Obama’s Second Inaugural Speech: a British Perspective

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It is interesting reading President Obama's speech delivered at his second inauguration today.

Despite being a dual-national Anglo-American myself, despite having studied American Studies for four years at university, and despite having lived there and visited on numerous occasions, this set piece occasion reminds me of how very different America is to Britain, culturally and politically.

I mentioned to friends at dinner this week, who have never been to the United States, that one of the surprises British people often have when they travel there is that they experience unexpected culture shock. Many British people assume America will simply be a bigger, brasher version of the UK. They are often thrown by the profound differences in outlook and mindset that lie beneath the near-common language.

Some of the differences that leap out at me from the President's speech today include:

• his reference to God. British politicians tend not to "do God", or if they do, they are a bit diffident about his involvement in the life of the nation. Rightly or wrongly, Americans by contrast assert that their political system exists to ensure certain "unalienable rights" that are endowed upon them by their Creator. I can't quite see Nick Clegg embracing such a doctrine any time soon. 
• his reference to America's creed. It is quite logical, of course, that a political system based on divinely-endowed rights should be expressed by its chief executive as being a "creed" - a term normally reserved for a formal religious statement of doctrinal belief (from the Latin credo - I believe.)   
• The phrase "we the people" which Presdient Obama uses five times in his speech, is one I cannot remember ever hearing from a British politician. The nearest equivalent I can think of is the name of the Irish political party, Sinn Fein - "we ourselves." Used in that way (British socialists used to use the term "comrades" in a somewhat similar way), it speaks of a class or cultural identity in distinction from that of the rulers. Obama, like many American millionaire politicians, uses the term without irony, in the sure belief that his hearers will assume he is "one of them." The real irony is that America may be more unequal a society than Britain, but it is the latter that is far more class bound.
• The mythologising of geography. Places have symbolic, historical and cultural significance in American political rhetoric in a way not found in Britain. Seneca Falls (location of the nineteenth century declaration of women's rights), Selma (location of the early black civil rights marches in 1965 under Martin Luther King) and Stonewall (the gay bar in New York City, scene of a riot in 1969) were all cited by the President, and understood by his listeners. Interestingly, Obama used this device in his previous inaugural speech in 2009, citing Concord (War of Independence), Gettysburg (Civil War), Normandy (World War Two) and Khe Sanh (Vietnam)  as examples of American military heroism. Apart from Churchill's promise that "we will fight the on the beaches", it is difficult to imagine a modern British politician talking of British geographical places in quite the same way.  Bannockburn, Brixton and Belfast are all places resonant with division rather than national unity in the British political psyche. 

 

 
 







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My Presidential Election Prediction, 2012

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So, here is the official, no-refunds-offered Philosopher's Tree prediction of the outcome of tomorrow's 2012 US Presidential election.

I predict a win for Obama, with possibly a slightly wider margin than might be expected.

My reasons:

1. It is difficult for an incumbent to lose a Presidential election in America. Only Jimmy Carter (Dem) and George Bush Senior (Rep) have done so in the post-war era.

2. The most recent opinion polls show a slight increase in Obama's popularity in the days immediately running up to Tuesday's election.

3. Mitt Romney's policy vacillations over years will ultimately damage his electability. In a way, this is unfortunate as Romney has merely responded democratically to the mood of the voters in the different contexts he has carried out his politics: in Massachusetts (arguably the most liberal state in America) he had to endorse some fairly liberal policies in order to succeed as a Republican Governor in a Democratic state. Indeed, the Massachusetts state health plan created by Romney when he was Governor was the blueprint for Obama's controversial health reforms a few years later. Then, in order to secure the Republican nomination for President, Romney had to swing to the right to appease the Tea Party lobby who now dominate the grass roots of the party. Finally, in order to be elected President, he has had to move to the centre to appeal to more mainstream voters. This process has damaged him electorally, leaving him open to the charge of being neither one thing nor another. 

4. Romney's evasiveness on his personal income tax record, combined with one or two major media gaffes such as deriding "the 47%" of the population who he claimed depend on the government for a living, have hardened opposition to him among swing voters.

5. Late high-profile endorsements. Former Republican Secretary of State Colin Powell's backing for Obama is significant, as is that of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg - a Republican now turned Independent - who has praised the President's record on education, health care and climate change.

