"No one has been harmed, but should anyone come to harm of course that would be a matter of deep regret - our goal is justice to innocents, not to harm them. That said, if we were forced into a position of publishing all of the archives or none of the archives we would publish all of the archives because it’s extremely important to the history of this war."

Julian Assange, the man responsible for publishing 92,000 classified documents on the ongoing war in Afghanistan, has been hailed as a hero by some.  But I very much doubt his purportedly noble intentions.  The quote above informs me that he is rather cavalier about the lives which might be harmed as a result of his leaks.

"No one has been harmed" is his sweeping response to the question that the documents might contain sensitive information which may endanger lives.  I don’t find that believable.  He published 92,000 documents.  He did not have the time to read every one of them, and identify the documents which contain sensitive information and withhold the publication of those or redact them.  Is he now claiming that there is not a single document which might disclose sensitive information that would put the lives of soldiers or informants as risk ?

The Times of London claims that "in just two hours of searching the WikiLeaks archive, the Times found the names of dozens of Afghans credited with providing detailed intelligence to US forces. Their villages are given for identification and also, in many cases, their fathers’ names. US officers recorded detailed logs of the information fed to them by named local informants, particularly tribal elders.  Among the documents is a report from 2008 that includes a detailed interview with a Taliban fighter considering defection. He is named, with both his father’s name and village included."

I can’t verify if the foregoing is true.  But Assange’s retort is that "should anyone come to harm" appears to be "too bad — I would rather that people die, than miss this opportunity to gain notoriety".  Which sounds a lot worse than the accusations which Assange levels against countries such as the US, of indiscriminately killing civilians in the course of prosecuting the (unjust) Afghan war.

Assange’s decision to approach three newspapers with the documents prior to the publication on Wikileaks also suggests that he was seeking a quick way to gain notoriety and to translate raw information which would otherwise be generally unintelligible to him.

In an interview, Assange suggested if any document "clearly jeopardised innocent people" that document would be withdrawn from disclosure and added to a store of 15,000 documents which he has withheld from disclosure.  Which sounds awfully helpful given that such information would already be circulating in the public domain.

I think that if Assange were truly responsible, truly devoted to the lofty ideal of transparency in Government, and truly concerned about the prosecution of a just war and the loss of innocent lives, he could have scrutinised the documents and picked out several samples for disclosure (with sensitive information redacted where necessary), to demonstrate his theory that civilians were being killed indiscriminately and that war crimes were being committed. 

There was absolutely no need to publish 92,000 documents in order for Assange to achieve his objective (I’m assuming this objective to be the lofty pursuit of transpanrency in Government, protecting innocent lives and a just war).  Just a few particularly incriminating samples would have sufficed.

Alternatively, Assange can travel to Afghanistan and cover the war as a journalist.  I’d very much like to see that.

Personally, I hope that he and his co-conspirators will be put away for a long time for his / their irresponsible acts.  Or maybe they should just all be shipped to Afghanistan.

Singapore has revised its 2010 economic growth forecast "to a blistering 13 to 15 percent, outstripping estimates of around 10 percent growth in regional powerhouse China" : see ChannelNewsAsia report.

I’m not sure of the extent which the two newly opened casinos (or "Integrated Resorts" as we call them) are responsible, directly or indirectly, for this.  But I assume that their (positive) impact on the economy is not insignificant.

And I also note the frequent media reports of people, quite often Singaporeans, being convicted of stealing and cheating at the casino.  And stories (which I can’t confirm) that charities / non-profit organisations have seen a rise in gambling cases being referred to them, either for treatment of gambling addiction or for financial assistance.

Which begs the question - at what price have we achieved this economic growth ?

Two recent news items which caught my attention are reports of the appeal against the November 2009 European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) decision to ban the display of crucifixes in Italian classrooms (read two AP reports on Yahoo! here and here), and of a statue of three women being demolished by Islamic fundamentalists in Indonesia because of its apparent resemblance to the Christian Holy Trinity (read the TIME article at Yahoo! here).

