Cold Comfort

I undertook a dive course a few months ago, and recently thought I had best put some of those new skills into practice before the cold really sets in. I allowed myself to be talked in to the deeper wreck dives down near Eden rather than the more sedate dives up at Jervis Bay. Thus last weekend, with a gale blowing and 15 C water temperature I discovered the joys of changing in and out of a (increasingly damp) wetsuit in the carpark, zooming across a very choppy seascape while being assured it would be better around the corner (it was actually), and following a weedy rope down down down through cold water, until (29m below) the surface is reduced to a vague glow which you don't really want to think about.

Well at least it wasn't three metre visibility as it was during my course, but this cold southern diving wasn't quite what I had in mind - more the tropics - bath warm crystal clear water with plenty to see within 10m of the surface. I've done plenty of snorkeling in such environs, and had often thought how good it would be to be able to dive under for longer than a single breath allows.

The shadowy wrecks were impressive though - dark shapes dissolving into the distance - encrusted with all sorts of slow shelled things and sessile soft sponges and weed. Others more equipped (and boy, does it cost to equip!)shone torches to bring out the colours that the waterlogged sunlight failed to uncover. And the fish, about their business in singles, pairs and sociable escher-like schools, inspecting the hull and sheltering within the cabins. Gropers greeting the divers in expectation that someone might provide a morsel or two.

Much better then, than later on the night dive, when drifting through cold wet blackness, torches probing, I found many either drowsy or alarmed at being aroused and thought, isn't it enough that we catch them with hook and net, without shining torches into their eyes while they rest? Facing down into the black, it was like being part of some bomber squadron, the torch light like searchlights but probing down rather than up, searching across the rocky weedy bottom, coming to rest upon a spiny (resting) rock cod, a hermit crab peeking from beneath its shell, or the depressing sight of a recently dead eel, bound up in fishing line.

And finally the last dive Sunday morning, the sun deciding to show and the wind not to blow, a shallower trip to a cave across bare rocky bottom dotted with urchins and clumps of weed. The cave entrance encrusted with sponge and weed and all manner of life I could not name, while our expirations pooled like mercury on the ceiling. Coming to the surface again, despite the chill of the water it was rather enjoyable resting on the surface in the sunshine, sea otter-like while I waited for my turn to climb back aboard the boat and renew my acquaintance with gravity.

And you know, while I did think much of one usually close, but then far away; I did not realize until afterwards that all weekend I had not thought of the world and its troubles, nor my own small ones. Nice to immerse oneself so fully that such things can dissolve away, for a while at least.

See the weed. Just trying out the Hello picture posting option. 

Which Thousand Words?

Sitting watching the news the other night and was not paying much attention as there was coverage of yet another policy discussion paper released by some think tank or another. Then I noticed the cover of the report. I'm pretty sure that's George hopping off the jet fighter isn't it? This is for a cover of a report titled "Strategy", or the long title, "Beyond Baghdad: ASPI's Strategic Assessment 2004". ASPI being the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (you get a better shot on their home page at the moment). I'm not trying to comment on the content of the report mind you, I haven't read it, I haven't bought it. Possibliy there is some explanation inside the report.

Blogger gets Enough Rope

Speaking of Andrew Denton's show Enough Rope, I note that Salam Pax is scheduled to be on the show next Monday 17 May.

Quiet Quiet Heart

I came across an interesting article in the back of the April 2004 edition of the Amnesty International newsletter - Human Rights Defender - It's written by William Schulz, the Executive Director of Amnesty International USA and is apparently an extract from a book he has written. Schulz (speaking for himself rather than Amnesty) writes about his views on how it is possible to disagree with the manner in which the current intervention in Iraq was initiated and carried out and yet be not be inherently opposed to military intervention in the service of human rights. Schulz dishes it out on more than one front.