6. The Sandy Factor. Assuming that the power is back on in New York and New Jersey by Tuesday, the political winds arising from the recent Hurricane are likely to be blowing in Obama's direction. He does not seem to have put a foot wrong in his response to the crisis, looking every bit the competent and caring man in charge. 

        

As always, watch out for voting in Ohio, which is usually a bell weather state. If Obama wins in Pennsylvania and Virginia, it will certainly mean it is all over for Romney.  I predict a Democratic win in at least one of these latter two states. 

See you on Wenesday for the post-match analysis.

 

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From Cairo to the Drone Wars: how the Wheels Came off Obama's Rapprochement with the Muslim World

President Barack Obama speaks at Cairo University in Cairo, Thursday, June 4, 2009. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Raise your hands if you can remember when President Obama used to be accused of being soft on Islamic militancy?

Me neither.

The 44th President of the United States may well go down in history not for his health care reform, but more significantly for the dramatic volte-face in his foreign policy. The change from peace-maker (remember his Nobel Prize?) to his relentless pursuit of drone-based attacks has been dramatic. Not only that, his policy of attacking suspected militants with drone-based missiles is actually contributing to the creation of new generations of Islamic militants, radicalised by the experience of silent and lethal force which has killed between 282 and 535 civilians in Pakistan alone. This total includes 60 children (source).

It is difficult to remember the early days. The President's speech - titled A New Beginning - at the University of Cairo in June 2009 was claimed by the White House to be the start of a new process of restoring relationships between America and the Muslim-majority world which had been damaged during the Bush era and following the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Some saw the speech as representing a water-shed in US-Muslim relations.  The sight of an American President talking in a conciliatory manner about the rich contributions that Islam has made to the world was favourably received in some quarters, even as it was rejected out of hand by others.

It was on the back of the speech - and his earlier New Year video message to the people of Iran - that Obama was awarded the the Nobel Peace Prize in October 2009. The Nobel Committee specifically referred to the President's "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples" and particularly his reaching out to the Muslim world.

Two turning points can be discerned in the President's approach since these early, heady days. The first was his decision to intensify the war in Afghanistan through the deployment of an additional 30,000 troops. Initial deliberations in the White House about this policy gave some encouragement to those hoping for a early US departure from the country. Critics, meanwhile, accused the Commander in Chief of weakness and dithering.

The second turning point was Libya. Although signalling early on that America would not take a lead in military action in the country, the President nonetheless ordered cruise missiles and attack aircraft to be deployed against ground and air forces loyal to Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi.  Regime change would not have been possible in Libya without American approval, participation and support.

America's co-operation during the Libya campaign with the Gulf state of Oman was significant. After the country's air force had played a crucial role in the operation, the US Defence Department concluded a treaty by which US-based Lockheed Martin supplied 18 new F-16 Fighting Falcons at a cost of $600 Million. 

America's engagement with Oman - a tiny Arab state with a vast military sector - highlighted the increasing difficulty with Obama's policy towards the Arab Spring, then in its early days. While endorsing the aspirations of those demonstrating for democratic freedoms in Egypt, the President also refused to publicly condemn the brutal suppression of those protesters who were demanding reform in the Gulf state of Bahrain. 

Increasingly hiding behind his Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, the President's Bahrain policy stemmed from his administration's fear that the old enemy Iran was fuelling the fires of protest inside the island state. Bahrain's Shia population, with historic and cultural links to Iran, were at the forefront of the protests against the embattled and pro-Western Sunni elite who dominated the government. 

When US-made M-113 Armoured Personnel Carriers rolled menacingly across the road bridge that links Saudi Arabia with Bahrain, Obama was mute at the use of foreign military forces to put down a pro-democratic uprising. With a vast US military base in Bahrain, America simply could not run the risk of endorsing a possible takeover by a population with close links to Iran, even if such a democratic moment was in line with the President's stated policy in his Cairo speech of supporting democratic movements in the region.

With Afghanistan and Libya as hard lessons in realpolitik, the increasingly embattled President, whose domestic policy endeavours were being thwarted by a hostile Republican-Congress, began to broaden the scope of his military interventions.

Here was an area of Presidential power not hampered by internal partisan bickering. As Commander-in-Chief he had exactly what he lacked in his domestic agenda - the power to command and achieve dramatic results.