Strip away the civility of the ECHR judicial process, dressed in the fig leaf of human rights, and the incivility of the Indonesian extra-judicial process, shamelessly exposed, what does this tell us about the state of religious (in)tolerance in Europe and in Indonesia ? 

(Well, maybe that the two don’t diverge very much).

I’m just started reading Deepest Differences, which is a compilation of friendly e-mails exchanged between its Christian (James W Sire) and atheist (Carl Peraino) authors, on their faith / non-faith.

At the beginning of the book, the co-authors pen in the final paragraph of the acknowledgements page -

"Finally, Jim [ the Christian ] thanks God for giving him a long life with a mind fascinated by the mysteries of God and his universe.  Carl [ the atheist ] feels fortunate that he emerged into sentience in a relatively benign environment via the concatenation of innumerable chance events spanning millions of years of evolution."

I find the second sentence amusing.  The book looks promising.

Mr Philip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudical Executions, recently presented his 2009/10 report to the UN Human Rights Council.  One of the addendums to the report was a Study on Targeted Killings, which criticised the US’ use of drone attacks.

The US Central Intelligence Agency reportedly controls a fleet of drone aircraft from its headquarters in Langley, Virginia.  Drone attacks on hostile targets in Afghanistan and Iraq are also remotely carried out from Virginia.

The arguments for and against (mainly against) the legality of drone attacks under international law make an interesting read, though I’m sure that not a few American soldiers who would otherwise have to place themselves in the line of fire will have positive things to say about drones, whatever the academics may exhort.

What I found particularly ironic, was this comment at paragraph 84 of the Study :

"Furthermore, because operators are based thousands of miles away from the battlefield, and undertake operations entirely through computer screens and remote audiofeed, there is a risk of developing a “Playstation” mentality to killing …"

By his use of the word "Playstation", Mr Alston was suggesting that drone operators based in Virginia, far removed from the realities of the battlefield in Afghanistan, would have fewer inhibitions in authorising an attack.

I think the same criticism may be levelled against academics.  Far removed from the realities of the battlefield, would academics also not have fewer inhibitions in advancing narrow interpretations of international humanitarian law, which would place soldiers’ lives at greater risk ?

In a sure demonstration of our maturity as a democracy, it appears that one of the few demonstrations which will be held in Singapore’s recent history will be the protest at Hong Lim Park on 5 June 2010, against the high cable TV prices for subscription to watch the 2010 World Cup.

I can’t wait to read Jed’s history textbook when he enters secondary school six years from now.  While demonstrations are being held in other parts of the world over issues such as democracy (Bangkok), environment (Missisipi), or unilateral aggression (South Korea), our history books will record this protest against high cable TV prices as one of the Singapore’s first demonstrations.

I don’t think it is fair to blame the local cable TV service providers for the high subscription fees.  FIFA is apparently charging an enormous fee for broadcast rights.  Several reports note that FIFA will earn more revenue from broadcast rights for the 2010 World Cup, than the two previous world cups combined, without any significant increase in viewership : read this and this.  FIFA has stated in its 2009 Financial Report that in the preceding year,

"FIFA’s events generated USD 1,022 million of the total revenue of USD 1,059 million, i.e. 97%. The lion’s share of this figure was attributable to the sale of television (USD 650 million) and marketing (USD 277 million) rights …"

and that its massive 2011 - 2014 budget would financed by a future revenue stream, of which USD 3.2 billion is already almost certainly in hand

"The budget for the 2011-2014 period was drawn up as part of the comprehensive, detailed budgeting process which began in June 2009.  The process involved firstly calculating future revenue, which is made up on the one hand of revenue from contracts that have already been concluded, to the value of USD 3.2 billion, and on the other from projected additional revenue potential of USD 0.6 billion."

(Incidentally, FIFA has registered trademarks in apparently non-descript combinations of words such as "2010 South Africa", "South Africa 2010", "SA 2010" and "ZA 2010"). 

So who is profiteering here ? 

