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July 14, 2006
John McDonnell MP: Another World Is Possible
John McDonnell has just announced that he'll stand as a candidate for Labour Party leadership (and therefore as a candidate for UK Prime Minister) when Blair resigns. The idea is to offer a left-wing candidate for leadership, to try to change the direction of the party.
It's interesting how MchDonnell's campaign is starting. His blog borrows the 'Another World Is Possible' slogan from the anti-globalisation/global justice movements, and the photo at the top of his blog seems to be taken from one of the big anti-war protests. News of his campaign is being actively spread over the Internet, and McDonnell has launched a blog alongside the start of his campaign. Before hearing about it on the news, I learnt of his announcement through an e-mail discussion group.
In his leadership bid, 'new' means of campaigning are linked with an appeal to the socialist traditions of the Labour Party: McDonnell argues that "New Labour has systematically alienated section after section of our supporters - teachers, health workers, students, pensioners, public service workers, trade unionists and people committed to the environment, civil liberties and peace. Spin and allegations of sleaze are causing decent people to lose trust in our party."
It'll be interesting to see how well this campaigning works. McDonnell argues that "I believe that sceptics are in for a real shock. There is real climate for political debate and policy change." I hope he's right.
Posted by jon_mendel at 07:56 PM
July 10, 2006
"Taleban 'energised' by UK troops": back to the future in Afghanistan?
UK troops deployed to assist with 'development' in the South of Afghanistan are currently encountering much more violence than expected. The UK Defense Secretary Des Browne has acknowledged that their presence has "energised" the Taliban resistance.
I've been reading and writing about the anti-Marxist insurgency which removed the Soviets from Afghanistan, and there's a definite sense of deja vu. For example, if you look at some of the late warlord Ahmed Massoud's remarks about how he was able to fight the Soviets - picking the time and place of the fight, using Afghanistan's geography to assist in combat etc. - there's definite echoes of what insurgents today are doing to ISAF forces. Insurgents are currently able to engage UK forces in relatively heavy conflict - taking advantage of the UK lack of air support in order to fight sustained battles. When additional support is provided to troops in Afghanistan, this is likely to change - but, as when fighting the Soviets, it is likely that the insurgents will be able to adjust their tactics accordingly.
I keep being reminded of something Richard Clarke said in Against All Enemies. After the Soviet defeat “[s]ome Afghans and some Arab fighters pondered what you could do with money, Korans and a few good weapons. You could overthrow an infidel government. More importantly, you could destroy a superpower.”
Posted by jon_mendel at 11:37 AM
July 02, 2006
where do government websites go when they die...
Have just been reading around the Coalition Provisional Authority administration in Iraq again - and remembered that their website was due to be taken offline a couple of days ago. There's a huge amount of information online here (more than 250MB of files, lots of that quite dense text). I'm sure some reports will be archived elsewhere, but you wonder how much of this information will cease to be publicly available. They apparently haven't got round to pulling the plug yet - this is still online.
There's more data here than anyone's likely to read - to the extent that it's tempting to stare at this pile of data, and echo Baudrillard's question of 'where is the information?' But there is lots of striking information here as well - lots of fascinating details about CPA government. For example, you can read the license agreement for the rather generous deal that the CPA did re. cellular phone operation in Northern Iraq ($US100,000 per year, and the phone company gets a free satellite thrown in!)
At the moment the website's surviving after it was meant to be closed - must admit that I kind-of hope this continues. Even though the CPA's now gone, it'll be a shame when its website follows it...
Posted by jon_mendel at 10:49 PM
