Timmyhawk

NOTES: CHINESE STATE VISIT, AZERI VOTE, "PROFESSIONALS" ON LAW MAKING
So, Red China's head is on a state visit. Whilst I see the necessity of not being actively hostile to countries like Communist China, can someone please tell me why we roll out the red carpet (literally red!) for people like this? I mean business meetings with the Government is ok, but parading down the Mall with the Queen and the Household Division, having London landmarks lit up in red and having gigantic Chinese flag stuck on Horseguards Parade? I find it quite repellent. State visits should only be granted to visitors from moderately acceptable regimes. 'nuff said.

As for those elections in Azerbaijan, there are reports about quite a lot of irregularities and there has been at least verbal censure from the West, though I doubt anything much in practical steps will happen, as I hinted at recently. Katy at blogrel has some good news on the mood she picked up from Azeris about the Karabagh conflict. I think that is also the most practical solution to the conflict. All sides, particularly the outside powers, can keep their strategic goodies, but it would improve the lot of the people actually having to live there on the ground.

In the current imbroglio over the new anti-terror laws I notice one oddity about Blair's stance in regards to how he treats the advice of the "professionals", ie the police and intelligence services. It seems they are the best fount of knowledge when it comes to balancing political goods, in this case security and liberty. At the same time, there is some disgruntlement by Blair about Sir Christopher Meyer's views on Iraq. What this underlines is how, when it came to making the decision about Iraq, Blair was quite happy to ignore the wishes of the "professionals", ie the diplomatic corps and the military, when making a political decision. And quite rightly so, too. Strange though, that now the professionals agree with him, he's quite eager to roll their expertise out. Funny that . . .

MORE NOTES: AZERIS VOTE, GUY FAWKES, IRAQ INQUIRY, TROOP MORALE AND QUIZZES
Very busy in my real life at the moment so still no proper posts . . .

There are elections in Azerbaijan today. The Economist has a good primer on this, Katy of blogrel is there now and Eurasianet is a good source for incoming news. This is quite an important event in a region whose strategic relevance has grown due to oil and being in the neighbourhood of Iran and the Nastystans. How the elections run today will have important ramifications. Ideally the elections will run smoothly and be fair. This in turn will enable the country to reform, make Western engagement such as military bases acceptable and help a peaceful resolution of the Karabagh conflict with Armenia. If this doesn't happen, and there is a real risk of this, there are two basic scenarios that are problematic. If incumbent holds on to power illicitly and the West stays, we will be compromising our moral standing and credibility. On the other hand, if we pull out, this might heighten the propensity of the Azerbaijan regime to seek a military solution to the conflict with Armenia. Needless to say such a war would be catastrophic for all involved but that's never stopped unstable dictatorships from going down that route for their egos and to cement crumbling regimes at home. As long as there is Western engagement in the region and the country, the West will try to quell any war as this would be deeply damaging to our interests. So I think we have a bit of a dilemma to solve if the current regime hangs on to power. (As for solving the Karabagh conflict, the first rule that outsiders should lay down and enforce would be one of absolute non-violence. And whichever side violates the ceasefire should then be treated as an illegitimate aggressor.)

Remember, remember, the fifth of November . . . The 400th time this year round. Clive Davis has some disappointing observations to make. Certainly the past five years the tradition of Bonfire Night has been pretty hollowed out. While I was at uni there was not a single event, but there were countless Halloween parties. I have nothing against Halloween, seeing as it connects to warm childhood memories, but it is still a shame that it is driving out Guy Fawkes. But that's the thing you see, if you abolish or downgrade national traditions like that what you end up with is not some bold global humanist utopia but rather more you will end with the resulting vacuum being filled by the commercially most available alternative. And that will normally be American for better or for worse. (I wrote an essay on Guy Fawkes' enduring relevance yesterday, but the footnoting went awol so you'll have to wait a little for that.) On the other hand, as our penchant for turning everything into a booze-fuelled mess, we all know what any festivities in this country tend to descend to . . . ;)
By the sounds of it so far this looks like an Iraq inquiry that makes sense:

For once we might actually get an investigation into the management of the war, particularly the post-invasion planning, rather than the endless and irrelevant arguments about wmd.

Sticking with Iraq, news is in that the stress levels of our troops have now reached those of World War Two. Things must have got much worse in Iraq, right? Well, not quite. It's mainly down to a fear of being prosecuted for killing an insurgent. The trial against seven Paras that collapsed this week is a good case in point. Despite no credible evidence for wrongdoing and witnesses who were allegedly being paid to make stuff up, it is fairly bizarre that the whole sordid affair could be drawn out for more than two years. DumbJohn is on form on this.

And now: quiz time! Oh dear, again? I hear you poor reader groan, but I'm having too much fun with this:

Although not immediately apparent fromt his blog's politics, but in my real life this is probably quite true: