I'm the third world of the blogs!

Jesus, this was a rather odd awakening - if only i had been asleep.
After having spend the last night writing the essay below and examining the virtues of the european constitution, I spend the last hour or so arbitrarily ziping through blogs via this lovely next-blog buttom. Actually I had never used it before, as so far I had found the interesting blogs in a typical 'circle of quotes'. Starting with one blog I liked (and which for that matter ended up as a book) and than just following through the links and so on. I usually use this method for literature research, but if books have anything in common with blogs I should just try to use the next book in the shelf next time. There are things out there I had never thought would be possible!
I don't know whether it was pure boredom, as i had sworn not to do anything that might involves my brain, and far more importantly nothing that involves moving my boddy - which if I think about it, actually didn't really leave any else option but to arbitrarily meander round the web - until tomorrow. Maybe it was also the result of my writing down, what I knew long ago - that nobody is going to read this anyway, that suddenly gave me the rather odd longing to see what all the others are doing out there. Or it was only the in-breaking of tierdness, as tea seems to loose it effect. Is there a limit of how long you can keep a body awake with caffein?
In any case I started my blog-expedition and I obviously missunderstood the concept of a blog! I always thought it had something to do with writting, when in fact it is more of a
tech- raree-show. How much presentation without content can be achieved? I mean I really feel incompetent right now, which is probably because I am, but that is a different matter. Things should be flying around, buzzing, blinking and vanish into thin air - which obviously means they cannot convey any information, at least none that anyone is supposed to read unless he disappears together with it. But the most annoying thing was music. Not that I don't like music, I'm listening to some kind most of the day, but these started with weird attacks of random self-instaling programms that wanted to cram my already bursting hard-drive and then suddenly over my beloved Pink Floyd there was some kind of weird sound that vaguely remembered me of the last scream of a pig pig in the slaugter-house.
I mean obviously everbody can do with his or her blog whats/he wants, but did people actually consider that other users might already be listening to music and that the idea of disharmonic pentaphones - the natural result of accidental duets of fundamentally opposed music styles - went out of fashion about a thousand years ago?
If I dislike the text of someone i can stop reading it but not to hear music is simply not possible, until I managed to move to the next blog. Hence guys a bit more customer relations please, you don't want to scare away your one (and at least now I'm confident that my blog shares the fate of being almost unread with most other blogs) potential reader.
But than I had already concluded I had got the hole idea wrong!
In any case tomorrow, when I'm allowed to move again according to my oath, I'll request structural development funds at the world bank to get my blog out of the technological backwardness and into the twentyfirst century!!
You will see, communism will come back, and than we will conquer the world!
Or at least something along those lines.

essay on human rights

OK, this is last nights productive outcome, and as I spend quite a bit of time on it, I thought I might as well post it on my blog. However if anyone should accidentially end up here - as if this would ever happen - I warn you, it is long (for a blog entry) and not necessarily interesting (unless of course you are highly interested in human rights and their possible implementation). If you prefer reading something lighter, just go to the next entries. Believe me, they are far more fun.

Having come this far legally, why then should we still be concerned with the philosophical foundations of human rights?

If you open a serious Newspaper and search for ‘human Rights’, you will pretty much every day find an article about their abuse, somewhere in the world. Hence ‘this far’, as stated in the title question, is obviously ‘not far enough’. So although human rights are legally enshrined in international law, the compliance by the different actors – and these can vary from the state over individuals to organisations such as TNCs – varies and unfortunately is often very low.
How to increase this compliance is the central topic of this essay. It is not so much concerned with the ‘philosophical foundations’ itself, but with the question of why they are needed. As the very idea of ‘rights’ seems to hint on a legal context, this theme will be explore in the first part, where I will outline some of the shortcomings of the current legal systems.
The main part of the essay will be dedicated to the idea of the implementation of human rights, along the idea of social control through the means of coercion, self-interest and legitimacy, within the current global order. Thereby I will outline that the philosophical foundations, are by far the most promising instrument to ensure human rights as they are the central tool to provide the necessary legitimacy.

