CYBER-ALARMISM
9th September 2002
Timothy Quinn (September) is right about unscrupulous attempts to make our flesh creep from imaginary threats to our technology. Electrical power systems, for instance, are controlled and protected against faults by networks of great ingenuity. Engineers are professional pessimists and have taken steps to prevent faults caused even by problems in the control circuits. All this seems to be beyond the understanding of the cyber-alarmists.
Guy ff. Bellairs
Maderia, Portugal
In the last issue, Timothy Quinn's website was printed incorrectly-apologies. It is www.timothyquinn.com/public/
BRITROCK?NO THANKS
12th September 2002
How depressing to see six pages of Prospect (September) wasted on the kind of pop babble one can read in the likes of the Sunday Times any week. You'll have a style section next. I can't imagine many of your readers give a damn about Britpop.
Michael Burns
Belfast
AMERICAN POWER
27th August 2002
It has not occurred to Robert Kagan (August) that the European weakness about which he writes may in modern conditions be a kind of strength, while America's much-vaunted strength may in practice be weakness.
Some of the reasons for this paradox are as follows. First, against the asymmetry of terror, 13 aircraft carrier fleets are of limited use-as has been demonstrated. Second, the quality and commitment of the men and women in the armed forces are just as important as the gadgetry and the hardware, however expensive. The US military does not score at all highly on this front. Third, dealing with today's threats to global peace and stability and protecting one's national interests demand deep intelligence which penetrates into the heart of local customs and cultures. As Hemingway remarked, if you want to know about revolutions then you must listen to what people are saying to each other in the souks. This kind of work is something at which the Europeans excel, especially the British. Success is not linked to dollars spent. Fourth, the US option of "going it alone," about which Kagan and others in Washington talk, does not exist. More than ever we live in a single security network. America is big and its defence expenditure is big. That is all. It cannot operate around the world, or even defend itself, without the most intimate co-operation of the "weak" Europeans. Size increases vulnerability and reduces flexibility.
The only way in which the Kagan thesis might become valid is if the European political elite are blinkered enough to try to emulate and rival American size by developing an arthritic bloc mentality and by pressing for a single military capability and a single foreign policy. That would crush Europe's secret vigour and vitality and create division and ineffect-uality. Then we would indeed see the European weakness which Kagan wrongly diagnoses but rightly fears.
David Howell
House of Lords
FOR GENTRIFICATION 1
30th August 2002
Nicholas Schoon's solution for our cities (September) is a forlorn hope. Cities are a Victorian invention and have outlived their usefulness. Witness Bristol or Norwich after dark. The city centres are dead because the car has offered consumers what they want: easy parking at out-of-town developments like cinema complexes, retail parks or sports centres. Only those things which are not subject to market forces remain in towns-public libraries, churches, hospitals, town halls, railway stations and museums. The future belongs to places like Orange County in southern California. Here, there's no urban core at all, just endless miles of roads linking mini centres to one another. That's the fate awaiting Britain as car ownership rises and people spend their entire lives without ever setting foot in a city.
Andrew Jones
Folkestone, Kent
FOR GENTRIFICATION 2
27th August 2002
Nicholas Schoon (September) argues that boosting the housing market in inner cities is crucial to gentrificat-ion and regeneration. What he doesn't say is that this has been achieved where-as in his examples of Islington and Camden-there was an existing stock of old housing which could easily be turned into pleasant and prestigious homes. But very little such property is left in our cities for renovation. In Liverpool, for example, many acres of Georgian streets and squares have been cleared since the war-and still today there are listed 18th-century buildings being demolished.
Chris Tryhorn
South Croydon, Surrey
AMERICAN TELLY
9th September 2002
Whilst agreeing with the thrust of Andrew Billen's article (August) about American television drama, he does your British writers a disservice. You have at least one, William Ivory, who can match, if not exceed, the best that American writers can offer. Indeed, the less generous of spirit might suggest that Six Feet Under is based on his The Sins, which was broadcast a year or two back on the BBC, and won an award from the American Mystery Writers Guild.
Drew Borrett
Sneem, Ireland
IS PRISON A BARGAIN? 1
11th September 2002
In his simplistic weighing of the costs of recidivism against the costs of prison, David G Green (September) says that 80,000 more prison places should be created to imprison all 100,000 persistent offenders rather than the 20,000 locked up at any time. The white paper he cites demonstrates why this is not a solution: "this year's 100,000 will not be the same as next year's 100,000." In fact, it is estimated that a fifth of that 100,000 will stop re-offending next year, to be replaced by others. In order to avoid a perpetually growing prison population, Green would have to be able to identify in any given year the (estimated) 20,000 amongst the normally persistent offenders in the prison population that would not re-offend if released. At this point he would have to confront the harsh reality that he is dealing with people, not statistics.