" Just because George W. Bush, like virtually all presidents before him, uses human rights like a bad cook uses a spice - to cover up the taste of otherwise unpalatable policies - doesn't mean that human rights do not sometimes require a big stick in addition to soft speaking. The Europeans, for all their righteousness about human rights, did virtually nothing to stop the slaughter in Bosnia. Human rights are not for the faint of heart; they are not the province of wimps, but of the stubborn and the robust.

That the United States has been giving the struggle against terrorism a bad name of late does not mean that the fears that motivate that struggle are not legitimate and clear."

For me personally, I suspect that if intervention in Iraq had been a result of a considered UN effort to identify and agree on those countries that were beyond the pale in terms of human rights, and UN approval was given for international intervention, then I may have been able to support intervention (of course it may also be true that international politics and the structure of the UN might prevent the inclusion of some deserving countries on any list arrived at by consensus). But despite the posturing since, human rights was an also-ran in terms of the justification for the war. There was never any consideration as to why Iraq deserved intervention any more than a number of other nations, and that, I think, is simply because the protection of human rights was never the key issue.

I was also interested in something Jose Ramos-Horta had to say this week on Andrew Denton's Enough Rope :

"Sometimes I believe that we should ban wars, there should be no wars whatsoever in humanity, ever again. But then I ask, if we say no wars of any sort, then what you do when a people is subjected to genocide? No force was used in Rwanda in '94. The UN was there, sitting, watching. New York wouldn't give the orders. So 700,000 to 800,000 people died in 100 days - in this day and age! And so should I be like the Dalai Lama and say no violence, no war ever? So I always struggle with these conflicting sentiments."

Going back about ninety years I find another thought from the diary of British General Ian Hamilton March 1914
"Once in a generation, a mysterious wish for war passes through the people. Their instinct tells them that there is no other way of progress and of escape from habits that no longer fit them" (from Gallipoli, by Les Carlyon).

Les Carlyon portrays Hamilton and a number of other senior British officers and leaders as men of the 19th century about to command armed forces in a war of the new century, a war that they did not understand. It makes me wonder which of today's' leaders are like Hamilton, their actions in part influenced by their inability to understand what this new century will bring us, and therefore unable to lead us to success.

War itself is certainly not confined to any one century. Yet when our democractically leaders have seemed so willing to take us down that path again, I causes me to wonder, can't we expect, in this time, that those who would be our leaders could find and propose something better, some more palatable solution?

Holey Ozone

An interesting feature article in the April 2004 edition of “Environment” journal – “ Abrupt Changes – The Achilles’ Heels of the Earth System” (Steffan, Andreae, Bolin et al). It discusses how it is generally assumed that global change (such as the predicted climate change), occurs as smooth and gradual changes. For example, with climate change, people generally assume that temperatures would gradually increase, but otherwise the Earth System would “continue to operate largely in the state in which it has since the Holocene epoch began (at the end of the last ice age)”. The authors argue against this premise and instead propose that the global environment has in the past shown significant variability (the change in the climate of northern Africa 6,000 years ago being one example). They discuss the possibility that climate change could actually lead to dramatic cooling in the Northern Atlantic region (including both North America and Europe) as a result of an interruption to the Gulf Stream ocean circulation (which helps keep the North Atlantic warmer than it otherwise would be) by the increase in the release of freshwater from melting glaciers and ice sheets.

Anyway, one bit I thought was interesting was the story of how we were in several ways quite lucky in how we were able to deal with the hole in the ozone layer. Firstly, we were rather fortunate that the British Antarctic Survey happened to have a program where they regularly measured ozone concentrations over Antarctica and had been doing this since the 1950s – thus changes to ozone levels over Antarctica were able to be detected quite rapidly. Secondly, it just happened that a group of atmospheric scientists had been conducting studies into the possible impacts upon the stratosphere of the operation of a proposed fleet of supersonic aircraft, and thus were able to apply their knowledge to develop an understanding of how the ozone hole was forming. And the final stroke of good fortune was that the designers of CFCs chose to use chlorine and fluorine rather than bromine. Apparently if they had used bromine, which is at least 30-40 times more reactive with the atmosphere, we would have found ourselves with a lot larger ozone hole a lot faster, before we would have been in a position to deal with it as effectively! Rather fortunate I think.