The underlying idea behind the title-question, is that as Human rights are regarded as an essential part of international law, we should engage more in the pragmatic implementation of this law, rather than engage in philosophical arguments of limited value outside the academic world. However sensible this approach might seem at a first glance, it does not fully grasp the problematic nature of the implementation of human rights in the real world. The fact that they are law, does not necessarily give them authority. Yet without the necessary authority, the implementation of human right will always stop short of an ideal. Hence human rights are not genuinely binding laws, but idealistic guidelines, that the global community officially embraces, but that in reality get easily sidelined.
If human rights are ever to be implemented on a global scale, they need to become more than guidlines, they need to become legal norms backed by authority. The fundamental problem is that, as human rights are regarded as universal, they consequently become global legislation. Human rights are written down as material source of international law in, for instance, the UDHR. Yet, international law has little authority to implement them, as it is largely committed to inter-state issues.

Although this might ultimately be challenged by the foundation of the International Criminal Court. Yet until the individual nation-states are prepared to give up their sovereignty over legislation, this will in the best case lead to the occasional show trial of huge scale human right abusers, most likely after interventions. To fully engage in the jurisdiction of human right abuses the ICC will and can never have the necessary resources. So ultimately the ball goes back to the states, and national legislation and jurisdiction.

The body that actually needs to incorporate human rights to implement them effectively, is municipal law. Only if human rights are legislated and enforced within each nation-state, they can ultimately become universal. Human rights depend on compliance by the actors – namely the nation-states – to be realised. This paradox, that on the one hand, to be universal, they have to apply on a global scale, but to actually be implemented they need to apply within each national legislative body, leads to frequent confusion about who has the authority to define human rights. Accusations levelled at human rights as ‘western cultural imperialism’ is one of the consequences of this paradox. The basic question of human rights is therefore a question of authority. How to ensure compliance of human rights.
If human rights are regarded as normative rules within the international society, the major challenge is how to implement them. Ian Hurd1 singled out three concepts of ‘social control’. Coercion, Self-interest and Legitimacy.
Coercion is generally associated with physical power or force. “The operative mechanism is fear or simple ‘compellance’”1. Power in this concept is centralised in one pole, that ensures law and order by means of force and surveillance. According to Hobbes “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family”. Thus coercions, at least as a concept on its own, seems unsuitable to ensure human rights.
The idea that self-interest could lead to compliance to a rule is fairly common within the social sciences. But it is important to distinguish between self-interest and interest. While interest is more closely connected to legitimacy, self-interest is a constantly calculating reassessment of the situation, that is essentially “amoral with respect to one’s obligation towards others”1. It is largely based on the concept of reciprocity and the contract philosophy. Hence the compliance of an actor is dependant on his assumption that others will do the same and that thereby a mutual benefit can arise. Yet if a rule is regarded as contrary to the self-interest it will be ignored. Social control based on pure self-interest is therefore not very stable. Another important feature of self-interest and more importantly reciprocity, is that it is dependent on roughly equal actors within the system. Kant’s perpetual peace is centred on this concept. His peaceful society consists either of equal citizen within the state, or of equal republics on the international stage. Yet it does not consider state vs. individual relations. Here the idea of reciprocity fails, because while the state can violate the human rights of the individual, it does not have to fear the reciprocal consequence. While a state is more likely to comply with rules regarding its relation to other states, as in the case of the ‘corps diplomatique’, it does not consider its self-interest on a similar scale when engaging with its citizens. The same applies for corporations. So while it is highly questionable if self-interest will bring about compliance by nations, it is a very important tool to promote human rights among individuals. Not at least because it is one of the oldest concepts within the philosophy of human rights. “Omnia ergo quaecumque vultis ut faciant vobis homines et vos facite eis”(now this is the bit for the real humanists out there, if you cant do it, just zipit) , can be seen as the oldest written definition of reciprocity. Yet this very example from the bible surpasses self-interest, it becomes a moral norm and can actually achieve legitimacy.
The concept of legitimacy, if achieved, is the most effective mode of social control. Here the actor does comply because he actually regards it as his obligation. “The operative process in legitimation is the internalization by the actor of an external standard”1. The rule is therefore no longer regarded as a rule, but as the most plausible or, in its extreme totalitarian version, only way of conduct. To breach it, means to go against the individuals own instinct. Legitimacy goes beyond rationality. Absolute legitimacy means that the actors no longer consciously realise the option of choice, but subconsciously and automatically comply with the rule. An easy example for this could be that in an English supermarket nobody tries to haggle. The rule has implemented itself so firmly in the unconsciousness, that nobody even considers another possibility. Yet the fact that legitimacy does not only include the rational, but also the irrational side of a humans, means that this cannot be achieved by legal means. A justice of rights is always rational, to reach legitimacy means more. “Rights are lines in the sand, legal boundaries that must not be crossed, with punishment for transgressors”2. Humbach2 suggests trying to establish “right relationships” instead. Even if hard to define, this would be the sort of ultimate social control that legitimacy really means. But absolute legitimacy, and especially the means used to install it, also have to be regarded with care, as it lies very close to totalitarianism.

