Benjamin Gray

Update on Harry’s Place

It seems that Jenna Delich has actually admitted to posting the link to David Duke’s website, but denies having any knowledge of what the site was about.  Any libel suit she cares to fight will be utterly nuts and counterproductive.  If Harry’s Place’s lawyers use disclosure properly, some very nasty things about the UCU could come out.  The theory now is that her supporters may have caught Harry’s Place out by pointing out their reporting of the post linked to a far-right site, which is often against a host’s Terms of Service.

For Delich to claim that she had no knowledge of the far-right links in this article, or to have not a shred of anti-semitic tendencies, is beyond belief.

First, she is of an academic background.  According to her LinkedIn profile she went to a good university and teaches education management.  It ought to follow that she understands the concept of checking a source for authenticity and reliability.  A quick perusal of David Duke’s website is more than enough to see that the guy is a racist nutjob.  There’s a prominent link to a book called “Jewish Supremacism” in the article, if that was not enough.  If you google search him his Wikipedia page appears before his website, where it clearly states in its first sentence that he is a former KKK member.  One would think that Delich’s chosen career of teaching how to teach would involve a basic understanding of checking a source.  If she claims she did not then she is either incompetent or a liar.

More importantly however is her failure to even question the contents of the article.  That she claims  “No comment necessary. The facts are speaking for themselves”, means that she would have accepted the contents of the article without demur.  That the article repeatedly refers to a Jewish conspiracy to control and manipulate the media ought to set off alarm bells.  That it did not suggests that Delich’s supposed “anti-Zionism” is in fact rather closer to anti-Semitism than she has led herself to believe.

In her admittance of linking to the site, she goes on to write that “none are saying that Joe Quinn (the author of the article) is a racist or anti-semitist [sic], and the article is quite interesting”.  The only way you can draw that conclusion is if you close your eyes, cover your ears and shout very loudly.  In various articles, Joe Quinn claims that Mossad perpetrated 9/11 and that Jews are “psychopaths” with a predisposition to bloodlust.  If she does not consider this racist or anti-semitic, then you have that wonderful phrase “I’m not a racist, but….“.

I suppose she’ll claim that some of her best friends are Jews next.

Academics Against Free Speech?

The bloggers over at Harry’s Place have been forced offline after a threatened libel lawsuit.

If you don’t know already, Britain has some of the most outmoded and ridiculous libel laws in the world. They apply to anything that could possibly have been read by a British citizen, and work on the presumption of guilt. There isn’t even a protection against public-interest criticism. They have been used for years to silence and intimidate critics, and they’re frequently used against the careless blogger. As a result, Britain has a booming industry in “libel tourism” where non-British citizens use British courts to sue non-British citizens.

You would think that an academic would consider themselves above such methods, but apparently not in the form of Jenna Delich, who posted a link to the website of former KKK leader David Duke, and is now apparently suing Harry’s Place for reporting it.

Here’s what Harry’s Place have to say.

Harry’s Place may be removed (or rather have it’s DNS disabled) after a ‘complaint’ to the company that our domain name is registered with.

We assume after threats were made on the weekend that this ‘complaint’ originates from Jenna Delich or her supporters.

Though we have not yet seen the complaint submitted, we assume it runs along the lines that pointing out that Ms Delich linked to the website of a known neo-Nazi figure and former Ku Klux Klan leader is defamatory.

This is extraordinary since Ms Delich has not denied that she circulated links to David Dukes website. There would be no point since the evidence is in the public domain.

Nevertheless, a malicious complaint has been made to the company hosting our DNS.

We would like to assure readers of Harry’s Place that we are doing everything we can to prevent a disruption, but that - of course - we will not concede any ground. We have posted nothing defamatory, and we stand by the information we have supplied.

ISPs often run scared of UK libel law and malicious complaints are thus common. Sadly, it is a well known - and usually successful - way of censoring websites which publish truths that they’d rather not be generally known.

We ask our readers and supporters in the meantime to publish this information as widely as possible. The disgraceful tactic of dishonest and malicious complaining should not be allowed to succeed.

