Bye Bye, Keith

I’m afraid I have some sad news to impart.  The Greens's Keith Locke is retiring.  Sorry to have to break it to you.

Keith has a wasted life to look back on. A life spent backing some of the world’s nastiest horses.  His departure will however help to Greenwash a Green Party struggling to keep the veneer on.

I'll probably be remembered as the MP who most strongly resisted legislation inspired by the 'war on terror' which has eroded our civil liberties,”

says a Keith hoping to  get in early and write his own history.

Good try, but that’s frankly wishful thinking. Because he will be deservedly remembered instead as the MP who went to bat for Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime, about whose takeover Keith wrote a lead article for his April 1975 'Socialist Action rag with the banner heading: "Cambodia Liberated: Victory For Humanity"

Keith’s "liberators," of course, went on to kill most of the population and enslave the rest. A “victory for humanity” bought at the price of the death by government of 2,035,000 souls.

This was a regime about which there is nothing good to say, and nothing at all to cheer. A Cambodian friend told me that towards the end of the Pol Pot regime, when they began running out of bullets, Khmer Rouge troops were killing people with bamboo stakes instead. Such was the regime that 'liberated' Cambodia.  [RJ Rummel has a 'Docudrama' from that fateful liberation to help give you some more context.]

Copies of that fateful April 1975 edition of Socialist Action in which Keith expressed his devotion to what would become one of the modern world’s most murderous regimes now change hands at enormous prices, as well they should. You can however find a copy in the Parliamentary Library now that is has been tabled in the House by Michael Cullen. [For the record, see Frog Blog's answer to the charge here. ]

But this love of “liberators” along similar lines is not out of character. As Trevor Loudon records,

In 1980 Keith Locke was a member of Socialist Action League National Committee. On February 23rd that year (Socialist Action March 14th) Keith Locke gave a talk in Wellington "Why workers should support Soviet Action in Afghanistan."

At the time, of course, all non-Maoist communists like Keith were required to slavishly follow the Soviet line. Keith, of course, now claims that he is older and wiser. Not so, however, as another revealing incident from 2001 demonstrates. Soon after the act of war that was September 11, Keith Locke spoke at a meeting in Rotorua on a platform with Annette Sykes, at a meeting called to protest the war against the Taleban. As Keith sat there smiling and nodding his head in agreement, Sykes told the audience (as transcribed by a member of that audience):

When I first saw the planes fly into the towers I jumped for joy, I was so happy that at long last capitalism was under attack. Until, it suddenly dawned on me, what about all those poor pizza delivery boys, those poor firemen, those poor policemen, those poor lift-operators, all those poor cleaners, all those other poor workers who are forced to work for and were trying to save those greedy and horrible capitalists!? My heart and head was so confused - happy that some capitalists had been killed and very, very sad for all those who had died while working for them.

Keith neither challenged nor questioned Sykes’s rant; instead he sat there and smiled and nodded and then led the applause when she finished. Nice chap. Good company he keeps. [I raised this matter on the Greens’s Frog Blog a few years back, at which time some discussion ensued.]

And the love of violence has not ceased. In 2007 he could be found supporting the activities of the Urewera 16, something even Martin Bradbury found too far beyond the pale to countenance.  And as recently as 2008 Keith was writing for a publication glorifying Palestinian suicide bombers.

So if anyone is going to write Keith’s history as in his words, “a human rights watchdog and peace advocate,” they might care to remember these incidents. They might also like to refer to Trevor Loudon ‘s four-part series on the “peace advocate,” Keith Locke-A Wasted Life, Part1,Part2, Part 3, and Part 4 (Final for Now). Loudon concluded this 2005 four-parter with the observation that,

Keith Locke was born into a communist family and has fought for the cause ever since. He has wasted his life supporting some of the most murderous regimes and movements on the planet.

Too true. I trust the many eulogies that will now be written about the man will not fail to highlight this all-too salient point.

Here’s another billboard for Keith:

A republican dilemma

Remember that dilemma that Annie Fox offered you a few weeks back: You need a kidney transplant, but the only available candidate comes from a bureaucrat.

Another similar dilemma has just emerged this afternoon.  A bill to make New Zealand a republic has just been drawn from the parliamentary ballot – sponsored by Keith Locke . . .

Locke the libertarian? [updated]

Did anyone else see Green MP Keith Locke describing himself self-contradictorily as a “libertarian eco-socialist” in  this self-serving article over the weekend?

Anybody care to comment?

UPDATE: The article was written to allow Keith to complain about being surveilled by the SIS “since he was eleven.”  Trevor Loudon opens up his Keith Locke files and says, given Keith’s loopy history, “I would be protesting if the SIS wasn't monitoring Keith Locke and would be most disappointed if they didn't continue to do so.”

Greens: Vote for [.........]?

The Greens invite you to make up your own Green billboards, and it's as easy as falling off a manifesto.  Just head here, and start clicking. [Hat tip MikeE]

And since a vote for the Greens is undeniably a vote to impoverish future generations (and this one) why not make up some more honest Green billboards than their present soft soap.

Here's one if you think they're just dumb instead of dangerous:

Here's one for Vlad worshipper Russel Norman :

Here's a couple for the rank and file:

For all the Green supporters of the Urewera 16:

And here's one for "former" Maoist Sue Bradford:

And for "population control" enthusiast Metiria Turei, here's one straight from her political mentors at China's One-Child propaganda ministry:

And another from her spiritual mentors at the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement:
 

And finally, here's one for old Keith Locke, that hero of socialist foreign policy, who once wrote a lead article for Socialist Action under the banner heading: "Cambodia Liberated: Victory For Humanity" The "liberators" were of course the murderous Khmer Rouge led by the infamous Pol Pot...

Head on over and make up a few signs of your own...

Loudon goes global on Obama

What began as a few posts on his New Zeal blog exploring the political origins of Barack Obama has ended up with Christchurch blogger Trevor Loudon being invited to Washington to deliver his research in person.

Obama, whom Loudon describes as “Keith Locke with charisma,” grew up and has lived his life in what Max Friedman calls a “Marxist Rich Environment.”  So too have many other red nappy babies who have lived to tell a more rational tale, Lindsay Perigo amongst them, but Loudon says that Obama’s ties to the extreme left are not only historical, but are contemporary and ongoing.

Obama's teenage mentor was the communist poet Frank Marshall Davis. Loudon posted on this on his blog back in March 2007, and it was this discovery that first piqued his interest. He discovered that Obama’s career has been supported for many years by the Chicago branch of the US Communist Party (a CPUSA breakaway group), the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism and the Chicago branch of Democratic Socialists of America (which is, despite its name, a Marxist organization). Part of the information documenting Obama's ongoing interactions with the latter two groups, including his decision to launch his political campaign in 1995 at the home of two convicted terrorists, was published in a series of 20 articles on Loudon's blog.

These posts quickly garnered the attention of the US blogosphere, starting with the Democratic Socialists themselves, and spreading gradually to right-wing US blogs, gingerbread conservative outlets and, more recently, the conservative organisation 'Accuracy In Media' founded by Max Friedman (pictured right with Loudon and other AIM colleagues) which combined this with further juicy Communist Party associations (communist mentor unmasked!) and threw it out as an example of how the news media has a liberal bias for not reporting the story.

