A Foreign Office official has said that the UN should not impose sanctions on Sudan:

“[They] must remain an option but … there is a danger that the albeit limited cooperation that Sudanese government has offered so far would be withdrawn if the international community failed to acknowledge the small things that have changed for the better.”

Is that the main danger that the Foreign Office fears? For over a decade, the Islamist government in Sudan has been waging a genocidal campaign against Christians and black Africans. They are not doing this by mistake. They do not just have lax security, they are actively sponsoring mass murder.

And the Foreign Office wants the free, powerful nations of the world to back off for fear that the vicious tyrannical thugs might undo even the “small things that have changed for the better”? Is that all that the future victims of genocide can expect from the West? is that all we are good for?

Vicious tyrannical thugs do not lightly abandon attempts to destroy those whom they see as their enemies or their rightful prey. Even now they will not admit that they are responsible for the current crisis. Why are they now even slightly less uncooperative than in the past? It is not because of any sudden access of good will, either to their victims or to the West. It is solely because they rightly perceive that the US is now starting to pay attention to them and they are afraid, as they ought to be. If the West is to make the Sudanese government disarm the militias and cease their totalitarian violence, we must openly threaten them. Sanctions would be a start. Begging them not to undo even the few cosmetic concessions they have so far made would not.

Hurray!

The US space agency NASA has awarded military and space contractor Northrop Grumman a $400m contract to co-design its Jimo space probe to Jupiter.

And it will be powered by a real nuclear reactor, at last.

What took them so long? Faster, please.

We are no fans of President Putin – far from it – nor apologists for his handling of the Chechnya issue. But…

There are no ’moderate’ leaders seeking Chechen independence.

If there were, then following the recent mass murder of Russian children and others, to which a Chechen terrorist leader has confessed, the moderate leaders would have done much more than issue meaningless condemnations which do nothing but insult the dead and the bereaved. They would have declared:

• That they are diverting all their resources to the capture and/or punishment of those who sent the perpetrators;

• That they will not rest until all terrorist organisations based in Chechnya are eradicated;

• That they offer to cooperate with the Russian authorities in every possible way to achieve that;

• And that their claim for independence has been put on hold until that is achieved.

Since none of them have done this, we have to conclude that the cause of Chechen independence is not legitimate.

Tax Evasion. Illegal Possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction. At first glance these two crimes may not appear to have much in common, but they share a significant attribute: they are both considered serious crimes by the authorities in the United States, but are more or less condoned by many people.

The reason why the authorities consider both these crimes to be serious may be the same: they are both relatively easy to prove by courtroom standards, and they are both often committed by people who also commit crimes which are far more serious by any standards, yet also far harder to prove.

Al Capone, the notorious prohibition-era gangster, committed many crimes, of which the most serious was mass murder and perhaps the least serious was tax evasion. Yet he was prosecuted only for tax evasion. That is because it could be proved in court, not because anybody believed that this was an adequate or representative summary of his crimes.

Saddam Hussein is likewise a gangster and mass murderer – though on a scale that makes Capone look benevolent by comparison – and a torturer, thief and … an illegal owner of WMDs. Consider also Slobodan Milosevic: somewhere between the two, he has been charged with Genocide, the most serious of all crimes – but even as we write this he is locked in a Byzantine legal process that may well fail to find him guilty simply because of the inherent difficulty of proving the charges.

And so after 9/11, when the safety of the world became a clear issue in our minds, and Saddam's malevolent influence on regional and world affairs became intolerable, we found ourselves casting around among his many crimes for one that would be easy to prove at the quasi-legal court of the UN Security Council. Ironically we chose one which, for reasons that have yet to be satisfactorily explained, he appears to have been innocent (at the time we happened to catch him): possession of WMDs.

If Al Capone had been found not guilty of tax evasion for lack of evidence, would that have made the war against organised crime unjust? Would the media have proclaimed that it would have been better if Capone had been left alone? That the US government should apologise for 'lying' about the tax evasion? Of course not, because it was beyond doubt that he was as guilty as sin of a multitude of crimes, any one of which justified pursuing him, capturing him, and putting an end to his power.

