It was to be a triumph of French diplomacy

The return of the two French journalists, Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot, at the end of last year was supposed to be a great triumph for French diplomacy. But not everything is quite what it seems, particularly in French politics.

In the first place, the kidnapping and prolonged imprisonment of the French journalists, despite daily pleas from various luvvies and bien pensants on the TV and in the press, undermined somewhat the French view of themselves as people who have a special role in the Middle East and a special relationship with all the various governments and organizations, “be they ne’er so vile”.

As we have pointed out before, playing the anti-American card may well go down well in Cannes, in the columns of the Guardian and, as Mark Steyn writes, the letters column of the Daily Telegraph. It is worth zip among Iraqi and other Islamic extremists and terrorists.

Georges Malbrunot has described his and his colleague’s ordeal in a long article in Le Figaro. In it he has had to admit that announcements that they were French journalists and, therefore, opponents of American policy, did not prove to be as helpful with their kidnappers, the so-called Islamic Army in Iraq, as they had hoped. The captors were waging a war against the West and against Christianity. As far as they were concerned, France was part of that.

The International Herald Tribune quotes Malbrunot in an article today:

“For them [Malbrunot’s and Chesnot’s captors} France is the West; it’s a global vision – it’s the infidel West against the Muslim world.”

Oh dear. And there were all these French journalists thinking that the war against terror was simply the outcome of American hysteria. To be fair, the Islamic Army in Iraq also produced words of hatred for other Arabs, explaining that their aim was

“to overthrow all the Arab rulers, and to return to the caliphate [Islamic rule]from Andalusia [Spain] to the border with China”.

M Malbrunot seems to have been rather shocked by his experience, and not just because of the brutality of his captors and the general hardship he and his colleagues had experienced. In fact, at one point they found themselves wishing that an American patrol would appear out of nowhere and rescue them as they were being transported from one extremely unpleasant prison to another. But then, they came to their senses. They realized that such a development would be dangerous for them.

This article could not have gone down very well in France, given that there have already been urgent questions as to why it had taken so long to get the journalists home and why all the efforts made by politicians and diplomats in the area had not been more effective. After all, in the first place, Foreign Minister Michel Barnier had boasted that the situation would be resolved very quickly because of France’s special position and overwhelmingly friendly relations with Middle Eastern countries.

“For his efforts, the reply Barnier got from the Islamic Army in Iraq was a statement that France’s history with the Muslims was filled ‘with hate and blood’ and that if France hadn’t joined the Americans in the Iraq war, it was ‘for its own interests and not for the good of the Iraqi people’.”

Hmmm. Maybe we should get these people to become commentators on the BBC. They will be somewhat more accurate.

Worse was to come. The two negotiators, Barnier and a right-wing Gaullist member of the National Assembly, Didier Julia, fell out with each other and indulged in mutual mud-slinging. Two of M Julia’s associates are being investigated for allegedly illegal contacts with foreign powers. He, in turn, is threatening the government with potentially embarrassing revelations. Fun and games, n’est ce pas.

When the journalists were released it was hastily announced that there had been no payment, no ransom and, naturellement, no gunfire. However, the satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaîné, which has a nasty habit of being right, has said that the French government paid out €15 million ($19.5 million, £11 million). If true, that would indicate that French journalists are worth far more than Italian aid workers.

Meanwhile, there has been remarkably little coverage of the fact that another French journalist has been missing since last May. For some reason there are no luvvies or bien pensants to trumpet Guy-André Kieffer’s fate, though he, too, was kidnapped while performing his duty and is likely to be held in atrocious conditions.

The thing is, he was kidnapped in the Ivory Coast, where the 5,000 strong occupying force is French. Two years ago the French paras went in there to sort out various problems without waiting for the UN Security Council approval, which they did get eventually, with American support. Since then, as we have reported, things have gone from bad to worse and President Laurent Gbagbo has accused the French of siding with the rebels.

In November France destroyed the tiny Ivorian air force in reprisal for the killing of nine French servicemen, and killed more than 20 people in subsequent anti-French riots. There are no plans for elections any time soon in Côte d’Ivoire.

It seems that M Kieffer of La Tribune was investigating corruption in the cocoa trade and picked up leads that point to men close to the President before he so conveniently disappeared. But the ever deeper French involvement in the Ivory Coast quagmire is not something the government or media likes to talk about. So poor M Kieffer may well have to suffer for a little longer.

A sick joke

Unlike the BBC, even China Daily the official news agency of the Peoples' Republic of China – and no lover of US power – is acknowledging the role of the US military in the current tsunami disaster, reporting freely on the activities of helicopter crews from the US aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln.

Reports China Daily, "substantial help has finally begun reaching refugees in some of the more remote parts of Aceh and the U.S. military has arrived in force, parking a flotilla of ships off the coast." It adds, "US and Indonesian military helicopters landing in remote areas were swarmed by starving villagers as flight crews threw out boxes of bottled water and food."

An equally unlikely source is the Financial Times which today reports that a "logistic logjam" is hampering relief efforts in Aceh, referring to the temporary closure of the main airport in Aceh after a Boeing 737 carrying a cargo of relief supplies collided with a herd of water buffalo. The airport was reopened today after help from US and Indonesian military technicians

Elsewhere, many of the airports in the region affected by the tsunami are not used to the high volume of flights they have seen in the last few days. Sri Lanka's main airport in Colombo temporarily ran out of fuel supplies because of unexpected demand.

Thus, writes the FT, the Banda Aceh airport accident underscored the increased dependence on the ability of foreign military forces to deliver aid directly to the worst-hit areas using helicopters and naval ships, adding the detail that on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, helicopters from the USS Abraham Lincoln were delivering aid and evacuating refugees from the devastated west coast. A Singapore fleet of helicopters and two landing ships were also involved in relief operations in the area.

US amphibious ships are loading aid via helicopters from Medan before sailing around Sumatra's northern tip and down the isolated west coast. In Sri Lanka, more than 1,200 US Marines will use helicopters, bulldozers and generators to help speed up relief efforts hindered by a lack of trucks and warehouses. Military units from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are also providing logistical support to Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Maldives.

Once again, nothing of this from the BBC which devoted its tsunami coverage in its Radio 4 evening bulletin almost exclusively to a story on child trafficking. The BBC's myopia is almost getting to be a joke – albeit a sick one.

A sideways look

We have received this commentary from a respected former Times journalist, Jim McCue, for publication on our Blog. Jim calls his piece "Wasting a Generation".

Not directly related to the EU, it nevertheless fills in the gaps in the broader social and political environment in which constructs like the EU can and do operate. In so doing, McCue points up the lack of moral "centre" and the vacuum in politics, all of which demonstrates – as indeed we have before – that the EU is only part of the problem. In some respects, it is only a symptom of the problem.

When my nephew Peter won a scholarship to Winchester, I was delighted – and a little envious – to think of the fun he would have mixing with some of the cleverest people of his generation. It is an unconventional place, after 600 years of going its own way, and likes to challenge every kind of rule, but the thing it prizes above all is brains.

Because Peter and I are close, I've been lucky enough to meet a good many of his friends from Winchester and then Cambridge, and some of them have become close friends too – greatly valued by me for their knowledge and wide reading, their spirit of adventure, their integrity and loyalty.

But now they are in trouble. In their mid-twenties, after trekking round the world and taking their double firsts studying everything from Homer to homeland security policy, they find that they don’t fit and don’t know what to do.

A former girlfriend of Peter's has just died of heroin. Three other friends have been killed, separately, in car crashes. Bad rolls of the dice, perhaps, but there is something more.

They are becoming a wasted generation, because they cannot find outlets for their talents. After all that education, they find themselves set loose in a society that doesn't care about brains – indeed despises them.

So they are working in pubs and hospitals, as tourist guides, or taking further degrees for the sake of finding a little funding. They are living virtually in squats because London accommodation is so expensive, and they don't have any plans beyond tomorrow.

Why the paralysis? Why aren’t they on the career ladder? Because, I think, they cannot face the lies they would have to tell in almost any job, and the truckling that is now involved in all walks of life.

When one of them got a job on a national newspaper, he was night-editing the foreign pages within six months, and gave me an eye-opening analysis of how the newsroom was mismanaged. He wanted things done properly, and found the cowardice and spin intolerable. Now he has gone to Jerusalem on an academic pretext, full of sympathy for the Palestinians.

Meanwhile Peter has worked in care homes and restaurants, as a chess tutor, on a farm and in nursery schools, but he won't have anything to do with conventional graduate jobs because the demands are so compromising.

Politics, more intensely and more obviously than ever before, now involves abasing oneself before ideas that any intelligent person can see are stupid and self-contradictory. Almost all journalism is the same, and so are advertising, marketing and work for any large company. The values of big businesses are contemptible, and so are most of the products. And in addition, companies are now cynically managed in a thousand ways merely in order to comply with nonsensical regulations, the constant threat of litigation and the demands of all-powerful health and safety officers.

The public services, notoriously, are worse. The police are afraid to make an arrest because it means five hours of paperwork; hospitals have more office workers than nurses; teachers are terrified of their pupils and cannot teach. And whether publicly or privately funded, the great professions, medicine, the law and education have all been corrupted by illegitimate political demands.