It was this 'Accuracy in Media' article that went viral, being republished on hundreds, if not thousands of US websites.  If this is to be believed, even the increasingly desperate Clintonistas are distributing it. 

AIM’s Cliff Kincaid has published several subsequent articles on the subject, all of which have been republished all over the US.  A small group formed, which included Cliff Kincaid, Loudon, and two of the US’s leading communist history researchers Max Friedman and Herb Romerstein (that's the whole team above), to undertake more extensive research into Obama’s background, culminating in a press conference in Washington DC last week which released two major dossiers:

• One on the communist culture which they say surrounded Obama and his family in Hawaii [pdf]; and
• another on Obama’s communist and socialist links in Chicago [pdf].

The journalists covering the conference included a Russian TV station, leading the group to joke that the Russians were there to see what “we had on their man.” The conference has been extensively covered favourably on hundreds of US websites including Renew America and WorldNetDaily -- and mockingly in a half-page story on page 3 of the Washington Post.  Loudon’s material has also been picked up by David Horowitz's Frontpage Magazine and Discover the Network website. 

Loudon heads back to Christchurch this week, satisfied in the knowledge that Scott Dixon isn't the only Kiwi making waves in the States.

Maoists are as Maoists do.

When you he that Green MPs are protesting New Zealand's historic free trade deal with China, don't you find it strange to reflect that when Mao was murdering Chinese by the millions these same people wore Mao's portrait proudly on their badges and T-shirts, but now that China wants to take over the world's cheap T-shirt market they're protesting any deals being done.

Really strange.  When the Chinese were up their eyes in death and destruction the likes of Sue Bradford and Keith Locke had Mao's portrait on their bedroom walls and sent their murderers only praise, but now that the winds of freedom are beginning to blow away the violence, they themselves are now violently opposed to NZ sending the Chinese anything apart from protests.

Odd, don't you think. And instructive.

NZ troops are propping up a theocracy

Every free country has the right to liberate a slave pen (allow me to remind careful readers of the difference between a right and a duty).  It has the right to hunt down those who have committed or intend to commit violence against its citizens.  These two principles -- the recognition of individual rights and of the right to self-defence -- were the twin justifications for the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, an invasion and occupation supported by New Zealand troops, and it's clear enough from the fairly widespread support for the Afghanistan campaign that these two principles are at least dimly understood by everyone who possesses a greater grasp of world affairs than Keith Locke.

So why then are New Zealand troops in Afghanistan propping up a regime that is about to execute a young man for the crime of ... wait for it ... blasphemy?  That's right, blasphemy.  For the 'crime' of questioning the treatment of women in the Koran (something everyone who possesses a moral standing greater than Eliot Spitzer should undertake occasionally) Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh has been condemned to death by an Afghani court.

It wasn't supposed to be like this, was it?  As Idiot Savant says [hat tip Liberty Scott] "We wouldn't support Iran's rabid theocracy with troops; why are we supporting Afghanistan's?" An excellent question asked even by Peter Dunne.  I'm not sure either of them will like the answer spelled out, however.

The answer, as Yaron Brook and Elan Journo have argued in some detail, is that the twin campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq were not genuinely based on the principles of self-defence and individual rights.  While they began with the righteous indignation symbolised in the name chosen for the military campaign against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan: Operation Infinite Justice, Brook points out that "this reaction was evanescent," and as the name of the operation changed the campaign for self-defence eventually became something else quite different: a promise of "self-determination" for those liberated in the invasions and a promise to spread "democracy" to those with little or no understanding of the concept of freedom.  Since democracy is a counting of heads regardless of content, the result of spreading democracy to those whose heads are full of theocratic mush should have been obvious.

Whatever they chose, whomever they elected, Washington and its allies -- us included -- promised to endorse. The decision was entirely theirs.

If self-defense were part of the goal ... then one would logically expect that, for the sake of protecting American [and New Zealand] lives, Washington [on behalf of its allies] would at least insist on ensuring that the new regimes be non-threatening, so that we do not have to face a resurgent threat [or support a theocracy]. But Bush proclaimed all along that America would never determine the precise character of Iraq’s (or Afghanistan’s) new regime. The Iraqis [and Afghanis] were left to contrive their own constitution...

When asked [for example] whether the United States would acquiesce to an Iranian-style militant regime ..., Bush said yes. Why ...? Because, Bush explained, “democracy is democracy. . . . If that’s what the people choose, that’s what the people choose.”

What the majority of Afghanis chose for their country, as history now shows and Brook makes clear, was a theocracy that allows "legions of undefeated Taliban and Al Qaeda warriors to regroup and renew their jihad," and that murders its citizens for questioning a holy book that rates women below goats.

This is not what New Zealand troops should have been fighting for, and if that's all they're now there for then it's time that they weren't.

The litmus test for "social justice"

The activities of the Urewera 16 are becoming clearer, giving all advocate of "social justice" to declare their commitment to renouncing force.

Presented with the opportunity to nail their colours to the mast and issue a ringing condemnation of violence -- to come out against taking up arms against "the white man"; against a wish that "bullets start going through people"; against any suggestion of "a bombing campaign that blew up Waihopai spy base, power dams, gas facilities, TV stations and radios" and a terror campaign so sudden and so brutal "they'll think it's al Qaeda" -- what do the advocates for global peace and social justice do instead?

 What do so called advocates of peace, equality, non-violence and non-racism do in the face of excerpts from transcripts of police surveillance showing those acting in the name of those aspirations prepared to carry out actions markedly less pacifist than their supposed aims? 

The reaction from the fellow travellers is instructive.

 Do they condemn? Do they hell.

 They turn their heads away instead and whine about everything from our "racist" police force (who arrested three Maori out of seventeen who were charged) to "heavy handed" treatment of some suspects, to the publication of these oh so revealing transcripts -- but they have refused to condemn what's revealed in those transcripts.

That in itself is enormously revealing. Make no mistake, this is a litmus moment: a time when people who support the stated ends of those arrested can and should make make it clear that they are revolted by their chosen and now-stated means. But for the most part they aren't doing that, are they.

 Even 'Bomber' Bradbury has invited them to, saying repeatedly:

"NO PEACE ACTIVIST - NO SOCIAL JUSTICE ACTIVIST HAS ANY RIGHT TO PICK UP A GUN IN NZ! And the second you do pick up a gun - you are no longer a member of a social justice movement." 

Would that others in that camp said the same. But they aren't, and we're entitled to make a judgement about what that means.

 Instead of condemning the aspirations for blood lust, Keith Locke for example has come out against ... The Dominion. Given the Greens already called those arrested “Maori, peace and environmental activists,” with whom the Greens presumably see some common cause, it would appear there is prima facie evidence here that, for the Greens (or at least for Keith Locke), being a peace activist gives one carte blanche to cheer about murder. It wouldn't be the first time, would it.