The daring raid into Pakistani sovereign territory in order to kill Osama bin Laden must have felt like an affirmation that such bold military moves were the way forward. Ignoring the legal niceties of invading a foreign country with whom they were not at war, the bin-Laden success seems to have emboldened the President. Despite no declaration of war, military activities were ramped up in Yeman and Somalia, with apparently scant regard for the killing of innocent civilians in the process.

Obama's drone wars have, since their early days in Afghanistan, expanded dramatically. US drone strikes are often controlled by operators thousands of miles away in American bases in Nevada and have resulted in hundreds if not thousands of deaths. Statistics compiled by those watching with concern the escalation in the drone wars indicate that drone attacks are now occurring about once every four days inside Pakistan.

There are several worrying developments with this drone war policy. Firstly, the weapons are killing innocent civilians. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports that over 3,000 people have been killed by drones inside Pakistan since 2004. As mentioned at the beginning of this article, it has also calculated that between 282 and 535 civilians have been credibly reported as killed in drone attacks inside the country since Obama took office.

Secondly, the use of drones is contributing to rather than reducing the rise of Islamic militancy among those populations affected by the drone-borne missiles. A recent report by Stanford Law School and the New York University School of Law highlights the psychological effects on the civilian population of those living in the areas attacked by US drones. 

This from the report Living Under Drones:

In the United States, the dominant narrative about the use of drones in Pakistan is of a surgically precise and effective tool that makes the US safer by enabling “targeted killing” of terrorists, with minimal downsides or collateral impacts. This narrative is false......

"This report presents evidence of the damaging and counterproductive effects of current US drone strike policies...."

One of the few accounts of living under drones ever published in the US comes from a former New York Times journalist who was kidnapped by the Taliban. He reports:

“The drones were terrifying. From the ground, it is impossible to determine who or what they are tracking as they circle overhead. The buzz of a distant propeller is a constant reminder of imminent death.”

Living Under Drones describes how

"Community members, mental health professionals, and journalists described how the constant presence of US drones overhead leads to substantial levels of fear and stress in the civilian communities below....".

"Another interviewee who lost both his legs in a drone attack said that “[e]veryone is scared all the time. When we’re sitting together to have a meeting, we’re scared there might be a strike. When you can hear the drone circling in the sky, you think it might strike you. We’re always scared. We always have this fear in our head.”

Another described the effect of the drones as causing a "wave of terror" among the civilian population of north-west Pakistan.




It is difficult to imagine how US-Muslim relations could be made any worse than by pursuing a policy that traumatizes the civilian population of Pakistan, leading to parents keeping their children away from school for fear of attack by unseen unmanned American aircraft.

The President's policy of openness and engagement with the Muslim-majority world has come a long way since the heady days of his Cairo University speech. It is a tragedy that the direction of travel has been in the wrong direction. 

   

  

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Iran: be Careful What you Wish For

Getting Iran to say 'uncle' might not be smart | Stephen M. Walt:

In this scenario [sanctions], a tightening vise of economic pressure will convince Iran to do what the late Muammar Qaddafi did in Libya in 2003 and abandon any interest in a nuclear capability. Unfortunately for us, Tehran has probably noticed what happened to him, which makes it less likely that they'd ever surrender in quite the same way.

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Financial Crisis: Time to Diversify Currencies?

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The idea of creating, using, or producing currencies other than those officially sanctioned by the state, is gaining momentum.

This from the BBC website today:

Parliament is to debate a call for foreign currencies to be made legal tender in the UK. Such a move would protect savers by allowing them to hold the currency least likely to be devalued, Tory MP Douglas Carswell told the Commons. He said people could then "extricate themselves from the monetary masters that hold them all captive".

Ryan Grant at the Distributist Review goes further, calling on American states to exercise their legal right to mint their own currencies, in response to what Grant sees as the inevitability of the collapse of the US dollar as a credible global currency.   

The root of our system of currency and credit is not based on value, the thing money is supposed to represent, but on debt, its antithesis. .....

Among Grants five solutions to the debt crisis is that the government must 

Allow and promote local currencies based on local assets, namely to have currency which is based on value and not on debt

David Boyle at The New Economics Foundation meanwhile is critical of

The idea that every nation, or even every continent, should have just one currency to serve everybody’s needs is a piece of eighteenth century Whig ideology that we have been stuck with unthinkingly ever since.  The plight of Spain and Greece is evidence of how faulty it is. 

Boyle calls for currencies that are as diverse as human societies.

