Israel's war on academics

Stephen M. Walt and John J. Mearsheimer’s The Israel Lobby is an extremely important and cannily argued exposition of the war that has been waged against academics in the US and elsewhere — including, to name a few, the late Edward Said, Ilan Pappe, Tony Judt, Norman Finkelstein, Robert Fisk and Michael Scheuer — who have dared question the uncritical support that Western governments have given Israel as it continues its oppression of Palestinians (and Lebanese). While some of the individuals mentioned above (Pappe, Finkelstein) have seen their careers affected because of their views, Said, Scheuer, Fisk, Walt and Mearsheimer, for their part, have been accused of being ant-Semitic, in what often was more an emotional response that precluded rational thinking than a well-formulated counterargument.

Finkelstein’s recent brush with Israeli authorities, which resulted in about 24 hours of interrogation by Shin Bet at Ben Gurion Airport and his deportation from Israel — and barred entry for 10 years — serves as the epitome of the treatment reserved academics who tell truth to power. Finkelstein, a Jewish-American born to a Holocaust survivor and known for his books The Holocaust Industry and Beyond Chutzpah, has repeatedly accused Israel of exploiting memories of the Holocaust and the stigma of anti-Semitism to conduct its own widespread repression of a people. Far from being anti-Israel, Finkelstein has long been a proponent of a two-state solution respecting the 1967 borders. More recently, he has come in contact with the Lebanese Hezbollah, partly out of sympathy and partly to better understand the organization and the people it represents — in other words, her did so out of academic interest. Still, Shin Bet used his meetings with Hezbollah to tag him as a security risk and deny him entry.

As the Ha’aretz newspaper put it in a strong editorial on May 17: “True, the right to enter Israel is not guaranteed to noncitizens, but the right of Israeli citizens to hear unusual views is one that should be fought for. It is not for the government to decide which views should be heard here and which ones should not.” It continued: “… the decision is all the more surprising when one recalls the ease with which right-wing activists from the Meir Kahane camp — the kind whose activities pose a security threat that no longer requires further proof — are able to enter the country.” In other words, Finkelstein was being punished for his views and surely the repercussion will be felt back in the US. What is Ironic is that by punishing academics for wanting to learn more about its enemies, Israel is shooting itself in the foot and denying itself intelligence of the kind that its overrated intelligence agencies will never be able to gather.

In Canada, immediately after Liberal Party leader Stéphane Dion had announced the appointment, in federal by-elections in 2007, of Jocelyn Coulon, a former columnist for the La Presse and Le Devoir newspapers in Montreal, to represent the party in the Outremont riding, B’Nai Brith, a Jewish lobby group, attacked Coulon (former director of the Lester B. Pearson Peacekeeping Center in Montreal, where I took a course in 2001 and got to know him very well), for his alleged “anti-Israel” and “anti-US” views as well as calls for an end to the isolation of Hamas. Although the riding is only 10 percent Jewish, the Liberal Party has a long history of reliance on this powerful bloc, and B’Nai Brith’s calls that his nomination be revoked — added to the bad publicity that this generated — cannot but have had an impact on the election results, in which Mr. Coulon was defeated by the New Democrat candidate.

My own experience, as a Canadian who worked in security intelligence and now as a writer/academic, has been similar. At the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), where I worked as an analyst from 2003-2005, my views on Israel and Canada’s unquestioning support for its policies often went against the organizational paradigm, and on more than one occasion I was told, in no uncertain terms, that my career as an intelligence officer would suffer if I continued to criticize that support. The callousness of some Israeli agents I met in the course of my work, or the manner in which they completely overestimated the Palestinian or Hezbollah threat, was nothing less than shocking. As such, the official and tacit Israeli lobby is also very much alive in Canada, a subject I touch on in my book Smokescreen.

Since I moved to Taiwan, I have published some articles on Israel, which for some reason many like to see as facing a threat similar to Taiwan’s — a false analogy that I have sought to dispel on a number of occasions. There, too, far away from Western circles, the attacks came, more often than not in the form of character assassination rather than arguments worthy of the name.

It took great courage, I am sure, for Messrs. Walt and Mearsheimer to write their article, and then turn it into a book. But it is a worthy polemic which, if heeded not only in the US but elsewhere, would ironically help ensure that Israel faces the prospects of a better, safer future, which its people certainly deserve — only not at the expense of Palestinians, Lebanese and academic freedom.

Setting the record straight

Some readers have reacted to my piece “Why are we sending aid to China?” published in the Taipei Times on May 23 by calling me “heartless,” “callous,” “cruel” and a “demagogue,” with one going as far as accusing the Times in an online forum of being “pro Japanese right-wing” (which is certainly news to its editorial staff). While expected when writing about such a sensitive issue as to whether donors should send money to earthquake-hit Sichuan Province, I believe the criticism leveled at me stems for the most part from a misreading of my argument (for those, that is, who bothered to read beyond the headline) and an (understandably) emotional response that obviates rational reasoning.

First of all, as I clearly state in my article, humanitarian assistance remains a noble and crucial act, one that helps to transcend political divides. Unlike what some of my critics have written — quite invidiously, I must add — at no point do I advocate withholding humanitarian assistance to China. Rather, I question whether countries should be sending money to the world’s fourth-largest economy, which, at US$1.3 trillion, also happens to have the largest foreign reserves and, given its splashy preparations for the Beijing Olympics, faces no shortage of money (not to mention its active military force of 2.255 million individuals who can be mobilized to deal with the crisis). Sadly, some readers seem to confuse humanitarian assistance with financial assistance, which thought they might be part of the same overall package, are in fact two distinct items. I believe Sichuan Province does need outside help, but that help should come in the form of expertise, rescue teams and whatever materiel is required to deal with the immediate emergency in order to prevent further deaths from malnutrition and disease.

Other criticism of my piece has focused on politics, accusing me of exploiting tensions in the Taiwan Strait to encourage hatred for Chinese or taking a sadistic pleasure in the suffering of Chinese. Again, nothing could be further from the truth, as my argument proposes a responsibilization of the central government in Beijing that, in the long term, would better serve ordinary Chinese in neglected provinces that happen to lie outside the booming coastal areas. Absent a fundamental change in how Beijing sees and treats its people, a temporary response funded by outside donors will only be that — temporary — and is an invitation for disasters of equal magnitude in future. Advocating a solution that (a) encourages immediate, albeit non-financial, help by foreign countries; and (b) would ensure that, through responsible investment by Beijing in infrastructure that meets safety standards, no such preventable catastrophe recurs, is hardly “callous” or a sign that I am “anti-Chinese.”

