the fourth place

Guido or rather the Guardian reports on the perceptive Mr Ellwood who, - one imagines - dressed in karkis and sporting his feild guide, has correctly identified the prevelant species of Elephant in Afganistan:

Six British soldiers have died in Helmand province over the past six weeks, most in the former opium market town of Sangin where they are fighting a fierce insurgency of Taliban warlords who have gained the support of local farmers.

"The poppy crops are the elephant in the room of the Afghan problem. We're in complete denial of the power that the crops have on the nation as a whole, and the tactics of eradication are simply not working," Mr Ellwood told Guardian Unlimited.

"Last year we spent £600m on eradication and all that resulted was the biggest-ever export of opium from the country."

He said that opium farming should be licensed so that the harvest could be sold legally on the open market, bringing in income for Afghan farmers and helping to plug a global shortage of opiate-based medicines.

It's been weird. The TV news have been rightly reporting that British troops are having a hard time out there due, in part, to the Taliban siding with opium farmers, yet they skips the obvious solution. Why wouldn't Afghan farmers support the Taliban? It is in their best interest to destroy or deter forces seeking to remove thier income, and if feeding Taliban soldiers is what that takes then why not? I have no illusion that our troops are anymore worthy of generosity than the farmer's own families.

This BBC article is an interesting example, though I first observved this on Sky News. This is what the article does say, which is both useful and intersting:

Afghanistan's poppy harvest was, Col Collins said, a "fact of life" and attempts to persuade farmers to abandon their crops was "unrealistic."

Any plan needed "to replace the poppy crop with something that's sustainable," he said.

He said: "At this current time there's a shortage of opium on the world pharmaceutical market, so one option would be, in the short term, to buy the crop and use it for pharmaceuticals.

"And then with a staged plan - and this is what's missing every time - a plan to replace the poppy crop with something which is sustainable for the farmers.

"But just taking away their livelihood is just not an option."

That reform, backed by the Tories in a more free-market format, is relatively sensible. Except he spoils it:

"Of course, ending the opium industry is essential for Afghanistan's long-term future.

What the BBC won't mention is the deaths highlighted by the Guardian (well done them) nor I think will either be mentioning the most sensible option as I see it:

Leave the Poppies alone. Completely alone.

Afterall, there is clearly a large market for opiates. Tim Collins and Tobias Ellwood point out that there is even a legal demand for them, but frankly what does the legality of it matter? We're talking about defeating an enemy and rebuilding a country. What use is Western moralising in acheiving either of those goals? OK heroin can be harmful, but it is used voluntarily and people are willing to pay good money for it. This money could be used to invest in farm equipment, market to more acceptable customers, and to raise tax revenues for investment in roads, energy and water distribution, police and armed forces in Afganistan itself.

Instead we waste £600m of our own money and the lives of six soldiers. Go figure.

It is the view of the Government's appointed protector of privacy that ID cards risk an unnecessary and disproportionate intrusion into individuals' privacy

Right wing conspirator explains a technique for planning changes in social discourse. The Overton window.

Which vision of the Mid-East future would you prefer? Destruction of Hezbollah now:

it is in the interests of Israel and the United States to deal with the Hezbollah threat now, and not later in the midst of a far more dangerous crisis over Iran's nuclear plans. So a war now to degrade Hezbollah is a shared Israel-U.S.

Or being forced to do it later:

if Hezbollah had understood [the situation] fully, it would have laid very low until needed by Iran in a mega-crisis with the United States. At that point, its threats against Israel would have been added to the overall deterrent capabilities of Iran

I had an encounter with a young America peace protester while out and about last night. Rather reluctantly, I explained that my views differed from what I feel might be the majority in that I felt Israel had a right to "destroy Israel using violence". The protester was rather amazed to hear this and seemed unwilling to argue the case, though she clearly wanted to. That is a shame, but thankfully I'm still able to blog my rationale. The reasoning was basically empathetic, if a French group was firing rockets at Dover I would not want peace campaigners in China to start interfering with my Government's military response, I would want France to burn. This argument still holds, but there are additional advantages for us in the destruction of Hizbollah now, that is, there is a selfish argument.

Starting with the axiom that Iran cannot have nukes becuase an Iran with nukes hurts us all, it makes sense to take advantage of the opportunity to destroy an ally. Should the confrontation over nukes become violent, the chances of a greater escalation are reduced if strategically placed allies have already been eliminated.

There is some debate over whether this can be acheived, but critics endorse the view that Hezbollah have to know that anyone who kills or kidnaps a soldier will pay a heavy price. An incomplete dismantling is surely a heavy price, but I should be clear about how I feel this needs to be achieved. Israel must not target civilian areas without specific intelligence that in contains a Hezbollah centre. This is acceptable only because locals who know about such centres must know to move away from them.

Allow me to breifly capture a thought.