Political stupidity has brought the pensions and financial services industry to its knees. And regulation – largely stemming from the EU, a law-making machine that no one knows how to turn off – is about to drive out of business thousands of household electricians, just as it has bankrupted so many abattoirs, fishermen and nursing home owners. No one in his right mind would set up his own business today, or even dream of employing another person.

So what is left? My nephew is working, unpaid, for the Green Alliance. It's one of the few places he can imagine working that wouldn't make him feel grubby. Gradually, though, he is coming to the conclusion that carefully argued environmental plans cannot realistically expect to make any headway against the endless jobbery and pandering of public life, against the quangos and lobbyists, the absurd shibboleths and tokenism, and a system of political bartering which so often achieves the worst of both worlds. What is the point of scrupulous analysis, when what happens depends upon mere accidents of personality?

For all their energy and knowledge, some of the best brains of the rising generation are unable to find any place to start or anything to be loyal to. It's not just that George Bush is lying and dissembling, but that John Kerry was too, and so is everyone else. It's part of the game. You have to do things that you know are wrong to survive. Shut your mouth and hold your nose, fiddle your expenses and do as you are told, play the system and then get out.

Is that the best we can offer?

Mark Steyn on the case

I noted with interest and continued despair that the BBC chose to speak of "unremitting bad news" on its main TV news at one o’clock. It then announced that two Indian destroyers had been able to dock in Sri Lanka, and HMS Chatham had reached the area, with two Lynx helicopters.

In a token gesture, it then interviewed a US Marine Captain from an American "advance party", giving him thirty seconds to explain what the Marines would do, without mentioning what was coming behind the advance party – like USS Bonhomme Richard, with its 29 (including heavy-lift) helicopters, landing craft, water-making equipment, medical facilities, etc., etc.

Once again, it was the UN which got the lions’ share of attention, this time a puff for UNICEF and its activities in tracking down orphans, or something.

Useful, therefore, was a piece by Mark Steyn in today's Telegraph headed "American stinginess is saving lives" in which he takes on "the need to fit everything to the Great Universal Theory of the age", that whatever happens, "the real issue is the rottenness of America".

He takes to task (rightly) Jan "Humperdink" Egeland, the Norwegian bureaucrat, whom Steyn describes as "the big humanitarian honcho at the UN" and takes a swipe at Clare Short, Polly Toynbee, the Norwegians and Irish and even a Telegraph reader.

Writes Steyn "…the actual relief effort going on right now is being done by the Yanks: it's the USAF and a couple of diverted naval groups shuttling in food and medicine, with solid help from the Aussies, Singapore and a couple of others. The Irish can't fly in relief supplies, because they don't have any C-130s. All they can do is wait for the UN to swing by and pick up their cheque."

Crucially, he also picks up Kofi Annan, who has decided that the Aussie-American "coalition of the willing" is, in fact, a UN operation. "The core group will support the UN effort," Annan has said. "That group will be in support of the efforts that the UN is leading." Thus,

…American personnel in American planes and American ships will deliver American food and American medicine and implement an American relief plan, but it's still a "UN-led effort". That seems to be enough for Kofi. His "moral authority" is intact, and Guardian columnists and Telegraph readers can still bash the Yanks for their stinginess. Everybody's happy.

This is not the best piece Steyn has written – in fact it is slightly plodding – but it is a welcome attempt to redress the balance.

For really up-to-date stuff, though, don’t forget to look at the Diplomad Blog. Today's postings are corkers – and you won't get them on the BBC.

The steady drip of propaganda

Not content with giving free airtime to Javier Solana yesterday, BBC Radio 4's Today Programme was back on the beat today with an entirely gratuitous plug for things EU, offering a guest slot to former commission president Romano Prodi.

Why he has given the slot, heaven knows, as there was no obvious topical hook, but this did not worry the BBC, which treated him with the usual sycophantic deference which it accords EU politicians.

The first part of the interview dealt with the Asian tsunami crisis, with Prodi being asked if there was "any truth" in the claims that the EU had been caught flat-footed by events and had been shown up by the Americans.

The tenor of the questioning was such that it virtually invited Prodi to deny the charge but at least the man had the honesty to reply with a simple "Yes". The EU had been caught out. "But that doesn't mean Europe will be second to the United States in the long run," says our man.

Obviously, this was not the answer the BBC wanted. The interview moved on without in any way trying to explore why it was that the EU had been so inadequate, bringing from Prodi another admission – this one that the commission had been unable to implement its economic strategy, "because the member states did not want it".

With another failure unexplored, Prodi was then asked about the constitution, eliciting the comment that, if a country voted "No" in a referendum, then that was "a message against Europe". "Some strong political decision must be taken in this case," he added. If a country did not approve the constitution, "there must be a second decision… what will be your general relation with Europe."

If a country voted against the constitution, therefore, "they must be asked to make a decision about that."

Although not new, this firms up the scenario that the "colleagues" are considering in the (likely) event that the UK votes against the constitution. We will be invited to "consider our position". Possibly, we will be asked to consider whether we want to leave, and there remains the option that there should be a second referendum, on whether we should withdraw.

Either way, it is very clear, if it was not already, that the status quo is not an option.

The hidden agenda

One of the central political issues confronting the United Kingdom at this time is our relationship with "Europe" – more specifically the European Union – the enthusiasm for which is to be tested in due course in the referendum on the EU constitution.

Given the degree of foreign policy and defence integration involved in that constitution, closer European political integration will inevitably been a more distant relationship with the United States – even the end of the “special relationship”, which has been the subject of several postings on this Blog.

How we perceive the United States viz-à-viz the European Union, therefore, is an issue of profound political significance in which context it would make absolute sense for those in favour of greater political integration with the EU to project "Europe" in a favourable light and to denigrate the United States.

Whether that is the specific intention of the Europhile media – and especially the BBC - is open to question, but it is definitely the effect of their coverage of a whole range of issues, not least the Iraqi war where sentiment has been almost uniformly hostile to the United States.

But even in the coverage of the Asian tsunami crisis, this anti-US bias has been continued and, in the BBC, is becoming so transparent as to be alarming for what is supposed to be a public service broadcaster dedicated to impartial coverage of the news. It cannot be accidental. There must be a hidden agenda.

For instance, during yesterday, I watched closely the coverage of BBC News, and in particular the digital News 24 channel, for references to US aid activity. After endless "puffs" for Oxfam, wall-to-wall coverage of the UN and other so-called aid agencies, I paid particular attention to the 10 pm bulletin, and waited in vain.

We went four stories into the bulletin before there was any mention of helicopters and then the film cut to an ancient Sri Lanka army Huey delivering supplies. There was no mention of the heroic effort being undertaken by the Sea Hawks from the carrier Abraham Lincoln, and absolutely no mention all day that the task force headed by the USS Bonhomme Richard had arrived in the Malacca Straights and was taking on relief supplies.

What we did get from the BBC's correspondent in Washington, Nick Childs, was a weasely report referring to "criticism" that the US government had been slow to react to the disaster, which then enabled Child to claim that the announcement on Monday of an increase in US aid to $350 million "looks like another public gesture to show that Washington is responding in significant ways".

However dispassionately one might try to look at this BBC coverage, there can be absolutely no doubt that this anti-US slant is deliberate. All the agencies are carrying detailed reports of US military involvement, including Reuters, AP and even Agence France Presse. Not even the BBC could be so inept and unprofessional as not to notice what is going on – all it would have to do is read the reports that are flooding into its studios.

For instance, the Reuters report, issued on Monday, 3 January 2005 at 5:13 p.m. ET, by Deborah Zabarenko, reported that some 12,600 U.S. military personnel had joined relief efforts.

Zabarenko cited an interview of Navy Capt. Rodger Welch, a U.S. Pacific Command spokesman on relief efforts, and others, who described the efforts for her, which she retailed in her report.

Listed amongst the assets being uses were the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and helicopter carrier USS Bonhomme Richard, bringing aid to the ravaged areas with some 80 aircraft. There were 21 U.S. ships involved as of Monday.

So far, U.S. military personnel had delivered 430,000 pounds of supplies to the region, fourteen cargo planes were taking food, supplies and equipment to supply hubs in Thailand, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, and the hospital ship USNS Mercy was being sent from San Diego to the region to provide medical assistance.

The group of U.S. ships led by the Bonhomme Richard was sailing through the Strait of Malacca and was poised to begin dropping relief supplies at Banda Aceh by helicopter before continuing on toward Sri Lanka, Strong said. The group was carrying more than 2,000 Marines who could be deployed for relief operations on shore, part of its total complement of nearly 5,300 military personnel.

Zabarenko also reported that: "A third group of six vessels, known in Pentagon-speak as a maritime prepositioning ship squadron, is bringing hundreds of gallons of clean water to the area". Each of the ships could store up to 90,000 gallons of fresh water and can produce tens of thousands of gallons of fresh water a day per ship, she reported.

Particularly newsworthy, one might have thought, was the detail that landing craft aboard some of the three amphibious ships in the Bonhomme Richard expeditionary strike group would be used, their “unique capabilities” being employed to "bypass the devastated infrastructure" to be able to deliver to areas where the supplies are needed.

