February 2005 – Page 2 – Gavinsblog.com

Greenhouse gases 'do warm oceans'

It is being called the most compelling evidence yet:

Scientists say they have “compelling” evidence that ocean warming over the past 40 years can be linked to the industrial release of carbon dioxide.

US researchers compared the rise in ocean temperatures with predictions from climate models and found human activity was the most likely cause.

In coming decades, the warming will have a dramatic impact on regional water supplies, they predict.

Details of the study were released at a major science meeting in Washington DC.

The conference is the annual gathering of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

‘High confidence’

“This is perhaps the most compelling evidence yet that global warming is happening right now and it shows that we can successfully simulate its past and likely future evolution,” said lead author Tim Barnett, of the climate research division at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California.

Importantly:

The team fed different scenarios into computer simulations to try to reproduce the observed rise in ocean temperatures over the last 40 years.

They used several scenarios to try to explain the oceanic observations, including natural climate variability, solar radiation and volcanic emissions, but all fell short.

“What absolutely nailed it was greenhouse warming,” said Dr Barnett.

Anyone got a better explanation?

Don't lift the arms embargo on China

So argues David Shambaugh, and I believe rightly so. He takes us through 5 arguments the Europeans are using to justify lifting the embargo, and basically destroys each one. I’ll quote the whole thing:

In his meetings with European leaders this week, President George W. Bush will try to persuade the Europeans not to lift their embargo on arms sales to China. These are the main arguments he is likely to hear for maintaining it, and how the president should refute them.

First, the Europeans will argue that the “embargo” is nothing more than a sentence in a 1989 communiqué issued in the wake of the Tiananmen massacre. It is not legally binding, and in any event it has become porous and should be scrapped.

True, the embargo is not a complete prohibition on defense technology or component transfers to China. Yet it has largely prevented the flow of lethal weapons to China (certain sales by France are the exception). Moreover, the embargo continues to send a strong political signal to the Chinese government that it has yet to come to terms with its actions of 16 years ago. There has been no official expression of regret over Tiananmen, nor has an accounting, or even acknowledgment, of the 1,500 to 2,000 civilian deaths on June 4, 1989. About 2,000 individuals are still in prison, and hundreds more are in exile.

The second European argument is that exports of lethal weapons and defense technologies to China are under strict national export controls in each European Union member state, as well as under the 1998 EU Code of Conduct. After the embargo is lifted, the Europeans say, a strengthened code will provide an even more restrictive regime on arms sales, and the sales will not exceed the “qualitative or quantitative levels” of last year.

It is true that the existing code needs strengthening, as it largely regulates lethal weapons and component parts but makes no provision for defense or dual-use technologies – which is what the Chinese military is mainly interested in obtaining from Europe. Moreover, the code is not legally binding and allows considerable leeway for national interpretations.

We have yet to see the strengthened code, which has been in preparation for over a year, or the so-called “toolbox” which will be applied to countries emerging from embargoes. EU officials admit that it will not be legally binding, and that it will remain substantially up to each member state to interpret. Moreover, there will be no provisions for dual-use technologies (civilian technologies with military application), which fall under the dysfunctional Wassenaar Arrangement.

The third argument put forward by Europeans is that maintaining the embargo is inconsistent with the overall robust state of European-Chinese relations, and prevents the full “renormalization” of ties. Europeans argue that maintaining an embargo stigmatizes China unfairly, lumping it together with pariah states like North Korea, Myanmar and Sudan, and poses an impediment to deepening EU-China relations.

In fact, Europe-China relations have never been better, and it is difficult to identify any impediments to further improvement. China has not withheld any agreements because of the embargo, although it is likely to reward Europe commercially for lifting it.

Fourth, the EU argues that China’s human rights situation has improved markedly since 1989 and therefore the original rationale for the embargo no longer applies.

Human rights in China have steadily improved since 1989, but that year sets a pretty low baseline. Moreover, China has still not ratified the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; has not repealed legislation governing its draconian reform-through-labor (laogai) camps; continues various forms of religious restrictions and persecution; continues to incarcerate large numbers of prisoners of conscience; will not permit Red Cross access to its prisons; and has stonewalled in human rights dialogues with Western nations in recent years.

