This post is longer and more complicated than most. The preference is to keep them simple but
sometimes it is not always possible.
One blog that often has things of deeper interest as well as
some technical discussion on how it is all done, is Bruce Schneier, whose
expertise is in security and its management and governance.
He picked up on a post by Jacobin (see below) about the
essential policy and idea of security and how it is governed.
Quote:
What do these three implications
-- states have a great deal of freedom to determine what threatens a people and
how to respond to those threats, and in making those determinations, they are
influenced by the interests and ideologies of their primary constituencies.
States have strong incentives and
have been given strong justifications for exaggerating threats; and while
states aspire, rhetorically, to a unity of will and judgment, they seldom
achieve it in practice -- tell us about the relationship between security and
freedom?
What light do they shed on the
question of why security is such a potent argument for the suppression of
rights and liberties?
Security is an ideal language for
suppressing rights because it combines a universality and neutrality in
rhetoric with a particularity and partiality in practice. Security is a good
that everyone needs, and, we assume, that everyone needs in the same way and to
the same degree.
It is "the most vital of all
interests," John Stuart Mill wrote, which no one can "possibly do
without." Though Mill was referring here to the security of persons rather
than of nations or states, his argument about personal security is often
extended to nations and states, which are conceived to be persons writ large.
Unlike other values -- say justice
or equality -- the need for and definition of security is not supposed to be
dependent upon our beliefs or other interests and it is not supposed to favor
any one set of beliefs or interests. It is the necessary condition for the
pursuit of any belief or interest, regardless of who holds that belief or has
that interest. It is a good, as I've said, that is universal and neutral. That's
the theory.
The reality, as we have seen, is
altogether different. The practice of security involves a state that is rife
with diverse and competing ideologies and interests, and these ideologies and
interests fundamentally help determine whether threats become a focus of
attention, and how they are perceived and mobilized against.
The provision of security requires
resources, which are not limitless. They must be distributed according to some
calculus, which, like the distribution calculus of any other resource (say
income or education), will reflect controversial and contested assumption about
justice and will be the subject of debate.
National security is as political
as Social Security, and just as we argue about the latter, so do we argue about
the former.
Unquote
The above derives from a long post which is an analysis of
the State and Security in terms suggested by the philosopher, Thomas Hobbes
(see Wikipedia) by Jacobin, link below.
What it is driving at is that states tend to want to keep security as a
“non political” function when in reality it is just as political as any other
aspect of government. It is a serious
piece and not for skip reading.
Although it might seem unrelated the question of Cyprus banking,
its perilous state, and the need for major European bail outs to survive do not
look at first sight to be a security matter.
Unluckily it is just that.
Because the banks in real trouble in Cyprus have
been central to extensive massive money laundering activities of funny money,
allegedly these are substantially Russian interests. Whether these are the same Russians who are
being welcomed into the UK
to prop up our financial system is not clear.
This subject has been picked up by Zero Hedge, link below,
setting out the severe risks that this entails for Europe . The Slog has also commented on the
issue. If Europe bails out Cyprus it is
paying off the hoods.
If it does not bail out Cyprus then fuses may start to blow
and who knows what the hoods might do?
Suddenly, a lot of places could find themselves with major internal and
security problems that they are not prepared for.
Beyond, it is alleged to have impacted with serious effects
on both Northern Europe and across the
Northern Hemisphere. How far its reach
was world wide is a subject of debate.
So if the Cyprus
issue leads to all sorts of difficulties and other problems, it would not be
the first time that a big bang in that vicinity led to bigger bangs of another
sort. One suggestion is that it might affect the German elections coming up soon.
One awkward question which might become an election issue in
the UK is if we find
ourselves faced with demands for Russian bail outs via Europe
on security grounds. It is possible that
the US State Department hasn’t got round to that one. If they have then this might explain their desire
for the UK and The City to
be in Europe .
Because someone is going to have to pay and neither Moscow
nor Washington DC will want to.
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