Nothing, but nothing of this reached BBC listeners or viewers, who – if they relied on this source – would be wholly unaware of the scale of US involvement.

Neither was the Europhile Independent much better. Although one of its stories did give some coverage to "American Sea Hawk helicopters" ferrying emergency supplies to the stricken coastal communities of Aceh, this information was only allowed to frame a piece on "voices were being raised in the United States for a longer-term engagement in the area to rebuild lost political goodwill".

The involvement of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier was lumped in as part of "America's humanitarian response to the tragedy",

…which has been ratcheted up rapidly in recent days after an early impression was created of superpower stinginess, was already being described as something much more, a mission to repair relations with the region severely strained since the invasion of Iraq and demonstrate its willingness to use its military might as a force for good.

Even the USS Bonhomme Richard, described as "steaming from the China Sea to the area" was lumped in as part of the "first wave of the stepped-up American effort."

Nor was the Guardian any better, framing its story with the headline "Bush plea tries to rebuild US image", retailing that "Since being criticised last week for being slow to respond to the disaster, the White House has moved to play a leading role in the relief efforts."

Only in that context are we allowed to know that "US helicopters and planes have begun delivering emergency supplies to some of the most remote and badly-hit area, such as the west coast of Indonesia's Aceh province," with the addition: "One airlift at a time, they have begun to rebuild America's reputation particularly in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, whose people overwhelmingly opposed the invasion of Iraq."

This is effectively a slander on the United States as these assets were mobilised immediately the news of the tsunami came through, before even the scale of the disaster was known. Their presence in the area – the Bonhomme Richard after days of high speed steaming, with its crew having given up their leave - represents a magnificent gesture of unconditional generosity on the part of the United States, despatched well before any criticism was made of the US aid effort.

Altogether now, the value of US military assets in the region amount to nearly $10 billion, affording assistance which no other agency or organisation in the world could even dream of supplying. And all this has been done with the US not even mentioning the cost or including the figure in its own aid contribution.

And just by way of contrast, the French government has just announced that it is despatching two navy ships to Indonesia, to arrive on 10 January. These comprise the Jeanne d’Arc, a ship carrying six helicopters and two units of engineers, and the Georges Leygues, a frigate.

The betting is that the tardy arrival of these French ships will be given full coverage by the Europhile media but, whether they are or not, the coverage of the US effort has been disgraceful. And by far the worst has been the BBC which, in its deliberate, petty way, makes a mockery of the term "public service broadcaster", all for it to pursue its hidden agenda.

"Sustainable" aid giving - a higher form of "sustainable" development

I have to admit I was getting rather worried. Here we are in the middle of the largest hot-air-fest for … well, for a long time anyway, and not a squeak out of the Commissars in Brussels. Well, I can relax now. They have appeared on the scene and have been pronouncing with predictable banality. Curiously enough, while their statements have not been particularly informative, they have all tended in one direction: more European integration is needed. Well, what do you know?

My colleague has already written about Benita Ferrero-Waldner’s comments about the need for those European rapid reaction forces and how useful they will be when they are all ready to go into action in 2007. Not to those whose livelihoods have been destroyed by the tsunami in 2004 they will not be useful. Besides, where is the need? Various national teams have gone in very effectively. Is anybody standing around wailing for EU Rapid Reaction Forces to come and rescue them? I think not.

Louis Michel, the Commissar for Development and Humanitarian Aid has also announced his presence. He is going to have a very exciting time. Not only is there going to be a donors’ conference in Europe, called by the EU but he is also going with President Barroso and Luxembourg Prime Minister Juncker to the big conference in Djakarta on January 6. M Michel has already gone round the stricken areas (his predecessor was always visiting areas where there had been natural and man-made disasters) to see what has happened for himself. And he will have a meeting of the relevant EU ministers this Friday. Life is very full for M Louis Michel.

Of course, one could argue that instead of all this travelling round, conferencing and, no doubt, eating and drinking, the relevant ministers should either stay out and leave the whole matter to the professionals (US navy and helicopter pilots, Australian navy, Japanese pilots, Indian drivers, Chinese pilots etc, as well as engineers, builders, construction workers local and western) or, if they must stick their noses in, have virtual conferences on the phone and by video. The money saved in that way could be used to buy, if not a helicopter, then certainly a couple of fork-lift trucks and half a dozen pontoon bridges.

Don’t bother M Louis Michel with reality. He has announced that the EU is determined that the aid giving will be sustainable. Presumably, this is a higher form of sustainable development, in itself a hard to define concept.

"There must be no gap between the initial emergency aid phase and the rehabilitation and reconstruction phase that will follow."

Ideas for a “comprehensive strategy” will be presented on Friday to be discussed by the ministers. Ten to one that “comprehensive strategy” will not mention the need for the relevant countries to acquire an accountable, transparent political system and a free economic one. Recent comments and comparisons about the way natural disasters affect rich and poor countries would not have made much of a dent in M Michel’s understanding of the situation.

Meanwhile the Commission has committed €23 million ($31 million £16 million) in aid, without explaining precisely what the money is committed to and how it will be administered.

Aan interesting article in yesterday's New York Times pointed out that, shattering though the tsunami has been to the coastal areas, its effect on the overall economy of the countries that have suffered will be small.

“Even as it has destroyed the livelihoods of millions of families in South Asia, the tsunami will shave only a few points off the region's economic growth this year. Depending on the importance of tourism in each country, the decrease is expected to range from less than 1 percent for Thailand to 2 percent for Sri Lanka and 4 percent for the Maldives, according to estimates by Standard Chartered Bank.”

Aceh in Indonesia accounts for only two per cent of the economy and even there it is not clear how much of the agricultural land has been destroyed.

“Tourism and fishing together make up less than 6 percent of Sri Lanka's gross domestic product.

Thailand's economy is expected to grow about 6 percent in 2005, about the same as in 2004. Tourism in southern Thailand around Phuket, the only part of the country affected, accounts for about 1.3 percent of the national economy.

Already, much of the Phuket tourism has been rerouted to other Thai resort towns, and the damaged beach towns could well see a construction boom as up to $2 billion is expected to be invested to rebuild beachfront hotels, homes and shops.”

The best way to revive tourism in those parts that live off it, will be for westerners to go on booking those trips. The best way to encourage the economy in all those countries to develop in a balanced fashion is to buy and sell, set up free-trading agreements and invest.

The worst possible way to deal with the situation would be to set up a scheme of indefinite aid giving, that will sidetrack funds, impose unnecessary obligations and turn the countries into perpetual beggars. Which is precisely what the EU Commissar for Development and Humanitarian Aid is advocating.

All so predictable

They'd leap into your grave while its was still warm, these people.

With the relief effort underway and the EU noticeable by its absence, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the EU's commissioner for external relations is leaping on the bandwagon demanding that the EU should set up a 5,000-strong "crisis management corps" to deal with disasters such as the Asian tsunamis.

This is shortly to be a formal proposal from the commission, which never misses an opportunity to exploit a crisis to its own advantage. The idea is that the EU should set up "teams of experts" for tasks such as disaster relief and emergency reconstruction.

Ms Ferrero-Waldner foresees a civilian equivalent to the EU's "battlegroups" - forces of up to 1,500 soldiers that are intended to act as bridgeheads in times of crisis. Her crisis management corps could be composed of about 5,000 experts identified beforehand by national governments, who would be exercised and trained, as well as placed under central co-ordination when on call.

She thinks it "would be great" if the corps could be ready by 2007, when the battlegroups are scheduled to come on line fully. "I would like to see the EU rapidly developing the capacity to deploy experts, with rapid reaction teams in disaster relief, firefighting, emergency reconstruction, on standby," she adds.

For an organisation that brought us the Common Fisheries Policy and the notorious fridge mountain, which has yet to demonstrate that it could successfully run a bath much less a major relief operation, the arrogance of this is quite staggering, if not somewhat predictable.

The UNcredibles

I watched on TV Egeland Humperdink in his plush UN office in New York this afternoon, standing in front of the UN flag announcing with pride that "We" now have five helicopter carriers in the region.

Er… who's this "We" pale face?

For more on this incredible "tranzi" organisation, you need to read the Diplomad Blog. Here is a sample:

More on "The UNcredibles": WFP (World Food Program) has "arrived" in the capital with an assessment and coordination team". The following is no joke; no Diplomad attempt to be funny or clever: The team has spent the day and will likely spend a few more setting up their "coordination and opcenter" at a local five-star hotel. And their number one concern, even before phones, fax and copy machines? Arranging for the hotel to provide 24hr catering service. USAID folks already are cracking jokes about "The UN Sheraton." Meanwhile, our military and civilians, working with the super Aussies, continue to keep the C-130 air bridge of supplies flowing and the choppers flying, and keep on saving lives - and without 24hr catering services from any five-star hotel... The contrast grows more stark every minute.

Plenty more where that comes from.

Free propaganda

Interviewed by James Naughtie this morning on the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme, the EU's foreign policy chief Javier Solana was given over four minutes free propaganda to expound his views on the EU constitution.

Treated with uncritical reverence, Solana was allowed free reign to warn that, although it would not be "the end of the world", "serious questions" would be raised about the UK's relationship with the rest of the EU if it rejected the proposed constitution,

Out trotted the usual propaganda that the constitution would "help an expanded EU operate more efficiently" and while, unfortunately, Solana took the view that a "No" vote would not mean Britain would be excluded from the "European family", he felt that it would be "a very important moment in the history of the EU and in the history of your country."