Fifth, in an interview with the Financial Times last week, France’s Minister of Defense, Michèle Alliot-Marie, presented a new argument in favor of lifting the embargo: Since China’s domestic military industry will be capable of producing “exactly the same arms” that France has within five years, maintaining the embargo is pointless and “lifting it could be better protection for us than maintaining it.”

This is the most ludicrous rationale of all. With a few exceptions – ballistic missiles, inertial guidance systems, diesel propulsion and a new generation of tanks – virtually all foreign experts on the Chinese military recognize that China’s indigenous military-industrial complex lags 10 to 20 years behind the state of the art.

It is also indisputable that the lack of Chinese access to Western arms markets has demonstrably slowed China’s domestic arms manufacturing capabilities. Whatever modern conventional weapons China’s military has were sold to it by Russia, not manufactured in China. Even Russia has been very careful not to sell China the latest generation of its weaponry, and Moscow has not transferred the means of production to China, thus ensuring a dependency on Russian spare parts and new systems.

At the end of the day, Europe must have a very clear answer to a simple question: Why is it in Europe’s strategic interest to accelerate the modernization of China’s military? Answer: It is not.

Moreover, one does not hear China’s Asian neighbors clamoring for the lifting of the embargo. Far from it. A China possessing real power projection capabilities would radically change and destabilize the East Asian security environment. This is also of deep concern to the United States.

From the American perspective, none of these arguments touch the real issues: maintaining the security of Taiwan and preventing China from possessing European arms that might be used against American forces. This is the argument that animates the debate in Washington, and against which ultimate European actions will be judged.

Lifting the arms embargo on China is ill-advised. If anything, it needs to be strengthened. Both Europe and America can continue to enjoy robust relations with Beijing while maintaining their respective arms embargoes. China will just have to live with it until it comes to terms with Tiananmen and stops putting military pressure on Taiwan.

(David Shambaugh is director of the China Policy Program at George Washington University and author of ‘‘Modernizing China’s Military: Problems, Progress, and Prospects.’’)

U.S. presses Europe to shun Hezbollah

Europeans did do as requested in relation to Hamas, but now the US is demanding the same treatment for Hezbollah. The European argument for not listing Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation:

…some European countries are questioning whether Hamas should remain listed now that some of its members have won elections in Gaza.

This argument, pressed by Britain and others, is that the best way to lure Hamas leaders into the political process and have them abandon their militancy and their policy of trying to eradicate Israel is to offer the carrot of removal from lists as terrorist organizations.

The Bush administration strenuously opposes any such action. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was said by U.S. and European officials to have pressed for listing Hezbollah as a terrorist organization in practically every stop in Europe last week.

The Europeans are fearful about the affect it might have on negotiations with Iran on nuclear energy/weapons. The report continues:

The United States has rebuffed European appeals to become more directly involved in discussions with Iran over its suspected nuclear program.

The Hezbollah dispute now gets added to a long list of matters that divide Europe and the United States despite the new campaign that they share broad values of freedom and liberty.

The other issues that should come to the fore on Bush’s visit are the negotiations with Iran over its suspected nuclear program and American opposition to Europe’s determination to lift an arms embargo imposed in 1989 on China.

Also dividing Europe and the United States is the the issue of European support for the Kyoto treaty on global warming and the International Criminal Court, both opposed by the United States, and American opposition to another term for Mohamed ElBaradei as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The ElBaradei case, like Hezbollah, is related to the situation in Iran, because European diplomats are arguing that ElBaradei, a Muslim, is best suited to press the Iranians to cooperate with steps to dismantle its disputed uranium enrichment and plutonium reactor programs.

Watersheds

Michael Ledeen’s recent article in National Review came up in conversation with some people on Friday night. I found the article through a Roger Simon’s blog, who believes this is something the blogosphere should get behind. Ledeen’s suggestion:

The great political battlefield in the Middle East is, as it has been all along, Iran, the mother of modern terrorism, the creator of Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, and the prime mover of Hamas. When the murderous mullahs fall in Tehran, the terror network will splinter into its component parts, and the jihadist doctrine will be exposed as the embodiment of failed lies and misguided messianism.

