War in Libya

I have offered this comment on a New York Times editorial wondering about the new war in Libya:

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Dennis Argall
Location
Rome, Italy 

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Forty-some years ago as a young Australian diplomat immersed in southeast Asia and the then preoccupation with the Vietnam war I was transferred to our Rome embassy. Surrounded by the events of Europe in 1968 and at real distance I secured new and critical perspective to our (and US) conduct of the Vietnam war. Curiously I now find myself again living in Italy for a time, retired, as a new war of alliance against wickedness breaks out in Libya. 

This discussion thread has at its most constructive been focused (appropriately) on the legality and practical feasibility of the US going to war. 

From here, I find that the greatest impression is the precipitate muddle of action.
There has been a breathtaking reaction in many places, including in the nations involved, to the very wide and imaginative interpretation of 'no-fly-zone'. This has placed at risk, perhaps permanently fractured, the massive international support for the action. And already there is reckless public bickering over what it means among leaders of the action itself, notably whether it allows decapitation of the Libyan Government. The evident value of surprise on the part of the enemy may have been overtaken by this loss of strategic coherence and support.  

The action takes place at a moment when Italy has been reoccupied by 150th anniversary celebrations and the difficult process of securing regime change from the Ten Billion Dollar Man Berlusconi. From resistance to military action Italy has been squeezed into a role, with sense of rivalry with France. Moreover, the left has now taken a vanguard position in articulation of action. Advocacy of a 'risorgimento also in the Arab world' (the 'resurgence' which brought Italy to nationhood 150 years ago, overturning Spain, Austria and the Papal States) has brought huge popular response for President Napolitano, life long member of the now defunct Communist Party. The leader of the Democratic Party, Bersani, Prime Minister-in-Waiting if egos can bring unity for change, has said that the constitution forbids military action for war, allows it for human rights... this is the leader of the party heir to the former socialist and communist parties. So with the complicity in action of the British Liberal Democrats we have a curious vanguard of 'leftish' or socially-sensitive leaders gunning for what is unmistakably a war. 

It is a very long time (65 years) since J. K Galbraith and others in the assessment of strategic bombing of Europe in WWII concluded that the strategic bombing campaign was a 'disastrous failure' that "at most... eased somewhat the task of ground troops."
The precipitate nature of western action, from which notably China, with its sense of how long history takes to happen, distances itself, reflects the infancy inculcation of our leaders with the speed of action of Sesame Street and the expectation of outcomes in computer games. 

The 150th Anniversary celebration in Italy includes celebration of Garibaldi and others in enabling an infant Rome Republic against French forces invited by the Pope to hold a hill in Rome for some months in 1849 - twelve years before the 150 years ago completion of occupation of all Italy by the Kingdom of Savoy; 21 years before the actual constitutional emergence of an Italian State, over 80 years before settlement of territory and status with the Pope... And as the Times main article on Italy begins: \"Encyclopedia Britannica describes Italy as"less a single nation than a collection of culturally related points in an uncommonly pleasing setting."  

It is time we began scaling and shaping military interventions, as and when conceivably appropriate, by realistic awareness of the time it takes to achieve any kind of outcome in the real world and the very different strategies we need to adopt in the real world. There is a huge element in this war decision not so much of interest in oil but pellmell response to public opinion and adoption of domestically politically advantageous postures: it is frankly bizarre for the Italian left to be advocating for war in the Arab world and Libya in particular — but for the need to get advantage over the Billion Dollar Man who had become a dollar-dealing mate of Gaddafi, resistant to war against him. 

Considering the business in Libya we might paraphrase that last quote about Italy to say that Libya is: "less a single nation than a confusion of culturally diverse points in an uncommonly challenging setting."

now in another world

early February: This note is written from the Seattle-Vancouver BC train. We have been visiting Liz and Mike in Seattle, today heading for Rome. Writing at duemesi.blogspot.com... see you there!

UPDATE: NOW IN ROME IN MARCH, AFTER A MONTH IN SOUTHERN ITALY. 
Living here for a time, not running as a tourist. 

The difference between life here and life in Australia is challenging, broadening, demanding review of what we do at home in many ways. To begin, however, creative processes seem to come to a halt as we learn openly and allow the stresses of past work etc, to filter down out of the system. 

There are nightmares (literally) - you  cannot disengage from things and be in a free space without the subconscious running in all directions for structure, it seems. 

I am somewhat unnerved to find that my Italian returns better than was 40 years ago. Treated as speaking properly in Rome (asked about it in a friendly and welcoming manner) though regarded by many, in the outpost places we have been in, as something from the imperial court or worse. 

There are political issues of great heat, as always but perhaps of greater consequence, with unconstitutional 'reforms' pressed forward by the world's wealthiest head of government concerned mainly with his own good time (an aspiration which links him to a huge spread of the population), while the opposition, so articulate on so many matters, cannot evolve itself into anything or anyone as an alternative government. 