Tony Blair, he believed, would mount a "solid campaign" for a "Yes" vote. "I am sure he is going to defend the constitution as a good thing for the UK and a good thing for Europe as a whole," Solana said.

But, with the EU only able to offer a "donor’s conference" and a minuscule amount of money as an immediate response to the crisis in South East Asia, Solana was allowed to say that the constitution marked a "fundamental step" in making the EU better able to work internally and fulfil its international obligations.

It would have helped if the fawning Naughtie has asked, for instance, how the EU constitution would have helped the tsunami victims, how much more aid would have been delivered or how many more helicopters would be flying.

Just one tiny example of how the EU will be made more "efficient" would have been welcome. But then, this is the BBC. Never let it be said that it ever misses an opportunity to fail.

Russo-German friendship

It is rather interesting to watch traditional foreign policy re-emerging and disentangling itself from the rather spurious idea of a European policy. Today’s example is the growing closeness between Germany and Russia, alluded to a few times already.

Chancellor Schröder, for example, has annoyed even his own party by his refusal to criticize anything his new best friend Vladimir Putin does. In fact, references were made to President Putin’s unblemished record as a democrat.

Little has been said in Germany (or other West European countries) about the fact that one of the memorial days celebrated in Russia with ever growing magnificence is Secret Police Day. I kid you not. December 20 is the anniversary of the founding of the ChK (Chrezvychaynaya Kommissiya, since you ask), the first of the notorious and terrifying Soviet secret police organizations, run by “Iron” Felix Dzerzhinsky. The organization has gone through various names: VChK, NKVD, MGB, MVD and KGB (I may have left one or two out). These days it is known as the FSB, though most Russians still refer to it as KGB. The word Chekist has once again become a term of high approbation.

But I was talking about Germany’s involvement. For it is not only Chancellor Schröder who remains mealy-mouthed. There is the interesting saga of the German banks, led by Deutsche Bank. The Sunday Telegraph Business Section (what my colleague calls the grown-up part of the newspaper) had a short piece yesterday about Yukos calling for an investigation into the role of these banks in the ongoing destruction of the oil company.

Deutsche Bank had led a consortium that was planning to finance the state controlled Gazprom’s bid for Yuganskneftegaz in the recent, highly irregular auction. Yukos had successfully filed for bankruptcy protection in a US court and the German banks regretfully withdrew from the affair. The new owner is Rosneft, which acquired Yuganskneftegaz through an unknown bidder. In fact, Rosneft and Gazprom will probably merge, recreating the old Soviet energy empire, controlled by the state. No doubt, the German banks will gleefully pile in, put in lots of money and, also no doubt, complain when things go wrong and the money will not produce as good a return as they had expected. Just like the old days, really.

Meanwhile, as we have reported before, Gazprom is tightening its control on energy supplies in eastern Europe and is trying to expand into the western part, especially Germany. Perhaps, that is what the banks are smacking their lips over but one wonders whether any of this is in Germany’s or Europe’s long-term interests.

Just to add some spice to the story, an interesting little tit-bit is reported in the Boston Globe by Masha Gessen, a Russian journalist and author. Describing the frightening and ever growing control of the media by the state in Russia, which is now beginning to extend to websites and small publications as well, as well as the imprisonment of teenagers for holding the wrong political opinions and "insulting" President Putin, she goes on to the following chilling story:

“Earlier this year, I reported a story that I found both ridiculous and very, very sad. The Russian edition of GQ, the men's magazine, had run its traditional "Man of the Year" contest. Some 26,000 readers had voted, and the winner was Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the oil tycoon, philanthropist, and political activist whose Yukos oil empire has been expropriated and who has been in jail for over a year on charges of tax evasion that are widely seen as politically driven. His well-publicized trial has sent a message to all Russian entrepreneurs, warning them that they will suffer gravely if they ever happen to displease the Kremlin. The publisher of Russian GQ banned the publication of Khodorkovsky's name in connection with the contest, forcing his editorial staff to falsify the results. According to staff members, someone actually had to fly to Italy, where the magazine is prepared for printing, to replace the offending page.

One remarkable aspect of this story is that the magazine's publisher, Bernd Runge, is a German national who has little to fear personally from the authorities: He doesn't even spend much time in Russia, since his turf includes other Condé Nast publications in Germany and Africa as well. But Runge has an intimate understanding of how the new Russia works. He hails from East Germany, and he went to college in the Soviet Union. Earlier this year, two major German magazines published multi-part exposes showing that Runge served as a Stasi (the East German secret police) agent during the Soviet period. Jonathan Newhouse, chairman of Condé Nast International, issued a statement affirming his confidence in Runge and calling the revelations "irrelevant" to today's realities.”

It seems that Lenin’s term: “useful idiots” has not yet outlived its own usefulness.

The letters that count

UN relief operations co-ordinator in Indonesia, Michael Elmquist, is "absolutely thrilled" at the US presence in his region. "It's absolutely life-saving," he said, "They are the only ones who have the capacity to reach those parts of the population right now."

That was the response to the arrival of the five-ship carrier group led by the USS Abraham Lincoln and the deployment of its fleet of 17 Sea Hawk helicopters.

Now, the US presence has been heavily reinforced with the arrival in the Malacca Straights of the three-ship Marine expeditionary task force, comprising USS Bonhomme Richard (see here and here), the USS Duluth and the USS Rushmore (see here and here).

Together, these ships are able immediately to deploy a further 29 helicopters, in addition to their landing craft and other assets, plus a detachment of over 2,000 marines that includes a combat engineering unit. They will be going into action in Sri Lanka later this week.

"We've been racing across the ocean," says Rear Admiral Chris Ames, commander of the strike force, acknowledging that the situation in Sri Lanka remained unclear and that the mission for his Marines was still developing.

Ames said the Marines' primary responsibilities would include ferrying food and medical supplies to villages in need. He also stressed that having "boots on the ground" would bring badly needed manpower for constructing temporary shelters, clearing roads and operating water purification equipment. "We know a lot more today than we did yesterday," he said. "But we're not waiting for a perfect picture. There's so much to be done."

The Bonhomme Richard, which looks something like a mini aircraft carrier, has dozens of helicopters on board, along with three landing craft capable of launching groups of 100 Marines - or a load of anything from tractors to trucks - ashore on virtually any kind of beach.

On its way in to the disaster zone, the group has airlifted supplies from Singapore, relieving the pressure on local facilities, making it an entirely self-contained force that is able to deliver aid without in any way imposing any stress on the creaking infrastructures of the affected areas.

This is an example of real power, and the value one of the richest nations on earth can bring to humanitarian relief. The ships alone cost $1371 million and the helicopters cost at least another $200 million, financial muscle which dwarfs the efforts of all the other donor countries

Rear Admiral Ames summed up the value of the group, saying "We have capabilities across the strike group that is quite unique and particularly well suited for this type of humanitarian assistance disaster relief operation."

"We have about 29 helicopters that are heavy- and medium-lift capable and they can provide the reach to take the disaster food, water that are piling up across the region and distribute them into the remote sections where they are most devastated by the tsunami."

Colonel Thomas Greenwood, commanding officer, 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, added: "We come with a lot of trucks, a lot of equipment which can make water, a lot of food and engineering gear when we go ashore in Sri Lanka. We cover the spectrum of not just delivering food and water, medical supplies but we can also remove debris from the roads and provide limited medical support and infrastructure improvements."

The USS Bonhomme Richard also has a 60-plus strong medical staff manning four operating rooms. Its hospital ward is also capable of taking in nearly 60 patients.

Interestingly, in its one o’clock news bulletin, BBC Radio 4 did not see fit to mention the arrival of this force – one of the most significant developments yet in the battle to bring aid to the region.

Thus, as the days and weeks pass, and the alphabet soup of agencies continue blathering about how much they have contributed, it will be important to remember the role played by those two little letters – US - and the utter uselessness of those other two - EU - or any other two you can think of.

Taking a rain-czech?

Czech ex-president Vaclav Havel has spoken out against a referendum on the EU constitution in his country, even though he disagrees with the constitution.

He considers it to be "a very complicated technical text" and therefore it would be "pointless" to hold a referendum on it. People, in his view, do not understand it enough to be able to hold a vote on it.

In an interview, broadcast on Czech TV, he did add that, to his "disappointment", the constitution changed little in the EU, and thought that a rejection of the constitution by one country might lead to its exclusion from the EU's political integration.

Interestingly, opposition parties are also playing the "isolation card", claiming that Havel is splitting the public on the EU issue and that there is a danger that Czechoslovakia will find itself among two or three countries on the margins of Europe.

Concluding his interview, he went on to urge the Czechs that: "The year of 2005 must not become a year without a name and without a content. This must not be a year about which we will admit to ourselves after 365 days that it simply passed"

I’ll drink to that.

Normal service

There have been great natural disasters before, pace the Archbishop of Canterbury. Perhaps the numbers of dead are higher now than in many others, perhaps not. There have also been natural disasters caused entirely by misguided or criminal political decisions (just think of what the truth behind that Ethiopian famine was or how many millions died as a result of collectivization in various communist countries).

