be exasperating for the family of Zahra. In fact, it should be of concern to anyone carrying a Canadian passport and traveling outside the country, wondering to what extent diplomatic support is available in circumstances like this. As mentioned before, we should not just be monitoring Iran's actions in this case, Canada' approach should be under equal scrutiny.

Carnival number 44 is up over at DaGoddess. It has a somewhat different approach than usual, which may be good, as life is not always about politics and markets. Go have a look.

It was confirmed today that John Manley is dropping out of the race to become Canada’s next Prime Minister. I discussed Manley a while back as I liked him and compared him to John Major who became British Prime-Minister when Thatcher’s direct challenger, Michael Heseltine, lost the game thanks to skillful last minute maneuvering by Lady Thatcher. That scenario has not repeated itself in Ottawa, unfortunately, as I believe that Manley represented a pragmatic stream within the Liberal party that would have kept the party slightly right of the center and that would have been a reasonably acceptable outcome given the fact that the conservative opposition continues to be hopelessly divided. Manley also would have been the right person to rebuild US-Canadian relations, but alas, this is not to be. This development however could be something that will help the conservative opposition now that the old-style and visionless, slightly left-of-centre, Paul Martin is ready to take the reigns. Here's hoping.

Uday and Qusay are now confirmed dead. My guess is that this will help considerably in further stabilizing Iraq. It also confirms that they were not in Syria as so many – like this blog – initially believed. It means that they really had nowhere to run and it could also point us to the location of the old man. The Iraqis are getting closer every day to that clean slate on which they can build a new and free country.

The political damage suffered by Tony Blair is huge and that is hardly a surprise given the events of the past week, although it is becoming more evident that the BBC will have to carry the burden of shame. There’s another reason though that Blair will be able to hang on as any attempt by his enemies in Labour to get rid of him may very well result in a less centrist and more leftward course. The latter in turn will make the Labour Party a not so palatable option at the ballot box for all those who live and breathe in the center of the political spectrum. Blair will survive this one as any attempt to dump him may backfire on those that perpetrated the regicide: they stand a very good chance to lose their parliamentary seat.

The blogosphere has discovered the phenomenon of Americans and Brits that have given up hope in their native countries and decided to leave and settle in what they believe is a social paradise called Canada. Shark Blog was the first to pick up on it and Samizdata did a very good job as it discovered a British journalist who ‘threatened’ to leave for Canada. Both blogs encouraged the move believing Canada would be a nice place to isolate the loony-left while no doubt the brighter Canadians would move south to the US. The bloggers over at Caerdroia came up with a better suggestion when I exchanged e-mails with them: the US could swap some of the blue states for some of Canada’s red provinces, or for the uninitiated: Americans would get rid of a few states dominated by the Democrats for a few right-leaning Canadian provinces. Last time I looked at the electoral map that would mean trading New England for Western Canada. Not very likely to happen, but neither is a merger of Canada and the US as the Americans would never want to see a return of all the lefties they were able to conveniently dump north. And yes, I can tell you, they are here. The most fanatical tree-huggers and anti-Bush enviro-nuts carry, you guessed it, an American passport.

But seriously, the notion that life in Canada is “more relaxed” and ”less competitive” is a delusion, which is not surprising if you look at who is perpetrating that notion. Canada, I found, continues to be the land of the lumberjacks and the pioneers where you have to work pretty hard if you want to turn something into a success. And opportunities there are: the Economist a little while ago ranked the country relatively high on its scale of “entrepreneurialism” and I have also learned that the Canadian population contains a higher percentage of millionaires than the American, but there may of course be a significant number of rich Americans part of that Canadian number who have migrated north to look for a relaxed lifestyle? Brits and Europeans will be shocked once they find out that life here is not a holiday paid for by the government and that handouts from the same institution pale compare to what is the standard back in the old country. It wasn’t until I landed here that realized what ridiculous social packages are the norm in Europe. The ruling Liberals have moved to the center and, like Tony Blair’s Labour Party are hardly the image of the tax-and-spend left, although they do their fair bit when necessary. Canada continues to be some weird mix of North American freedom and Old Country statism.