The idea of social determinism that underlies this idea, is despite frequent assaults by Liberalism perfectly conceivable. The example of the supermarket is only one, admittedly very trivial, example. In the middle ages in Europe nobody would have considered the possibility that god does not exist. Humans can be programmed, even if they are educated. Today’s supermarkets, to get a bit more sinister, are arranged to influence consumers behaviour even without relying on training (along the Pavlov’s dog lines) and without any coercion whatsoever. It is more a question of the means – by conviction or manipulation – and for what end. Human rights in my personal view would be a worthy end. Yet the main problem with this sort of social control, are the controllers. Who decides? If this can be done, on such an essential issue as human rights, by individuals at all, and is not a result of a collective subconscious decision of society. And this is a very big ‘if’.
Yet to achieve this kind of legitimacy with human rights on a global scale would mean to reduce their abuses quite significantly. Yet this cannot be done legally. The only way to achieve this – even though this is a hardly possible task in the best case, utopian and possibly dangerous in the worst case – is to win ‘harts and minds’. Using the persuasive power of the philosophical foundations of human rights, which to some degree exist in every culture, seems to be the only ultimately successful means to achieve legitimacy, and as the other concepts have little chance of implementing human rights, this clearly must be the way forwards.
Although this might ultimately be challenged by the foundation of the International Criminal Court. Yet until the individual nation-states are prepared to give up their sovereignty over legislation, this will in the best case lead to the occasional show trial of huge scale human right abusers, most likely after interventions. To fully engage in the jurisdiction of human right abuses the ICC will and can never have the necessary resources. So ultimately the ball goes back to the states, and national legislation and jurisdiction.

1: Hurd, I. 1999. Legitimacy and Authority in International Politics. International

Organisation 53 (1): 379-408.

2: Humbach, J. A. 2001. Towards a Natural Justice of Right Relationships. In Human Rights in

Philosophy and Practice, edited by B. M. Leiser and T. D. Campbell, 41-61. Aldershot,

Ashgate.

A great Day for Europe and Democracy!

Yes! Finally Europe is getting a democratic touch!
Gone are the days where the Commission was a sort of Dinning Club for acquaintances of national leaders, who got a good salary, a nice opportunity to corrupt the system, and most importantly of all, didn’t stand in the way of the European council – or more accurately the national governments themselves.
For the first time the European parliament – after all the elected body of the European citizens, even if hardly any of them actually knew what they were voting on – has refused to simply accept the choice of the national governments.
And for that matter they have spared Europe the embarrassment of having a Commissioner for “Justice, Freedom and security” – rather odd combination in any case – who openly stated that he regards gays as sinners, and thinks that women should stay in the kitchen. This would, if anyone outside the EU had taken any notice of it at all, almost equalled some of Bushes more famous statements. And all this two days before a constitution, which states, that European values are “pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity, and equality btween women and men", ”, is signed, ironically in Rome!
What sort of message would that have been?
Yes we believe in the equality of men and women, but our leading guy for justice actually regards, that this equality mustn’t leave the house, as he wishes his wife to cook.
And what are our fellow Europeans doing? They cry ‘ceter and mordio’ (sorry only suitable for German speakers) and declare the European project for over! Sorry I don’t get that. Finally the EU institutions are actually doing what they are supposed to do – controlling each other for the common good – and suddenly the apocalypse is declared.
No, whatever some of the press think, this was a really good day for Europe. Yes, it will take some time to sort where which authority lies and who is in charge, but the result can actually only be better than the situation at the moment, where Europe is only used as a scapegoat for failures of national leaders – this wasn’t my fault it was all down to Brussels – while at the same time not giving up any power to the EU.