There is, as I have said before, a certain sameness about disasters and an equal sameness about response. Of course, people generously donate money, alas, preferring not to find out how and on what that money is used for. Some sense is shown by those who give to small, named charities, that can and probably will be held to account.

Chaos at the receiving end, with little ability to organize transport and distribution, no possibility of ensuring that the food and other supplies flown in actually get to the right recipients. The aid that is pouring out of the rich west seems to be reducing itself to a “trickle” to those who have suffered. Supplies lying around, rotting away, as usual in these cases.

Naturally, the newspapers are full of stories, mass and individual. That will not last, but it is good to see that occasionally something is more interesting than the private lives of footballers and TV personalities. It is also a relief not to watch the appalling hunt that the journalists conduct on their, usually very young and often helpless, prey for the entertainment of the great British public. Why the destruction of a marriage or the reduction of a human being to a gibbering wreck, even if those involved are footballers or pop singers, should be acceptable entertainment is beyond me.

Then there are the journalists. On present count, at least six have claimed to have been the ones who fearlessly revealed the true extent of the tragedy and inspired charitable giving on a scale, unprecedented since, well, since the last time something like this happened. I expect the numbers will grow.

The politicians are making their stand. Hilary Benn, son of Tony, is fully expected to make his mark in NuLab politics by the generous and fearless way he is shelling out taxpayers’ money to international organizations. In a rare display of political intelligence, Tony Blair has defended his continuing holiday. What could he do if he returned that he cannot deal with wherever he happens to be with his family? Let Gordon Brown take the plaudits for the moment. His erstwhile friend will deal with him when he does return.

Kofi Annan has announced that the effects of the tsuname will be felt for decades. Not a particularly illuminating statement but at least he has refrained from blaming the United States, globalization and western capitalism. Early days yet, I expect. And talking of Kofi Annan, where is the man? It seems that he, too, declined to interrupt his very pleasant holiday in Wyoming with James Wolfensohn, the President of the World Bank. In fact, his first statements, three days after the disaster and well into the aid-giving frenzy, were made by telephone. There were to be no pictures of Mr Annan enjoying himself.

His colleague, Jan Egeland, Head of Humanitarian Affairs, has had to retract, though not explicitly, as my colleague has written. From accusing the wealthy nations of being stingy (for wealthy nations read the United States) he has moved to praising one of the few programmes that has been successful: aid being delivered directly to the people in need of it by the US Sea Hawk helicopters.

Who knows? Mr Egeland may yet accept that the only useful aid giving effort has been that organized and delivered by individual nations, such as the United States, India, Australia and Japan, who have immediately started organizing and co-ordinating their activity.

Interesting to note the presence of India among the Big Four. For decades that country remained the poorest of the poor, subject to every natural disaster and the recipient of large amounts of aid. Some time ago it began shaking that burden off, opened its economy up to the world, began to develop it seriously (refusing to sign the wretched Kyoto Protocol) and is now in a position to help provide aid.

In the meantime, the sheer inability of the large international organizations, who are supposed to deal with disasters, such as the UN and the big NGOs, to deal with the situation has been breathtaking. They have had to deal with such situations before. Why have they not learnt anything?

What is the point of taking plane-load of blankets, a week after the event, into tiny airports, with no unloading facility and no possibility of distributing anything? The same applies to food and medical aid. Unless you know how to take it to the people, there is no point in bringing it in.

Some of what is needed, helicopters, fork lift trucks, bridge building equipment and so on, is already there and much more is being provided by the US and Australia, with additional help from Japan, China, India, Israel and, possibly, soon the other G8 countries. The military is moving in, to organize transport and distribution. Clearly, an operation of this size needs military discipline and control (not to mention guns to protect the actual aid). In the coming days we shall see more of that.

And again, one comes back to the same question: what is the point of the vast international and transnational apparatus of the UN, the Red Cross, Oxfam, various other organizations with initials? What have they been collecting all this money for? Why have they been strutting the stage? Is this not to be their finest hour? Alas, no. It seems that these organizations, whose aim is to deal with problems of this kind, cannot really do so.

What they can do is play at politics, make huge statements, mostly of the anti-Western kind, build up bureaucracies and support idiotic events like the recent European Social Forum in London. Practical help? Forget it. Apart from the large scale equipment and disciplined organization provided by individual countries, the only organizations that might be able to distinguish themselves, will be the small charities, who can be held directly accountable by the donors. Oxfam, as it keeps proclaiming, will be there. But what it will be doing there will remain shadowed in mystery.

The UN has so far not even managed to get there. The EU, as we know, is planning to have a donors’ conference next week, an opportunity for the Luxembourg Presidency to show its mettle. The food and various arrangements will be good, I expect. As to practical outcome? Well, what exactly is a donors’ conference for? Presumably, to ensure that the member states who have already given directly, should now also give to the EU for it to produce its vast and useless projects, probably never to be finished if past experience is anything to go by, but crowned by the blue flag with the ring of stars.

There is more ridiculous nonsense to come. The rent-a-mob pop singers are organizing a concert, hoping to raise vast amounts of money. Whether that will succeed remains questionable. After all, people have already given and done so with great generosity. As more and more news of chaos and inefficiency comes in, the same people will not want to buy tickets or records as well. Perhaps, the whole concert can be performed to an audience of UN and EU officials.

Finally,we come to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who has publicly announced that this sort of thing makes him doubt the existence of God. Really, he is supposed to be a brainy, intellectual sort of cove. Like all those aid agencies, he has spent too much time politicking, instead of which he ought to have read some of those many works of religion and theology, starting with the Book of Job, that discuss the very issue of natural calamity and God,. If, on the other hand, he finds it hard to maintain his faith, then he should resign or whatever an Archbishop does and become a Sociology lecturer with a regular column in the Guardian.

Not all is gloom and doom, however. As my colleague has pointed out, the voices that say it is poverty that is the problem are getting stronger. The voices that add: we should stop worrying about global warming and start paying attention to how the developing world should actually develop rather than live on endless hand-outs, are beginning to sound across the western political spectrum. The tranzis may think this is their hour of glory. But it is beginning to look like their nemesis.

Myth of the week

The EU is good for the environment

In "feel-good" terms, the "environment" often comes up number one in the approval ratings for EU action, where the majority of those responding believe that, overall, the EU is beneficial to the environment. This reflects in part the assiduous propaganda campaign undertaken by the EU so, in this new "myth", we look at the EU’s actual contribution to improving our environment, but also take a look at how their propaganda machine works.

Produce a pamphlet called "Choices for a greener future", decorate it with a colour photograph of a butterfly against a backdrop of glorious flowers and, by magic, the EU is in the environment business. Go for the EU and get better butterflies!

If ever there was an example of the subtle way the EU harnesses propaganda to the cause, this is it. Everyone is in favour of the "environment" in the same way that no-one could or would speak our against motherhood and apple pie. So, if the EU is in favour of the environment, we should all be in favour of the EU. Such is the underlying message that the EU wishes to convey.

The technique is indeed subtle: "As European citizens, we all share an interest in protecting and improving the environment around us, because it will make our lives better", goes the legend on the very first page of the pamphlet. You have to do a double-take to understand there game they are playing.

First they set up the "European citizen" and then they link this to a worthy and entirely uncontentious common cause – "protecting and improving the environment" – and you are hooked. European citizens are concerned… you are concerned because you are a European citizen… take it any which way you please.

The inference is, of course, that you are concerned because you are a European citizen. There is no allowance for the fact that non-European citizens are just as much concerned, or even that the reader might reject the very notion of European citizenship. The linkage is irrevocable.

Then they go for the H L Mencken "ploy", the American writer who explained that: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed - and hence clamorous to be led to safety - by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

Thus we get: "Over recent decades, it became clear that our global environment is under serious threat as a result of human activities…". The pamphlet then lards the case with reference to the "menace" of climate change and, once the softening up is done, in comes the honey: "The way we in Europe respond to these challenges influences our own happiness and well-being, as well as dictating what sort of world our children live in".

Note the use of the word "we" – inviting a sense of involvement, of solidarity, of common purpose. Again we see the linkage, this time with "happiness and well-being", and the future of our "children". Who but the black-hearted could possible be against such sentiments and such laudable objectives?

From thereon, the rest is easy: "So what can the European Union, in particular, do to protect and nurture the environment?", the pamphlet asks. In the context set, such a question is so logical that it follows as night follows day – the EU will "protect and nurture". How could you answer that the EU can and should do nothing, in response to such a question?

In case you are tempted to answer in the negatives, however, the pamphlet states the case more firmly: "We are entering a new era," it states boldly, "in which countries will have to work together in order to safeguard our environment, for the air we breathe and the waters we drink are not restricted by national frontiers."

Then for the punchline: "As European citizens (again!) we know the sort of world we want to live in and the EU is playing a dynamic role in pursuing that vision with energy and determination".
That is the "case" so far. Firstly, "protecting and improving the environment" is a "good thing". Secondly, as "European citizens" we all share an interest in pursuing the protection and improvement of the environment. Thirdly, countries have to work together to that end and, fourthly, we have a "single vision" of the world we want to live in (doubtless a "European vision") the EU is playing a "dynamic role" in pursuing that vision.