There you have it: I wrote something positive about Canada. Not only because it is fair, but also to stabilize my mental health and keep that whispering voice at bay that says: drop everything and head south.

I couldn’t help it, but when I heard the news of Dr. David Kelly’s death last Friday it immediately brought back to memory the unique BBC TV- drama series House of Cards, starring fictional Prime-Minister Francis Urquhart, who uses all means at his disposal to ensure that he can continue his occupancy of Downing Street No. 10. Political drama combined with a phenomenal dose of humor and parody. Now it seems drama is playing itself out in real life with ironically the BBC as one of the key culprits.

Dr. Kelly also reminded me of the type of English engineer I used to work with on projects I helped finance in Asia, where an independent engineering firm would advise banks on the technical feasibility of the deal they were putting together. They all looked very similar to Mr. Kelly, unfashionably dressed, beard and incredibly friendly and helpful to the point that they begin to irritate you. As a non-engineer I learned a lot, not just about the workings of a power plant (when I run out of material for this blog I will bore you with building and operating coal-fired power plants in Asia) but also of the uniqueness of the engineers themselves who very often have a very limited ability to see the political, economical and social ramifications of a project beyond its technical specifications. I do not think that Dr. Kelly was ignorant of the consequences of the work he was doing, but he was certainly totally unprepared for the media attention and pressure he was exposed to as he was revealed to be the apparent source that had disclosed to the BBC that the report about WMD was “sexed up” in order to give the Blair government justification to go to war in Iraq. Following a testimony before a parliamentary committee Dr. Kelly went home, left his house for a walk and was found dead the next day, an apparent suicide. Maybe someone can fill me in on the psychological aspects of this as I struggle with what would prompt a man close to retirement with a wife and three children to take a few painkillers and slit his own wrists in order to bleed to death. I would have thought that the stoical demeanor of an engineer would have seen him through this rough phase, but then I cannot judge on Dr. Kelly’s state of mind. I do feel terribly sorry for him and his family though.

This is bad news and the strain showed on Tony Blair when he faced the press this weekend during his tour in Asia. The finger pointing has already started, many indicating that the BBC is the likely culprit while others think that the Blair government, and in particular the Ministry of Defense has offered up Dr. Kelly as the fall guy and should therefore face the music. This is no longer about Saddam, Iraq or even WMD; this is about the workings of government, confidentiality, ministerial responsibility and decency. All four of these aspects were severely shaken during the affair and Tony Blair is facing the biggest challenge of his political career. I do not believe however he is going to have to resign over this, nor do I believe that anyone could have foreseen that Dr. Kelly would meet the tragic fate he has. What could have been avoided is the bitter battle between the BBC and the Blair administration and what could also have been avoided is the manner in which both parties have played their cards. I find it hard to apportion blame, but I sense that on both sides of the table some heads will roll in the next few days.

I have added Iain Murray's Edge of England's Sword to the "This Month" section on your right. Iain's blog is worthwhile visiting on a regular basis and with the unfolding political crisis in Britain following Dr. Kelly's death and the escalating row between the British government and the BBC it pretty much requires a daily visit.

Further analysis of the final sentence in the Fortuyn case tells me that the judges have delivered a typical Dutch compromise in order to placate all parties involved. For new readers, here is the post that introduced the appeals phase and this is also the post that links to all other pieces that I have written about Fortuyn, his murder and the following trial of his killer, which essentially came to an end last Friday.

The sentence has remained the same, 18 years, but the judges now acknowledge in their motivation for that sentence that the killing of Fortuyn did indeed damage the democratic process and also included the fact that Fortuyn’s killer was indeed guilty of the illegal possession of a gun and explosives, the latter were found at his home. All of these considerations were omitted by the judge in first instance. In this manner the judges have addressed the concerns raised by the prosecution while at the same time ensured that the defense team could be pleased with the result by not increasing the sentence and stop them from yet another appeal. The judges have, by including all these considerations, effectively shut down the route to a final appeal to the Dutch Supreme Court, De Hoge Raad. What they have said is: case closed.