And fellow traveller of many of those arrested Nandor Tanczos said a year ago that he had "spoken to people" who see a future of "permanent civil unrest and eventually when the demographics change enough, for outright war" and it "frightens the hell" out of him. Where is he now that when what frightened him is more public? Like Trevor Loudon, I'd like to think his silence indicates he's telling the police all he knows, no matter how minor it may seem. But I don't for moment think that's what the silence of this "mainstream environmentalist" indicates, do you?

Meanwhile Iti's lawyer Annette Sykes, the woman who twelve years ago called for the burning of forests and the blowing up of dams, and who "clapped and cheered" when 3000 people were murdered in destruction of the World Trade Center, is heading to the UN to seek "justice" for the people "terrorised" by the police carrying out search warrants, but not before condemning ... that's right, the publication of transcripts showing her client(s) for what they are.

And John Minto, co-organiser with many of those arrested of a ragbag of radical groups, found time to condemn as "despicable" ... what do you think? ... the media. Ne mention of how despicable it is to arm and train and plan for murder.

And Jamie Lockett's lawyer is equally outraged that the public might read for themselves the true nature of his client is joined by fellow lawyer Moana Jackson who is "appalled" -- appalled! -- at ... no, not at the revelations of violent hatred and blood lust but "the lack of journalistic responsibility" shown in telling the public what his client(s) are really like, and particularly that "Fairfax printed selective items from a huge volume of evidence." I doubt whether we should take that to mean that all the evidence should be made public.

And then there's dear old Peter Williams, QC, who's made a healthy living over the years from defending scum in court (and campaigning for a more comfortable stay in prison for the scum when they go down), who used the word "cowardly" yesterday when commenting on the transcripts. No, not the aspirations stated therein to "to kill Pakeha to get trainees used to killing" or "to assassinate the prime minister, the new one, next year's one." No, that wasn't what stated this officer of the court calls cowardly -- what he condemns as cowardly is the publication of these statements. That tells you as much about Mr Williams as you'd ever care to know.

And we're entitled to draw conclusions too from the likes of blogger Idiot Savant, who like Keith Locke condemns the publishing, condemning the aspirations of violence only elliptically with his comment on Jamie Lockett, and from TV3's John Campbell, who (as Lindsay Perigo identifies), "dismiss its significance because of the small number of people involved." Crikey, even Jordan Carter can find it within himself to express a little momentary distaste. But not I/S.

There's really only one of the usual suspects so far who emerges from this litmus test with a better colour. The Maori Party early on nailed their colours to those accused being angels, and Pita Sharples disgraced himself by quickly pulling out the race card and waving it in the face of the evidence, but he has at least said "Make no mistake - we are absolutely and categorically horrified by the threatening language we have read in the paper today."

Signs of hope, perhaps? It is at least an indication to some of these other fellow travellers the sort of response they now need to take, or to be judged accordingly.

For my own part, let me repeat what I've already said here:

There is a vast gulf between genuine civil disobedience and the "direct action" supported by so called peace activists and anarchists and anti-colonialists, and I for one find it instructive that defenders of the arrested seventeen wish to conflate the two. There is an unstated assumption that because the state so often uses force in promoting its values, that this somehow legitimises ragtag envy-ridden whiners using force to promote values. It doesn't. Two evils don't whitewash the fallacy. Ayn Rand makes the point as clear as it can be:

One does not and cannot "negotiate" with brutality, nor give it the benefit of the doubt. The moral absolute should be: if and when, in any dispute, one side initiates the use of physical force, that side is wrong—and no consideration or discussion of the issues is necessary or appropriate.

Clear enough for you?

Lindsay Perigo drives the point home:

The greatest good to come from the terror raids may not be the stopping of the terrorists in their tracks, excellent and noble though that certainly be, but the exposure of their vile apologists for what they are.

[Thanks to Liberty Scott and Trevor Loudon, whose well-researched posts were invaluable in writing this one. Any errors of course are mine.]

UPDATE 1: The young idiots at Socialist Worker, whose "friends" was who were arrested, continue the theme. These erstwhile advocates of the rule of law condemn the "contempt for the judicial process" shown in exposing the extent of their friends' vileness, while carefully avoiding any judgement of what their friends were up to. If you think it's because they think you're stupid, then you'd be right.

UPDATE 2: Kudos for once to Shane Jones, who told Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking:

I rather suspect that a lot of the characters mixed up in this rubbish up in Tuhoe and various other parts are using the cloak of Maoriness to disguise and obscure criminality and soon as the cops round the buggers up and treat them as criminals the better.

"Very disturbing activities" in the Dom

Your job for today is to read and digest the Dominion's publication of the transcripts of police surveillance that were used to obtain search warrants when police suspected terrorist plots were under way.

Feel free to comment as you're reading.

UPDATE 1: Short summary (partly pinched from Liberty Scott) of bugged conversations:

• Threat to blow up John Key
  
• Calls to kill police and evict non-Maori farmers;
• Talk of using a sniper's rifle to assassinate US President Bush;
• Making nail bombs and napalm;
• How to throw Molotov cocktails;
• Live ammunition training in ambush and withdrawal;
• Interrogation training using loaded firearms pointed at trainees' heads;
  
• Blowing up power stations, gas plants, Telecom, petrol stations and the Waihopai Spy Station;
• "Kill Pakehas" for practice;
• Wanting to emulate the IRA's terror campaign;
• Using the "Al Qaeda manual" on terror tactics, and wanting to emulate Al Qaeda's horror.

UPDATE 2: Here's some talking points for you:

• This is not the full evidence, simply short and selective summaries of the 156-page affidavit used to obtain search warrants in the Manukau District Court. Should the Dom have published these few excerpts? Should they have published more? Or placed the whole document on their website?
  

And, based on these few transcripts:

• Were the police justified in their surveillance? In the level of force used in raids? Did they act too soon? Or two days too late?
• Any evidence here to justify charges of police racism?
  
• To what extent were these conversations just idle threats and throwaway remarks? How seriously should the police take "idle threats" when they're backed up with training, materiel and people motivated enough to carry them out?
• Is it obvious enough now why the defendants, their lawyers and the Minto Mob did all they can to keep all the evidence suppressed?
  
• "Peace" activists? If these were your "friends," would you be defending them?
  
• "I have nothing to hide," said Tame Iti on returning home. Really?
  
• How seriously should we take John Minto, Jane Kelsey, Nandor Tanczos et al who sat in court listening to these conversations being read out, and still insisted that there was nothing to answer for?
• How seriously should we take journalists who sat in court listening to these conversations being read out, and who still treated Tame Iti as a hero, and the rest of the rabble with kid gloves?

I'm inclined to agree with Scott's conclusion, that there's a few people who need to front up:

Go on, it's time for Keith Locke to express his view, as a self proclaimed peace campaigner now that evidence is out. It is time for the Maori Party to decide what it believes in - do you oppose political violence? Do you oppose murder? Do you oppose mass vandalism to destroy the economy? Do you oppose violent evictions of farmers from their private property? Or is your support for peace about as skin deep as your support for freedom? At least Maia inadvertently may be quite true in her post, as a friend of the fascist left.

Oh, and when you see the hikoi supporting those who support terrorism, you might tell them what you think of them. Methinks those on the hikoi might go home and reflect on who their friends are.