With the collapse of the Euro a distinct possibility, and calls for the drachma to be reintroduced into Greece's domestic economy, such radical measures may be forced into the mainstream whether we like it our not.

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Senator Mark Hatfield: RIP

Image via WikipediaJohn H Armstrong : Senator Mark Hatfield: RIP



Virtually unknown in the UK, Senator Mark Hatfield, who died this month, was a leading American Christian politician, from an age before the enmeshing of those two terms became so toxic.



John H Armstrong writes about his life and legacy:





For nearly four decades, [he was] perhaps American evangelicals' most prominent and admired politician . . . a man associated with liberal politics, one of the country's leading voices against the Vietnam War and military spending, and a critic of the nascent religious right.













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John Hutton, Russian Gas, Georgia and Wiikileaks

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Confidential US State Department cable 08LONDON2384 , published by Wikileaks, contains the following quote relating to the Russian invasion of Georgia's Abkhazia region in August 2008. 

At a meeting in September 2008 between US Deputy Secretary of Energy Jeffery Kupfer and the then British Business Secretary John Hutton, discussion turned to Russia's growing dominance of the European gas market. The discussion is summarised as follows:

Hutton stated that the EU is never going to speak with one voice on

energy security, pointing out that each country has dealt with supply

issues independently. He pointed to the growing European dependence on

Russian gas, and the fact that much of Gazprom's board was former

Federal Security Service (FSB). These factors, Hutton said,

contributed to the EU's feeble response to the Russian invasion of Georgia.

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The directors of Goshen College, a Mennonite liberal arts institution in the United States, have reversed its 2010 decision to play an instrumental version of the US national anthem before athletic events.

The decision has been welcomed by the large number of Christians, both in the United States and internationally, who opposed the original decision - on the grounds that the Mennonite peace tradition and theological commitments are incompatible with nationalism and militarism.

Full story.






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The Changing Nature of Church Membership

Loose connections | The Christian Century

Interesting article from The Christian Century on the changing nature of church membership in America.

Many articles on this theme tend to be of the "isn't-it-terrible-how-consumerist-we've-all-become-and-why-can't you-be-more-committed" type.

The above article avoids that easy narrative and looks instead at some historical and sociological models that question whether the emphasis on local churches as "belonging institutions" is the only valid model.

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U.S. intelligence collaboration with Omar Suleiman “most successful”

Egyptian Intelligence Director Omar Suleiman  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

U.S. intelligence collaboration with Omar Suleiman “most successful”

Useful background notes from Wikileaks on Omar Suleiman, Egypt's new vice-president, and therefore the man constitutionally next in line to take over if President Mubarak were to step down.

Key points include:

• Suleiman was trained early on in his career at the U.S. Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg
• Head of Egypt's spy agency
• Professional links with the CIA
• Fiercely opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood

Not an American puppet, but certainly an acceptable alternative to the US when Mubarak boards that plane for Jeddah.

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Wikileaks, Sweden, the Suicide Bomb and the CIA: Is There a Connection?

 

Source, Tomblanton 1957

Mainstream media outlets are generally making no connection between the terrorist attack in central Stockholm last week and current attempts by the Swedish authorities to extradite Wikileaks director Julian Assange.

The consensus view on the pre-Christmas bombings is that they were carried out by Iraqi-born Taimour Abdulwahab, apparently a British-based self-radicalised jihadist acting on his own initiative, though possibly with some logistical support from persons currently unknown.

There is, of course, an alternative and more disturbing view.

Respected Swedish academic Professor Ola Tunander is currently based at the Peace Research Institute in Oslo (PRIO), an independent peace studies institution which publishes numerous peer-reviewed articles on international relations, conflict resolution, foreign policy and peace studies.  

Professor Tunander's 2004 book, The Secret War Against Sweden: US and British Submarine Deception Against Sweden in the 1980s makes the well-documented case that during the Cold War, British and American forces operated major submarine incursions into Swedish waters with the aim of creating the belief that these were Soviet ships acting aggressively. 

From the book's forward:

"Following the stranding of a Soviet Whiskey-class submarine in 1981 on the Swedish archipelago, a series of massive submarine intrusions took place within Swedish waters. However, the evidence for these appears to have been manipulated or simply invented. Classified documents and interviews point to covert Western, rather than Soviet activity.....