One writer takes the argument one step further and claims that ordinary Chinese will take note of Taiwan’s generosity and that this acknowledgement would somehow convince Beijing to abandon its hostility toward Taiwan. First of all, the view that US$65 million in financial aid by Taipei would sway Beijing is ludicrous, as is the contention, made by the same author, that a more positive public opinion on Taiwan would bring about a change in Beijing’s cross-strait policies. Despite the author’s claim, when it comes to a sensitive issue such as Taiwan, the effect of public opinion on Beijing’s stance has been, is, and will remain next to nil. If all it took was for Taipei to give Beijing US$65 million to resolve the Taiwan Strait crisis, the former would have done that years or decades ago. To think that peace can be bought like this bespeaks a total lack of understanding of Beijing’s motivations and the conflict in general.

Those who accuse me of politicizing aid to China also commit the same error pundits have made for years about the Taiwan Strait — they neglect to take into consideration the fact that it is Beijing, not Taipei, that threatens force, conducts annual simulations of an invasion of the other’s territory, passed a law in 2005 making it “legal” to use military force against the other should it unilaterally declare or move toward independence, points increasingly accurate 1,400 missiles at it (adding about 100 a year) at its opponent, isolates it diplomatically and economically and seizes every occasion to humiliate its people, athletes, medical experts and diplomats. Have those critics ever accused Chinese of being “callous” or “heartless” for not criticizing their government about policies that could result in as many, if not more, casualties in Taiwan, or who fail to criticize Beijing for slaughtering Tibetans, or force-relocating hundreds of thousands of Chinese Muslims?

Not that, despite all this, Taiwan should not extend a helping hand to ordinary Chinese who have nothing to do with Beijing’s intolerance vis-à-vis Taiwan. In the name of humanity, it should, and the expertise it gained from its own devastating earthquake in 1999 (during which, we must note, Beijing did Taiwan great harm by forcing all humanitarian aid to be channeled through China before reaching Taiwan, costing precious time) could be decisive in saving lives in Sichuan. All I argue is that it might not be in Taiwan’s (and ordinary Chinese’s) interest to send money to Sichuan; and yet, my critics accuse me of encouraging those in Taiwan who supposedly revel at the suffering of Chinese (I have yet to find such a person) and seeking to “increase” or “maintain” tensions in the Taiwan Strait, as if Beijing weren’t the instigator and its actions didn’t matter in the equation. In fact, my reference to the Chinese military threat wasn’t even about politics. If ever there was politicization, it was made by my critics, not me. Rather — and I believe my article was clear on this — what I highlighted was the allocation of resources and how all the money used in threatening Taiwan could be better spent helping Chinese in need now and in future.

On a personal note, I did not spend C$6,000 of my own money in 2001 to obtain a diploma in humanitarian assistance only to adopt the belief that aid should be withheld because of politics. In fact, it is partly because of that diploma that I think it was incumbent on me to question whether there might not be ways to maximize the effectiveness of humanitarian aid while pressuring governments to deal more responsibly toward their own people.

Asia's grand chessboard

“The thing you have to understand,” a senior official at the Indian Ministry of External Affairs said of China and India, “is that both of us think that the future belongs to us. We can’t both be right.” Nothing could be truer of the future struggle for power in Asia — except, perhaps, that in addition to India and China, Japan, which until recently had been the principal modernizer in the region, will also seek to regain its position of leadership. In Rivals, Bill Emmott, a former reporter for the Economist in Japan and, until 2006, the editor in chief of the magazine, shows us that no other region will have as fundamental an impact, or play as crucial a role, on the international scene than Asia in the coming decades.

Continued ...

Is financial help to China helpful?

The devastation caused by the powerful earthquake that hit Sichuan Province last week is undoubtedly shocking, and the unprecedented access that Chinese authorities have given to media (as opposed to foreign humanitarian workers, who have been barred from going in deep) has brought us images that would move even the most jaded of observers. Schools have been leveled, burying students. Upwards of 5 million people are now homeless and at least 50,000 people are believed to have died. As is often the case following a natural catastrophe, the region surrounding the affected country shifts into donor mode and starts sending help, both material and financial. In Taiwan, televised pledges have been organized; the government has offered NT$2 billion (US$65 million) while banks have offered more, as have former vice-president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), among others. Aid organizations have begun collecting money at street corners, and starting this week, whenever one buys a 本日 coffee (coffee of the day) at Starbucks, NT$10 will be donated to China.

There is no doubt that China needs help — but not in the form of money, of which it has plenty. Yes, schools and hospitals need to be rebuilt, but given the high rate of schools/hospitals versus, say, office buildings that were crushed, it is evident that, through neglect or corruption, they had not been built as per safety norms. Furthermore, as I argue in "Why are we sending aid to China?", published today in the Taipei Times, providing financial aid to China deresponsibilizes the government in Beijing and ensures that it will not face the pressure it should be facing from disgruntled citizens in the hard-hit, poorer areas of the country.

If money is to be sent, I would encourage people to do so for Myanmar, where the devastation caused by Cyclone Nargis has far exceeded that seen in China and whose government, despite its criminal neglect, has by no means the state coffers that Beijing does (see event, organized by the Taiwanese Red Cross, on the left).

Far from being callous in the face of human suffering, I advocate humanitarian assistance that will not only help those in need immediately, but also in the longer term by compelling their governments to distribute wealth in a more equitable fashion to ensure that infrastructures everywhere meet safety standards.

Criminals, terrorists all too human

I had the great pleasure yesterday morning of attending a lecture by Chin Ko-lin, the reputed scholar of all things criminal from Rutgers University in New Jersey and author of, among other works, Heijin (“black gold”), about the interaction of organized crime, business and politics in Taiwan. Mr. Chin was briefly in Taiwan before heading for Southeast Asia do conduct research on the sex trade in the region for his upcoming book (to be published by Cornell University press later this year).

After giving a brief overview of what turned him on, about two decades ago, to the underworld and providing an update on the crime situation in Taiwan and East Asia, Mr. Chin fielded questions from the audience, about two dozen journalists and members of the media who had gathered at café Ting Ting Cui Yu on Anhe Road.

What had particularly piqued my curiosity during his enlightening presentation was the access he had been given from members of various criminal organizations (prostitutes, “snakeheads,” movers, gang leaders and so on) in Taiwan, China, the US and elsewhere. What intrigued me even more was the fact that many of the individuals he interviewed were aware that he had received a grant from the US government to conduct his research, which anyone with an instinct for self-preservation would have construed as proof that Mr. Chin was an agent, or tool, of the US government.