[Note: For a summary of Ra^thergate so far, see here.]

What do CBS and suicide bombers have in common? They have each taken their chosen form of political intervention to its appalling and self-destructive logical conclusion, and have thereby, as PowerLine very perceptively points out, changed the world in somewhat analogous ways:

Before September 11, important aspects of our security arrangements were based on the assumption that people, even terrorists, want to live. For example, airlines followed the rule that if a passenger's bags were checked but the person failed to appear for the flight, his bags would be removed from the airplane. The idea was that a bomb could have been planted in the luggage. But as long as the passenger was on the airplane, it was assumed that his bags were safe, since no one -- it was thought -- would blow up an airplane with himself on it. After September 11, security arrangements were changed to take into account the new reality (or newly recognized reality) of the suicide bomber.

When he defended CBS's publication of forged documents, Dan Rather spoke of the "checks and balances" that ensure the reliability of news coming from CBS, as opposed to news and commentary from the blogosphere. What are those checks and balances? Ultimately, the main check on the danger that a powerful media giant like CBS might abuse its position of trust by deliberately propagating falsehoods is the assumption that the network values its reputation for accuracy and trustworthiness. In the past, most people have assumed that while broadcast networks, wire services like the Associated Press, and newspapers will occasionally make mistakes, and will certainly spin the news consistent with their political biases, concern for their reputation in the marketplace, and even more among their peers, would prevent them from spreading outright falsehoods.

In the wake of the CBS scandal, that assumption must be reevaluated.

Yes. But also, given this and many other recent scandals with a similar aetiology, we have to doubt that newspapers and television networks ever deserved the trust that was placed in them. We may well be witnessing a significant moment in the history of news media: a radical restructuring of patterns of criticism and authentication into a decentralised and non-authoritarian form.

This is not (as some have said) the end of the traditional news media. Quite the contrary, for just as Karl Popper said that the point of politics is not ‘who should rule’ but how bad rulers and bad policies can be replaced, so the point of (news-oriented) blogs is not to replace news organisations: it is to cause bad stories and bad reporters to be replaced. Which is to the benefit of everyone, traditional news media included.

We expect that among these benefits will eventually be the destruction of the culture of manipulation and left-wing paternalism in the traditional media, which has done so much harm (as well as some occasional good, by the way) over so many decades. But we also hope that that will be only the beginning. Who knows what the first ever society with deservedly high-reputation news media will be like?

The twentieth century's greatest philosopher of freedom and reason, Sir Karl Popper, regarded the ‘alleged right of nations to self-determination’ as a catastrophic error. In one of his last speeches, in Prague in 1994, he said

I think that all lovers of peace and a civilized life should work to enlighten the world about the impracticability and inhumanity of that famous – or shall I say notorious? – Principle of National Self-Determination, which now has degenerated into that ultimate horror, ethnic terrorism.

We must fight against such horrors.

It does not follow from this that all secessionist (or unionist) movements are immoral. It is just that the issue of how territory should be divided up into states must never be decided on the basis of the ‘rights’ of nations (or states, or races, or religions…), whether to self-determination or anything else, nor in terms of an alleged right of individuals to be ruled by members of ‘their own’ group. Claims to sovereignty must be independently justified, and for all the usual conservative reasons, the burden of justification falls on whoever wants to change the status quo. And the only legitimate consideration is:

• What do the claimants intend to do with the sovereignty, once they have it?

Thus, if a faction wants sovereignty because they would repeal bad laws and pass good ones, and the existing political tradition is incapable of doing that, then their claim is, prima facie, justified.

But if they want sovereignty because they don't like the colour of the people currently in the government, then they have no case. If they want sovereignty because it would give them a monopoly on the revenue from a certain canal, or certain natural resources, then again, they have no case. If they want to repeal good laws and pass bad ones, then they certainly have no case. It may sometimes be best to let them make their own mistakes – which always means, in practice, tyrannising those among them who are not party to the mistake – but that is not because they have a right to do so.

