Nagging Doubts on Climate Change?

There is a well-organized, well-funded effort to confuse you about climate change. It features certain scientists who comfort us with assurances that we're actually doing really well and that the global warming crowd are merely alarmists.

This movement has done its job quite well. They've found a welcome audience in those who don't want to believe the threats are real.

Here's the catch. By the time GHG emissions reach the point where they've changed our climate enough to persuade even the disbelievers - it'll be much too late to do anything very helpful to stop it.

Here's another way to look at it. Imagine you've chartered a jet. Inside the cockpit are a pilot, a co-pilot and a flight engineer. Halfway to your destination the pilot calls you up to the cockpit to tell you the aircraft has a leaky fuel tank and there's just enough left to set down safely at the nearest airport. The co-pilot agrees that you're running out of fuel and the aircraft has to be set down quickly. The flight engineer, however, disagrees. He says not to worry, the fuel gauge is probably just not working. He says just keep going.

It's up to you. You can either tell the pilot to land the aircraft or you can take your chances and keep going. Let me guess what you would choose. Assuming you're sane you would want the plane on the ground ASAP. Maybe the gauge is wonky but the place to sort that out is once you're on the ground.

There's a chance, a slight chance the global warming scientific community is wrong. That doesn't mean you bet your kids' lives on it - or would you?

Steve Bell,

The Guardian

Another Dave Moment

Brigadier General David Fraser is unusual. He says curious things. The departing commander of Canadian and NATO troops in southern Afghanistan has given a farewell interview to the Globe. In it he justifies the Afghanistan mission by claiming that it's better we fight the Taliban over there than let them bring the fight to us in Canada.

Wait a second, Dave. This is the Taliban we're talking about, not al-Qaeda. The Taliban are a nasty, oppressive bunch of religious fanatics with a completely medieval outlook but they're not globetrotters. The Taliban have no history of attacking other nations not even when they were in power. Their focus is inward. They want Kabul and are determined to get it.

Maybe Dave should give us some good reason to believe the Taliban are a real danger to Toronto. Of course, he won't. General Fraser just says weird stuff. At Panjwai he told us he had the Taliban surrounded, trapped. When it turned out the bad guys were quite free to leave Panjwai in good order with their weapons and without Dave knowing about it, he proclaimed a great victory and announced he'd driven the Taliban out of Panjwai district for good. Oddly enough he's been fighting off Taliban attacks in Panjwai ever since.

In a Toronto Star interview, Fraser said that Canadian critics of "the mission" were more dangerous than the Taliban. Huh? Did he really say that? Yes he did.

The Globe interview faithfully recites General Fraser's bluster. Odd the reporter didn't ask what Dave thought of Hamid Karzai's overtures seeking negotiations with the Taliban.

What If They're Right? What If?

What if there is no Global Warming? What if they're right? What if it's all made up? What if? How about it would be the first and only time in the history of modern science that a genuine scientific concensus of this magnitude was actually wrong. It would mean that the underminers, the guys whose fly-by-night, non peer-reviewed research Big Oil throws at us, were right.

Run that through your mind a couple of times, toss it around, and decide what you really think the chances are that the global warming scientific community has this one wrong.

If the side that's has always been right for us in the past actually is right on this one, as the overwhelming majority insists, we need to get past the naysayers and stop letting them hurl obstacles in our way. That goes for Little Stevie too. Harper has to decide whether he's going to Stand Up For Canada or just stand up for the tar sands.

Let's Get Off This Wagon

If you're like me - and I know that at some level you are - you may be getting Headline Fatigue - a famous syndrome I just discovered where you notice you're reading the same headine - day after day after day - but someone just keeps changing the number.

I just see "Baghdad" and 31 or Baghdad and 40, 22 or 60. The story is always the same. This militia did this to that one or a convoy of police trainees or just some poor Shia or Sunni who managed to get caught at the wrong roadblock. The few facts that distinguish one victim from the next have lost meaning. It's the same story, over and over again.

You wouldn't put up with this many re-runs from your cable provider. Why are we accepting this from our government providers?

We, in the outer circle, need to start pressing inward to make these clowns start acknowledging reality. We have to get back to that safe zone again so that we can begin talking to the other side. Washington has to talk to Syria, it has to talk to Iran, and the Palestinians, and the democracy activists who undermine their cozies with Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

This insanity has got to stop. But. then again, consider this:

Oh, For the Good Old Days

Remember when this was how we defined "crisis"?

Blame Greenland

When global warming really wreaks havoc on the planet, we can all blame Greenland. Yes, that's right, Greenland. I mean, after all, how can anyone trust an icebound country that calls itself green?

The fact is that Greenland is going to kill an awful lot of people, many millions and perhaps more. According to the British government's chief scientific advisor, Sir David King, the battle to arrest global warming has to be won before the melting of the great Greenland ice sheet becomes irreversible.

What's the deal with this ice sheet? For starters, it's really big, hence the name "great." It's big enough that, if it melts, it'll send sea levels rising 20-feet. Bye, bye New York; bye, bye London as well as vast swathes of Holland, a great deal of the South Pacific and south Asia - hell, everywhere!

Sir Dave's approach is to target GHG reduction efforts at saving the great ice sheet. Just what that means remains to be discovered but, hey, it's a good start.

Truer Words

Give Dick Cheney credit, he sometimes tells the truth even when he doesn't mean to. Now he's saying that Iraq violence is linked to the American election. Duh. Cheney and his gang have been using Iraq violence to grease their victories since 2002. The whole Bush administration has been fueled by violence, real or imagined, by or against Iraq. It saved their asses in 2004, that and a good dollop of chicanery in Ohio. Now, however, it doesn't seem to be working the same magic for the Repugs so let's use it again anyway, this time as a crutch.

Peacekeeping - A Quaint Notion?

Canada's newly-minted, "red meat" crowd like to bellow that peacekeeping is a thing of the past, irrelevant in today's infinitely more dangerous world. Who the hell says?

Is the problem peacekeeping or the shrinking amount of peace worth trying to keep? In the Busharama era of clumsy megapower blundering, we're not getting a lot of people to the table to make peace that kind, well-intentioned nations like Canada can send forces to help keep.

I really don't care how many times Globe editorialist Marcus Gee and other dimbulbs of his ilk proclaim that peacekeeping is dead, irrelevant - it's not and, so long as mankind retains any hope of a future, it never will be.

Follow their argument along. Peacekeeping is passe. Therefore, what? Why, therefore we redirect the efforts of our personnel into 21st century, hi-tech mayhem. That seems to be the default option. It isn't even debatable. If you can't be bothered to keep people from killing each other you might as well get yourself up to your neck in blood. It's like the world is critically short of people to blast away at other people. Get real.

Rambo was just a movie. Let's fight wars but only the wars we really need to fight. There are plenty of other countries that indulge their trigger happy appetites.

Countries that ought to be peacekeeping are now transforming themselves into Bush's Foreign Legion, sending their young men and women in to places where America has already screwed up. What's with that anyway? NATO = FUBAR?

Afghanistan isn't about fighting terrorism, it's about taking one side in an incredibly long-running civil war. It's about wasting the lives of Canadian soldiers to wipe GWB's backside. Enough.

A Ray of Hope - The Washington Post

Today the Washington Post editors came out swinging to urge their president to finally act and act decisively on climate change:


"AFTER THE coming election, President Bush is likely to face a Congress more apt than the current one to take strong action on climate change. He will then face a fateful choice: Does he want to spend his final two years in office blocking action and pretending that voluntary curbs on greenhouse gases will solve the problem of global warming, or does he want to help shape solutions? At some point, conservatives will need to reconcile themselves to the problem of climate change. Some leading Republicans -- Arizona Sen. John McCain and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, most notably -- have already taken strong stands on the question. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine that the intransigence of Mr. Bush's administration on climate change will long survive his tenure, no matter who succeeds him. Will he take a hand in developing America's response to this global problem, or will he go down as the president who fiddled while Greenland melted?

"An engaged president could do much to change the political climate on climate -- which is already changing around Mr. Bush. It will take presidential leadership to put in place the sort of regulatory infrastructure necessary, over the long run, to move away from fossil fuels. Federal policy must put a price on emitting carbon into the atmosphere so that companies have an incentive to sequester carbon emissions and to develop energy sources that don't increase atmospheric greenhouse concentrations. This probably can't happen without a president willing to put his prestige and time into the issue.

"Even short of a dramatic new initiative, Mr. Bush could alleviate the country's addiction to carbon by encouraging energy efficiency. His administration has already taken constructive steps on fuel economy standards, but those standards remain insufficiently ambitious. Likewise, a huge percentage of buildings in this country will be refurbished or replaced in the coming decades; aggressively pushing design features that maximize energy savings would reduce energy use enormously without much pain.

"Ultimately, strong steps have to be taken; the chances of catastrophic consequences of global warming are too high to ignore. The longer policymakers wait, the more wrenching economically and culturally the steps are likely to prove. Mr. Bush spent his first six years emphasizing the undeniable need for more research; in his final two years, he could finally embrace the need to act."

To the Scorching Bitter End

Nobody could ever accuse John Howard of going with the prevailing winds. Of course I could say the same for the fire hydrant in front of my house.

The Aussie PM is digging in his anti-Kyoto heels in the face of the release of the Stern report on global warming. Howard steadfastly refuses to sign any agreement that doesn't include China and India and he insists that coal will remain the primary source of energy into 2050.

Howard's approach isn't unexpected even though Sir Nicholas Stern's findings point to Australia as being likely to be hardest hit by global climate change. This excerpt from the paper, The Australian:

"In a pointed reference to Australia, the report by former British Treasury head and World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern warns that if global temperatures rise by an average of four degrees, large swaths of Australia's farming land would be rendered unproductive.

"While grim in its outlook if nothing is done, the report is optimistic that a concerted effort to develop clean coal technologies will be able to stabilise world greenhouse gas emissions.

"Described by British Prime Minister Tony Blair as the most important report he has ever received, the document says the economic impact of global warming must begin to be addressed immediately to avoid world economic catastrophe.

"Sir Nicholas estimates acting now to cut carbon emissions would cost 1 per cent of global GDP a year, about $500 million. By doing nothing, the costs at the time would be a minimum of 5 per cent and as high as 20 per cent of GDP a year.

"Australian estimates of such an impact on the energy-based economy are between $15 billion and $66 billion a year, driving down Australian wages by 20 per cent."

John Howard's head in the sand approach illustrates the Kyoto conundrum. Countries like the U.S. use the excuse (and it is nothing more than a cheap excuse) that there is no point signing on to the Kyoto protocols unless the emerging giants, India and China, do likewise. India and China, meanwhile, question why they should hop aboard until the wealthy and filthy lead the way.

We can only hope that the Stern report and a new Congress will be enough to get Washington to move on global warming and bring the rest of the gang, Ottawa included, along with them.

RFIDs - The End of Your Privacy?

You might well already have RFID technology in your house. I have. RFID or radio frequency identification is a formal term for surveillance microchips and they're really catching on. I had one implanted in my dog. If he winds up at the SPCA, they'll pass a scanner over him that will reveal his chip data. From that they'll be able to get my name, address and telephone number and will, presumably, call me to collect my hound.

RFIDs are getting really, really small and really, really cheap and there are some who think it would be a really, really good idea to pop one beneath your delicate hide and mine. In fact it may only be a matter of time.

This excerpt from a story in today's Daily Mail:

"The microchips - which are implanted under the skin - allow the wearer's movements to be tracked and store personal information about them.

"They could be used by companies who want to keep tabs on an employee's movements or by Governments who want a foolproof way of identifying their citizens - and storing information about them.

"The prospect of 'chip-citizens' - with its terrifying echoes of George Orwell's 'Big Brother' police state in the book 1984 - was raised in an official report for Britain's Information Commissioner Richard Thomas into the spread of surveillance technology.

"The report, drawn up by a team of respected academics, claims that Britain is a world-leader in the use of surveillance technology and its citizens the most spied-upon in the free world.
It paints a frightening picture of what Britain might be like in ten years time unless steps are taken to regulate the use of CCTV and other spy technologies. "

The British report isn't alarmist. In fact, some jurisdictions are already dealing with this threat to our privacy. RFID technology has been around since the patent was issued in 1973 but it has only been recently that the chip has evolved to be really small and astonishingly inexpensive - as little as five cents a piece. The chips were once "read only" but new "read and write" versions are available.

Wisconsin has banned the implantation of RFID chips in people and other jurisdictions are moving in the same direction. The RFID industry, however, isn't giving up that fight. The chairman of VeriChip corporation has been actively lobbying for the use of RFID chips for immigrants and guest workers.

Exploring the use and threat of RFID technology is far beyond the scope of this blog but this is something you need to follow. The mere threat of terrorism has already caused our governments to narrow historic civil rights, including privacy rights.

A Skinbag Stuffed with Slime

I guess this bag of dirt just can't help himself. In today's Washington Post, columnist Robert Novak, moaned about the looming election in Nicaragua and the prospect of victory for Daniel Ortega. In Novak's own words:

"The seemingly unavoidable outcome of next Sunday's election is a Nicaraguan tragedy, losing at the ballot box what was won two decades ago by the blood of contra fighters and the risking of Ronald Reagan's presidency."

The "blood of contra fighters"? Curious, isn't it? Novak is never one to avoid condemning terrorists, unless they're America's own terrorists. The CIA-sponsored Contras were a pack of murderous villains who claimed the lives of thousands of innocent Nicaraguans.

Today we condemn states and leaders we claim sponsor terrorism and yet we still cling to the myth that Reagan wasn't one of them. That rank hipocrisy couldn't happen without creeps like Novak.

Too Good to Pass Up

This is the painting that inspired Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Carribbean. By the way, the painting is apparently going to auction in London.

Cap'n Keith

Captain Jack Sparrow

On Time, On Target - the Stern Warning

Hey Steve. I know you don't like scientists and their techno-babble about global warming but you should like this guy. He's an economist, just like you, only a real one - Sir Nicholas Stern - and he's just released a report that says, from an economic standpoint alone, urgent steps to tackle global warming is a NO BRAINER! Did you get that Steve? Sir Nicholas says there will be enormous, long-term benefits from allocating about 1% of our GNP to fighting climate change.

Now, Steve, I'm sure your phone is ringing off the hook with calls from the oil patch and their gaggle of richly-funded global warming deniers but for God's sake man, that garbage just doesn't cut it anymore. The Alberta tories and their oil baron patrons can't call the shots any longer.

Stern has said what all the others have said, Steve. We haven't got years to squander on empty consultations and years after that to ponder emissions caps. We've got to do this now Steve, now.

We can't follow Washington on this one, pal. We have to work with other, responsible nations to force Bush's hand. Besides, the mid-terms are expected to put a brand new face on Congress, one that will likely demand action.

Today the world got a Stern warning. Steve, you've been put on notice. It's time you stood up for Canada, even if that means standing up to Alberta.

If Votes Don't Count, Is It Democracy?

With U.S. congressional mid-term elections a week away there are renewed concerns about the electoral chicanery that marked the 2000 and 2004 votes.

If you're in a tight race, try to prevent as many as possible of your opponent's supporters from being able to vote. If that sounds sleazy and vile, well it is.

The correct term for it is "voter suppression" and The New York Times calls it "silent disenfranchisement." Remember Kathleen Harris in Florida in 2000 and her role in keeping thousands of black voters away from the polls?

The British paper, The Independent, questions whether this will turn out to be America's "dirtiest election ever" and cited these examples:

"Uproar has surrounded a key race in San Diego, where a Vietnamese immigrant, Tan Nguyen, is trying to unseat the Democrat incumbent, who is Hispanic. He has resisted calls to pull out of the race after an investigation found his campaign had sent letters to thousands of Hispanic voters warning them not to vote on 7 November if they were not legally in the US, suggesting they could face deportation.

"In Pennsylvania, a Democrat House candidate has been running attack ads on the Republican incumbent questioning his "family values" after an ex-mistress accused him of choking her.

"Several Democrats, meanwhile, have found themselves victims of spots funded by an Indianapolis businessman, Patrick Rooney, who says they want to abort black babies. "If you make a little mistake with one of your 'hos, you'll want to dispose of that problem tout de suite, no questions asked," a voiceover on the advertisement declares.

"In New York another Democratic candidate for the House, Michael Arcuri, has been struggling to recover from ads suggesting that he used taxpayers' money to dial a phone sex line. It turns out that an aide did dial a sex service once by mistake.

The demonisation of the Democrats

* MICHAEL ARCURI, NEW YORK

An ad by the National Republican Campaign Committee accused House candidate Arcuri of using taxpayers' money to dial a sex line. "Hi, sexy," a comely actress declares. One of his aides indeed dialled a sex service from campaign headquarters, but only by mistake.

* HAROLD FORD, TENNESSEE

An African-American running for Senate, Mr Ford was the subject of an ad by the Republican National Committee revealing his attendance at a Super Bowl party sponsored by Playboy. It features an actress in skimpy clothing winking and urging Mr Ford to "call me".

* STEVE KAGEN, WISCONSIN

Congressional candidate Dr Kagen was accused by the Republican Party of Wisconsin of having links to a serial killer and child rapist, a claim set out in an election mailshot. In fact, he was linked only to the man's lawyer, who had once done some legal work for him.

* JIM WEBB, VIRGINIA

The incumbent Republican senator George Allen has published excerpts from Webb's novels which contain graphic scenes of prostitution and child abuse. The Allen campaign claims that the passages show a "continued pattern of demeaning women".

* RON KIND, WISCONSIN

Republican TV ads alleged Kind "pays for sex" after he opposed an effort in Congress to end funding of sex surveys by the National Institutes of Health. The ad implies this meant Kind wanted "to pay teenage girls to watch pornographic movies with probes connected to their genitalia".

Is there a limit to this sort of thing, some point beyond which these lowlifes won't venture? If there is, it'll be one defined by voter backlash but I don't see that happening in the U.S. I hope we won't get to the point where our politicians get away with this garbage unpunished.

Remember when Kim Campbell paid the price for an ad mocking Jean Chretien's appearance? Let's just hope we stick with those values.

When God Made Canada

Once upon a time in the Kingdom of Heaven, God went missing for six days. Eventually, Michael the archangel found him, resting on the seventh day. He inquired of God, "Where have you been?"

God sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction and proudly pointed downwards through the clouds,
"Look Michael, look what I've made."

Archangel Michael looked puzzled and said, "What is it?"

"It's a planet," replied God, "and I've put LIFE on it. I'm going to call it Earth and it's going to be a great place of balance."

"Balance?" inquired Michael, still confused.

God explained, pointing to different parts of Earth, "For example, Northern Europe will be a place of great opportunity and wealth while Southern Europe is going to be poor, the Middle East over there will be a hot spot. Over there, I've placed a continent of white people and over there is a continent of black people."

God continued, pointing to different countries. "This one will be extremely hot and arid while this one will be very cold and covered in ice."

The Archangel, impressed by Gods work, then pointed to a large land mass in the top corner and asked, "What's that one?"

"Ah," said God. "That's Canada, the most glorious place on Earth. There's beautiful mountains, lakes, rivers, streams and an exquisite coast-line. The people from Canada are going to be modest, intelligent and humorous and they're going to be found traveling the world. They'll be extremely sociable, hard-working and high achieving, and they will be known throughout the world as diplomats and carriers of peace. I'm also going to give them super-human, undefeatable ice hockey players who will be admired and feared by all who come across them."

Michael gasped in wonder and admiration but then proclaimed. "What about balance, God? You said there would be balance?"

God replied wisely. "Wait until you see the loud-mouth bastards I'm putting next to them."

http://stuph.hackshack.ca/canada.php

What Does This Tell You?

It's making headlines in newspapers in every corner of the world - Hamid Karzai is trying to cut some deal with the Taliban.

Yes, this is the same Taliban that Canadian and other NATO soldiers are in Afghanistan to defeat. Let's see - they're killing us and a bunch of other folks and we're killing them and a bunch of other folks while Hamid is trying to get a game of "let's make a deal" going.

Now, what does that tell ya?

It says a lot of things, almost none of them new.

It says that we're not going to defeat the Taliban with guns and bombs and rockets. Nope, no way in hell.

It says that Karzai knows his already thoroughly compromised and corruption-riddled government needs a deal with the Taliban just to survive.

It says that Hamid realizes that NATO's effort isn't working, that it's far too small to win this one for him.

It says that the Afghan president sees the hearts and minds of his people slipping straight through his fingers.

Meanwhile it's also reported that the Taliban has rebuffed Karzai. That says they don't see the need to make any deals.

It's also reported that the Taliban aren't going back to their mountain retreats this winter as expected. No, apparently they intend to stay and run a campaign aimed at taking Kabul.

It says that NATO is out of time and must either deploy a far larger force or start preparing to get out.

It's a Man's World? Not Much Longer

We men have done such a terrific job of running this planet that maybe it's time to let the other half show us what they can do. I, for one, think that is an idea worth tossing about.

According to The New York Times, a serious power shift from men to women is already well underway.

"We are perhaps on the first step to a matriarchal society; women will earn more money than men if current trends continue by 2028,” said Michael J. Silverstein of the Boston Consulting Group. “The trend has been escalating in the last 10 years as there has been a gradual, slow erosion of the power balance in the family, a psychic rebalancing.”

"Women, Mr. Silverstein added, are “controlling purchases and driving a shift in our economy.”

"Much of that shift has to do with education and pay. At American colleges and universities, women represent 57 percent of undergraduate classes and 58 percent of graduate classes, according to the American Council on Education. (They also hold a slight majority in the overall population.) And education, in turn, has helped to bolster salaries and income. In 2005, government data show, women who were full-time wage and salary workers had median weekly earnings of $585, or 81 percent of the $722 median for their male counterparts, up from about 63 percent in 1979."

Let's face it, she who controls the wealth is she who holds the power, or at least a good deal of it. With purchasing power comes economic clout and with that, eventually, matching political clout. And why not?

Google Bombing the Repugs

One key to the Republican resurgence that swept the United States was a brilliant communications strategy that harnessed the 'alternative' media to do the far right's bidding. This involved cable outlets, like Fox, and the open-mouth radio gulag of Rush Limbaugh and Michael "Weiner" Savage. The Repugs were able to use those vehicles to set the agenda that mainstream media eventually had to follow.

American progressives have very quietly fought back by claiming the internet as their own. From all accounts they've done a pretty good job of it. Now, with mid-term elections just days away, they're launching an internet offensive - Google bombing.

Google bombing is a means of using embedded hyperlink principles to focus Google searches onto web sites that may not be particularly flattering or supportive of a particular candidate. So far, 50 Republican candidates have been targetted.

The key, according to Chris Bowers who conceived the idea, is to ensure that only credible sources are hyperlinked. Those clicking on the candidate's name must be directed to a legitimate news source, something accurate and believable.

Doubtless this will have some Repugs howling. Unlike the underhanded tactics they use, deceptive attack ads and push-polling for example, Google bombing just relies on truth. No wonder they'll find it so upsetting.

Send In Oprah

Canada's economic dinghy is tied hard aside the SS USA. It's been a terrific ride, so far. We've had a healthy balance of trade surplus from that relationship. Our industries have been integrated fully with the American economy.

Sure there have been a few bumps but you can't hitch a ride on a ship this size and not get buffeted by the wake every now and then.

Canada has done so well out of trading with the United States that we can sometimes take the whole thing for granted. We don't give a lot of attention to just where the SS USA is heading. That's too bad because it may be heading straight for the rocks and it may well take us along with it.

It's been a long time coming. For years the United States, its governments and its people have been building enormous debts. Despite a few surplus years during the Clinton administration, the Bush regime has spent like madmen, funded a war and cut taxes - all at the very same time. It takes a lot of money to do that, borrowed money, most of it borrowed abroad where you don't even get to tax back some of the interest paid out on the debt.

