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May 18, 2009

Tamil Tigers surrender

The Tamil Tigers have reportedly stated that

we have already announced to the world our position to silence our guns to save our people

Many in Sri Lanka are celebrating this victory. This is understandable. However, as Mark Tran argues in the Guardian, we should remember that

the victory has come at a high price in terms of civilan life and damage to Colombo's international reputation. According to UN figures, an estimated 7,000 ethnic Tamil civilians were killed between 20 January, when a military offensive pushed back the rebels into a tiny enclave in the north-east, and 7 May.

In Tran's article, it is reported that

"If the Tigers' leadership is removed or killed in a government assault, it's easy to imagine one of the newly energised generation stepping in to fill the void," said Robert Templer, of the International Crisis Group thinktank.

"The dream of an independent Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka resonates powerfully across the diaspora and will certainly live on even after the defeat of the LTTE as a conventional military force. The deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Tamil civilians – while their family members watch from afar – is a recipe for another, possibly more explosive, generation of terrorism."

With the Tigers, the Sri Lankan government at least knew what they were facing. Annihilating the group may seem an attractive prospect for many in Sri Lanka's government and military. However, the risks of a power vacuum are significant, and there are strong arguments for seeking a more equitable solution, not just because it is the right thing to do, but to allow peace to prevail in future.

I hope that this will be the end of the violence in Sri Lanka. However, it would be wrong to assume that peace will follow the end of the Tigers.

Posted by jon_mendel at 12:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 14, 2009

Tin Eye image search

I was interested to see Tin Eye image search used in a blog post on BNP publicity. This search is a

reverse image search engine. You can submit an image to TinEye to find out where it came from, how it is being used, if modified versions of the image exist, or to find higher resolution versions.

As well as being useful for checking the source of pictures, this could also be invaluable for those of us interested in how particular images spread across the Internet - for example, one can get a sense of how a particular image of the torture of an Iraqi prisoner has been disseminated.

I have been pleasantly surprised in how well this works. It's still far from perfect - for example, as Tin Hat acknowledges, there is a lot of content on the Internet that they don't cover - but does look like a really useful tool.

Posted by jon_mendel at 01:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 11, 2009

Nadine Dorries MP: "Tridents are not weapons of mass destruction"

I was surprised to hear the Conservative MP Nadine Dorries on the BBC's Question time (just before 49 minutes into the show, if you want to listen) arguing that "Tridents are not weapons of mass destruction". The UK's Trident programme consists of Ship Submersible Ballistic Nuclear (SSBN) missiles and, as the Royal Navy puts it: "provides the United Kingdom's strategic nuclear deterrent".

Whether or not one supports the UK's possession of nuclear weapons, it is clear that these weapons have the capacity to wreak destruction on a very large scale. These are de facto weapons of mass destruction - even if (as seems very likely) almost all of those who support the UK's possession, maintenance and development of such weapons do so in the genuine hope that they will never need to be used.

Mincing words about the destructive capacity of Britain's current and future nuclear weapons is not helpful. When debating these weapons, it is important to remember what they are capable of doing.

Posted by jon_mendel at 02:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack