City Councils across Britain are calling upon its citizens to become “citizen snoopers”–people who will report on loud neighbours, litterbugs, and even people who take their garbage out on the wrong day. Children as young as seven are being recruited, and so far over 9000 Britainers have signed up.

After basic training, volunteers are expected to be the ‘eyes and the ears’ of the town hall.

They are given information packs about how to collect evidence, including tips about writing down numberplates, which could later be used in criminal prosecutions.

Luton Borough Council’s Street Seen scheme encourages its 650 volunteers to report ‘environmental concerns’. It is also recruiting ‘Junior Street Champions’, aged between seven and 11.

Primary schools could also be involved within two years.

Similarly, Islington Council in north London has recruited 1,200 ‘Islington Eyes’ to report crime hotspots, fly-tipping and excess noise from DIY.

Volunteers are given a list of things to do when confronted with fly-tippers, including taking photos ‘without being seen’.

Last year the council undertook a recruitment drive for youngsters aged nine and above, called Junior Eyes.

Children are given special books to write down reports on littering or graffiti in their schools, which they then send to the council.

A spokesman for Islington town hall said: ‘It’s not possible for the council to see what’s going on in the borough at all times, so our Eyes for Islington are.

I’m not Kreskin (although I am deep and foreboding), but I can pretty much see what’s going to happen to this program: Since not everyone loves a rat like the good folks on council do, the rat-people might do alright for a spell, maybe two days. After a few days of ratting on neighbours and the fines start to pile in, people are going to start to get angry. Not as angry as the gangs in certain areas though. When the neighbourhood folk start to find out the names of the neighbourhood rats, said neighbourhood rats are going to find the boots of neighbourhood folk crashing down on their rat-like skulls.

Little Simon and all the other snoops are going to become targets of angry people with pitchforks. You see, people who put an egg carton inside a green box instead of a blue box aren’t criminals and shouldn’t be fined, but when they are fined because some little puke pervert with binoculars was spying on them, well, I’m telling you right now, even though the Brits are a mellow folkage, they are going to become unglued.

The neighbourhood snoops are a sign of things to come. Government seems intent on pitting neighbour against neighbour. This way, it takes the pressure and hatred off the government and places it on petty rivals between people that have no business hating each other. Americans take note of this–your President for life, Owebama, has already started a program that *trains* kids to become, I’m not sure what they will become, but there will be hundreds of thousands of them and they pretty much hate you and will do anything their leader tells them to do (like, arrest and detain *terrorists*).

Paranoid? Who, me? No. But it doesn’t mean I’m not stacked to the roof with weapons and ammunition, a 6 month survival kit, and a few dozen gold coins.

Contributed by Kate McMillan of Smalldeadanimals.com.

This past weekend  (April 25/26), Finance Minister Jim Flaherty encouraged the G20 countries to rapidly implement their stimulus packages, highlighting that his government provided a greater stimulus budget than the G20 countries agreed was needed. While that may be so, his government’s 2009 budget also turned back the clock on Canada’s 15-year record of sound fiscal management and set the nation back down the path of larger, more interventionalist government. If the Conservative government truly wants a more prosperous Canadian economy, it would do well to return to the austerity policies of the 1990s and put forth a plan to reduce the size of the federal government.

Most Canadians are unfortunately not aware of Canada’s 15-year track record of reducing the size of government (1992-2007). Since peaking in 1992, the size of government in Canada–best measured by total spending at all levels of government as a share of gross domestic product — has decreased from 53% to less than 40%, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. This is a dramatic departure from the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, when Canada leaned towards ever bigger government.

After years of deficit spending that resulted in a serious debt problem, Canadian governments began scaling back spending beginning in the early 1990s. For example, the federal government led by prime minister Jean Chretien and finance minister Paul Martin reduced program spending by nearly 10% between 1994/95 and 1996/97, from $123-billion to $111-billion.

Several provinces also experienced reduced government spending at the provincial and local levels. Specifically, Alberta reduced inflation-adjusted spending by nearly 20% from 1992/93 to 1996/97 under premier Ralph Klein; Ontario reduced provincial-local government spending by 6% from 1994/95 to 1997/98 under premier Mike Harris; and Saskatchewan reduced spending by 11% from 1993/94 to 1996/97 under premier Roy Romanow.