For years it has seemed that America was so big, so powerful, so important to the world economy that it could actually defy gravity. It posted record government deficits, record balance of trade deficits, record accumulated government debt and record individual debt and it never seemed to stop. The day of reckoning, however, is just around the corner at least according to the guy who runs America's General Accounting Office, the nation's Comptroller General, David Walker.

Walker is free to speak out. He's got job security until 2013. Now he's taking his campaign to the streets because he knows politicians don't want to speak about the looming economic crisis and people aren't much interested in hearing about it either.

The iceberg heading America's way are what they call 'entitlement' programmes: medicair, medicaid and social security. The U.S., like most western countries, has an aging population but one in which lifespans have been increased significantly in recent years. That spells a big wave of seniors calling upon these entitlements in the near future and calling on them for many more years than had been expected.

Entitlements are the iceberg but the second half of the problem is the ship that's steaming toward it, SS USA. While it should have been preparing the country for the changes coming, the governments - federal, state and municipal - have been binge borrowing. The Republicans have actually funded their tax cuts for the rich with foreign borrowings. Think about that for a moment.

Remember when Bush chastised Americans for being "addicted to oil"? That's only one addiction. The country and its people have become seriously addicted to debt. Family debt levels have never been as high. Home equity ratios have never been as low. Savings, forget about it.

America's current national debt totals roughly $8.5 trillion. The problem is it is growing at close to $2-trillion a year. If the government keeps on going, stays the course, Walker and others warn the debt could reach an adjusted figure of $46-trillion or more, roughly the net worth of every American, incluing he super rich ones.

There is only one solution and it's painful: raise taxes and slash entitlements. The fiscal mess of the U.S. federal government means there are no other choices. The country has been deliberately weakened to the point that it can't turn away from the iceberg.

There is one more problem: getting politicians to tell their constituents that they need to accept more taxes and fewer benefits. Politicians don't have that kind of courage today. An accountant who listened to Walker's speech came up with a good idea: get Oprah to convince the American people to support fiscal responsibility.

I'm sorry, we're broke

Here's how David Walker puts it, "This is about the future of our country, our kids and grandkids. ...We the people have to rise up to make sure things get changed."

We in Canada need to pay attention to this even if Americans won't. As their economy goes, so goes ours. Perhaps this would be a good time to work on diversifying our trade.

This is certainly an ideal time for us to take another good, hard look at our own debt situation. Remember how we did that when Chretien took over from Mulroney, how they explained to us the predicament we were in and what we needed to do? Our politicians have shown they can talk to us about these things and we've shown we're willing to listen and embrace fiscal responsibility.
But we've been taking a lot for granted over the last several years. Time to take a fresh look.

The Afghan Quagmire

The New York Times magazine just published an eye-opening, first-person account by Elizabeth Rubin describing her journeys in Afghanistan. Here are some excerpts:

"Anticipation hung over the Alamo. Charlie Company’s next mission was a bit of deceptive theater intended to lure the Taliban into ambushing the soldiers so they could counterattack. Part of the strategy involved Lt. Nathan Shields — a smiling, easygoing officer from Rochester — posing as a gullible new commander. Meanwhile, units hiding in the mountains would block the Taliban’s escape.

"That night, a few squads hiked up a thousand feet, each soldier hauling water (temperatures in the day are usually in the 100’s), food, rifle, knife, flashlight and first-aid kit, all atop 35 pounds of armor and ammunition. The Afghan soldiers carried little besides a rifle and ammunition.

"The American infantryman’s burden is the Taliban’s biggest advantage. Fleet-footed, carrying little more than an AK and a walkie-talkie, Taliban fighters could sail over the mountains.

"The next morning we headed toward Solan, a village so unfriendly that when American soldiers airlifted in a bridge months earlier, it was burned down the next day. “We don’t know if the Taliban burnt it or the villagers,” Lt. David Patton, a tall, circumspect Texan with Task Force Warrior, said of the bridge in Solan.

“'Everyone believes in the mission,' he added, 'but there’s an underlying thought that when we leave, it’ll go back to the way it was.' As Zabul’s governor, Arman, had told me, Zabul’s religious leaders all supported the Taliban, and in Afghanistan the most powerful platform is the minbar, a pulpit where the mullah delivers his Friday sermon. So although villagers were friendly when the Americans patrolled, they refused to help rebuild a school and a bazaar, for example, fearing retaliation from the Taliban who had destroyed them.

"Ten lean men in turbans came to meet Shields, who played his role as new commander somewhat awkwardly. A strange dialogue ensued, led by one of the 10 men, Haji Gailani, whose oversize glasses, gabardine vest and cane denoted authority. He said that they didn’t deny Taliban fighters were nearby. “If you can catch those people, thank you,” he said. “If you want to slaughter my neck, please do.” There was a little nervous laughter. No, no, Shields said, of course not. Then Gailani said: “You have planes. You can hear the Taliban on your radios. And still you cannot force them out of here. How can we?”

"Others began to speak up. Planes had attacked the mountains the night before, the men said. They had heard about the bombing of civilians in Kandahar. They wanted to know if they were about to be bombed. Robbins advised them to stay near the thickest walls and shut off the lights. Then they left.

"The final draft of the U.S. military’s latest counterinsurgency manual, written under the direction of Lt. Gen. David Petraeus and Lt. Gen. James Mattis, emphasizes that if you skimp on resources, endurance and meeting the population’s security requirements, you lose. Yet for the past five years, the Pashtun provinces have been plagued by a lack of troops and resources.

"James Dobbins, President George W. Bush’s former special envoy to Afghanistan, blames the White House, which he said had a predisposition against nation-building and international peacekeeping. The Bush administration rejected Afghan and State Department appeals to deploy a peacekeeping force in the provinces, dismissed European offers of troops and had already begun shifting military resources to Iraq, Dobbins told me, while U.S. troops in Afghanistan were to be limited to counterterrorism.

“In manpower and money,” he added, “this was the least resourced American nation-building effort in our history.” In Afghanistan, the White House spent 25 times less per capita than in Bosnia and deployed one-fiftieth the troops. Much of the money that was pledged didn’t show up for years. “The main lesson of Afghanistan is low input, low output,” Dobbins said. “If you commit low levels of military manpower and economic assistance, what you get are low levels of security and economic growth.”

The entire article can be found at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/magazine/29taliban.html?pagewanted=3&ei=5094&en=0dfd73bd62649658&hp&ex=1162180800&partner=homepage

Takest That - Ye Heathen!

I know what Little Stevie is getting for Christmas. In the spirit of our loving, ever forgiving and redeeming Jesus Christ, Stevie will be getting "Left Behind: Eternal Force." It's a video game in which Born Again stormtroopers go around slaughtering disbelievers. Ordinary Christians don't stand a chance, don't even begin to think of what lies in store for Jews or Muslims. It's sort of like a 21st century Crusade, isn't it?

Don't worry, there are plenty of shopping days left before Christmas for you to repent your evil ways.

Let's Split the Difference

Michael Ignatieff has caught hell from some Jewish Liberals and the larger Jewish-Canadian community for branding the Israeli bombardment of the village of Qana a war crime. They contend that Israel was only defending itself from a terrorist assault and they absolutely love Little Stevie who panders to them shamelessly.

Was Qana a war crime? Well, a lot of civilians were killed and it seems that Israel really wasn't too fussy about who or where it struck.



It strikes me as odd that a nation that supposedly held the absolute moral high ground in this war would be so dishonest about the way it waged that battle. Israel was alleged to have used cluster bombs. At first they denied it, then they admitted it. Israel was alleged to have used white phospherous shells. At first they denied it, then they admitted it. Now Israel is said to have used radioactive weapons in Lebanon. This time they're simply saying "no comment."

Were these war crimes? You would need to know a lot more about the circumstances in which these weapons were used to come to any conclusion. I just don't know. Here's something I do know; no matter that Hezbollah sparked this conflict and no matter that Hezbollah indiscriminately rocketed Israel throughout, what Hezbollah did in no way exempts Israel from blame and outrage at what they also did.



Maybe these weren't war crimes. Why don't we split the difference and call them something that unquestionably fits. Let's call them atrocities. That's what they were. There, doesn't that make the whole thing so much better?

Rest Up Stevie - Monday Could Be a Bitch

Canadians have seen Stephen Harper's plan of action to combat climate change - there isn't one. Wait several years, consult, ponder, then wait another ten to fifteen years to impose GHG caps. That should keep the tar sands boys happy.

Monday could be an awkward day for Harper. On Monday the British Treasury Department will release Sir Nicholas Stern's long awaited report on the economic costs of global warming. The Stern report warns that doing nothing about global warming may be 20-times more costly to humanity than taking prompt, remedial action. Twenty times more expensive. Not ten, not fifteen, but twenty.

Stern's calculations take into account the costs of droughts, floods, hurricanes and human migration.

If the opposition needs another cudgel to smack Stevie on the head, the Stern report should work.

What Were They Playing At?

We know that Israel was pretty indiscriminate in its recent attack on Lebanon. We know that it used some incredibly brutal weapons, cluster bombs and white phosphorus bombs, that devastated residential areas and remain in tens of thousands to litter the Lebanese landscape.

Now there are reports that Israel might have used some sort of radiation weapon against the Lebanese. Writing in today's Independent, a British newspaper, journalist Robert Fisk reported on these radioactive weapons:

"According to Dr Chris Busby, the British Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, two soil samples thrown up by Israeli heavy or guided bombs showed "elevated radiation signatures".

"Dr Busby's initial report states that there are two possible reasons for the contamination. "The first is that the weapon was some novel small experimental nuclear fission device or other experimental weapon (eg, a thermobaric weapon) based on the high temperature of a uranium oxidation flash ... The second is that the weapon was a bunker-busting conventional uranium penetrator weapon employing enriched uranium rather than depleted uranium." A photograph of the explosion of the first bomb shows large clouds of black smoke that might result from burning uranium.

"Israel has a poor reputation for telling the truth about its use of weapons in Lebanon. In 1982, it denied using phosphorous munitions on civilian areas - until journalists discovered dying and dead civilians whose wounds caught fire when exposed to air.

"I saw two dead babies who, when taken from a mortuary drawer in West Beirut during the Israeli siege of the city, suddenly burst back into flames. Israel officially denied using phosphorous again in Lebanon during the summer - except for "marking" targets - even after civilians were photographed in Lebanese hospitals with burn wounds consistent with phosphorous munitions.

"Then on Sunday, Israel suddenly admitted that it had not been telling the truth. Jacob Edery, the Israeli minister in charge of government-parliament relations, confirmed that phosphorous shells were used in direct attacks against Hizbollah, adding that "according to international law, the use of phosphorous munitions is authorised and the (Israeli) army keeps to the rules of international norms".

"Chris Bellamy, the professor of military science and doctrine at Cranfield University, who has reviewed the Busby report, said: "At worst it's some sort of experimental weapon with an enriched uranium component the purpose of which we don't yet know. At best - if you can say that - it shows a remarkably cavalier attitude to the use of nuclear waste products."

"The soil sample from Khiam - site of a notorious torture prison when Israel occupied southern Lebanon between 1978 and 2000, and a frontline Hizbollah stronghold in the summer war - was a piece of impacted red earth from an explosion; the isotope ratio was 108, indicative of the presence of enriched uranium. "The health effects on local civilian populations following the use of large uranium penetrators and the large amounts of respirable uranium oxide particles in the atmosphere," the Busby report says, "are likely to be significant ... we recommend that the area is examined for further traces of these weapons with a view to clean up."

According to Fisk, the United States and Iran each used the Lebanese war as a testing ground for new munitions.

These reports are disturbing. Before throwing Canada's support behind Israel yet again, prime minister Stephen Harper should determine whether Israel did indeed use radiation weapons against Lebanon. If so, Canada should respond forcefully.

An Ethical Dilemma of Life and Death

Is it right to use aerial bombardment on residential neighbourhoods? Do we have the right to kill civilians? How many Afghan deaths is it worth to save one soldier's life?

In previous posts I've come out clearly against the use of aerial bombardment on residential neighbourhoods. It's indiscriminate. It's cowardly.

I became disgusted with aerial bombardment tactics when I watched video, back in the 90's, of Israeli warplanes bombing refugee camps in Lebanon. I thought that, if the Israelis wanted to get at the Palestinian guerrillas, they damned well ought to be willing to send soldiers in to fight soldiers.

I felt the same thing watching American airstrikes on Iraqi marketplaces and bombardment of their residential areas. I was revolted at the Israeli use of cluster bombs and white phosphorous against civilian populations in Lebanon.

Now the hens have come home to roost. Now it's Canadian troops calling in airstrikes. We can't pretend any longer. We've seen the results of these tactics for two decades. Airstrikes against residential neighbourhoods kill a lot of civilians, far too many to dismiss them as unintentional collateral damage.

Don't be fooled by talk about precision-guided weapons. Sure we can guide a bomb to a very small target, the front of a house for example. However, if that precision guided system is riding the nose of a 2,000 pound bomb, precision becomes almost meaningless. That weapon is going to destroy houses and kill innocents within a very big radius of where it hits. We know that's going to happen so we can't claim these deaths are unintentional.

Sure we're saving the lives of our soldiers but at what cost? Is one Canadian soldier's life worth the lives of 10 Afghans, 20 Afghans, even 60 Afghans? We have to ask ourselves that very question.

We also have to question how these "unintentional" deaths are advancing our battle for the hearts and minds of these Afghans, the survivors? Let's see, they don't endure Taliban airstrikes. We can claim the insurgents are responsible for mingling with civilians but these still aren't insurgent bombs. What we think, of course, is secondary to which side the Afghan people blame.

The Associated Press reports that a human rights watchdog is warning NATO that these airstrikese are turning the population against the alliance:

"Human Rights Watch argued that NATO is relying too much on aircraft to attack insurgent positions. In June, the U.S. Central Command reported 340 airstrikes in Afghanistan, double the 160 strikes in Iraq in the same month, the group noted.

"'NATO should reconsider the use of highly destructive but hard-to-target weaponry in areas where there is a clear risk of considerable civilian casualties,' Zarifi said, referring to aerial bombs and missiles.

Maj. Luke Knittig, the spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, said that "airpower is used extensively because it is an advantage and it can be decisive at a close fight."

Using this massive airpower against insurgent battle positions or in response to ambushes may well be justified. In other words we should have free access to these weapons when fighting out in the field or for defensive purposes. They should not be used, however, in residential neighbourhoods.

Oh My God - Has It Come to This?

His name is Harold Ford, Jr. He's black. He might just be the first Afro-American from the south to win a Senate seat. It's only been a century and a half roughly since the end of the Civil War so I guess southern voters just haven't had a chance to vote for a black guy before. I mean, it's not like there could be any other reason, could there?

Ford is the Democratic contender for the Tennessee senate seat being vacated by Bill Frist. He's said to be in an even race with his Republican opponent.

You've come a long way, baby.

He Thinks You're Ignorant - Hell, He's Counting On It

I'm serious, Prime Minister Stephen Harper really believes Canadians are ignorant. He's said that, quite openly. Here's how he belittled us before a gathering of primo, right-wing Americans:

"...it's legendary that if you're like all Americans, you know almost nothing except for your own country. Which makes you probably more knowledgeable about one more country than most Canadians."

That's just one example, there are others. Lately little Stevie has shown how foolish he thinks we must be in his provocations about the opposition support for his party's legislation. He even said that the opposition must support these bills because the Canadian people voted for them. Huh? Is he talking about that small group, the 30-odd per cent of Canadians who turned out to vote in the last election who supported him? Surely he can't be talking about the two-thirds of Canadian voters who wouldn't support him, is he?

Did you support Harper? I didn't.

Of course, Little Stevie doesn't let facts get in his way. He also doesn't let his past statements reign him in. Take a look at a couple of things he had to say when he was opposition leader in a minority Liberal government:

"If you want to be a government in a minority Parliament, you have to work with other people."

"It's the government's obligation to look really to the third parties to get the support to govern."

"And I think the real problem that we're facing already is that the government doesn't accept that it got a minority."

Oh Stevie, the hypocrisy just drips off your lips. Remember, Canadians never endorsed his legislative agenda; just a few did. You need to remember that because Harper can't.

The Other Civil War

Your Car's Ready

We're bombarded with news reports about sectarian strife in Baghdad so widespread as to border on civil war. Iraq, however, is undergoing another civil war, one that could split the country.

To the north of Baghdad lies the city of Kirkuk. It is a city populated by Arab Shia from the south, by Turkomen and by Kurds. Saddam sought to Arabize Kirkuk by driving Kurds out and bringing Shia in from the south.

Kirkuk is a real prize because it sits atop and commands what is believed to be the country's second-largest oilfield. The Kurds want the city badly and the others don't want them to have it.

In order to get the Kurdish Autonomous Region to agree to join the new Iraqi federation, Baghdad had to agree to accept the new Kurdish constitution. This was a shrewdly framed document, drafted with the help of Peter Galbraith, that defines the future Kurdish state.

Saddam did little to exploit the oil resources in the Kurdish north, apparently to punish the troublesome Kurds. That means that most of it remains available for development.

When the Kurds drew their constitution, it provided for two classes of oil resources; those in development before Saddam was toppled and those that remained undeveloped. The Kurds agreed that revenues from oil fields already under development would remain Baghdad's to distribute, equitably, among all Iraqis. The undeveloped motherload, however, would remain the exclusive resource of the Kurds and their semi-autonomous government.

The Kurdish constitution made the future of Kirkuk much more important. Whoever gets Kirkuk gets the oil fields and, because they're undeveloped, a Kurdish Kirkuk would mean great wealth for the Kurdish Autonomous Region.

Who owns Kirkuk, that is the question. To decide the issue, the KAR has decided to hold a referendum in Kirkuk next year. In the meantime there's a lot of preparation to be done. This involves driving out the Shia Arabs who were brought in by Saddam and giving those houses back to their Kurdish owners. But the Kurds aren't stopping at that. They're also drawing in waves of Kurdish settlers, newcomers, to Kirkuk to tip the referendum balance next year.

Kirkuk has set the cat among the pigeons. The Sunnis are particularly sensitive to oil reserves because most of the known reserves are located within the Shia south and the Kurdish north. The Sunni are determined that Kirkuk and its oil remain part of Iraq. A recent gathering of Sunni sheiks resulted in a veiled threat. Sheik Abdul Monshad warned, "Kirkuk must never become part of Kurdistan. It is an Iraqi city and we will take all routes to prevent the divisions of Iraq."

The fear seems to be that a Kurdish Kirkuk will mean the end of hopes for a unified Iraq. It is a resulted welcomed by no one save the Kurds themselves. It is opposed by Iraq's Shia and Sunni; by Iran; by Kirkuk's Turkomen and, on their behalf, by Turkey itself, not to mention by the United States.

Suicide and roadside bombings have increased lately in Kirkuk and a trench has been dug across the southern side of the city to funnel traffic through a couple of well-manned checkpoints. At Kirkuk restaurants Arabs, Turkomen and Kurds continue to eat together. Sectarian tensions, however, are increasing. Ali Mehdi, a Turkomen member of the provincial council, warned, "the people won't accept the rule of the Kurdish parties. A civil war could break out any minute."

The Kurds know they're playing a high stakes game over Kirkuk but they recognized that when they crafted their constitution. If Kirkuk goes to the Kurds they will have little incentive to remain part of Iraq which could, in turn, lead the Shia to take the same position on the southern oilfields, effectively ending any unitary Iraq, any Iraq at all.

This One is Too Good to Pass Up

Memo to Stevie - Crime Is Not the Priority

A clear sign of the Reform/Alliance/Conservative party's grasp on the issues confronting Canada is the incredible focus on crime. Let me see, crime has been going down and is at levels not seen in quite a while but climate change is really taking off. Look at it this way, is your granddaughter's safety and future more at risk from climate change or from crime? I'd have to put my money on the climate change thing, wouldn't you?

Crime fighting, though, is so incredibly easy. Pass a few laws and you look really tough. People like that, especially if you've carefully fed them a hefty diet of fear by exploiting a couple of controversial cases. You scare them and then you make them feel secure. Neat trick and it's so damned easy.

Global warming and greenhouse gases are going to take some work and some sacrifice and, besides, the producers are a powerful lobby. There's plenty of money behind Big Oil's propaganda campaign on this one. Of course, let's not forget Alberta, but then again, who would? The technology doesn't exist to control GHG production from the Athabaska Tar Sands. The producers say the answers are coming, just not yet.

Picky people might say, "fine, you come up with these practical solutions to all the environmental problems you're causing, after that you dig up the gooey sands." Those people just don't understand how much the U.S. is counting on that oil and how much astonishing wealth the tar sands hold for Alberta. Pollution, well hey. It is north of Edmonton after all. Not like the good folks of Calgary are going to have to eat the stuff. Besides, if we tackle this one, who is going to battle crime?

A Day Late and A Dollar Short

Missed opportunities can be fatal and that's particularly true in warfare. Afghanistan may turn out to be a textbook example of this truism.

The west, particularly the U.S., has spent five years in Afghanistan but it has been mainly marking time. Immediately after driving the Taliban from Kabul and Kandahar we should have flooded the country with troops and aid, enough troops to provide real security to the countryside and enough aid to persuade the Afghan people that there was some good reason to support a new, central government.

Afghanistan was very much an open wound in 2001. It needed bandages and antibiotics so that it could heal. Instead we left the wound open and untreated and now we're fighting a losing battle against a once-avoidable infection.

When the Taliban were toppled, great promises of a better life were made to the Afghan people, promises that were far easier to fulfil then than they are today. These promises were important because they offered the means to create public acceptance for the Karzai government.

How do you respond to a promise that is broken? It may cause you to feel angry, distrustful, perhaps even hurt. We all know that much from experience. Why then would we expect the Afghan people to respond any differently after five years of waiting?

Afghanistan was something of a clean slate back in 2001. The Taliban were routed into the hill country bordering Pakistan. The Northern Alliance warlords were exhausted from years of fighting a civil war and hadn't yet cemented their control of the northern provinces. Opium production was at near record lows. The Pashtun south was wide open for the taking. Conditions were as good as they were ever going to get for nation-building. We let that golden opportunity slip through our fingers.

Where are we today? Karzai remains president but does not control much of his own country. The warlords have consolidated their control of the north. The Taliban has returned to contest the south. Reconstruction and infrastructure projects to bolster Karzai have faltered. The farmers have returned to opium production. Karzai's government bureaucracy has become riddled with corruption. The police are notoriously corrupt and alienate the peasants as does the army. The police and the army are known to have been well infiltrated by Taliban supporters. The army suffers from serious desertion and other problems. Now, why don't you add that all up and see how many successes we've achieved?

All of these setbacks that have resulted from doing near to nothing for five years have directly aided the Taliban insurgency. Theirs is a political war - a struggle for the hearts and minds of the Pashtun people. Every failure we've allowed to occur has been a hearts and minds issue, each and every one of them.

Just yesterday, Lt.-General Karl Eikenberry, commanding general of the combined forces command in Afghanistan, told delegates to the Asia Pacific summit that corruption and drug trafficking pose the greatest threat to coaltion efforts to "nurture a stable government." This general now thinks that the poppy-growing problem is big enough to warrant a strategy aimed at providing an alternative economy.

But once again, we're a day late and a dollar short. The opium economy has taken hold and flourished. Replacing it with some alternative economy is much harder today, perhaps even impossible. Even if this idea was attempted it would take considerable time in a situation in which too much time has already been lost.

What's for Dinner, Ma?