Of course the other fortunate aspect of the ozone issue was how a global approach to dealing with the problem was able to be quickly developed, agreed and implemented. Something that we have yet to see with climate change.

Quicksilver

Rob Schaap at blogorrhoea mentioned his enjoyment of historical fiction a while ago (well, in January actually). I’ve just finished reading a book that may be considered to fit into this category, and in any case is one of the best reads I’ve had in ages. Neal Stephenson is better known for his science fiction, however his second last book, the Cryptonomicon, saw him venture back into recent history. This most recent book – Quicksilver - is the first in the Baroque Cycle and deals with a story set in the period between 1655 and 1713, in England, Europe and to a lesser degree Boston.

The book follows three central fictitious characters as they interact with historical figures of the day ranging from Issac Newton, James II, Gottfried Leibniz, Samuel Pepys, Robert Hooke and William of Orange. One of Stephenson’s key characters becomes the secretary of the Royal Society after Henry Oldenberg (a position I think was actually taken up by Robert Hooke), and through his eyes we are introduced to the tangled pursuit of science and alchemy. The story also focuses on the interface between religion and politics after the thirty years war, and the development of trading and monetary systems in that period.

At 900 pages its not a quick read. I found myself enjoying it so much, that I was reluctant to reach the end. Only the end of the book though, as I understand there are a couple of sequels due.

From ABC News
“Photographs were aired on an American television network yesterday, showing prisoners stacked in a human pyramid and one detainee standing on a box with a hood over his head and wires attached to him.
The photos were taken at a prison near Baghdad where US Military Police are holding and interrogating hundreds of captured Iraqis.”

Oh, lovely. Doesn’t the last (and minor, and mostly retrospective on Australia’s case) leg of the coalition’s shaky platform of justification for the invasion of Iraq relate to the resulting liberation of the citizens of Iraq from under Saddam’s oppressive, cruel and unjust regime? Now we have coalition troops subjecting prisoners to degrading and cruel acts.

“Six Military Police members are now facing court martial over the prisoner's treatment.”
Provided they have the right people, this would appear to be part of an appropriate response to deal with the allegations.
“Prime Minister John Howard has condemned the treatment of Iraqi prisoners by the United States military.”

As he should.

“Mr Howard told Southern Cross Radio what has allegedly occurred is not helpful.”
"I was appalled but I note immediately they are court martialling people," he said.

Well, its more than just unhelpful, its pretty disgusting, you’re right to be appalled.

"People who did far worse than that under Saddam Hussein were promoted, they weren't court martialled.
"They were lauded, they were encouraged, it was an instrument of state policy to do far worse than that."

Er, what has that got to do with the current accusations? How is a comparison between acts by the US military and acts under Saddam’s regime at all valid? Remember, the coalition were the ones who felt that that old regime was so bad that it needed an invasion to sort it out. I don’t really think we should be using Saddam’s record on human rights as any sort of yardstick to measure the military of our allies against.

If this type of behaviour is to be usefully considered within any context, it would be a consideration of how such acts may set a baseline of acceptable behaviour for any future Iraqi regime.

If the coalition is now in Iraq to offer the Iraqis a better future, then surely that future must include basic standards of human rights and justice. If we wish them to be found in a future Iraq, then they should be practiced there today.

That examples of such disgraceful behaviour can be found within what has been portrayed as the sharp end of the coalitions’ efforts to combat terrorism perhaps shows us that if there is a war to be waged, the enemy is not only found across national, cultural or religious divides. Rather it is found within those who embrace and allow their actions to be directed by the worst that can be found within the human spirit. Soldiers who would fight this type of war must be first prepared to engage with and defeat the worst within themselves, so as to ensure that if they do leave the field of battle victorious, they are not leaving with the enemy hiding within their hearts.