As a result of the spending reductions, further restraint and strong economic growth since the early 1990s (itself partially the result of a smaller government), the size of government in Canada fell to 39.0% of GDP in 2007 before increasing slightly in 2008.

Equally important is the gap between Canada and the United States. In 1992, Canadian governments consumed 36% more of the economy than their counterparts in the United States. By 2008, the gap had decreased to just 3%. Indeed, given President Obama’s recent budget, Canada will likely have a smaller government than the United States within the next few years.

But if government spending creates jobs and increases economic activity as many politicians, journalists and activists currently believe, wouldn’t the decreases in government spending Canada experienced in the 1990’s have negatively affected Canadians and our economy?

To the contrary, as governments reduced and constrained spending, a greater share of the resources in our economy was controlled by individuals, families and businesses rather than governments. The result was a robust economy with average inflation-adjusted economic growth in Canada exceeding that in the United States and every other G7 country since the mid-1990s.

The experience of Canada’s austerity measures is documented along with a number of other countries in an important and comprehensive study published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), “Reforming Public Expenditure in Industrialised Countries: Are there Trade-Offs?”

Economists Ludger Schuknecht and Vito Tanzi studied the economic impact of reductions in the size of government in Canada and elsewhere. They found that Canada was not unique in terms of its dramatic increase in government spending from 1960 through the 1980s. Nor was Canada unique in shrinking its government in the 1990s. Indeed, the size of government in most industrialized countries reached a peak sometime between 1982 and 2002 and in many cases, began to decrease quite dramatically.

Schuknecht and Tanzi grouped countries into two groups: ambitious reformers and timid reformers. Countries were considered ambitious reformers if reductions in government spending as a percentage of GDP exceeded five percentage points. Reformers were also split into early reformers (countries that reached their maximum spending levels by the early to mid 1980s) and late reformers (countries that reached their maximum spending levels by the early to mid 1990s). Canada was classified as an ambitious and late reformer with government spending as a percentage of GDP reaching a maximum in 1992 and decreasing by 12 percentage points by 2002.

Sckuknecht and Tanzi then examined the impact of spending reductions on a host of indicators. A critical finding was that the reductions in the size of government were not accompanied by decreases in economic growth. In fact, in most cases economic growth improved after the reforms took place. In addition, economic growth rose twice as fast among ambitious reformers compared to timid reformers. The lesson for countries is to reduce government spending and do it quickly.

Similar results were found for employment; improvements for ambitious reforming countries were greater than that of timid reformers. The authors also found that the effects on income distribution within countries were small and largely mitigated “by faster growth and by better targeting of public spending”.

While this is of course just one study, a comprehensive body of academic work buttresses the IMF study’s conclusion that the size of government matters when it comes to economic growth and social progress.

After years of significant spending increases, the Conservative government would be wise to return to a spending plan aimed at reducing the size of the federal government. Doing so will provide the fiscal room to reduce economically damaging taxes and create better incentives to encourage economic activity.

The list of potential areas where Canadian governments could reduce or even eliminate spending with very little, if any, consequences on economic growth or social progress is long and includes regional development subsidies, corporate welfare, agricultural supports and broadcast subsidies, to name a few.

Reducing rather than increasing the size of government is the key to a brighter economic future. Our own history provides the evidence.

The Fraser Institute HERE.

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The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia historically has played a major role in the development of jihadism. Key pillars of the Saudi state — oil, Wahhabism (a conservative form of Sunni Islam) and the strength of tribal norms — were instrumental in facilitating the rise of Islamist extremism and terrorism around the world prior to 9/11. These same pillars allowed Riyadh to contain al Qaeda within Saudi Arabia in the wake of the insurgency that kicked off in the kingdom in 2003-2004. After this success on the home front, Riyadh is still using these pillars to play an international role in counterjihadist efforts — a role welcomed by the United States.

During a visit to the kingdom last week, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Saudi rehabilitation program for former militants impressed him, prompting him to consider sending Yemeni detainees at Guantanamo Bay to Saudi Arabia as part of Washington’s efforts to close down the detention center. The Saudis probably have done “as good, if not a better, job of that than almost anybody,” Gates said of the Saudi program. In separate comments, Gates called on Riyadh to assist Pakistan in the latter’s efforts to combat its rapidly expanding Taliban insurgency — and Saudi Arabia in fact has been playing a role in efforts to contain the Taliban insurgency in both Pakistan and Afghanistan for some time.