Black Watch!

A conversation I had in a chat.
Phil (07:55 PM):
I still don't understand why they agreed to send troops to Bagdad?
Dan (07:55 PM) :
do you mean the black watch?
Phil (07:56 PM) :
yupp! I mean even if they told the Brits it was militarily necessary (which might be true given the brilliance of the US army) it is still such an obvious political backing of Bush! I don't get it. They could at least have waited till after the election
Phil (07:57 PM) :
I mean it's not like Bush will give orderes to a bigger riskier operation before he is reelected anyway
Dan (07:57 PM) :
well, its obvious why he(bush) wants to do it
Dan (07:58 PM) :
problem is that scotish regiments are being mergered- by using the black watch for this, he is shooting himself in the foot a bit as he is showing that they are really needed
Phil (07:59 PM) :
It is obvious why Bush wants the black Watch up there, but even Bush won't actually use them before he is reelected. And Blair, if he had a bit intelligence would know that as well, so he could have waited till after the election unless of course he wants Bush to win
Dan (08:00 PM) :
well he has 'plausible deniability'
he can say it was a purely military request and its not for him to get involved with that
Phil (08:01 PM) :
Yes and we all know that the military is completely independent! About as independent as the intelligence services were before the war!
Dan (08:01 PM) :
hehe indeed!

So are the American great soldiers, or just a bunch of fire-happy cowboys?
The answer to this might probably alter, depending on which side of the atlantic you are, or on whether you are realist or - how do you call someone who believes in his own lies? ideologist? fundamentalist? or simply stupid?
The great american Army, has currently 133000 sodiers in Iraq, two thirds of which, according to their closest ally, don't posses the 'requisite combat capability and of those even fewer have the armoured capability that is needed '. So far the facts!
Now this leaves a the question, what is the requisite combat capability?
For some reason I can't really believe that there are almost 90 000 american troops sitting in iraq without a gun!
The Americans are the army, that in a manover get their ammo in truck-loads with the comment 'take what you want, guys', while every soldier(of a Non American army) has to fill in at least three forms, to get one shot(OK I am exaggerating, but that's roughly how it is).
Why is it so hard for me to imagine that the troops I met in Grafenwöhr (Nato - training area in Germany) are suddenly underequipped? The last time i personally saw American soldiers they had about everything you can wish for as a soldier - at least twice! (I rely on second hand wishes here, as I never was a soldier, but I was told so by others) . And this was in a stable, peacefull environment. So why would they go to war without the necessary equipment?
Right you got it, whatever Hoon tells us, it is not the equipment the Americans are lacking. So what then?
Well, there are tow possible answers I can see.
One, they don't need the Brits after all! I guess this is the version most Americans would prefer. In this case, the 1% increase in the overall number of capable troops (calculated for only a third of the american troops, just in case Hoon is actually correct) has absolutely nothing to do with "compelling military operational justification", but is purely based on political backing for Bush.
One a first glance this actually seems to be the most obvious answer to the question, what the Brits are doing in Bagdadh.
There are a number of additional points that would back this.
First, there has been more or less constant fighting in Falluja for the last couple of months, and so far the Americans had no problems bombing anyone in the town by themselves. If the plan really is to use the newly trained Iraqi forces to re-liberate it (or is it re-re-liberate by now), why on earth do they need a British Infantry unit to watch? (maybe because of the name)
Another point is that I cannot imagine that Bush will order any major assault on the city, which might turn out to be a masacre before November 2nd. So untill after the election there won't be any significant operation and consequently no need for the Black Watch.
Hence it is after all to show to the American people that Bush has many powerfull allies - or something along these lines. In any case to persuade them to vote for Bush!
Remains the question, why Blair agrees! I just hope for this country that he doesn't seriously want Bush to get re-elected! But to be honest, he has done everything Bush told him so far, so maybe he just got used to follow orders. Or he is affraid that if he refuses he might get invaded!