UPDATE 3: Lindsay Perigo praises the Dom for growing a pair:

"The Dominion Post's decision to take the 'publish and be damned' approach I yesterday urged on TV3 toward the evidence on which the police anti-terror raids were based is vindicated by the evidence thus revealed," says SOLO Principal Lindsay Perigo. "So are the raids themselves. And TV3 are exposed yet again as the abject fellow-travellers of those whom I have so rightly been calling the 'wannabe terrorists.'

Read the whole press release here.

Justice seen to be done

It's unfortunate that our courts seem to have forgotten the crucial principle that underpins their work: that justice must not only be done must must be seen to be done. When justice is kept under wraps, all sorts of nonsense appears in the vacuum.

In the case of the 'Urewera 16' we're naturally all as hungry as hell to find out if what we've heard only by rumour and innuendo has any element of truth, or if any of the criticism is justified. It all comes down to the evidence. Sadly however in allowing defendants' lawyers to have names, facts and evidence suppressed, the courts have ensured the vacuum will be exploited by the defenders of violence -- and if anyone can exploit a vacuum the likes of John Minto and Annette Sykes and Keith Locke can -- and all sorts of fatuous nonsense has been able to take root, some of the most fatuous being from the defendants' lawyers themselves. The weekend's Minto mob outside Labour's conference ("Helen Clark." "Terrorist." Repeat x 24) and the hand-wringing opportunism of Peter Williams QC are simply the most recent examples of the sort of sick nonsense that's proliferating in the vacuum where everyone's trying to claim the high ground in the benefit-of-the-doubt stakes.

It's clear enough from my own visits to the court last week just why the defendants want several years' worth of surveillance evidence to be kept from public view since almost every line is damning. So why do the courts consider us so immature that we can't handle hearing the evidence for ourselves in media repors, instead of hearing only the nonsense that its absence has generated?

UPDATE: He doesn't cover the suppression of evidence by the courts, but Graeme Edgeler tells you everything you need to know about bail, which is what last week's hearings were about.

Political violence

The 'war on a tactic' had another casualty last night, as the New Zealand parliament amended the existing Suppression of Terrorism Amendment Act to make it easier to politicise violence.

I don't approve.

If we remove the conspiratorial rubbish from many commentators drawing connections between this amendment and recent arrests -- a coincidence that makes passing of the amendment more difficult rather than less, and a connection for which not a shred of proof has been adduced -- I'm in the unusual position of largely agreeing with quoted statements by two different parliamentary parties on the amendments.

Rodney Hide supported the original legislation in 2002 (as did I with some reservations), but he points out that removing High Court oversight of how powers are used is a step too far.

The very freedoms that we are trying to protect are being eroded... We can't defend our freedoms that we cherish by adopting fascist policies.

True. Meanwhile Keith Locke pointed out that existing criminal law is quite able to tackle domestic terrorism without any need for increased powers, and he points out too that it's iniquitous to politicise sentencing by imposing higher sentences for 'political' violence than for more 'normal' and more 'senseless' violence.

Why should someone trying to save dolphins or native snails, if they ever happen to turn violent, be subject to more years in jail than a violent gang member with no social conscience?

Fair question. (And pleasing to see Keith conceding the possibility that some of those trying to save dolphins or native snails might have turned violent. Would that others of Keith's persuasion consider the possibility.)

While it's gratifying to note these two principled stands, Labour-Lite meanwhile was trying to have it both ways, voting for an amendment that removes restraints on police and government while wringing their hands and whimpering that when anti-terrorist action is taken 'police better get it right, or else' -- hoping no one notices that it's the 'or else' that they've just voted to have removed.

So much confusion, so little sense. Much of the confusion comes from the genuine need to combat non-domestic terrorism (which is more a defence issue than a judicial one), and too from the foolishness of the appellation 'War on Terror' -- essentially a war against a tactic. Yaron Brook has been in the forefront of pointing out the foolishness of fighting a war against a tactic instead of accurately identifying your enemy, and the many advantages of accurate identification.

You don't fight a tactic. Terrorism is a tactic, and I believe we have to look at the ideological source of terrorism in order to identify the true enemy.

As he points out, the primary ideological surce of non-domestic terrorism is Islamic Totalitarianism. Several advantages accrue from defining that non-domestic threat more clearly, including being able to examine alleged domestic threat less confusedly and with considerably less fear of hyperventilating -- avoiding especially the risk of wrapping up domestic threats of violence in flawed and conspiratorial package deals that give ammuntion to those skilled at using such conspiratorial capital for their own nefarious advantage .

'Not PC' backs the government!

I'm in the unusual position of wanting to praise four statements from four different government ministers*.

Pita Sharples told everyone yesterday that Monday's police action -- sorry, "Monday's military style police raids" (nothing like a dose of hyperbole to help your chance of a headline) -- was all about race. Parekura Horomia explains exactly what card Sharples is playing here: "the race card." Parekura would know, of course, since he's played that same card himself several times, but on this he's exactly right, and I'm damn sure Sharples knows it.

Meanwhile, Nania Mahuta firmly put Sharples' claptrap in context:

This isn't a Maori issue, this is an issue of public safety.

And so it is. Weapons have been seized (yes, weapons, Pita) from people of all colours from light brown to unwashed off-white; it should be obvious enough to everyone except the fellow travellers of the arrested and those with a pre-prepared axe to grind that this is not about race.

We've also heard any amount of hand wringing about the police -- sorry the "military style police raids" -- "traumatising a whole community" down there in Ruatoki, and scaring children on school buses. (Poor kids. They're surrounded by Iti and his comrades waving guns around, but the first sight of the police is enough to have them hyperventilating.) Now, I don't think for a minute that anyone believes that the "community" of Ruatoki is traumatised; as we're all aware, this is what is known as playing the "victim card." But Steve Maharey laid one of the myths about the "Ninja Army" to bed yesterday by pointing out that there is no evidence that the police were even on any school buses in Ruatoki. Does anyone have any that contradicts him? Even those making the claim have chosen to side-step the question, choosing instead to carry on with the hand wringing and the misinformation.

It is truly a time for cool heads.

Because we've heard all sorts of conspiratorial crap, haven't we, about how for example this whole operation has been concocted by the Labour Government for all sorts of reasons, including to help them push through the amendments to the anti-terrorism legislation. Since the police raids are more likely to hinder rather than help the amendments, this sort of conspiratorial rubbish is so dumb even Ian Wishart would steer clear of it -- as I believe he has.

It's often necessary to explain to the likes of African dictators that in the Westminster system the police, the executive and the legislature are at least nominally independent. It should hardly be necessary to explain this to commentators whose ignorance is exceeded only by their conspiratorial mien.

It's true that the independence of the police has been brought into question in recent years with their failure to properly bring the force of law to bear against Labour MPs for offences ranging from speeding through Ashburton to putting their hand into the taxpayers' pocket to steal the last election, but these compromises of police independence were only on issues in which the Labour Government held a venal interest, (which is all that really gets them excited these days) - but the police's nominal independence would at least make it difficult to coordinate such a conspiracy, and the Labour Government have hardly shown themselves capable of the sort of competence necessary to leap the few barriers of independence that do remain.