There is an historical moment, with celebrations this week of the 150th anniversary of the conquest of the rest of Italy by the Kingdom of Savoy and establishment of a Kingdom of Italy, something that happened somewhat contrary to the wishes of many involved and still resented by many. Italy remains, as the New York Times quotes Encyclopedia Britannica: "less a single nation than a collection of culturally related points in an uncommonly pleasing setting." 

There are things of great beauty in so many places, with thousands of years of history piled on itself, the weaving together of buildings so different in age itself a matter of magic. There are disturbing things, as with the church in Naples on the Street of the Tribunes (15% of the street seeming to be churches) founded in the height of the counter-reformation, in 1600, a brass skull and cross-bones on its entry rail, an enquiry desk handled by a beautiful young woman, a church committed to saving those in purgatory, diminishing their time there, at one time with sixty masses a day... Such a fortune in churches where people have often till very recently starved and street-begging still present.  

We are also here so close to what has been happening in Tunisia and Libya. While the internet also brings close the events in Japan... This uprooting and transplantation to Rome has the same kind of effect as it had on me 40 years ago, of shifting me out of local and petty preoccupations and perspectives back in Australia. Not that there are not millions of petty and local perspectives around me here... but it is the vast difference that doubles the perspective coming here. 

the story of the end of apartheid on the south coast

I have finally mastered how to move a voice recording from my iPhone. Easy when you stumble on how to do it...

So I have moved recordings I made of Fred Moore, recounting the Aboriginal advancement movement from the 1960s, onto a little web page here. Good to have this up on Australia Day too!

bedroom mural: "Escape from Jervis Bay"

I wrote on 9 November that I had gone into a bedroom to consider what colour to paint the walls but had strangely carried with me not any colour samples or pots of colour but a piece of charcoal. I had duly reported to Helen abashedly saying here, I did this but I'll paint over it. To which she replied no you will not paint over it you will finish the job.

So I have finished Escape from Jervis Bay in charcoal and 'natural paint'. Taken some courage, actually. The theatre-screen-ish drapes are from a Lebanese home via eBay, the accompanying drop curtains have gone to charity shop. Interesting to find that the heavily-flower-patterned Moygashel Irish linen main curtains work very well with the strength of this painted wall. It's not just been a need for courage to put the figures so boldly onto the wall, but also the challenge of the strength of this paint job relative to the rest of the room. Interestingly with this strong treatment of two walls a large nude photo of Margaret from 1977 looks now very isolated on the opposite wall. Must add to that wall, photos not mural. (I have accumulated dozens of picture frames from charity shops and the A3 colour laser machine is producing lovely images.

Art by the Sea

I have four paintings and the three panelled screen in the Art by the Sea group show at the Lady Denman Museum in Huskisson, 18 December-16 January. In a note hung with the screen, I said I had put a catalogue of other work at aplaceof.info - So I've done an artist's statement with some works for sale, here.

There is a great variety of work in the exhibition, wonderfully arranged on the walls at the Denman art space by Judy and John Brown. This a smudgy iphone photo from the opening by Helen Nugent.

This photo taken at home shows how the screen is set up in boudoir mode...

Liz - short work

Click to see at Daily Science Fiction!

Begins thus:

Dear Ms. Moon

by Liz Argall

Dear Mr. Moon Man or Ms. Moon Lady,

I would like very much for gravity to continue to suck or pull or whatever it does, but if you could do so with just a bit more nuance I would be very grateful. 

Writing - Wikileaks

I was pleased to see the New York Times selected a quick little comment of mine as the highlight among 892 comments first day or so of publication by them of extracts from the Wikileaks revealed US diplomatic cables. 


In case that link goes astray, here is my comment (I have corrected spelling of Harlod to Harold here):

HIGHLIGHT (what's this?)

Dennis Argall

Australia

November 29th, 2010

5:31 pm

As a former Australian foreign service officer, accustomed in the past to working closely with US foreign service officers, often sharing each other's cables, I have enjoyed reading cables you released on 28 November. While my government has been doing the obligatory tut-tut, as a private citizen now I believe that the exposure of these texts in this way will redound to US benefit.

It will not hurt those mentioned to hear what is thought of them, especially when State is not guilty of saying it publicly. It will not hurt others to know your officials are hard to fool.

It will be to the general good for the public, including journalists and academics, to see the quality and insight of diplomatic traffic. There is a serious problem in academic as well as media discussion in that so much of it is divined and theorised from inadequate peripheral information. Now it is possible to see how officials build policy and strategy layer by layer, in dialogue with their own government and officials of others.

Do be conscious, in reading it all, though, of the observation of the late Sir Harold Nicholson, doyen of the UK foreign service and writer on diplomacy, that in all the foreign ministry documents in all the world that he had seen, he had never seen a record of conversation in which the person taking the record did not win.

Be open at the Times to fresh perspectives on US power - you suggest the US has lined up Arab states on Iran but it is possible also to see a USA being played like a trout by very powerful and smart Arabs.

