Identity Theft

Samizdata
had a lively discussion on the merits of a national ID card, which sprang from
the persistent misidentification of a person with a wanted criminal of the same
name. This happened despite the dissimilarity between the two in every respect
except their names. Some Samizdata readers believed that such mistakes could be
avoided by requiring a national identification system. But some
national ID critics argued that it was the concept of equivalence between a
person and his descriptors that itself constituted the danger. From Name=Person,
which lay at the root of the misidentified man's troubles, is substituted ID
Card=Person, a relation only as good as the institutions that issue them.

Now imagine that a criminal manages to steal/copy your ID card and starts
impersonating you. The ID card and government database will of course be
treated as infallible, so no doubt any arrests/crimes associated with a person
carrying your ID card will be going down on your file. It must have been you
who used that credit card fraudulently, they had your ID card. ID cards will
be the identity thief's dream come true, and if this sort of thing can happen
just because two people have similar names, just think what could happen when
someone sets out to impersonate you.

The concept of a credential,
which may be defined as "a document attesting to the truth of certain
stated facts" occurs frequently in designing IT systems, but it also
appears in politics and journalism. Consider the concept of a 'mainstream Iraqi
blogger'. The brothers who author Iraq
the Model have recently been visiting the United States and have been hosted
by such diverse personages as Blackfive
and the George W. Bush as representatives of Iraqi blogdom. Although their blog
is pioneering in Iraqi terms and has existed longer than many US blogs,
Professor Juan Cole of the University of Michigan does not accept the
credential. (Hat tip: Glenn
Reynolds and Michael
Totten). Here's how he describes
them.

The MR posting brings up questions about the Iraqi brothers who run the Iraq
the Model site. It points out that the views of the brothers are
celebrated in the right-leaning weblogging world of the US, even though
opinion polling shows that their views are far out of the mainstream of Iraqi
opinion. It notes that their choice of internet service provider, in Abilene,
Texas, is rather suspicious, and wonders whether they are getting some extra
support from certain quarters. Contrast all this to the young woman computer
systems analyst in Baghdad, Riverbend,
who is in her views closer to the Iraqi opinion polls, especially with regard
to Sunni Arabs, but who is not being feted in Washington, DC.

The phenomenon of blog trolling, and frankly of blog agents provocateurs
secretly working for a particular group or goal and deliberately attempting to
spread disinformation, is likely to grow in importance. It is a technique made
for the well-funded Neoconservatives, for instance, and I have my suspicions
about one or two sites out there already.

Their "rather suspicious" choice "of internet service
provider, in Abilene, Texas" is www.blogger.com,
the same as the Belmont Club's and a zillion others, and is chiefly
doubtful because Blogger charges no fees, an attribute always sure to attract
the worst of mankind. Strangely, it is also the internet service provider of Riverbend,
a blog which Cole professes to admire. This illustrates the problem with
credentials. Iraq
the Model and Riverbend
are very similar in terms of attributes like nationality, presence on the web,
support from friends and support fromr readers. Yet it would be hard to
construct a credential from those criteria which would pass muster as a Juan
Cole-approved 'mainstream Iraqi blogger' -- without including the critical
requirement that they be anti-American. Cole is certainly entitled to prefer Riverbend.
What is difficult is to accept an abstract construction which is ultimately
contingent on Cole's personal taste. Credentials are never exactly equivalent to
the object they represent, but if they are to have any meaning, they have to be
regarded as arbitrarily legitimate after a finite number of correspondences.

Interestingly, Juan Cole wrote an article critical of fundamentalist
tendencies in a particular religion whose identity I will withhold, but whose
name you can discover by following this link.
Here are its forboding characteristics as set forth by Cole himself. (Hint: It
makes wide use of the Internet, has many adherents in Iran and is not
Christianity). The intellectual challenge is to discover why these attributes
should be condemned in this particular religion and not in another with the same
'fundamentalist' credentials.

1. Sectarianism and exclusivism;


2. Theocratic tendencies;


3. Absolutism and Inerrancy of Scripture;


4. Millennialism;


5. Authoritarian Organization;


6. Strict Behavioral Requirements

The World Standard Part 2

Robert
Kagan points out that European integration project, with its vast
bureaucracy in Brussels, is not merely an agency for trade protectionism, but an
entire portal into the future. (Hat tip

Buddy Larsen) Some Europeans believe that the cumulative process of
'engagement', 'negotiation' and the expansion of governance constitutes a
universally valid method of escape from the ravages of war, poverty and national
hatred -- on the basis of the European experience itself.

As German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer put it in a speech outlining his
vision of the European future ...  �The core of the concept of Europe
after 1945 was and still is a rejection of the European balance-of-power
principle and the hegemonic ambitions of individual states that had emerged
following the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.�  ... Fischer�s principal
contention --  that Europe has moved beyond the old system of power
politics and discovered a new system for preserving peace in international
relations -- is widely shared across Europe. As senior British diplomat Robert
Cooper recently wrote in the Observer ... Europe today lives in a �postmodern
system� that does not rest on a balance of power but on �the rejection of
force� and on �self-enforced rules of behavior.� ...

�The genius of the founding fathers,� European Commission President Romano
Prodi commented in a speech at the Institute d�Etudes Politiques in Paris (May
29, 2001), �lay in translating extremely high political ambitions . . . into a
series of more specific, almost technical decisions. This indirect approach
made further action possible. Rapprochement took place gradually. From
confrontation we moved to willingness to cooperate in the economic sphere and
then on to integration.� ...

The transmission of the European miracle to the rest of the world has
become Europe�s new mission civilisatrice. Just as Americans have always
believed that they had discovered the secret to human happiness and wished to
export it to the rest of the world, so the Europeans have a new mission born
of their own discovery of perpetual peace.