Meaning, in summary, that I'm quite prepared to believe the Government and the opposition wer briefed only when they said they were, something John Key corroborated this morning. To my mind, Annette King's first response to the press gallery on all this was still right on the money. As Newstalk ZB reported on Monday:

Mrs King [said] suggestions the arrests were politically motivated are untrue, as the Government only found out about the camps late last week. She says it was the Police Commissioner's decision to make the arrests, based on the risk to the public.

Mrs King says police have to make decisions on the evidence they have. She says if anything had happened, people would have been asking "why the useless cops hadn't done anything about it".

It's true, isn't it. And there's something else of which people should be reminded. It's the job of the police to bring evidence and lay charges. It's not the job of the media or of Keith Locke or Pita Sharples to hear that evidence, it's the job of the courts. I'd suggest those who want to 'jump the gun' to instead try and follow Horomia's advice:

Many of us find it hard to believe that the behaviour of these characters might amount to terrorist activity. But the police wouldn't have raised this potential lightly, so let's wait and see.

Yes. Let's.

UPDATE 1: Police Association president Greg O'Connor backs up Maharey, and derides the self-serving claims about police storming kids' buses:

Waiariki MP Te Ururoa Flavell will take part in a hikoi being held through the streets of Whakatane today to protest about police tactics used during the terror raids at the foot of the Urewera Ranges... President of the Police Association Greg O'Connor is [however] denying claims armed police stormed the school bus. "The only time a school bus every got searched up there was four years ago when a Kohanga Reo bus was stopped and two gang members were on it. They were trying to escape through a checkpoint following a shooting and homicide."

Mr O'Connor says critics of the tactics police used should hold back until all the evidence is available.

Frankly, the critics don't want to wait. They want to make up stuff while keeping their axe ground. If anyone has any evidence that a school bus was stormed, then let's hear it. Otherwise, the hikoi be damned.

UPDATE 2: Backing for these things those ministers said doesn't of course mean that they won't go on being morons as Horomia already has: Horomia says Iti no terrorist. FFS! As David Farrar points out, "Ministers of the Crowns should know better than to speculate. They have a constitutional position other MPs do not... Ministers should and generally are saying nothing, as to do so would undermine the judicial process." In fact as Horomia said earlier from a different side of his mouth, the police wouldn't have raised this matter lightly, so let's wait and see what evidence they can present in court, and what the courts decide, huh?

UPDATE 3: If I'm going to back government ministers, then why not go the whole hog and back Bomber. When you get sense from the normally senseless, that's all you can do. Here's Bomber Bradbury making sense (and I never thought I would type those words):

...it’s a matter of principle. Symbolically damage things, absolutely, take up arms against my fellow countrymen, never, that ain’t my bag baby. Yes I’m angry our friends have been arrested, yes I’m angry at the way they have been treated, yes they are not terrorists, but anyone attempting to justify social justice through violence is the most backwards step I’ve ever seen, the activist community have got to demand our civil rights while renouncing any use of guns to force social change. In a functioning democracy, we fight with words and ideas, not grenade launchers.

Bravo.

UPDATE 4: I would have thought that far worse for Ruatoki children being made to fake trauma over police raids on buses that didn't happen would be to be forced into being used as political pawns. "As many as a thousand people joined a march in Whakatane to complain about children being caught up in the police operation," says the Herald.

Was there not one person there to complain about them being used as political pawns by racist morons?

* UPDATE 5: That first sentence above should now read "... four statements from three government ministers, and one who's just quit." Yes, that's right, the man who's "lived a life of blameless excellence" is quitting to take up a sinecure at Massey University. Massey's loss is the taxpayer's gain.

Air New Zealand. Ian Wishart. Beat up.

Not the first time you've seen the words "beat up" and "Ian Wishart" in the same heading, and as long as idiots keep giving his stories enough rope by which they should be hung for stupidity, it won't be the last.

Air New Zealand's now much publicised charter flight to Kuwait two-and-a-half months ago was never a secret, except to Ian Wishart and his readers. It was a flight with reporters and an ABC TV crew aboard, a charter about which flight industry journalists such as Peter Clark (who made this point on Leighton Smith's show this morning) were well aware, and the flight and the charter itself was reported without adverse comment in airline trade journals--which was all the legs the story really had until the recent beat up. [You can hear Peter Clark at this audio link, beginning 12 minutes in].

But the beat up itself has raised some other points which are worth making, some of which I've blatantly stolen from my colleague Lance Davey:

• "On the TV One coverage of the story, some cowardly little vermin, some pant piddling pissant, suggested that Air NZ's involvement was 'inappropriate' as it could potentially make New Zealand a 'target'. . .
  "If they (Islamo-fascists) are that easily goaded (which they are) and if they are that scary (which they are) and if you are that afraid of them (which you SHOULD be) then why isn't our government SUPPORTING THE GODDAMN WAR!?" By the way, the cowardly, pant piddling, pissant was Keith Locke.
• In his press release yesterday, pissant Locke said, "Air New Zealand has now exposed the airline, its travellers and the country to an extra risk of revenge attacks."
  Note the word "extra." Clearly, even the pissant is aware that a threat to us down here at the bottom of the world does already exist.
  Says My Davey, "He is acknowledging a prior threat, that this is an 'extra risk.' I don't disagree, yes this adds to the risk of attacks, but Mr Locke, simply being a free (somewhat) and secular society exposes us to the risk of attacks. That risk is currently small thanks only to our size and isolation. That is the very reason we should be outright in support of the war."
• That this story has in any way become a political issue says perhaps more clearly than anything else the vacuousness of labelling and identifying "a national carrier," and the danger of political ownership of an airline. There's a danger that every simple commercial decision like this one is potentially politicised.
• It would be nice to think we could stay out of conflict simply by holding our nose and asserting that we're not in one (although it didn't work for Neville Chamberlain, did it?), but the fact remains that we're already in one merely by being part of the free and secular west. In case you haven't noticed, war against us has already been declared. "In the minds of the terrorists this war began long before September 11, and will not end until their radical vision is fulfilled... " The long, long trail of appeasement, capitulation and death already inflicted upon westerners and non-Muslims is just the beginning of the evidence.
  

UPDATE 1: Says David Farrar with a wink:

I am somewhat amused by the fact that Air New Zealand has been getting closer to the action and combat zones, than the Royal New Zealand Air Force has been.

UPDATE 2: Blair M nails the moral equivalence elephant that's stampeding around the room:

So Phil Goff doesn't like Air New Zealand being chartered to carry US soldiers? Sends the wrong message does it? Not a good look? What about holding hands with a terrorist, Mr Goff? How does that look? You're not prepared for a commercial operation to assist friendly countries in the fight against terrorists, but you're quite happy to get all homo et homo with someone who started their career blowing planes up and shooting innocent athletes.

Yes, if you haven't seen it before, that's the famous photo of Phil Goff and Yasser Arafat holding hands during Goff's Middle Eastern visit to pay homage, not long before he sent five-hundred thousand dollars of our money to the murderous Hamas.