If this information elevates debate on the issues, if there is any increased respect for the business of diplomacy, that will be good, for the US and the rest of us. The role of the US in the world is not being 'challenged' so much as being changed and reduced, quite rapidly. More than ever before, it is not possible for the US to say 'this is my role' any more than it is possible to retreat to isolation and indignation. There are real jobs to be done, which cannot be done by people drunk on tea.

three panel wood screen

I have carved relief images on one side of three panels and fitted the panels together with brass hinges. The other side without images, still rough-sawn with some sanding and polishing. My own sense at this moment is taken up entirely by the difficulty of working the Paulownia, which is a bit like carving the inside of a pineapple skin, with some cheddar on the sides. Sort of, not entirely but... Anyway, not time yet to judge whether the screen is merchantable, it should do for hanging photos at the December-January exhibition at the Denman.

If placed as an item for sale, I will put an oval gilt mirror on the centre panel of the blank side (see third photo), also offer a photo shoot and framed photo portrait to decorate it.

Here are two photos of relief-carved side of panels, one of the plain side. Yes, there is a small brassy decoration on that hand, a string of beady things on a top corner. Note that the sides of the heavier, higher central panel have been trimmed straight and vertical, while the side panels (legs on the left, Labrador on right) have not been trimmed at all, the hinges are slightly away from the margin.

the blurry photo

While there is much effort given to the pursuit of the perfect image, there is also much pleasure (even if scary) in the blurry image - here of George, not Jaws, the Labrador, aged 10, taunted by love.

panels for exhibition

As mentioned earlier I wanted to make wood panels to add space to the Denman exhibition over Christmas.

I may in fact have a screen at marketable quality. From paulownia, which I planted in 1993.

I plan three panels for the screen, in zig-zag, at this stage lesser panels (170cm) on either side, a large 2 metre panel in the middle.

The centre panel's sides have been cut to a straight edge. The side panels retain natural tree trunk edge. Hinges will be fitted to the sides of the centre panel and a couple of inches in from an edge of each of the side panels. Foldable, portable, like this   \/\     but right angles to stand in the room.

While sanding the major central panel I found there were three knots in the wood, immediately suggestive of a form (the third was going to be a navel but an arm got in the way so it appears to be a stigmata). Click on images to enlarge, 'back' to return.

So here is the roughed out panel centre panel and the yet to be thought about properly side panels. The leg form of the side panels was determined by stress cracks in the slabs. As art works will hang on these side panels they will not be ornate, may simply be polished as is.

other preoccupations

During the last federal election campaign I worked with others to organise and then chaired a community forum on mental health in the electorate of Gilmore. Five speakers from the mental health community spoke, five candidates responded and there was open discussion.

After the elections, I drafted and secured agreement to letters to the successful and unsuccessful candidates, from the Shoalhaven Mental Health Fellowship. Also to the state member for the South Coast Shelley Hancock. And now can report that in addition to a speech in the federal parliament by Joanna Gash MP, Shelley Hancock has used the correspondence as briefing for a major campaign on the issues, including speaking in the parliament.

The central concern as expressed by the community is that while political parties compete to invent new mental health services it is critical that they sustain and enhance existing services. The most serious underlying issue is of staffing: staffing is so thin on the ground (starting at the top, there is no psychiatrist resident on the NSW coast south of the Shellharbour Hospital) that new programs rob old programs of staff and the most important core community programs are seriously stressed.

You may read the correspondence here.

------------------

As to something completely different, my strength/s or otherwise at 67 mean I have to let go a rural paradise owned (or which has owned me) for twenty years. To see it, click on the photo I took yesterday, at the entry to our own rainforest (or the rainforest that has owned us).

These years have shown me that the most recent thinking about entropy is right. Regardless of our greater or lesser hand on the tiller (or tractor) nature is imposing its order; our place is inside nature. Read Masanobu Fukuoka, understand that all agriculture (all culture perhaps) is attempt to distort the purpose of nature. Conventional agriculture swipes the plate clean, turns it into a level playing field of sorts, imposes its will and poisons whatever gets in the way. Conventional organic farming swaps the industrial chemicals for 'natural' ones. Fukuoka's mahayana-like farming style works within nature.

It has been a major impact on my brain to spend time in that place, further down the coast, now a bit too far. But even this weekend was so rewarding, entranced inside nature, in the house I built to be beautiful and express personality, to command for a moment some equipment, to revisit the complexity of systems for water and power and growing on a farm. Some nice people came to see; it is really a bit overwhelming, in every sense. There is also the problem that land values have shifted the ownership of such a place from the realm of modest hobby. I may have to offer low price, select on merit, hold an exam!

I brought back more slabs to carve or build with. Pelting rain, no photo now...

Having driven 180km home late yesterday through storm, I collapsed as one does before a screen. Some time later, raising my hand with the remote control in it, there on my top knuckle was the tiniest sweetest leech, about 25mm x 1 to 2mm, waving at me. Were I a more patient soul, less given to impulse, I would not have done what I did before taking a photo: alas you have only my word that it was there. Today I have the notion of a tick here, a leech there, but they are fantasy itches, fortunately.

Anyway, click on the photo to see beauty (and buy it, do you dare buy beauty? Perhaps it would be placing yourself in a position to be possessed by, to support, rather than prostitution...)