Myanmar Government critics honoured

A recent story out of Myanmar indicates democracy and free speech, while under considerable pressure, is not yet dead in that troubled country.

7Day News, one of the few publications that has not buckled to the Government’s will, held an award ceremony in which it honoured a whistle-blower and a former policeman who refused to perjure himself in court to please his superior officers.

Soe Thura Zaw (pictured) took to Facebook to expose a Public Service training course which he described as a ‘brainwashing’ exercise in which participants were bombarded with nationalist and military propaganda.

His post was shared thousands of times and led to calls for the courses to be scrapped.

Moe Yan Naing took to the stand in the court where Reuters journalists Kyaw Soe Oo and Wa Lone were charged with violating the country’s Official Secrets Act. The officer was expected to repeat the prosecution line that the two had stolen State secrets.

Instead he confirmed the journalists’ defence that they had been set up and deliberately entrapped when undercover officers handed them documents, then arrested them as they were leaving the meeting.

Both Soe Thura Zaw and Moe Yan Naing faced State retribution for their courageous acts.

Soe Thura Zaw was hauled before the Civil Service Board which reported his action to his employer at the Department of Health.

Moe Yan Naing lost his job in the police force and was jailed for a year.

The awards recognise “ordinary people who have displayed extraordinary acts of courage” and those who have spent “long careers making personal sacrifices for the sake of others”. 

There is much that is wrong in Myanmar, a lot of it down to an alliance between ultra-nationalist Buddhist monks and the military which has allowed the systemic persecution of the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority to continue unchecked.

Most ordinary citizens are oblivious of the extent of the atrocities and believe the Government propaganda that the military is dealing with a dangerous insurgency.

However, the fact that the newspaper’s awards have taken place, and are prepared to honour individuals who have proved to be no friends of the Government, is a confirmation that the freedom to dissent in Myanmar, however fragile, struggles on.

Time to hand Brexit back to the people

At the time of writing it seems the most likely outcome of this week’s Brexit votes in the United Kingdom Parliament will be to postpone the March 29 deadline for leaving the European Union.

It is futile simply to kick the Brexit can down the road. This hugely damaging debate is tearing the nation apart — town against country, young against old, families have turned on each other.

Among my friends are two brothers, once close, who have not spoken to each other for more than two years because they are on opposite sides of this issue.

It is easy to look back at the events of July 2016 and see how things could have been handled better.

Had then Prime Minister David Cameron decided that such a crucial move as leaving the EU should be decided only by near consensus — a three fifths or two thirds majority in favour rather than the simple majority that divided the nation almost down the middle.

It was Cameron’s hubris; his belief that the vote to Remain would be overwhelming, that has led to the current disaster. That and the fact he was succeeded by Theresa May, who believes blinkered stubbornness to see ‘her’ Brexit succeed is a virtue.     

It should be remembered that the Conservatives were one very firmly ‘the party of Europe’ at a time when its senior members either fought in or had vivid memories of the chaos of a World War II brought about by rampant nationalism running out of control.

The change began when leaders like Winston Churchill, Harold Macmillan and Edward Heath left the scene to be replaced by those who believed that the peace and prosperity created by the Treaty of Rome was no big deal and would have happened anyway.

Jacob Rees Mogg and his cronies in the European Research Group have even gone so far as to liken the EU to 19^th and 20^th century dictators who tried to unite the continent by force of arms.

They disregard, or do not care, that their beloved Brexit has the potential to succeed where Napoleon and Hitler failed — to bring about the end of the United Kingdom.

A ‘disorderly” or ‘hard’ Brexit will surely lead to Scottish demands for a second referendum on independence, which has a much better chance of success as the pro-EU Scots feel they are being dragged out of union by the English.

And how long before there is a majority in Northern Ireland that realises they have a better European future by joining the Irish Republic?     

The debate over Brexit itself has gone on too long. If Parliament cannot decide this issue, they must hand it back to the people in a second referendum.

If a majority decides after all this they still want to leave, then so be it. History will take its course.

If Remain is the victor, it will result in ardent Brexiteers complaining that Leave has been ‘stolen’, but at least it would be their fellow citizens who stole it.  

A global effort on the way to the stars?

You could be excused for not noticing, but there has been an awful lot going on in outer space these days.

Confrontations in the Middle East, Brexit and the antics of the man in the White House ensure these exciting developments get downgraded in news bulletins and relegated to the inside pages of newspapers.