It was therefore natural that Europe would define itself in
contradistinction to the United States, which it characterized as a living
fossil from the age of power politics, a survival from the Stone Age of
civilization. What they had forgotten, Kagan pointed out, was that the
foundations of the continental miracle were rooted in the greatest military
campaign of the twentieth century: the defeat of European fascism by the United
States. The durability of the Pax Americana spanning the better part of three
generations encouraged the Europeans to regard the arrangement as the natural
order of things. Most Europeans remembered no other world; nor imagine that any
other was possible. But because the only country that could not count on rescue
by America was America itself, the United States continued to live in the world
of power politics that the Europeans had abandoned, the two original halves of
the Western world abiding in two increasingly separate universes.

Europe�s evolution to its present state occurred under the mantle of the
U.S. security guarantee and could not have occurred without it. Not only did
the United States for almost half a century supply a shield against such
external threats as the Soviet Union and such internal threats as may have
been posed by ethnic conflict in places like the Balkans. ... The United
States, in short, solved the Kantian paradox for the Europeans. Kant had
argued that the only solution to the immoral horrors of the Hobbesian world
was the creation of a world government. But he also feared that the �state of
universal peace� made possible by world government would be an even greater
threat to human freedom than the Hobbesian international order, inasmuch as
such a government, with its monopoly of power, would become �the most horrible
despotism.� ... But for Europe the problem was solved by the United States. By
providing security from outside, the United States has rendered it unnecessary
for Europe�s supranational government to provide it.  ...Some Europeans
do understand the conundrum. ... Thus Robert Cooper writes ... If the
postmodern world does not protect itself, it can be destroyed. But how does
Europe protect itself without discarding the very ideals and principles that
undergird its pacific system? ...

�The challenge to the postmodern world,� Cooper argues, �is to get used to
the idea of double standards.� Among themselves, Europeans may �operate on the
basis of laws and open cooperative security.� But when dealing with the world
outside Europe, �we need to revert to the rougher methods of an earlier era �
force, preemptive attack, deception, whatever is necessary.� ...

What this means is that although the United States has played the critical
role in bringing Europe into this Kantian paradise, and still plays a key role
in making that paradise possible, it cannot enter this paradise itself. It
mans the walls but cannot walk through the gate. The United States, with all
its vast power, remains stuck in history, left to deal with the Saddams and
the ayatollahs, the Kim Jong Ils and the Jiang Zemins, leaving the happy
benefits to others.

Kagan's analysis, though brilliant, should not tempt us too far. The European
project is more than a vehicle to attain mankind's loftiest aims. It is also an
ordinary bureaucracy concerned with enforcing trade protectionism, distributing
pork barrel, advancing agendas and accumulating power for its own sake as
bureaucracies have done from time immemorial. But although one would not enter
into trade negotiations with the EU expecting Kagan's model to be of operational
assistance, it provides a penetrating insight into the myths that drive each
civilization, which over time may shape their priorities and their ultimate
destinies. Therefore its greatest utility is as a strategic guide. Although
Kagan holds out the hope "that a little common understanding could still go a
long way" toward reversing the divergence he is far more convincing when
describing both in the grip of an historical trap.

Is this situation tolerable for the United States? In many ways, it is.
Contrary to what many believe, the United States can shoulder the burden of
maintaining global security without much help from Europe. The United States
spends a little over 3 percent of its GDP on defense today. ... The problem
lies neither in American will or capability, then, but precisely in the
inherent moral tension of the current international situation. ... The problem
is that the United States must sometimes play by the rules of a Hobbesian
world, even though in doing so it violates European norms. It must refuse to
abide by certain international conventions that may constrain its ability to
fight effectively in Robert Cooper�s jungle. It must support arms control, but
not always for itself. It must live by a double standard. ... Europeans today
have come to consider the United States itself to be the outlaw, a rogue
colossus. Europeans have complained about President Bush�s �unilateralism,�
but they are coming to the deeper realization that the problem is not Bush or
any American president. It is systemic. And it is incurable.

In this last he is almost certainly wrong. History's resource is deep time,
against which not even Brussels can prevail.

The World Standard

Mark Schapiro in a Nation
article entitled "New Power for 'Old Europe'" describes the effect of
the expanding European Union on American business. He argues that the formation
of a large common market operating under a single regulatory regime has
destroyed the American ability to "set the standard" and argues this
bodes ill for American dominance.

Since the fall of the Berlin wall, the European Union has been steadily
transforming itself from a facilitator of trade to a sophisticated
geopolitical power with the teeth to back up its policies--an evolution that
has occurred largely under the American public's radar. Over the past decade,
EU member states have ceded governing and enforcement authority to Brussels in
areas ranging from environmental regulation to food safety, accounting
standards, telecommunications policy and oversight of corporate mergers. As a
result, US companies that do business in Europe--which remains America's
largest export market -- are quickly learning that "old Europe" is
now wielding new world power.

Just this year, US manufacturers of such goods as chemicals, cars and
cosmetics have been confronted with EU regulations that force a choice: Either
conform to the EU's standards of pre-emptive screening for toxicity--far
tougher than US standards--or risk sacrificing the European market, which,
with 450 million people, is now larger than that of the United States. In the
process, the European Union is challenging US presumptions of unilateral
decision-making on issues with tremendous consequences for American companies
and consumers, treading on ground that has long been considered sacred turf.

The three major examples that Schapiro uses are the chemical industry,
cosmetics and automobiles. In place of the American attitude of "innocent
until proven guilty" towards the chemical industry, Brussels is
"placing the burden of proof on manufacturers to prove chemicals are
safe--what is known as the 'precautionary principle.'" In the arena of
cosmetics Brussels is now seen as the patron of consumer safety advocates in
America. The EU has mooted banning or more strictly regulating many of the
substances traditionally used to prepare beauty products.