My questions to him, therefore, were (a) how he had managed to win the trust of individuals who, most assuredly, stood to gain nothing from having their modus operandi and structure published in an open-source publication accessible to all; (b) did any of them suspect he might be working undercover for the police; and (c) whether the need to maintain access to the underworld might not have had an impact on his freedom to write what he wants. After all, what good would it be to him if, by publishing a book or a report, he ended up “burning” his sources (e.g., they get arrested), news of which, given the interconnectedness of criminal groups, would quickly spread? The analogy I used while formulating the latter question was the following: Let’s say that I travel to Beirut, Lebanon, to write a book about Hezbollah — what it is, its leadership, structure, and how it operates. Then, once my book is published (and has been read by various intelligence agencies), I decide to write a second book, this time about, say, the Palestinian Hamas, or Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ), two organizations that, according to intelligence, are believed to have contacts, at some level, with Hezbollah, in similar fashion to how the Bamboo Union, for example, would have ties with other organizations in China.

According to Mr. Chin, while there was some danger involved in his penetration of the criminal world, criminals were quite eager to discuss their trade, which reminded me of what I had been told during training as an intelligence officer a few years ago: Human beings, no matter what they do, like to talk — about themselves. In other words, regardless of the nature of one’s work, a flattered ego often trumps the need for secrecy. Mr. Chin also pointed out that he relied heavily on individuals in situ — contacts, family, etc, who could put him in touch with other participants in the long criminal chain. Speaking the language — the local dialect, even — was primordial.

Ultimately, however, the main reason why criminals accepted to discuss their activities and lowered their guard, as it were, in a way that prima facie would seem counterintuitive, was that the very nature of crime syndicates — who does what, how and where — is in constant flux, with no congealed or even predetermined channels of operation. From the drug trade to human trafficking, the cargo is moved around in extemporary fashion rather than following predetermined routes. For example, a woman who “bought” her way to the US (at a cost today of about US$82,000) could be smuggled from Fujian Province to, say, Bangkok, Thailand, where she will remain in a safe house until the next leg of her journey opens up. It could be 24 hours before she is moved, or a week. The next transit point on her way to the US is changeable, too, and often unknown to the movers themselves until an opportunity shows up (a bit like how packets of information choose different routes, sometimes even splitting, as they travel from query point to destination on the World Wide Web).

This ongoing systemic reconfiguration — the result of the fluidity of transit points and the need to stay one step ahead of and adapt to law enforcement — means that by the time a study or a book is published, the structure of the organization will have changed dramatically, to such an extent that it will be of little use to police. As such, the seemingly inherent danger in sharing information with the likes of Mr. Chin is much lower than one would think, and will rarely result in the dismantlement of a criminal organization or even the arrest of a single individual. Egos can be flattered, principles of criminality can be discussed in academia, but the insiders, or “sources,” run very little risk (of arrest, or of being seen as traitors by the organizations they belong to) in talking about themselves.

While Mr. Chin’s presentation pertained to the criminal world, intelligence agencies dealing with non-state actors and terrorist organizations could also take away a few lessons from this. First, sources may be more willing to talk about themselves and their organizations than is generally assumed because, as with criminal organizations, of the constantly changing nature and structure of terrorist organizations. Given the inherent slowness of paperwork-heavy governmental organizations and the targeting and warranting process that precedes an investigation (which we could equate with the time it takes before a manuscript is turned into a book), sources can probably assume that by the time a government agency actually acts on whatever information he or she has provided, the terrorist group will have mutated to such an extent as to be virtually unrecognizable from what it looked like at the time the information was provided. This is even truer for sources who, like Khaled Sheikh Mohammed of al-Qaeda, have been in detention for years and whose picture of the structure of the organization they belonged to before their capture will bear little resemblance to what it is today.

As such, just as with law enforcement, intelligence agencies targeting sub-state groups with loose structures, such as al-Qaeda, will have to rethink how they gather information about them and find ways to drastically accelerate the process through which collection of information translates into action. Under the current system, by the time, say, a warrant for a wiretap has been approved, the individual whose line is to be monitored may very well have moved on to something different.

Special advisers: good or bad?

President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was all but forced to abandon the use of special advisers after a sustained campaign by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) succeeded in portraying the positions as part of an expensive and ultimately unnecessary scheme to enrich close friends of the president. Accurate or not, those allegations led to the end of special advisers … until Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the KMT was elected president in March. In a short article published in the Taipei Times today, I explore some of the potential dangers that lie in a KMT-led resurrection of special advisers. Readers can access the full article by clicking here.

The CCP's thirst for survival

Following the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s, predictions that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was next became in fashion. While the “pessimists” have made careers predicting chaos, fissiparous dissolution or a military takeover in China, the “optimists” have argued that a democratic spring is just around the corner. In most instances, those prognostications were predicated on a monolithic CPP that is little more than a Chinese version of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). In China’s Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation, David Shambaugh, director of the China Policy program at George Washington University, argues that the CCP has been anything but complacent since the fall of the Soviet Union and that, above all, its principal objective has been to ensure its survival ...

Click here for full text.

Who will remember the Catastrophe?

Israeli President Shimon Peres proudly announced yesterday that a group of top personalities would attend a two-day conference, from May 13 to15, as part of activities surrounding the 60th anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. The list of luminaries whose attendance has been confirmed includes: US President George W. Bush, actress Barbra Streisand, former British prime minister Tony Blair, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, former national security adviser Henry Kissinger, Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, former Czech president Vaclav Havel, Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz, Google founder Sergey Brinn, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerman, Ratan Tata, chairman of India’s Tata group, US billionaire Sheldon Adelson and former Indonesian president Abdurrahman Wahid.

While there is nothing intrinsically wrong with celebrating the creation of a state, one wonders if the lineup of eminences grises who will be attending the events in Israel will be mirrored on the Palestinian side in remembrance of al-Nakba, or “The Catastrophe,” the mass uprooting of Palestinians, accompanied by violence, that resulted from the creation of the Jewish state. Will anyone stand with the underdog in remembering the birth pangs of a people’s multigenerational suffering, or for that matter, will any of the personalities attending the Jewish festivities — many of whom individuals who have themselves participated in the liberation of their people or spoken in favor of liberty and justice — bring the plight of Palestinians to the fore? Will Vaclav Havel, the symbol of a persecuted people under communist rule in Czechoslovakia, shoot from the heart in Jerusalem and stand with Palestinians, just as he stood with Taiwanese? Will Mikhail Gorbachev, who has basked in the light of the totalitarian regime he helped topple, speak for the downtrodden?