The instrument of their destruction is democratic revolution, not war, and the first salvo in the political battle of Iran is national referendum. Let the Iranian people express their desires in the simplest way possible: “Do you want an Islamic republic?” Send Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel to supervise the vote. Let the contending parties compete openly and freely, let newspapers publish, let radios and televisions broadcast, fully supported by the free nations. If the mullahs accept this gauntlet, I have every confidence that Iran will be on the path to freedom within months. If, fearing a massive rejection from their own people, the tyrants of Tehran reject a free referendum and reassert their repression, then the free nations will know it is time to deploy the full panoply of pressure to enable the Iranians to gain their freedom.

I just can’t see the mullahs accepting that gauntlet. I think they would rather silence and imprison some bloggers.

Warming trends over the Atlantic

H.D.S. Greenway, a columnist for the Boston Globe provides this piece on the same subject as Dale. He does make some interesting points that I had not really read elsewhere, at least put in the way he puts it, for example:

Now that the given reasons for going to war in Iraq have proved bogus, the Bush administration has deftly turned the table away from weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein’s Al Qaeda links toward the new horizons of spreading freedom in the footsteps of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt. Thus the reason we went into Iraq is now portrayed as a fight for democracy. Osama bin Laden is seldom mentioned, and somewhere along the way the war on terror has become the war for freedom.

Deftly indeed. No longer is it simply an effort, as Richard Clarke would have wanted, to rid the world of al-Qaeda and stop the fundamentalist Islamic teaching in Saudi and Pakistan. But it is an effort to spread ‘freedom’, using either the threat of force, or actual force. I worry that Bush is using the word so much that it will make it a by-word, and therefore a useless word, for Republican or Neoconservative thinking. And perhaps then become a dirty word in the eyes of many.

Greenway continues:

Prior to the invasion of Afghanistan – which, unlike Iraq, was absolutely necessary for the struggle against Islamic terrorism – Bush told the Taliban he would not attack them if they disgorged Al Qaeda. In short, it was not a war about expanding freedom. It was a war against Al Qaeda. But you wouldn’t know that to hear the administration today.

President George W. Bush has found what his father used to call the “vision thing,” and it is being pulled like a rug over all the mess of Bush’s wars.

Right after the president’s inaugural speech, aides fanned out to say he didn’t plan to enforce too much freedom. And the president doesn’t seem ready to destabilize Pakistan, Egypt or Saudi Arabia for their democratic failings. The big question remains Iran, but Rice did her best to put European invasion fears at ease without taking the use of force off the table.

As did Bush today, saying that it was ‘ridiculous’ to suggest that the US was planning an invasion of Iran, but that all options were on the table. But with Syria and Iran increasingly on the PR radar of the administration, are we not likely to see at least the threat of military force on either country in the lifetime of Bush’s presidency. I would say so.

Rice's tour: Your turn, Europe

Reginald Dale, editor of the policy quarterly European Affairs and a media fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, with this piece from last week, yeah I meant to blog it, but it got lost in the list of things to blog. But it is relevant now that Bush is in the middle of his visit:

It is not necessary for France and Germany to send soldiers there if they do not wish. What is needed is that the Europeans raise the tone of the dialogue far above the nickel-and-diming over such issues as where NATO should train Iraqis, and whether a few more trainers should be added. It is time to show genuine, overarching political support for what Washington is trying to achieve in Iraq and the broader Middle East, without petty, nit-picking reservations.

Washington has now concluded it erred in building a coalition against Iraq by assessing the value of allies simply in terms of the number of countries participating and the number of troops contributed. It ignored the vital importance of winning broad political and psychological support, even from countries that did not send troops, so the world could see the West united behind America.

That is what France, Germany, Spain and other European critics of the United States must now offer. Their governments say they want to put past disagreements behind them. If they mean it, they should not be calling for better relations one minute, and fomenting anti-Americanism the next.