Last spring the Safe Cosmetics Campaign, a group of women's and
environmental health NGOs, sent an appeal to some 250 firms that sell
personal care products in the United States, asking that they conform to the
health requirements of the EU's Cosmetics Directive as well as take other
actions to insure more stringent controls over potentially toxic
ingredients. Of those, the campaign heard from sixty-five companies;
responses ranged from resistance to accommodation. Revlon and Estee Lauder
replied by citing the CTFA's official response to the EU: On March 25, CTFA
stated that the directive "represents an unnecessary change in the
philosophy of regulation of cosmetic ingredients in the EU."

Automobiles must now, by EU mandate be "built with at least 85 percent
recyclable components; by 2015 that figure rises to 95 percent. The directive
also bans toxic heavy metals like cadmium and requires that manufacturers take
responsibility for disposing of their cars." Schapiro quotes experts who
say that while the EU does not want to 'dictate' to America the US will have no
choice but to kowtow to the power of Brussels.

When Henry Kissinger was Secretary of State for President Ford in 1977, he
famously asked in frustration, "What telephone number do you dial to
reach Europe?" Today, the area code for that number is clear: 32-2, for
Brussels, which has been transformed from the provincial capital of a small
European country into an international metropolis bustling with a
multilingual, highly educated EU workforce drawn from across the continent.
...

Indeed, a broad spectrum of American industry has already felt the potency
that comes from an integrated market and differing standards of environmental
and consumer protection. Microsoft, for example, was fined $497 million
earlier this year by the EU for its "anti-competitive practices,"
and General Electric's long-planned takeover of Honeywell was skewered in 2002
by the EU's Competition Commission, which has now emerged as a critical first
stop by corporations en route to a merger. "It used to be," comments
Amelia Torres, spokeswoman for the Competition Commission, "that the EU
would be the last part of any deal. Now they know they have to come here
first." The agribusiness company Monsanto became accustomed to
contentious forays into Brussels while struggling to obtain EU acceptance of
its genetically engineered seeds.

Although Europe now has a single telephone number it is ringing under a pile
of paper. By mandating the strict standards described by Schapiro, Brussels may
be raising the production cost of all affected items already manufactured in the
EU and raising the barriers to entry for all entrants, domestic and
international. The disadvantage of establishing a separate standard from
products already offered on the existing markets was described by a Canadian
advisory body with regard to the United States.

For companies exporting to multiple markets, the promise of "one
standard, one test, accepted everywhere" has become increasingly more
attractive. ... The need to produce multiple versions of the same good, for
example, can increase design and production costs, and prevent firms from
enjoying the economies of scale that would flow from producing to satisfy a
single globally accepted standard.

By creating a separate standard, Brussels will compel manufacturers to create
new versions of existing products. Although Schapiro implies that it is Americans who will have to adjust, the two standard requirement will also affect European manufacturers, requiring one product for highly regulated domestic markets and another for overseas markets. This may be partially offset by the consolidation of differing national standards into a single European one. The net cost effect is likely to depend on the strictness of the regulators in Brussels.

Today, similar products typically have to satisfy separate testing and
certification procedures for various markets in which they are to be sold.
Such conformity assessment procedures, while unavoidable, can constitute a
significant additional cost to producers seeking to sell in multiple markets.
In cases where mandatory specifications for a product differ from country to
country, it is logical that a separate certification of the product's
conformity is needed for each country in question. Even where countries rely
on internationally harmonized rules or accept another country's standards as
equivalent, an exporting country's tests and certificates of conformity may
not be sufficient to certify compliance in another market.

For years economists have debated whether "freer
trade meant lower environmental standards". With a few name changes,
the scenario that Schapiro described resembles the drama played out between
Mexico and the United States in the 1991 Tuna Dolphin dispute.

In 1991, the U.S. imposed trade restrictions on Mexico and several other
countries because of their excessive byproduct dolphin kill by tuna fishermen,
levels above those allowed by the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972.
Mexico and its allies appealed to a GATT dispute settlement panel, claiming
unfair trade practices. ... The GATT panel upheld Mexico's challenge, saying
that the United States' embargo violated the GATT's non-discrimination policy
among member nations, as the Mexican process of tuna fishing did not result in
a differentiated product from other exporters.

The European Union carefully avoids this pitfall by imposing their standards
on the product and not the process. In the end the US exerted
effective pressure on Mexico by careful marketing and psychic product
differentiation.

In 1990, three major U.S. canneries announced that they would only sell
tuna that was caught with dolphin safe methods. Labeling their products as
dolphin safe became a way to differentiate the product by the process, by
appealing to consumers desires to purchase dolphin safe tuna. Then in 1992, 10
countries (including the U.S. and Mexico) adopted the La Jolla agreement,
which established an international limit on dolphin mortality rates among tuna
fishers. From 1989 to 1993, dolphin deaths declined from nearly 100,000 to
3,600 (Christopher, Mexico's Marine Conservation Efforts. Dispatch, May 1,
1994, pg. 19), an impressive drop made possible through international
negotiations.

American regulators won -- but only by using the market. Ironically it was
Paul Krugman who took up the intellectual argument against the "dolphin
safe" campaign.

On the other side of the issue, free-traders like Paul Krugman argue that
there is little reason to insist on global environmental standards, as doing
so could diminish the gains from trade. Krugman correctly notes that,
"international trade is really just a production technique, a way to
produce importables indirectly by first producing exportables, then exchanging
them". He then goes on to add, that "it does not matter from the
point of view of the national gains from trade whether other countries have
different relative prices because they have different resources, different
technologies or different environmental standards. All that matters is that
they be different then we can gain from trading with them."