The case may closed but it leaves a very bitter taste in the mouth of many, but especially those that were close to Fortuyn. To see his killer walk away with a smile on his face knowing he will be out in 11 years (Dutch law allows parole after two-thirds of the sentence have been served and time in custody is also deducted) is galling. It is interesting to note that even the left-liberal newspaper NRC Handelsblad raised its eyebrows over the course of justice in one of its editorials on Friday, commenting that Van der Graaf will be as dangerous and disturbed when he walks free after completing his sentence since mandatory treatment is not part of the final sentence. The editorial concludes wryly that once he re-enters society there will no doubt be many who want to inflict upon him the same treatment he inflicted upon Fortuyn. But what to me is the single most disturbing fact is that the court acknowledges that the motive for the crime combined with the killers inflexible personality might open the possibility that Van der Graaf will re-offend in the future. Knowing that, why on earth do you send him away for just 11 years?

Further to my post on Blair yesterday I came across Iain Murray’s blog (via the Corner) and he today introduces the “tipping point” theory in relation to the Blair government. But I also like Iain’s take on Blair following his speech yesterday:

A good job from Our Tone. If he was like this at home rather than a hyper-spinning control freak, he wouldn't be in the trouble he's in now. Well, actually, he'd be in the Conservative Party.

The contrast between his domestic and North American performances is striking, but the reason I link to Iain’s blog is that some of my readers were left confused by the title of my post, “Blair’s Slow Demise” as his performance in Congress had left them with a feeling Blair had been elevated to the status of an untouchable saint who is leading the world out of darkness. And that was also the impression I got when visited a random sample of North American based blogs this morning. Well, let’s just say it is a little more complicated than that.

Today the higher court issued its ruling following the completion of the appeals phase in the Fortuyn case and there’s no change in the sentence for the murderer. Again, he was sentenced to 18 years, which means he will be out in 11 year (parole after two-thirds is served, less one year already served during the investigation and trial phase). The judges did however, as opposed to the initial ruling by the lower court, take into account the damage done to the democratic process but did not honor requests from the prosecution for a life sentence. Needless to say, the defense team is pleased with the outcome and the media have billed it as a victory for the killer. I will need to look at the motivations of the judges over the weekend and see the rationale behind all this, but my initial reaction is that murder in Holland is now essentially an economic proposition. If you can manipulate the already lenient courts and if you really want to get rid of someone and you’re willing to offer up 12 years of your life for it, why not? And what’s more, after those 12 years you might do it again and even get away with it. I wonder whether the courts even considered that. Again, more later.

Tony Blair gave another great speech today in Congress and he is to be commended for his ability to deliver the UK as one of the founding members of the coalition that won the war in Iraq. Yet, his popularity in the US stands in contrast to the brewing revolt in the UK with an open attack on the Prime-Minister in the New Statesman, a magazine owned by former Treasury Secretary Geoffrey Robinson who stepped down following the disclosure of a loan he made to Tony’s former spinmaster Peter Mandelson. So given where it is coming from the attack on Blair is not a complete surprise but what is amazing is the fierceness (questioning Blair’s mental state) with which some publications are coming down on the British leader. Samizdata today also runs an interesting piece on the demise of ‘Good Tony’. Given his popularity on this side of the ocean that may come as a surprise to many in North America, but it shouldn’t be.

Peaktalk strongly supported Blair in the lead up to the war and I believe Tony was and is right about our efforts in the Middle East, as evidenced in his speech today. But as a politician under normal circumstances, Blair has never convinced me as a visionary leader but rather as someone who in Clintonite manner effectively danced in the middle and rode the wave of prosperity during the 1990s. He always reminded me of someone I knew who was bright and unusually driven, but who at the same time devoted his entire effort into talking about and shaping the message rather than overly worrying about the actual content of that particular message. That no doubt created many enemies for Tony in addition to those on the left in his former-left, now centrist party, who felt that he had betrayed the tradition and mandate of the Labour Party. Even before Iraq there were doubts about his skill to hang on, but when he successfully managed to get a parliamentary majority for that war he was hailed as a saint by many, yours truly being one of them, but in essence that moment in time marked the peak of his reign. His domestic victory came at a substantial cost: his parliamentary and domestic base of support had shrunk considerably. If his opponents could uncover even the flimsiest piece of evidence that something in the run up to Iraq was not entirely clean, it would prove to be a tipping point and inaugurate the final phase of Tony’s reign. That is what is now taking place, although given his unusual political skills Blair may yet be able to hang on for longer than many think.

