The Referendum contradiction

What do you make of all the scare-mongering, AKA Project Fear,  that is coming out of the Remain camp, relating to the European Referendum?

I ask because there seems to be something of a contradiction in the whole thing.

On the one hand, we have David Cameron and his government fulfilling a manifesto commitment and organising a referendum on the UK's continued membership of the EU, following a 'renegotiation' of the terms of membership with other EU members.

On the other hand, David Cameron and his acolytes in the Cabinet and the Remain camp, including some members of the security services and some members of the military, are telling us that if the UK does indeed Brexit, then we will experience:

• Economic dislocation and a contraction in the UK economy

• Immediately depreciating value for the Pound Sterling.  

• The shock effect could lead to serious conflict in Europe - war and such - indeed some have mentioned Brexit being a potential cause for World War 3 starting.  

• The UK would also become immediately more vulnerable to a terrorist attack as the European partners, with which we currently share intelligence, would cut-off cooperation. 

The economic consequences have been batted back and forth and the outcome depends upon the individual's overall view on Brexit.  However, surely a depreciation in Sterling would be expected to make the UK's exports cheaper and so would be a boost for the UK economy.

In terms of the intelligence sharing.  The most effective and important partnership that the UK participates in, is the Five Eyes programme.  This intelligence sharing agreement is between, Australia, Canada, New Zealand , USA and the UK.  You will note the lack of any other EU member.  You will understand that this mutually beneficial cooperation programme will continue whatever the outcome of the EU referendum.  Indeed, you will have heard from Cameron and Co. how the UK's GCHQ intelligence centre is one of, or maybe is the foremost of such centres, in the world.  Indeed, possibly equal to or only just surpassed by the USA's capabilities. A former head of the CIA essentially discounted other European intelligence service capabilities and posited that the EU sometimes get in the way of intelligence gathering and sharing.

In terms of war and peace in Europe (including in the EU countries),  it is NATO that has ensured the peace, for the last 67 years.  Certainly not the EU.  I have posted  on this earlier blog regarding the EU's contribution to the situation in Ukraine.  If this is what EU membership saving us from war is about, then the UK is better-off out rather than running the risk of getting pulled into a European conflict because of the  EU's naive and dangerous meddling.

But back to the contradiction.

If we, for just a single moment, accept the clap-trap that is spewing forth from Cameron and the Remainians, then why on earth is Cameron holding this referendum?  If the risks are so great - don't know about you but WW3 and Armageddon are up there for me - why hasn't the vote been canceled? Indeed, why were none of these arguments put forward by Cameron and Co., before legislation on the EU referendum was put before Parliament?  Or at the very least during those debates on this?.

Call me cynical but I suspect that these 'fears and risks' don't actually exist.  They are just being dreamt-up now.  There will no doubt be more in the days and weeks to come.  I ask you to apply the contradiction test to them.  If Brexit is so dangerous, why are we having the vote?

I suppose we should at least be grateful that the Remainiacs haven't (yet) invoked biblical plagues being inflicted on the UK.  Fire, pestilence, bugs, boils, etc.  There's still time though.

As before, the solution is - Vote Brexit!

The American idea of friendship?

I don't have a Webster's dictionary to hand but would struggle to believe the definition of friendship includes anything like the way the current US administration (and recent former ones!) is treating its friends and allies.

I am not a gambling man but I would bet the equity I have in my house, that Angela Merkel is not plotting the overthrow of Western civilization and its replacement with a Sharia compliant caliphate,  with Al Qaeda.  Does anybody really think that Francois Hollande has the time for such plotting?  Thinking up more and more daft taxes to impose on his benighted citizens takes up so much time, there is too little left for proper plotting.

And yet......  If the leaks from Edward Snowden are to be believed, then that is what the folks in the US Administration think is happening.  Somehow these people have got it into their heads that the 'war on terror' requires them to spy on whomever they choose.  Prime Minister of Spain?  You bet! UN Secretary General? Of course!  Millions of Americans? For sure!  