If Brussel's restrictive environmental regulations are seen by consumers as
adding value those products may in time become the global standard. But since
countries will continue to manufacture products tailored to the risk and return
profiles of their consumers, Europe also runs the risk of pricing itself out
of business. A "sophisticated geopolitical power with the teeth to back up
its policies" must in the end succeed in the marketplace. It cannot
regulate itself into success.

The Defense of the Realm

Dr. Ian Stephen "an Honorary Lecturer (Forensic Psychology) at Glasgow
Caledonian University" and "a consultant to forensic psychology television
series Cracker" gave some
advice
to British householders on the appropriate way to handle a home invasion.
The advice was given in response to heightened public fears caused by the murder of British financier

John Monckton. Burglars tricked him into opening his door by impersonating
mailmen. He was killed in the hallway of his multimillion-dollar home. His wife, Viscountess Monckton of
Brenchley, was stabbed so hard her
ribs were broken. Dr. Stephen begins by sadly and regretfully observing that in the
UK

if you attack the burglar, or react in an "over the top" manner, as was
recently illustrated in the case of Tony Martin who shot intruders in his
Norfolk farmhouse, you will inevitably end up on the receiving end of a prison
sentence that will far outstrip that imposed on the intruder in your own home. 

That being the unfortunate case the Briton is advised to make the best of a
bad situation by acting in the following way.

When individuals are confronted by intruders there are some actions they
should follow. Direct contact should be avoided whenever possible. If
unavoidable, the victim should adopt a state of active passivity. In most
cases the best form of defence is always avoidance. If this isn�t possible,
act passively, be careful what you say or do and give up valuables without a
struggle. This allows the victim to take charge of the situation, without the
intruder�s awareness, through subtle and non-confrontational means. People can
cooperate but initiate nothing. By doing nothing there is no chance of
inadvertently initiating violence by saying something such as "Please don�t
hurt me".

"Cooperate but initiate nothing". We will return to that phrase in
a moment, but first we must continue with Dr. Stephen's cautionary advice. He
says it is important not to affront or startle the burglar in any way, not
simply out of a regard for their feelings, for whose hurt the householder may
liable, but to avoid arousing an aggression which it is expressly forbidden to
resist.

Sometimes the perpetrator of a burglary is even more terrified than the
victim and in many cases when things go wrong it is the perpetrator of the
crime who panics. Although they sometimes go equipped with weapons, in most
cases they probably don�t intend to use them but in the heat of the moment,
and the fear of either getting caught or attacked themselves, they use them.
They don�t expect the person they are trying to hold up to retaliate or react.
Mostly the knife is there simply for intimidation rather than intent to use it
and they finish up killing somebody by accident rather than design.

If you are stabbed or shot it is your fault, as the Moncktons learned to
their cost. You are advised to simply stand there, eyes fastened on the floor as
if nothing were happening in the hope that you will not be noticed. I was going
to say that Dr. Stephen's rueful advice sounded suspiciously like Kofi Annan's.
Take no unilateral action; await help from someone with legitimacy; above all do
nothing that will stir the 'cycle of violence' -- until I realized that that
scene Dr. Stephen was describing -- "cooperate but initiate nothing"
--  had already been depicted sixty years ago by a
British author.

He sat as still as he could on the narrow bench, with his hands crossed on
his knee. He had already learned to sit still. If you made unexpected movements
they yelled at you from the telescreen. ... It might be two or three hours ago
that they had brought him here. ... Sometimes he tried to calculate the number
of porcelain bricks in the walls of the cell. It should have been easy, but he
always lost count at some point or another. ...

Opposite Winston there sat a man with a chinless, toothy face exactly like
that of some large, harmless rodent. His fat, mottled cheeks were so pouched at
the bottom that it was difficult not to believe that he had little stores of
food tucked away there. His pale-grey eyes flitted timorously from face to face
and turned quickly away again when he caught anyone's eye. ... The door opened,
and another prisoner was brought in whose appearance sent a momentary chill
through Winston. ... But what was startling was the emaciation of his face. ...
Suddenly he realized what was the matter. The man was dying of starvation. The
same thought seemed to occur almost simultaneously to everyone in the cell.
There was a very faint stirring all the way round the bench. The eyes of the
chinless man kept flitting towards the skull-faced man, then turning guiltily
away, then being dragged back by an irresistible attraction. Presently he began
to fidget on his seat. At last he stood up, waddled clumsily across the cell,
dug down into the pocket of his overalls, and, with an abashed air, held out a
grimy piece of bread to the skull-faced man.

There was a furious, deafening roar from the telescreen. The chinless man
jumped in his tracks. The skull-faced man had quickly thrust his hands behind
his back, as though demonstrating to all the world that he refused the gift. 'Bumstead!'
roared the voice. '2713 Bumstead J.! Let fall that piece of bread!' The
chinless man dropped the piece of bread on the floor. 'Remain standing where
you are,' said the voice. 'Face the door. Make no movement.'

The chinless man obeyed. His large pouchy cheeks were quivering
uncontrollably. The door clanged open. As the young officer entered and
stepped aside, there emerged from behind him a short stumpy guard with
enormous arms and shoulders. He took his stand opposite the chinless man, and
then, at a signal from the officer, let free a frightful blow, with all the
weight of his body behind it, full in the chinless man's mouth. The force of
it seemed almost to knock him clear of the floor. His body was flung across
the cell and fetched up against the base of the lavatory seat. For a moment he
lay as though stunned, with dark blood oozing from his mouth and nose. A very
faint whimpering or squeaking, which seemed unconscious, came out of him. Then
he rolled over and raised himself unsteadily on hands and knees. Amid a stream
of blood and saliva, the two halves of a dental plate fell out of his mouth.