Congratulations Israel for your birth, and shame on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for referring today to the state as a “rotting corpse.” But in the coming days, my heart will be with the Palestinians, whose own anniversary will largely go unnoticed by the international elite for reasons that go well beyond the fact that Palestinians certainly do not have the kind of money that Jerusalem will be spending on celebrations this week.

To al-Nakba, and may the next sixty years bring a just resolution to this grave injustice.

Ma’s struggle for leadership

Critics of president-elect Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) have long derided (if not vilified) him for his alleged "spinelessness" and inability to create a distinct path for himself within the party. While it is true that Ma does not have the authority of, say, Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) or Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) — which will undoubtedly create problems for him — we can nevertheless see him, in the weeks following his election in March, striving for a modicum of autonomy. As I have argued before, this effort has expressed itself in Ma’s move to the center of the political spectrum, a slide that already is beginning to alienate more hardcore members of the KMT.

The most salient example of Ma’s shift may be his surprise appointment of former Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) legislator Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) as Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) chairwoman. The decision came as a surprise — and shocked KMT purists — because Lai has long been known for her critical stance on China and pro-independence views on Taiwan, which seems a bit of a contradiction given the KMT’s “pro-China” position and the role of the MAC in fostering rapprochement between Taipei and Beijing. Nevertheless, the appointment appears to reflect Ma’s promise to assemble a Cabinet that includes people from both the pan-green and pan-blue parties, and for this, Ma should be given credit.

No sooner had the announcement of Lai’s appointment been made, however, than KMT members were decrying the decision and calling on Ma to instead tap into the pool of dedicated, hard-working KMT candidates as he puts together his Cabinet. In other words, Ma appeared to be breaking a party rule that would limit the candidates to blue-card-carrying candidates. Put differently, under that unwritten rule, rather than seek to appoint the best candidates from across the political spectrum, Ma should be limiting himself to picking individuals from within the KMT and thereby engineer a true one-party state, or a state for the party.

If, as I read it, Ma’s intentions are (at least partly) to create a Cabinet that would indeed be representative of Taiwan (as opposed to being representative of the KMT or, more cynically, Beijing), the future president may be in for the fight of his life, and his opponents will be party members themselves rather than the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) opposition.

The real danger lies in Ma losing that battle — which is a very real possibility, given, as we have seen, his lack of authority and non-old-KMT-guard allies. Should this come about, Ma would become but a figurehead president, while the real political decision-making would rest with behind-the-scene figures such as former KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and the ever-conspicuous (and likely National Security Council chairman) Su Chi (蘇起), whose allegiance seems to rest with Beijing rather than Taipei. Furthermore, a sidelined Ma would mean that his Cabinet appointments that do not meet prevailing party standards would also be cast aside, meaning that Lai, for example, would be incapacitated as MAC chairwoman and the real negotiations with Beijing would happen at the non-official level — which may already be the case, what with (as Michael Turton rightly points out today on his blog The View from Taiwan) Lien’s meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) this week.

There is no doubt that Ma has been changed by the presidential election; the transforming power of carrying the weight of a people on one’s shoulders should not be underestimated. Ma may not go as far as his predecessor Lee did in becoming an advocate of Taiwanese independence, but there are undeniable signs that a shift in his perspective has occurred. And it is more than political smokescreen to appease the DPP. What remains to be seen, however, is whether he is capable of retaining his independence and fight the battle that is brewing within the KMT.

Sounding the alarm

I began the draft of my book on Canadian security intelligence two days after I resigned from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) in September 2005. Following graduation from the War Studies Master’s Degree program at the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) on Nov. 4 that year, I relocated to Taiwan, where I began working as a copy editor. For months I sporadically worked on my manuscript, but there was still too much anger in me — anger at what I had experienced at CSIS — to be able to write with enough emotional distance to make my work more useful than mere tirade. So months passed and I focused instead on events in Taiwan.

But Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in July-August 2006 reawakened in me a sense of urgency and the need to get the message out, to show how destructive the misguided, bigoted intelligence and military apparatuses that claim to protect democracy can be (buildings need not be pulverized for lives to be damaged by intelligence services, as I saw first-hand at CSIS). Following that illegal war, I re-embarked on my writing and, months later, came up with the semblance of a finished manuscript, which I then submitted to a literary agent in Toronto, Canada. The manuscript was read and the agent sent me a list of items that needed to be changed. I was told my work was to autobiographical, which (he was right) might not have appealed to general readers. So I rewrote the entire thing, cutting entire sections that were of little interest to people who did not know me.

Three versions and 18 months later, my book Smokescreen: Canadian Security Intelligence after September 11, 2001, is finally out. It is much slicker and I believe has enough emotional distance — yet still enough — to make it engaging and useful for general readers as well as academics and intelligence officers.

I would be lying if I said that writing this book was a walk in the park. It wasn't. Aside from the hundreds (dare I count?) of hours writing the manuscript, doing research, seeking permissions from publishers whose work I quote, finding my own publisher, making the proofs, designing the cover (yes, I did that, too) and everything else, the endeavor reopened wounds I had consciously decided I would leave behind when I resigned from CSIS. For a while, the sleeplessness that had haunted my last year at the Service threatened to revisit me, and I could once again feel the very real, suffocating ball of pain creeping inside me. But in the end, this work, however painful it was, served as an exorcism. Even the more personal parts that ultimately did not make it into the final product were cathartic and allowed me to deal with the demons and, once I was done with them (or they with me), to banish them.

My work has taken so many shapes and forms that after a while I lost sight of whether it would appeal to general readers. I believe it does. Sadly, very few people in Canada have been asking the questions that I raise — and try to answer — in Smokescreen. Even fewer are those who have been part of the intelligence community, people who have a better sense of what’s going on and everything that is wrong with that state-within-the-state, largely because, like me, they were told never to write about the things they have seen or done. It was precisely because I had been part of that system that I so urgently needed to get the message out — not to reveal secrets (which I don't) — but rather to show how utterly corrupted and corrupting that system is.

Democratic systems in the West are indeed threatened, but the threat comes not from al-Qaeda, or Hezbollah, or Hamas or Iran, but from within, from the unaccountable, authoritarian (and oftentimes incompetent) sub-state actors like CSIS, the CIA, MI5, ISIS (Mossad) and all the others that purportedly protect us. This is what my book is about, how the system transforms the individuals who are part of it and crushes their sense of morality to defend a cause that has little to do with reality or protecting civilians (in my case Canadians).