Those on the UCU list, please also make this know there.

Please spread the word.

If we go down, email us at harryblog at gee mail dot com for updates.

I haven’t linked to the material myself as I don’t have the inclination to fight a libel case.  You can find the original post here.

Boris Johnson’s Olympic Speech

Eccentric, witty and insistent that all sport originated in Britain. An excellent encapsulation of the national character. Well done Boris.

Cartoon of the Week

Courtesy of The Rut.

I Like the Number 10 Redesign

Dizzy has been ruling the roost with a series of scoops on the redesign of the Number 10 website. The launch of the website has descended into the realm of the absurd. To list them in full:

• The launch was bungled (the site is still in Beta);
• It’s filled with errors;
• It allegedly violated intellectual property laws (see also: HERE);
• It’s downright ugly;
• It revealed the identity of an undercover policeman;
• It cost £100,000 for a free software package;
• It failed to meet its own accessibility guidelines;
• It failed to remove test pages and glitches;
• It released a bizarre video about Jeremy Clarkson’s bid for Prime Minister.

There has been some controversy over this last point, with the Guardian, bastion of humour that it is, describing people like Dizzy and Guido as “joyless”. I disagree: it was an utterly feeble joke with no imagination or wit whatsoever. Admittedly it is probably the funniest joke the present occupant of Number 10 has made, but that really is not saying much. Compared to Tony Blair’s sketch with Catherine Tate it is downright awful. It is also completely off-message: the Prime Minister is supposed to be “getting on with the job”, not getting distracted. Had an MP asked a similar question at PMQs, Brown would have savaged them for wasting the government’s time with trivial jokes. “No flash, just Gordon” is dead, long live New Media Gordon.

Despite all this I actually quite like the website. I think it is a great work not in spite of its flaws, but because of them. The design of a website should reflect who you are and what you are about. In this sense Number 10 have surpassed themselves. The new website reflects perfectly the type of government we are currently living under.  Massively overpriced, inefficient, inaccessible, irrelevant, prone to error, incompetent and gimmick obsessed.  New Media Maze have surpassed themselves.

Now It’s Our Turn

Wow. What an Olympics.

My personal highlight was Usain Bolt’s sprinting performances. Absolutely amazing.

Britain has done fantastically well. Best results in over a hundred years and we’ve finished a respectable fourth on the medals table. Those who are dismissing our achievements here should remember that it doesn’t matter how good your kit is or whether or not you’re sitting down or standing up. To win an Olympic medal is a phenomenal achievement.

The ceremonies have been stunning. Beautifully-choreographed, amazing visuals and excellent presentation.

Now, of course, it’s our turn.  Hopefully the last two weeks have reminded people why we bid for 2012 in the first place.  The naysayers who predict ever-rising costs and an inability to match the Chinese effort are in many ways missing the point.  The next Olympics will be very different, but that does not mean that it will not be better.  The vibrancy of London, with its long history and strong culture will provide for an Olympic experience unlike any other.  Where there is waste and inefficiency we should complain, but we should do so in a manner that sounds a bit less like we want the Olympics to fail.

We have the talent, we have the ability, we have the resources, we have the city.  Let’s put them to good use and not only match, but exceed the world’s expectations in 2012.

Salami Tactics

After days of suspense with Russia’s “will they, won’t they?” withdrawal from undisputed Georgian territory the BBC now reports that they plan to leave a contingent of 500 troops in a “buffer zone” outside the breakaway republics.

In all likelihood this should have been expected.  Even Russia is not bellicose or secure enough to think that it could have sent its tanks all the way to Tbilisi with impunity.  The strategy it is adopting instead is a continuation of the salami tactics that prevailed during the Communist era.  Rather than aiming for decisive victory you opt for small individual achievements that eventually accumulate into overall victory.  Thus from a “peacekeeping” mission in an unrecognised breakaway territory, Russia has managed to increase its foothold in Georgia to occupying parts of its territory whose sovereignty is undisputed.  From there it will be able to further increase its grip on the country until it reverts to the position of a satellite state within two decades.