Goebbels would have been proud of the case put, conflating truth and lies in a subtle mix, so carefully stitched together that it is difficult to separate the two. But here goes.

Looking at the issues, in general terms, it is self-evidently true that "protecting and improving the environment" is a "good thing" – but only as a generality. But it begs several questions. But to turn this into practicalities, you have to state what you understand by the "environment?

Then, want do you understand by "protection" and "improvement"? And to what extent then does protection and improvement of the environment take precedence over other human, and in particular, economic activities?

Once you ask these questions, a whole new vista opens up. The "environment", as we know it, is what surrounds us. It is varied, different, and encompasses everything from houses, gardens, roads, factory sites to farmland and virgin wilderness – together with air and water. Who decides what is to be protected and improved, to what standard and at what cost? What is the mix to be and what are the priorities?

This alone destroys the argument for a "common vision" of the environment. In each nation state, we have different problems, different priorities, different needs, different standards, different expectations, and – crucially – different priorities for the expenditure of limited resources. Reconciling the problems, the spending priorities and the standards is a matter for government.

The question is whether a supra-national government should dictate those priorities and here the essential issue is one of government spending. Should the EU be able to decide to elevate, say, a requirement for ultra-purity in drinking water over and above that of the need for hospitals or schools over and above the need to repair leaky water pipes and the renewal of ageing sewers?

As to the "European citizens", therein is the lie. The term is an artificial construct which has no real meaning and only by relying on this artefact is the EU able to project the idea of an otherwise non-existent "common vision". Take it away and we have citizens (and subjects) of the nation state. Their visions (plural) are from a national perspective, and need – by and large – national solutions.

There is, however, validity in the mantra "countries must work together". But the lie creeps in with the inference that the only way they can work together is through the supranational construct of the EU. Yet, one of the most immediate trans-national pollution controversies affecting the EU was acid rain and the supposed effect of British power station emissions on Norwegian forests. Crucially, Norway was not a member of the EU yet mechanisms for dealing with the problem still existed.

Intergovernmental agreements were concluded under the auspices of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), starting with the 1979 Geneva Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution, which Britain ratified in 1982. This convention, which was legally binding, was further extended by no less than eight additional protocols.

In order for countries to work together, therefore, not only is the EU not essential but, inasmuch as "pollution knows no frontiers", the borders of EU member states are in fact too restrictive. Dealing with the wider problem needs larger groupings of countries than merely EU members.

And now for the biggest lie of all – that the EU is playing a "dynamic role" in protecting and improving the environment. Long before the EU was in being, the individual nation states had their own environmental programmes. In the case of the UK, we had strong legislation and programmes stemming from the Public Health Act of 1875, before even some member states of the EU were even nations. In that respect, the EU is simply "hijacking" member state activities and taking the credit for them.

Without the EU, progress on the environment would have continued and indeed so would trans-boundary agreements. One test, therefore, is whether the EU provides "added value", i.e., either improvements over and above those that would have been achieved anyway, in terms of outcome, efficiency and/or cost.

Here, the record of the EU is dire. One of the earlier examples is the "batteries directive" 91/157/EEC, aimed at promoting the recovery and recycling of lead-acid batteries used in motor cars. Prior to that directive, in the UK we had an excellent system which accounted for 95 percent of all batteries disposed of, comprising a profitable business for a number of scrap merchants. The EU scheme, however, imposed a costly, rigid bureaucracy which destroyed the profitability of the collection system, as a result of which costs to end users increased and the percentage of batteries recovered fell to less than 60 percent.

Then we have the famous fridge mountain created by EU regulation 2000/2037 which turned old fridges into "hazardous waste", prohibiting their recycling and turning a perfectly adequate – self-funding - collection and disposal into absolute chaos, ending up with thousands of fridges in huge dumps, costing the taxpayer hundreds of thousands to dispose of them.

This is on the back of the infamous "landfill directive", which is causing no end of problems, not least a rash of fly tipping, massively increased costs and a network of expensive incinerators which no one wants at a cost to the UK estimated at £6.9 billion.

So incoherent is the EU waste policy that even the experts have trouble making sense of it, with massive confusion between what is waste disposal and what is recycling. This has led to the absurd situation where it has become virtually impossible to recycle waste oil and where Scottish Power are no longer allowed to use processed sewage to make electricity.

Soon we will have to deal with the End of Life Vehicle directive, the introductory pjase of which is already causing our streets to littered with car wrecks, while the Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment Directive will do for personal computers, vacuum cleaners and washing machines exactly what the EU did for fridges.

Yet the propaganda element is still very much alive, as we noted with reaction to the "Reach" directive by the Independent newspaper, which called this bureaucratic monstrosity as "anti-pollution drive". This is the proposed law that will create so many obstacles to the usage of a wide range of chemicals that it will drive businesses abroad, where there are fewer controls of pollution than there are now. The net effect may well be to increase rather than reduce global pollution.

Then there is the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) which the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds happily chirps "could cost billions of pounds" in achieve the EU targets", which have to be met by 2015. This is on top of the estimated £16 bn needed to upgrade water and sewerage pipes which is already leading to massively increased water bills.

All this, at a very rough estimate, looks like costing the British economy something like £40-50 billion over the next ten years or so, or between £4-5 billion a year – all to create more problems than are solved

But that reckons without the grand-daddy of them all, the Kyoto agreement, which according to the environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg could costs between $150 to $300 billion a year without having any long-term effect on global warming, massively retarding developed economies and limiting their ability to assist developing countries.

That itself has spawned the EU’s ultimate bureaucratic dream, the Emissions Trading Scheme, which adds a further £25 billion a year to the costs of the productive economy.

This is the EU’s idea of a "greener future". For any normal person it is a vision of chaos and disaster. Apart from anything else, the fact that the EU even thinks it is doing good for the environment – and the likes of Margaret Beckett believe is a reason why we should vote for the EU constitution – more than adequately demonstrates how far detached from reality supporters of the "project" really are.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions

In a progress report this afternoon, delivered from his United Nations office, head of humanitarian affairs, Jan Egeland spoke of the recently arrived US Sea Hawk helicopters as "worth their weight in gold".

And well he might. This is the man who earlier complained of the "stinginess" of wealthy nations, a jibe clearly aimed at the United States. But, even as he spoke, the USS Abraham Lincoln was being despatched to the disaster area.

Having now arrived, it is germane to note that helicopters that Egeland now so fulsomely praises cost the US taxpayer some $100 million – more than the entire amount donated by the British government (without taking into account the cost of the aircraft carrier that brought them to the scene) . And, unlike the UK’s effort, the American assistance is there, on the ground, helping save real people.

Crucially, the utility of the US Sea Hawk helicopters owes much to the foresight of the much-despised US military planners, in that they included in the aircraft specification a humanitarian relief capability, a function which they are now so admirably performing.

The twelve aircraft on station will be joined in a few days by a similar number of helicopters from Expeditionary Strike Group 5, with its three-ship force, comprising the amphibious assault ships, USS Bonhomme Richard, USS Duluth and USS Rushmore. Together with their landing craft and other assets, they will provide a real boost to the humanitarian aid effort under way.

All of this again emphasises the role of the nation state, and the generosity of the much maligned United States, but it also points up the utter uselessness of the European Union when it comes to doing something useful in a crisis situation.

But, if the EU is useless now, that at least is a neutral attribute in that it is not actually, at the moment, doing any damage to the relief effort. That will come later when, as before, it continues with its blind obsession with global warming and the Kyoto agreement, stunting developed world economies and retarding development in the third world.

That point was made admirably by Ross Clark in an op-ed in the Sunday Telegraph today, in a piece entitled: "Disasters don't kill people: poverty does", by the paper’s leader and also in an authored piece by Bjorn Lomberg in the Sunday Times. That latter piece is echoed in this Blog and by my colleague in a more recent posting.

The one thing we can guarantee, however, is that all the practical lessons of the tsunami disaster, and all the sentiments rehearsed here will wash over the heads of the sanctimonious fools that gather at the EU’s donor conference next week.

Instead, my guess is that we will hear self-congratulatory messages, and "firm commitments" to action which in, in the passage of time, do more harm than good. The one thing I would like to do therefore, if I had the opportunity, is emblazon the conference hall with banners in the 20 official languages of the EU, each stating "The road to hell is paved with good intentions".

The European disease

In the Sunday Telegraph Mandrake column (which does not appear to be published on-line) is a story which seems to encapsulate modern Britain and which, more importantly, suggests that European public administration mores have spread over here.

The story itself relates to official in charge of building the plush UK parliamentary offices at Portcullis House. Mandrake author, Tim Walker picks up the story:

As the official overseeing the £250 million construction of Portcullis House, Andrew Makepeace landed the House of Commons in the High Court for breaching both UK and European law, It cost the taxpayers around £10 million when the case was lost and the House was forced to pay substantial compensation to a construction company that, the court rules, had been discriminated unlawfully in 1996.

The trial judge said that Makepeace was not only dishonest in the way he had handled this company’s tender on Portcullis House, but that he had then "falsified the reasons" for his action "to cover his tracks" by writing a letter which he "plainly knew did not set out the true reasons" for awarding the contract.