There is however a second possibility, and this is the one, some of my British friends (the ones with links to the military) constantly try to explain to me. And it is actually fairly easy. Despite all their equipment, the Americans are actually unable to do anything, but fight the red army in the wide areas of eastern Europe. In this scenario you have a huge materially over-, but intelectually under-equiped army of morons (the ones that didn't make it anywhere else, or who actually like fighting for its own purpose), that is actually discovering that, while it is easy to shoot anything that moves, you do actually need something else to govern a population.
This together with a political administration of similar intelligence, that actually discovered that while it is easy to conquer a county, you actually need to govern it afterwards. (especially if you wiped out the complete civil administration for ideological reasons)
And while these two are slowly recognicing that things aren't as easy as they thought (well, everything will be fine because we are fighting with the blessing of god!!), they see a fewhundered kilometers further south, that someone else seemingly knows better how to deal with the situation. And as the someone else is actually led by a good friend, why not ask them whether they could't sove oour problems? Especially as we have election soon and it would be nice if we could get a better picture in the near future!
Now obviously, this scenario has some flaws. Namely that 850 British soldiers (even if they are as good as I'm frequently told) won't solve the shit the Americans have produced, in 2 weeks time. However given Bushes general intelligence, it is not beyond reason - for him - to believe this. Yet it is unlikely because it actually means recognising that America can't do everything unilaterally!

Regime change, and what the americans really think of it!

Hey this is by far the most amusing collection of stupidity I found for quite a while!!!
OK just to briefly explain, the Guardian (British, liberal/leftwing/coward/socialist/intellectual - apparently that counts as insult in the US as well) came up with a brilliant idea to annoy the Americans (at least I hope they didn't seriously consider having any real effect - because then I would have to add utopian to the list above).
Basically what they did was publishing independent voter's mail addresses and gave the world (or at least the web connected part of it) a chance to try to influence the election, on the very real basis, that, because America is the current hegemon in the world (whether one likes it or not, this is an unfortunate fact), the outcome of this election is as important to us as to them. And each Guardian reader could therefore try to personally (and preferably diplomatically) write a letter to an US voter to convince him to vote for - now theoretically whomever you support, but practically - Kerry. If you want to know more about it just zipit.
Anyhow coming back to the real point of this.
As Americans are human beings like everyone else (maybe even a bit more stupid than others - but that might really just be due to the fact that they don't hide it as much as others) they weren't particularly happy about others trying to fiddle around with their election, or more precisely their 'regime'.
Funny that a country that goes around bombing other people, if the might possibly consider to support someone who doesn't just follow Washington’s instructions, can get pretty cross when someone just tries to influence their own politics.
And of course our great liberators and beacons of freedom, wrote back that they were slightly worried about this foreign, hostile intervention!!
"Have you not noticed that Americans don't give two shits what Europeans think of us? Each email someone gets from some arrogant Brit telling us why to NOT vote for George Bush is going to backfire, you stupid, yellow-toothed pansies ... I don't give a rat's ass if our election is going to have an effect on your worthless little life. I really don't. If you want to have a meaningful election in your crappy little island full of shitty food and yellow teeth, then maybe you should try not to sell your sovereignty out to Brussels and Berlin, dipshit. Oh, yeah - and brush your goddamned teeth, you filthy animals. Wading River, NY "
Lovely isn't it? Makes you wonder if their friendly fire usually really is just an accident, or pure intention. Also makes you wonder why every else country had to be shocked by 9/11. I mean do we have to give a 'shit' about their 'worthless little life’s?'
In any case, it is the most ridiculous - but therefore quite amusing - collection of ignorance I've seen in quite a while.
Another classic:
"As a US citizen, I want to advise you that you and anyone that participates in subverting the US presidential election can be criminally charged and perhaps even charged as spies". "Please be advised that I have forwarded this to the CIA and FBI", "stay out of American electoral politics, unless you would like a company of US Navy Seals - Republican to a man - to descend upon the offices of the Guardian, bag the lot of you, and transport you to Guantanamo Bay"
Now isn't that beautiful? For telling an American that I consider Kerry to be more intelligent than Bush, I get promoted to a spy with a possible pension in Guantanamo Bay for the rest of my life - or until someone decides that it is too expensive and shooting might be cheaper.
(Just for the record, gas is the cheapest way! My ancestors spend quite a bit of time, finding the most effective way of killing people you don't like - you just have to cope with the bad consciens afterwards, but as you manage to ignore you own successful genocide quite well so far, I'm sure the extinction of unreasonable leftwing Europeans won't bother you too much!).
OK to be European diplomatic again, there are actually quite a number of sensible replies there as well, that do try to rationally argue - possibly quite rightly - that this idea might be counterproductive.
But it is surprising how annoyed some of these people can get when confronted with a opinion, that isn't theirs. Democracy American style, agree or I shoot you!
Just imagine their faces if a foreign, "liberating" force would be driving up and down their roads, blowing up anyone who disagreess - and the occasional random, arbitrary crowd, that just happens to be where the smart bomb strikes. I can't help it, I'd love to see their faces!