The worst part of the Global War Without End on Terror is how it diverts our attention and energies from far more serious issues that threaten mankind. We're wasting a lot of time on GWWET that we should be devoting to questions of how to keep our civilization going for the next several generations.

The world population is growing rapidly. No one questions that. The U.S. itself just passed the 300-million population mark. China and India are each well past a billion.

What is not really growing is the amount of farmland available to grow food for this swelling population. There is more land available - particularly in our remaining rainforests - but the environmental price of putting this land into production could be horrendous.

Traditional farmlands are actually decreasing. Desertification is an increasing problem in Africa and Asia. Land is simply getting exhausted by overproduction to the point it can no longer produce food. By the way, 2006 is the "International Year of Drought and Desertification" or IYDD.

There are other stresses on existing farmland such as salinization. When irrigation is required, all it takes is small amounts of salt in the water to destroy farmland. This is what is believed to have brought the ancient Mesopotamians to ruin. The used irrigation to produce greater crops that, in turn, allowed their population to increase rapidly. However the water they were using was somewhat brackish. It wasn't enough to cause a problem for centuries but, as time passed, the salts slowly began to accumulate until they reached a threshold level at which the lands became sterile. Crop production failed and so did the Mesopotamians. Salinization is still going on around the world, even in the United States.

Will earth be able to provide enough food to feed its people? Depends on who you choose to believe. If you do a Google search on "global food production" you'll find lots of sites that claim there is and will be no problem, that the doubters are just being alarmist. The same sort of thing you get from one side of the global warming debate.

What I noticed about these "no problem" sites is how they rely on some optimistic assumptions and seem to ignore negative factors. For example, they tend to base their projections on a land inventory that continually grows whereas it is shrinking unless we savage the rainforests. They also don't like to get wet. Water and the effects of population growth and climate change on supply and distribution tend to get downplayed.

If you eliminate enough negatives you can come up with some pretty rosey projections.

Other sites that do factor in these negatives, even if discounting them to recognize uncertainty, come to less pleasant conclusions.

If you're like me you probably can't tell which side to believe. It would be great to embrace the "no problem" group but even a layman can see that they use old studies that were produced before the science of climate change was anywhere near what it is today. They don't seem to factor in the effects of the current depletion of groundwater reserves. No regard is had for the future that will see water distribution whipsawed by cycles of droughts and floods. Will water be there where it's needed, when it's needed and will it arrive in amounts that are controllable or will it be flood runoff?

Bear in mind that, as a practical matter, what we're talking about here is really a problem for the poor people of this planet. Wealthy people almost always have food to eat because they need it and they can afford to buy it. Poor people need it just as much but, when food becomes scarce, they can't afford it.

What we need right now is a full and open discussion of this issue. We need to engage the best minds and use the best science. There are far too many foundations and institutes weighing in on these questions, organizations that too often turn out to be tied to industrial interests. Even us well-to-do folks need those rainforests to be preserved and our societies will never be immune to the impact that food shortages will visit upon the poor regions.

The Real Quagmire - Bush's Mind

A lot of us may not like it but George W. Bush is the de facto leader of the free world. He's also the leader of the Global War Without End on Terror. To varying degrees all western nations recognize these realities and adapt to them. That is, after all, how Canada and other NATO nations found themselves mired in Afghanistan.

There is reason to hope that the Democrats may regain control of the House of Representatives, possibly even win the Senate, in the mid-term elections next month. What that shift would mean is anyone's guess. Americans, it seems, are more in a mood to toss out Republicans than to elect Democrats and the Dems haven't done much to generate enthusiasm. The safest bet is not to expect very much beyond a bunch of congressional hearings to expose Republican corruption, neglect and abuse over the past six years.

George Bush will soldier on regardless. Iraq is simply too dangerous an issue for the Democrats to confront him in any meaningful way. That means we're all going to have to live with this president and his ways until 2008 and just hope his successor will make things right.

Why won't George Bush really change? He won't because he can't. He has a vision that's firmly embedded in his consciousness, an outlook that completely suppresses any analysis, logic or critical thinking. It was on display yesterday when Bush met with some conservative journalists in the Oval Office. Here's an account from the Washington Post:

"One of the more reality-defying aspects of President Bush's position on the war in Iraq is his insistence that we're winning.

"That was a central theme at yesterday's press conference.

"'Absolutely, we're winning,' Bush said. 'As a matter of fact, my view is the only way we lose in Iraq is if we leave before the job is done.'

"With the body counts soaring, the country descending deeper into civil war and the central government consistently unable to assert itself, how can he call this winning?

"The answer: It's becoming increasingly clear that Bush sees the war in Iraq in very simple terms. As he himself said, he believes that the only way to lose is to leave. Therefore anything else is winning -- anything else at all.

"Even if no progress is being made -- even if things are getting worse, rather than better -- simply staying is winning.

"So we're winning."

The U.S. has approximately 140,000 soldiers stuck in Iraq, losing that war. These same troops are desperately needed elsewhere to help with another rapidly failing war: Afghanistan. Top British generals have been pleading to get their contingent out of Iraq and into Afghanistan, telling Tony Blair very bluntly that, if they remain stuck in Iraq, he risks losing two wars, not just one.

However the American army in Iraq is stuck in a quagmire, the one in their president's mind.

Killing Our Own Chances?

There have been several incidents lately where NATO commanders in Afghanistan have called in heavy weapons, especially airstrikes, only to find out they'd attacked Afghan civilians, not insurgents.

Today NATO is investigating a report that approximately 60-civilians died from airstrikes that, over a period of four to five hours, brought down approximately 25-houses in the village of Nangawat. This village, by the way, is in the now famous Panjwai district where, barely a month ago, Canadian and Afghan forces claimed an enormous victory in driving the Taliban out of the region.

The bombings and apparent civilian deaths are said to have been the result of three attacks the Taliban launched against NATO forces in Panjwai yesterday. At least two members of the Kandahar provincial council have claimed that the dead were indeed innocent villagers.

Spin The Course - San Fransisco Chronicle

I spotted this editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle. It's so good, I'm reproducing it here, in its entirety:


"WAR IS PEACE. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength."

Let's hope we have not reached George Orwell's "doublespeak" future depicted in his novel "1984" where the Ministry of Truth erects a giant pyramid enshrining those slogans.

But when President Bush says "stay the course" doesn't mean "stay the course," you have to start worrying about our national leadership's ability to redefine almost everything.

If there are three words that define this administration -- regarding its attitude toward governance, tax cuts the war in Iraq, etc. -- they are "stay the course."

But here's what Bush told ABC's George Stephanopoulos: "Listen, we've never been 'stay the course,' George."

According to Bush's spokesman, "stay the course" now means "a study in constant motion."
Let's be charitable. Maybe the administration is just confused -- starting with the president.

On Oct. 11, Bush said the following: "Stay the course means keep doing what you're doing. My attitude is: Don't do what you're doing if it's not working. Change." But then he added, "Stay the course also means don't leave before the job is done. And we're going to get the job gone in Iraq."
Come again?

Those running the war are now grappling with the meaning of "win" -- a semantic debate with far graver consequences than former President Bill Clinton's musings about the definition of "is."

Doesn't winning mean defeating the terrorists in Iraq, as President Bush has been telling us for years?

Apparently not. On Tuesday, Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, "You have to define what it means to win." Winning, Pace said, now means security, good governance and a functioning economy. He gloomily predicted that terrorism in Iraq is going to be around "for the next 10, 20 or 30 years."

Remember how for months the administration pilloried anyone who wanted to set a "timetable" to end our occupation of Iraq? According to its math, "timetable" equals "cutting and running."
Now the administration is talking about its own benchmarks, deadlines, time lines -- and even timetables. Just not the kind of timetables proposed by those "cut-and-run" Democrats.

"Freedom is the freedom to say 2 plus 2 makes 4," Orwell wrote. "If that is granted, all else will follow."

Wouldn't it be great if our freedom-loving president acknowledged that 2 plus 2 equals 4 -- not some other fictional number?

Mission Accomplished? No, Seriously

If you believe that the invasion of Iraq was all about the oil, then it looks as though George Bush really can proclaim "mission accomplished."

The Baghdad goverment is facing a December deadline to introduce Iraq's new oil law and it's expected to be much more generous to the major oil companies than any deals they've gotten from Iraq's oil-producing neighbours.

Make no mistake about it: Iraq's oil reserves are vast and largely untapped. It is said to have 112-billion barrels of proven reserves and about 220-of probable oil reserves. Those figures don't include Iraq's vast, and unexplored western desert.

The greatest winners in the Iraqi oil fix will be the Big Four - Exxon, Chevron, BP and Shell. They stand poised to cut up the pie among themselves. Under Saddam, oil deals were negotiated with Russian, Chinese and French outfits but that was - under Saddam of course.

For years, leaders of Big Oil lobbied Washington for regime change in Iraq. They didn't want this prize to fall into the hands of the wrong nations. They also dreamed of the sort of deals that one could only hope to extract in normal circumstances. Big Oil wanted production service agreements ("PSA's") with the Iraqi government.

A PSA deal is a long term arrangement that grants an oil company both control of a field and extremely high profit margins. The oil company doesn't actually "own" the oil but that's pretty much irrelevant. Control of Iraq's oil resource is what counts. American control is going to see Big Oil get access and PSA's will see Big Oil gain actual control of the oil resources.

There has always been a view among some in Washington that gaining control of Iraq's oil wealth will allow the west to put the boots to OPEC. If Big Oil, rather than the Iraqi government, has control of the resource, these companies can operate independently of OPEC control, greatly undermining the cartel's global power.

The plotting and scheming behind this gambit is the stuff that would have made Machiavelli, Richelieu or Metternich squeal with delight.

Of course, nothing in Iraq is certain these days, certainly not the country's future. Big Oil needs the country to survive largely intact with a secular, federal government in Baghdad. If Iraq collapses into full-blown civil war, if it succumbs to pressures for partition or a secessionist movement in the Kurdish north or the Shia south, all bets may be off.

In other words, Washington stands to lose as much as any Iraqi does if the country fails. Do you think that reality has any bearing on George Bush's refusal to budge?

Getting Unstuck

America seems genuinely stuck in the quagmire of today's Iraq. Experts on all sides of the debate seem to agree on one thing: there are no good options at this point. Fair enough. Not every problem can be solved, not every danger eliminated. That's life.

Sure the United States should have seen this coming. The disastrous outcome should have been just as obvious to Britain. Even Australia, with its experience of following the U.S. into Vietnam, ought to have known better. Shoulda, coulda, woulda. Bush, Blair and Howard as the Three Stooges.

Maybe James Baker's Iraq Study Group will come up with a brilliant solution after the mid-term elections in November but don't hold your breath. So, what's the solution to a situation that presents only bad options? Obviously you need to go for the least bad option.

Here's the problem with that approach. At this point, America's and Iraq's interests are becoming divergent - quickly. What is in America's best interest probably isn't in Iraq's best interest. That's just another sad fact of life.

Washington needs to find a way out of Iraq. The American people have had enough of this adventure and they're willing to show that at the polls. The leadership has failed in its foremost challenge - it has failed to keep the electorate onside. The American people have conclusively decided this war is not winnable and, even if it means the humiliation of defeat, they want out.

What of Iraq? This country has been left with a weak, ineffectual government; vicious, sectarian strife; an insurgency far beyond the capability of its indigenous army; widespread and growing support for partition among the Kurds and Shia; external influences from Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia.

There may be no good options for the U.S., but what of Iraq's options? To survive the next few years, Iraq needs the support of its neighbours. It needs Iran to thwart any Shia secessionist movement. It needs Syria to aid the Sunni. It needs both the U.S. and Turkey to keep the Kurds in line. It needs strength from outside because it's woefully weak inside. It's hard to imagine any of these neighbours supporting a continuation of the status quo. None of them like the American presence on their doorsteps.

Washington doesn't have much leverage with Iraq's neighbours at the moment. They're not blind. They see the one nation that genuinely threatens them haplessly bogged down in Iraq and so it serves their interests to keep Iraq destabilized.

The key to this may be the complete withdrawal of America's presence in Iraq as part of a pact to secure the co-operation of the neighbours in a new Iraqi statehood. What else has America got to negotiate with? It seems it would be in everyone's interests, save for Israel, for America to withdraw from Iraq. That might just be the best option for Iraq and the United States.

Afghanistan - a Growing Insurgency

A formula for victory in Afghanistan appeared in this morning's Globe. Former government foreign policy advisor and now a professor of internationl affairs at Ottawa U., Roland Paris outlined five pre-conditions to winning in Afghanistan:

1. Stop destroying the poppy fields. Try regulating the stuff instead. Buy opium to reduce the global shortage of opium-based pain killers.

2. Clean up the corrupt police service.

3. Clean up government corruption.

4. Build a legitimate Afghan army that can defend its country.

5. Arrest the flow of Taliban fighters from their bases in Pakistan.

Professor Paris is a realist. He knows that these objectives won't be met without a wholesale increase in NATO support. He describes "the mission" as, "the most under-resourced international stabilization operation since the Second World War," pointing out we have one soldier per 1,000 Afghans whereas we had ratios of 3.5 in Haiti, 19 in Bosnia and 20.5 in Kosovo.

Paris argues that, unless NATO countries are willing to greatly increase their forces, NATO "should not wait around for conditions to worsen. It should withdraw, because the current course is a recipe for creeping defeat - and that would do untold damage to the alliance."

The Taliban are waging their war, the political war, while NATO continues to fight a mainly military war. The once mysterious Taliban are now becoming open to western journalists, undoubtedly with a view to waging their political war with the citizens of NATO states. To do this they've been giving western reporters a first-hand look at their operations.

The New York Times' Elizabeth Rubin spent time with the Taliban last summer. Some of her views:

"It is not at all clear that Afghans want the return of a Taliban government. But even sophisticated Kabulis told me that they are fed up with the corruption. And in the Pashtun regions, which make up about half the country, Afghans are fed up with five years of having their homes searched and the young men of their villages rounded up in the name of counterinsurgency.

"Earlier this month in Kabul, Gen. David Richards, the British commander of NATO’s Afghanistan force, imagined what Afghans are thinking: “They will say, ‘We do not want the Taliban, but then we would rather have that austere and unpleasant life that that might involve than another five years of fighting.”’ He estimated that if NATO didn’t succeed in bringing substantial economic development to Afghanistan soon, some 70 percent of Afghans would shift their loyalty to the Taliban."

The British newspaper, The Independent, had its David Loyn inspect the Taliban operation in Afghanistan:

"Racing across the desert in the north of Helmand province, our convoy was kicking up a dust-storm that could be seen from space. The Taliban were demonstrating their control over a wide region. These are the same Taliban that Brigadier Ed Butler, the commander of British forces in the region, said were "practically defeated" in Helmand.

"Instead, they are confident and well-armed, all with AK-47s, and many of them carry rocket-propelled grenadelaunchers.

"We passed the burnt-out remains of a Spartan armoured personnel carrier, destroyed on 1 August with the loss of three British lives. Last week the British were forced to abandon their "platoon house" at Musa Qala, and were only able to get their vehicles after a deal brokered by local tribal elders. The plan to spread goodwill from these "inkspots", and provide an environment to deliver aid, has had to be radically reviewed in the face of heavy Taliban attacks.

"Their communications equipment and vehicles are new and they have a constant supply of fresh men from the madrassas, the religious schools in Pakistan. Recently, the "Waziristan accord", which has seen Pakistani forces withdraw from parts of the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, has made it even easier for the Taliban to manoeuvre."

"Meanwhile, the scale of institutionalised corruption practised by the Afghan National Army is shocking. They demand money at gunpoint from every driver on the main roads in the south. It was to stop just this kind of casual theft that the Taliban was formed in the first place in 1994. For the first time since then, the Taliban are now being paid again to sort out the problem."

Afghanistan is rivalling Iraq as a destination for foreign, Arab jihadists. According to the L.A. Times:

"Foreign fighters are predominantly Sunni. They increasingly prefer fighting alongside the Taliban to getting embroiled in the Sunni-versus-Shiite bloodshed in Iraq, said Caprioli, who works closely with the intelligence community at the Paris-based GEOS security firm.

"There are a certain number of foreign jihadis who aren't interested in massacring Shiites," Caprioli said. "In Afghanistan, you have NATO troops to fight as well as Americans, all the 'crusaders.' "

"In addition, veterans of combat in Iraq have made their way to Afghanistan, officials said.

"There's a definite increase in foreign fighters going to Afghanistan from all over," said a U.S. anti-terrorism official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "They go through Pakistan. Or they train in Iraq and then keep going to Afghanistan."

Clearly the Taliban and their jihadist Arab allies are upping the ante in Afghanistan. Our politicians and generals continue to paint a rosey picture of the country as a battle that can and will be won. If that's going to happen, they'll need to substantially bolster NATO's efforts before the political war is lost.

Dick Cheney - Facts Never Get in His Way

When Dick Cheney talks about Iraq you pretty much know what's going to happen and that tends to be the opposite of what Dick Cheney claims.

Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Iraqis would greet American forces as liberators. The Iraq insurgency is in its final throes. There's nothing this guy won't say.

Cheney, however, may be saving his best lines for last. When he does speak to the media, Cheney goes with the rightwing pundits. They lob slow pitches to him and he runs with it. Here's how the veep described Iraq just days ago on Rush Limbaugh's show:

"If you look at the general overall situation, they're doing remarkably well."

With mid-term elections looming, Cheney is obviously trying to mobilize his base - the people who are sufficiently mindless to still believe anything he says. Sad, isn't it?

Global Warming - Poor Countries' Nightmare

When it comes to global warming, we Canadians have it awfully good. Oh sure Canada as we've known it will see changes, some of them severe, but the worst will take decades to get here. Residents of poorer nations, however, are right at the front of the line. They don't have to wait at all.

Already, low-lying nations are sinking, disappearing. One of these is the South Pacific state of Kiribati. On Tuesday, Kiribati president Anote Tong warned Australia and New Zealand to prepare for a mass migration of Kiribati's population within a decade. It's a common condition of small South Pacific nations. Tarawa, another nearly flat spot and only 500-metres wide at some points has had to import sand from Australia to bolster its beaches. Now its population is being forced to relocate to whatever high ground they can find on their shrinking landmass.

It is no coincidence that the nations that produce the greatest pollution will, in most cases, be the last and least affected. If it was the other way around do you think we'd be still sitting on our hands?

Is George Bush God-Tied on Iraq?

Former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is no fan of George Bush. His refusal of American overtures for German participation in Iraq helped Schroeder win re-election in 2002. In his newly released biography, Schroeder takes the measure of George Bush and why he believes the U.S. president will have trouble bringing peace to Iraq:

"Again and again in our private talks it became clear how God-fearing this president was and how ruled he was by what he saw as a higher power," Mr Schroeder says in the memoirs, Decisions: My Life In Politics.

"The problem begins when political decisions seem to result from a conversation with God. We rightly criticise that in most Islamic states there is no clear separation between religion and the rule of law.

"But we fail to recognise that in the US, the Christian fundamentalists and their interpretation of the Bible have similar tendencies. If both sides claim to be in possession of the only valid truth, then there is no room for manoeuvre."

Torture - the Demeaning Myth

A recent poll shows a signficant minority in most western nations favour the use of torture to extract intelligence. This minority demonstrates the power of myth and ignorance.

Torture doesn't work. It does not work to extract reliable information. Victims of torture either don't talk at all or else they tend to tell their interrogators whatever they want to hear.

One technique U.S. interrogators have been using is known as "waterboarding." The victim is strapped down on an inclined board, head toward the lowest end. A cloth is placed over his face and then water is poured onto the cloth. This creates the sensation of drowning and is said to be very effective - at torturing the victim.

Here is a picture of a waterboard table with a painting above it that illustrates its use:



The device shown was used in Cambodia. Apparently it was used a lot and very effectively. It was used, not to get intelligence, but to extract confessions. It seems that the Cambodians clearly understood that there was no intelligence to be had from victims on the table.

Bush & Company like torture and want to use it freely. They like it even though accounts from Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanimo have consistently shown torture to be ineffective at producing intelligence. It makes you wonder what sort of a person the president is if he wants the power to torture so much when it doesn't work.

Why Has Nuclear Become the Rage?

Nagasaki

The industrialized world tends to react with a mixture of anger, fear and frustration when Third World nations pursue nuclear weapon capabilities. We're so used to the big powers - the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain having these weapons that we rarely even think twice about it. Sure, they're more stable than places like Pakistan and far more so than North Korea but, then again, the big states count their nuclear weapons in many thousands. The big powers also have a considerable array of delivery systems from intercontinental ballistic missiles, to submarine launched long-range missiles, to manned bombers, to cruise missiles, even to long-range nuclear artillery.

What makes these little nations willing to risk the anger of the world, including sanctions, to get a few, small weapons of their own? Consider this analysis from Lebanon's Daily Star:

"It is interesting to note that all these countries are united by two denominators, which explain their common objective of pursuing nuclear programs.

"First, the governing regimes are ruling in an insecure and unstable domestic or regional environment. India and Pakistan are involved in a dispute over the border and territorial issue of Kashmir. The authoritarian North Korean government has not yet given up on its strategic objective of annexing South Korea.

"The threat perceptions of the ruling elites in Egypt, Iran and the GCC countries are heightened through the unresolved Arab-Israeli conflict, the unpopular US involvement in the region, and the unstable situation in Iraq. And, Iran and the GCC countries are entering a struggle over strategic hegemony in the Gulf.

"Second, in the global scenario, on the one side are the US with the world's largest defense budget and huge military capability, as well as economic powerhouses Japan and the EU. On the other side are developing countries India, Pakistan, Iran, Yemen and North Korea, none of which possess the military capabilities or the economic strength of the developed countries. North Korea, Yemen and Egypt have to deal with poor economic performance and education standards, and there is no sign of any short-term alternative to bridge the economic or military gap.

"Thus, it appears that regimes which have existed over the years in an insecure domestic or regional environment or lack trust and confidence due to economic instability have increasingly developed threat perception toward potential enemies from within their own countries or region. It is in this context that they are trying to improve their strategic position by looking for short-term solutions. Many of these regimes equate security with enhanced military power, and nuclear enrichment seems the cheaper, faster and efficient alternative to overcome their insecurities and emerge as credible powers.

"From the North Korean perspective, a nuclear bomb boosts the regime's chances of survival and gives it an advantage in negotiations with South Korea. Similarly, for Iran, acquiring a nuclear capability will help the regime use it as a tactical means to gain an upper hand in the ongoing dispute with the UAE over the Abu Musa and Greater and Lesser Tunbs islands. The Iranian regime may also attempt to develop a "containment policy" of the US influence in the region. As far as the GCC countries are concerned, it will be impossible to live with a nuclear Iran evolving as hegemon and thus they may be forced into a "nuclear race" to maintain the "balance of power" in the Gulf."

Our world seems poised on the edge of a wave of nuclear proliferation. Maybe we need to approach the problem from a new perspective. Whether India, Pakistan, North Korea or even Iran, our tired, predictable attitudes just aren't working and the nations we need to worry about know that.

Back to Basics - the Mideast Peace Process

Palestinian Kids - What Future?

A great feature of the internet is the variety of online newspapers at your fingertips. When an event happens in a distant corner of the world I try to find whether that country has an English-language online paper and then take a look. Because of problems like pack journalism, the accounts we get in our media tend to be predictable and filtered by our perspective. It should be no surprise that you can often get a very different, and often really informative, viewpoint by going to a news outfit that's right at the source of a problem.

During the last conflict I visited Israeli and Lebanese online papers and learned a lot that never made it into western, mainstream papers. Today I found two interesting items in a Lebanese paper, the Daily Star.

