Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
04 Jun 2016 Leave a comment
in defence economics, war and peace Tags: Al-Qaeda, electronic surveillance, ISIS, Middle-East politics, national security, war on terror
I will worry about terrorists in a more serious way when they stop using their mobile phones. I worry even more when they stop blabbing to everyone at the local mosque about their intentions.
Source: Fotini Christia, Leon Yao, Stephen Wittels, and Jure Leskovec | Seven Things Cell Data Shows About Life In Yemen, Foreign Affairs (July 2015).
10 May 2015 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economics of crime, international economic law, international economics, International law, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: foreign policy, free trade agreements, green hypocrisy, green party, investor state disputes settlement, national security, preferential trading agreements, war against terror
The Greens are happy to betray New Zealand’s sovereignty to a US court where New Zealand’s side of the story was not heard, New Zealand was not a litigant, New Zealand was not named in the proceedings and New Zealand had not agreed to waive its sovereign immunity under US law.
The Greens on the other hand are hysterical about the prospect of New Zealand voluntarily submitting to investor state disputes settlement through an international treaty. International treaties normally are about trading in sovereignty: you give up some form of sovereignty return for something you value more.
It is thoroughly hypocritical of the Greens to argue the New Zealand should bow down to a foreign court when that court rules in a way that it favours its ideological agenda but refuse to support the principle of international arbitration in circumstances where that may advance New Zealand’s national interests.
At a minimum, New Zealand itself chose to give up its sovereignty if it agrees to investor state dispute settlement in a trade agreement. The decision was not imposed by a foreign court where it was not heard nor was a party.
Of particular concern to the Greens is international arbitration could "trump the public’s vote vote". New Zealand has repeatedly elected parties that support the alliance with America, and support a robust security and intelligence policy, including electronic surveillance as part of the war on terror.
The last week of the 2014 general election campaign was dominated by the Government Security Communications Bureau and its cooperation with the National Security Agency and the extent to which New Zealand security services engaged in electronic surveillance in New Zealand and abroad.
The Greens want to subvert that democratic decision that has been repeated over many New Zealand elections about national security and foreign relations to defer to an American court when New Zealand didn’t even appear as a party.
The US Court of appeal was deciding an issue of statutory interpretation of the Patriot Act. There was no constitutional issues at hand.
The Patriot Act expires in a month unless it is extended. Congress has ample opportunity to amend the renewed law to overturn the appeal court’s decision for the future operation of its security and intelligence laws.
The Greens want a Court of Appeal interpretation of the American Patriot Act to extend to New Zealand without a vote of the New Zealand people or the parliament having any say on whether to give up New Zealand’s sovereignty or waive sovereign immunity in American courts.
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17 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, law and economics, liberalism, Richard Posner, war and peace Tags: national security, privacy, Richard Posner, security and intelligence, terrorism
16 Sep 2014 Leave a comment
in liberalism, war and peace Tags: Edward Snowden, leaking versus dumping, narcissism, national security, oppositional identities, treason
Any marginally attentive citizen, much less N.S.A. employee or contractor, knows that the entire mission of the agency is to intercept electronic communications…
What makes leak cases difficult is that some leaking—some interaction between reporters and sources who have access to classified information—is normal, even indispensable, in a society with a free press.
It’s not easy to draw the line between those kinds of healthy encounters and the wholesale, reckless dumping of classified information by the likes of Snowden or Bradley Manning.
Indeed, Snowden was so irresponsible in what he gave the Guardian and the Post that even these institutions thought some of it should not be disseminated to the public. The Post decided to publish only four of the forty-one slides that Snowden provided. Its exercise of judgment suggests the absence of Snowden’s…
The American government, and its democracy, are flawed institutions. But our system offers legal options to disgruntled government employees and contractors. They can take advantage of federal whistle-blower laws; they can bring their complaints to Congress; they can try to protest within the institutions where they work.
But Snowden did none of this. Instead, in an act that speaks more to his ego than his conscience, he threw the secrets he knew up in the air—and trusted, somehow, that good would come of it. We all now have to hope that he’s right.
25 Apr 2014 1 Comment
in war and peace Tags: Anzac Day, Gallipoli, national security, world war 1
Australia and New Zealand were filled with first and second generation migrants happy to rally to defend their mother country:
The people and governments of New Zealand and Australia of that time were British to their boot straps. The Union Jack was in their flags for a reason.
Our specific quarrel with the Ottoman Empire was it joined Germany and others to be at war with the UK, Australia and New Zealand.
Removing the Ottoman Empire from that war would have strengthened Russia. A stronger Russia would have weakened Germany and its allies and brought the war to an earlier end.
The governments of Australian and New Zealand fell over themselves to declare war and pledge troops in 1914.
World War 1 started in the middle of an Australian election campaign in 1914.
In the September 1914 election, both opposition leader Andrew Fisher and Prime Minister Joseph Cook stressed Australia’s unflinching loyalty to Britain, and Australia’s readiness to take its place with the allied countries.
Labor Party leader Fisher’s campaign pledge was to:
stand beside the mother country to help and defend her to the last man and the last shilling.
Labor defeated the incumbent government to win majorities in both houses. Billy Hughes and his nationalist party won the 1917 election in a landslide.
New Zealanders had even a better chance to reflect on the war-making choices of their leaders in 1914.
Our election was in December of 1914. The passions of the moment had some chance to calm, and the fighting has started for real.
The will of the people was a 90 per cent vote for the war parties. New Zealanders could have voted for the Labour MPs, several of whom were later imprisoned for their anti-conscription activities or for refusing military service.
In New Zealand, after that wartime election, the Prime Minister was an Irish Protestant who formed a coalition with an Irish Catholic as his deputy.
Do you know of a superior mechanism to elections for measuring the will of the people? Are elections inadequate to the task of deciding if the people support a war and that support of the public is based on well-founded reasons?
The reasons for New Zealand and Australia fighting are the just cause of fighting militarism and territorial conquest, empire solidarity, regional security interests such as the growing number of neighbouring German colonies, and long-term national security. A victorious Germany would have imposed a harsh peace.
New Zealand and Australian national security is premised on having a great and powerful friend. That was initially Britain. When the USA arrived in 1941 as a better great and powerful friend, the British were dropped like a stone.
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