The prisoners sat very still, their hands crossed on their knees. The
chinless man climbed back into his place. Down one side of his face the flesh
was darkening. His mouth had swollen into a shapeless cherry-coloured mass
with a black hole in the middle of it. From time to time a little blood
dripped on to the breast of his overalls. His grey eyes still flitted from
face to face, more guiltily than ever, as though he were trying to discover
how much the others despised him for his humiliation. The door opened. With a
small gesture the officer indicated the skull-faced man. 'Room 101,' he said.

The author of that scene, George Orwell, said
"if you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human
face -- forever." He forgot to add one thing: you will polish the boot.

Pencil Shapeners or Attackers?

At the risk of turning the Belmont Club into a freakshow, I'm appending this
story because it bears directly on the debate over the appropriate response to
home invasions in the UK. The

Manchester Online has reported the following story.

Pencil sharpeners have been banned from a primary school after a pupil
dismantled one and used the blade to slash another child's neck. ... The
attacker was suspended for two days and is now back in school. ... Headteacher
David Willis has now banned all pencil sharpeners. But the decision to allow
the boy to return to school has angered parents. Some have signed a petition
calling on the school to permanently expel the youngster.

The school management argued that while pencil sharpeners could be proscribed
the attacker could not be prevented from returning.

Tracy Buckley, the school's head of governors, has written to all parents,
saying the school understood the gravity of the incident and acted
accordingly. The letter states: "The school, like every other school, has a
duty to promote 'inclusion' of all pupils. The emphasis of the (DfES)
guidance is that a permanent exclusion is discouraged and to be
considered as a last resort in very extreme circumstances. A fixed period
exclusion was entirely appropriate for the circumstances."  ...
Yesterday, the Manchester Evening News reported how teachers at Priestnall
High School in Stockport started acting as bodyguards, patrolling streets
round their school, following attacks on five pupils.

The Absence of Evidence

The embattled Secretary General of the United Nations took the media
offensive by calling for UN "reform" while forgetting to mention his own
behavior was a major reason for seeking reform in the first place. The

Bakersfield Californian has more:

Annan on Tuesday rejected calls for his resignation and said he would
concentrate on U.N. reform in the last two years of his term. In his
speech, he did not refer to the calls to step down. Instead, he praised
the panel for providing "a new and comprehensive vision of collective security
for the 21st century." "One of its key messages is this: because of
globalization we live in a world of interconnected threats and mutual
vulnerability between rich and poor and weak and strong. No country can
afford to deal with today's threats alone, and no threat can be dealt with
effectively unless other threats are addressed at the same time," Annan said.

Earlier

Congressman Dennis Kuchinich (D-Ohio) and 20 members of Congress offered
their support to the Secretary General in the face of the Oil-for-Food
allegations. He believed there was no hint that Annan had committed any
impropriety but ample evidence that the United States was somehow partially
behind the fraud.

We are writing to express our support of United Nations Secretary-General
Kofi Annan, who has recently been under attack by some American lawmakers for
the U.N�s Oil-for-Food program scandal occurring under his watch. Such an
attack on the second-term Secretary-General and Nobel Peace laureate is
disgraceful and premature. There has been no hint of impropriety on the
part of the Secretary-General, who on numerous occasions has proven his
honesty and integrity. Furthermore, we specifically reject all calls for his
resignation.   ... we want to highlight the shared responsibility by
the United States for the alleged fraud and abuse that occurred in the
Oil-for-Food Program.

The Secretary General had the day before spoken at a UN seminar called
"Unlearning Intolerance", which that day focused on

combatting Islamophobia. It was designed to forestall the "hatred that
breeds more hatred", otherwise known as perpetuating the 'cycle of violence'. As
ever, the onus was on the West.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan opened the first U.N. seminar on confronting
Islamophobia Tuesday with a plea not to judge Muslims by the acts of
extremists who deliberately target and kill civilians. ... Seyyed Hussein
Nasr, professor of Islamic studies at George Washington University, said
Islamophobia was a question not only of fear but also of hatred -- often by
people who know little about the religion. ... Fighting Islamophobia, Nasr
argued, requires swift action from those in the West who understand that
hatred breeds more hatred. Muslims must also take the lead in speaking out
against extremism - steps that should be complemented by educational reforms
and more effective use of the media. ... R. Scott Appleby, director of the
Joan B. Kroc Institute at the University of Notre Dame, said that in the
United States and much of Europe, terrorism had created anxiety about the
vulnerability of Western societies, drawn unwanted attention to Muslims, and
elicited intolerance and hatred among some Americans. This is what terrorists
wanted, he said. In the United States, Appleby said, patriotism should require
a willingness to recognize differences and honest self-criticism, not
condescension towards people cast as "the other."

The difficulties inherent in not judging the intent of the "other" by their
actions in order to "break the cycle of violence" was highlighted by the
collapse of the Northern Ireland peace talks over the question of verifying IRA
disarmament. In an article strangely entitled

Photo dooms peace hopes, the Herald Sun reported that:

Hopes of a final breakthrough to end paramilitary violence in Northern
Ireland collapsed within sight of success yesterday. With agreement close, and
the IRA having at last agreed to give up all its weapons, a deal fell through
over whether their destruction should be photographed. Sinn Fein, the
political wing of the IRA, said the photographs would represent a humiliation
for militants. ... Mr Adams said: "I recognise that some unionists do have
genuine concerns about verification of arms being put beyond use. But Ian
Paisley has to recognise also that the IRA will not submit to a process of
humiliation." The stand-off is a massive setback for Prime Minister Tony
Blair, who had been hoping to fly to Northern Ireland today to publish details
of the agreement that was so nearly clinched.