One was a telling comparison of the Northern Ireland peace process and the Mideast equivalent. The reporter, Rhami Kouri, identified three factors that made the Northern Ireland initiative productive that are absent and need to be copied in resolving the Palestinian question:

"Several important points about the Northern Ireland process stand out. For one thing, it is working, and needs to be studied to grasp precisely why that is the case. It has not been fully implemented, but the region is no longer convulsed by political violence and terror. Any agreement that achieves that through negotiations deserves closer scrutiny.

"It is working primarily because of three reasons, it seems. First, it brought into the negotiating process all the key parties who were deemed to be legitimate in the eyes of their own communities, regardless of how other communities saw them. So Sinn Fein represented the IRA, regardless of the Unionists' revulsion for the IRA. The fact of being inclusive was an important element for success.

"Second, the parties recognized that they would achieve through peaceful negotiations important gains that could not be achieved through continued militancy. Diplomacy that succeeded and offered a vision of a better future spurred a greater willingness to persist on the path of peaceful negotiations, and so all sides committed to peaceful resolution of their conflict.

"Third, the external mediator - the United States - was at once persistent, patient and impartial. It did not take sides, but worked tirelessly to bridge gaps between the parties and offer mechanisms to restore confidence when it was shaken.

"None of these elements exists today in the Arab-Israeli situation, and so it is not surprising that our region of the world witnesses destructive wars while Northern Ireland joins the ranks of the world's wealthy societies. The sad irony is that as the Northern Ireland situation resumes its momentum toward a permanent settlement, its historic lessons for the Arabs and Israelis are ignored, even though many of the broad dynamics of both conflicts seem so similar.

"For example, Israel and the US refuse to deal with a Palestinian government led by Hamas, which was democratically elected. Yet in Northern Ireland the British and the US had no problem dealing with the IRA, which used terror for many years. Their decision to engage the IRA through Sinn Fein proved wise and productive, because the IRA soon got out of the terror business and decommissioned its arms. That experience suggests that focusing on the substance of the political goals that one desires from a negotiation is more important than allowing oneself to get hung up on whom one should talk to or not talk to.

"Israel and Hamas do not like or recognize each other, but they are both acting irresponsibly in continuing to avoid engaging each other in a political process that gives their people the possibility of living normal, peaceful lives.

"The same can be said of Iran and the United States. It is instructive for these and other parties in the region to ponder the Northern Ireland situation and acknowledge the importance of focusing on how to achieve desired outcomes that respond to the legitimate rights and needs of both parties to a conflict, rather than getting stalemated on false issues of honor and dishonor in engaging one's adversaries.

"Northern Ireland has much to teach us all about the business of conflict resolution - and also about acting like adults."

And that is a great deal more wisdom that you find today in our papers. When you think about these points, they're really all just common sense and it makes you wonder how this has eluded the principals to the Mideast process. Let's hope someone in Washington bothers to read Lebanon's Daily Star.

One Giant Step... But Not For Mankind

I've written a couple of posts lately critical of the Bush space defence plan and our senate's endorsement of it. Put simply, it struck me that this programme was going to lead to the deployment of offensive weapons in space and that, in turn, might trigger a very dangerous arms race.

Liberal Senator Colin Kenny dismisses doubters. He wants Canada to waste no further time in jumping aboard Washington's space defence bandwagon. Maybe it's time Kenny began paying attention to the signs that he's wrong, dead wrong.

The Washington Post reports that Bush has just signed a new National Space Policy that, "rejects future arms-control agreements that might limit U.S. flexibility in space and asserts a right to deny access to space to anyone hostile to U.S. interests."

"Hostile to U.S. interests," obviously means any other nation that might want to militarize space themselves, even if only defensively.

According to the Washington Post story:

"Freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power," the policy asserts in its introduction.

"National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones said in written comments that an update was needed to "reflect the fact that space has become an even more important component of U.S. economic, national and homeland security." The military has become increasingly dependent on satellite communication and navigation, as have providers of cellphones, personal navigation devices and even ATMs."

"Theresa Hitchens, director of the nonpartisan Center for Defense Information in Washington, said that the new policy "kicks the door a little more open to a space-war fighting strategy" and has a "very unilateral tone to it."

"The administration official strongly disagreed with that characterization, saying the policy encourages international diplomacy and cooperation. But he said the document also makes clear the U.S. position: that no new arms-control agreements are needed because there is no space arms race."

There is no space arms race because Washington believes it can go ahead and keep every other nation, by force if necessary, from responding in kind to what it is doing. Amerika Uber Alles.

By reserving to itself the right to decide who can and cannot have a presence in space and for what purposes, Washington is asserting sovereignty over space itself. America knows that, when you assert sovereignty, you have to develop and deploy the means to enforce that claim.

Senator Kenny, wake up. It's time you pulled your head out of .... the sand.

The Pink Purge

It was bound to happen. The fallout from the Foley/Hastert scandal has sparked an internal uproar that may bring down the Republican house of cards.

There was a time when the GOP was seen as the party of narrow interests, the buttoned down types. The Democrats were the eclectic gang, more tolerant of diversity. That's how the Dems drew minorities.

Then the Republicans sought to target these same voters and went for the "big tent" strategy by claiming their party offered a home where minorities - blacks, gays, etc. - could feel welcome. The core Republicans, the fiscal conservatives, moved over as chairs were added to seat these minority groups. A lot more chairs were added to accommodate the social conservatives - the Christian right. Everybody sort of learned to live together. For the gays, it was a matter of "don't ask/don't tell." That worked, more or less, until the Foley scandal.

Mark Foley, of course is the gay Republican congressman who sent lewd e-mails to underage, congressional pages. When he was exposed he resigned and took off scurrying for the safety of rehab. If that had been the end of it, the Big Tent probably would have carried on without too many ripples, but it wasn't. The much bigger story was about house speaker Dennis Hastert and why nobody did anything about Foley when his predilictions toward these pages had been known for quite a while.

In case you haven't heard, the Christian right doesn't like gays. No, that's not quite right, they love the gay but hate the gayness. Yeah, sure. Not much point splitting hairs over a gang of sinners who are going to burn in hell for eternity anyway, is there?

Well the Foley, no, make that Hastert scandal has given the evangelical right the spark that may set fire to the Big Tent. They want the gays driven out of the Republican temple (the money lenders, they can stay).

Talk about bad timing but just last week Condi Rice, with Laura Bush looking on, swore in her new global AIDS co-ordinator, Mark Dybul, while Mark's partner, Jason Claire, held the bible. Yikes! Condi even referred to Jason's mum, who was in the audience, as Mark's "mother-in-law." Mother-in-law? Gay marriage? OMG!

This, from the L.A. Times:

"'The Republican Party is taking pro-family conservatives for granted,' said Mike Mears, executive director of the political action committee of Concerned Women for America, which promotes biblical values. 'What Secretary Rice did just the other day is going to anger quite a few people.' It's not just anger at Rice that worries Republicans; it's the possible effect on evangelical voters next month.

"The Dybul incident 'was totally a damper to the base that we need to turn out,' said the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, a California lobbying group that focuses on religious and social issues.

Adding to the conservative Christians' disaffection has been a new book asserting that the White House used President Bush's faith-based initiative for political purposes while mocking evangelicals behind their backs.

The tension between Republican gays and evangelicals has been highlighted in recent weeks by the scandal involving Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.), who resigned over explicit messages he sent to underage male House pages.

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said in a television interview last week that there should be an investigation into whether gay congressional staffers were responsible for covering up for Foley.

Perkins also has questioned whether gay Republican staffers on Capitol Hill have torpedoed evangelicals' priorities, such as a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. 'Has the social agenda of the GOP been stalled by homosexual members and/or staffers?' he asked in an e-mail to supporters.

Some social conservatives deny they are interested in removing gay staffers from the party.'We're not calling for what I've heard referred to as a pink purge,' McClusky said. 'We're asking that members [of Congress] might want to reflect on who's serving them: Are they representing their boss' interest?'

"Mears of Concerned Women for America said purging gays from the GOP would not necessarily help the evangelical cause. 'If you get rid of all the homosexuals in Congress and on the staff, you'd still have Republicans like Chris Shays [the Connecticut congressman] and Susan Collins [the Maine senator] pushing the gay agenda.'

"This week, a list that is said to name gay Republican staffers has been circulated to several Christian and family values groups — presumably to encourage an outing and purge. McClusky acknowledged seeing the list but said his group did not produce it and had no intention of using it.

"Still, gay Republican staffers on Capitol Hill say it feels as if the noose is tightening. Fearful of having their names on such a list and losing their jobs after the election, they are trying to keep a low profile."

The Political Action Committee of the Concerned Women of America is headed by - Mike Mears? Oh I guess those gals just can't figure it out for themselves. Go figure.

Well, the cat's among the pigeons now. The fixers must be running around furiously trying to throw wet towels on the burning straw. The tensions are palpable. The fiscal right, the Brooks Brothers crowd, never much cared for the religious right. It's the religious right, however, that has been the powerhouse at turning out their faithful to vote Republican. They've always sort of co-existed but never comfortably. Now, I guess, the question is how much the Republican elite are willing to do to supplicate the religious right?

Here's something to toss around. How would this thing have played out if Mark Foley had been a heterosexual with designs on underage female pages? Would that have caused such a fracture in the Republican ranks? I think the answers are obvious.

We'll Be Done Any Decade Now

We're going to have to get really busy this winter but, if everything goes right, we could be out of Afghanistan in just 20-years. That upbeat assessment came from Lt. Gen. David Richards, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan.

General Richards said our side, the good guys, have about six months to win the 'hearts and minds' of the Afghan people by proving that long-promised (five years and running - tick, tick, tick) reconstruction and security can be accomplished. He also warned about the danger of losing their support: "If you do not have the consent of the people in a counterinsurgency, at the end of the day, you're probably going to lose."

If we can just win the people over, however, Richards figures 20-more years and we'll be done.

I don't know how good he is as a general but David Richards is a terrific politician. One of the big problems that he must surmount is the damage caused by the five wasted years when America neglected Afghanistan to pursue its lark in Iraq. These five years allowed the warlords to cement their control over the north of the country, enabled opium production to flourish again and let the Taliban regroup and re-establish themselves among their fellow Pashtun in the south. Richards called this enormous and painful blunder, a matter of "adopting a peactime approach" too early.

The General blends wishful thinking and whistling past the graveyard seamlessly into an inspirational pitch. Referring to last month's battle at Panjwai, he proclaimed "we established we could fight." Pardon me? Modern, mechanised, professional western armies with artillery, attack helicopters and strike fighters needed to establish they could fight? Did he not think they could?

Richards said we established we could fight and we also, "...forced them to revert to asymmetric tactics; suicide bombings and that sort of thing." That doesn't explain why, last week, British paras had to negotiate a truce with Taliban fighters in Helmand province and withdraw to their garrison. Nor is it much of a victory to note that insurgents have gone back to insurgency. But if that's all you've got, I guess you make the best of it.

So, what is General Richards' formula for taking advantage of this six month window of opportunity? Well, first we have to secure the countryside, then we have to get Karzai to clean out the corruption in his police, and then we have to do all the reconstruction stuff. Simple as A,B,C, isn't it?

What the General is not directly saying is that he's counting on the Taliban reverting to their traditional practice of withdrawing to their mountain retreats for the winter. He's counting on getting all his targets accomplished while the Taliban is giving him his six month window of opportunity.

I think David Richards is a terrific optimist. There have been reports that the Taliban aren't going to ground this winter but will be staying to continue their insurgency. They don't have to do much fighting, just enough to keep critical areas dangerous enough, from time to time, to prevent reconstruction. As for Karzai's corrupt police problem, even the General isn't pretending there's anything he can do about that.

What's the best chance for peace in Afghanistan? The U.S. needs to get out of Iraq and send a substantial part of that force to Afghanistan. NATO can concentrate on holding the Taliban at bay while the U.S. intervenes on behalf of Karzai to cleanse his goverment of the control of warlords and, in turn, clean out corruption in the judicial and police systems. Karzai needs muscle and NATO hasn't got any to spare.

TheTaliban need to be shown that their only way ahead lies in participating in a truly national government, not trying to bring it down to takeover once again.

Finally, the west has to establish an alternative, agrarian economy for the Afghan peasants. They need to be given a viable option to poppy cultivation. That, however, is going to have to be supported by their government and that, in turn, means ridding the Afghan government of the rot - the warlords, the drug lords and the corrupt functionaries in the bureaucracy, police and army. If that sounds like tearing it all up and starting again - it is.

The Karzai government is hopelessly compromised. To restore its legitimacy, we have to start from scratch, perhaps even with a new leader. We also have to tailor our expectations of what that government can and should be. We can't fight insurgents, warlords, the drug lords and tribalism and hope to win. We have to pick our fights and accept that, even if we win, we may not be happy with the result but we have to accept it and move on.

Putting People First

The corporatization of America has spread far and wide under the Bush administration. Industry leaders get placed in charge of the government departments that regulate their industries; oil companies rake in tsunami-scale profits yet still receive billions in federal subsidies; the military has been partly privatized and handed over to the likes of Haliburton; and so much more.

That depressing trend makes even small victories seem wonderful, inspirational. News of one of those came out today, from California. There, state regulators have come down with both boots on Blue Cross, a leading health insurance provider.

Blue Cross has been pulling health coverage out from underneath policyholders whenever possible, often for anything they could claim was an undisclosed, pre-existing condition, regardless of whether the failure to disclose was clearly unintentional.

In a previous post I wrote about a young girl who developed a potentially-fatal tumor on her jaw. Blue Cross paid the first $20,000 of her medical costs but then cut her off on discovering she had a "bump" on her chin at the time her parents applied for insurance. Her parents didn't pay any attention to it, neither did the girl's doctor. No one could say that, at the time the policy was purchased, the bump was even cancerous. That didn't stop Blue Cross from forcing the parents to scramble to fund the rest of their daughter's medical treatments. They sued, just like about 70-other shafted policy holders.

Those suits got settled, and they were all settled at once, and the former policy-holders are said to all be quite pleased with the outcome. What happened was that California state regulators stepped up and did what regulators are supposed to do - regulate - in the public interest. They made it clear to Blue Cross that its conduct was unacceptable and they warned it that big fines were coming down. Suddenly, Blue Cross had a change of heart. Good news for all the policy holders who were shafted and all those who would have been shafted on claims to come.

Historical Trivia

This time you'll be playing for the patio furniture. Name this creature and the reason, if any, we should even remember her name.

When Only the Best Will Do

Fascism - Just What Is It?

We all know the word "fascism" because our leaders like to bandy it around, especially to excoriate other leaders they don't like. Now we all know that fascists and fascism are bad. After all, that's what WWII was all about, right? Unfortunately, not many of us have ever spent much time pondering just what fascism really is. In fact, it defies any precise definition mainly because it's not some sort of code based on some ideological manifesto, some statement of principles and concepts. No, fascism is something much more obscure than, say, communism and is inevitably defined by its characteristics.

The following is a useful examination of these traits, published by the Council for Secular Humanism -

"There is one archetypal political philosophy that is anathema to almost all of these principles. It is fascism. And fascism’s principles are wafting in the air today, surreptitiously masquerading as something else, challenging everything we stand for. The cliché that people and nations learn from history is not only overused, but also overestimated; often we fail to learn from history, or draw the wrong conclusions. Sadly, historical amnesia is the norm.

"We are two-and-a-half generations removed from the horrors of Nazi Germany, although constant reminders jog the consciousness. German and Italian fascism form the historical models that define this twisted political worldview. Although they no longer exist, this worldview and the characteristics of these models have been imitated by protofascist regimes at various times in the twentieth century. Both the original German and Italian models and the later protofascist regimes show remarkably similar characteristics. Although many scholars question any direct connection among these regimes, few can dispute their visual similarities.

"Beyond the visual, even a cursory study of these fascist and protofascist regimes reveals the absolutely striking convergence of their modus operandi. This, of course, is not a revelation to the informed political observer, but it is sometimes useful in the interests of perspective to restate obvious facts and in so doing shed needed light on current circumstances.

"For the purpose of this perspective, I will consider the following regimes: Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Franco’s Spain, Salazar’s Portugal, Papadopoulos’s Greece, Pinochet’s Chile, and Suharto’s Indonesia. To be sure, they constitute a mixed bag of national identities, cultures, developmental levels, and history. But they all followed the fascist or protofascist model in obtaining, expanding, and maintaining power. Further, all these regimes have been overthrown, so a more or less complete picture of their basic characteristics and abuses is possible.

"Analysis of these seven regimes reveals fourteen common threads that link them in recognizable patterns of national behavior and abuse of power. These basic characteristics are more prevalent and intense in some regimes than in others, but they all share at least some level of similarity.


1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism. From the prominent displays of flags and bunting to the ubiquitous lapel pins, the fervor to show patriotic nationalism, both on the part of the regime itself and of citizens caught up in its frenzy, was always obvious. Catchy slogans, pride in the military, and demands for unity were common themes in expressing this nationalism. It was usually coupled with a suspicion of things foreign that often bordered on xenophobia.

2. Disdain for the importance of human rights. The regimes themselves viewed human rights as of little value and a hindrance to realizing the objectives of the ruling elite. Through clever use of propaganda, the population was brought to accept these human rights abuses by marginalizing, even demonizing, those being targeted. When abuse was egregious, the tactic was to use secrecy, denial, and disinformation.

3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause. The most significant common thread among these regimes was the use of scapegoating as a means to divert the people’s attention from other problems, to shift blame for failures, and to channel frustration in controlled directions. The methods of choice—relentless propaganda and disinformation—were usually effective. Often the regimes would incite “spontaneous” acts against the target scapegoats, usually communists, socialists, liberals, Jews, ethnic and racial minorities, traditional national enemies, members of other religions, secularists, homosexuals, and “terrorists.” Active opponents of these regimes were inevitably labeled as terrorists and dealt with accordingly.

4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism. Ruling elites always identified closely with the military and the industrial infrastructure that supported it. A disproportionate share of national resources was allocated to the military, even when domestic needs were acute. The military was seen as an expression of nationalism, and was used whenever possible to assert national goals, intimidate other nations, and increase the power and prestige of the ruling elite.

5. Rampant sexism. Beyond the simple fact that the political elite and the national culture were male-dominated, these regimes inevitably viewed women as second-class citizens. They were adamantly anti-abortion and also homophobic. These attitudes were usually codified in Draconian laws that enjoyed strong support by the orthodox religion of the country, thus lending the regime cover for its abuses.

6. A controlled mass media. Under some of the regimes, the mass media were under strict direct control and could be relied upon never to stray from the party line. Other regimes exercised more subtle power to ensure media orthodoxy. Methods included the control of licensing and access to resources, economic pressure, appeals to patriotism, and implied threats. The leaders of the mass media were often politically compatible with the power elite. The result was usually success in keeping the general public unaware of the regimes’ excesses.

7. Obsession with national security. Inevitably, a national security apparatus was under direct control of the ruling elite. It was usually an instrument of oppression, operating in secret and beyond any constraints. Its actions were justified under the rubric of protecting “national security,” and questioning its activities was portrayed as unpatriotic or even treasonous.

8. Religion and ruling elite tied together. Unlike communist regimes, the fascist and protofascist regimes were never proclaimed as godless by their opponents. In fact, most of the regimes attached themselves to the predominant religion of the country and chose to portray themselves as militant defenders of that religion. The fact that the ruling elite’s behavior was incompatible with the precepts of the religion was generally swept under the rug. Propaganda kept up the illusion that the ruling elites were defenders of the faith and opponents of the “godless.” A perception was manufactured that opposing the power elite was tantamount to an attack on religion.

9. Power of corporations protected. Although the personal life of ordinary citizens was under strict control, the ability of large corporations to operate in relative freedom was not compromised. The ruling elite saw the corporate structure as a way to not only ensure military production (in developed states), but also as an additional means of social control. Members of the economic elite were often pampered by the political elite to ensure a continued mutuality of interests, especially in the repression of “have-not” citizens.

10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated. Since organized labor was seen as the one power center that could challenge the political hegemony of the ruling elite and its corporate allies, it was inevitably crushed or made powerless. The poor formed an underclass, viewed with suspicion or outright contempt. Under some regimes, being poor was considered akin to a vice.

11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts. Intellectuals and the inherent freedom of ideas and expression associated with them were anathema to these regimes. Intellectual and academic freedom were considered subversive to national security and the patriotic ideal. Universities were tightly controlled; politically unreliable faculty harassed or eliminated. Unorthodox ideas or expressions of dissent were strongly attacked, silenced, or crushed. To these regimes, art and literature should serve the national interest or they had no right to exist.

12. Obsession with crime and punishment. Most of these regimes maintained Draconian systems of criminal justice with huge prison populations. The police were often glorified and had almost unchecked power, leading to rampant abuse. “Normal” and political crime were often merged into trumped-up criminal charges and sometimes used against political opponents of the regime. Fear, and hatred, of criminals or “traitors” was often promoted among the population as an excuse for more police power.

13. Rampant cronyism and corruption. Those in business circles and close to the power elite often used their position to enrich themselves. This corruption worked both ways; the power elite would receive financial gifts and property from the economic elite, who in turn would gain the benefit of government favoritism. Members of the power elite were in a position to obtain vast wealth from other sources as well: for example, by stealing national resources. With the national security apparatus under control and the media muzzled, this corruption was largely unconstrained and not well understood by the general population.

14. Fraudulent elections. Elections in the form of plebiscites or public opinion polls were usually bogus. When actual elections with candidates were held, they would usually be perverted by the power elite to get the desired result. Common methods included maintaining control of the election machinery, intimidating and disenfranchising opposition voters, destroying or disallowing legal votes, and, as a last resort, turning to a judiciary beholden to the power elite."

Does any of this ring alarm bells? Of course not. After all, this is America, officially a democracy with the rule of law, a constitution, a free press, honest elections, and a well-informed public constantly being put on guard against evils. Historical comparisons like these are just exercises in verbal gymnastics. Maybe, maybe not.



Note
1 Defined as a “political movement or regime tending toward or imitating Fascism”—Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary.

References

Andrews, Kevin. Greece in the Dark. Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1980. Chabod, Frederico. A History of Italian Fascism. London: Weidenfeld, 1963. Cooper, Marc. Pinochet and Me. New York: Verso, 2001. Cornwell, John. Hitler as Pope. New York: Viking, 1999. de Figuerio, Antonio. Portugal—Fifty Years of Dictatorship. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1976. Eatwell, Roger. Fascism, A History. New York: Penguin, 1995. Fest, Joachim C. The Face of the Third Reich. New York: Pantheon, 1970. Gallo, Max. Mussolini’s Italy. New York: MacMillan, 1973. Kershaw, Ian. Hitler (two volumes). New York: Norton, 1999. Laqueur, Walter. Fascism, Past, Present, and Future. New York: Oxford, 1996. Papandreau, Andreas. Democracy at Gunpoint. New York: Penguin Books, 1971. Phillips, Peter. Censored 2001: 25 Years of Censored News. New York: Seven Stories. 2001. Sharp, M.E. Indonesia Beyond Suharto. Armonk, 1999. Verdugo, Patricia. Chile, Pinochet, and the Caravan of Death. Coral Gables, Florida: North-South Center Press, 2001. Yglesias, Jose. The Franco Years. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1977."

Sunni, schmunni - Shia, schmia

A telling op/ed piece in today's New York Times by Jeff Stein, national security editor of Congressional Quarterly.

After five years of the Global War Without End on Terror, Stein set out to ask key figures in his government if they knew the difference between Sunni and Shia Muslims:

"But so far, most American officials I’ve interviewed don’t have a clue. That includes not just intelligence and law enforcement officials, but also members of Congress who have important roles overseeing our spy agencies. How can they do their jobs without knowing the basics?