If a revolt in the Labour Party manages to get rid of Tony then the party will no doubt drift leftward and like so many other left-of-center parties that managed to capture the center, Labour will face an uphill road to retain its hold on power. Like Clinton, Blair made his party electable again after years in the political wilderness, and like Clinton, his disappearance will set the stage for another period in that very wilderness.

As mentioned earlier it is time to update and restructure the blogroll. I have given this ample thought and I think I subscribe to the law of diminishing returns, i.e. the more links to other blogs the less valuable they become, so I intend to keep the number of linked blogs small. At the same time I just want to put up the blogs that I am reading on a regular basis and that I find worthwhile referring others to. Note that I have by no means the illusion that I can direct huge traffic volumes to others, so that is not the objective for now. To give everything a bit more structure there are now three categories:

Daily Reads
These are the web blogs that I check into on a daily basis, no matter what, very often first thing in the morning.

This Month
In this section I will include some new and interesting finds that are new to me, although some may have been around for a while. They will remain on the roll for about a month after which they will be replaced with other and newer finds. This month the Antirealist and the Yale Diva have made the list.

Blogosphere
These are the recommended regular reads, and quite a few of them also happen to be reciprocal links. New on the roll are Bjorn Staerk and Dan Drezner, both great sources for politics and economics. Caerdroia is another newcomer, this blog catapulted to fame this week by hosting the Carnival and its team provides good and original content on an ongoing basis.

Dutch taxpayers come in many different shapes and forms, but I bet you have not seen this one, unless you're an Economist subscriber. It goes well together with my earlier post, Red Light Ruminations.

Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-Hwa had to let two of his senior cabinet members go, Secretary for Security Regina Ip, as well as Financial Secretary Anthony Leung. The first resignation was clearly related to the controversial anti-subversion law debate, but the latter might also have had something to do with Leung’s purchase of a luxury car shortly before he announced a tax hike on luxury cars. In any case, Tung may be able to shift some of the blame onto Ip and Leung and ride out the storm but as the Financial Times accurately predicts it may be very hard to replace them. With increasing demands for democracy from the Hong Kong population and intense scrutiny from Beijing it may require a leader with unusual qualities to navigate Hong Kong through these testy waters. I am afraid that Tung may not have the skill set to do this as it would require being firm with Beijing and that is something that to date he has failed to do. At the same time he will have to get the territory’s economy back on track and convince the international community that Hong Kong continues to be a great place to invest and do business. Tung’s days may well be over.

Today the Iranian leadership confirmed that Zahra Kazemi has died as the result of a brain hemorrhage from beatings she suffered after she was arrested. The fact that she died as the result of abuse is not a surprise, very few were in doubt about the circumstances under which she died. The fact that the Iranian government is now admitting to this should also be viewed with suspicion. To date they have been extremely uncooperative, they are clearly responsible and it is very likely that they will shift the blame for this onto some lower level officials in an effort to stay clear of the negative fall-out and to appease those who have protested the arrest and death of Zahra. We should note that the international community and all those that support freedom and democracy in Iran should pay equal attention and apply an equivalent amount of pressure on the Canadian government in order to ensure that they will do all they can to not only address this particular case, but to ensure that they will also step up their efforts to seriously support those that struggle for freedom in Iran. That effort is apparent well underway:

And in Canada, MPs and Iranian-Canadian groups are demanding that the Canadian government take a more forceful approach with Iran on the issue, both for a transparent inquiry into Ms. Kazemi's death and for her body to be returned to Canada.

In relation to that I received an e-mail from Activistchat.com, a website dedicated to freedom in Iran, who are asking to assist in applying pressure on both the Iranian government and the international community in actions that:

“ …align with the will of the Iranian people and the current movement for greater freedoms”

I encourage you to visit their site, there’s lots of information on Iran and recent events as well as a petition addressed to world leaders that you can sign.

This week’s carnival is up at Caerdroia, which by the way is a pretty interesting blog that I have only recently discovered. Go have a look.