Ola Tunander's revelations make it clear that the United States and Britain ran a 'secret war' in Swedish waters. The number of Swedes perceiving the Soviet Union as a direct threat increased from 5-10 per cent in 1980 to 45 per cent in 1983. This Anglo-American 'secret war' was aimed at exerting political influence over Sweden. It was a risky enterprise, but perhaps the most successful covert operation of the entire Cold War."

Former US Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger was also interviewed on Swedish television around the time of the publication of The Secret War and confirmed that American and British submarines had indeed been conducting operations against Swedish installations during the 1980s as a way of ensuring military (and civilian) "readiness" to counter the threat of Soviet expansion into the Baltic. The interview took place on  TV2 on 7 March 2000.

In an earlier article in the journal Cooperation and Conflict, Professor Tunander quotes former CIA Director James Schlesinger on the existence of a Swedish "dual state" in which the official "Political Sweden" is matched by the "Military Sweden" which is portrayed as seeking ever closer ties to the United States. The article reflects on the "supranational" structure which, despite the country's official policy of non-membership, ties Sweden inexorably into the NATO orbit and policy objectives. 

State Department cable 07STOCKHOLM506 on Wikileaks bluntly reveals this current political reality:

"While Sweden's official foreign policy doctrine emphasizes non-alignment, in practice Sweden is a pragmatic and strong partner with NATO"

and, in the same cable,

"Sweden's official security policy is non-participation in military alliances during peacetime and neutrality during wartime.  Its active participation in the NATO Partnership for Peace and its role in leading the European Union's 1,500 troops-strong Nordic Battle Group give the lie to the official policy."

At the 2004 Pan-European International Relations Conference held in the Netherlands, Professor Tunander presented a paper with the working title of  "The Use of Terrorism to Construct World Order" . Building on the pioneering work of Hans Morgenthau from the 1950s, Tunander outlines the history since 1945 of CIA-backed terrorist incidents in mainland Europe. The aim of these actions was the fueling of anti-communist sentiment among European citizens, in order to strengthen US/NATO-lead attempts to contain and oppose communism on the continent and elsewhere:

"The Strategy of Tension, as we know it from Cold War Europe, has received a global dimension. During the Cold War, the US ‘dual security structure’ – with its specifically tasked units masquerading as ‘enemy forces’ – was developed by the US ‘security state’ in order to keep the political strength and the readiness and capability of the Western defences. Now, this structure has seemingly been made into a self-propelled mechanism that is able to transform the world order into a Pax Americana."

Swiss academic Dr Daniele Ganser has also written extensively about the existence of secret armies operating in Europe under American control during the early 1990s. His book NATO's Secret Armies outlines their history and deployment as agents of terror.

After outlining how this policy was applied in Italy and elsewhere in Europe from  the 1960s to 80s, Professer Trunandar then argues that following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US-NATO elites required a "new enemy" in order to justify ongoing American hegemony. That enemy was radical Islam. 

CIA support for Osama bin Laden and his mujaheddin in the 1980s is a matter of public record. Later contact with the group took place in the Balkans in the 1990s and, according to several sources, as late as 2001. Trunandar provides details:

"The Saudi military intelligence chief Prince Turki bin Faisal had several meetings with bin Laden and supported the Taliban economically. Bin Laden allegedly had a meeting with the CIA station chief in Dubai, Larry Mitchell, as late as on July 12, 2001, as well as with the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Turki bin Faisal, while bin Laden was treated for his kidney problems at the American Hospital in Dubai (Von Bülow, 2003, p. 228. See also Richard Labeviere, 2001. ‘La CIA aurait recontré Ben Laden en juillet’, Le Figaro, November 1; Anthony Sampson, 2001. ‘CIA agent allegedly to have met Bin Laden in July’, Guardian, November 1; Elisabeth Bryant, 2001. ‘Report: bin Laden treated at US hospital’, United Press International, October 31) "

Fascinating though all of this is, none of it proves even a remote link between Taimour Abdulwahab, the CIA and the Pentagon's current crusade against Wikileaks.

Nonetheless, the history of CIA operations in Sweden does prove that

(a) American and British military forces have used "false wars" in Sweden as a way of manipulating popular opinion against America's enemies

(b) CIA strategic involvement with radical Islamic groups has been a proven reality until at least the start of this decade.

Beyond these facts, we are left only able to ask questions:

1. Why did Abdulwahab choose to commit his attack in Sweden rather than the UK? Although his parents apparently lived there, the practical challenges of carrying out a "lone" terror attack across international boarders must have been considerable. Why not target the Swedish embassy in London? Or IKEA?