Iran cannot have nukes because it would induce further concessions to strict Islamic rules in this country which would affect the secular majority, and create an environment where lifestyles are increasingly determined by central goverment dictat. Initially that lifestyle would be shaped to be more compatible with the Islamic lifestyle already lived by a minority who choose it (and people do choose it). Alcohol adverts might be curtaild, piglet might be banned from workplaces criticism might be regulated. Once the principle is established, anything is vulnerable.

Iran is, if you like, an external pressure that may lead us further to our Orwellian future, but maybe that is a link too far.

In anycase we must preserve that quality of London, and I would argue England as a whole, that provided you do not interfere with anyone else you can lead your life entirely in your own way.

A hit tip to Samizdata for this one, and a special mention for TimC who wrote:

Having a Lawyer in charge of government is like having an arms dealer in charge of the FCO.

For now Blair's regulatory perogative is extending to alll the way down to Children's lunchboxes in a manner that teaches them that the state knows better than thier mother and trains them to snitch on each other. The bonkers assertion of an Orwell fan? No not really:

"Research shows the average packed lunch parents prepare is nutritionally poorer than even the current standard of school meals," says Leather controversially.

Ok, I'm the person to advocate the suppression of controverial research (if it indeed exists) but get this...

At Charlton Manor primary, the head, Tim Baker, says: "Children get stickers for healthy boxes... If a child brings in a chocolate bar, we take it out of the lunchbox and give it back to the parent at the end of the day." Pupils give each other away, he confides: "They say, 'Miss, he’s got sweets in his box'."

Does Leather approve of what smacks rather of the nanny state? Absolutely. "If you are producing high-quality food and at the same time turning a blind eye to unhealthy packed lunches there is an inconsistency there," she says.

I'm not sure I ever needed much prompting to question authority, but I'd be much happier having children (one day, my children) taught to question and decide intellectually whether to obey authority rather than have them embroiled in an emotive struggle for authority over such trivialities. If there is to be a struggle, I'm just a little too worried about who might win and what that means for the strength of families. Orwell did warn us that eventually we might live only by ourselves with the only love in our lives a love of the State, this seems rather a direct ploy to acheive that aim.

PS, for someone who grew up under Major, am I sounding a like a Tory or what?

In a statement from Robert Bigelow on the firm's website: "A free system called capitalism works very well on Earth, and there is nothing about microgravity that changes this. We need to encourage creativity, imagination, and innovation, in order to bring the benefits of space development to fruition, not just for the privileged few, but for all of humanity."

the misconceptions that Blair's government can have any influence on the Russians in Chechnya, that it oppresses (rather than in fact succouring) the Palestinians, or that it provides financial support to either Israel or the US, ought to show how clueless these guys are about the real world. As should the idea that bombing the general population can make any difference to the policy of a state. (What touching faith in democracy!)

It was intolerable to these narrow fanatics that millions of Londoners of every religion, race, occupation and sex live side by side in a way that is overwhelming and increasingly peaceful, good humoured and generous.

London had become the leading city on earth in which economic well-being combines with the classic definition of liberty - that provided you do not interfere with anyone else you can lead your life entirely in your own way.

Ken Livingstone (of all people)

I have great admiration for any group of people who work as a group to build a community, but if that community goes on to become one where people end up dead out of a desire to watch football, then those same community builders must know when to stop.

According to reports on a Somali news network, gunmen arrived to close down the cinema in the town of Dhuusa Marreeb in central Galgadud district, where a crowd had gathered to watch the Germany-Italy World Cup semi-final.

Some of the football fans began to protest and according to reports, the gunmen fired in the air in an attempt to disperse them.

When this failed, shots were fired at the demonstrators and two people were killed.

The Islamic courts have introduced Sharia in areas under their authority.

Purchased at ESCA on Clapham High Street.

There’s something fishy about the progress of the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, which is getting its second reading in the House of Lords tomorrow, and by fishy, I mean an old, putrid fish, rotten to the point where you reel back in disgust, obviously. The Chairman of the House of Lords Committee currently dealing with the Bill said it first. "They (the government) wanted to give themselves power to change any law with the minimum of parliamentary involvement, thus gold-plating their powers," Lord Holme reported. The government, he then added “got it badly wrong this time”.

Well no, anyone still possessing logic, which this Bill tends to destroy, must be thinking at this juxtaposition. The government have surely not “got it badly wrong”. They have so far managed to get this Bill through all three readings in the House of Commons. “They” wanted to “gold-plate” their powers, and “they” have almost managed to do so. All that remains between us and a virtual dictatorship now is the House of Lords, whose sterling dissection of the amended Bill managed to hit precisely one headline last week, and whose own existence is under permanent threat. You could, rather more convincingly, argue that the government have got it very right, if the stench wasn’t threatening to overwhelm you.

Source

He goes on to speculate about why bloggers have turned quiet on this one. The answer for me is simple. Its summer, its hot and I don't want to be inside paging through Hansard and replying to my MP. Sure that's a terrible reason, but its true. Saving the country is hard work, takes actice opposition by thousands of people, and we can't be bothered.