To recap, the Chinese have landed a probe on the far side of the moon in the first step towards establishing a permanent lunar base; a Japanese probe has touched down on an asteroid and will return bits of it to Earth for analysis, and an Israeli spacecraft is heading for the moon in that country’s first venture of its kind.

Then there’s Russia, India and the European Union with varying space capabilities and projects. Even Australia has announced the creation of a space agency.

Meanwhile the daddy of them all, the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), continues its work with its InSight Lander just beginning and exploration of Mars as the Opportunity Rover completed a 15-year mission on the Red Planet — an incredible feat considering it was originally scheduled to work for just 60 days.

Finally NASA’s New Horizons probe has sent back pictures of the most distant object to be photographed — a snowman-shaped clump of ice and rock 33 kilometres in length and 6.4 billion kilometres from Earth.  

While a US President once inspired a generation with his vision of placing a man on the moon, the contribution of the present incumbent is a call to weaponise space with the creation of an armed space corps — a plan the Pentagon wants no part of and, thankfully, has little chance of being approved by Congress.

Most of the other world leaders look in other directions as the various national agencies concerned with space get on with their jobs as best they can, usually under the continuing threat of funding cutbacks.

There is no doubt that space exploration is a very costly business, and although I was one of millions around the world who thrilled to the moon landings of the 1960s and early 70s, I realise that they came about through the race to be ‘first’ between the US and the Soviet Union, a wasteful exercise in superpower rivalry.

I still believe that space holds a continuing fascination for millions of people, and further explorations are inevitable, but could these be done in a better, less wasteful way?

The key would be a truly international effort with nations contributing their current resources and expertise — no one would probably have to give any more to the field than they do now, but the pooled effort would have the ability to greatly accelerate the push into the cosmos.

With the International Space Station proof of what can be achieved, Luna bases and manned explorations of Mars could be a reality, not at some distant point in the future, but within the next decade.

This may seem like science fiction never to come close to reality in a world currently fraught with a groundswell of nationalist feeling in many countries, but when populism has run its course, and the bankruptcy of its philosophy exposed, the need for international cooperation in so many areas will be overwhelming.

Space exploration may not be high on any one nation’s ‘to-do’ list, but it should never be discounted as an inspiration to people everywhere and an opportunity for humankind to satisfy its noble desire to explore and do things that have never been done before.

Is John Bolton prepared to nuke Iran?

It’s a provocative question, but one that should be asked as United States President Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser is fixated on going to war with the Islamic Republic.

Concern is mounting among a growing number of diplomats around the world including Australian Alison Broinowski who says that once North Korea is out of the way, the cross hairs will shift to Teheran.

“John Bolton wants a war with Iran; I don’t think Trump is fixed on that, but Bolton is,” she says.

His stance goes back at least 12 years when as an adviser to then President George W. Bush Bolton threatened Iran with “tangible and painful consequences”.

Years later and out of office during the Obama presidency he wrote a seething editorial about the need to “bomb Iran” and this month he took the opportunity of the 40^th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution to condemn the country for terrorising its own people and endangering lives around the world.

Reasonable observers might consider this has become something of an obsession, but a dangerous obsession for someone so close to levers of power who has the ear of the President of the United States.

A further danger is Bolton’s belief in the omnipotence of American military might and its ability to implement its will around the world, to the point he is deeply offended when anyone questions it.

He dismisses reversals the US has suffered blaming a failure of past Administrations to use military power to the fullest extent, brought about by pressure from the international community (which he believes should be ignored) and acquiescence to the rulings of international bodies such as the United Nations (which he despises).

After squirming in the wilderness during the Obama years and the early part of the Trump presidency, Bolton believes he now has the opportunity to realise his dream of wiping the Islamic Republic from the map.

Israel, Saudi Arabia and a few Gulf States are ready to cheer him on, but there will be no multi-nation Coalition of the Willing. Not Europe; not Brexit-plagued United Kingdom, and if he raises the subject during his forthcoming visit to Australia he will surely be politely rebuffed.

No matter if most of the world wimps out, allies would only be there for ornamentation, according to the Bolton philosophy. The US would always be doing the heavy lifting.

But just how difficult would a successful invasion and subjugation of Iran be? The Islamic Republic has a population of 81 million, with a land area of more than 1.6 million square kilometres; it is mountainous, with forests and deserts. It has a well-equipped navy, army and airforce with around 900,000 under arms, and up to 11 million more who could be called on to fight at short notice.