2. What is the significance (if any) of the release of an official report on the Islamic terror threat in Sweden - three days after the Stockholm bombing?  The report was originally commissioned by the government in February. Was its release this week pure coincidence? Or was it timed to create maximum impact in the media in the week of Scandinavia's first suicide bombing, with the report's claims that up to 200 Swedish Muslims are currently advocating violent jihad ? 

3. Why was the Stockholm attack such a failure? Reports that the attacker's car - allegedly full of gas canisters - failed to blow up are attributed in many publications to the "amateurish" nature of his tactics. Considering what we know about the role of previous CIA covert operations in Sweden, is it not also plausible that those handling the attacker may have not wanted the car to blow up? This would make sense if their aim was not to kill but to create fear. Similar questions should be asked about the location of the car. It was not parked in the most obvious place to cause major casualties - with the heart of the shopping district being several hundred metres away. 

4. Why did Abdulwahab's device detonate when it did? If the aim was to create terror (with the minimum loss of Swedish lives), then the detonation of his belt bomb down a side street with no casualties could be seen as achieving this result. If Abdulwahab's claim that he had been training as a jihadist for four years are true (as relayed on the audio message he is alleged to have sent to the authorities minutes before the first blast), then it might appear surprising that such a lengthy training period resulted in the perpetrator being unable to create a device that could even blow himself up properly, let alone kill others. Eye witness reports claim that the bomber was still alive for a short while after his device exploded.    

5. How are we to account for reports on Sweden's The Local news site of alleged military knowledge of the attack in advance? The claim is made that a Swedish armed forces member was warned by a colleague two hours before the bomb blast, “If you can, avoid Drottninggatan today. A lot can happen there…just so you know."

6. Who was behind the fake bomb left at Kungstraedsgaarden metro station in Stockholm, on Christmas eve, two weeks after the suicide attack? A police officer is quoted by AFP as saying:  “It looked like a real bomb. Someone made it to frighten people.”

As for the connections with the Wikileaks saga, the following video reveals Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt claiming in a recent interview with Sir David Frost that he knows very little about the Assange case as it is not handled by his particular government department. This modest denial is strange considering the Minister's recent political history. Bildt has been heavily criticised in recent years for his membership of The Committee to Liberate Iraq, which was an American political lobby group aimed at the "replacement of the Saddam Hussein regime with a democratic government" in the years leading up to the US-lead invasion in 2003.

Other members of the Committee included Newt Gingrich, John McCain,  Richard Pearle (founder of the right-wing Project for a New American Century), and R James Woolsey, former director of the CIA. Bildt's participation is remarkable as, apart from one Iraqi, he  was virtually the only non-American of the 35-member Committee. Clearly, he was closely associated with many of the prime movers at the heart of efforts to ensure a US-lead invasion of Iraq, whose project has come under such fierce criticism, in part as a result of revelations from the Wikileaks site.

It is inconceivable that Bildt is not actively concerned about the Wikileaks phenomenon and, presumably, receiving the perspective of the United States government on the matter via their man in Stockholm, Matthew Barzun or indeed, from more senior American political figures.

.

Specific US Embassy cables released through the Wikileaks site that relate to Sweden have not portrayed the inner workings of the country's Foreign Ministry in a particularly positive light.

Cable 09STOCKHOLM194, for instance, notes that "the current Swedish political climate makes any formal terrorist screening agreement highly difficult" and notes that "existing informal arrangements are working well."

In other words, Mr Bildt's department (he became Minister for Foreign Affairs in 2006 after serving as Prime Minister from 1991-94 ) wished in the words of the Daily Telegraph to "avoid parliamentary scrutiny" of its discussions with the US over terrorism-related matters. The cable goes on to reveal that Sweden's continuing US visa-waiver entitlement was being officially linked to its co-operation on allowing access to information on Swedish nationals that might be of interest to American authorities in their counter-terrorism strategy, in line with Homeland Security Presidential Directive Hspd-6.

The cable reveals that the Swedish representative at an October 2008 meeting noted that it was "a particularly sensitive time politically in Sweden for issues involving government surveillance and personal privacy."