So it’s out, not in my hands anymore. I don't know whether I should be excited or terrified. I think I'm both. Let’s see what happens…

NOTICE: Please note that Smokescreen is now available for order at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca and Amazon.co.uk, as well as in e-book format at www.iuniverse.com. It will go on sale through other distribution channels (Chapters, Indigo and Coles bookstores) in a few weeks.

New stock phrase

On several occasions in recent months, this site and others — Michael Turton’s The View From Taiwan spearheading the effort — have pointed out the biased use of language by wire agencies and news organizations to describe Taiwan or the situation in the Taiwan Strait. In most instances, it would be fair to say that the misrepresentations were unintentional and stemmed from the fact that the copy writers were ill informed. Given the reflex, as in any big organization that deals with information, to recycle material (a phenomenon only made worse with the advent of the copy-and-paste function), information gets congealed in time and the path of least resistance means that errors will not get corrected. What may also explain the poor track record of reporting on Taiwan is the fact that many of the reporters are not on the ground — or their work is edited by people in far-away offices who do not have a clue what they are doing.

Let us hope, therefore, that Associated Press reporting by Taiwan’s own Debby Wu over the weekend was the result of an editor in the main office, because the new stock phrase that was used in the piece bespeaks an ignorance of Taiwan’s history that defies the imagination.

In a piece titled “US may post Marines at office in Taiwan,” Wu uses terms such as “island” and “self-ruled island” that we have all become accustomed to, as well as the “Taiwan and China split amid a civil war in 1949,” which though wrong has been so overused as to have become a fact on the ground. But then follows a phraseology that, to my knowledge, had not been used to date. China “threatens to attack Taiwan if it seeks to make the break permanent” (my italics).

How can a break be made permanent if it doesn’t exist in the first place? Furthermore, by sloppily paraphrasing Beijing’s propaganda — or failing to directly quote what Chinese officials have said — AP gives the impression that the comment is its own, as if this were a historical fact rather than flagrant distortion of reality. Sadly, as always, this stock phrase will be used and reused, adopted and slightly permutated by other agencies until it, too, becomes customary, regardless of the fact this it contains not one particle of truth.

Book Review: Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam after Iraq
Michael Scheuer
Free Press, 364pp

Former CIA officer Michael Scheuer’s first two books, Through our Enemies’ Eyes and Imperial Hubris, provided timely and necessary correctives to Western governments’ contention that Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and Islamists in general had declared and were waging war against the West because of some fundamental hatred for the democracy, rights, mores, consumerism and social habits that it epitomizes. Rather than a madman, Scheuer rightfully portrayed bin Laden as an adept student of Islam and a not unreasonable voice for the millions of Muslims who have clearly defined political grievances against the US for its encroachment in the Arabian Peninsula, unqualified support for Israel, tolerance of authoritarian regimes (Russia, China) that repress Muslim minorities, open support for and arming of police states (Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, Egypt, Uzbekistan) that can only be characterized as an affront to Islam, and now the open-ended occupation of two Muslim countries.

Based on his experience as an intelligence officer and as the head of the unit in charge of hunting bin Laden, Scheuer’s main argument that the US and the West would be locked in a war without end unless they changed the policies that were generating so much anger in the Muslim world — policies that, as he argued, bin Laden has clearly decried in his declarations of war against the US — had much traction, so much so that it was imperative that I quote him in Smokescreen, my upcoming book on the subject and Canada’s disastrous participation in the US-led “war” on terrorism.

Sadly, aside from reiterating those very helpful points, Scheuer’s latest book, Marching Toward Hell offers little else, aside from a contradiction in strategy that can only be described as apocalyptic. Building his argument toward a prescription for success, Scheuer savages every US president (except Ronald Regan), non-governmental organizations, Amnesty International, leftists, peace activists, "antinationalists," neoconservatives, academics, Europe, expatriates and the Clinton and Bush administrations, and bemoans the lack of courage that, in his view, is necessary to win the war militarily, through means that would put to shame the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the carpet bombing of Vietnam. Through vengeance disguised as Machiavellian wisdom, Scheuer writes that only the muscular, no-holes-barred use of military force that punishes both non-uniformed terrorists, their supporters and those who tolerate their presence in their midst (that is, civilian populations) — the incineration of Kabul and Kandahar soon after Sept. 11, 2001, for example — would bring back global awe of the US’ power to deter its enemies, the kind of deterrence that existed at the height of the Cold War, which Scheuer seems to miss dearly.

The contradiction in Scheuer’s argument could not be starker: While, at one level, he correctly and wisely identifies the 30-year-old grievances that gave rise to the jihad against the US, and furthermore argues for a change of course in such areas as support for Israel and Saudi Arabia and over-dependence on oil, he then mortally undercuts his argument by saying that overwhelming force — using an arsenal that includes landmines, depleted uranium ammunition and total disregard for collateral damage — should be used to exterminate the enemy. Given that he has named the political grievances in all of his three books, it defies the imagination that he would then propose military action on such a scale as would not only fail to address those grievances but surely fuel even greater hatred for US policies and potentially spark a cycle of violence from which no one could possibly benefit. If the US' problem in the Islamic world can be fixed by correcting its policies — which Scheuer points out on numerous occasions — why the use of overwhelming force? For some quaint reason, Scheuer fails to understand that the two are not subsets of the same strategy.

To his credit, Scheuer gets many things right that even other intelligence officers fail to grasp, including the West’s self-defeating policies on Hamas and Hezbollah, or the fact that Iran should be left alone and that the invasion of Iraq was not only a fiasco but prevented efforts in Afghanistan, where he rightly sees defeat, both on military terms and in the “hearts and minds” campaign, on the horizon, if not already upon us. On those points and in his assessment of the nature of the al-Qaeda threat, Scheuer offers quality advice that one wishes our leaders would follow. But unfortunately, his anger, thirst for vengeance and ostensible need to demonstrate his support for the military and intelligence officers is such that it overwhelms the reader and, as David Rieff wrote in his review in the New York Times, makes it difficult for the reader to take him seriously, just as it is difficult to take seriously another proponent of overwhelming force, Ralph Peters, for whom Mr. Scheuer seems to have boundless admiration.

When he sticks to assessing the nature of the threat, Scheuer has few equals and remains a helpful guide. But the strategic prescriptions he provides in his latest book will — and wisely should — be ignored.