Here, as in Annan's 'reform' proposals, and at the UN Seminar, a platitude is
offered in answer to a specific question.

Q: Did you steal billions of dollars and help rearm Saddam?

A: We must reform the UN because no one nation can solve the world's problems.

Q: Are radical Islamists funding international terror?

A: If you ask such questions they will resent it so much that what you fear
will come to pass.

Q: Will the IRA photograph the destruction of the weapons it promised to
decommission?

A: It is humiliating to require proof.

Any objections that these anwers are unsatisfactory are met by the claim that
the questions themselves are illegitimate. "There has been no hint of
impropriety on the part of the Secretary-General, who on numerous occasions has
proven his honesty and integrity." It is impertinent to observe that Annan has
proven nothing. Any further argumentation is met with the assertion that 'it is your
fault anyway'. In Congressman Kuchinich's words "we want to highlight the shared
responsibility by the United States for the alleged fraud and abuse that
occurred in the Oil-for-Food Program." Any suspcion that the Jihad may
exist is put down to "intolerance and hatred among some Americans" and
"condescension".

The implicit assumption underlying this discourse is that "we" -- and not you
-- ask the questions. The United Nations and no one else sits in judgement.
That's final: it is International Law. As Robert Kaplan pointed out in
The
Media and Medievalism, the most powerful tool of totalitarianism is to don
the guise of righteousness and assume "the right to question and to demand
answers, the right to judge and condemn, and the right to pardon and show
mercy." It is in the end an attempt to usurp the wellsprings of legitimacy. Do
you hold it to be self-evident that you have the right "to assume among the
Powers of the Earth" a separate and equal station? That's being a rogue nation.
Do you presume that "that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain unalienable Rights". That is not in the Koran. It is
illegitimate and utterly intolerant to impose such a view upon anyone, even upon
yourselves.

Throwing Kofi to the Dogs

Glenn
Reynolds links to a

Democratic Leadership Council article calling for Kofi Annan's resignation.
It has to be done they argue, for the good of the United Nations.

Unfortunately, the United Nations' credibility has been steadily eroded by
its own misdeeds, with a burgeoning scandal over its incompetent and sometimes
corrupt management of the Iraq oil-for-food program being the most damaging
example. .... But mismanagement, corruption, and manipulation of the program
by Saddam Hussein allowed his regime to amass at least $21 billion outside of
the United Nations' control, with the great bulk of that sum -- $17.3 billion
-- pilfered between 1997 and 2003 on the secretary general's watch. In effect,
the United Nations colluded in Saddam's successful evasion of U.N. sanctions.
The most damning charge so far -- that a former chief of the oil-for-food
program, Benon Sevan, accepted bribes from Saddam's regime -- was made in
October by former U.N. weapons inspector Charles A. Duelfer, who led a Senate
investigation into the scandal.

This recital of Oil-for-Food sleaze, which is old news to many in the
blogosphere, lays the premise for the following conclusion: Kofi must go so the
UN can stay.

As we argued last week, one of America's most urgent foreign policy needs
is to retool international organizations and traditional alliances to provide
collective security against the global threat of jihadist terrorism. The
United Nations can and should be a central part of this new collective
security system, but only if the organization is systematically reformed
to serve that purpose.

This is a non-sequitur if ever there was one. Kofi Annan's accession to the
post was greeted with relief by those who felt he would be an improvement on
Boutros Boutros Ghali. In the beginning Boutros Ghali had to leave and Kofi
Annan had to be admitted so that the United Nations could be saved.

PBS recalls:

In November 1996, Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali�s bid for
reappointment was vetoed by the United States. Clinton officials said that the
secretary-general was not as focused on reform as they deemed necessary. They
said it would be hard to persuade a Republican-led Congress to pay off
America�s $1.45 billion in unpaid U.N. dues as long as Boutros-Ghali was at
the helm. Because it is an informal tradition that a region of the world gets
two terms as secretary-general, the Organization of African Unity had a short
time to suggest candidate. After weeks of rancorous debate among the Security
Council members, the U.N. General Assembly agreed upon Kofi Annan as
Boutros-Ghali's replacement.

Annan was the the product and not the originator of a dysfunctional
organization. This account of Annan's contest against his rival Amara Essy,
described on a

University of Connecticut website exudes something of the flavor of
Byzantium.

In office, Boutros-Ghali proved to be an assertive, sometimes acerbic
secretary-general who often rankled some members, especially the United
States. President Clinton branded the secretary-general as ineffective and
claimed that if he remained, it would be impossible to persuade Congress to
appropriate funds for the UN. For these and other reasons, Washington, in
effect, vetoed a second tern for Boutros-Ghali.

Since most recent secretaries-general have served two terms, the African
countries felt that it was still their "turn," and the names of potential
African candidates began to circulate. The process in the Security Council
involved a search for consensus that Italy's representative likened to
selecting a pope. The only difference, said the ambassador, was that in the UN
"if you stare at the ceiling, there are no frescoes by Michelangelo to inspire
you." In a series of straw votes, two names emerged: Kofi Annan, a career UN
diplomat from Ghana, and Amara Essy, the foreign minister of the Ivory Coast.
Annan was favored by the United States. He had a reputation as a capable and
moderate diplomat and administrator, and his personal history (a B.A. degree
in economics from Macalaster College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and a master's
degree in management from MIT) helped assuage Washington's concern that a
secretary-general from black Africa might prove too radical. Annan is married
to Nane Lagergren, a Swedish lawyer, who is a niece of Raoul Wallenberg, the
heroic Swedish diplomat noted for trying to save Jewish lives during World War
II.