How do I know that is what they're thinking?  Well how else can the USA possibly justify spying on its friends?  The only justifiable reason to spy on Merkel would be to get hold of her Sauerkraut recipe, which is said to produce a result that is only surpassed by her Lebkuchen one (Lidl and Aldi both follow this, trust me, but don't ask me how I know!) 

Those of us, of a certain age, remember the 'cold war'.  Amongst us intelligent ones (as opposed to the fellow travelers), we always understood that certain actions, let's call them spying, would be undertaken on our behalf, to protect us.  I am sure that we also suspected (and condoned) the fact that sometimes our enemies - foreign or domestic - might be legitimate targets and even that they could end-up being killed by our security services.  It was a war and as such casualties are inevitable. 

Part of the acceptance came from a belief that our system was better than theirs.  That we had freedoms that were worth protecting and fighting for and that sometimes playing a little dirty was required and therefore acceptable. 

Now though our 'system' is coming to look a whole lot like the systems of control that we, in the West, fought against.  In the UK, we have a Conservative-led coalition (or at least on paper, Conservative-led) seeking to impose severe restraints on press freedom.  From the USA we have widespread snooping on foreigner's mail and phone calls - OK to some US readers that might be acceptable - they're foreigners, after all - but we also have US citizens having their own mail and phone calls snooped on.  In the USA you don't have the Stasi on street corners asking you for your papers, but you do have drones flying overhead and you being watched by people in darkened rooms, simply because they can.

And that really is it.  The NSA and it's co-conspirator, the British GCHQ, do all of this snooping because they have the technology to do so.  They are boys with toys and have to use them.  They are the kid that gets a remote controlled helicopter for his birthday and then has to use it to 'buzz' his neighbour's house simply because he has this new toy and since his dad got it for him, he is going to make sure his son's 'constitutional right' to fly the toy are protected.

We are told that Al Qaeda and other terrorist organisations are really smart and getting smarter and more sophisticated.  While many of their weapons are crude - suicide bombs, for example - they are an implacable and intelligent enemy.  So, how many of them, do you think, are getting on their cell phones and directing their 'martyrs' to the next atrocity or sending e-mails detailing their upcoming plans?  I suspect that because these terrorists are well aware of the counter-measures used by the West, such as snooping, then they resort to old-fashioned methods of communication like a whispered conversation in a crowded street or behind locked doors.  

And then there is the hypocrisy.  Remember how the USA was enraged when it discovered that its erstwhile allies, the Israelis, were spying on it?  I am sure that at the time, there would have been Senators and Representatives and other 'nodding heads' condemning this as being unfriendly, 'these are not the actions, we, Americans would expect of a nation that we consider, a friend' etc..

Going back to those domestic drones for a moment, consider this.  One of America's contributions to the English language is the term 'going postal' - where someone becomes so deranged at slights, real or imagined, that they just load-up on guns and ammo and go to the scene of their humiliation and start killing all and sundry.   Think though about those guys in the darkened rooms, looking at these monitors.  Think about them just maybe 'losing it'.  That cheerleader that said no, when she was asked to the prom?  The number plate of her car can be read from 25,000 feet.  That 'jock' who always gave lesser beings and nerds a wedgie?  His cell phone can be tracked, wherever he is.  And hey, the guy in the darkened room has rapid fire weapons and a hellfire missile or two.   But Americans have nothing to fear.  It couldn't happen in America right?  There are controls on all this kind of stuff, aren't there?

 Bottom line is that friends don't spy on friends.  That for freedom to have any meaning, a government shouldn't be spying on it's own people.  Terrorism isn't just about bombs and assassinations - it is also about creating a climate of fear such that the values that we hold dear and which are anathema to the terrorists, we agree to relinquish, in the belief that it's part of the 'war on terror' and yet, by us doing so, the terrorists win!