In a final, rather chilling conclusion in light of recent events, the leaked cable notes that,

In the longer term, while a changed political environment in Sweden might be more conducive to a formal agreement with the U.S., there is a very clear GOS [Government of Sweden?] belief that Sweden is not likely to be a direct target for terrorists and therefore has little to gain from an HSPD-6 agreement.

One could logically conclude from this statement, therefore, that  a terrorist attack in Sweden might help to move public and political opinion towards embracing a more formal information-sharing arrangement, which the cable reveals as being beneficial to the United States.

In conclusion, we have at this time no concrete evidence that the terror attack in Stockholm was supported or directed by the CIA. What we do have, however, is a political motive for such an event, a previous history of such events and a number of practical questions about the attack itself that warrant further investigation.

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World's Largest Wind Farm to be Built in Oregon

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Generating a projected 845 megawatts of electricity per year, the world's largest on-land wind farm has been given permission to be built in eastern Oregon. Construction of the Shepherd’s Flat wind farm is expected to start in 2011, with $1.3 billion of US federal government money being invested into the project.

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Christians and Wikileaks

Reaction to the Wikileaks phenomenon among Christians has been mixed, but in my observation this week, it has gravitated towards being concerned or annoyed, with a minority being outraged. A short piece by Julie Clawson on the Sojourner's website has been the only article I have read so far from a Christian perspective that sees the publishing of the leaks as a qualified good.

In reflecting on the more general view among Christians whose comments I have read this week, which express concern or hostility, I have noted a number of theological and political assumptions which are influencing interpretations of the Wikileaks project. In addition, as we shall see, there are more personal concerns being raised about the nature of security and privacy in the Internet age.

1. A high view of government. The "key texts" of Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2 appear to represent a grid through which a deferential perspective on the role of political rulers is formed and expressed.
2. A concern about process. I have heard some say that while they see it as helpful for the public to know the facts about how its government has been operating, they are nervous about the manner in which Wikileaks have gone about disclosing the inner workings of the state.
   
3. A concern about lawlessness. The commencement of Denial of Service attacks against businesses which have withdrawn support from Wikileaks (including Amazon, Mastercard, Visa and PayPal) has, in my reading, raised the hackles of those who might otherwise be more sympathetic to the Wikileaks agenda. One church leader in the United States, for instance, has questioned whether these DOD attacks represent a "spirit of lawlessness" as described in 2 Thessalonians 2.
   
4. A concern for privacy - both at the institutional and individual level. It has been interesting to hear some express concern that the leaking of the State Department's internal memos could be a step in the direction of everyone's private thoughts and correspondence being broadcast online. Interestingly, I have not come across this particular Orwellian concern being expressed by anyone other than Christian writers in the last week.

What can we deduce from the above points, and are there alternative or complementary considerations that are worth taking into account when assessing the Wikileaks phenomenon? A few broad themes present themselves:

1. Romans 12 and 1 Peter 2 could be read against the backdrop of a New Testament that paints a rather more negative view of government than might be suggested if those two passages are taken in isolation. We see in the writing of the apostles rulers portrayed as routinely corrupt, immoral and bloodthirsty (think Herod), described as enemies of the gospel (emperors and their subordinates) and as members of an immoral world system that is under God's judgment, represented variously as a drunken prostitute and a many-headed monster.
2. We ought to think carefully about "why" it is that many believers appear to be more troubled by the process of the leaks than they are by some of the facts they reveal. In particular, the large (and previously unreported) number of civilians who have lost their lives as a direct result of the American and British invasion of Iraq ought, surely, to be of greater concern than any loss of prestige caused to the governments that have contributed to these loses. If this is not the case, we must ask ourselves some fundamental questions about our faith and the moral priorities that arise from it.
3. We should be careful not to equate lawlessness with disturbing the status quo. Blind obedience to rulers is not a virtue, Christian or otherwise, and all moral people will have some actions which they will not commit, even if required to do so by the State. Furthermore, we should be careful to not miss the fact that the leaks reveal spectacular acts of lawlessness on the part of those in government. Illegal phone tapping of citizens, and orders to obtain biometric data from UN diplomats, are revealed as just two of the most obvious examples of lawless activity that elected leaders stand accused of by their own official documents.
   