UPDATE 3: Liberty Scott hammers another nail into the phony 'moral equivalence' face of the Clark Government:

I read about this on an airline industry messageboard ages ago - if it hadn't been Air NZ it would've been Qantas or Emirates or someone else. The simple answer is to sell it of course, or Keith Locke could boycott Air NZ, which would reduce his carbon footprint as he could only fly to the 3 main centres.

Don't forget this is the same government and Green Party cozying up to blood thirsty child murderers in Pyongyang.

Faux outrage from morally blind politicians with an unerring attraction for thugs is just so unattractive, don't you think.

UPDATE 4: Heartening news from an unscientific poll at the Stuff site, which shows an overwhelming 72% of respondents "aren’t bothered by the fact that Air NZ has been transporting Aussie troops." Politicians, pseudo-investigative jourmalists and journalists who report politics as sport seem to have all the bother to themselves.

UPDATE 5: NBR's Nevil Gibson has a commendably measured view on this whole Inwishtigate instigated teacup in search of a storm:

The over-reaction to Investigate’s story on Air New Zealand military charters to the Middle East and elsewhere shows how far the government is prepared to go in furthering its own ends, as opposed to those of the country...

New Zealand’s equivocation may in future be seen as appeasement or even cowardly when defeating terrorism. The German magazine Spiegel has done a lot of work in this long piece on presenting a balanced picture of Iraq, and it’s not all negative or hopeless.

But when the Air New Zealand story broke, the reaction from the ministers, Winston Peters and Phil Goff, showed the functioning of government was really about political objectives rather than something the public was quite happy to let pass.

For sober treatment of irrational hysterics, I recommend reading and considering the whole piece: Whose Foreign Affairs - Nevil Gibson, NBR Editor's Insight.

Scum ahoy

There are few human beings more vile than apologists for evil. One such is about to visit New Zealand: Saddamite George Galloway, the "honourable member for Baghdad Central," a recipient for many years of Saddam's money and of Soviet money; a man for whom the demise of the Soviet Union was, he said, "the biggest catastrophe of my life," and who is on record as saluting Saddam's "courage" "strength" and "indefatigability"; a man happy to hang out with with the murderer, rapist and torturer Uday Hussein; a man who, as you would expect with these credentials, has attracted the Green Party's Keith Locke in vigorous support. [ref: Liberty Scott]

No surprises there. Keith has no shame. As you might recall, back in April 1975 he was a supporter of Pol Pot. And After September 11, as many of you will also recall Keith Locke hosted Annette Sykes in a series of meetings around the country, in one of which while Keith sat there smiling and nodding his head in agreement, Sykes told the audience (as transcribed by a member of that audience):

When I first saw the planes fly into the towers I jumped for joy, I was so happy that at long last capitalism was under attack. Until, it suddenly dawned on me, what about all those poor pizza delivery boys, those poor firemen, those poor policemen, those poor lift-operators, all those poor cleaners, all those other poor workers who are forced to work for and were trying to save those greedy and horrible capitalists!? My heart and head was so confused - happy that some capitalists had been killed and very, very sad for all those who had died while working for them.

Keith neither challenged nor questioned Sykes’s rant; instead he sat there and smiled and nodded and then led the applause when she finished. Nice chap. I expect him to smile and nod his head all the way through Galloway's apologia for totalitarian evil. If you're judged by the company you keep, both Locke and Galloway are guilty.

Democracy vs. freedom: A Middle Eastern case study

"Democracy is freedom!" Well, no it isn't.

There's much confusion abroad about structures of government, and too little understanding of the difference between democracy and constitutional government.

Many people mistakenly believe that democracy is synonymous with freedom, so if you're saddled with that delusion yourself then you're not alone. It isn't. As Bill Weddell used to say, democracy is not freedom, it is simply the counting of heads regardless of content. And as Yaron Brook points out in The Forward Strategy for Failure, democratic elections across the Middle East that seemed to promise so much have demonstrated instead that the result of counting empty heads will often deliver the opposite of freedom. It's a lesson that we should all ponder.

Iraq has had not just one, but several popular elections, as well as a referendum on a new constitution written by Iraqi leaders; with U.S. endorsement and prompting, the Palestinians held what international monitors declared were fair elections; and Egypt’s authoritarian regime, under pressure from Washington, allowed the first contested parliamentary elections in more than a decade. Elections were held as well in Lebanon (parliamentary) and Saudi Arabia (municipal). In sum, these developments seemed to indicate a salutary political awakening. The forward march toward “liberty in other nations” seemed irresistible ...

It all looked so promising, didn't it, and - let's face it - we all got excited at the sight of so many so eager to vote in places for which any idea of free and fair elections seemed just a few years ago so unbelievable. I confess, I did too. The Bush Administration's "forward strategy for freedom" seemed to be working, it seemed to be worthy of celebration - but the strategy had and has a fatal flaw. It was and is based solely on the introduction of democracy, and democracy is no guarantee of freedom. A majority can just as easily to vote away its own freedoms and those of minorities as it will to have them protected. Recent history offers no exception. "Has the democracy crusade moved us toward peace and freedom in the Middle East—and greater security at home?" asks Brook. Answer, NO! Emphatically not.

The elections in Iraq were touted as an outstanding success for America, but the new Iraqi government is far from friendly. It is dominated by a Shiite alliance led by the Islamic Daawa Party and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI)... Teheran is thought to have a firm grip on the levers of power within Iraq’s government, and it actively arms and funds anti-American insurgents. The fundamental principle of Iraq’s new constitution—as of Iran’s totalitarian regime—is that Islam is inviolable. Instead of embracing pro-Western leaders, Iraqis have made a vicious Islamic warlord, Moqtada al-Sadr, one of the most powerful men in Iraqi politics...

How about the elections in the Palestinian territories, then? Any more success there?

For years, Bush had asked Palestinians “to elect new leaders, . . . not compromised by terror.” And, finally, in the U.S.-endorsed elections of January 2006, the Palestinians did turn their backs on the cronies of Yasser Arafat; they rejected the incumbent leadership of Fatah—and elected the even more militant killers of Hamas: an Islamist group notorious for suicide bombings. Hamas won by a landslide and now rules the Palestinian territories. Refusing to recognize Israel’s legitimacy, Hamas is committed to annihilating that state and establishing a totalitarian Islamic regime.

Since writing that, as you probably know, Palestine has collapsed in what is essentially a civil war between Fatah and Hamas, with the price of war being paid in Palestinian bodies and an increased threat to the territories' neighbours, rather than a reduced one. No increase in freedom here either, then, or security.

How about Lebanon, where great hopes were held for a rebirth in peace and freedom after elections that followed the drumming out of Syrian-controlled puppets? Sadly, the results there offer little cause for hope either.

Hezbollah took part in the U.S.-endorsed elections in Lebanon, formed part of that country’s cabinet for the first time, and won control of two ministries.11 In the summer of 2006, the Iranian-backed Hamas and Hezbollah killed and kidnapped Israeli soldiers—and precipitated a month-long war in the region. Since the ceasefire that ended the war, Hezbollah has continued to amass weapons and foment terrorism, emboldened by its popular electoral support.