"My curiosity about our policymakers’ grasp of Islam’s two major branches was piqued in 2005, when Jon Stewart and other TV comedians made hash out of depositions, taken in a whistleblower case, in which top F.B.I. officials drew blanks when asked basic questions about Islam. One of the bemused officials was Gary Bald, then the bureau’s counterterrorism chief. Such expertise, Mr. Bald maintained, wasn’t as important as being a good manager.

"A few months later, I asked the F.B.I.’s spokesman, John Miller, about Mr. Bald’s comments. 'A leader needs to drive the organization forward,' Mr. Miller told me. 'If he is the executive in a counterterrorism operation in the post-9/11 world, he does not need to memorize the collected statements of Osama bin Laden, or be able to read Urdu to be effective. ... Playing ‘Islamic Trivial Pursuit’ was a cheap shot for the lawyers and a cheaper shot for the journalist. It’s just a gimmick.'"

"Of course, I hadn’t asked about reading Urdu or Mr. bin Laden’s writings.

"A few weeks ago, I took the F.B.I.’s temperature again. At the end of a long interview, I asked Willie Hulon, chief of the bureau’s new national security branch, whether he thought that it was important for a man in his position to know the difference between Sunnis and Shiites. 'Yes, sure, it’s right to know the difference,' he said. 'It’s important to know who your targets are.'

"That was a big advance over 2005. So next I asked him if he could tell me the difference. He was flummoxed. The basics goes back to their beliefs and who they were following,' he said. 'And the conflicts between the Sunnis and the Shia and the difference between who they were following.'

"O.K., I asked, trying to help, what about today? Which one is Iran — Sunni or Shiite? He thought for a second. 'Iran and Hezbollah,' I prompted. 'Which are they?'
He took a stab: 'Sunni.'

"Wrong.

"Al Qaeda? 'Sunni.'

"Right.

"AND to his credit, Mr. Hulon, a distinguished agent who is up nights worrying about Al Qaeda while we safely sleep, did at least know that the vicious struggle between Islam’s Abel and Cain was driving Iraq into civil war. But then we pay him to know things like that, the same as some members of Congress."

Stein then related his encounter with Terry Everett, a 7-term Republican Congressman and vice-chairman of the House intelligence sub-committee on technical and tactical intelligence.
Everett also didn't know Shia from Sunni:

"To his credit, he asked me to explain the differences. I told him briefly about the schism that developed after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, and how Iraq and Iran are majority Shiite nations while the rest of the Muslim world is mostly Sunni.

“'Now that you’ve explained it to me,' he replied, 'what occurs to me is that it makes what we’re doing over there extremely difficult, not only in Iraq but that whole area.'”

Before any of us start chuckling, maybe we should ask how many of our leaders know the difference either? Maybe we should ask.

To Punish Those who Kill Innocents

George Bush is at his very best when he gets into his comedy mode. It makes him almost seem likeable.

Today the president signed into law his bill authorizing "tough" interrogation of suspects and allowing their trial before military tribunals but which does not afford them a right to legal counsel or to challenge the very legality of their detention. This was clearly a situation that called for some levity as in these lines from President George Bush himself:

"With the bill I'm about to sign, the men our intelligence officials believe orchestrated the murder of nearly 3,000 innocent people will face justice." Is he talking about bin Laden? Has he got Osama? Did he finally do it? What do you think?

"It is a rare occassion when a president can sign a bill he knows will save American lives." He could've saved an awful lot of American lives, even without a bill, if he'd just stayed out of Iraq.

"Those who kill the innocent will be held to account." Sure, unless the "innocent" include the tens of thousands of Iraqis the Americans have killed. Best we leave them out of this.

Mr. Bush said his bill sends a clear message: "This nation is patient and decent and fair..." The American Civil Liberties Union thinks the bill's message is more along these lines: "The president can now.. ..indefinitely hold people without charge, take away protections against horrific abuse, authorize trials that can sentence people to death based on testimony literally beaten out of witnesses, and slam shut the courthouse door for habeas petitions."

I figured it out. If you just add the words "as I wanna be" after 'patient' and 'decent' and 'fair', Bush and the ACLU are both right. There, now don't you feel better?

The Achilles Heel of this bill is that it places so much arbitrary power and discretion in the judgment of a man who, for six years, has repeatedly and consistently demonstrated horribly bad judgment.

Another Rattle from the Toolbox

Once again the editorial staff of Canada's self-proclaimed "newspaper of record" have shown that there are not many great minds wasted in the newsroom of this paper. This time, they claimed that the NATO mission in Afghanistan, "...is a sensible use of the Right to Protect, a United Nations policy pushed by Canada.

I don't know what, if anything, these people had in mind but there is no "right to protect" policy and the actual policy, the "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine, has no application to the Afghan situation. Responsibility to Protect, or R2P, is narrowly aimed at preventing two horrors: ethnic cleansing and genocide. That's it. Afghanistan's many troubles do not, fortunately, include genocide or ethnic cleansing. Surely the senior editorial bosses of Canada's newspaper of record ought to understand that.

The editorial, addressing yesterday's story about 13-year olds being traded like cattle by their fathers and being thrown into prison if they refuse, then says, "..it's fair to ask: Is this the new Afghanistan that Canadians are dying for?"

That, of course, is the fundamental question. That also explains why the editors threw it out as a closing line without making any attempt at answering it. They don't want the answer because they know it totally undermines their paper's wholehearted endorsement of Canada's mission to Afghanistan.

President Karzai's government doesn't actually govern. His countrymen remain in the grip of a feudal state ruled by tribal custom. Karzai's government, police and military are so shot through with corruption that they oppress rather than protect the tribesmen. This enables the Taliban to recruit from the same fields our troops patrol. Karzai's government is fueling the very insurgency that we have to battle to defend Karzai's government.

It's good to ask these important questions. It's completely disingenuous to then close one's eyes to the obvious answers.

Save Money, Save the Planet

Some good news, finally, on the environmental front. A report is due out later this month prepared by the former chief economist to the World Bank and the British treasury. In it, economist Nick Stern is said to demonstrate that the cost of slashing greenhouse gas emissions will be far cheaper than the price we'll pay for the ensuing devastation if global warming continues.

Stern is said to have spent a year going through the science and economics of climate change in the course of preparing his British government-funded study. It seems his conclusions depict this to be a "no brainer".

The Stern report follows on the heels of a PriceWaterhouse Coopers study that showed it is possible to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 60% from today's levels at a cost of just one year's economic output - but only if the developed world takes the initiative and acts aggressively, now.

A Greenpeace spokesman said of the Stern report, "Now we know there's a moral imperative, an environmental imperative and an economic imperative." This should give the critics something to chew on. Let's hope it does.

Frank McKenna on Bended Knee

To many Liberals, Frank McKenna has long been their dream candidate for party leader and prime minister. I never could get very enthusiastic about the guy. He always struck me as the type who couldn't be counted on to be ready to stand up for Canada in tough situations.

Comments made in a paper McKenna released today confirm my doubts. He claims Canada blundered by abjectly refusing to join America's anti-missile defence scheme. McKenna claims we weren't very good at communicating our position. Let's see - he was our ambassador to the United States. Wasn't it his job to see the message was properly communicated? McKenna, according to reports, seems to think we should revisit that decision, a position recently echoed by the Canadian senate.

McKenna misses the point. Putting weapons in space should be opposed by every sensible nation on the planet. Once one nation puts weapons in space, other will feel the need to do the same. There is no way, utterly none, that space weapons will be confined to defensive systems only. As surely as night follows day, defensive weapons will soon give way to dual-purpose weapons that will, in turn, be followed by offensive weapons.

The risks of a space-based weapons race far outweigh any slim benefit that could possibly accrue to American security. The risk to the planet of those weapons ever being used could be cataclysmic.

Thank God McKenna isn't going to be leading the Liberal Party or this nation.

A Body Blow for Ethanol

There's a massive development underway in the U.S. and elsewhere to produce "bio-fuels" as a renewable alternative to petroleum resources. In theory it sounds good: grow corn and then transform it into fuel. Grow corn, make gas, grow more corn, make more gas and on it goes.

Would that it were that simple but it's not. A couple of days ago I posted an item entitled "When the food runs out" based on a Gwynne Dyer piece about the earth's inability to produce enough food for the existing population. Dyer touched on the bio-fuel craze and pointed out that, if we don't have enough farmland to feed our people, how can we take lands out of food production to make fuel. He drove the point home by noting that to make enough ethanol to fill up an SUV once requires enough grain to feed a person for a full year.

Turns out there's another looming problem, one much more likely to doom this corn-based biofuel project. America's corn belt is located in a handful of states that all rely on what's known as the High Plains Aquifer. Mid-western farmers have been dependent on the HPA for decades. Its bountiful supply allowed them to turn prairie grasslands into productive farmlands.

For more than a decade stories have been coming out about the drop in the High Plains Aquifer from excessive irrigation demands. There were forecasts of eventual water disruptions. That dire warning is now coming true.

In some parts of western Kansas, the aquifer has been sucked dry or so nearly dry that farmers are having to shut down their wells. One local paper quotes an official of the Kansas water office as saying, "It's a big, complex problem. ...We can't have near the amount of irrigated corn and alfalfa that we have. We don't have the water."

The paper quoted another fellow who has been involved with state water issues for decades as saying the agricultural depletion of the HPA, "..is like a drunk running a liquor store."

The question is how much farmland can the United States lose before it has to walk away from using the fields for fuel production instead of food?

This is a problem the United States is going to have to tackle aggressively. It is going to require compromises and sacrifices. I expect it will also draw renewed attention to Canada's apparently bountiful fresh water resources. That is a genuine Pandora's Box issue that remains unresolved in the scheme of our free trade arrangements.

The High Plains Aquifer problem isn't unique. Around the world burgeoning populations are overtaxing ground water resources. Part of the problem is that it's "out of sight, out of mind." Compounding that is the fact that we don't tend to deal with the dwindling supply problem until it's too late, until the wells start running dry. That makes planning and adjusting much more difficult.

Compared to some parts of the world, the United States is relatively fortunate. India's aquifers are draining even faster. The same situation is going on in China. Investors are eagerly looking forward to stepping in to these enormous emerging markets for commodity water.

Lets learn from what so much of the rest of the world is experiencing or will soon face and begin to grasp the significance of Canada's water resources. If we don't understand it, it'll be much harder for us to stop those who would sell it elsewhere.

Women's Liberation - Afghani Style

A favourite argument of boosters of Canada's 'mission' to Afghanistan is the one about how much better off the Afghan women are now that the Taliban has been driven out (or at least somewhere down the next block - I hope).

There's no doubt the Taliban were cruel and oppressive to their country's women folk. That's why we deserve a real pat on the back for replacing the Taliban with a free, democratic, enlightened government. We did that, right? Didn't we?

Maybe not. The democratic Karzai government has now been in power for several years, plenty of time to put Afghanistan back on an even keel as a fitting member of the world community. Whatever good this corrupt administration may be doing, it's doing precious little for the country's women.

A front page article in today's Globe reported that Afghan women, make that girls as young as 13, are getting slung into prison for refusing to submit to arranged marriages. The 13-year old, named Shabano, refused go along with her father's deal to trade her as a bride for a 50-year old. That's right, trade, as in livestock. Apparently Shabano's dad had arranged to trade her for another girl, presumably for his own use.

The Globe reporter managed to visit the women inmates in the luxurious Kandahar prison where they're kept with their children. A couple are in for real crimes but most are paying the price for the crime of disobedience.

Karzai's Afghanistan remains a place where tribal law and customs trump the constitution and state law. Women remain the property of their husbands, daughters are mere chattels. And Canadian soldiers are fighting and dying to preserve this way of life?

Maybe it's unrealistic to expect a predominantly backward, tribal society to embrace democratic values. However if Karzai can't even establish democratic freedoms at the individual level, what hope has he for success at a national level?

In the meantime, if Harper and O'Conner can't get Karzai's gang to act like decent human beings, at least they should stop feeding us this garbage about how "the mission" is making the country a wonderful place for Afghan women. It's not, they know it and they're not doing a damned thing about it.

In a note of bitter irony, the report on persecution of Afghan women appeared beside a story about Canada's latest two soldiers killed over there. It quoted Stephen Harper praising their sacrifice, "to bring stability, democracy and peace in Afghanistan."

Saddam Verdict Coming Soon

I don't like Saddam Hussein and I hope he gets what he deserves. I still found it really amusing to read the morning paper's story that the verdict against Saddam is expected early next month. Wow, I guess we're going to have to wait with baited breath to discover what that's going to be. Will he be convicted? Will he be acquitted? Who can tell? The tension is almost unbearable.

Here's a clue. We are told when to expect the verdict, not by Saddam's judge or other court official. No, the word came down from the prosecutor. He also told us that sentences will be pronounced "for those found guilty" on the same day as the verdict.

Why the wait? It was obvious what was in store for Sad Man before this show trial even started. Maybe the delay is to let everyone associated with the trial (other than the defendants of course) get all their family members safely out of Iraq before sentence is pronounced.

Saddam isn't giving up. He issued an open letter to his fellow countrymen yesterday telling them that Iraq's "liberation is at hand." I don't know about Iraq but I think Sad Man's liberation is just around the corner.

You Gotta Have Faith

"The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away." There's a whole new meaning to that one according to The New York Times.

Just ask Mary Rosati. She was a novice training to be a nun. Then she was diagnosed with breast cancer. For that, her mother superior sacked the young woman. Hmm - what would Jesus do? Rosati sued but the church was held exempt from liability because, well it's a church, dummy. The paper cites another case, this a rabbi in New Mexico who got unceremoniously booted out the door when he developed Parksinson's and was, likewise, unable to sue for compensation.

The current U.S. laws are so broad that even operations just remotely affiliated with a religious institution are above the law. In some states, church day cares are exempted from licensing requirements and churches have shown themselves able to avoid zoning laws that would apply to anyone else.

Now the inevitable backlash has begun. Fair is fair, even if it does affect a church.

It's Enough to Make You Sick

Most Americans want a system of "single payer" or universal health care along the lines of what we have here in Canada. The polls leave that beyond doubt. Some Americans, however, including the oligarchy that has quietly ousted what used to be a democracy, are determined to see that never happens.

If the people want it and it could be done at less expense than what they're doing now, why not give them what they want? Well, you see, there's this one little problem - money. There's an enormous amount of money driving the current system - money that flows to some enormously profitable outfits like the medical insurers and pharmaceutical industry. These groups are rolling in so much money, they just have to toss a bit of that to the wonderful people who see to it that the gravy train just keeps rolling - the government of the United States, especially those Republicans.

For obvious reasons these health insurers like to keep a low profile. So do most successful burglars. Every now and then, however, we get a glimpse at the wonderful men and women who run this industry, people like Dr. William McGuire.

Bill, as I like to call the old rascal, was the CEO and driving force behind one of America's two top health care insurers, the UnitedHealth Group. Bill, as I like to call him, got the boot yesterday over a scandal concerning his stock options. You see Bill, as he's known at the club, seems to have gotten a lot of these stock options backdated.

Backdating is, in effect, playing with the notional date at which stock options are granted. If the stock value plummets to a low of $1 on the 1st of October, for example, and the option is backdated to then, you can later exercise that option to buy your shares at that bottom price. If the share value at the time you exercise your option has hit the roof, it's a lot like winning the lottery - just without the risk.

Now Bill, as his friends refer to him, stood to make well over a billion dollars on the stock option thing. That caused some upset investors to have UnitedHealth hire an independent law firm to look into the whole thing. Their findings weren't too good for Bill, as we in the yachting circles have come to know him.

The disgraced Dr. William McGuire (who's "Bill" anyway?) has been forced to resign and his stock options have been revalued from lowest values to highest values which really cuts into the profits. I don't know how this guy is going to make it. According to the New York Times, all Dr. McGuire has to show for his 13-years at UnitedHealth are salary, bonuses, buyouts and stock options now slashed to a mere $522 million.

But it's not just the guys at the top who are getting screwed by these health insurers. Sometimes the little people get it too. There are people like the Shaeffers of Murietta, California. their 4-year old daughter was diagnosed with a potentially fatal tumor in her jaw. The Shaeffers' insurer Blue Cross, after paying 20,000 for her treatments, cut off the Shaeffers' coverage. They blamed the parents for failing to disclose a bump on their daughter's chin at the time they applied for coverage. It doesn't matter that no one, including the Shaeffers' family doctor, thought anything was amiss. For all anybody knows the little girl didn't actually have a tumor at the time of the application. Blue Cross doesn't care. Now the parents are looking at how to pay the remaining $60,000 of their daughter's medical bills.

Okay, the Shaeffers and all the others who get shafted by their insurers are real sob stories. But wait a minute. It's not like they lost half a billion dollars of bogus stock options, is it?

Just Big Hair and Lipstick?

Environment Minister Rona Ambrose has done her best over the past eight months to keep a low profile. Oh, she's mumbled a lot of vague assurances that she's doing something about the environment, alluded to a basket of initiatives she's got in the works and muttered about lengthy consultations to come over the next year. Nora's even been heard to acknowledge the link between greenhouse gases and global warming. What she hasn't shown us is whether any of this really matters to her or to her boss, Little Stevie.

We know that Stevie doesn't like Kyoto, that he badmouths it a lot and never passes up an opportunity to misrepresent what it's all about. We know that Stevie and his environmental underling, that little hottie, like the notion of deflecting the global warming issue by diverting attention to their smog initiative. We know they also hype the ideas of voluntary compliance and 'intensity-based' regulation.

Still, it's anything but easy to put a finger on just exactly what Ms. Ambrose has been doing since she was appointed. I suppose like all new ministers Mona's spent the necessary time getting briefed by all the experts and top dogs in her ministry. I mean, they all do that, right? Maybe not.

According to a story in today's Hill Times, Ms. Ambrose hasn't bothered to get a briefing from her department on the science of climate change. HT spoke with an unnamed official of her department who said Ronnie hadn't been briefed by here ministry's scientists who specialize in this area, adding, "It's shocking, isn't it?"

Schocking? Not really. It's only shocking if you didn't notice the 800-pound gorilla in the room, the great Athabaska Tar Sands. Rampaging tar sands development and greenhouse gas concerns don't really fit too well. I mean, how can you make any serious effort to curb emissions of greenhouse gases and ignore the tar sands problem? Wait - okay, I get it. Now I understand why she has ducked those briefings.

A Little Georgie Moment

Gee, if I had an outfit like that, Hamid,

I wouldn't wear pants

Wait Til Vic Toews Hears About This

How to say this? It's about drinking and sex. And consent. And whether a woman who gets drunk should even be allowed to consent to have sex. And whether an equally drunk guy can tell the difference. And, well, you know...

Britain's Solicitor General Mike O'Brien wants to introduce laws that make it easier to get rape convictions against men who deliberately get women tipsy in order to have it off with them.

According to a story in the Daily Mail:

"Under the new plans, the legal definition of consent could be rewritten to make clear that women who are drunk could not have agreed to sex.

"It raises the possibility that even if a woman agreed to sex while drunk, a jury could decide she was too inebriated to give meaningful consent.

"This places a heavy burden of responsibility on men to ensure that a woman is fully conscious of her actions and has agreed to make love."

You know how bartenders or even friends can sometimes take a guy's keys if he's loaded and unsafe to drive? Maybe they'll have to start putting drunk women in cabs for the guy's own good too.

Yeah, But Can It Drop Bombs?

Liverpool apparently has a serious "Yob" problem. Yobs or Yobbos are hooligans, street punks and Liverpool has formed a Yob-Squad, officially known as the "Anti-Social Behaviour Task Force" to clean up the streets. One approach being considered by the ASBTF is to use the same aerial drones employed by British forces in Iraq to monitor parts of the city with Yob issues.

The Daily Mail describes how this task force will operate:

"Powers open to them include the seizure of cars being driven without insurance, scrambler bikes being driven anti-socially, property gained illegally and the eviction of families who behave anti-socially or criminally, as well as pushing further the use of Anti-Social Behaviour Orders."

Networks of closed circuit cameras, aerial reconnaisance drones, what's next?

Toolbox Whimsy

From time to time I'm going to share some of the gutbusting wisdom that appears in The Globe & Mail editorials. I'm calling this the "toolbox" in honour of that complete tool, Marcus Gee.

After exploring whether 400,000 Iraqis or 600,000 Iraqis have been killed since America invaded, we got this gem:

But it doesn't answer the question: How can so many

senseless deaths be prevented?

Memo to Marcus: I'm sorry but they're dead. That's it, they're gone, finished, in the arms of their maker. Once they're dead, it's a bit late to ponder how that can be prevented. Tool.

A Condi Moment

The Heart of Leadership

A President and A King

I never liked Richard Nixon. It always struck me that anyone who could choose Spiro T. Agnew as his vice-president was up to no good and needed to be watched very closely. I shed no tears when Nixon was driven from office in disgrace, fleeing to avoid impeachment.

Richard Nixon never struck me as being enamoured of the democratic process but I began to think just a bit more kindly of him when I watched him in lengthy interviews he gave David Frost.

I guess the interviews weren't that great because I only retained one anecdote from the lot but it was good, very good. Nixon was being questioned on how he got the U.S. to accept communist China.

He replied saying that the true test of any democratic leader was his ability to persuade his people to support, perhaps reluctantly, unpopular positions. It was the duty of leaders, he noted, not only to lead by doing what needed to be done but also to lead the people to accept and support that decision.

Would that more of our leaders today accepted that obligation. Unfortunately we have too many who view democracy either as mob rule or else as the unwashed deciding, every four or five years, who will be their dictator for the next four or five years. The mob rule type eventually lead to an unjust, dysfunctional government. The other type do pretty much what they want and then open the doors to profligate spending at the end of their term to buy their way through another election.

It takes a great deal of patience, committment and perseverance to govern by the model Nixon described. These are qualities often absent in our too-often petulant, top-down prime minister. We need better. Stephen Harper doesn't like to explain. He doesn't like to have to justify or convince. If he can't lead us on an issue, such as Afghanistan, he simply goes ahead with it anyway and moves on to something else. Now, there's a Decider for you.

Mob Rule - Assault on the Courts, Are We Next?

One thing common to the fundamentalist, far-right movements is their utter contempt for our judicial systems, especially judges who, following the law, make decisions the social conservatives don't like.

In the U.S., the upcoming mid-term elections will see voters presented with a host of initiatives aimed directly at judicial independence.

The South Dakota initiative would enable citizens to sue judges over their rulings. There is a wide range of initiatives in various states; some call for term-limits, others for the ability to recall judges, still others providing for elected judges. The list goes on.

The far right portrays these iniatives as populist, democratic. Opponents see them as a direct assault on judicial independence and the undermining of America'system of checks and balances.

Electing judges is worse than horrible. It produces a bench beholden to their campaign contributors, always making rulings with an eye to the next election. That, in a word, is corruption of the judicial system. Introducing coersive measures such as recall or liability to law suits by losers completely undermines democracy.

Imagine how you much you would like to be in a court case in which the other side's lawyer was a big contributor to the judge's election campaigns. Imagine what it would be like to find yourself in litigation with an opponent renowned for suing judges who didn't go his way.

America has entered a dark and brutishy period and these initiatives are highly reflective of that. We Canadians would do well to pay attention before that same sort of thing begins happening here.

A Brief Scent of Reason

Pack journalism is a real problem in the western world. Too often our newspapers' take on stories sounds and is almost identical. We are fortunate that the internet allows us to go to other sources, online editions of papers from other countries. That gives us a chance to see what they're actually thinking, not just what our reporters tell us they're thinking.