France was the primary supporter of Essy, based on the fact that he spoke
fluent French (but only halting English), had earned his law degree from
Poitiers University in France, and came from a former French colony. The
French threatened initially to veto Annan, but the American and British
indicated they would veto Essy. In the end, with Annan clearly ahead in the
straw votes, and given that he speaks at least some French, France gave way.

Annan was not a rogue UN bureaucrat, as Benon Sevan proves. He is perfectly
representative of the system. It may be argued that certain Great Powers on the
Security Council were the true ringleaders of the secret rearmament of Saddam;
it may even be conceded that the United States was a willing participant in the
wheeling and dealing that constructed the labyrinthine palace on the East River.
But it cannot be maintained, as the Democratic Leadership Council does that
"America's most urgent foreign policy needs is to retool international
organizations and traditional alliances to provide collective security against
the global threat of jihadist terrorism. The United Nations can and should be a
central part of this new collective security system". Corruption at the United
Nations was only tolerable for so long as it did nothing of consequence. But
making it the central plank of international security would be tantamount to
swallowing a box of razor blades and washing it down with sulfuric acid. The UN:
into playschool or into the East River.

The Worm Orobouros

The indispensable
Glenn
Reynolds links to breaking aspects of the UN story. The first of course, is
the DLC's reduction of their initial demand that Kofi Annan resign to merely
stepping aside -- recusing himself in effect, from any participation in the
Oil-for-Food investigation -- which should be a given anyway.  But the
stress gauge continued to creep up when Human Rights Watch announced the
obvious, that the
UN
Human Rights Committee is dominated by a choice cast of villains; that the
fox is charge of the henhouse.

Groups such as Human Rights Watch have been complaining about the U.N.
commission's membership problem for years. The focus of the abusive
governments on the commission, Human Rights Watch warns, is on "minimizing the
exposure of their own human rights record rather than on stigmatizing the
worst human rights violations in the world and devising methods to bring about
effective responses to these abuses." ... No one would suggest seating
Jean-Claude Duvalier and Gen. Augusto Pinochet on the International Criminal
Court, so why put the countries that are their equivalents on the U.N.'s main
human rights body?

Why? Because it's the UN, a place where the normal laws of gravity are
inverted, everyone is immune from everything, where nothing works yet everything
is beyond reproach. That's why. Having grasped that one essential fact it is
necessary to accept the corollary. Neither the departure of Kofi Annan nor his
replacement will alter the strange physics of the place which arises from the
first-class funding of third-rate causes of the worst possible sort. If that is
the definition of Oil-for-Food it is also the definition of the United Nations.

One of the shadow costs of an obsession with the United Nations is the
preemptive dismissal of diplomatic structures which have historically worked.
The recent crisis in the Ukraine was resolved without the United Nations.
Someone may eventually remember that the diplomatic structures which defeated
Hitler predated the UN. When one considers the diplomatic record of the 20th
century the really striking thing is how little of consequence took place under
the Baby Blue flag. Of the 50 odd wars that took place after 1945, including
such humdingers as the Iraq-Iran War, the Chinese-Indian confrontations, the
invasion of Tibet, etc. only two -- Korea 1950 and Kuwait 1991 -- were
successfully met by collective UN action. To a large extent the UN's case for
its own existence is its own existence. It's a circular argument and the
strongest one it has.

The March to the Sea

The Strategy
Page describes the futile efforts of a minority to terrorize a majority now
risen to power. The Sunni insurgency is attempting to play its last card by
starting a civil war in Iraq without success.

Sunni Arab antigovernment and al Qaeda gunmen now make no secret of their
desire to trigger a religious and ethnic based civil war in Iraq. Attacks on
Kurds (who are not Arabs) and Shia Arabs (who practice the form of Islam
prevalent in neighboring Iran) are increasing. ... There are two reasons why
the civil war has not broken out yet. First, the Sunni Arab gunmen represent a
minority in the Sunni Arab community. ... One thing that makes the current
situation different than the Lebanese civil war of 1975-90, is that the Sunni
Arabs are not united to fight anyone. The antigovernment forces represent
several factions, and many other larger factions want no part of a civil war.

This illuminates the second reason for no civil war; the Sunni Arabs are
vastly outnumbered and likely to get quickly smashed. This is made worse by
the fact that 80 percent of the population (the Kurds and Shia Arabs) would
like to see the Sunni Arabs "punished" for generations of tyranny.
Most Sunni Arabs understand this, but the minority who continue to murder and
molest Shia Arabs and Kurds spend most of their efforts on terrorizing their
fellow Sunni Arabs.

What the insurgency has done is remove the old Sunni chieftains from the
field leaving it clear for those they formerly terrorized. An MSNBC
article describes that while Sunni insurgents have forbidden participation in
the elections their voice no longer carries the power of command.

As Iraq's first nationwide elections in more than a generation near, Hamra
and other Shiite clergy, perhaps the country's most powerful institution, have
led an unprecedented mobilization of the Shiite majority population through a
vast array of mosques, community centers, foundations and networks of hundreds
of prayer leaders, students and allied laypeople. The campaign has become so
pitched that many Iraqis may have a better idea of Sistani's view of the
election than what the election itself will decide. The momentum they have
created has made a delay in the ballot difficult, if not impossible. Voters
will choose a 275-member National Assembly, but powerful groups within Iraq's
Sunni Muslim minority are boycotting the election or have called for a
postponement so that they can bring calm to restive Sunni regions where
insurgents have threatened to attack those taking part. ...

"Who wants to boycott, let them boycott, but the elections will happen
regardless," said Hamra, sitting in an office with white walls bare but
for a portrait of Sistani reading the Koran.