Elevating the discussion and supporting America’s broad goals, such as freedom and democracy, need not mean “pledging allegiance” to the United States, which Michel Barnier, the French foreign minister, scornfully rejected this week. It means acknowledging that Europe and the United States face a wide range of common global dangers that they can best – perhaps only – tackle together.

Against All Enemies

I managed to read most of Richard Clarke’s book, Against All Enemies, on the train back from Dublin. I finished the last couple of chapters this evening. Regardless of his views, it is a great read – almost more like a Tom Clancy book than a look inside the counter-terrorism heads in Washington. There are some interesting passages towards the end of the book that I will quote in future posts, as much for my own records as for people reading this blog. Many of the arguments in the book have been gone over ad nauseum by dozens of blogs, so I will be brief in my thoughts.

Back

Back from my travels, now to catch up on this Paris Hilton story…

Dublin trip

I am off to Dublin today folks – posting will be relatively light. Though if I hear any more on the events in Cork I will blog them. I am looking forward to meeting the good people from the Freedom Institute, Richard buying me my award pints, and getting to the final film at the Dublin Film Festival on Sunday.

Arrests in Cork

Several people were arrested in Douglas, Passage West and Farran earlier today though this RTE report fails to mention that. A substantial sum of money was also found. I have little doubt it is related to the Northern Bank robbery in Belfast. One of those arrested is believed to have direct connections with Sinn Fein. Three men were also arrested in Dublin yesterday,£94,000 in cash was seized. I hope to have more details soon. Slugger has more details with alot of comments..

Update: (21.15)

From the grapevine here in Cork – and it should be made absolutely clear at this stage – nobody has been charged, and nobody has been found guilty of anything, people have only been arrested on suspicion, they are entitled to due process under the law. But these names will likely appear in tomorrow’s papers.

The money found in Farran in Cork, £2.6million, was apparently in a bin at the back of a house. The man arrested in connection with the investigation is Ted Cunningham, a financial services man for a company in Ballincollig. The woman arrested is his girlfriend.

The man arrested in Passage West is a former Sinn Fein counciller, Tom Hanlon(image), who is believed to have been found with £60,000 in Northern Bank notes. He is a painter by trade. He stood for election in Cork South Central in 2002.

To my knowledge, nobody has been charged as yet, they are being held under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act.

Update: 23.20

The Guardian has details on the grounds for arrest:

A 23-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of armed robbery, kidnap, handling stolen goods and firearms offences. A second man and a 27-year-old woman are being held on suspicion of conspiracy to commit armed robbery, conspiracy to commit kidnap and firearms offences. The second man is also being held on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

A 22-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit armed robbery and conspiracy to commit kidnap. Two woman, two men and two girls are being held on suspicion of handling stolen goods.

This looks like Hanlon (‘second man’), who would be in his late 30’s now, may have been arrested on suspicion of very serious offences. It is hard to tell who Cunningham may be in that report.

What will it mean for Sinn Fein that a man who stood for election for them may be charged with these offences, that obviously relate to the Northern Bank robbery?

Update:

It is believed a large volume of data and files have been seized and are being examined. It is also believed that money was in the process of being shipped to the Continent in order to be laundered.

Update:

The Scotsman reports more details

Update:

Richard has pointed out that the Times of London has named Hanlon.

The arrest in Cork comes after weeks of denials by Sinn Fein that the IRA was involved. Tom Hanlon, who in the past stood for the Irish Parliament as a Sinn Fein candidate and is a former councillor, was arrested with two other men and a woman. Three more men were arrested in Dublin.

Update:
Rumours abound of more arrests in other counties.

Update:(Feb 18, 8.50)

It seems like the rumours of more arrests has been proved right, the Irish Times reports:

Garda raids were continuing last night in Louth, Meath and Westmeath after euro and sterling notes worth a total of €3.6 million were seized in Dublin and Cork.

Update: (Feb 18, 9.00)

Richard goes into the detail of links with the government via an article by Sam Smyth. Richard notes:

Unimaginable buzz at moment – sources close to government say the next 48 hours are going to be a whirlwind. So fasten your seatbelts, kids. We’re in for a bumpy weekend.