Added to this is the deep suspicion, even hatred of the US that goes back far beyond the Islamic Revolution, to the 1953 overthrow of the enormously popular and democratically-elected Mohammad Mosaddegh in a CIA-backed coup that installed the autocratic and increasingly despotic Shah.

Finally, there is the very fact that Iran is governed by a theocracy, and God can be a valuable ally in enlisting support of the populace, especially when the opponent is branded as the Great Satan.

All this suggests that a conventional invasion, even if backed with overwhelming air superiority (which cannot be guaranteed) would probably become bogged down in an unending war of attrition long before it reached Teheran.

Which brings us back to the original question: Would Bolton advocate the use of nuclear weapons as the one certain way of achieving his sacred mission?

We may know the answer sooner than we think.

Hard-liners’ hell on the horizon

European Union President Donald Tusk’s comment that there should be a “special place in hell” for those who are willing to leave the EU without a deal produced  a predictable response from those hard-line Brixiteers in his firing line.

Hard-line, but thin-skinned.

After years of hurling every insult under the sun at Brussels, the delicate flowers in the European Research Group  (ERG) were having fits over getting just a little of it thrown back at them.

Even Prime Minister Theresa May called the comments “outrageous”, causing “widespread dismay” in the United Kingdom.

Bruised feelings and dismay aside, there are very real reasons behind Tusk’s exasperated outburst.

Much has been written about the damage a no-deal Brexit would deliver to the UK. Far less about the problems it will cause across the English Channel.

Having what had been the EU’s second largest economy suddenly cut off behind tariff walls will cause significant disruption throughout Europe. Exports by EU countries to the UK would be halved by one estimate, with German manufacturers hit the hardest.

Because May repeatedly said she was committed to an orderly withdrawal and because, after months of negotiations, a deal was worked out which she accepted as fair, the EU never really considered the possibility of a hard Brexit, and did very little work in anticipation of one.

The overwhelming defeat of the deal in the British Parliament came as a stunning blow to Brussels, where May’s continued dogged insistence that she will deliver Brexit by the March 29 deadline is seen as a willingness to embrace leaving without a deal in place if that is what it takes.

Bureaucrats are aghast at some of the ideas coming out of London to deal with a hard Brexit, such as International Trade Minister Liam Fox’s suggestion of cutting all UK tariffs to zero.

“The man is supposed to be a trade expert; can’t he see what that will do? Every country on earth will be rushing to dump their spare produce onto the UK; one easy way to destroy domestic industry and jobs. He’s crazy,” one fuming bureaucrat said.

There is a growing feeling among more moderate MPs that March 29 will have to be scrapped to give negotiators more time.

Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn has put forward proposals that would gain his party’s support, but they would almost certainly involve remaining in the EU’s Customs Union — something that is anathema to the ERG and many other Brexit-backing MPs.

A second referendum, with the choices of a negotiated deal, no deal or remaining in the EU, is the best way out of this increasingly desperate situation, but it would involve Parliament accepting what is already obvious — that it is hopelessly split and cannot produce an outcome.

It would also come up against May’s massive ego and the ERG, bent on charging over the abyss crying “God for Harry, England, and St George”.

Never has there been a greater need for some sane reflection — but among too many of the UK’s leaders sanity is in short supply.

Meanwhile, the hard-liners’ hell beckons.

Bureaucrat blamed for his evil master

 A case currently going through the courts in Canada has wide-ranging implications for Government employees and their status globally.

Former Iraqi public servant Zaghlol Kassab had his application for permanent residence in Canada rejected by an immigration official. He appealed and a judge ordered his case be reviewed. That is where the matter rests at the moment, but further appeals against Kassab cannot be ruled out.

The reason for the initial refusal was that Kassab had once worked for the former Government of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and therefore was tainted by that regime’s human rights abuses.

Canadian refugee law states that foreign nationals cannot be admitted if they were senior officials in a government engaged in terrorism, human rights violations, genocide or war crimes. The visa officer handling the case obviously considered this applied to Kassab.

However, Kassab (72) was an engineer who worked in the Iraqi Public Service between 1988 and 2000. Most of his duties had to do with maintaining the country’s electricity grid.