So no success with recent democracies in Iraq, Lebanon or the Palestinian territories then - majorities have simply voted in totalitarians and killers who've acted to snuff out whatever shoots of freedom that we all fervently believed were beginning to appear.

Perhaps elections in Egypt provide more hope? Sadly, the biggest beneficiary of the 2005 election was the Muslim Brotherhood, which as Brook points out represent "the intellectual origin of the Islamist movement, whose offshoots include Hamas and parts of Al Qaeda. The Brotherhood’s founding credo is 'Allah is our goal; the Koran is our constitution; the Prophet is our leader; Struggle is our way; and death in the path of Allah is our highest aspiration'” !

It seems that the "forward strategy of freedom" of implementing democracy in the Middle East is an abject failure - a failure made inevitable by the pathetic faith in democracy to deliver that freedom. As Brook summarises, what democracy in the Middle East actually delivered was the very opposite of freedom: it delivered more power to those enemies of freedom that the Bush strategy was supposed to snuff out.

The Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Lebanese Hezbollah, the Islamist regime in Iran, the Mahdi Army, Al Qaeda—these are all part of an ideological movement: Islamic Totalitarianism. Although differing on some details and in tactics, all of these groups share the movement’s basic goal of enslaving the entire Middle East, and then the rest of the world, under a totalitarian regime ruled by Islamic law.

The totalitarians will use any means to achieve their goal—terrorism, if it proves effective; all-out war, if they can win; and politics, if it can bring them power over whole countries.

Bush’s forward strategy has helped usher in a new era in the Middle East: By its promotion of elections, it has paved the road for Islamists to grab political power and to ease into office with the air of legitimacy and without the cost of bombs or bullets. Naturally, totalitarians across the region are encouraged. They exhibit a renewed sense of confidence. The Iran-Hamas-Hezbollah war against Israel last summer is one major symptom of that confidence; another is Iran’s naked belligerence through insurgent proxies in Iraq, and its righteously defiant pursuit of nuclear technology.

The situation in the Middle East is worse for America today than it was in the wake of 9/11...

And worse too for the Middle East. Without a culture that values freedom and a constitutional structure that protects life and liberty, any nascent democracy is simply a hostage to whatever outrageous fortunes may sweep across a country, just as they did in the Weimar Germany of the 1930s. It seems clear enough that democracy alone is not enough to either preserve or introduce liberty and freedom, and it now seems abundantly clear that the strategists of the Bush Administration are entirely ignorant of that point - but it's also clear that they're not alone in that ignorance.

Americans themselves will mostly tell you they live in a democracy, but in saying that they'd be wrong. The model of government introduced to America by its founding fathers was the most successful historic example of constitutional protections of liberty. America is not a democracy, it's a constitutional republic. For nearly one-hundred and fifty years the constitution introduced by the founding fathers and the enlightenment culture derived largely from sixteenth-century Britain provided the best protector for freedom the world in all its dark history had yet seen. It was a model introduced successfully in part to Japan after WWII, but all too sadly forgotten in the recent Middle East forays.

No matter what you've heard, and no matter how many American strategists insist upon it, America's model of government is not a democracy. In fact, the founding fathers were assiduous in protecting liberty from the threat of unlimited majority rule that democracy delivers. What they did was put the things of importance beyond the vote, delivering to the world not a democracy but a constitutional republic. (Yes, I've repeated the point. It bears repeating.) The system of checks and balances of the United States Constitution was described by Ayn Rand as "the great American achievement." It is an achievement richly deserving of study, and (with some few modifications) of emulating.

A nice summary of the workings of that successful Constitution is provided by a new course offered by the Ayn Rand Institute:

A Constitution is "[t]he system or body of fundamental principles according to
which a nation, state, or body politic is constituted and governed."

Paraphrasing Ayn Rand, a proper government protects men from criminals and
foreign invaders and provides for the settlement of disputes according to objective laws. A government, therefore, does three things: it makes laws (the legislative function), enforces them (the executive function) and runs law courts (the judicial function).

The United States Constitution divides these functions into separate departments; this is the doctrine of separation of powers. It also divides governmental powers between the state and federal governments by enumerating the powers of the latter and by specific limitations on both. Thus, both the federal and the state governments have sufficient powers to secure rights and are limited in their ability to violate them.

Simple but effective. Not democracy then but constitutional government - a constitution protecting essential liberties through a government constrained only to those protections. It's a model that failed states and would-be freedom fighters around the world would do well to understand and to emulate, as should those who unthinkingly parrot the idea that democracy alone is a saviour.

It's not.

UPDATE: All that said, sometimes the results of elections can surprise you. East Timor's President Jose Ramos Horta, voted to the position in May in elections protected by Australian and NZ troops, has just "unveiled his plans to use his new position to push for a largely tax-free East Timor. Dr Ramos Horta says he wants to base the country's economy on a tax-free Hong Kong model." See ABC: Ramos Horta pushes for tax-free East Timor.

I confess, I'm flabbergasted. That will surely leave Helen Clark and Keith Locke wondering whether they've backed the right horse; and as a colleague of mine says, once tax-free status is confirmed NZ troops should be home by lunchtime.

Background to Green's Fijian expulsion

Take it for what it's worth since it appeared on Ian Wishart's website [hat tip Whale Oil], but with all the mainstream media wringing their hands in unison on Michael Greens' expulsion from Fiji, this offers some of the background to the expulsion that the MSM's pathetic coverage has completely failed to provide: a letter from one Thakur Ranjit Singh, Fiji human rights campaigner, Fiji Sun columnist and a former general manager of Fiji's Daily Post.

If NZ Government claims that the expulsion of Michael Green came as a surprise then it is a white lie. This is because the NZ government was warned about Michael Green's behaviour some four months earlier by members of Fiji community in Auckland...

[A public] meeting was told about Michael Green's behaviour towards the military regime as well as people of Fiji seeking services from NZ High Commission. It was reported that Michael Green was very close to Qarase regime and could not fathom the fact that he would no longer be in the cocktail circuit after Qarase's removal in December last year...

He failed to appreciate the reality of the situation and has now paid a heavy price for it.

The other Michael also came into prominence. The supposedly expert in Pacific affairs, Michael Field was detained at Nadi on the eve of marching orders to Michael Green and deported the following morning to New Zealand.

On 20th December, some two weeks after the removal of Qarase regime, Coalition for Democracy in Fiji held a panel discussion on Fiji affairs in Auckland. Apart from Suliana Siwatibau and NZ MP Keith Locke, I was also one of the speakers. Michael Field also attended this forum. In my presentation which was reported in Fiji as well as NZ papers, I revealed the ills of Qarase regime. The theme of my presentation was that: democracies that are devoid of or lacking in granting freedom, rights and equality to all its citizens and those without social justice are not worth defending. Qarase's regime that Bainimarama removed was an epitome of such a democracy. Michael Field did not report any part of my presentation. I am not cross that he did not report me but he displayed acute case of dereliction of media ethics in not telling Kiwis what they deserved to know...

