Some Blood for No Oil

The pro-war media (and I don't mean those media pro- the Libyan war but those media who would happily line up behind any war whatsoever) are very fond of telling our government to "hold its nerve". This instruction was trademarked some years ago by The Economist, but today's leader in The Times, which was presumably written some weeks ago in the expectation of civilian deaths, trots it out with equal confidence.

Don't stop bombing Tripoli now, just as things are going so well.

Sordel veers towards pacifism, appeasement and running away screaming like a small girl at the first sign of trouble, but even I must admit that to get this far into a war without significant civilian deaths or (to the best of my knowledge) any NATO military casualties, is a remarkable success. It's rather like going into a bar, shooting the place up with a shotgun, but doing so with the care and attention required to leave its clientele largely unmolested.

Unfortunately, this display of scrupulous vandalism is not entirely cheering.

For a start, Danny Alexander announced over the weekend that the Libyan War was costing tens of millions of pounds and would likely run to hundreds of millions. That's a bit like shooting up a bar with a shotgun and having to pay for repairs. While living under threat of having your house repossessed.

Secondly, the rebels aren't advancing, and a report in today's Times paints a sorry picture of their condition. After their last advance failed due to indiscipline, they have retrenched in Misrata and claim to be facing a more effective government assault. They have also run out of money.

Thirdly, although the coalition has done a very creditable job of preventing civilian deaths and injuries, it does occasionally bomb the rebels themselves, which is ... embarrassing for us, and fatal for them.

And fourthly, while shooting up a bar without killing someone is an achievement of sorts, shooting up a bar several times a night for three months is hardly a kindness to the people unable to leave that bar in whose interests one claims to be doing it. The bombing raids themselves inflict terror on the people of Tripoli.

So "holding its nerve" is not really going to be enough for the British government. What The Times really needs to do - in the fashion of Lady Macbeth - is taunt the government on to do something bloodier and yet more ruinous.

Because this isn't a war that is going to be won on its current rules of engagement.

Eh? V?

Those who consulted, memorized and obediently signed up to Sordel's previous reflections on democracy will not be surprised to hear that a referendum on a new electoral system in the UK leaves me somewhat cold.

According to research cited by The Economist the consequence of a move to the A.V. system would be that 16% of seats would change hands at a general election rather than 13%. The ideal - a swing of 100% to the None of the Above Party - is, to say the least, unlikely, and even were the 3% of constituencies that changed all to become BNP that would only bring the BNP representation in Parliament up to (checks sums) about 3%. None of this counts as a smooth transition to democracy.

Sordel's contention is that very few voters actually care about elections, and this can be extrapolated to the Middle East and Africa where, we are repeatedly told, populations are rising up to demonstrate their ardent thirst for a fair vote. Certainly some of the people are rising up for a fair vote, but it seems a reasonable guess that the greater number would also be willing to rise up for an oligarchy stacked in favour of their tribe, religious orientation or favoured tyrant. Not many of the rebels in Libya would be risking their lives to see Qaddafi fairly elected.

More significantly, it seems reasonable to suppose that many of the supposed beneficiaries of democracy in Libya are much like ourselves: more interested in the wellbeing of our families, businesses and neighbourhoods than we are in who is in government. Many of those who are currently dying for democracy in Misurata were just trying to get on with their lives. Posthumously turning them into martyrs for a political ideal is a typically political manouevre that demonstrates that while the rebels may not be a fitting army, there are those among them well suited to a career of bribery and corruption.

Returning, then, to the United Kingdom, AV would seem to be the perfect voting system for our national temperament: an ever more long-winded process to satisfy us that our miniscule contribution to the election of our political masters has been felt. Religion may be the opiate of the people in some countries, but all you really need to pacify an Englishman is a big piece of paper and an ill-sharpened pencil.

Not Just For Christmas

David Cameron (whom, for these purposes, let us imagine in full Little Lord Fauntleroy garb with copious lace and silk knee-pants) must have cut an eager figure as he approached the harassed Obama for a new war. "I'll feed it, and walk it, and you won't even know it's there," he must have implored.

Forgetting that this is what Sasha and Malia told him about Bo (his only surviving election promise) the embattled president seems to have reluctantly agreed, the fit measurement of that reluctance being that he has left Libya in the hands of Cameron and Sarkozy while he addressed more pressing issues, such as the fact that his entire government is on the brink of being shut down.

And, indeed, Cameron and Sarkozy did walk the war, proudly and ardently ... for about twelve hours. Now, with matted fur and an unsettlingly wolfish expression of resentment, it is defecating on the hall carpet and howling through the night.

The last time Britain and France went on their own without American leadership was, of course, the Suez crisis, when at least we had Israel, the world's most bellicose nation, doing some fighting for us. As a world leader (and I use the the word leader loosely) the last news that you want to hear is that the U.S. has ceded control of the air operation to you.

This is a bit like a young comedian getting on the bill with Billie Crystal and then learning that Crystal isn't intending to do any of the jokes himself.

Currently, the losers in this situation are the Libyan rebels, who should really have looked up the phrase "Iraqi Kurds" on Wikipedia before they took up arms.