Moreover, he claimed that he and his family, devout Catholics, suffered persecution during and after the fall of the Saddam regime, leading to them moving their base to Jordan in 2004 and quitting Iraq altogether 10 years later after what he described as direct threats by armed men.

The judge accepted his explanation and ruled that as an engineer, concerned in the nuts and bolts of running the country, Kassab was never “a senior official” of the Iraqi administration, meriting rejection of his visa application.

This brings the judge into direct opposition to immigration officials who concluded that although Kassab may not have reached the upper echelons of the Iraqi Public Service “one can reasonably conclude that his roles are indicative of a senior official in the top 50 per cent of Iraqi Government Public Service hierarchy during a designated regime period”.

It is now likely the Government will appeal the case which could end up in Canada’s Supreme Court.

At stake here is the essential role public servants play in the administration of countries worldwide and whether their positions should be automatically considered as translating into support and agreement of the actions of the governments they work for.

In most Western democracies it is usually assumed that these officials leave their political opinions at the door of their offices and serve successive governments impartially with ‘frank, free and fearless advice’.  

Obviously this is not the case in many authoritarian and corrupt regimes around the world where slavish support for the government is the only way to gain favours and promotion.

However, even here there are workers needed to keep the power on, the water flowing and the streets safe. In most cases they work away quietly, do their jobs as best they can and keep their heads down.

The US-appointed Governor of Iraq, Paul Bremer, made a terrible mistake when he decided to dismiss 400,000 military and civilian officers in the wake of the 2003 war simply because they had worked for the Saddam regime.

This has been largely blamed for the chaos into which the country was plunged and which continues to this day. It has been argued that Iran would be a more settled, less lawless place today if that decision had not been made.  

There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that Kassab was caught up in any of the atrocities connected with Saddam’s tyrannical rule. In fact it appears he suffered from that persecution.

It is not his supposed ‘seniority’, but the type of work he did that should be the basis for deciding his visa application.      

Decline and fall of the Empire of Ideas

Around AD17 the Emperor Tiberius fixed the northern border of the Roman Empire on the Rhine. There would be no further campaigns of conquest.

Communications were stretched, there was little economic benefit in the gloomy Germanic forests and the tribes which lurked there were too difficult to control.

In AD2018 United States President Donald Trump decided to withdraw his forces from Syria and half of those in Afghanistan, deciding the cost of maintaining them in the fight against Islamic extremism had no economic benefit with no end in sight.

Unlike Rome’s, the US Empire is not a physical one of territory, but of ideas and ideals – summed up by one of the greatest American Presidents as government of the people, for the people and by the people.

This empire opposed the other significant ideologies of the 20^th century — first fascism, where people were subservient to an all-powerful state; then communism with its emphasis on government by an elite of a single political party — and defeated them both.    

For a while it seemed the US Empire of Ideas had triumphed as its traditional enemies crumbled before it, but the borders, while extended were still borders and beyond it new enemies were gathering strength, marshalling under the banner of radical Islam.

Just as Rome’s forward march was halted by the disastrous Teutoburg Forest campaign, The US became bogged down in messy, unending conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan and like Rome, has made the momentous decision they are no longer worth the effort.

To Tiberius, living in the first decades of what is now called the Common Era, the decision would have seemed a no brainer. The empire was vast and prosperous, containing all that was needed for the good life. There was no need to be troubled with a bunch of barbarians living in distant unprofitable lands. Let them keep their miserable forests.

For Trump, elected on an America First platform by voters many of whom are proud to proclaim they have never owned a passport, his decision would have seemed equally logical; why waste the nation’s wealth on endless wars in distant places when a border wall, built for far less cost, could maintain the bountiful land from sea to shining sea?

History is long. The Roman Empire did not collapse for another four centuries after Tiberius’ fateful decision and, in fact, continued to grow in strength for a while, but the seeds of its destruction had been planted, momentum had been lost; its eventual decline inevitable.

Likewise a world without US involvement and leadership is not going to disintegrate overnight. It will even be hailed by those who prefer to concentrate on US failings rather than its achievements.

The hysteria of the 24-hour news cycle may proclaim dissolution and chaos around the corner, but there will probably be no great change in the lifetimes of those reading this article.

Yet the enemies lurking outside the borders will have taken heart from the latest decrees out of Washington, noting them as the first signs of vulnerability. Future historians may well mark 2018 as the date when the long, inexorable decline of the Empire of Ideas began.