Furthermore, even an entirely justified secessionist or unionist movement is not entitled to use violence unless their reason for wanting sovereignty is that it is the only way to protect the lives or other rights of the people they represent. Violence is legitimate only in defence of human rights. Political independence is not a human right, and therefore cannot justify violence.

If there is one respect in which President Bush is not serious about the war, it is his support for an irrational and divisive Constitutional amendment preventing States from legalising gay marriage.

If there is one respect in which the Log Cabin Republicans and Andrew Sullivan are not serious about the war, it is their belief that the issue of gay marriage should be a factor in a reasonable voter's choice for President in the forthcoming election.

Regular readers will know that we consider the prevalence of conspiracy theories, both in the West and among its enemies, to be a major and grossly under-recognised cause of the current world crisis.

We have also remarked that the real alliances, the real loyalties and the real conflicts in world affairs are not between states, nations or religions, but between subcultures defined not only by their values, but also by how they think the world works. This has always been true, but it is especially true of the current war.

Much has been written about the deficiencies of the term 'War on Terrorism'. Terrorism is a method not an enemy. And yet the alternative names that have been proposed – such as the War Against Islamism – are equally inaccurate. The Maoist terrorists of Nepal are not Islamists. Nor are the rulers of North Korea.

Putting all these ideas together, we have come to the conclusion that the only accurate term for the current war is The War Against Conspiracy Theories. It is a war between conspiracy-theory-based subcultures and those based on truth and reason. It is a war between those who judge 'narratives' according whom they validate, and those who seek explanations that correspond to reality. Every perpetrator of violence against the West (or against Americans, or Jews, or even Christians) today is possessed by an utterly false causal explanation of how the West works and what the West is. Every other person, however well-meaning, who gives credence to such an explanation is in some measure an ally of those murderers.

In a recent opinion poll, nearly half of New Yorkers said that people in the United States Government “knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act”. Everyone reading this must know people whose political thinking is similarly tainted by, if not utterly based on, conspiracy theories at least as insane as that. Go out and persuade them. Persuade them not only that their particular conspiracy theory doesn't make sense but that the underlying world view isn't true. That it is no more than a nasty little fantasy that is hurting and crippling them even as it offers them the specious simplicity and comfort of blaming others. That the world is better than that and that if they choose to, they can be part of its improving further. Persuade them because in the long run, if you fail to persuade them, they will kill you.

Two French journalists have been kidnapped in Iraq by terrorists who are threatening to kill them if France does not repeal its new law banning Islamic headscraves (and all other conspicuous religious symbols) from state schools.

The people of France are at a loss to understand this development. They are “baffled”…

by the fact that the country's citizens should have been targeted by Iraqi militants, given France's vocal opposition to the US-led invasion of Iraq.

French President Jacques Chirac appealed to the kidnappers to release the journalists, using the following argument:

“France ensures equality, the respect and protection of the free practising of all religions,” he said.

“These values of respect and tolerance inspire our actions everywhere in the world”

Are these the very values that also motivate the terrorists?

We guess that what's really happening is that Chirac is hoping to buy the journalists' lives with a large ransom payment, as others have done. If this succeeds, the sophisticated French will yet again become sponsors and collaborators in terrorism. They have infinite faith that by sacrificing others they will persuade the crocodile to devour them last. But shouldn't these very events be causing them to question that faith? Isn't it time for them to stop being baffled?

HonestReporting says that some news media have begun to use the word ‘terrorism’ when referring to terrorism against Israel.

Other agencies, alas, continue to use that term only when the victims are not Israelis. HonestReporting provides a handy list of the e-mail addresses where you can complain to those agencies. We agree with HonestReporting that biases such as these are not just an irritation. They have an effect on public opinion.