The West must be clear on this issue: any Russian military presence in Georgia outside the regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia is unacceptable.  There is no justification for their forces having any presence in such areas: if they are a peacekeeping force then their mandate extends only as far as restoring the status quo ante bellum.  If they cannot do that then they must stop using the mantle of peacekeeping.

Georgia has been a significant ally of the West and a prime candidate for NATO membership.  It shares our values and the West must be clear that it offers a positive alternative to the bullying chekist paranoia of Putin’s Russia.  We may not have been able to stop the invasion, but we must ensure an equitable peace.  There must be no acquiescing in this attempt by Russia to further undermine Georgian sovereignty.  To do so would encourage Russia to commit further acts of aggression.  The West must do everything within its ability to stop Russia establishing a foothold in Georgia proper.

SWP Write the Jews out of the Holocaust

Courtesy of AWL:

The author evidently thought that some readers might not know what “the Holocaust” was. So she or he defined it: “the holocaust, where thousands of LGBT people, trade unionists, and disabled people were slaughtered”.
End of definition. Jews too? No mention of that.

It cannot actually be that the SWP wants to appeal to people who may consider it all right that Hitler killed six million Jews, but think it too much that he also killed LGBT people, etc.

Or that the SWP itself considers that the killing of Jews was not an important, or not an objectionable, part of the Holocaust.

On some level, surely, that clause in the statement must be a slip, a mishap. But for such a slip to pass unnoticed through writer, typesetter, printer, organisers, and distributors, without anyone at any stage picking it up, must say something.

No mention of Jews, and the number of dead reduced from Six Million to a few thousand. Don’t mention the war comrade.

Hat-Tip: Harry’s Place

Don't mention the Jews, Comrade

Russia Resurgent, Part 1

The conflicting accounts of the confrontation in Georgia means that I have delayed writing anything about it until I had a clearer idea of what was going on.

Russia is responsible for both the proximate and permissive causes of this conflict. The immediate flashpoint was a roadside bombing committed by South Ossetian militia that killed five Georgians. This was the final straw in a long line of provocations aided and encouraged by the Russian government.

Russia’s claims regarding its motivations are patently false. Their actions in Chechnya and Kosovo betray the hypocrisy of their new-found concern for civilian lives and self-determination in the Caucasus; their peacekeeping mission had done little to keep South Ossetian militias from attacking Georgians; their estimates of civilian casualties have been wildly exaggerated; and Russian forces have been engaged in acts of ethnic cleansing, looting and murder.

Even if we accept Russian motivations, their response has been grossly disproportionate. Attacks beyond South Ossetia, the occupation of Gori, and the opening of a second front in the strategically important region of Abkhazia are completely beyond the scope of Russia’s stated objectives. Russia has been aiming to consolidate its grip on a former province, punish a leader who sees his country’s future with the West, and further monopolise energy supplies as a source of influence.

Commentators have been keen to liken the conflict to everything from the Falklands, through Kosovo, Czechoslovakia (twice) to the Hungarian uprising. While there is an element of truth in many of these analogies, they run the risk of simplifying the conflict. Clausewitz remarked that every war is unique. It has its own causes, its own dynamic and its own sides. Comparisons, though useful in the specific, cannot provide us with a clear historical precedent on which to base our response.

What is clear now is that we are faced with a resurgent Russia keen to assert its authority, and presently hostile to Western interests. Devoid of the cloak of Communism, this presents new challenges for policy-makers in their response.

Georgia is an ally that deserves our support.  Saakashvili has been keen to institute economic and political reforms that have brought about a society freer than that north of its borders.  It has been a key ally in the war in Iraq, and its loyalty deserves our support.  The West must support those states that share its values.

So far, the response of the West has left much to be desired. It has been divided, ineffectual and dithering. As a result Russia has managed to act with impunity, and the West has been shown up as unable to defend the values it seeks to promote. The need for a new response is more pressing than ever.