Kosovo blowback in Quebec?

In my March 24 entry titled “Canada and the recognition of Kosovo,” I argued that Ottawa’s decision to accord full diplomatic recognition to the former Serbian province could encourage separatist elements to turn to violence to promote their agenda, as the Kosovo case may have helped convince individuals that only through violence can the status quo be altered. In Canada's case, my fear mostly concerned separatists in the Province of Quebec.

Less than a month has passed, and today the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) was reporting that the Regional Association of West Quebecers — a group that defends the rights of English speakers in Outaouais — received on Tuesday a second e-mail message, a “final warning” to cease and desist or else “they would put a little lead in their heads.” The e-mails came from a previously unknown organization calling itself the Ligue de défense nationale (“National Defense League”) and the “new” Front de la libération du Québec (FLQ), which conducted bombings in Montreal in the 1960s and sparked the October crisis in 1970 after it kidnapped British trade commissioner James Cross and later killed Quebec cabinet minister Pierre Laporte.

While it is probably too soon to ascertain the veracity and seriousness of the threat — a task that police and security intelligence should soon undertake — it nevertheless supports the contention that groups or individuals, in earnest or deranged, may have reached the conclusion, as I stipulated, that only violence, or the threat of violence, will allow them to achieve their political objectives.

UPDATE: On April 11 the CBC received the following message from the group: “We believe that the peaceful action of the Quebec independence movement is not enough to defend the French language, the protection of Quebec territory in dealing with the threats of English people.”

How it changes us

The scenes from the Olympic torch event in San Francisco provide the perfect microcosm, if you will, for everything that is wrong with the world’s intensifying engagement of Beijing in spite of — or rather thanks to the conscious ignorance of — its abysmal track record on human rights. In July last year, I published an article, “Olympic Games for the hollow men,” in which I warned against the danger of international cooperation with China on intelligence matters, how doing so could make the world’s intelligence agencies complicit in the targeting of various legal dissident organizations and repression of individual liberties. Sadly, there is no reason to believe that such cooperation did not occur, or does not continue to occur.

While it is understandable, following the — how shall I put it? — rambunctious torch relay events in London and Paris earlier this week, that the City of San Francisco would increase security to ensure an orderly event, the measures yesterday teetered dangerously close to becoming a reflection of how Beijing acts at home, which turned the run into an uncharacteristically muscular display of force, what with the runners being protected by a large “amphibious” vehicle and hundreds of baton-wielding police. Slant the eyes a little and you’d think we were back in Beijing.

But the change also occurred at a different, perhaps even more fundamental, level: Fearing protests, the event organizers used the tool of secrecy — changing routes and venues — that is diametrically opposed to the very spirit of the event, which should be one of oneness and openness. Decisions were made undemocratically in a city long known for its vociferous support for civil liberties. This was strikingly reminiscent of the policy in China of focusing on an end goal without heeding for a second the impact this might have on people or the environment — and arresting those who point a finger at all the ugliness. rather than stop an act altogether, the state marches on, like a feral machine (or an "amphibious" vehicle), making its way in the throng, pushing aside, crushing all in its way.

When Beijing’s authoritarian system begins spreading like a disease, when in order to accommodate it we change who we are at home, how we act, there is real reason for concern. Let us hope for further disruptions down the road, and less restrictive measures by the organizers in the cities to come.

Salesmen

The footage was amateurish, the colors so faded it could have been black and white. The video compression gave the movements an accelerated, frame-skipping pace, while the areas where there was no movement were swaths of shifting translucent squares. There was no sound. Whoever had shot this must have been hiding and filmed the whole thing with a hand-held digital camera.

Next to me at the table, fellow analysts looked at the projector screen with expressions of mixed disgust and incredulity. And overemphasized seriousness, I though, as my eyes scanned one cleanly shaven face after another, the ties immaculate, all in business attire, conforming to the extent of having become indistinguishable from one another.

I returned my attention to the screen just as a bright flash appeared on the right-hand side, where the blurry, darkened shape of a human being was standing. As it faded and the eye of the camera reopened, we saw that the flash had emanated from something that was resting on his shoulder.

“This is what we have to deal with now,” said Stern, a giant of a man with a booming voice, who would look more at ease, surely, in a wrestling ring than in an ill-fitting suit in an air-conditioned government building.

Something dark was arcing the sky, fading into its uneven grayness as it approached what looked like a small camp at the top of a hill. An observation post, Stern informed us, in southern L.

Nothing. Everybody at the table held their breath, knowing what would follow next yet refusing to believe it.

And it came. In the blink of an eye, the light gray building, listening antennas on its rooftop, burst into a giant fireball that dwarfed the initial flash, radiating pure whiteness and making us recoil from the digital cataclysm.

When it regained its senses, the camera revealed a burning mass of concrete. In the foreground, where the dark figure had stood, two others had joined it. All three seemed to be dancing and congratulating themselves, one waving a tattered flag of the readily recognizable fist holding an assault rifle.

The screen went blank and we all stood there, transfixed, in silence.

Stern’s deep voice brought us back to the present. “Iranian. In recent years, Tehran has been selling them these weapons. Some are US made.” His English, though immaculate, had an European accent I could not place, the same type of elocution that characterized the other agents who had come with him to brief us. “These videos,” he said, “ have begun being sold at bazaars and markets all over the Middle East. In fact, the one you’re watching and the copy we’re giving you [a CD] were purchased at a grocery store in Gaza.”

“Terrible,” my supervisor, a giant baby doll, blond hair and all, said.

“Shocking,” her favorite, a banker-looking type who in fact had once worked in that sector, said.

Stern’s eyes went round the table, seeking confirmation of the unacceptable as we had just witnessed on screen. I looked up. All eyes were on me as I realized I was the only one who hadn’t said anything. But words wouldn’t come; something was wrong with me, as if a mechanism inside me had malfunctioned, blocking a reaction. I stared at the screen, onto which were projected — visible to my eyes only — scene after scene of buildings, cars, neighborhoods incinerated from above, murder of far greater magnitude that what we had just been shown. At least those three men had risked their lives, had had to be close enough to their target to fire at it, and the target had been military. In the other scenarios, the ones only I could see, the great majority of the victims had been civilian, including women and children — the great majority of them, in fact, women and children, babies, the unborn. And whoever had rained terror down upon them had done so from twenty-five thousand feet, safe from harm and far enough to be spared a glimpse of the consequences. So what if the organization had acquired shoulder-launched missiles from Iran, some made in the US? What difference did it make, really, when their opponents had technology and means orders of magnitude beyond that, Falcons and Apaches and drones with million-dollar sensors attached to their million-dollar gifts of death, capable of annihilating dozens of lives from a distance calculated not in meters, as we had just seen, but rather in kilometers, at the click of a button? Disgusted? Horrified? Scared witless? How risible that was, theater in which we all knew we were actors, the script preventing any independent thought — bar that, not theater. A puppet show, rather. At least in theater, the actors, though following a script, nevertheless retain the capacity to emote, to personalize the expressions. We were puppets, all of us, also following a script but the expressions on our faces fixed, immutable. And the strings animating us had grown so long that one couldn’t even begin to imagine who the puppeteers might be.

