Random links on the big story

No, I don't mean the wedding. I have said all I wanted to say on the subject and on all related subjects though, probably, more of that was said in Russian on the day than in English on this blog. That's the way it crumbles cookie-wise.

No, I am still talking about the ending of Osama bin Laden and I hope that this will be my last posting on the subject for a little while as I should like to return to other issues. However, let me, first of all say that I think there is something a little weird about President Obama and his Cabinet watching the raid and killing of bin Laden in real time as if it were some adventure film and have themselves photograph watching it.

On the other hand, there seems to be some problem about details being revealed on the basis of that film-watching and quite a lot of the original information has now been modified. Should we accept that there is fog of war here (even though the information did not come from anybody who was out there in the fog) or shake our heads at the ridiculous speed with which colourful details were given to the media and at the White House team's inability to create a coherent narrative? Of course this could be yet another bungle by Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan. Michelle Malkin seems to be going for that. Nevertheless, one can't help feeling that the information part of this operation should have been planned a little more carefully. At the moment, it is amateur hour.

What else has come up that is interesting? Well, there is the suggestion (here and here) that the raid happened a little sooner than it was planned (possibly for this time next year) because of a Wikileak. That would be somewhat ironic, if true, though there may have been a few other events that made swift action imperative.

It would seem that on an immediate count, President Obama's popularity is not exactly being affected by the Osama factor. The truth is that, as we have seen in Canada, it is usually domestic issues that elect leaders. Or, as someone said, "it's the economy, stupid". The Washington Post thinks so, too.

Among the plethora of coverage there are a few interesting articles and this blog (rather pompously) recommends them. First, there is the curious information that, apparently, it was in Gitmo through the questioning of those prisoners that the track to bin Laden was found. Was Obama told this and also informed very forcefully that if he wanted that coup on his watch he had better forget about closing the place down?

Then there is the curious aspect of the special team sent in to get bin Laden. Apparently, in the past they have been known as Dick Cheney's special assassination squad. No longer, one assumes.

That's enough entertainment. Let's get on to the more serious stuff. What the effect of bin Laden's death will be is still unknown but it is clear that long before that the man had failed. What signs are there, apart from the overwrought imagination of some commentators (and I use the word loosely) of a world-wide khalifate? Those Arab tyrants whom bin Laden hated and attacked may be falling but not because of the strength of Islamic feeling, though it is not at all certain that democracy of any kind will prevail in places like Egypt, Tunisia or Libya.

Fouad Ajami describes him as a weak horse - a terrible insult in the Arab world. Amir Taheri writes of bin Laden's ideology collapsing long before the man's death.

I think I shall ignore the many other comments, at least for the time being. Tomorrow, I hope, it will be possible to resume normal service.

They always say that

"I simply can't believe it" seems to have been the reaction of Osama bin Laden's neighbours in Bilal Town.

The local residents are still struggling to believe what happened here in Bilal Town, in this highly militarized district of Abbottabad where the army runs a military academy, where barracks stand in green fields and which is constantly patrolled by Pakistan's military police.

Here of all places, at 1.30 a.m. local time, Osama bin Laden, the world's most wanted man, was found and killed.

"I simply can't believe it," said Jehangir Khan, a resident of Bilal Town. "How could he hide in this highly secured city?" the businessman wondered. Like many other residents, he was woken in the night by a heavy explosion. "We were very frightened, there haven't been any terror attacks in Abbottabad," said Saifullah, a student who lives in the city.

Saifullah climbed on the roof of his parent's house and saw "two or three helicopters, there was a shootout." Other residents switched on the TV, which also had reports of two or three helicopters.

I am waiting for somebody to inform us that he always seemed such a nice, quiet chap; kept himself to himself but always said good morning to his neighbours.

Not everyone is pleased

There are various questions being asked but those who believe that Osama bin Laden has now been killed tend to be rather pleased, even if they do not assume, as this blog does not assume that international Islamist terrorism or Al-Qaeda are now finished. But there is one organization that believes the news and condemns it. Hamas are not happy. Well, that alone ....

Today's biggest news (if true)

President Obama announces the death of Osama bin Laden.

In a dramatic late-night appearance in the East Room of the White House, Mr. Obama declared that “justice has been done” as he disclosed that American military and C.I.A. operatives had finally cornered Bin Laden, the Al Qaeda leader who had eluded them for nearly a decade. American officials said Bin Laden resisted and was shot in the head. He was later buried at sea.

If true, this is the most important piece of news that the President could announce but, I have no doubt, questions will still be asked. And let us not forget, there is a presidential election coming up next year. Potential Republican candidates will have to play this one very carefully.

Of course, by now bin Laden's life and death are little more than symbolic, Al-Qaeda having long ago evolved away from him. But symbols matter.