A committee of MPs, the Environmental Audit Committee have declared that the government ought to raise petrol taxes. Their stated reason is that otherwise people will keep using petrol at a rate that is incompatible with satisfying the demands of the Kyoto Protocol. First, we can't help but note that the only way they can think of to persuade people to do what they think will save the world is through coercion in the form of taxation. They themselves were persuaded by reason and motivated by benevolence, but neither of those qualities exists outside Westminster, apparently. However, that is a rather commonplace fetish among MPs. Their use of the Kyoto Protocol as an excuse is a little more florid.

Even if everybody had implemented the Kyoto Protocol it would have cost several trillion dollars and delivered nothing. And the United States and (probably) Russia have not signed up to it. So the Kyoto Protocol is dead and good riddance.

So why does the Committee insist on the price rise? Because it conforms to a little fantasy in their minds. It goes like this. The common folk are stupid or wicked enough to think it's okay to use their cars when doing so will actually destroy the world. But wait! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's the Environmental Audit Committee! They've come to save us by raising fuel taxes and so reducing petrol usage by several percent – hooray! Quick, let's give them a ticker-tape parade through the heart of London! And if they fail, well, at least they fought the good fight against the evil oil companies, motorists, President Bush, and other agents of destruction.

If they do succeed, their fantasy is going to be damned expensive to indulge.

InstaPundit peeks into a parallel universe and finds a John Kerry whom we would probably support for the Presidency. Whether that universe is really as close to ours as Glenn Reynolds thinks, is doubtful, unfortunately. The trouble is not only that Kerry doesn't get it, it's that the Democratic Party, and much of its constituency, have gone on a long long journey into fantasy land.

Further to our recent items here and here, we invite you to vote in our new poll.

We said recently that we were not yet ready to venture an opinion on whether John Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia story was in essence true. Now Senator Kerry has explained the basis on which he wants us to form that opinion:

Speaking of the organization airing the ads that challenge his war record, Kerry said, “Of course, this group isn't interested in the truth and they're not telling the truth. …

“But here's what you really need to know about them. They're funded by hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Republican contributor out of Texas. They're a front for the Bush campaign. And the fact that the President won't denounce what they're up to tells you everything you need to know.”

Some might say that that is all you really need to know. We disagree. The fact that the Senator is being evasive, petulant and paternalistic does not prove that he is a liar.

Islamist conspiracy theories act as the ideological fuel for the actions of many terrorist groups and their supporters, but not all. Anti-capitalism is another major conspiracy theory. It is behind the actions of Maoist terrorists in Nepal. Their conspiracy theory holds that economically successful people are responsible (in some never-quite-specified way) for all of the world's ills. Their “solution” is to use violence to impose a communist dictatorship in Nepal, whereupon they will kill all the rich people, thus making everything turn out for the best.

The Nepalese government is pursuing an ominously ill-conceived “peace process” with these terrorists. Naturally the BBC supports this because “there is a real concern that Washington is nourishing the belief that this war is winnable”, and that would never do. As everyone knows, the only winnable wars are those against America and/or its values.

The difference between this and, say, the Palestinian-Israeli peace process is that there is nothing to negotiate about. It is one thing to say that the Palestinians can have a state if they cease to support terrorism and negotiate about borders, but no civilised country can support any measure of communist tyranny. The only peace terms that the Nepalese government should offer are that the terrorist movement must be disbanded and the future of the country decided by politics not revolutionary violence.

He suggests a quip. Brilliant!

[Note: Readers who had no interest in politics in 1988 should look here first for one of the great put-downs. Readers who are unaware that the John Kerry campaign have just, embarrassingly, mistaken their candidate for a different Senator, Bob Kerrey, look here.]

If you're unaware of the story, blame (and change) your current sources of news, and look, for instance, here. In short, the Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry has said many times, including in a speech on the floor of the Senate in 1986, that he spent Christmas 1968 in Cambodia while the then-President was denying that there were any US troops there. It has emerged that this cannot be true, but most of the mainstream media, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, have yet to mention the controversy. The Kerry campaign is saying that although Kerry made a mistake about the details, something substantially like that did indeed happen.