I found a terrific piece by Evan Goldstein in the latest edition of Haaretz.com, an Israeli paper, on the on the importance of free speech and tolerance of dissent to Israel's survival:

"Writing in the influential New York Review of Books, [celebrated historian, Tony] Judt argued that we have moved beyond the parochial notion that the nation-state is the locus of political life. Harder words followed. He proceeded to declare the very idea of a Jewish state as hopelessly "rooted in another time and place." As Judt describes it, the transnational ethos of our age demands that Jews, once again, invest their trust in the collective humanity of civilization (and, more specifically, in the political competence and decency of Palestinians).

"In a world where nations and peoples increasingly intermingle and intermarry at will; where cultural and national impediments to communication have all but collapsed; where more and more of us have multiple elective identities and would feel falsely constrained if we had to answer to just one of them; in such a world Israel is truly an anachronism. And not just an anachronism but a dysfunctional one."

"The Jews, it seems, were late to the party. But not just late, irremediably late. Judt warned his readers that, "the time has come to think the unthinkable." He sermonized that the troubles between Israelis and Palestinians had but one prudent remedy: binationalism. In a surprise to no one, least of all Judt himself, this exercise in unthinkable thinking touched off a maelstrom of controversy. He was rapidly excised from his perch on the masthead of The New Republic. The conservative pundit David Frum charged Judt with "genocidal liberalism." A "pro-Israel" media watchdog group accused him of "pandering to genocide." But everything was not critical. Writing in The Nation, the leftist critic Daniel Lazare breathlessly rejoiced that "a long-standing taboo has finally begun to fall."

"All of which brings me to page three of the October 9 edition of The Washington Post, which carried an article with the following, cringe-inducing, opening paragraph: "Two major American Jewish organizations helped block a prominent New York University historian from speaking at the Polish consulate [in New York] last week, saying the academic was too critical of Israel and American Jewry."

"The organizations in question are the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Congress. The academic: Tony Judt. The event, titled "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," was organized by an independent nonprofit group that routinely rents space from the Polish consulate in Manhattan. This is a critical distinction. The gathering was not organized nor sanctioned by the government of Poland.

"The ADL denies exerting pressure or issuing threats. Other accounts vary. (The Polish consul general diplomatically claims that the calls were "very elegant but may be interpreted as exercising a delicate pressure.") However delicate the pressure, Abraham Foxman, national director of the ADL, was evidently satisfied enough by the cancellation to remark: "I think they [the Polish consulate] made the right decision. He [Judt] has taken the position that Israel shouldn't exist. That puts him on our radar."

"I am not sure what it means to be on Abe Foxman's radar (nor would I like to find out), but the idea that Tony Judt being denied an audience and a microphone is a positive outcome to this dispute is outrageously stupid and counterproductive. Not only has our public discourse been cheapened, but those that seek to shut Judt up will succeed only in turning him into a free-speech martyr. He should not be silenced, he should be engaged, he should be challenged.

"Somewhere in his writings Leo Strauss remarks that the moment "man abandons the task of raising the question regarding what is right - he abandons his humanity." Questioning, free debate, and diversity of thought are the cornerstones of a decent society. And at least since Spinoza, Jews have benefited from consistent and uncompromising criticism. We - Jews, Israelis, Americans, liberals - must be guarded in defense of these principles."

Wouldn't it be great if only that sentiment, that wisdom took hold and grew.

Meanwhile Al Jazeera had a really informative account by Soumaya Ghannoushi about the decline of the nation state in the Arab world which explains a lot of the turmoil we're confronting today and some realities we may have to accommodate if we're going to stop it:

"The modern state, we should recall, derives its legitimacy from the right to monopolise and use the instruments of organised violence for the purpose of maintaining internal stability and civil peace on the one hand; and securing its borders, or what is conventionally referred to as national sovereignty, on the other.

"Some Arab states have failed on either or both counts. Of these, the worst and most striking has been its impotence to confront external dangers, be it in Syria, Iraq or Lebanon.

"Official failure to provide adequate defence systems and maintain homeland security has generated a vacuum, which is being gradually filled by non-governmental socio-political movements with armed wings. Lebanon and Palestine are two cases in point.

"Increasingly, the Arab public feels that the political system is unfit to respond to the question of destiny and provide the basics for preserving sovereignty. There is a striking dichotomy at the heart of the Arab state.

"While enormously powerful at home, it is pitifully weak in responding to foreign challenges. A number of inter-related factors have converged to produce this odd state of affairs, geopolitical and structural.

"These are largely to do with perpetual interference in the affairs of the Middle East from the Western powers that continue to hold the reins of its fate, with the superiority of Israeli military capabilities propped up and backed by the US and its allies, as well as with the circumstances surrounding the birth of the Arab state itself.

"For Britain and France - just as it is for the United States today - control of the Middle East was important not only because of their interest in the region itself, but because it corroborated their position in the world.

"Not only was the region rich in raw materials, with cotton from Egypt, oil from Iran and Iraq, minerals from the Arab Maghrib (North Africa), it was a vast field of investment, and a route to other continents.

"For Britain, the sea route to India and the Far East ran through the Suez Canal. For France, routes by land, sea and air to French possessions in West and Central Africa passed through the Maghrib.

"Presence in the region strengthened the two countries' position as Mediterranean powers and world powers. These vital interests were protected by a series of military bases like the port of Alexandria, military bases in Egypt and Palestine, and airfields in those countries and in Iraq and the Gulf.

"The Arab state replaced the complex network of local elites, tribal chieftains and religious groupings through which the imperial authorities had maintained their grip over the territories they dominated.

"Its mission was the regulation of the indigenous population's movement, a gigantic disciplinary, punitive and coercive apparatus designed for the purpose of imposing control over the local populations.

"Disillusionment with the official political order and growing cynicism about its ability to preserve a semblance of sovereignty, liberate occupied land, or safeguard national interests has brought new actors onto the stage of Arab politics.



"These non-state players, which include Hizbollah in Lebanon and several armed groups in Palestine, are increasingly occupying the centre of the public sphere in the Middle East, profiting from the declining legitimacy of the political elite tied to the stakes of foreign dominance in the region and lacking popular support to speak of.

"While already fulfilling many of the state's conventional functions such as the provision of social services like health and education, in countries subjected to military occupation (such as Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine) they are increasingly taking on the state's defence responsibilities.

"This has earned these movements the admiration of the Arab public, which frequently contrasts their political and military performances in the face of the gigantic Israeli military machine with the redundancy of Arab armies permanently frozen in military stations and barracks.

"In light of the turbulent situation in the region and receding allegiance to the political establishment, it is possible to predict that the coming years could see an extension of this popular model to neighbouring countries acutely sensitive to threats to their security.

"Since the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration has been evangelising about the "New Middle East". This rhetoric, which had retreated under the stench of burnt cities and piles of dead Iraqi bodies, has lately resurfaced once more.

"Though certain to leave long-lasting marks on the region's map, the current frenzy of interventions is unlikely to engender the Middle East Washington and London desire.

"The likelihood is that this new Middle East born in the womb of pre-emptive strikes and proxy wars will neither be American nor Israeli but will gravitate between "deconstructive chaos", and the rise of popular resistance movements.

"The lesson we would do well to learn from Iraq's unfolding tragedy is that the Middle East is far too complex, far too unruly for the grand fantasies of conquest and subjugation.

That's What It Is...

A lot of people find George Bush's public appearances a tad grating. There's something in the way he speaks, how he phrases his thoughts, what he says that has been grist for the mill of so many comedians.

Jon Stewart got into this when he appeared on Letterman's show last night. He said when Bush speaks he often comes across like an 8-year old who has to talk about a book that he never quite got around to reading.



Then Stewart came to Bush's defence when he said that the president isn't actually stupid. It's just when he talks, he acts like he's speaking to really stupid people. Of course, with the people he's trying to reach, the type who will still vote for George, you sort of have to talk that way.

Some time ago I tried to figure out Condi Rice's public speaking style. To me she sounds like someone trying out for the high school debating team. Her words aren't fluid, she looks like she's always wrestling to come up with the right word and, even then, is never entirely confident in her remarks.

The one guy who can speak well is Dick Cheney and, well, he's just evil.

It Kinda Takes Your Breath Away

When an occupying power prosecutes its own soldiers for war crimes you can bet that the alleged offence is outrageous. Look at the notable cases out of Iraq such as the killing of 24-Iraqi civilians by a marine unit that had just lost a man to an improvised explosive device. IF those marines are ordered to stand trial and that's just an if at this point, their defence will be that they were following the rules of engagement. The issue will be not whether they killed unarmed civilians but whether those who pulled the triggers acted "reasonably."

Counter-insurgency is a genuinely ugly form of warfare, one which western soldiers are ill-equiped to handle. In the current two wars it is typically impossible to determine just what the civilian you're looking at has in mind. He may be friendly. He may be indifferent. He may be a guerrilla sympathizer. He may be a guerrilla coming to kill you. Every local you see has to be considered a potential, immediate threat.

Once outside their garrison, our soldiers are under constant threat of improvised explosive devices, snipers or attacks by machine guy or rocket-propelled grenade. All too often our people don't even see the enemy until he opens fire on them. All too often the insurgent simply fades away before he can be attacked and destroyed.

So far, at least, the worst excesses have been solely American but it is the U.S. soldiers who have seen their tours abruptly extended or just get home in time to get orders to go back. Their level of frustration and angst must be palpable, especially for those who don't see any prospect of victory for their sacrifice.

Do we risk putting Canadian soldiers in the same bind? Quite possibly. We already have a problem with the limited number of troops we can deploy. That means our soldiers will eventually face a rotation burden something like that in the states. I believe our soldiers are better trained, better disciplined and, like the Brits, a lot less "trigger happy" than the Americans. But, eventually, the training and discipline may not be enough.

If we keep running our people back through the same grinder, we have to be prepared for incidents we may not be very proud of. That's part of the price of putting our soldiers in this situation.

The Great Exodus

It may take time but Iraq and Afghanistan will get sorted out once the military and political battles are finished. The question is, what will be left when the dust settles?

All of our leaders - American, Brit, even Little Stevie - don't pass up an opportunity to pitch the urgent need for reconstruction of these countries from the ground up, beginning with infrastructure. We blew up a lot of stuff, the bad guys blew up way more stuff, stuff is still getting blown up. We can see roads that need to be fixed, schools that need repair, essential utilities such as water and electricity that need to be restored. That's the visible, tangible part of the destruction that has attended these wars. However both countries are suffering another loss, probably just as great in consequence and potentially impossible to fix.

Afghanistan and Iraq have been hemorrhaging their best and brightest, the very people who are most needed to restore civilian society. These include doctors, teachers, engineers. They're leaving, in droves, for two reasons: better opportunities and to avoid being targetted by insurgents. Guerrillas like to kill these people. Taking them out undermines confidence in the government just as surely as destroying power or water systems. Kill enough and you'll stampede more out of the country.

From the Washington Post:

"Iraq's top professionals -- doctors, lawyers, professors -- and businessmen have been targeted by shadowy political groups for kidnapping and ransom, as well as murder, some of them say. So many have fled the country that Iraq is in danger of losing the core of skilled people it needs most just as it is trying to build a newly independent society.

"'It's creating a brain drain,' said Amer Hassan Fayed, assistant dean of political science at Baghdad University. 'We could end up with a society without knowledge. How can such a society make progress?'

"Professionals and businessmen with the means to escape are going to Jordan, Syria, Egypt or, if they have visas, to Western countries. Those left behind say they feel abandoned."

The same story echoes from Afghanistan. The Rand Corporation's Obaid Younossi travelled to Afghanistan earlier this year to report on the dilemma:

"Talented Afghans are leaving - and few are returning from abroad - because insurgent attacks, threats and criminal activities are still common. As long as Taliban remnants and criminals continue to kill and terrorize Afghans, the nation will not be an attractive place for young people to build their futures.

"In addition, Kabul lacks a steady supply of electricity and clean water. The city's air is choked with dust and pollution from diesel fuel that is used to run electric generators and from the huge number of cars crammed into a city designed to sustain only a fifth of its roughly four million inhabitants.

"Afghans with an education and the skills in greatest demand know they can earn far more and live far better abroad. For example, university professors make less than $2 per hour in Afghanistan, and licensed physicians make about $100 a month working in a government hospital.

"To stem the brain drain and entice professional Afghans to return, the United States and the international community need to make Afghanistan a better place to live.

"First, security needs to be improved. This will require an intensified effort to train and supply Afghan security forces to maintain peace and order on their own, so they are not permanently dependent on U.S. and NATO forces. In addition, the United States needs to give Afghans concrete assurances that America is their long-term security partner.

"Second, the United States need to work with Afghans to develop a long-term development plan for the nation, and back it with a multibillion-dollar financial commitment lasting at least 10 years. If it can hasten a real peace, this investment in creating a thriving Afghan economy would cost less than spending on continued warfare.

"Third, alternative livelihoods must be found for farmers now growing poppies, the biggest cash crop in Afghanistan and a major source of heroin sold around the world. The illegal drug trade fosters corruption, instability, and disrespect for government and the rule of law.

"Fourth, a system of Afghan government accountability and good governance needs to be established to ensure that U.S. aid is being spent effectively, that corruption is eliminated and that programs are in place to improve living conditions and opportunities for the Afghan people. This means bringing readily available electricity, clean water, better roads and new jobs to Afghanistan.

"Finally, neighboring countries need to be pressured to stop jockeying for more influence in Afghanistan."

Younossi's five step plan is easy to understand. It all makes perfect sense. Yet, while it's easy to understand, achieving it is a Herculean chore.

Fielding forces so small that they have to spend an inordinate amount of time defending themselves from attack isn't going to get the job done. We've already lost five invaluable years and time is a critical factor that is not on our side.

If we're going to do this, at least let's give it a decent try. That's something that Bush, Blair and Harper have been avoiding.

Nuclear Proliferation - Hope for the World

North Korea's nuclear weapon test (or "nuk you ler" if you're George Bush) has revived concerns over widespread proliferation.

Some atomic experts believe there are up to 40 nations with the skills, technology and even, in some cases, the materials to build a bomb. According to the New York Times:

"The spread of nuclear technology is expected to accelerate as nations redouble their reliance on atomic power. That will give more countries the ability to make reactor fuel, or, with the same equipment and a little more effort, bomb fuel — the hardest part of the arms equation.

"Signs of activity abound. Hundreds of companies are now prospecting for uranium where dozens did a few years ago. Argentina, Australia and South Africa are drawing up plans to begin enriching uranium, and other countries are considering doing the same. Egypt is reviving its program to develop nuclear power.

"North Korea’s reported test has shaken the nuclear status quo and raised anew the question of whether Asia will be the first to feel a nuclear “domino effect,” in which states clandestinely hedge their bets by assembling the crucial technologies needed to make a bomb, or actually cross the line to become new weapons states. In the Middle East, the confrontation with Iran has focused new attention on countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, both of which fear that an Iranian bomb would make Tehran the greatest power in the region."

Is the rapid spread of nuclear weaponry inevitable? Perhaps not, if a genuine will exists to stop it. One thing is clear - trying to tackle the problem on a piecemeal, country by country basis, isn't going to work. There are simply too many players now to go after them individually even if that might work on individual states, and it won't.

One of the big stumbling blocks to nuclear disarmament is the blatant hypocrisy of the major, nuclear powers. Under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, they agreed to work to get rid of all nuclear weapons, their own included. While beating newcomers over the head with the NNPT, the key nuclear states conveniently overlooked their own obligations.

Now the very nation the smaller countries fear most, the United States, is led by a man who supports America developing brand new types of nuclear weaponry. To smaller countries, America becomes a growing threat and the experience of India and Pakistan has shown the path to their security may lie in joining the nuclear club.

There may be a solution, one propounded by a Canadian. This comes from Embassy, Canada's Foreign Policy Newsweekly:

"Former senator Doug Roche has a good idea of what needs to be done to reduce the threat of a nuclear catastrophe. He perseveres in reminding nations in his role as chairman of the Middle Powers Initiative that the critically important Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) has existed for 10 years, but still has no force. The problem is several key nuclear powers have so far refused to sign the treaty: The United States, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea.

"With leadership like that from the U.S., there is every reason to expect that any state that wants to enter the nuclear club as a deterrent to invasion will simply do so. And that is the second reason the North Korean test is bad news in Washington because it smacks of clear diplomatic failure.

"But it's not too late for a remedy. One way the U.S. could seize the initiative in this dangerous situation would be to sign on right away to the one treaty, the CTBT, that offers a hopeful solution. At the same time, Washington needs to put its weight behind increasingly reliable scientific verification programs, unequivocally agree never to use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state, and remove, along with Russia, the thousands of nukes that are still on hair-trigger alert.

"If the U.S. and the other six nuclear rogues will come to the table over this important treaty, the day may still be saved."

Think about it. Can you come up with anything that makes more sense?

Be A Man

A word of advice to terrorists from The Guardian's Charlie Brooker:

"If you're hell-bent on wiping us out, at least put some effort into it. Arm yourself with nothing but a frying pan and a saw, and if you manage to score a bodycount in double figures, then maybe I'll respect you. Otherwise, up yours. You're boring.

"Bombs are equally lazy. There's nothing you can do about a bomb going off, short of psychically foretelling the blast and running away. There's no sport to it. I'm getting bored of being frightened of bombs. Give me something new to fret about. Here's an idea: an ankle-height laser beam that sweeps across densely populated concourses in the blink of an eye; a sheet of light slicing everyone's feet off simultaneously. Imagine the chaos! It'd be more humane too, since there's a good chance you could surgically re-attach the feet later - although matching each foot to its rightful owner would be a logistical nightmare. Chances are you'd end up with a size 10 and a size three. Still, it'd break the ice at parties.

"Actually, even foot removal is too violent. The thing I don't grasp about terrorism is why it has to involve violence at all. Detonating a gigantic bag of manure in a crowded space would make the same point far more eloquently - and the victims would still be around to put pressure on the government to do something to ease the crisis. Indiscriminate slaughter isn't just barbaric and selfish - it's immature and idiotic. Any budding terrorists reading this now: toss those detonators in the bin and try being man enough to change people's minds via some other method for once. Girls will respect you. Only wankers kill people. Whether you're a head of state or a disgruntled fanatic, the moment you get blood on your hands, you've become a massive wanker.

"Come to think of it, that's how the news should be reported. "Thirty people were killed today when a massive wanker blew himself up in a busy marketplace" has quite a ring to it, as does "President Wanker", or "Prime Minister Wanker". In fact, why doesn't every bloodthirsty cretin prolonging this sorry dispute simply paint the word "Wanker" on their forehead and piss off to a remote island somewhere, where they can fight it out with pans and saws while the rest of us settle our differences using non-violent means? We've got the imagination to succeed. What've they got? Hairy palms and firearms, and that's about it."

Seriously though, Charlie has a point here, even if he didn't really intend it. Terrorism, as the name says, is all about terror. The bad guys are willing to be seen as bloodthirsty killers so long as they get their intended response by scaring the hell out of us. What happens if we simply don't let them scare us? What if we actually kept these atrocities in perspective?

We may not be able to stop the terrorists from attacking us, at least not right away, but we can refuse to give them what they're after. In doing that we might, just might, deter the other group that feeds at the trough of terrorism - our own politicians.

Rumors of Bloodbaths - Heard that One Before

There aren't many benefits to getting older. One of them is being able to remember having heard a particular argument before and recalling how that turned out.

When South Vietnam fell we were prepared for an orgy of killing, a bloodbath of historic proportions. That was, after all, what we'd been told for years would happen if the filthy communists won.

It didn't happen. Sure some particular enemies of the regime were prosecuted, a few executed, many more sent away to "re-education" camps but the streets certainly didn't run with blood. In fact, the new Republic of Vietnam actually prevented an enormous amount of bloodshed by invading Cambodia to put a stop the the butchery of the insanely anarchist Khmer Rouge.

We're now being told that, if the west pulls out of Iraq or Afghanistan, the same thing is going to happen - endless bloodshed of historic proportions. Who says? Once again we're getting this from that particular group that wants to continue the war without end.

I expect there would be somewhat more bloodshed in Iraq and Afghanistan than experienced in post-war Vietnam but, for all its faults, even the Taliban isn't the Khmer Rouge. In both countries there are sectarian issues that will have to be sorted out, assets to be allocated, new alliances and political arrangements to be worked out. It seems unrealistic to expect that could be accomplished without some bloodshed but isn't that inevitable when different groups suddenly find themselves released from a pressure cooker where they've been held for generations?

When Yugoslavia began falling apart, the west didn't try to remake it. We didn't tell the Croats, Serbs, Kosovars, Bosnians and Montenegrans that they had to form a state to replace what Tito built. We let them go their own ways. There was bloodshed, of course there was. Some of it got awfully nasty and we had to intervene to prevent what could have turned into ethnic cleansing, perhaps even genocide if it had been left unchecked. There remains a measure of low-level conflict, tensions requiring the presence of peacekeepers but today we have a new Serbia, a new Bosnia, a new Croatia and even an independent Montenegro.

Why do we think we have a right or some duty to prevent the disparate ethnic groups that comprise Iraq and Afghanistan from likewise going their own ways? The answer is plain and its not pretty. These aren't Europeans, they're people of the Middle East and instability in either country may threaten the strategic interests of - why, us white folks of course. We can't be having any of that, no, no, no. Best these folks do as we tell them. Heck we're even crafting the very governments that will serve - make that "rule" - them.

I think we need to explore the idea of letting these groups go, if that's what they want, and assisting them by providing security against ethnic cleansing or genocide along with a meaningful effort at reconstruction. Why not? Nothing else has worked.

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

Once again, New Zealand comes up with an idea that should be adopted elsewhere: making individual politicians personally liable for improper election spending. Here's an account from the New Zealand Herald:

"For the 50 Labour MPs forced to dig into their own pockets to repay taxpayer money wrongly spent during the election campaign it will not be a a question of how much - but how much they can afford.

"In a new development in the election spending saga, Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen revealed yesterday no set amount had been decided for MPs and cabinet ministers to pay toward the $824,524 fund.

"That would be for caucus to discuss shortly, he said.

"South Auckland list MP David Hereora told the Herald on Sunday yesterday he was not sure whether he could pay the entire amount in one hit, and might have to look at some sort of time-payment arrangement. He was still working out what he afford to pay back and said "that may mean paying it off... it all depends on how rich or broke you are I suppose".

"The Weekend Herald reported that Prime Minister Helen Clark would have to pay $17,350, Cullen $12,250, Cabinet ministers and Speaker Margaret Wilson $10,800 and ordinary MPs $5900 to a $435,000 kitty. The amounts were calculated on 5 per cent of the MP's salaries. That money will be on top of the 4 per cent levy already taken from MPs' salaries for Labour's coffers. The remainder of the $824,524 would be sought from the public through a website and telephone hotline.

"Cullen said he was not sure how much MPs would have to come up with. "There will be consultation by all of those involved," he said, but he could not be drawn on whether time payments would be accepted.

"Labour says it will not dispute Auditor General Kevin Brady's ruling last week that the party must repay money wrongly spent on campaign electioneering, but it is expected a legal challenge will follow after other parties were struck with possibly crippling bills. Brady ruled a total of $1.2 million of taxpayer funds was spent unlawfully on electioneering by every party except Progressive.

"On the website Kiwiblog, an enterprising blogger has calculated the unlawful spending by parties per vote cast. Each Labour vote cost $0.82 and each National vote cost the party 1c."

Sounds very much like an idea whose time has come.

War Without End?

Rummy & his trained parrot

Are we on the verge of another "Hundred Years War"? There was a hint of that yesterday from Marine Corps General Peter Pace, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff:

"When Pace was asked why Americans should not be dismayed at the results on the ground in Iraq, he said the enemy has "a 100 year plan according to the map they published about a year and half ago. So anybody looking for a quick win in the war on terrorism probably hasn't read the enemy's published intent."