So what happened to Makepeace? Was he dismissed or demoted? Not in Blair’s Britain. He retained his job and his gold-plated pension.

And now this publicly disgraced official has been given the OBE in the New Year honours. He is described in the citation as the "Project sponsor, Parliamentary Estates Directorate, House of Commons".

Tim Walker challenges Makepeace to have the decency not to turn up at Buckingham Palace to accept the award but, as we so often say, don’t hold your breath.

If, of course, this had been an EU commission official, the Eurosceptic press would have been all over the case but, as it is, it only gets a mention on the back page of the Sunday Telegraph.

However, this is straight out of the book of European administration, where Eurostat officials go unpunished, despite "a vast enterprise of looting", where l’escroc Barrot gets made transport commissioner and the biggest thief of them all, Jacques Chirac, gets made president of France.

Giving Makepeace an award somehow rather confirms Blair's "European credentials". His lack of concern for accountability and probity in public life would certainly meet with the approval of his European colleagues and marks the spread of the "European disease" into the British administration.

How Americans see it

Catching up on the somewhat thin media of the week between Christmas and the New Year (apart from the responses to the tsunami, which have shown up the inadequacy of the various international organizations and to which we shall return), I came across two articles. One was in the International Herald Tribune and was entitled Europe drops out of the picture and the other in the Wall Street Journal Europe. This was an editorial published immediately after the Ukrainian election results were finally declared and accepted.

Entitled The Miracle on Independence Square, it dealt with the astonishing events of the previous few weeks in Ukraine and on possible future developments. Very sensibly the article did raise the subject of the gap between western and eastern Ukraine and the difficulties this will present to the newly elected President Yuschenko.

Inevitably, the subject of relationship with the European Union came up. On the whole, the EU, as we have pointed out before, has not distinguished itself in its policy towards Ukraine (or any other post-Soviet state). As we have said before, the reason for this is that it has no real policy, not having any obvious interests.

The WSJE put it in a way that makes it clear that while their writers can see the immediate problems, they are not that well aware of the underlying ones:

“But this revolution will force the West to rethink its policies toward Ukraine.Ukrainians made their moral case for eventual membership in the European Union,which now groups the country alongside Libya and Lebanon as part of its ‘neighbourhood’ non-policy, by fighting for their democracy. With Turkey about to start accession talks, why not Ukraine? The EU can use the best foreign-policy tool at its disposal – the carrot of membership – to help guide the reform process in Ukraine. Now isn’t the time to fret over details, but stay true to a vision of united Continent of democracies.”

Whoever wrote that paragraph is hereby awarded the membership of the not-so-select group of perestroika europhiles, whose general discussion of the EU tends to run along the lines of: good idea but needs reform. Unfortunately, the only way that can be substantiated is by deliberately misreading what the EU is really about and what its various actions are likely to lead to.

First of all, the West had rather varied attitudes to developments in Ukraine. While the US immediately proclaimed its support for transparent democratic processes in that country, followed by several European countries, namely the Baltic ones and Poland, the EU itself, hummed and ha-ed, with Foreign Affairs Supremo Javier Solana running around, trying to set up negotiations and preserve stability.

Secondly, the reason Ukraine is classed with Libya and other North African countries is an obvious one: the EU as such has no specific interests or foreign policy. (Yes, I know I have said it before, but it needs to be repeated a few hundred times, before general understanding dawns.)

That famous common foreign and security policy has no purpose but to exist. Therefore, it functions in two ways: as a convoluted compromise between various countries, such as the well-described “neighbourhood non-policy”, and as a rolling programme of unnecessary and potentially destabilizing activity.

We have seen quite a lot of the latter and shall see more as the military units will be sent off into badly understood situations that are of little concern and where solutions are hard to come by. Those 800 soldiers in DR Congo, who were, understandably, too worried to leave their compound are an obvious example.

The neighbourhood non-policy was created in its cackhanded fashion because France and other Mediterranean members of the EU could not allow the organization to concentrate on the former Soviet states and relationship with them. Though this is clearly of importance – they are, after all, the EU’s backyard – it shifts emphasis even more away from most of the core members and their interests, particularly France. So the non-policy had to be expanded to include countries that are of interest to the latter: those around the Mediterranean and in North Africa.

To this one may add the fact that Solana is a Spaniard. Therefore, he is unlikely to have the sort of intrinsic understanding of eastern Europe that the Balts and Poles do. A Finn in the same position, for example, would not be able to deal easily with problems around the Mediterranean. Which goes back to the same point: there is no such beast as European interests.

So we come to what the WSJE calls the EU’s “best foreign-policy tool”. Actually, it is the only one, as we have pointed out before on numerous occasions. Since the EU, especially Germany, wants to be on very good terms with Russia (a small matter of gas and oil supplies), that tool is not going to be used on Ukraine. President Putin is unlikely to be happy with the idea of accession negotiations, however long they may take (ten years, at least, are predicted for Turkey) and President Putin’s happiness is of paramount importance.

The rest of the paragraph would be of remarkable silliness, were it not for the dangerous misinformation contained in it. It is time writers on the WSJE and other publications grasped that the EU is not a democratic entity and, therefore, membership of it does not strengthen democracy. Au contraire. It undermines the existing accountable, constitutional democratic structures of its members.

Which brings me to the final point: what on earth is a “united Continent of democracies”? In what sense is it to be united? If we talk in general terms of a loose union of democracies, then Ukraine is already a member, conditional on how its politics will develop. If we are talking of a real union with, let us say, a Commission that consists of dubious politicians but which has sole power of legislative initiation as well as being the executive; a Council of Ministers that decides far-reaching legal and regulatory structures behind closed doors on the basis of horse-trading; a European Parliament that is elected on the basis of closed lists by an ever decreasing number of people, that does not legislate or, even, debate in any meaningful fashion; a Court of Justice, whose purpose is to further integration; then where do all these democracies come into the picture?

So much for the newspaper that actually writes about the EU. But what happens in the United States? Wayne Merry, a former State Department and Pentagon official, a senior associate at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington DC and the author of Europe drops out of the picture has tried to find out what the attitude to Europe is across America.

The conclusion he came to after a good deal of research is not exactly flattering either to Europeans or their self-important politicians. Outside Washington there is precious little interest. Businesses pay some attention because they want to carry on doing business but, apart from that, interest has long ago shifted to other parts of the world.

Economically, Asia has become far more important. The expanding American free trade area has focused attention even more on Central and South America. Other parts of the world may be problematic. There are foes and friends to be found everywhere. Europe does not figure on this map. Its economy is shrinking; it is no longer a stalwart ally in the fight against the enemy – terrorism (Britain, for the time is an exception, but that will not last as the Hoon “reforms” go through).

I imagine some of the comments on this posting will tell me rather superciliously that Americans are not interested in the outside world. This is not true. Reading the American broadsheet press will show considerably more interest in the world than reading the British equivalent will. It is just that the interest is not in Europe.

As Mr Merry puts it:

“Europe is not a problem, not global, and of the past. A nice place to visit,but pricey.”

He concludes his article with the following paragraphs:

“Americans perceive a Europe that values comfort and safety, but that is also in long-term demographic decline and disengagement from unpleasant realities. War may no longer be part of European life (for which Americans think they can merit some of the credit), but in American eyes it is a fantasy to project this reality on the wider world.

Above all, Europe is increasingly eclipsed by Asia. As people oriented toward the future, Americans see Europe as isolationist and Asia as resurgent. Americans would like partnership with Europe but think that finding ways to work with China is more important. Finally, the American demographic itself is visibly shifting away from its European origins,with America’s future as a “global nation” apaprent on the streets of almost any city across the heartland.”

A few points have to be made about this conclusion. This disengagement to a great extent has spread to Washington, or, at least, to the political think-tank world. European development and European integration, its pros and cons, are rarely seen to be worthy of analysis. (Though, I am delighted to note that Cato Institute, after a long gap, has once again organized a discussion on the subject, though only because T. R. Reid of the Washington Post has published a book called The United States of Europe.)

This is not a healthy situation on either side. Being sidelined in this way will cause greater stagnation in Europe itself, that might have serious repercussions. It is, however, inevitable with the sort of structure the EU is and with the sort of aims it has set itself.

The idea that somehow war has been permanently eroded from Europe is laughable. There are the problems in the Balkans, in the post-Soviet states, in western Europe with terrorist groups. But the sort of attitude Europeans have displayed towards these problems are very dangerous: they consist of ignoring what is coming until it arrives; then scrabble round for immediate solutions that ought to have been worked out before; sometimes, as in the Balkans, the Americans have to be called on for help.

Nor is this situation a happy one for the Americans. Yes, they can ignore Europe up to a point, as being of little value or danger. But the EU will always have the capacity ot create trouble and undermine any western alliance, as it has already shown.

Nor can there be a complete break, despite the demographic changes. The United States and its political ideas grew out of European ones and, especially, British ones. Then there is the question of the struggle against the unaccountable, anti-democratic transnational organizations, that the United States and any real democracy will increasingly have to wage.

The EU is the political expression of that “movement”. It is the epitome of unaccountablity and anti-democracy. It is a transnational organization par excellence. In the great battle for world-wide influence, it will be ranged against freedom and democracy.