If Singaporeans wish to make a point, we should boycott the 2010 World Cup or better yet, any FIFA broadcast or merchandise, altogether.  That means not watching a single World Cup match, whether by subscribing to cable TV or at the pub (or community centre).  And as a purely symbolic gesture, Singapore should refuse to participate in the next World Cup.  (Note : Singapore was trounced 0-7 by Palestine in the qualifying match, so our participation or non-participation really doesn’t make a difference).

The wisdom underlying the Government’s decision to (allow / encourage the) set up two private cable TV providers in such a small market, in the same way that it had (allowed / encouraged the) set up of two private mass transport providers operating separate subway lines, for the purposes of creating some form of "competition", still eludes my finite mind, and the current unhappy outcome may perhaps be attributed to this wisdom-which-eludes-my-mind.

However, some of the most bizarre comments which I’ve read on the Internet to date, are Singaporeans blaming the Government for failing to intervene so that we can watch the World Cup more cheaply. 

I can see why we would demand limited Government intervention to help poor families place food on the table and to send kids to school. 

But to watch the World Cup ?

I just love this quote which Constance Singam, former President of AWARE, borrowed from British Philosopher Stephen Law, for her article "State’s Decisions a Threat to Secular Society" (20 May 2010).  Attempting to define what a secular society is about, Stephan Law (ironically writing in a Journal called Think) proposes -

"It protects freedoms: the freedom to believe or not believe, worship or not worship. It is founded on basic principles framed independently of any particular religious, or indeed, atheist, point of view: principles to which we ought to be able to sign up whether we are religious or not."

It sounds clever but I would like to know what those principles "framed independently of any particular religious or … atheist point of view" are.  If principles are not derived from any religious view or atheist (non-religious) view, where do we get principles from ?

As the "secular society" which Constance Singam is advocating is based on the above flawed if not totally meaningless definition, I’m afraid I can’t take what she says very seriously.

On the plane to India last week I watched The Book of Eli. Not my first choice of movie fare because I’d rather watch a romantic or brain-dead comedy, like American Pie.

It turned out to be worth my time. The movie is about Eli, who has been walking west across America for 30 years. America which has become a total wasteland after a nuclear war. Blaming religion for the war, every copy of the Bible has been destroyed. Furthermore, the world has become a lawless civilization where people rape, and rob and kill for water, or for food (cannibalism), or just for fun. Eli has the final copy of the Bible, and is in his words has been guided by a higher power to protect and bring that book to a place which will use it for good.

There were several interesting themes in this movie. One being religion as a force which can be manipulated to subjugate the weak-willed. A town leader in this movie has been hunting desperately for a copy of the Bible, and he hunts Eli mercilessly for the Bible. Asked for his reason he says

"It’s not just a fucking book, it’s a weapon aimed at the hearts and minds of the weak and desperate, if we’re to rule one more small fucking town, we need that book, people will come from all over the world if the word’s from the book."

I can’t disagree with the opinion that religion can and has been used to manipulate people, sometimes for wicked ends. 

But I prefer the other theme and view proferred by the movie : how depraved humanity fundamentally is, and how depraved society can become without God. Secular humanism believes that man is better without God. Society is currently in love with the idea that we can arrive at good (or even better) decisions as individuals and as a community without the moral guidance of religion. This movie, not made by Christians, strips away the view that people are fundamentally good, and that they are better without God.

Burn the Bibles, and maybe this is how great a civilisation we’ll become.

On the same day that the media reports that Iran intends to Islamise the humanities in Iran, because it is too "Western", also comes news that an Iranian couple was fined by the Thai police for having sex on a beach in Pattaya.

In all of India and I’ve noticed in particular Mumbai, there is a tremendous gap between the rich and poor.  The latter live in the most squalid conditions imaginable.  Or to put it another way, it is quite unimaginable that anyone could live like this.  But it is there, in your face, on almost every other street, in Mumbai.

On the second last day of my recent trip to India, a local colleague was kind enough to take me around Mumbai and out for dinner.

Over dinner she told me that when she first brought her son to Singapore for a visit, he asked her "Mummy, are there no poor people in Singapore ?".

Nothing, I told her, like in Mumbai.