"He argued that "if we were not in Iraq right now and if we were in Afghanistan ... the center of gravity would be in Afghanistan. And that is where the fight would be taking place. And I do believe that if we left both Iraq and Afghanistan that the fight would be taking place here in the United States because that is what they have said is their objective.... I believe the American people get the fact that this is fundamentally a threat to the survival of our nation and that we are going to do what we need to do to protect our children and our grandchildren. That does not mean we should not be learning from what we are doing on the battlefield."

"The military alone cannot solve the problem of sectarian violence in Iraq, Pace said. "What has been less satisfactory is the difficulty in stopping the sectarian violence. Because fundamentally, you cannot have enough individuals under arms 24/7 on every street corner in Iraq to stop the hatred killings if someone wants to go out and do a hatred killing. And that is where the government's part comes in and where the political dialogue comes in and where the agreements and the guarantees come in amongst the various factions. So there is a lot you can do on the military side. You cannot lose this militarily, but it is not going to be 'won' militarily, either."

Careful With That Resolution Fellas

Kind of takes you back to those sunny days of 1441 doesn't it? You know, before the world was consumed with war. Oh, to have those 1441 days back.

I just went through 1441 again, the Security Council's "last chance" ultimatum to Saddam. Resolution 1441 set out a variety of terms and conditions Saddam had to meet including inspection regims and voluntary disclosures. Despite what you've heard from Washington and London and a handful of lesser capitals, what 1441 didn't do was create a pretext for war against Iraq.

Bush, Blair, Berlusconi and that troll from down under, Howard, told us that 1441 gave them all the authority they needed to invade Iraq. That was the backstop argument to the claim of a right of pre-emptive war against imminent attack. The WMD fog didn't take long to evaporate and the fallback of Resolution 1441 was equally empty.

1441 did not authorize war aganst Iraq. Tony Blair knew this. He knew that invading Iraq would be a blatant war crime unless they got a specific resolution from the Security Council authorizing an invasion. That's why Blair tabled a second resolution at the Security Council. When a head count showed the initiative was doomed to massive defeat, Blair had it pulled off the table and they all went back to the completely disingenuous claims about 1441.

You can read the text of this resolution by doing a Google search. It's not very long and, if you find the language a bit confusing, go to the last subparagraph, the one that says that the Security Council will remain seized of the issue. Seized means retaining jurisdiction on the question, absolutely not some implicit authorization for war on Iraq.

1441 demonstrated that the Security Council needs to be leery of Britain and the U.S. in drafting its resolutions. These are people who have shown they'll spin language around to the point of standing it on its head.

Now the Security Council is hammering out another, potentially critical resolution, this time in reaction to the North Korean nuclear test. Meanwhile, as the LA Times reported earlier this week, there are already rumblings about an American attack on North Korea coming out of the Pentagon:

"The U.S. military's top officer said Thursday that the Pentagon would have sufficient forces to win if called on to fight a war in North Korea, but the conflict would be more difficult without the intelligence and guidance systems devoted to Iraq and Afghanistan.Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that about 200,000 U.S. troops were deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, leaving more than 2 million troops available for a war in Asia.

"Pace said a conflict with North Korea, which both he and President Bush have said is highly unlikely, would rely heavily on the Navy and Air Force because of the significant deployment of land forces in Iraq. In addition, such an attack would not be "as clean as we would like," he said, because guidance systems used to aim bombs were in use in the Middle East.

"'You wouldn't have the precision in combat going to a second theater of war that you would if you were only going to the first theater of war,' Pace told a group of military reporters. 'You end up dropping more bombs potentially to get the job done, and it would mean more brute force.'

"Although Pace did not name specific guidance and intelligence systems, Air Force officers have said they do not have surveillance aircraft such as Global Hawk and Predator reconnaissance drones available for East Asia because of their heavy use in Iraq and Afghanistan. The unmanned aircraft are used to spy on enemy territory."

Quick question: If the Pentagon has but 200,000 troops in the Middle East and another two-million available, why are they so undermanned in both Iraq and, particularly, Afghanistan? Just what is going on? With two wars they're not winning, their top dog is musing about going to war with North Korea?

The United Nations Security Council had better take great care in its North Korea resolution. It had better be watertight because there are some very scary players out there and they're not just in Pyongyang.

A Young Man Pays for His Beliefs

U.S. Army seargent Ricky Clousing is heading to jail. In fact, jail was the only place where the 24-year old's principles and faith could lead him.

A Born-Again from Sumner, Washington, Clousing enlisted in the U.S. army believing he could serve both his God and his country. He was trained in intelligence and sent to Iraq to interrogate prisoners. His work brought him to the conclusion that the occupation was creating a cycle of anti-American sentiment and violence.

Clousing was shocked at what he saw in Iraq, particularly one incident in which his fellow soldiers gunned down an unarmed Iraqi teenager. He lodged a complaint but the army cleared the soldiers, claiming that the teen was close enough that he could have been taken for a threat. Crime: not keeping your distance. Punishment: summary execution.

From the New York Times:

"Sergeant Clousing said he looked into the eyes of the Iraqi teenager as he died and saw the unjustifiable loss of a life that unhinged him. He wrote in his journal, 'I want to be a boy again, free of this.'”

The path that Clousing took is fascinating. He had so many easy outs laid at his feet. He just couldn't take them:

"Back in Fort Bragg after five months in Iraq, Sergeant Clousing took his misgivings to his superiors. They sent him to a chaplain, who showed him in the Bible where God sent his people to war, the sergeant said. Then they sent him to a psychologist who said he could get out of the military by claiming he was crazy or gay. Sergeant Clousing said he had not been looking for a way out and found the suggestion offensive.

"He called a hotline for members of the military run by a coalition of antiwar groups. The man who took the call was Chuck Fager, who runs Quaker House, a longtime pacifist stronghold in Fayetteville.

“'This call was unusual,' Mr. Fager said in an interview. He said hotline receptionists took more than 7,000 calls from or about military members last year.

“'I don’t have these kinds of probing discussions about moral and religious issues very often,' he said. 'I said to him, you’re not crazy or a heretic for having difficulty reconciling Jesus’ teachings with what’s going on in Iraq.'”

"Sergeant Clousing said he could not file for conscientious objector status because he could not honestly say he was opposed to all war. After several months of soul-searching, he went AWOL."

An intruiging point is how Clousing's friends from the Born-Again community reacted:

"He tried to talk with his church friends in Washington. Some understood him, but others said he had to support the government because of a biblical injunction to 'render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.'

“'They felt that God established government and we’re supposed to be submitting to authorities, and by me leaving it’s rebelling against the authority that God established,' Sergeant Clousing said. 'Their politics has infiltrated their religion so much, they can’t see past their politics.'”

God established government? Opposing your government is rebelling against the authority that God established? Now, I was born right the first time so I can't pretend to have any inside knowledge of the Born-Agains but, given the integrity he's shown throughout, I have trouble believing Clousing would be making this up.

God established government. Government isan instrument God's authority. The President himself believes he is an instrument of God. Disobedience therefore is mortal sin. Does this sound like brainwashing to anyone or is it just me? I thought the Japanese in WWII had taken leave of their senses in believing their emperor to be divine. These people seem to think their entire goverment is divine. Kinda makes the skin crawl.

Sergeant Clousing is off to jail. A plea-bargain kept his time down to three months. After that he'll undoubtedly receive a dishonourable discharge, an ironic outcome for a young man who struggled so hard to do the honourable thing.

Haven't We Had Enough of this Israel Garbage

I noticed something peculiar during the last Israel/Lebanon clash. Our newspapers were suddenly flooded with letters backing Israel and condemning Hezbollah. The writers were absolute in their condemnation and fierce in attacking anyone who might suggest the Israeli attacks were excessive. These letters were strident, verging on hysterical. The names indicated they were predominantly Jewish writers.

Stephen Harper jumped on the pro-Israel bandwagon damned smartly, even granting absolution for monstrous aerial bombing of civilian neighbourhoods. Our prime monster acted as though this was really an angry Israel retaliating for the kidnapping of a few of their soldiers. Right.

There were no clean hands in this. Not Hezbollah's certainly, but not Israel's either. Israel answered a pinprick with a sledgehammer that made a mockery of the notion of proportionality and slaughtered many innocent Lebanese.

When some Liberal politicians stood up and criticized Israel for its excesses, it prompted a great flourish from the likes of Gerry Swartz and Heather Reisman, dramatically severing ties with the Libs and boldly moving to the Regressive Conservatives.

More recently, when leadership candidate Michael Ignatieff described Israel's attack on Qana as a 'war crime', more of the Jewish community bailed out in protest. Again the weasel couldn't wait to jump in, accusing the Liberal leadership candidates of an anti-Israel bias.

These incidents reveal a powerful campaign by the pro-Israel lobby to stifle any criticism of Israel and punish anyone who deigns to speak his mind. The fact is there were no clean hands in that war, Israel did commit war crimes. No one in Canada ought to be subject to this kind of intimidation and coercion for expressing fair criticism.

What has the Liberal party really lost from these defections? Precious little. Their loss is a small price to pay for the party's soul, it's integrity.

If you're interested in the unvarnished truth about Arab-Israeli violence, read this book:



This isn't some anti-semetic rag. Hirst simply tells the truth and that's something the pro-Israel lobby would rather avoid. If you're doubtful about the legitimacy of Hirst and his book, a simple Google search will ease any concerns. It's a thoroughly documented, insightful and well-balanced history of a very troubled part of our world.

Little Stevie Fun File

Dummy or Puppet? - Your call

Just To Let You Know...

Seeing Red

Huh? Exactly.

Say hi to Product Red, a marketing campaign aimed at raising money to fight AIDS in Africa. In the U.K., Amex is issuing Red Cards in support of the campaign. One per cent of all purchases is paid over to the AIDS effort. IPODs, cell phones, clothing - you can get them all in Product Red versions.

It's all part of an encouraging rise in ethical marketing. Given the choice, people seem to be prepared to pay full price, perhaps even a little more, for a product directly linked to a cause they endorse.

Now we have "ethical clothing", apparel that isn't from sweat shops. In today's Christian Science Monitor there's a terrific story about how focussing on ethical manufacturing breathed new life into a failing textiles industry in proverty-riddled Lesotho, South Africa. Big names like Old Navy and GAP are moving to market lines of ethical clothing.

Lesotho's textile industry had virtually collapsed. Even a depressed zone such as this couldn't compete with Chinese manufacturers. Moving to ethical clothing put them back on their feet:

"Gap or Levi's - or any of the myriad brands that source here - can promise customers that T-shirts and jeans made in Lesotho were not produced by sweatshop labor, and that working conditions met high safety standards.

"And in these days of socially conscious consumers, this sort of promise sells.

"'The ethical image has value," says Christian Kemp-Griffin, CEO of Edun Apparel Ltd, a self-described "socially conscious clothing company" with a factory in Lesotho that was started last year by Bono and his wife, Ali Hewson. "A company doesn't have to sacrifice its margins to sell its product because it's doing it ethically. It actually adds value for the consumer."

"The rebirth of Lesotho's textile business spread a sigh of relief throughout this country of 1.9 million, where there is almost no other industry besides textiles and hundreds of thousands of people depend on factory workers' incomes.

"Analysts from around the world predicted the demise of textile industries in countries such as Lesotho since brands could make all of their clothes in cheaper, more productive Chinese factories. And true to those predictions, in 2005, a number of brands closed or reduced their operations in Lesotho. Textile employment dipped to around 40,000. That's when Anna Tsoeu lost her job.

"But at the same time, an alliance of companies, NGOs, government representatives, and others were trying to find ways to protect the country's industry. Already, some brands had improved working conditions in Lesotho to answer concerns about sweatshop labor. The group realized that if Lesotho could start aggressively marketing itself as an ethical source of clothing, it could retain and even grow business.

"Ethical trading gives you a competitive edge," says Andy Selm, regional textile and apparel specialist at ComMark Trust. "You can attract a better quality of customer."

See, things definitely can turn around - if that's what we want.

Smouldering Anger on the Arab Street

There's trouble brewing on the Arab Street, a lot of it.

Fawaz A. Gerges, Carnegie Scholar and visiting professor at the American University in Cairo, wrote in today's International Herald Tribune that Muslim anger and distrust over Iraq and Palestine are deepening:

"From high school teachers to taxi drivers, America is seen as a new colonial power. Few Muslims accept the American narrative that touts democracy and freedom. They view America's military presence in the Arab heartland as a sinister plot to divide the world of Islam and subjugate Muslims.

"'Look at what America is doing in Iraq,' said Hazem Salem, an Egyptian human-rights advocate in his twenties. 'America is using democracy as a mask to colonize Muslim lands and to steal our oil.' I reminded him that President George W. Bush claims he is promoting democracy in the Arab world. 'No, he is promoting chaos and civil war,' he fired back.

"When I visited the American University in Cairo, which is a stronghold of Western liberalism, many students were openly angry at America's support for Israel. "Bush has given Israel carte blanche to attack Palestinians and Lebanese," Rania, a teenager with strikingly dark eyes, told me in the campus courtyard. "The war on terror is an open-ended war on Muslims," she insisted. Many students at the American University in Beirut expressed similar views.

"Recently, I attended an "iftar," an evening meal after the daylong Ramadan fast, with hundreds of prominent Egyptians and Arabs of all political persuasions. The speaker, a moderate political leader and rising star in Egyptian society, said this year's Ramadan coincided with a coordinated attack on Islam. "The Pope has given Bush religious justification for his war on Islam and Muslims," he declared, as guests nodded their heads in agreement.

"I have not met a taxi driver, a fruit vendor or a teacher who does not see a connection between the Danish cartoons portraying Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist, President George W. Bush's use of the term Islamo-fascism, and Pope Benedict XVI's remarks linking Islam and violence.

"Of course, leading European countries opposed the American venture in Iraq. The pope also said that the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq is unjust, and opposed Israel's indiscriminate tactics against the Palestinians and the Lebanese. But in terms of quelling Muslim anger, this is all irrelevant because most Muslims see the West as united.

"An Islamic leader, Abed al- Rahim Barakat, said, "President Bush himself used the word 'crusade' to describe his war on terror." "It was a slip of tongue," I retorted. "No, it was a Freudian slip. He revealed what he feels deep inside," he said.

"Five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, Al Qaeda's notion of a clash of religions is no longer farfetched. In both camps, there exist tiny minorities who are beating the drums, and rallying the faithful to fight in a war they believe was caused by the other.

"By staying the course in Iraq, Bush plays into the hands of extremists and alienates the floating middle of Muslim public opinion. If America really wants to win the war against Al Qaeda and its affiliates, it needs the hearts and minds of mainstream Muslims."

The lack of vision that attends the Global War Without End on Terror is palpable. "Stay the course" has become merely an excuse for a glaring lack of insight, the complete absence of any real plan. Has anyone ever seen in George Bush any sign that he genuinely understands the people of Islam? From what I've seen, he views them as he wants to see them and, to the president, that should suffice.

It's All in the Fossils, Stupid

Canada has entrusted its security against terrorism to a guy who believes that the earth is 6,000 years old, Adam and Eve actually existed and man walked with the dinosaurs.

If he's right, just where are the people fossils? We have an abundance of fossilized remains - fish fossils, plant fossils, dinosaur fossils, bird fossils, insect fossils, we've even got fossilized dinosaur poop - just no people fossils.

So, if we're from the same age as the dinosaurs, why don't we have the fossilized remains of great, great grandfather (to the 20th power) Billie? Wouldn't it be great to have our ancestors up on the mantle?

Man has been interested in fossils for a long, long time. Fossils have been found in Neanderthal burial sites. It wasn't until Leonardo, however, that man figured out these were the vestiges of life long past. But that's still several hundred years in which to find one, even one partial, human fossil.

Sorry Stockwell, but you're just plain goofy.

Blast From The Past - Trivia II

And here are some more lunatic ramblings. Guess which crazed pinko came up with this stuff:

"This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

"We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

And:

"Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

"Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

"Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.

"Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose."

The Best We Can Hope For?

Thinking back to the Viet Nam war, that I followed much like any teenager of the time, I can't recall anything approaching the domestic turmoil, violence and insecurity that mark today's conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Part of that must be due to the ethnic disparities that beset Iraq and Afghanistan. In Viet Nam, most of the fighting was between ethnic Vietnamese from the North and South. Sure there were hill tribes like the Montagnards but they weren't the major players. The Vietnamese also shared a common language, nation and culture more than a thousand years old.

Iraq and Afghanistan are hobbled together political packages. They represent a mix of races, religions and cultures that have not always been able to co-exist harmoniously. The very fact of this diversity leaves both countries vulnerable to outside interests from Turkey to Saudi Arabia. These outside influences add strains that further destabilize Iraq's and Afghanistan's fledgling governments as they struggle to establish their very legitimacy and control.

We want to build secular democracies in these nations but, as time passes, this begins to look naive and increasingly unrealistic. A story by David Ignatius in this morning's Washington Post
discussed talk in Baghdad about a "government of national salvation" to wrest power from the ineffectual Maliki administration.

We're talking here about a coup to install strongman rule in Iraq as the only means of holding the country together. This is not about electing a new government or, for that matter, anything to do with elections. Democracy may be just too ambitious a goal for Iraq in the immediate, post-Saddam era. The conditions aren't right for it to take hold and, for all its wonders and blessings, democracy really can't be imposed where it can't be supported.

Strongman rule is blunt and brutal and that's why it works. It functions on a level of coercion that potential challengers resign themselves to accept at least for a while. The more unruly the individual component groups may be, the higher the levels of coercion.

What other hope is there for the other country, Afghanistan? Baloch, Pashtun, Turkmen, Uzbek, Tajik. Foreign domination by Britain and most recently the Soviet Union. Now NATO forces have moved in, trying not to be taken as occupiers.

The Karzai government is on life support, dependent entirely on western aid. It neither controls nor benefits from the nation's principal economy, opium. He stands as a hopelessly weak democratic leader of what is, in reality, a feudal society. What are the chances? Actual authority is largely held by his nobles, the warlords and drug lords. Karzai pretends to be president and they pretend that somehow matters.

Afghanistan surely needs its own "government of national salvation." It needs a strongman who will reclaim central authority from the warlords and drug lords and retake control of the security and military services. That sort of guy isn't coming from any ballot box. Time for a coup? Quite possibly. It all depends on finding the right person for the job. The only thing that is certain is that Afghanistan cannot go on much longer the way it is.

My God, He's Actually Read the Books

Sir Richard Dattan has said a number of things that we need to understand. One, is that we're amidst a group of people who have been fighting us - and winning - for two centuries and more. We're welcome if they invite us in first but they're the people who need to invite us, not some appointed stooge. We had long worn out our welcome before we got around to getting the support of these people. We were occupiers, infidels and that was really all there really was to that.

When you lie wounded on Afghanistan's plain,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier.

- Rudyard Kipling

So, as far as Sir Richard is concerned, the Pentagon can go on and ignore history and proclaim certainty of victory but the British have been here before, in two failed wars, and they know these insurgents can defeat them once they establish, as they are now doing, the support of the people.

Sir Richard, according to protocol, should have kept his criticisms to himself and just gone off silently into retirement, his resignation satisfaction of his protest. But Sir Richard wouldn't take that polite way out. He truly SUPPORTS his troops and that's why he is happy to put his career directly on the line.

We should really support our troops. Why not thank them for what they've done - WE ALL KNOW THESE PEOPLE DESERVE THAT - and then bring them back, intact, to their families. The other side keeps hijacking this issue and using it to attack their critics' patriotism while they keep these young people heavily engaged in a war we're never going to win. WE'RE LEAVING ANYWAY so why, really why, shouldn't we bring our people home?

Worst Joke In Town - our "Newspaper of Record"

The venerable Globe & Mail, once the greatest newspaper in Canada. That was then but this is now. Today's Globe is weak to the point of being lame. The editor is weak. The head of its editorial board is weaker, intellectually bereft. A lot of its columnists should have been put out to pasture a long time ago while they still had some remaining vestige of vision. Whatever happened to "Death Before Dishonour" anyway?

When North Korea seemingly detonated a nuclear test device, who was the Globe's "go to" commentor? Noneother than Frank Gaffney, Jr., another hack neo-con, former underling to Richard Perle and intimate with those military genii (plural of genius?) Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld. He was the bozo the Globe called upon to educate its readers on this perplexing problem. We all know how well these neo-cons have served their country so far. Maybe its because they can't get the time of day in the U.S. that the Globe gives them an outlet for their nonsensical ravings. After all, they at least meet the standards of today's Globe & Mail.

If you wasted your time reading today's Globe editorials instead of doing the crossword puzzle you would have read yet another hackneyed "stay the course" missive on Iraq. This could only have been written by that 5-watt bulb and editorial board manager, Marcus Gee, who yet again demonstrates that complete idiocy is no threat to job security at his paper. Here's this clown's take on Iraq:

"The only answer is to stabilize Iraqi society, build democratic, non-sectarian institutions that can be trusted and strip the fanatics of their appeal."

Marcus, you have to stop smoking that shit. It's really messing you up, big time. Non-sectarian institutions? C'mon, that's so 2004. Democratic, non-sectarian institutions, oh please. Iraq, Marcus, has been transformed into one big shit sandwich and everybody's going to have to take a bite - Kurd, Shia, Sunni, American and Brit. Even the top dog in Britain's army is making the Globe look ridiculous.

Too bad, it used to be a good paper. Maybe it was just a paper that used to have really good people.

An Honest Man - Listen Up Stevie

By the time you read this, the head of Britain's army, Sir Richard Dannatt may be out of a job. He has committed the cardinal sin of speaking the truth, stating the obvious. In today's world of the far-right, that is nothing short of sedition.

What is Sir Richard's offence? Well, he's called for Britain to get out of Iraq - fast. Here's part of the account in The Guardian:

"General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the army, dropped a political bombshell last night by saying that Britain must withdraw from Iraq "soon" or risk serious consequences for Iraqi and British society.

"In a blistering attack on Tony Blair's foreign policy, Gen Dannatt said the continuing military presence in Iraq was jeopardising British security and interests around the world.

"'I don't say that the difficulties we are experiencing round the world are caused by our presence in Iraq, but undoubtedly our presence in Iraq exacerbates them,' he said in comments that met with admiration from anti-war campaigners and disbelief in some parts of Westminster.

"In an interview with the Daily Mail, Gen Dannatt, who became chief of the general staff in August, said we should "get ourselves out sometime soon because our presence exacerbates the security problems".

"He added: "We are in a Muslim country and Muslims' views of foreigners in their country are quite clear.

"'As a foreigner, you can be welcomed by being invited in a country, but we weren't invited ... by those in Iraq at the time. The military campaign we fought in 2003 effectively kicked the door in.'

"'Whatever consent we may have had in the first place, may have turned to tolerance and has largely turned to intolerance.' He added that planning for the postwar phase was "poor" and the aim of imposing a liberal democracy in Iraq had been over-ambitious. He was more optimistic that 'we can get it right in Afghanistan.'"

Poor Tony. I'll bet George didn't waste any time getting on the phone to demand that this man be axed. Too late. It's in all the English papers and they're not going to let it go anytime soon. If Blair moves to dismiss Dannatt, he might be leaving No. 10 sooner than anyone expected.

According to The Times, Defence Minister Des something-or-other (Browne) has called Dannatt to account. Too late Des, too late Tony, the British people aren't in any mood for this nonsense any longer and you pillory Sir Richard at your peril.

Where Are The Taliban When You Need One?

Every now and then I like to stroll through the web sites of the extreme right-wing nutbars: the Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh types.

