Ragnar
4mo ago
The 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was not orchestrated by any European power
This is an unfortunate example to have chosen. I just finished reading The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 by Christopher Clark, who goes to great lengths to show the involvement official and semi-official Serbia in the assassination plot.
In particular, Dragutin Dimitrijević (a.k.a. "Apis") was both chief of Serbian military intelligence and a leading member of the Black Hand. According to Clark, he was "the principle architect behind the plot". Serbian officer Major Vojislav Tankosić also played a key role training and arming the Princip and co.
The relationship of the Black Hand and other Serbian irredentist groups to "official" Serbia was also complicated. Lots of members of the Serbian officer corps and intelligence service were more or less openly members, and the groups existed with the tacit approval and often support of the government and its institutions. Indeed, much of the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia concerns demands that "official" Serbia divorce itself from these groups and networks.
Clark also alleges that Prime Minister Nikola Pašić was forewarned of the plot and even tried to send a clumsy warning to the Austrians.
Ragnar
11mo ago
The idea that Bristol's wealth (or Britain's more broadly) was "all funded by the slave trade" is a nonsense.
The slave trade never contributed more than roughly 12% of Bristol's total trade clearances, and that only for a brief period between 1728 and 1732. This may underestimate the trade's economic impact, especially indirectly, but otherwise the trade was consistently <10% of total clearances (pg.4).
To be clear, the slave trade certainly contributed to Bristol's overall trade and economic importance during the 18th century, but it did not fund all, or even most, of it. There's a really good literature review of the historiography of slavery's importance to Britain's economic growth here. (Highly recommended if this topic interests you.)
Ragnar
1yr ago
That's a fair point, but it's literally just the organisation he's president of that's supporting him. In that sense it looks more like self defence than allies rushing to his defence, if you catch my drift. Meanwhile, the regional presidents of the RFEF have released a statement calling for his resignation. And, as far as I'm aware, none of the Spanish clubs or their named senior officials have backed him.
Ragnar
1yr ago
My major takeaway from this episode is that Rubiales must be a real prick.
This incident should have been a nothing burger. An apology along the lines of the one he initially gave about getting caught up in the moment should have been the end of it. The fact that seemingly everyone in Spanish football has queued up to stick the knife in Caesar style, and apparently nobody has come to his defence, indicates that this is not a popular man.
I think you're right about the rest of the dynamics here though - it's more social media mob justice. It does seem to have prompted a criminal investigation now though.
Ragnar
1yr ago
I think I would be somewhat harsh on the father because he didn't even give the justice system a chance. If the men had been tried, found not guilty or gotten away with a slap on the wrist, and then the father killed them, I'd be inclined to give a similar punishment of ~10 years.
I would take the opposite view.
If the justice system has found a person not guilty, that person must be entitled to the full protection of the criminal law. We can't allow vigilantes who disagree with juries to take matters into their own hands and go after people our justice system is unable to prove actually committed an offence.
To do the opposite would impliedly be saying: "despite or because of all our criminal procedure rules and constitutional protections designed to ensure consistency and fairness, we have been unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that this person guilty. Nonetheless, we'll look the other way if different judge decides they probably were guilty anyway".
By what process could this second judge make the decision? Would they hear representations from advocates in advance and declare people found not guilty to be outlaws? Or retry the original allegations a second time as a trial within a trial once vigilante justice has been done, but without the testimony of the newly deceased? And by what evidential standard should this judgement be made? If 12 disinterested strangers were not sure beyond a reasonable doubt that a person was guilty, how sure must a judge be to declare them an outlaw after their deaths?
However disgusted we may be when our justice system lets a guilty man walk, we must remember that it was set up in this way on purpose: "it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer".
I think the most forceful justification for Blackstone's ratio came from John Adams while defending British soldiers charged with murder for their role in the Boston Massacre:
"We find, in the rules laid down by the greatest English Judges, who have been the brightest of mankind; We are to look upon it as more beneficial, that many guilty persons should escape unpunished, than one innocent person should suffer. The reason is, because it’s of more importance to community, that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt should be punished; for guilt and crimes are so frequent in the world, that all of them cannot be punished; and many times they happen in such a manner, that it is not of much consequence to the public, whether they are punished or not. But when innocence itself, is brought to the bar and condemned, especially to die, the subject will exclaim, it is immaterial to me, whether I behave well or ill; for virtue itself, is no security. And if such a sentiment as this, should take place in the mind of the subject, there would be an end to all security what so ever."
Ragnar
1yr ago
Even if true, this is not evidence which distinguishes a lab leak from a market event. I see no reason to believe that "two lab leaks" is less likely than "two separate natural zoonotic events at the market".
If I’m understanding @token_progressive’s point correctly, shouldn’t we expect “two separate lab leaks that spread directly to the same market” to be less likely than “two separate natural zoonotic events at the market”.
The latter only encodes information regarding origin, while former encodes information regarding origin and spread.
As we add more stipulations, the probability must fall, no?
In my view, the case as made in the book is pretty strong that official Serbia bears significant responsibility for the assassination. Clark spends about the first third of the book tracing the history of Serbian irredentism, the relationships between terrorist irredentist groups, and the Serbian officer corps and the civilian politicians. These guys were trying to maintain secrecy and plausible deniability, so by its very nature the case relies on some circumstantial evidence. That said, I wouldn't describe the evidence as "thin" - I found myself pretty well convinced.
If you haven't read it, I expect you'd enjoy Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations. Isreal's targeted assassination programmes have been extensive ever since they began hunting Nazis post-WW2 - the author credits them with "at least" 2,700 since then, which is to say this isn't something the've embraced and normalised recently.
Clearly, whatever our assessment is, at least some important decision makers within the Israeli state think it's an effective means of achieving their goals - and have done for a while for now.
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