Finally, Green's assertion that Labour's intention to be "tough on the causes" was designed to appease liberal intellectuals is belied by the description of the same 100,000 persistent offenders: "Nearly two thirds are hard drug users. Three quarters are out of work. More than a third were in care as children. Half have no qualifications and 45 per cent were excluded from school."
Duncan Sinclair
Brussels, Belgium
IS PRISON A BARGAIN? 2
7th September 2002
There may be a case for increased use of prison, but David G Green's claims for economic benefits do not stand up. He claims that 100,000 regular offenders are responsible for "roughly half of all crime" and jumps to the conclusion that they are therefore causing half the total cost. But the official figures he relies on show that persistent criminals commit offences which are overwhelmingly relatively trivial. Recidivists are also less and less likely to be re-convicted as they grow older: 84 per cent within two years among those between 14 and 17, but only 38 per cent among the over 35s. Green implies that all 100,000 should be locked up indefinitely; a poor return as they age. Of course, while a criminal is inside he cannot steal my car. But prison is the most effective training ground for future offences.
Next time Green burrows into the crime statistics, he might note the sharp reduction since 1995. The press has created the impression of a crime wave by stirring up fears of violence and street robbery. True, these have doubled since 1995, but still account for less than 5 per cent of all theft, while the greater part of the increase is accounted for by the relatively new offence of one adolescent stealing another's mobile.
Harvey Cole
Winchester, Hampshire
DEFENDING SAUDI ARABIA
10th September 2002
In his disdainful rejoinder (September) to Michael Lind's assessment of the distortive influence of the pro-Zionist lobby on US politics and foreign policy, Adam Garfinkle echoes the over-rehearsed argument that, as "the mostly Saudi terrorists listed US presence on Saudi soil and US policy towards Iraq as their big complaints," Palestine cannot have been the prime factor motivating their act of terror. He goes on to load blame for 11th September onto the Saudi regime, for "providing a social and religious milieu that incubates hatred for foreigners and then deflects that hatred onto the US and Israel." This argument confuses symptom with cause. Surely the regrettable antagonism so evident today within the Islamic world towards the US and its military presence has its origin in growing frustration at the extent of US acquiescence in Israel's interminable occupation of Palestinian land beyond its own frontiers. Indeed Garfinkle himself reinforces the sense of grievance by dismissing these boundaries as "geographically ridiculous" armistice lines. As for his allegation of Saudi perfidy, it is a gross exaggeration to talk of a society characterised by hatred for foreigners. What does exist is a wariness, resulting from a history of religious puritanism and cultural isolation, which is receding with every year. Nor is it any part of the Saudi regime's policy to encourage animosity towards the US. Quite the reverse; look at their record of close cooperation in Afghanistan.
Alan Munro, ex-British
ambassador to Saudi Arabia
SENSE ON ANTISEMITISM
27th August 2002
Antony Lerman makes some valid points (August), but he sets up and knocks down too many straw men. He quotes Bernard Lewis, for example, on how antisemitism is an export from Europe and particularly Nazi Germany to the middle east. This seems to stem from the view that the rest of the world was an Eden, spoiled by the coming of western civilisation. If the Nazis influenced the mufti of Jerusalem to launch the anti-Jewish riots in the Holy Land in 1929, they did not find it a hard idea to sell. And how does one then account for the 47 Jews killed by the Arab mob in 1921? Perhaps they got advance copies of Mein Kampf? The truth is that there are many passages in the Koran that reflect the hatred for the children of Isaac by the children of Ishmael. Nor is the word of the Koran ameliorated by a gentle priesthood.
Let us not forget that liberal Europe does not approach the discussion with entirely clean hands. Why did its press readily spread the lies of the Arabs about the "massacre" of Jenin? While the US has launched relatively indiscriminate war from the skies of Belgrade and Kandahar, the Israeli army is pilloried for a careful, house-to-house campaign which cost more of its soldiers' lives than it had to.
Occam's Razor tells us that the simplest explanation is the preferred one and history shows hatred of the Jews is far from a rare occurrence. The author forgets that just because you are paranoid, it doesn't mean you don't have enemies. Lerman puts great store in the current affluence and assimilation of the Jews of Europe. In 1900, the Jews of Germany were the most affluent and assimilated Jews of Europe, living in a country regarded as a light of learning and wisdom.
Captain Rick Jacobs (retired)
New Orleans, Louisiana