“Very…”

These men, Stern and the others, were salesmen, prophets bringing a product to the faithful, the converted. But who needed them when the customers were already sold to the product. Why all the charade, three pilgrims sent thousands of kilometers to preach the gospel to those in no need of convincing, knowing fully well — and expecting nothing less — that all, with no exception, would play the part as per the script written long ago. Did they believe in the utility of their presence? Did we?

Eyes boring into me, a terrible emptiness opening beneath me, threatening to swallow me. Sweat was beading on my forehead, lakes forming in my armpits. Yet I felt cold, so cold. My supervisor, most of all, cast me this look, the same trace of annoyed disgust that reshaped her face whenever she and I didn’t see eye to eye on something, which happened frequently. What a disappointment you are, I could hear her think. We had high hopes for you, but you just don’t seem to get it. The accusations, the condescension, I’d heard it all, the volleys of missiles fired at me time and again. “Moral relativism,” she said, they said, using the self-righteous accusation of the mindless against leftists, intellectuals, artists, those who had different opinions, who chose to question the paradigm. “That’s why you don’t get it.” But I did get it, much better than all of them. They were right, of course: moral relativism is, in fact, fundamentally flawed. But what they failed to understand is that while there was no room for moral relativism in what Camp A was doing to Camp B, we’d chosen the wrong side and like sheep were cheering for the camp that was slaughtering the other, or when it wasn’t doing that, it was busy destroying the other’s livelihood on a massive scale. To hell with moral relativism indeed!

“Excuse me,” I said, getting up and leaving the room in a hurry, as if one of those missiles were chasing me, threatening to disassemble me, to incinerate the very molecules of me, of my soul, my being. I swiped my card, typed the four-digit code on the holographic panel and ran outside, feeling like spilling my guts right at the foot of the national flag.

Incompetence or China’s very own “Mighty Wurlitzer”?

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) victory in the presidential election has provided a number of case studies in how some international wire agencies continue to misrepresent events in Taiwan and, in the same breath, to depict President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) as a “troublemaker” who should always be doubted.

The latest instance involves the so-called “1992 consensus,” which, in its odd rhetorical gymnastics, has it that while Taipei and Beijing agree to there being “one China,” they disagree in their interpretation of what it means. As the KMT’s Su Chi (蘇起), a former Mainland Affairs Chairman with a well-earned reputation for making things up, has admitted that the term, which first emerged weeks before Chen’s inauguration in 2000, was (his) fabrication, the case should be closed. Instead, in step with the KMT’s attempt to resuscitate the concept, some wire agencies have either failed to mention that the term is a political contrivance or, more conspicuously, will write something like Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian claims that the “1992 consensus” was invented by Su Chi.

What such writing does — especially after years of castigating Chen — is put doubt into the reader’s mind by making him wonder if Chen’s “claim” isn’t just another one of his “dirty tricks” to “cause trouble,” when instead it should be clear that there exists no such thing as a “1992 consensus.” Why put words into Chen’s mouth when the actual culprit has himself confessed? Why the second-hand reference, if only to divert the reader’s attention? A similar tactic has also been used repeatedly on the matter of the 1,400 or so short-range missiles Beijing aims at Taiwan. “Chen claims that China is targeting …” No! Imagery intelligence, the US and Taiwanese defense establishment state that so on and so forth. Beijing itself doesn’t deny that fact.

Again, the above disinformation is either the result gross incompetence on the part of some wire agencies, or the outcome of Beijing’s very own “Mighty Wurlitzer” propaganda machine. Either way, readers are being duped.

Why the economy won’t get better

As a foreigner living in Taiwan, I have often wondered how people could believe the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) propaganda that the Taiwanese economy was in the doldrums and that somehow this should be blamed on the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) “mismanaging” the economy.

While I am not even remotely an economist, I know enough that 6.07 percent GDP growth in 2004 and above-4 percent GDP growth average since 2001 (at a time when most mature economies struggled to surpass the 2 percent mark) was not indicative of a struggling economy. Furthermore, as I have written before, the supposedly “high” unemployment rate in Taiwan would make people in most Western economies dance in the street.

Yet another indicator — call this one a “layman’s view” was how busy the redundant high-end shopping malls in downtown Taipei were. If the economy were in such a terrible state, people would not be buying Armani suits and expensive jewelry at Swarovski. And yet, on any given day, the malls were filled with shoppers.

This led me to investigate the matter a little more. Were the KMT claims founded? If not — and aside from electoral rhetoric — what was it that they had missed? It soon emerged that context was everything. Taiwan’s economy has matured tremendously since the booming 1980s, when its GDP growth reached 16 percent, and all the elements that allowed for that “miraculous” growth had, since the 1990s, shifted to China, which is now enjoying the benefits. The global financial situation, one that is very much anchored in the US economy, is also a principal factor that has often been overlooked by the KMT and the critics of the DPP. The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and sings that the US is headed for recession, have had and will have an impact on the state of Taiwan’s economy, but somehow we rarely hear about that, as if Taiwan could somehow operate outside the global economy (nothing could be falser) or that further integration into the “greater China” economy would solve everything (also false, but espoused by the KMT, as if China were not dependent on the global system).

Readers can access the full article, titled “Some economic truths for the KMT,” by clicking here.

The Tiananmen Square torch fizzle*

Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) yesterday berated the Beijing Olympic organizing committee following the failure, during the much-awaited torch lighting ceremony in Tiananmen Square, to start the flame. Thousands of onlookers, including hundreds of foreign reporters, collectively gasped as Lu Xiaobing (碌小餅), a 12-year-old Chinese triathlon hopeful, tried in vain to light the Olympic torch before it embarks on its journey tomorrow, with the first stop scheduled in Almaty, Kazakhstan. After a second, equally unsuccessful attempt by Lu to light the torch, a clearly discomfited Hu promptly left the stage and was seen departing the scene in a black limousine, followed by a retinue of state security officials, police and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

Xinhua news agency reported that preliminary investigations had shown that traces of diethylene glycol, commonly known as antifreeze, were found in the petrol used to light the torch. Chinese authorities refused to reveal the source of the petrol, but unofficial sources who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals said it had been provided by Sino Petrol Co, of Fujian Province, a principal sponsor of the Beijing Olympics in August.