As ever, the question is which side do the individual member states want to find themselves on. We had better decide soon, while we still can. Before we are irredeemably shunted into the sidelines.

The Booker column

This week, in his column, Booker excels himself with a timely piece headed: "Do you recognise your rulers?"

With his peice accompanied by a photograph of the EU commission, he asks "How many of these faces of our government can you identify?", suggesting that a New Year resolution for 2005 might be for us all to recognise just where the government of our country now lies.

"If government is measured by who has the power to put forward the laws which rule our lives," he writes, "then to a great extent our rulers are not Tony Blair and John Prescott but the 25 commissioners of the European Union."

This really must be the theme for 2005 for, as our domestic politicians posture and prance, while the increasingly vapid media indulges in soap-opera politics, for want of addressing the real issues, power drains away to Brussels and the only response of that stupid, ignorant man Blair is to try and give away more powers through the EU constitution.

It is quite apposite, therefore, that Booker’s second story is about the long-running saga of the Shropshire firm run by Dr Per Lindstrand, the celebrated Swedish balloonist.

Until 15 months ago, Booker writes, Lindstrand Technologies in Oswestry was the world's leading manufacturer of aerostats, giant helium balloons, costing £500,000 each, which carry up to 30 people 500 feet into the air on a fixed wire.

In September 2003, when the right to certify aircraft was handed over to the EU's new European Aviation Safety Agency, it became illegal, thanks to a quirk in British law, for Dr Lindstrand's aerostats to be sold anywhere in the EU, including Britain. This handed over a monopoly of the market to Lindstrand's only rival, Aerophile, run by its French founder, Matthieu Gobbi, who publicly boasted that EASA had "decided to adopt as the European standard many of the regulations that I helped develop".

Unless Dr Lindstrand's aerostats could quickly be certified by the UK's Civil Aviation Authority, now little more than a front-office for EASA, he would be forced to lay off much of his 90-strong workforce, or even move his operations abroad. When this absurd situation was first publicised by his MP, Owen Paterson, and through this column, the chairman of the CAA, Sir Roy McNulty, promised that the problem would be resolved by Christmas 2003.

After a whole year of Kafkaesque prevarication by the CAA, during which Dr Lindstrand lost millions of pounds in potential orders while Aerophile mopped up the market, Mr Paterson and I again challenged this scandalous victimisation. We were promised, both by the CAA and by transport minister, Charlotte Atkins, that action would be taken.

Dr Lindstrand has now been informed that this month he will have a visit from officials of the CAA's Flight Test Department. As he points out in a letter to Sir Roy McNulty, "this is laughable as there is no flight test to be carried out". His aerostats don't even have a pilot, because they simply rise and fall on a fixed wire. What irks him even more, as he loses hundreds of thousands of pounds a month, is that Sir Roy recently made a speech accusing the EASA of being unable to "get their act together", because they lack sufficient technical expertise.

"In all my 28 years as a lighter-than-air manufacturer," says Dr Lindstrand, "I have never been treated so badly". Meanwhile his rival Aerophile continues to enjoy its lucrative monopoly – thanks to the EASA, whose regulations its managing director is proud "to have helped develop".

This, dear readers, is utter madness. In fact it is worse than madness. Here, demonstrated for all to see, it is the way power has drained away from our ministers so, when they are confronted with an outrage of this nature, all they can do is bleat from the sidelines while nothing at all happens.

It is instances like these that illustrate so well exactly what membership of the European Union means – that our ministers are eunochs and that any idea of democracy and accountability is a hollow charade.

Booker then moves on to a pertinent comment about the contrast brought out by reporting of the tsunami disaster. He notes that there have been two quite different ways by which people now try to convey the scale of such a terrifying phenomenon.

Those viewing it from a distance, such as seismologists, have all spoken solemnly of walls of water "six metres high" roaring "up to a kilometre" inland. However, those directly caught up in this awful experience have almost without exception talked of the sea "withdrawing several hundred yards", followed by "a wave 20 feet high", which filled rooms "to within a foot of the ceiling".

It is as if, he writes, that we now speak in two different languages: the language of ordinary folk, and that of the ruling elite, abetted by politically correct BBC hacks (although, initially, even one or two of these, in the excitement of the moment, forgot to observe the orthodoxies).

This is something which is ever more pervasive in our lives – something I was hinting at in my New Year piece, when I wrote that never more had I felt so out of tune with our government. There is a terrifying gap building up between "us" and "them", to the extent that we no longer even share the same language. That distance is dangerous. In might breed apathy and indifference in the short-term but the next stage is resentment and from there comes anger.

At least, however, we have a way of identifying the "enemy" – by their accursed metres and kilogrammes. Far from getting used to the metric system (or, at least the bastardised version in current use) I now regard it as the language of the occupying power.

For his final story, Booker picks up on a point raised earlier in this Blog, where we observed that while the response to the tsunami disaster was turning into some sort of obscene beauty parade, about who could be the most generous donor, the much-vilified US was getting stuck in with the most practical form of assistance – a carrier group and a fleet of amphibious assault ships.

As we watch our television sets today, we see stories of aid logjams, and stores piling up at the airports, with no means of delivery, while the people in real need are being succoured by local charities and – of all things – by US military helicopters.

The impression I am getting is that, as the NGOs and the relief agencies grind to a halt, the serious work is being progressively taken on by the militaries of the different countries, and by local governments and ordinary people.

When the immediate furore has died down, there must be a serious accounting of the way relief has been organised (about which my colleague will have more to say) but, for the moment, the point which seems to be emerging is that, for all the high-flown rhetoric of the "tranzies", when the chips are down, it is ordinary people and nation states which get things done.

Off the blocks

In his televised New Year address, president Chirac has announced that he will hold a referendum on the EU constitution "before summer".

"You, the sovereign people, will be called on to choose your own destiny," he told viewers, effectively launching the campaign.

This means that the French referendum will be held at roughly the same time as the British general election, which should provide some interesting moments for Mr Blair if he tries to keep EU issues off the election agenda.

Well, what can I add to that?

Precious little. As good a litany of this country's woes as any. I would say, much of that extends to the whole of the western world, which, fifteen years after its victory over the evil Soviet system, finds itself in a quandary. I do see some signs of hope, but, alas not here and not on the continent of Europe.

Still, as my colleague says, we shall carry on with our work and our great hope is that the powers that be will find our blog seriously inconvenient.

Happy new year to all our readers. May the force be with us all.

2005 – A New Year

There is a wry comment made about Irish politics that if after having been briefed fully about the political situation you think you understand it, you haven’t been listening.

Much the same must go towards any traditional expression of happiness for the New Year now dawned. If you are happy, you simply do not know what is going on – not least with the appalling situation in South East Asia. On that basis, to wish our readers a happy New Year seems somewhat inappropriate.

But it is not just the aftermath of the tsunami that casts such a cloud on proceedings. This year, there is going to be a general election. Barring a miracle, it seems almost certain that we are going to see another Labour victory and even, possibly, a further decline in the fortunes of the Conservative Party.

Anyone with any political awareness and an understanding of how we are governed, and how we should be governed, cannot help but feel gloomy at the prospect. I cannot be alone in wondering quite how much longer this nation can survive under a Labour administration.

As if that is not enough, many pundits are quite seriously suggesting that 2005 will be a year of recession and some go further to predict that we could well see an economic collapse on the scale of the events that triggered the 1929 depression.

On top of that, experts in the energy field have been warning that the current electricity supply situation is so fragile that the national grid is only one crisis away from disaster. With just a small adverse event, we could see the lights going out all over England.

Returning to the political situation though, what is now last year was the year a new government took over in Brussels, our government – in many areas or "competences" the supreme government of the United Kingdom.

If I have never before felt so entirely out of tune with my own government, it is partly because it no longer resides in Westminster and Whitehall but in Brussels.

That government rules without my vote and thus without my permission – a sentiment shared by many of my fellow Englishmen (and women) – on which basis it and its collaborators in the British government lack, in my view, any legitimacy, democratic or otherwise.

In a year when I found myself twice locked up for refusing to pay taxes to this government, I felt I owed it to myself in a small way to prove that which none of us should ever forget – particularly those who rule over us: that, in the absence of consent, they rule by coercion. In the final analysis, they must exercise their power by depriving us of our liberty, using whatever level of violence is necessary to achieve that end.

It is only personal fear, and the effects of state violence on my nearest and dearest, that force me to conform with a government I detest – both governments, actually, the one on London and the one in Brussels.

This year, those governments are going to expend time and energy – and some of my money – on convincing us that we should vote to give our government over the water still more power to exercise its baleful rule.

With that, I make myself – and you all – one promise. We (and I know I can speak for my colleague on this) will expend all our available skills and energy on seeking to frustrate these travesties of governments and do our very best to bring this nation closer to the state where, once again, we can call ourselves a democracy.

Much of that energy, perforce, will be directed through this Blog – which we see as a prime weapon to counter the insidious propaganda of our enemies. Thus, if I cannot feel comfortable with wishing you all a happy New Year, I can at least wish you a productive year, and offer you the hope that, by the end of this December coming, we are that much closer to achieving a mutual goal.

I will leave my respected colleague to express her own wishes, in her own way.