Disastrous though the current situation is, however, there is worse to come for the people of Libya. If NATO gets its way, and Qaddafi is toppled, normal civilians in Tripoli and Benghazi may well come to view these as "the good old days".

And as for the puppy ... it's a rottweiler ... with a gentle disposition ... and has never showed any signs at all of wanting to savage the small boys who currently only pay it attention to poke it with a stick.

Rolling the Dice

Back in the days when the Rubik's Cube was young, Sordel's approach to this small bundle of polychrome frustration was as follows: if the current situation was not to one's liking, give it another turn and hope that it improves. Now in the grand scheme of things, this is an imperfect approach to solving a Rubik's Cube ... but it is an absolutely disastrous method for solving foreign policy.

Barack Obama has got the red side solved by turning the United States back into a Republican stronghold. Now, like most presidents who have been made redundant by electoral failure, he is looking across the sea. Rather than concentrate on Afghanistan or Iraq or Pakistan or Guantanamo Bay, however, he has set his sights on Libya. According to the New York Times this was much against his better judgement, but he seems to have been bounced into it by the French, who in this demonstrate an inclination to ironic comedy for which they have not as a nation been previously noted.

("You want some "Freedom Fries" with that, mon ami?")

Naturally there are some who are cheering on this latest excursion on the basis that it protects the fragile seedling of democracy. Quite what species these seedlings are that are peeking out from the oil-drenched soil of the Middle East is, however, open to question, as is the strength of feeling behind the protests that accompany them. After all, when thousands of people marched against the Iraq war, this was regarded by Tony Blair as mere grumbling, but if a hundred people raise a banner in Africa we are evidently ready to recognise their government.

If three men and a dog claimed that the town Sordel lives in had fallen into rebel hands, the BBC would colour it a different colour on a map and start describing the dog as "regional governor".

Whatever the rights and wrong of the two sides in the civil war for Libya, we can be sure that ordinary citizens with very little interest in politics will now be killed by both sides, and by the foreign airstrikes. With Obama's promise of "no ground troops" (a promise that immediately seems impossible to keep) we are looking to the rebels to provide an effective police system capable of restraining a Qadaffi regime that will inevitably conceal itself within the general population.

In the meantime, if the U.S. is serious about protecting freedom-loving innocents from an oppressor's rain of fire, it can do so by stopping bombing children gathering wood in Afghanistan.

Maybe finish one of our other wars before starting another?

The Quality of Mercy

Readers with a long memory may remember the Guildford Four being released from court after their conviction for the Guildford pub bombings was quashed. The scenes outside the court were indeed jubilant, as indeed they would have been in the home of Daniel Day-Lewis had he foreseen at that moment that from this acorn the mighty oak of Academy Award nominations for himself and Pete Postlethwaite would grow.

The release was a significant one, because they came at the end of a long (seemingly interminable) campaign that many onlookers of the time had associated with a propoganda war being waged at that time by Sinn Fein, an organisation then considerably less respectable than it is today. There was a strong sentiment that the attack upon the legal process that had resulted in the convictions of the Guildford Four, the Macguire Seven and the Birmingham Six was the continuation of war by other methods. Those who favoured a successful appeal were on the Republican side, almost be definition.

History has tended to see these belated acquittals rather differently ... has tended to see those reversed evident miscarriages of justice as heroically fighting not only against the immediate obstacle of a corrupt police force, but also the more remote antagonism of the British Public.

Abdelbaset Al Megrahi will never have the sensation of walking free with his name cleared. The second appeal against his conviction for the Lockerbie bombing was repeatedly delayed by a number of ruses, both political and judicial. Despite the fact that the Scottish Criminal Cases Commission concluded in 2007 (after a four year investigation) that there was a prima facie case for the second appeal to be heard, no such appeal ever took place. Despite the fact that Al Megrahi's case is due shortly to be heard at a still higher court, no one seems to have felt that there was any urgency to hearing the case.

Nevertheless, although we do not know with any great certainty whether Al Megrahi is guilty or innocent, the pictures of his arrival in Libya are surely suggestive. No medal was pinned to his chest, no U. S. flags burnt, Colonel Gaddafi did not congratulate him on a job well done. The reception was, instead, entirely consistent with the celebrations outside the high court in 1989 when the Guildford Four walked free.

Far from honouring a killer, the Libyans acted as though they thought Al Megrahi had been the victim of a miscarriage of justice. Quite possibly they were wrong, but unfortunately we are unlikely to know if so.

Not surprisingly, in a culture where it is still widely thought that Saddam Hussein was guilty of the 9/11 bombings, there is an equally strong conviction that Al Megrahi was guilty. The U. S. has been immoderate in its condemnation of the release, not least as a consequence of its own catastrophic failure to bring subsequent terrorists to trial. Having made prosecution impossible by its enthusiastic use of torture, the U. S. has become a bystander to international law, shaking its impotent fist while other countries embrace due process.

Which leads me to a modest proposal.

With its unique approach to international law, why does the U.S. not simply fly a drone over and blow Al Megrahi up? It would after all not be the first time that the U.S. has bombed Tripoli.

Indeed, for a truly unrepentant bomber one need look no further.