Clearly, Saudi Arabia is taking a lead role in anti-extremism, counterterrorism and deradicalization efforts. Understanding what the Saudis are doing and how it has permitted them to succeed in this regard will shed light on Riyadh’s domestic successes, and it will indicate what can be expected from its efforts abroad.

Saudi Domestic Counterjihadist Successes
The Saudis have had ample experience in dealing with religious extremists and militants since long before their struggle with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in the aftermath of 9/11. The kingdom’s founder, King Abdel-Aziz, faced a situation similar to that now faced by Pakistan before he defeated the Ikhwan in the 1920s. The Ikhwan (not to be confused with the Egyptian group Ikhwan al-Muslimeen, which is Arabic for “Muslim Brotherhood”) was a tribal religious militia of extremist Wahhabis. Whereas the Pakistanis have nurtured jihadist groups as tools of foreign policy in their dealings with India and Afghanistan, the Ikhwan helped Abdel-Aziz conquer most of present-day Saudi Arabia.

While Abdel-Aziz was not interested in conquering additional territories, the Ikhwan had larger regional ambitions. The group wanted to expand its jihad into places like Iraq, which the British then controlled. Just as Pakistan has found itself caught between its Islamist militant assets and the United States in the aftermath of 9/11, the nascent kingdom had to decide between the Ikhwan and its first Great Power ally, the United Kingdom. Exigencies forced Abdel-Aziz to choose the British, and he put down a subsequent Ikhwan rebellion.

Petrodollars

Notably, this all occurred before the discovery of oil and Saudi Arabia’s subsequent emergence as a petrodollar-rich monarchy (and for that matter, even before the state was known as the “Kingdom of Saudi Arabia”). While the Saudis did not have their present financial resources, they did have one very important tool they wielded successfully against the Ikhwan threat. That tool was religion, which had become a key part of the fabric of the Saudi state since its first incarnation in the mid-1700s. Religion mixed in with a culture based on strong elements of tribalism and familism provided for a strong social contract involving the Saudi royal family, the family of Muhammad bin Abdel-Wahhab (founder of the Wahhabi school of thought) and the masses.

This historic Saudi-Wahhabi alliance has long provided the state with religious legitimacy, which the royal family has used to put down religious dissent on a number of occasions since the Ikhwan uprising. Key among them were the 1979 incident in which a group of Wahhabi militants took over the Kaaba, the dissent within the religious establishment in the aftermath of the 1990-1991 Gulf War, and the 2003-2004 al Qaeda insurgency. The use of religion to consolidate national power has led to a significant blowback, as evident from the global emergence of violent Islamism. But unlike other states, Saudi Arabia has been able to mobilize the tribal, religious, security and commercial spheres of the country against Islamist rebels.

Religion and Tribalism

The secret to the Saudis’ success was turning the rebels’ strongest weapon, religion, back against them. This was possible because the state enjoyed a monopoly over religious discourse thanks to the vast religious establishment that Riyadh had cultivated over the years. Paradoxically, while this religious establishment has been the source of much radicalism in Saudi Arabia and worldwide, it also has served the Saudis well in terms of giving the state a powerful tool with which to quell dissent and preserve the regime.

The tribal nature of Saudi society, with its norms of obedience to those in authority, complemented the state’s religious tools. The Saudi ulema supported by the tribes have laid great emphasis on Quranic notions of obedience to rulers as long as the rulers do not clearly defy Islam. Another important tribal and religious concept is abhorrence of social chaos, which also helped the Saudis isolate the Islamist rebels from the rest of society by arguing that jihadist activity would lead to anarchy.

Tribal social structure imposes a hierarchy that forms a strong bulwark against rebellions by forcing conformity upon the tribes, clans and families. This limits the social space available for rebels to operate in. Tribes cooperate with the authorities in taking action against belligerents, and then they also take responsibility for the “good behavior” of repentant militants.