Peaktalk has invested in a new notebook with wireless capabilities. I cannot guarantee an increase in blogging but what I can tell you is that pretty soon I will start posting from the garden. I can’t wait.

Neighborly relations have a tendency to be complicated and often difficult. Growing up in the Netherlands it was evident from a very early age that our neighbors to the east, the Germans, were not our natural friends. A different culture, a different way of organizing the economy, a distinctly dissimilar sense of humor and of course some fresh wounds incurred during the Second World War contributed to a sometimes testy relationship which at times (for instance when the Dutch and German soccer teams met) boiled over. At the same time however there has been peace for over 50 years and Germany is the Netherlands’ single largest trading partner. Relations are good, many Dutch spend their holidays in Germany and vice-versa, and you would hardly ever see polls in the Netherlands which tried to rate our feelings about our easterly neighbors or see lengthy discussions on whether Gerhard Schroeder is likeable or not, or whether values in each respective country are diverging or converging. Such exercises are largely pointless and apart from the occasional flare-up during the noted soccer meetings and discussions over the Germans attending Second World War memorials, the Dutch and Germans are doing fine. I certainly never felt any real animosity or dislike towards them. Why would I?

The same cannot be said for the Canadians and Americans. On the contrary on the Canadian side of the border there continues to be a need to define oneself vis-à-vis the southern neighbor, and there is an abundance of futile discussions over the relationship between the two countries. The Canadian identity to a large extent seems to be a continuous search for what is not Canadian, and very often the “what-is-not” is equated to what is American. The absurd thing is that we are talking about two countries that are economically more integrated than the Netherlands and Germany and are culturally closer than any two European countries. When I got here I was amazed at the anti-American invective and the small-mindedness of some of the points that were being put forward during discussions about America. I am, a very great friend of America and see Canada as a stepping-stone to launch some of my activities into the US, so I was always quite interested to talk about bilateral relations and especially to talk about things American. Conversations always turned into discussions, and discussions got lengthier and more complicated in the run-up to the war in Iraq and the Canadian reluctance to join that effort.

I write about this again as I came across this piece of news where a Canadian-based research firm analyzed the feelings of Canadians towards George Bush and they came up with the fact that more than 60% of Canadians dislike Bush, but still have an overall positive feeling about the US. I was irritated the moment I saw the heading and decided to do some research on what firm had generated these numbers. It was not a complete surprise that I found out that it was the Environics Research Group, a Canadian opinion research firm that has hit the news before with, in my view, some contentious research and numbers. The group’s founder, Michael Adams, appears in the news here on a regular basis and most recently he ruined one morning for me by appearing on the radio that I was listening to while driving into town, with the message that Canada and the US were culturally and socially diverging and not converging as most would believe and he had the numbers to support that thesis, or so he claimed. That sounded fishy as it contravened everything I had experienced in my 4 years here and I got the idea that Adams was not really engaged in social research, but in social research to help define and implement social and cultural engineering. His conclusion was based on comparing attitudes in both countries following the 9/11 attacks and he contrasts some very strong emotions prompted by the event in America with an absence, or a reduced incidence, of these emotions in Canada. That’s were you get different sets of data sure, but that does not mean that values on both sides of the border are diverging. Again, Adams is manipulating manifestations of social behavior in order to support his theory that Canadians are very different from Americans and are becoming increasingly different. Approaching your subjects with biased questions at specific points in time can get you any result you want.

Let me give you an example in order to illustrate what I think is really happening. Shortly after 9/11, Wal-Mart in Canada offered a small Stars-and-Stripes flag at its checkout. I promptly bought one which continues to be on display in our kitchen and I keep it there because I like America, but also because I like to provoke the Canadian visitors a bit and we get quite a few of them. And they bite, almost immediately. Once they have seen the flag (or even before that, in case we drink our coffees or beers before they have had a chance to enter the kitchen) the discussion centers around America and they feel the need to embark on an explanation of what is wrong with America and what Canada should be doing about it. This is a first line reaction I have discovered because once I start probing (and Irene is good at this as well) and outlining some of the flaws in their argument they quickly retract and acknowledge that this emotional reaction is a typical Canadian thing, but that in essence there’s nothing wrong with Americans. In fact if you probe further they are almost always quite positive and relaxed about America and many for instance – and the numbers bear this out as well – would have liked to see Canadian support for the coalition invasion of Iraq. Many Canadians do business in the States, have a second home in the States; and most of them eat, drink and sleep American culture and yes, many Canadians even turn out to be Americans when you ask them about where they are coming from.