Russia is pushing the limits of acceptable international behaviour. It is a society capable of constructive partnership with the West, but presently slipping under a wave of paranoid authoritarian nationalism. The West has to remind Russia of these limits while encouraging those elements of Russian society that offer a more positive vision than Putin’s. That requires a foreign policy capable of standing up to, and punishing, Russia where necessary while promoting reformist elements where possible.

Part 2 will some of the policy options available to the West for dealing with Russia.

Michael Walzer on the Georgian Crisis

From Dissent:

1) This is an unjust war. That may seem obvious here in the U.S., but the Russians have worked hard to justify their attack, using the humanitarian language that everyone now uses to defend military operations in other people’s countries. It is important to address their claims, especially because they have received some credence in Europe. It is also relatively easy to do that since reporters and human rights activists have been allowed into parts of Georgia now under Russian control. As a result, we know that the South Ossetian city of Tskhinvali has not been destroyed by the Georgian army. “Fighting appears to have been concentrated in two neighborhoods, while buildings in the rest of the city stood intact,” reports the New York Times (August 13, 2008). “Entire residential neighborhoods appear unscathed.” Nor is the Russian claim that the Georgians killed or injured 2,000 civilians credible. Human Rights Watch, checking the local hospital, has come up with the figure of 44 dead and 273 wounded in clashes between Ossetian separatists and Georgian soldiers—and one doctor told reporters that the majority of the wounded were soldiers (New York Times, August 15, 2008). The Putin government apparently believes that anything less than the Big Lie won’t be persuasive, and this Big Lie may be effective in Russia, where the government dominates the media. It shouldn’t be credited in the rest of the world. This isn’t a humanitarian intervention, and it isn’t a peacekeeping operation.

2) The argument that Russian soldiers made to journalists—that what they are doing is exactly what the U.S. would have done if Russia had armed and trained the army of a “friendly” Central American country—isn’t a defense of the invasion. Imagine the Russians sending equipment and expert help to the Nicaraguan army in the 1980s. Might we have responded with something much bigger than the contra insurrection? Yes, and we might also have justified whatever our armed forces did by talking about human rights and peacekeeping. But we would have been wrong. The military operation would have been unjust, and many Americans would have said that. Imagining this hypothetical invasion, I also imagine the scale and intensity of the protests.

3) The movement of Georgian soldiers into South Ossetia was reckless, certainly, but it wasn’t the reason—it was only the excuse—for the Russian invasion. The reason lies in American policy in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union in the years since 1989, which the Russians have interpreted, not implausibly, as aiming at and achieving a significant reduction in their power and prestige. I don’t think that the policy was necessarily wrong, or wrong at all, but it was, like President Saakashvili’s Ossetian adventure, reckless. We never reckoned on a Russian response or planned for it or consulted with our allies about what might have to be done. Russia’s strategic aggressiveness in Georgia obviously took the Bush administration by surprise. Just like the Iraqi insurgency. Just like the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Just like the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections. Just like the fall of Musharraf in Pakistan.

4)What is happening in Georgia is a major defeat for America and for the EU as well. It demonstrates that these two great powers, publicly committed to the advance of democracy in Europe, are unable to defend the territorial integrity or physical security of democratic Georgia. But the invasion may not turn out to be a victory for Russia. The most heartening moment in the last week was the arrival in Tbilisi on Tuesday of the presidents of Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine, and Poland to stand in solidarity with Saakashvili. They are not ready to accept the reassertion of an old-fashioned Russian “sphere of influence.” And their public presence and resistance are more important than any American or European statements.

5)The European response has been particularly weak, and we have to worry that the weakness is due to European dependence on Russian oil—which would be greatly heightened if the pipeline across Georgia and Turkey were cut. I don’t think that the Russians invaded Georgia for the oil; I don’t think that America invaded Iraq for the oil. But oil is a factor in imperial politics, and the EU needs to think about a version of Russian domination that is commercial rather than political or military—an “empire” entirely appropriate to the twenty-first century. One response that the Russians would notice would be a large-scale campaign for conservation and a massive investment in alternative sources of energy.

6)We need a better foreign policy debate than this election campaign has yet produced, and the Georgian disaster would be a useful starting point.