ADDENDUM: An interesting analysis about what might happen if the news is definitely true (and no conspiracy theorist is likely to accept it as that) and how it will play out in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

His death also means that the Pakistani military-jihadi complex gave him up. This will allow Barack Obama to declare victory and pull US troops out of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Pakistani army can then orchestrate an post-US dispensation wherein its proxies first share power with the Karzai regime. And then, sometime in the near future, take over power.

Well, it is one scenario.

EU co-operation works (not!)

One of the reasons we are given (though, I must admit, ever less often) for the ineffable necessity for the EU is that all those member states can act together and do nasty things to nasty dictators. Well, the things cannot be too nasty because that would not be in keeping with the soft power the EU favours (though we have not heard much about that either, recently). I do recall a list of fifty reasons why the EU is a good thing, published by the Independent a long time ago in which being able to keep Mugabe out of the EU was one of the really important ones.

The travel ban on Robert Mugabe as well as his friends and relations are of little use. There is always a reason why just this once they must be allowed to come for whatever reason (extensive shopping in his wife's case, using the money they looted from the people of Zimbabwe and the taxpayers of the West).

So, here we go again.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has arrived in Rome for the beatification of the late Pope John Paul II.

An EU travel ban forbids him from visiting member states but the Vatican, where the ceremony will take place, is a sovereign state and not in the EU.

Mr Mugabe, a Roman Catholic, has been allowed to transit through Italy.

Despite the travel ban, Mr Mugabe went to Rome for the funeral of John Paul II in 2005 and for UN food agency conferences in 2008 and 2009.

The sanction on Mr Mugabe was imposed in 2002 over human rights abuses.

Italy's foreign ministry said it had requested an exemption from the EU travel ban for Mr Mugabe.

You know it is a force for good; so why don't you support the EU?

Well, I think the wedding is fun

I have not blogged about the Wedding because there was nothing much to say apart from wishing William and Kate luck in their extremely difficult future life. But having wandered round the centre of London today I did get caught up in the atmosphere. Plenty of people lining the Mall already, plenty of people going to parties tomorrow, everybody in the tube discussing their plans. I think it's fun and I don't care what anyone else says. Oh and I am doing a stint at the BBC Russian Service tomorrow morning. Not sure I can describe wedding dresses in any language. Hope at least some of this blog's readers will have fun.

Just try thinking

There is a story about Sir Laurence Olivier and Dustin Hoffman on the set of Marathon Man. Apparently, one day Mr Hoffman turned looking considerably the worse for wear and when questioned, explained that in order to get into the part he actually did go without food and sleep for a couple of days. Olivier is supposed to have sighed and said wearily: "Try acting, dear boy. It's so much easier." I have never been sure whether the story is true but it rings true.

In the same way, I would like to say to some people who write books on subjects connected with Communism: "Try thinking. You will find your work much easier."

Almost accidentally I came across an interesting sounding book by Francis Beckett Stalin's British Victims. It turned out to be less interesting thanTim Tzouliadis's The Forsaken, which takes up the story of all the, mostly non-Communist, Americans who had gone to the USSR to work and who came to a very bad end. Mr Beckett, a man of the left, tells the story of four women who were one way or another involved with Communism, lived, worked and married in the Soviet Union, where they, eventually, suffered the fate of many though at least two of them managed to get back to the West and tell their tales.

What struck me about Mr Beckett, who tells the story of the four women with interest and compassion if not always with comprehension, is the extraordinary mental gymnastics he has to go through to justify the fact that he still cannot quite see what is wrong with Communism:

There are two views of Stalins's purges in 1936 - 8, in which millions were judicially murdered. One, articulated by Nikita Khrushschev in his expose of Stalin in 1956, was that these events were simply the result of Stalin himself, a pot of poison at the heart of an otherwise benevolent social system. The other is that they were an integral part of the Soviet system inaugurated by Lenin in the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. This second view was most neatly summed up by Robert Conquest:

There was a grreat Marxist called Lenin
Who did two or three million men in.
That's a lot to have done in
But where he did one in
That grand Marxist Stalin did ten in.

If pressed I incline to the Khrushchev view. Conquest is less than fair to Lenin. Communism did not have to be the murderous, viciously petty-minded, sectarian and vindictive thing my four principal characters found in the Soviet Union. In theory, communis is a generous and fair-minded creed, which rejects, for good reason, the poverty amid plenty which is the hallmark of capitalism. There's a case for saying that it was simply hijacked by a cold-blooded mass murderer. But for that to be possible, the fault line had to be there. And the fault line was there. The seeds for the Stalin terror were there; but they needed a mosnter like Stalin to nurture them. The fault line was the sectarian intolerance and the lack of feeling for individual human beings which Russian communists tookd to be virtues.

Or, in other words, Conquest was absolutely right, something that Mr Beckett would have understood even more clearly if he had bothered to look at the full history of the Soviet Union and not just the purges as directed against Communists. Try thinking, dear boy. It's so much easier.