Later yesterday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao (劉建超) said Beijing had intelligence indicating that an umbrella underground organization consisting of Tibetan dissidents, Taiwanese intelligence officers, Muslim Uyghur terrorists and possibly American human rights activists funded by the Japanese government may have been involved in the plot to humiliate the 1.3 billion Chinese by attacking the flame. It added that the entire thing also smacked of a plan by Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to “create tensions across the Taiwan Straits [sic].” As a precautionary measure, Chinese security officials late last night “preventively” rounded up Tibetans, human rights and environmental activists and imposed a curfew on certain Beijing neighborhoods. Taiwanese businesspeople operating in China, as well as individuals who looked or sounded Japanese, were also under close observation, officials said.

“This [the antifreeze attack] is totally unacceptable,” the foreign ministry said in a press release late last night. “President Hu has been personally hurt and refuses to leave his room. He has stopped eating and, according to his wife, he will not let go of his Mao Zedong [毛澤東] doll.” Chinese children were reportedly holding a candle vigil outside the Hu residence late last night.

Meanwhile, the Taipei Times learned last night that an executive at Sino Petrol surnamed Huang had sent signals to Taiwan that he and his family were seeking to defect for fear of persecution following the torch incident. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) would not comment on the matter while president-elect Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said he would consult honorary Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Lien Chan (連戰), who was on a hunting trip with co-conspirator and US Vice President Dick Cheney, on the matter.

* Happy April Fools day! Disclaimer: Every person, identified or otherwise, news organization credible or not as well as events mentioned in this entry is either fictional or, if real, did not act in ways as portrayed in this entry. No animals, torchbearers, demonstrators, workers in the oil (and antifreeze) industry, spokespersons, government officials, spouses, reporters, candle-holding children, police officers, PLA staff, Taiwanese, Tibetans, Uyghurs, Japanese and Americans were injured in the process.

Book review: Bates Gill’s Rising Star

Despite all the alarmist rhetoric coming from the Pentagon and a handful of conservative think tanks, war with China is not inevitable, argues Bates Gill in his book Rising Star: China’s new security diplomacy. The key to avoiding conflict ( or making it less likely), he contends, lies in paying closer attention to and understanding Beijing’s interests as a regional power and encouraging it to continue down the road of multilateralism.

Despite all its virtues — and as a counterbalance to the US’ paranoid perspective on the rising giant it has many — Gill’s book barely touches on the Taiwan Strait, which among all the potential sources of war involving China and the US is by far the likeliest. That said, should Washington, Tokyo and others make some of the adjustments Gill hints at in his book, it could be possible to decouple the Taiwan problem from the encirclement issue, which as I have argued before has made conflict resolution in an increasingly militarized Strait a more onerous task than is necessary.*

There are certain areas, such as Beijing's alliances with murderous regimes like Khartoum, where Gill could rightly be accused of being soft, or at minimum too optimistic, but overall his book shows us that being too hard on it may not be any more constructive.

Readers can access my review of Gill’s book, “The twin rises of the Chinese superpower,” by clicking here.

* See “The missile blunder,” “Washington conservatives strike again,” “Washington celebrates, but other are fretful,” and “But are they really friends of Taiwan?” below.

The missile blunder

A lot has already been written about the erroneous shipment, a little more than a year-and-a-half ago, of ICBM nose cone fuses to Taiwan and the diplomatic storm that this has created. While I do not intend to belabor the details of the military faux pas, suffice it to say, for those readers overseas who have yet to hear of the news, that the items intended for shipment to Taiwan were four replacement battery packs for UH-1H helicopters. What the Taiwanese military received instead was a batch of precise instrumentation used to trigger nuclear warheads as intercontinental missiles approach their target.

As a former government employee and long observer of government institutions involved in military and intelligence matters, what I intend to discuss in this entry is twofold:

(a) a mistake such as this one is not altogether impossible. While one would like to think that ordering from the Pentagon involves a little more oversight than, say, ordering books from Amazon.com, we should never underestimate the incompetence of government. In many cases, reality defies fiction, and the case at hand is at least as good as anything one would encounter in Graham Greene, Joseph Heller, Evelyn Waugh or John Le Carre. Believe me: Despite all the nonproliferation mechanisms and mine field of checks and screening, errors remain possible. They're quite common, in fact.

(b) in spite of the above, one should equally never underestimate the capacity of government to cover its errors, and this is where things get really interesting. Given the magnitude of the mistake and the impact it can have on nonproliferation, the military buildup in China and regional stability (not to mention that it makes the Pentagon look utterly incompetent), we could assume that all the governments involved in the matter would have seen it in their best interest that the blunder never see the light of day. In fact, things like this would get the highest classification, something like TOP SECRET, US (AND MAYBE SIX TAIWANESE AND CERTAINLY NO CHINESE) EYES ONLY. People would be surprised how often the classification of documents is relied upon to ensure that errors such as this one are not exposed. And yet, in this case, press conferences were held, the Pentagon has been surprisingly open about it, the news has spread all over the world, and China, as expected, has reacted in anger.

It would be tempting to think of a conspiracy theory here, but I’ll do my best to avoid that. Still, given the stakes, for something like this to become public knowledge can only mean one thing: Someone, somewhere, wanted this to be known, and the intended audience was Beijing. Never mind that the timing of the “discovery” — the night before the presidential election in Taiwan — or its revelation days later is also, er, suspiciously suspicious, given that said equipment had been in storage in Taiwan for more than 18 months. Why now? Why at a time when, given the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) win, chances of diminished tensions in the Taiwan Strait have at least been imagined by both sides of the Strait?

Someone in Taiwan or in the US (or possibly on both sides) wanted this public, and I suspect the intended result was to ensure that tensions continued in the Taiwan Strait so that the flow of weapons to the region could continue. Too many people, both in Taiwan and the US, stand to gain from a continued military standoff. As I argued in the previous entry (“Washington conservatives strike again”) and in my article “Washington celebrates, but others are fretful,” peace in the Taiwan Strait just isn’t lucrative enough for certain parties.

Stay tuned, this one isn’t over yet.