Now a cross-section of our circle of friends may not meet the statistical rigor that Mr. Adams applies to his efforts, but it strikes me that his results are derived by touching the surface and it elicits an emotional first-line reaction. So his research on Bush generates a negative reaction but it is complemented with the comment that overall Canadians remain positive about Americans. But guess what makes the headlines? What his research fails to do is to dig deeper and find that underlying all this negative traditional emotional nonsense is a pretty balanced and articulate opinion about the USA which is not at all that negative. He may also find that given the economic convergence, social convergence is right around the corner and that culturally the two countries have been very much alike for a long time anyway.

There are other weird incidences. At a party quite a while ago, I met this very successful guy. Made millions, lives in a spectacular multi-million dollar home, yet when I mentioned I was a foreigner and new to Canada, he immediately retreated and said: “you probably think that we Canadians are pushovers, right?”. Huh? It never occurred to me that Canadians were, and even if they were it would most certainly not apply to this guy, but it truly amazed me that someone would go into a conversation with a stranger and qualify himself as a pushover, just because of his nationality. Would an American ever do that? Nope, I don’t think so. Would a Dutchman do that? Never ever.

But circling back to Adams and his research I believe that Adams’ objectives are not necessarily anti-American. Adams dislikes the nature of the political wind blowing from the south and he cleverly – or at least he thinks so – uses this to promote his views and the Canadian media give him of course unlimited airplay to do this. The Globe and Mail (not my political flavour, but a very good newspaper nevertheless) and the CBC perpetuate the myth about America by reiterating these surface-level observations for their own political needs. Those needs come from the left side of the political spectrum and everything that reeks of free-trade, privatization, low-taxes and pre-emption is directly associated with those evil neighbors down south and what is easier to do than play to some surface level emotions that you know will come to life once you appeal to them? It is an old tactic and has been used many times before and is used over and over again by those in Canada that are desperate to hang-on to some antiquated notions of statehood, culture and social-democrat dogmas. Canadians can do much better than that; people like Mr. Adams lead them to irrelevance.

The result is a distorted debate about Canadian-American relations, unpleasant incidents as we witnessed earlier this year and potential damage to the interests of those who do not think in terms of dividing and diverging but who think and live by working together and by advancing both nations in the spirit of co-operation and above all, freedom. Diverging? If Europeans with different cultures and languages are slowly converging how on earth can Canadians and Americans be diverging?

Most of you have probably discovered Samizdata’s blog glossary. It may not come as surprise that in addition to the many bloggers who would like to coin new blog terms, Peaktalk also has decided to pitch in and contribute to the blog glossary. When I surf across the blogosphere I notice that many bloggers have a serious pre-occupation with their traffic levels and try and do whatever they can to increase these levels. I am certainly no stranger to a feeling of anxiety and concern, especially on days when there’s very little traffic or when I find out that some obscure blog with poor and questionable content is generating a lot of traffic. That is a feeling of bloxiety.

One way to address bloxiety is to post like crazy and thus generate more traffic, but today is not a very good day (there’s other business that needs attention) but I plan to do a fairly long piece just in time for the Carnival (this week over at Caerdroia) submission deadline tomorrow.

The whole SOTU discussion was bothering me, since if I was going to address it here, it would have meant reiterating the entire rationale for going to war in Iraq and why the Bush administration failed into communicating the pre-emptive dogma to the American people and the world at large. Today, Condi Rice saved me the trouble, here’s the key portion:

The president of the United States did not go to war because of the question of whether or not Saddam Hussein sought the uranium in Africa. He took the American people and American forces to war because this was a bloody tyrant, who for 12 years had defied the international community, who had weapons of mass destruction, who had used them in the past, who was threatening his neighbors, and who threatened our efforts to make the Middle East a place in which you would have stability and therefore not people with ideologies of hatred driving airplanes into the World Trade Center. That's why we went to war.