On December
3 a suicide car bomb blew up a Shi'ite mosque in Baghdad in an effort to
reassert dominance but it merely increased scorn for the insurgents. The Financial
Times found a curiously passive way to say the unsayable: that maybe some
Shi'ites are joining forces with the government and America against the
insurgents. For now at least

When bombers -- accused of being Sunni insurgents -- struck at Shia holy
sites in August 2003 and February 2004, many Shia clerics saved their
strongest criticism for the coalition authorities, who they said had failed to
protect them from attack. However, insurgent threats against forthcoming
elections, which have been strongly endorsed by senior Shia scholars such as
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, may be breaking down the clergy's resolve to
stay aloof. ...

A black-turbaned Shia cleric drove through the streets of the southern
Baghdad district of al-Amel on Saturday, carrying a loudspeaker and mocking
the insurgents who scrawled anti-election slogans on the neighbourhood's
walls. "Let those who wrote this show their faces, if they are men,"
residents quoted him as saying, as two dozen armed supporters followed his
motorcade on foot, painting over graffiti that threatened to "cut off the
heads" of voters. "Come and vote," the cleric said to
passersby. "We will protect you." ...

Dozens of Shia, from clergy to army and National Guard recruits, have been
killed by Sunni ultra-puritans while driving through Latifiya. Two weeks ago,
a dele-gation of tribesmen from Basra calling themselves the "Brigades of
Anger" approached Mr Sistani, asking him for permission to launch
reprisals in Latifiya, says Sheikh Musa al-Musawy, a representative of the
Grand Ayatollah in Baghdad. Mr Sistani refused them his blessing. "The
government will deal with this problem, and the law will take its
course," he reportedly said.

The Iraqi Government found the strongest possible terms, borrowing
unconsciously from a
cult horror classic, to assure the nation that they would not waver nor
yield in the face of terror -- and those words were spoken by a Sunni.

As the powerful, mainly Sunni tribe led by Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawar's
uncle rallied behind an electoral bloc formed by leaders of the long oppressed
Shi'ite majority, Yawar urged people not to identify the insurgency with the
Sunni cause. Speaking after a particularly bloody few days in which more than
70 people have been killed, Yawar said: "Right now, we're faced with the
armies of darkness, who have no objective but to undermine the political
process and incite civil war in Iraq.

"But I want to assure the whole world that this will never, ever
happen... After all these sacrifices, there's no way on earth that we will let
it go in vain," said Yawar, who holds a largely figurehead position in
the administration set up in June to take over responsibility from the
U.S.-led occupation forces.

But words are in the end sustained by action. John Burns of the New
York Times recounts that for the Marines, providing security for the
elections means pursuing an enemy fleeing upon his own ground.

For marines staging a night raid on suspected rebel hide-outs across this
insurgent heartland outside Baghdad, heading out of their heavily fortified
base at midnight on Friday was a moment to make sinews stiffen. In the 10
weeks since their battalion began operating in this area south of Baghdad,
raids like this one by Strike Force Two have captured more than 250 people
identified as suspected insurgents. Others, fleeing or resisting, have been
killed. The raids have taken an American toll, too. Since late September, the
Second Battalion of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit has lost eight men.

The primary mission of the 2/24 battalion, a Chicago-based Reserve force of
1,200 troops, is to destroy a network of insurgent cells that United States
military intelligence has identified as the nerve center of the Sunni
insurgency in central Iraq. ... The focus of the marines' attention has been
on two powerful tribal families, the Janabis and the Kargoulis, feudal
overlords of much of the land between the rivers that the 2/24 marines now
patrol. Under Mr. Hussein, the Janabis and the Kargoulis were richly rewarded.
Their area was the base for Republican Guard units, munitions factories,
weapons research establishments and battlefield testing grounds, as well as a
host of new industrial plants and depots. After the Persian Gulf war in 1991,
when a Shiite uprising across southern Iraq was met with brutal repression,
parts of the area around Mahmudiya, Latifiya and Iskandariya, where Sunnis and
Shiites mixed were subjected to a form of ethnic cleansing, with Shiites of
military age rounded up and shot and their houses bulldozed to make way for
new Sunni homes. ...

The marines have fought pitched battles, including one on Nov. 12 at Mullah
Fayyad, west of Yusufiya, that began with an insurgent ambush and developed
into a fight that lasted more than four hours. Lt. Col. Mark A. Smith, the
2/24's commander, said the rebels were trying to open lines of retreat from
Falluja. "This is where the leadership of the insurgency have always
lived, and now that they can't be in Falluja, they've got to come home,"
he said. "But our rule is, 'You ain't comin' home.' "

It was, for the chieftains, a long fall from Babylon. Twenty
years before Saddam Hussein had set himself the task of rebuilding the
storied city as a capital commensurate to his glory.

When Saddam Hussein rose to power in Iraq, he conceived a grandiose scheme
to rebuild the ancient City of Babylon ...Adjacent to Nebuchadnezzar's ancient
palace and overlooking the Euphrates River, Saddam Hussein built a new palace
for himself. Shaped like a ziggurat (stepped pyramid), Saddam's Babylonian
palace is a monstrous hill-top fortress surrounded by miniature palm trees and
rose gardens. The four-storey palace extends across an area as large as five
football fields. Villagers told news media that a thousand people were
evacuated to make way for this emblem of Saddam Hussein's power.

On the ceilings and walls of Saddam's palace, 360-degree murals depicted
scenes from ancient Babylon, Ur, and the Tower of Babel. In the cathedral-like
entryway, an enormous chandelier hung from a wooden canopy carved to resemble
a palm tree. In the bathrooms, the plumbing fixtures appeared to be
gold-plated. Throughout Saddam Hussein's palace, pediments were engraved with
the ruler's initials, "SdH."

It would be sad if it weren't so grotesque.