If Michael Field was indeed the veteran journalist then he should not have abused his position and status in keeping Kiwis ignorant about what was really happening in Fiji. My experience shows that like NZ Labour Party, New Zealanders generally are still ignorant about Fiji and this had to do with a journalist like Michael Field who while occupying an influential position indulge in news selling reporting rather than informative reporting...

And it is so important for New Zealand mainstream media to have Pacific or Fijian journalists reporting on Fiji issues and informing the ignorant Kiwis on local politics, so that they get the correct picture.

But unfortunately, the mainstream media in New Zealand is in no hurry to use Fiji journalist who have migrated to New Zealand, and will depend on jaundiced views from parachute journalists from New Zealand. Unfortunately, such views appear to get copied as New Zealand's foreign policy in the Pacific.

For the full letter, see Thakur Ranjit Singh: Fiji Problem.

Singh has been critical for some time of the performance of NZ media and their "parachute journalists" in covering events in Fiji (as have some bloggers, such as this one). Speaking in December, for example, Singh told a public forum that "NZ media was ignorant about Fiji affairs and naive about the post-coup reality."

"They shoot their mouths off through parachute journalists who relish in rubbishing things happening in NZ's neighbours without first appreciating the fact that Fiji is not a model of democracy," he said.

Singh said military commander Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama had saved Fiji from becoming "another Zimbabwe" with serious abuses of human rights and social justice.

He said New Zealand's government and media had lost sight of the basic balance of "democracy and justice".

I think he's right. Not for the first time, the failures of the Fourth Estate assist and inform the failures of the First Three. What Helen Clark has seen in Bainimarama is simply another scapegoat to draw attention away from her Government's failures, one allowing her to strut imperiously on a world stage -- and the media's pathetic coverage has allowed her to get away with it.

UPDATE: Here's the sort of analysis I would have expected from local journalists, but which (if it has appeared) I haven't seen: Elizabeth Keenan writing in January's Time magazine:

When military commander Frank Bainimarama seized power in Suva on Dec. 5, he was instantly denounced by Australia, New Zealand, the U.S., the E.U., the U.N. and the Commonwealth. Exiled Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase continues to vent outrage by phone from his island village, but his countrymen don't seem to be rallying. Soldiers at checkpoints receive abuse, but also smiles, handshakes, food and flowers. Some staunch democrats who condemned George Speight's botched coup in 2000 find themselves endorsing the aims of this takeover, if not the assault rifles that made it possible. The Methodist Church and the Great Council of Chiefs, bastions of indigenous society, have urged Fijians—including Qarase—to support the multiracial interim government "for the betterment of the nation." Writing in the Fiji Times, Catholic Archbishop Peter Mataca called Australia and New Zealand's shunning of the Bainimarama administration "regrettable and shallow." Some Fijians, he wrote, believe democracy and the rule of law "were abused and circumvented long before the military ousted the Qarase government."

In Fiji, it seems, not all coups are equally offensive...

Qarase's elected government was seen as caring most about the happiness of indigenous Fijians. Bainimarama's force-backed government aims to make Fijians of all races happy. If—and it's a huge if—he can implement his idealistic program, he might just have pulled off the coup to end all Fiji coups.

And here's an article and and photo essay from March's Time magazine (both of which have been blogged here before) drawing attention to the tragic existence of Fiji's squatters -- mostly dispossessed Indo-Fijians who racist law has barred from owning land, and who previous governments have left at the mercy of shifting racial, economic and political tides.

Who makes us rich?

Matt Robson demonstrates that a lifetime in and around politics bestows no wisdom as to where wealth comes from.

"The Left" he argues in a column at Scoop, "is about wealth creation," whereas "The Right," well, they're "primarily interested in protecting their own privileges." How does he argue the case? Because, he insists, "The Left" has pulled down more of the pie than "The Right," those nasty people "fearful of change" who won't let their share of the pie be shared around.

If you identify the figure who's missing in this playground level of analysis, then you'll see just how foolish the reasoning is. Politicians (of either right or left) are not wealth-creators, they are wealth destroyers. What's missing altogether from Robson's vision is The Producer. The Entrepreneur. The actual Wealth Creators: The ones who actually bake the pie that he and his colleagues think they're entitled to fight over.

Robson isn't the only one who thinks this way, and certainly not the only politician, right or left! As Dave Barry quips, "See, when the Government spends money, it creates jobs; whereas when the money is left in the hands of Taxpayers, God only knows what they do with it. Bake it into pies, probably. Anything to avoid creating jobs."

The truth is that it hasn't been politicians or union leaders who have created the wealth too many of them take for granted, or the jobs that all of us need. It hasn't been them who have made us all rich; they just steal the wealth from those who do. No, it's been those who produced that wealth in the first place. People like James Watt, Thomas Edison, Andrew Carnegie, Frank Lloyd Wright, Bill Gates and others like them.

One thousand years ago the whole world was dirt poor; now (at least in those countries which still value wealth creation), the poorest citizen live better than did most kings at the turn of the first millennium. It was neither "The Left" nor "The Right" who were and are responsible for that happy state of affairs: it was producers, traders, inventors and entrepreneurs: people who saw the way the world was, who understood how to make it better, and who set out to do it. In Ayn Rand's memorable phrase, it is the "men of the mind" who are the Atlases who hold up the world, not the pygmies like Robson and his colleagues, whichever side of the aisle they're on.

Frederic Hamber explains the reason: it is our minds, not our muscles that are the real source of wealth and progress:

Contrary to the Marxist premise that wealth is created by laborers and "exploited" by those at the top of the pyramid of ability, it is those at the top, the best and the brightest, who increase the value of the labor of those at the bottom. Under capitalism, even a man who has nothing to trade but physical labor gains a huge advantage by leveraging the fruits of minds more creative than his. The labor of a construction worker, for example, is made more productive and valuable by the inventors of the jackhammer and the steam shovel, and by the farsighted entrepreneurs who market and sell such tools to his employer. The work of an office clerk, as another example, is made more efficient by the men who invented copiers and fax machines. By applying human ingenuity to serve men's needs, the result is that physical labor is made less laborious and more productive.

It was not politicians who invented or produced the steam shovel or the jack hammer or the silicon chip. It wasn't a union leader who identified the harmony of interests enjoyed by free people that allows all of us to benefit from those who did: it was Ayn Rand, and she called it the Pyramid-of-Ability Principle -- a principle recognising and explaining the enormous contribution made by the more able to the less able:

As George Reisman puts it, the law of comparative advantage explains the "contribution of the cleaning lady to [inventors like Thomas] Edison"; by contrast, the Pyramid-of-Ability Principle explains the "contribution of Edison to the cleaning lady." What Edison makes possible for the cleaning lady is much, much more than she could have achieved under her own steam. "The men with the greatest minds and talents confer on others much more value than they ever receive in return, no matter how much wealth they acquire, [while] the least able receive much more value than they create."

They do so by virtue of the harmony of interests of free men, and the enormous productive ability of entrepreneurs and inventors. If you doubt the truth of all that, if you really and truly think Robson is right and that it's politicians of the left who have made us wealthy, then ask yourself this question: who would you rather be stranded with on a desert island: Matt Robson, Matt McCarten and Keith Locke? Or Sam Morgan, Doug Myers and Ralph Norris?