We are not yet ready to venture an opinion about whether it did or not, but we have two questions. First: why is no one asking Kerry the question: ‘who ordered you into Cambodia?’ Kerry's commanding officer at the time denies that there were any such missions. And second: why does a substantial segment of opinion well understand, when Kerry allegedly does it, that saying what one believes to be true cannot be lying, but when Bush allegedly does it they become as thick as two planks?

Update: Check out Solomonia's take on this as well.

With the world's attention focused via the Olympic Games on Greek civilisation, the Simon Wiesental Center has taken the opportunity to do its job as the ghost at the feast.

When renowned "Zorba" composer Mikis Theodorakis described Jews as "the root of evil," Culture Minister Evangelos Venizelos and Education Minister Petros Efthymiou stood beside him, smiling, at a book signing ceremony heavily covered by the Greek media. Not too long ago, Giorgos Karatzafer, leader of the extreme right Popular Orthodox Party, used the party-owned Piraeus television station to denounce Greek politicians with "Jewish origins" and to claim, "Jews were behind the 9/11 attacks."

[…]

Earlier dialogue between senior Greek diplomats and Wiesenthal Center officials from New York to Berlin has been met with largely empty promises.

And so the Center invites us all to sign a protest addressed to Karamanlis, urging him to “take prompt and vigorous steps to denounce and contain antisemitism and other expressions of hate”.

Well, what are you waiting for?

The impending US Presidential election and the recent terror alerts have caused many commentators to speculate about which of the candidates Al Quaeda would prefer. Bush's supporters tend to conclude that Kerry is Al Quaeda's candidate, because he has no idea what the war is about and might therefore be expected to pursue it less effectively. Kerry's supporters say that Al Quaeda wants Bush to win, because, by fighting without the approval of France and Germany, he is increasing the rage and alienation of Muslims everywhere and thus assisting terrorist recruitment.

Both these theories are false. They both make the fundamental mistake of assuming that Al Quaeda has a strategy. It does not. It merely has a fantasy ideology. Yes, Al Quaeda and its countless supporters are all yearning for a mega-attack on Americans before the election. Yes, they yearn to ‘have an effect’ on that election. But there is no such thing as ‘the effect that they want’ – or, to put that another way, provided that an attack causes death and pain and fear, there is no such thing, to them, as its not having had the desired effect. If they succeed in perpetrating such an attack, then whatever the outcome of the election, it will immediately go on their hallowed list of anti-American successes. And as they strut and bluster and celebrate, they will pick one of the two rationales mentioned above (they can always change it again later if circumstances dictate), and say that it was theirs.

Prozac has been found in our drinking water. Norman Baker MP, Liberal Democrat shadow environment secretary, can't have been drinking much water lately because he seems very upset:

Mr Baker said: “This looks like a case of hidden mass medication of the unsuspecting public and is potentially a very worrying health issue...

“It is alarming that there is no monitoring of levels of Prozac and other pharmacy residues in our drinking water...”

We have bad news for Mr Baker: water isn't perfectly clean and it never will be. Even the freshest mountain stream contains traces of the EU's dreaded nitrates, from thunderstorms – and is quite frighteningly open to anything that might happen to fall into it out of a bird overhead. Enclose all mountain streams in hygienic plastic pipes, we say! The more chemicals you want to take out of the water, the more money it costs, and there is a limit to how much you can spend before it becomes harmful to divert any more money from other goods. Nor is it alarming that the government doesn't look for Prozac in our drinking water, because there is no reason to think that it will be there in toxic levels. Looking would be a waste of money.

However, we expect that Mr Baker's attempts to make a molehill into the Matterhorn will continue because he, like many other environmentalists, suffers from such a deficiency of proportion and perspective that no conceivable level of precaution would satisfy him and no amount of Prozac-laced drinking water would calm him.