The power of the tribal norm is such that it is very unlikely that militants could influence enough tribes to mount a successful uprising. The Saudis have had some two-and-a-half centuries’ worth of experience at skillfully managing tribal politics. The rise and fall of the first (1744-1818) and second (1824-1891) Saudi states and the establishment of the modern kingdom in the early 1900s were to a great degree a function of the ruling al-Saud family’s ability to forge tribal alliances.

Prior to 9/11, one Saudi strategy for dealing with products of the Wahhabi establishment who exhibited levels of extremism deemed intolerable involved directing the radicals to fight in war zones like Afghanistan, Central Asia, the Balkans and the Caucasus. This maintained order and security while the rebels were away (and in many cases the radicals died in the fighting). Even after 9/11 — and particularly in the wake of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq — the Saudis employed this approach to defuse domestic tensions and to try to contain increasing Iranian influence in Iraq and the rise of Tehran’s Iraqi Shiite allies.

But U.S.-Saudi tensions in the aftermath of 9/11 reached a point where Riyadh knew this was no longer an option. Consequently, under the guidance of King Abdullah, the kingdom embarked upon a strategy of permanently dealing with the issue through reforms at the governmental and societal levels, a process that is still very much a work in progress. The aim was to curb further extremism, as well as to address existing radicalism.

High oil prices, which lasted until July 2008, gave the country the financial wherewithal to invest in such a major anti-jihadist initiative. But without a powerful religious establishment at its side, the money alone would not have permitted the Saudis to succeed. This religious establishment has played a key role in the country’s rehabilitation program, which is designed to integrate militants who have surrendered or been captured back into society. While financial resources have played a critical role in efforts to bring previously radicalized youths back into the mainstream, the scholars have provided the theological gravitas to counter the jihadist ideology and wean the youths from jihadism.

As mentioned, the process is still in its infancy, and incidents of recidivism have occurred. For example, Said Ali al-Shihri emerged in Yemen as a key leader of the jihadist node on the Arabian Peninsula after undergoing the rehab program. Still, the Saudis’ ability to put a major dent in the capabilities of jihadists in the kingdom and to avoid major backlash to the reform process highlights Riyadh’s successful use of religion to curb extremism.

The jihadist threat within the kingdom remains, but a combination of unique circumstances enabled Saudi Arabia to make considerable progress on the home front. Fears still exist that because of the ultraconservative religious nature of the state, the monarchy might fall and be replaced by a radical regime — especially as the kingdom enters an extended period of transition. But for now, the Saudi situation is stable to the point where the Saudis can look beyond their borders and offer help to other jihadist trouble spots.

Replicating Saudi Counterjihadist Successes

Saudi Arabia’s counterjihadist successes and position as a religious and financial leader of the Islamic world have prompted the United States and countries like Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan to seek Riyadh’s help with jihadist problems.

Yemen

The first such place to do so is just south of the Saudi border. Yemen has become a jihadist hub where Saudi jihadists have regrouped along with their counterparts from Iraq, Somalia and elsewhere under new management. The country also faces other forms of unrest and insecurity that are weakening the state and raising fears of regional instability among Yemen’s wealthier Arab neighbors. For example, Yemen’s north-south divide is re-emerging, meaning that there are two competing nationalisms in the country. As a result, Sanaa and Riyadh have moved toward greater cooperation, especially on the issue of the jihadists; the Saudis can offer financial assistance and advice to the cash-strapped Yemenis regarding the Saudi rehabilitation program.

But unlike Saudi Arabia, where the Saudis have the upper hand in the relationship with the religious establishment, the Yemeni state is dependent upon its religious leaders and upon the Salafist-jihadists who dominate the country’s security establishment. Moreover, Yemen is not as religiously homogenous as Saudi Arabia. While in Saudi Arabia, the religious establishment was strong enough to claim the mantle of Wahhabism and isolate the jihadists as “deviants,” Yemen would have to develop an alternative religious discourse to successfully counter the theological challenge posed by the jihadists. Engendering a mainstream national religious identity takes a long time even for those states endowed with resources, which means there are serious limitations on how far Yemen can expect to succeed in anti-extremism and counterterrorism efforts.

Like Saudi Arabia, Yemeni society is also tribal, but it is much more fragmented than that of its richer, larger neighbor. Unlike Saudi Arabia, where the House of al-Saud sits at the top of the tribal hierarchy, Yemeni tribes are neither as strong nor as organized. Moreover, the Yemeni state is dependent upon the tribes for support — explaining why Saana’s bid to win tribal assistance in dealing with militants has not attained the desired results.