4. We should be careful to be historically consistent when analyzing such a phenomenon as Wikileaks. It is ironic, to say the least, to hear residents of a nation birthed in an act of armed rebellion (the United Sates) denying the right of citizens to take modest action to assert their freedoms and challenge the perceived injustices of militarized and increasingly dominant governments.
5. Concerns about individual privacy are important and valid concerns. However, the reality is that the greatest threats to our right to a private life come not from reporters such as Julian Assange, but from corporations and governments who have the power and the motive to pry, spy and intrude in ways unimaginable a generation ago. Against such a backdrop, the need for a free press (defined as one that says things some people don't want to have said) remains of paramount importance as a restraint against tyranny.
   

US Adminstration Manipulated Copenhagen Climate Change Accord - Wikileaks

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"Secret diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks have revealed new details about how the United States manipulated last year’s climate talks in Copenhagen. The cables show how the United States sought dirt on nations opposed to its approach to tackling global warming, how financial and other aid was used by countries to gain political backing, and how the United States mounted a secret global diplomatic offensive to overwhelm opposition to the Copenhagen Accord."

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• "Report: WikiLeaks cables reveal how US manipulated climate accord" and related posts (hyscience.com)
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Obama administration moves to restore protection of American coasts from dangers of offshore drilling - Defenders of Wildlife

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News that the American President has issued an executive order prohibiting further deep-water oil exploration or development off its Pacific, Atlantic or eastern Gulf of Mexico coasts is a significant and welcome move.

Lessons learned from the BP Gulf of Mexico disaster earlier this year appear to have been learned.

The Obama administration are allowing themselves some wriggle room, however, with plans for oil exploration in the Arctic Ocean. Furthermore, the order is not retrospective. Existing oil platforms will continue to operate in this high-risk open seas.

White House Policy Advisor Richard Charter, announcing the decision, has said that the ban would not apply to the Arctic, yet:

“We are confident that further scientific studies of the impacts of drilling in the Arctic will show that the drilling ban should be extended to this region as well.”

If so, this represents a very positive development from the federal government.

Now, we just need to see that green energy infrastructure and the promised high-speed train networks linking major urban areas in America, announced in the first hundred days of President Obama's term of office.

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Why Wikileaks is Good for Democracy

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Information is the currency of democracy.
-Thomas Jefferson

Since 9/11, the US government, through Presidents Bush and Obama, has increasingly told the US public that "state secrets" will not be shared with citizens. Candidate Obama pledged to reduce the use of state secrets, but President Obama continued the Bush tradition. The courts, Congress and international allies have gone meekly along with the escalating secrecy demands of the US Executive.

By labeling tens of millions of documents secret, the US government has created a huge vacuum of information.

But information is the lifeblood of democracy. Information about government contributes to a healthy democracy. Transparency and accountability are essential elements of good government. Likewise, "a lack of government transparency and accountability undermines democracy and gives rise to cynicism and mistrust," according to a 2008 Harris survey commissioned by the Association of Government Accountants.

Into the secrecy vacuum stepped Private Bradley Manning, who, according to the Associated Press, was able to defeat "Pentagon security systems using little more than a Lady Gaga CD and a portable computer memory stick."

Manning apparently sent the information to Wikileaks - a nonprofit media organization that specializes in publishing leaked information. Wikileaks in turn shared the documents to other media around the world, including The New York Times, and published much of the documents' contents on its website.

Despite criminal investigations by the U.S. and other governments, it is not clear that media organizations like Wikileaks can be prosecuted in the U.S., in light of the First Amendment. Recall that the First Amendment says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

Outraged politicians are claiming that the release of government information is the criminal equivalent of terrorism and puts innocent people's lives at risk. Many of those same politicians authorized the modern equivalent of carpet bombing of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, the sacrifice of thousands of lives of soldiers and civilians and drone assaults on civilian areas in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen. Their anger at a document dump, no matter how extensive, is more than a little suspect.

Everyone, including Wikileaks and the other media reporting on what the documents reveal, hopes that no lives will be lost because of this flood of information. So far, it appears those hopes have been met: McClatchy Newspapers reported November 28, 2010, that "US officials conceded that they have no evidence to date that the [prior] release of documents led to anyone's death."

The U.S. has been going in the wrong direction for years by classifying millions of documents as secrets. Wikileaks and other media that report these so-called secrets will embarrass people, yes. Wikileaks and other media will make leaders uncomfortable, yes. But embarrassment and discomfort are small prices to pay for a healthier democracy.

Wikileaks has the potential to make transparency and accountability more robust in the U.S. That is good for democracy.

Written by Bill Quigley and re-produced under a Creative Commons Licence from Truth Out

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