What noone says about the sanctions

Reading the findings and the different reactions of the Iraq survey group is highly amusing. Now that they can't find any WMDs, suddenly the real reason was that he was trying to break the sanctions. Wow, what a finding!!!!!!!!!!
What exactly were we expecting him to do? Sanctions (whether imposed from the outside or from within - as for instance during the prohibition) will always be fought against. If Blair and Straw seriousely expected Saddam to voluntarily accept sanctions - they are so far away from reality, that they should consider to resign. And just to make that clear, untill last week I still argued against this. They made a mistake, ok a bad one, but still they're better than any credible alternative. But if they insist, that they had a casus belli, because Iraq tried to lift, or evade sanctions, sorry that is beyond any reason. And politicians without reason are highly dangerous.

What is actually far more interesting that, given te fact that there were no WMDs, the sanctions were actually illegal. They were originately designed to ensure the destruction of WMDs. Once this task was done, to uphold them was to deprive the Iraqi population from wealth on no reason except, well actually except for nothing appart from us not liking Saddam (and the ordinary Iraqis had to pay for it). We are responsible for the lost of millions of children(according to UN estimation), because, well we didn't believe what the Iraqi government was telling us. And for that matter what Butler had wanted to tell us in 1995, but was stopped by western politicians, who suddenly realised that they wanted to contain Saddam. But this was something never originately intended by the sanctions.
Sorry but this is not really any better than Saddam himself was (and he already was pretty "evil")
As to the other great finding, that the French and Russians were "bribed". At least they didn't start an aggresive war (war for purpose as regime change is classified as aggresion). And the half a million pound that the french recived directly were paid in 1988 at a time when Britain and America were still happily delivering WMDs to Saddam themselves. But to actually remember one's own mistakes is evidently to much for the west!

Bush vs. Kerry

Can anybody please explain to me how big the collective stupidity of a country can get?
I mean sorry, but this 'discussion' between Kerry and Bush was about as equal as a race between a Fiat Panda and Schumacher’s racing-Ferrari. Kerry actually showed that he is able to asses a situation, think it through and come to a conclusion.
Bush on the other hand only proofed that he can't remember more than five sentences.
This doesn't mean that Kerry didn't actually end up with the same slogans all the time as well - the ones, he wanted to hammer into the electorate. But he actually managed to build some sentences around that slogans, that at least gave the impression that he actually tried to answer the question.
Bush on the other hand, if he didn't constantly repeat himself, only looked into the camera, trying to remember what his ghost-writer had told him before. He didn't even pretend, to understand what he was saying. The only message you could get out of him was that he had absolutely no clue whatsoever, about what is going on in the world.
Now I don't say I agreed with everything that Kerry said and to be honest I don't expect a lot out of him winning, but what really is completely beyond my imagination, is who and why anyone could vote for Bush.
I mean, I don't vote for the biggest idiot I can find, do I? After all the function of an election is to vote for someone who will rule over the voter afterwards. And I don't know, maybe I'm just a weird intellectual, but I'd actually want someone who is up for the job.
Bush, if he hadn't all his advisors, wouldn't even find Iraq on a map, let alone understand things like the global economy, globalisation or only the idea of multilateralism. How on earth can you vote for him?????
And why is he still going to win that election? Sorry, but the only conclusion I can find is that the Americans are actually at least as stupid as Bush (then at least they voted for someone equal) . But at the same time, this country is the most powerful in the world, how can it have the collective intelligence of a nut? They have a couple of the best universities, but behave like they never really learned how to read.
God - I know I'm agnostic and don't really believe in you - but if you are somewhere out there, please let Kerry win!