Thanks Condi. Now there may be a discussion as to how certain facts find their way into the SOTU, but that still does not warrant the out-of-proportion attention given to the sixteen words about uranium sourcing in Africa, again Condi:

So yes, it is unfortunate that this one sentence, this 16 words, remained in the State of the Union. But this in no way has any effect on the president's larger case about Iraqi efforts to reconstitute the nuclear program, and, most importantly, and the bigger picture, of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program.

And she goes on to tell Wolf Blitzer that:

Look, Wolf, of course, anybody involved in this process at this point would have to say there was a mistake here, something went wrong. And we will all go back and redouble our efforts to see that something like this doesn't happen again.

Case closed. Next time work on making the case better and clearer, for it is a good case for a justifiable cause.

During my childhood years my friends and I used to put together dozens of paper boats, row upstream and release the paper boats and then accompany them downstream and see (they were of course numbered and named) whose boats would end up as the winner. Today this piece of news highlights the 11-year journey of plastic ducks that were lost between China and Seattle and somehow made it through the Bering Strait across the Arctic Ocean into the Atlantic, and now are set to land ashore somewhere in New England. Amazing, but my questions is: how did they manage to keep track of these ducks?

Today’s commissioning of the USS Ronald Reagan reminds us not only of a great President, but also what he stood for and why it is important to defend the values he embraced. The Gipper stood up for freedom and democracy, but above all, he stood for unending optimism and a passionate belief in a better tomorrow. There have been few, if any, presidents or other politicians in my lifetime that were able to appeal to that basic human instinct to strive for advancement and betterment, to look into the future and tell oneself that things can improve if we work for it. It is precisely that sense of purpose that gives people the ability to deal with adversity and darkness. Reagan not only knew the importance of that message, he knew how to bring it across, and he knew that it should be defended at all cost.

Zahra Kazemi has been taken off life support and is now confirmed dead. May she rest in peace and may the international community do everything it can to bring those guilty to justice.

There were some earlier reports on this, but now it is confirmed that Zahra Kazemi, a Montreal-based photojournalist is brain-dead following injuries sustained after she was arrested by Iranian authorities a few weeks ago. She was apparently detained after taking photos of a prison in northern Tehran where students were taken last month following their arrest during protests. While born in Iran she carried a Canadian passport and the Canadian authorities have taken up her case at the highest levels but you do have to wonder why comments like these are made:

''We do not want to conclude that she was beaten up,'' said Reynald Doiron, a Foreign Affairs spokesman. ''The official reply by the Iranians as well as a full, unrestricted medical examination of her situation will determine the cause. Is it a blood clot; is it high blood pressure, lack of taking medication? Or has she been roughed up a bit? We don't know.''

If you don’t know, you find out. To suggest that she may have been “been roughed up a bit” is an utterly tactless choice of words. Keep quiet and do something. Someone has been beaten into a coma in an Iranian prison and even in the remote case that she lost consciousness because of any other reasons, Iranian authorities continue to be culpable as they were the ones that captured her. My thoughts go out to Zahra, her family and all the others in Iran who have to suffer this brutal regime.

Update: here's the The Globe and Mail on the same topic.

As I mentioned before the blogroll would undergo some serious scrutiny and I would come up with a new and revised list with some rationale behind it. Well, I just do not feel like doing it now, so I have resolved to do an analysis of incoming traffic rather than outgoing, or: who are Peaktalk’s top referrers?

The Top Ten
The number one slot is for the well known Southern Californian blogger who does not need any further introduction, nor does the number two, the Tennessean professor. It gets interesting with number three which is Stacy at Sekimori, she who put this great site together and who is always more than happy to give a helping hand in times of need. She, by the way has recently revamped her site and I recommend that you drop by and have a look; if you do not have your own project it is always a great stepping-stone to a group of interesting and very well designed blogs around the world. Number four is Alisa of Alisa in Wonderland. She was kind enough to describe Peaktalk on her blog as one of the better blogs on Den Beste’s roll and has not only directed traffic my way, but is also a regular e-mailer with questions, comments and support. Thanks Alisa. The fifth place is for Asymmetrical Information</