Tuesday, 20 May 2014

Trust

For years there have been news stories decrying the appalling acts of violence by the Taliban against health workers engaged in polio vaccination programmes. These attacks have resulted in an increase in polio cases, most notably in Pakistan.



Reports by the Taliban that the health workers were engaged in covert operations for US intelligence agencies have, until yesterday, always been strenuously denied. Now we know that the Taliban spoke the truth. 

Those vaccination programmes were used by the CIA to gather DNA from the children in order to attempt identification of Osama Bin Laden's relatives. He was killed in 2011, and so even if it was considered acceptable to undertake such actions there would appear to be little justification for continuing with this subterfuge beyond that date. But it did continue, as did the denials.

The activities of those individuals who undertake to expose government lies eventually created the pressure that forced the US government to respond, and so now they admit what they were doing, and also agree that it should not ever happen again.

So that's all OK then?

We can all return to a position of trusting the US?

How do we view the Taliban now that we know they had assessed the actions of the US more accurately than many of us had?

Has our faith in the great western power been damaged?

Our critical view of the Taliban softened at all?

Or do we believe that the delay it suspending the use of health workers in covert CIA operations was necessary. The US needed time to design and implement some other covert operation. We can be sure some other method of intelligence gathering has been introduced. 

No doubt in a few years this new method will be denied, and a few years later the US will apologise, and so the cycle of lies, denial, exposure and apology will continue.

This story has lessons for us all, because trust is not something that can be played around with, tweaked and spun to suit different situations.

We trust a person, or a government, or we don't.

Although it is argued by some that trust can be very dependent on situations, others are less willing to accept this. If a man cannot be trusted to remain faithful to his wife can we trust him as a politician, or a councillor? Is he trustworthy? 

Most people who have gained experience in life understand stable character traits. It is certainly conceivable that a person can be fiercely loyal to his tribe, but cheat and lie in dealing with any out group, those he does not feel any loyalty to.

Think of Brian Burke, if you were Connell, Horgan or Bond, you could probably trust BB. Others, not in his gang, would be foolish to do so. His friends supported him totally, and the same was true of Alan Bond. The losers when he was allegedly bankrupt probably don't see Bondie as a great bloke, but there are many Australian leaders who saw nothing wrong in him 'managing' his affairs purely for the benefit of himself and his family members. They still don't.

Of course we can all be rehabilitated from a position where we behave badly, but we also know that those who habitually lie, cheat, and deceive their way through life do not readily abandon such strategies. It will take more than a letter from a junior government official to alter mindsets throughout the CIA. Those who followed the CCC investigations into the manipulation of Busselton shire will probably recognise that Brian Burke had not changed his modus operandi significantly since his days as Premier of WA.

Closer to home we can examine some of the information published by AMRSC, and our state planning agencies. Documents from these institutions have lied to the community. The lies were admitted, either directly or indirectly. The current shire president offers nothing more than a limp explanation and a comment that he doesn't want to look at the past. He wants to continue making progress forward, presumably in the same way as he made progress in the past.

When lies within a document were reported to the shire CEO his response was that it was 'perfectly normal' for such material to be published in support of a planning application. Normal in the world he inhabits. Is it normal in your world? Are we comfortable with an administration that accepts anything other than the truth and accuracy in reports supporting decisions made by Council? 

The Minister for Planning agreed that the community had been lied to, but it was acceptable to him because it was at an early stage in the planning process.

Where to from here? Will the revelations that the Taliban were right and the US lying invoke a paradigm shift in the way we think about who we trust?

I doubt we will see any great changes in the near future, but if the polio vaccination news story resonates with the public at all it should act as a reminder that truthful honest people can be found in unexpected places, that power can corrupt, and trust is not easily repaired.

Of course It is easier to reject stories of collusion and conspiracy as too fanciful, than it is to unravel the tentacles of corruption that threaten our democracy. Easier to just continue believing that we live in a free democratic society, than it would be to consider how our democracy might have been eroded? 

Easier to continue to believe that we have councillors who represent us, than it would be to reflect deeply on who their decisions actually favour?

Should we always follow the easiest route through life?

Why not? The sun's shining - let's all go to the beach.