The huge differences in economic conditions, religious hierarchy and tribal structures between Saudi Arabia and Yemen accordingly will make it difficult for Riyadh to reproduce in its southern neighbor the successful results it has enjoyed at home.

Afghanistan and Pakistan

Saudi Arabia enjoys a disproportionate amount of influence over both Pakistan and Afghanistan. For example, Saudi intelligence chief Prince Muqrin has recently been involved in efforts to negotiate with the Afghan Taliban. Likewise, the Pakistani interior minister and the two most senior generals of the Pakistani military have made trips in recent months to the kingdom — most likely not just for monetary assistance, but also to benefit from the Saudi experience in dealing with the Taliban problem.

Ground realities in Afghanistan and Pakistan make these states much more difficult nuts to crack than even Yemen, which shares some basic social similarities with Saudi Arabia. The security situations in Afghanistan and Pakistan are in advanced stages of deterioration (though to different degrees). Both South Asian neighbors face full-blown insurgencies, making it difficult for the respective states to maintain their writ in the affected areas. This is quite different from anything Saudi Arabia has ever faced, and it also is different from Yemen, where the jihadists have not transformed themselves into a guerrilla movement.

On the religious front, Afghanistan and Pakistan lack religious establishments. Instead, they both have highly fragmented religious landscapes consisting of rival Islamist groups, competing Sunni sects and networks of madrassas. Even the two countries’ more mainstream ulema are divided into various groups. Unlike in Saudi Arabia and (to a lesser degree) Yemen, only a tiny minority adheres to Salafist/Wahhabi Islam in Southwest Asia. Even so, the Deobandis (the sect of the Taliban and other Islamist militant groups) are a growing movement, posing a challenge to the Shia and the majority Barelvis (a South Asian form of Sufi Islam).

On the social level, while tribes exist in both South Asian states, they are very weak compared to the Arab states in question. In Afghanistan, the tribal hierarchy is almost nonexistent in terms of being able to project power because of the rise of the mullahs and militia commanders. In Pakistan, the tribes are limited to Pashtun areas, and even there the mullahs and militiamen have significantly degraded the power of the tribal maliks.

These factors place significant limits on how much the Saudis can assist Islamabad or Kabul in their respective counterinsurgency efforts and anti-extremism drives.

For these reasons, the Saudis have focused on trying to broker talks between the Taliban and the Western-backed Karzai regime in Afghanistan. Even on this issue, Riyadh is not having much luck, because the Taliban elements it has been dealing with thus far have been former leaders of the movement, while current Taliban chief Mullah Muhammad Omar and his associates have rejected the idea of talks because they feel they have the upper hand in the insurgency and do not see the West as “staying the course” in their country.

Meanwhile, in Pakistan the Saudis have been focused on efforts to create a consensus among various stakeholders on how to deal with the militancy. Riyadh maintains strong ties with Pakistan, especially with the military establishment and right-of-center forces, particularly the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, as well as with several of the country’s Islamist political parties. As a result, the Saudis may be able to use their financial and energy clout to get the religiously and socially conservative forces in Pakistan to agree to support a major state initiative to contain the violence. But in sharp contrast to the way Riyadh took a focused approach to its own Islamist rebels, Islamabad lacks coherence.

Therefore, given the social fragmentation and complexities of the two South Asian states, the Saudis will not be able to help either Afghanistan or Pakistan much in terms of bringing down the violence those countries face. It can, however, assist in curbing religious extremism by undermining jihadists, given the ideological proximity of the Deobandis and the Wahhabis. But since the Saudis are still working on the ideological front through rehabilitation at home, it will be awhile before they can help others.

Saudi Arabia’s successes in rolling back religious radicalism at home are the result of the confluence of certain unique circumstances that simply do not exist in more troubling jihadist hot spots like Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Saudi example thus offers few lessons for Sanaa, Kabul and Islamabad in dealing with their own situations. Ultimately, while the Saudis will be able to play an important role in providing financial assistance and some help in ideologically undermining Islamist extremism and radicalism, they will be able to do less on the physical battlefield.

Kamran Bokhari  – www.stratfor.com

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