The Apologist

Whatever else can be said about John Pilger (and there is plenty to say), he has definitely got guts. His attempt to whitewash Hugo Chavez’s record in Thursday's Guardian is bold, brazen and blatant. He casually downplays, excuse or outright ignores the abuses of Chavez’s regime, while overstating its success and doing everything in his power to make everything the fault of Americans.

In the week that Chavez has declared himself president for life (i.e: dictator), it is extraordinary that Pilger makes no mention of this. Nor for that matter does he mention Chavez replacing the independent judiciary with political cronies, riot police being set on peaceful protesters or the harassment suffered by voters who signed the petition calling for a recall referendum.

What he does manage to include are obligatory references to the Chilean coup of 1973 and the Iran-Contra scandal and darkly hint that there is some comparison between what is going on now and what happen then. The reality is rather different. The United States has not actively tried to overthrow. It is true that that the state department failed to condemn the attempted military coup against Chavez but this a far cry from sending the CIA in to topple the government as would once have happened.

Pilger attempts to excuse Chavez’s attempt to close RCTV on the grounds that ‘80% of TV stations are owned by private companies many of which are hostile to the regime is certainly creative but falls down on many grounds. If the Labour Government in Britain tried to close down the Independent, few would consider it a legitimate defence, if the government claimed: ‘well there are plenty of other opposition newspapers.’ What Pilger also ignores is the way that pressure has been put on the owners of other TV stations to avoid criticising the regime, for example, by passing a law requiring journalists to tell the ‘truth,’ a law which will be enforced by the Chavista judiciary. Pilger’s attempt to suggest that RCTV is being closed down because of its support for the coup rather than its criticism of Chavez, is dubious to say the least. If RCTV’s real crime had been to back the coup then why not punish them at the time rather than four years later?

Pilger is full of praise for Venzuela’s social program and rightly so: we can all support better healthcare and education. Where Pilger’s falls down is when he tries to use these programs to excuse the regimes human rights abuses and when he gives Chavez credit for these programs.

To justify the erosion of democracy and human rights because they have coincided with the construction of new schools, hospitals and universities is no different from claiming that Mussolini’s fascist regime was okay because it made the trains run on time. To follow this line of reasoning implies that democratic government and personal freedom are something that a government can dispose with if it finds them inconvenient rather than a non negotiable part of any just society.

It must also be borne in mind that the reason that these programs have come into existence is not because Chavez is a particularly benevolent ruler or because he has discovered a more just economic system but because rising oil prices have given him more money to play with than previous governments.

It is also worth bearing in mind that his record is a far from unblemished. Crime and corruption are up. Inflation is running at 20% and income inequality is rising.

A particularly cutting analysis of the logic of Pilger and his ilk is provided by Francis Wheen in his book ‘How Mumbo Jumbo conquered the world.’ He looks at Pilger’s attitude to East Timor. For twenty-five years Pilger lamented the West’s failure to intervene to protect the people of East Timor from their Indonesian oppressors. When an Australian led UN peacekeeping force was eventually dispatched to East Timor rather than rejoicing Pilger, condemned the intervention as a sign of Western imperialism. As Wheen puts it: ‘To Pilger … it is axiomatic that the west can never be right.’

Pilger’s conviction that the west is always wrong leads him to believe that only the West can do wrong and therefore that actions committed by opponents of the west are always right. This is a dangerous delusion that leads him to condone actions that run contrary to the values he claims to uphold. Shame on Pilger and shame on those believe his claim to be a fighter for the oppressed.

Don't attack Iran

Republican presidential candidate, John McCain is on record as saying "the only thing worse than an attack on Iran is a nuclear armed Iran." I beg to differ.

An attack on Iran would do more than anything else to further destabilise the middle east and strengthen the hand of the hardliners, while making life harder for the coalition troops in Iraq.

At present the Iranian government is unpopular at home and mistrusted at home. It has lost the support of its own people, who are increasingly chaffing at oppressive religious regulations and fed up with economic mismanagement. In much of the Arab world, especially amongst Arab government, Iran is treated with hostility because of its revolutionary designs and its Shia affiliation. A strike against Iran would change all this at a stroke. It would allow the regime to present itself as a victim of aggression, rally support at home and attract support from others hostile to the US. The best way to produce a peaceful relationship with Iran is to encourage reform within Iran itself, an attack would make life impossible for reformers.

Carrying out attacks against Irans nuclear facilities would pose real practical difficulties. They are scattered across hundreds of different facilities and it is doubtful that all of them could be pinpointed. These difficulties become particuarly acute if it is the Israelis rather than the Americans carrying out the strike since they would have to fly bombers across hundreds of miles of hostile territory just to reach their targets.

Iran borders Iraq and if the Iranians so wished they could easily retaliate against an attack by striking out against coalition troops in Iraq. They would have the option of doing so directly with the revolutionary guard or by stepping up their support for the Shia militias. Even if they did not decide to strike back, a recently bombed Iran is highly unlikely to be a constructive force in Iraq.

It should go without saying that any attack would put the lives of civilians and allied military personal at risk.

For me, however, the real problem with threatening military action is that it does not necessarily make it less likely that Iran will go on to develop a nuclear bomb. The possibility that might one day be attacked, is going to make Iran think twice about abandoning a program that might one day produce the most potent form of self defence known to man.

Though living with a nuclear armed Iran would be uncomfortable, plunging ourselves into an ill judged and ultimately counter productive war is not the way to stop this.

The Road from Serfdom

Cuba is a puzzle. How has Fidel Castro's regime survived, while other Communist governments have crumbled? Situated less than a hundred miles south of florida, it would appear to be uniquely vulnerable to American influence yet his hold on power is solid. By contrast communist rule has collapsed in the Soviet Union and has been shaken in China. The answer appears to be that Castro with the enthusiastic support of the US government has been able to keep Cuba in a state of economic isolation. This has insulated the Cuban people from outside influence which might encourage them to seek freedom.

In his best known work, the Road to Serfdom, the economist Frederich Hayek argued that the march of socialism posed a danger to the future of liberal democracy. Cuba demonstrates, how the opposite is also true: economic freedom is a danger to the rule of despots. If people win back the right to buy and sell as they wish then they are regaining control over an important part of their lives. If on the other hand the state retains control of the economy then that gives it enormous power over its people.

The most powerful tool available to a dictator is, as we've already seen, the ability to prevent your followers from trading with foreigners. This keeps outside influence to a minimum and limits reduces the flow of information from abroad that may challenge the regimes version of events. Trade with foreigners also helps to introduce technologies that can be exploited by opposition movements. For example, the Orange revolution in Ukraine was largely organised via mobile phones, which made it easier for the leaders of the protests to communicate and hence to co-ordinate their actions.

The free movement of people can also undermine one-party rule. The emergence of democracy in Taiwan can in part be attributed to the decision of the governing elite to send their children to American universities. This exposed them to life in a successful democracy, which encouraged them to demand the same for their own country.

It is not only by isolating people that dictators can use state intervention in the economy against their people. Nationalised industries provide them with an opportunity to dole out patronage to supporters and deny services to opponents.

This is a side to the argument about globalisation which we don't hear very much about and that has consequences. The anti-globalisation movement have been able to claim for themselves the mantle of the defenders of democracy, while opposing precisely the kind of changes that can do the most to promote political freedom.