On my last visit to the Rush Asylum I discovered that Rush went to Afghanistan. Given that this chickenhawk dodged the Vietnam draft on the excuse of "anal cysts" I thought it would be interesting to follow this up. Here are a couple of pictures:

Rush with Posse

Still don't believe Afghanistan is screwed?

Kyoto Apples, Kyoto Oranges

World leaders who loathe the Kyoto accord; bright lights like Bush, Howard, and Harper, like to fall back on the China and India excuse. These two emerging nations aren't bound by Kyoto so why should the U.S., Australia or Canada bite the bullet?

What their argument conveniently omits is any consideration of population disparities, that is to say "per capita" comparisons. Yes, India and China are major greenhouse gas producers. There are many contributing factors that the environmental neo-cons don't like to get into:

China and India each have populations well in excess of a billion people.

China and India are emerging from a technologically backward state. Both have had and continue to have poverty problems. Their poor don't have access to 'clean technologies' which gives them an undue reliance on coal, charcoal and wood for fuel.

The economic 'miracle' being experienced in both countries has triggered a wave of consumerism that brings with it its own environmental challenges.

However, we need to keep this in perspective. Consider this analysis from the British paper, The Independent:

Supersize nation: how America is eating the world

300m Expected population of the United States by the end of this week

75 Life expectancy for men in the US. Women are expected to live until 80

63 Life expectancy for men in the developing world. Women are expected to live until 67

395m Projected population of the US by 2050

1,682m3 US annual water consumption per capita

633m3 The world's annual water consumption per capita

545m3 The developing world's annual water withdrawals per capita

5lbs Amount of waste each US resident produces per day. That compares with about 3lbs per person per day in Europe, and about 0.9-1.3lbs per person a day in the developing world

$39,710 US Gross National Income per head, 2004

$8,540 World's GNI per head

$4,450 Developing world's GNI per head

19.8 US carbon dioxide emissions per capita, in metric tonnes

3.9 World's carbon dioxide emissions per head, in tonnes

1.8 Developing world's carbon dioxide emissions per head, in tonnes

58bn Number of burgers consumed by Americans every year

54m Number of Americans who are obese

300,000 Deaths per year related to obesity

678lbs US annual paper consumption per head

115lbs The corresponding figure for the world

44lbs The figure for the developing world

204m number of vehicles on US roads

37% Percentage of the total cars in the world on America's roads

1 in 7 Barrels of world oil supply used by US drivers

24m Number of Americans who drive SUVs

7,921 US energy consumption per capita, 2001, expressed in kilograms of oil

1,631 World's energy consumption per capita, in kilograms of oil

828 Corresponding figure for the developing world

Maybe these figures give us the answer. If we just set our environmental targets based, not on nation to nation comparisons, but per capita numbers, our Kyoto targets would seem pretty modest indeed.

When the Food Runs Out

A couple of days ago I posted an item about global footprints and World Overshoot Day, the point each year at which man has used up the entire year's renewable resources. In Canada we live in bounty and that sometimes obscures the reality of what's happening elsewhere. Yet dwindling or exhausted resources along with weather extremes and climate change are going to trigger dangerous conflicts, wars for survival, and mass population migrations. We are going to be effected by those events. The Pentagon and the British Ministry of Defence are planning for it.

We're going to have to make some hard, possibly even brutal decisions, about how to deal with these eventualities and to do that we need to understand the problems. Here are some excerpts from Dyer's latest column about the state of the world's food supply:

"For the sixth time in the past seven years, the human race will grow less food than it eats this year. We closed the gap by eating into food stocks accumulated in better times, but there is no doubt that the situation is getting serious. The world's food stocks have shrunk by half since 1999, from a reserve big enough to feed the entire world for 116 days then to a predicted low of only 57 days by the end of this year.

"The world's population continues to grow, of course, though more slowly than in the previous generation. We will have to find food for the equivalent of another India and another China in the next fifty years, and nobody has a clue how we are going to do that. But the more immediate problem is that the world's existing grain supply is under threat.

"One reason we are getting closer to the edge is the diversion of grain for meat production. As incomes rise, so does the consumption of meat, and feeding animals for meat is a very inefficient way of using grain. It takes between eleven and seventeen calories of food (almost all grain) to produce one calorie of beef, pork or chicken, and the world's production of meat has increased fivefold since 1950. We now get through five billion hoofed animals and fourteen billion poultry a year, and it takes slightly over a third of all our grain to feed them.

"Then there's the heat. The most visible cause of the fall in world grain production -- from 2.68 billion tonnes in 2004 to 2.38 billion tonnes last year and a predicted 1.98 billion tonnes this year -- is droughts, but there are strong suspicions that these droughts are related to climate change. Moreover, beyond a certain point hotter temperatures directly reduce grain yields. Current estimates suggest that the yield of the main grain crops drops ten percent, on average, for every one degree Celsius that the mean temperature exceeds the optimum for that crop during the growing season. Which may be why the average corn yield in the US reached a record 8.4 tonnes per hectare in 1994, and has since fallen back significantly.

"Finally, biofuels. The idea is elegant: the carbon dioxide absorbed when the crops are grown exactly equals the carbon dioxide released when the fuel refined from those crops is burned, so the whole process is carbon-neutral. And it would be fine if the land used to grow this biomass was land that had no alternative use, but that is rarely the case.

U.S. ethanol plant with

grain cars full of corn

"In South-East Asia, the main source of biofuels is oil palms, which are mostly grown on cleared rainforest. In the United States, a "cornrush" has been unleashed by government subsidies for ethanol, and so many ethanol plants are planned or already in existence in Iowa that they could absorb the state's entire crop of corn (maize, mealies). In effect, food is being turned into fuel -- and the amount of ethanol needed to fill a bigfour-wheel-drive SUV just once uses enough grain to feed one person for an entire year.

"It's only in the past couple of centuries that a growing number of countries have been able to stop worrying about whether there will be enough food at the end of the harvest to make it through to next year. The Golden Age may not last much longer."

A Gwynne Dyer Moment

I like Gwynne Dyer but then I tend to like most people who I think look even more beat up than I. What I most like about him is his ability to cut through the crap and get to what really matters in a story. You have to be very bright and highly knowledgeable to do that consistently.

Gwynne Dyer is one of us, a Canadian. I'll give him a couple of points for that too. He writes a syndicated newspaper column but chances are you wouldn't know it if you're a Canadian. That's because the owner of our largest newspaper/television cabal doesn't like writers who might say some things he doesn't like about Israel.

Fortunately for us, Dyer posts his old columns on his website and, from time to time, I'll be posting excerpts from them on this page. Here are some Dyer thoughts on Afghanistan:

"Most people in Afghanistan are farmers. If Hamid Karzai's Western-backed government in Kabul is to survive, it must have their support. So not destroying their main cash crop should be an obvious priority for Karzai's foreign supporters. But what the hell, let's go burn some poppies.

"'We need to realise that we could actually fail here,' said Lieutenant General David Richards, British commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, last week. In south-western Afghanistan, where 7,000 British, Canadian and Dutch troops were committed during the summer to contain a resurgent Taliban, the guerillas now actually stand and fight, even against Nato's overwhelming firepower and air power, and everything that moves on the roads gets ambushed.



"The combat in Afghanistan is more severe and sustained than anything seen in Iraq, for the Taliban fight in organised units with good light infantry weapons. In the past month, Britain and Canada have lost about half as many soldiers killed in Afghanistan as the US lost in Iraq in the same time, out of a combat force perhaps one-tenth as big.

"Concern in Europe about Western casualties in Afghanistan is already so great that none of the Nato countries was willing to commit more troops to the fighting when their defence chiefs met in Belgium on 13 September, despite an urgent appeal from General Richards for 2,500 more combat troops. Most of them just don't believe that a few thousand more troops will save the situation in Afghanistan.

"To limit their casualties, the British have already abandoned their original "section-house" strategy of spreading troops through the villages of the south-west in small groups that would provide security and help with reconstruction. They were just too vulnerable, so they have been pulled back to bigger base camps and replaced by Afghan police (who will make deals with the local Taliban forces to save their lives.)

"The rapid collapse of the Taliban government in the face of America's air power and its locally purchased allies in late 2001 created a wholly misleading impression that the question of who controls the country had been settled. Afghanistan has always been an easy country to invade but a hard country to occupy. Resistance to foreign intervention takes time to build up, but the Afghans defeated British occupations (twice) and a Soviet occupation when those empires were at the height of their power, and they are well on the way to doing it again.

"Perhaps if the US and its allies had smothered the country in troops and drowned it in aid at the outset, the rapid increase in security and prosperity would have created a solid base of support for the government they installed under President Karzai. But most of the available troops were sent off to invade Iraq instead, and most of the money went to American contractors in Iraq, not American contractors in Afghanistan (though little of it reached the local people in either case).

"The various warlords who allied themselves with the United States are the real power in most of Afghanistan, and in the traditional opium-producing areas in the south they have encouraged a return to poppy-farming (which had been almost eradicated under the Taliban) in order to get some cash flow. Poor farmers struggling under staggering loads of debt were happy to cooperate, and by now Afghanistan is producing about 90 percent of the world's opium, the raw material for heroin.



"...For the past five years a shadowy outfit called DynCorps has been destroying the poppy-fields of southern Afghanistan's poorest farmers with US and British military support. This was an opportunity the Taliban could not resist, and the alliance between Taliban fighters and poppy-farmers (now often the same people) is at the root of the resurgent guerilla war in the south.

"It begins to smell like the last year or two in a classic anti-colonial war, when the guerillas start winning and local players begin to hedge their bets. After taking heavy casualties, Pakistan has agreed with the tribes of Waziristan to withdraw its troops from the lawless province, giving the Taliban a secure base on Afghanistan's border. Karzai, seeking allies who will help him survive the eventual pull-out of Western troops, is appointing gangsters and drug-runners as local police chiefs and commanders. The end-game has started, and the foreigners seem bound to lose.

But, What If They're Right Steve?

Stephen Harper has no plan to address global warming. He doesn't even intend to deal with it. His shuck'n jive act yesterday in Vancouver made that pretty obvious. Oh sure, he's going to deal with global warming, he's going to tackle greenhouse gas emissions - he's going to get around to that, uh, well, sometime.

Of course this is the same clown who continues to quietly undermine the scientific community by backing global warming deniers and making vague references to how the science is "still evolving" on this threat. Little Stevie says he might be able to find better ways to solve the problem. Yeah, like what? Maybe, just maybe, if he does nothing it will simply go away.

What if he's wrong? What if the scientific community is right? What if The Royal Society and guys like Dr. James Lovelock actually do understand what they've been studying for decades while Stevie was busy learning to count beans? What if the coal and oil lobby is waging a war against the environmental science community so that it's industry can steamroller ahead despite the probable consequences? What if?

Imagine if a dozen fire inspectors came through your home and eleven of them pointed out what they claimed to be severe fire hazards. Would you let your kids sleep there and just ignore the warnings or would you fix the problems that have been pointed out to you? Would you tell yourself that it's just the opinion of only eleven out of twelve so there's no need to do anything yet? You might, but only if you were a complete idiot.

The science is in. The warnings have been given, the risks clearly stated. The industrial nations have to deal with this.

Harper, like his friends in the fossil fuel industry (which includes the premier and cabinet of Alberta), like to take swipes at the Kyoto accord. They create an illusion that Kyoto is an end unto itself and then point out that, because it doesn't include India and China, it's pointless. They also argue that global warming will continue even if the Kyoto targets were met.

Let's get the facts straight. Kyoto was never intended to solve global warming. It was more like teaching us to ride a bike without training wheels. You have to learn to ride halfway down the block before you can ride that bike all the way to school. Kyoto is to get us to change our outlook on this danger. It's a way to show us that we can tackle greenhouse gas emissions without our societies collapsing and to show us what is possible. Kyoto is a way to show the developing nations that the already developed nations are willing to lead the way and that they should join us.

Kyoto is not the answer. It just points to the answer.

What is the downside of taking action to address global warming, to cut back our emissions of greenhouse gases? We get told all manner of dire consequences will befall us, just so long as you define "us" as the fossil fuel industry and its friends. Compare that with the downside of doing nothing if the scientific concensus is right.

In whose interests is it to postpone or simply avoid measures to combat greenhouse gas emissions? Is it in your interests, or your children's or your neighbours'? No, of course not. It is, however, very much in the interests of the major greenhouse gas producers and, when it comes to them, there's no bunch quite like the oil sands companies. While Stephen Harper is prime minister, he'll make sure that they win, you lose.

If there's one thing Stephen Harper has shown us it's that he's no "Mr. Dithers." When he wants to act, he acts. He acts even when he hasn't got the country behind him. He doesn't let principles or rights stand in his way. That's why it's so easy to see right through his environmental blather this week.

Canada produces the dirtiest oil on the planet. The Athabaska tar sands are an environmental nightmare because they produce about as much pollution getting the gunk out of the ground and turning it into SUV juice as will be produced when it's burned in some American parade float. Look at that equation for a minute: Americans get the fuel, their oil companies get the profits, the Alberta government gets a little taste of the action and Canada and the world get the awful pollution left behind. That sounds fair, doesn't it?

Alberta is insistent that it's fossil fuel revenues not be included for the purpose of the provincial equalization calculations. Well, if the oil is Alberta's and the boon from that oil is exclusively Alberta's, why don't we in the rest of Canada insist that, fair is fair, and the pollution ought to be entirely Alberta's responsibility? What's wrong with telling Alberta that, if it wants to export this stuff, it first must solve the land, water and air pollution fallout from the tar sands development? Solve it as in end it. Let's demand Kyoto level greenhouse gas limits from Alberta. They've certainly got the money to pay for it. Why should they be allowed to line their pockets and leave their environmental mess to everyone else?

We can't let Little Stevie get away with this one. We just can't. If the scientific community is right, the clock is ticking and we have a matter of years, not decades, to take meaningful action to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Not A Clue

Two months ago today I e-mailed the Department of National Defence in Ottawa with three, simple questions:

1. What are the estimates of the strength of insurgents in Kandahar province?
2. Is it known how many of these are Taliban and how many al-Qaeda?
3. How is the insurgency organized and how does it operate in Canada's region of control?

Here's the reply that arrived today from Paul Villeneuve at NDHQ:

"Unfortunately we have no information available concerning the Taliban and al-Qaeda's organization or numbers."

Say what? This isn't 'secret' information. The bad guys already know their numbers and organization and I'll bet they know that we know too.

This is something we're going to have to keep an eye on because, in neighbouring Helmand province, a tight lid is being kept on what the military can reveal to the British public, not by the military for security reasons, but by the Blair administration for political reasons.

British TV crews are being kept out of the action in Helmand, journalists being restricted to military briefings at headquarters in Kandahar. What video does come out is either from the Ministry of Defence or from soldiers' cell phone cameras that is fed out surreptitiously.

As The Guardian's Alex Thomson puts it:

"The politicians appear to have concluded that the media are welcome to come along for the ride when things are fine and effectively put out good PR videos - but if it all goes a bit rum then we can just get lost."

We all know that the Harper government is no booster of free and open journalism. It controls the message very narrowly, very tightly. Lately there have been signs that our media is beginning to get as cowed as their colleagues in the U.S. and that's very dangerous for our democracy.

It's Time to Cut and Run

In recent years there have been no more hackneyed and discredited terms than "cut and run" and "stay the course." They've been used, quite disgracefully, by the American administration and their cronies to butress gross incompetence bordering on criminal negligence by impugning the patriotism and motives of their critics. Anyone notice how Harper and MacKay slipped so seamlessly into this same nonsense?

Iraq and Afghanistan are and may be doomed to remain "failed states" but a lot of the blame for that lies squarely with the failed leadership of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice. They've shown the world, with breathtaking clarity, that the greatest military might on the planet can be ground down and broken by incompetent political leadership.



We need to cut and run, not from Islamic terrorism, but from the American executive. They have amassed a record of persistent failure over the past six years. They failed to prevent the 9/11 attacks. They didn't even try. They failed to exterminate bin Laden's al-Qaeda and the Taliban when they had them on the ropes in 2001. They failed to support the Karzai government when it most needed their help. They failed to quash the warlords and drug lords who, quite independent of the Taliban, destabilize the Karzai government. They invaded Iraq but failed to win the peace in the wake of the ouster of Saddam Hussein. They couldn't be bothered. They failed to salvage a Palestinian state by forcing Israel back to its pre-1967 borders (there is no other solution, we all know it). They failed to uphold the integrity of western democracy by creating secret prisons, imprisonment without arrest, charge or trial and resort to torture.



This president, this vice-president, this defence secretary, this secretary of state - they're all utter and complete failures. Despite that, they expect the free world to follow them. The time has long passed to "stay the course." That course is set by a bunch of people with no vision, who can neither navigate nor steer. Their course puts us up on the rocks every time.



It's time to "cut and run". We need to cut ourselves free of this failed leadership. We need to run in a new direction and run hard because we have so much wasted time to make up. We need to tell Bush/Cheney that they've had their chances, plenty of them, and we just can't afford to keep failing. We don't have the luxury of tolerating another two years of their bungling.

We need true statesmen with vision who can give us a new course. Unfortunately we don't have anyone of that measure in our government so we will have to look to Europe.

We can't run away from Islamic terrorism. Bush/Cheney have so stoked the fires of radical Islam that turning our backs on the problem is not an option. We know they can't be defeated by force of arms so we might as well stop beating our heads against the brick wall of reality. There will always be an essential military role in defusing this threat but it can only be a small part of a much greater effort.

A good first step is to start to listen to the "Arab street." There is a lot of discontent among the Islamic peoples, particularly in the Middle East. While only a tiny minority of them become terrorists or jihadists, it is their discontent, their legitimate grievances that serve as the essential fuel for terrorism.

We need an honest examination of what we in the west have contributed to this unrest. Let's look at the tyrants we have propped up - from Mubarak in Egypt to the House of Saud to Saddam Hussein himself - not to help their people but to secure our supply of their oil. We need to recognize how our often unbalanced support for Israel has created such an enormous rallying force for Islamic extremism.

We have to stop treating these people as though they're some species of bloodthirsty subhumans. They need to know that we're going to fully respect their culture, their religion and their social values in our dealings with their nations. They need to know that, until they have democratically formed whatever sort of government they choose, we will support the individual over the state and abandon our policy of supporting undemocratic government suppression of the individual.

We need to drive a wedge between the Islamic peoples and the Islamic terrorists. That may seem an impossible goal but I believe it can be done if we're willing to go forward with the necessary degree of commitment, honesty and good faith.

We simply have to stop failing.

Here's an Exit Strategy - Phased Withdrawal

There has been a lot of talk in Washington about a policy of "phased withdrawal" to extricate American forces from Iraq. The idea, as I understand it, is to hand increasing responsibility for security over to the Iraqi government while withdrawing American troops in phases. That idea upsets the "stay the course" brigade in the White House and it does have its shortcomings - in Iraq.

Phased withdrawal might not be workable for Iraq but why don't we try it in Afghanistan? My thinking is based on the "you break it, you own it" theory. NATO forces are over there battling an almost impossible situation that has to be blamed, in large part, on the Bush administration's deliberate choice to neglect the Afghan war so it could conquer Iraq. There have been very real consequences to that decision which begs the question of why NATO troops should bear the brunt of it?

NATO went in to Afghanistan to free up American forces for their Iraq adventure. Fair enough. That doesn't mean that America shouldn't be expected to get out of Iraq and come back to Afghanistan to again take over its very own Global War Without End on Terror.

It was American intervention that toppled the Taliban. It was America that placed Hamid Karzai in charge of the place. It was America that had the Taliban and al-Qaeda on the run in the mountains of Tora Bora and it was America that botched the whole thing up by not finishing the job in order to go after Saddam Hussein. It is America that should take responsibility for cleaning up its own mess in Afghanistan. That's mess is neither NATO's doing nor should it be the alliance's burden.

There are any number of places where NATO's forces could be put to much better use to alleviate suffering and end oppression, places like Darfur. We could actually be saving lives and rescuing innocents - even if they are black and have no oil. What will be the price of staying in Afghanistan? Stuck in that quagmire, what unfortunates will have to pay that price?

My God, has it really come to this? Is this what it means to be warriors in George Bush's delusional adventures?

No, it's time to tell George we have better things to do and we're getting out. He made the mess, let him clean it up. Give him a timetable of phased withdrawal and let him take responsibility for his actions.

This is Why the Guy Creeps Me Out

Last month the Ottawa bureau chief of the Toronto Star set out to analyze Stephen Harper's truly irritating style of governing. See if you agree with this:

"Eight months into his tenure as Prime Minister, and now, as the fall political season is grinding into gear after the Labour Day weekend, it is possible to identify some of the defining characteristics of Harper's leadership style — beyond the spare descriptions of "bold" or "decisive" management.

Here are some other techniques from the Harper playbook, which may prove a useful guide to understanding his public strategies in the weeks and months ahead:

Declare victory, even if the problem isn't solved.

Harper has yet to implement one concrete solution to resolve the so-called "fiscal imbalance" between Ottawa and the provinces. He's not even planning to hold a meeting on the issue before the end of the year. But, somehow, it is now being called the "fiscal balance." Problem solved.
The same is true with the long-running softwood dispute with the United States. As far back as March, when Harper sat down with U.S. President George W. Bush, he was starting to refer to the dispute in the past tense. The deal with the United States was announced before it was complete; the victory was repeatedly being hailed even as Ottawa was still negotiating with the lumber industry over whether the terms would be accepted.

Harper, as a student of history, knows that prime ministers often get caught up in long-running, intractable disputes, national unity being chief among them. He seems to have decided it's better to just declare the problem solved and label the leftover, outstanding issues as mere housekeeping.

It's not clear if this could work with the Quebec separatism drama, but Harper may try the approach.


Surround yourself with symbols and props.

Harper pays more attention to the staging of his events than any other prime minister in recent memory. He needs flags, podiums, the backdrop of the Commons doors, even cabinet ministers, whom he often forgets to introduce.

In the world of professional speechmaking, these are called "visual aids" and they are used to reinforce his authority. Leesa Barnes, the award-winning president of Toronto's Business Toastmasters club, which helps business leaders with public speaking, says: "I think he uses those props in order to feel comfortable on that stage."

The props, in other words, serve the purpose of distracting from Harper's body language, which is generally neither comfortable nor friendly. Barnes finds Harper actually a very good public speaker, with no "uhs" or "ums" punctuating his message. "He comes across as very honest," and also seems to know what he's talking about, she says.

Slogans are also part of the prop-filled mix. This is not simply the government, but "Canada's New Government," and that phrase is plastered over almost every issuance from Harper's PMO.


Keep the opposition divided.

By now, Harper's fixation on the Liberals is well established. He wastes no opportunity to present the Liberals as divided and, when he can, drive further wedges into their caucus, as he did with last spring's vote in the Commons on extending the mission in Afghanistan.
This is, in part, a lesson Harper learned from his own time in opposition, when prime minister Jean Chrétien reaped enormous political benefit from an opposition fractured among four parties.

The presence of 10 candidates in the Liberal leadership race also serves Harper's interests, as does any squabbling between the Liberals and New Democrats. If there is any way he can feed those divisions, he will.


It is not a lie if you tell it to the media.

Believe it or not, a senior Ottawa journalist was told this several years ago by one of Harper's chief advisers and confidants.

He hasn't said outright whether he shares this sentiment, but Harper evidently does not believe reporters can or will hold him accountable for shifting stories and positions.

One of his first blatant mistruths concerned the subject of his plans for a trip to Afghanistan — his first foreign foray. Some reporters in Kandahar had seen prime ministerial advance officials in late February, scouting out the terrain for a Harper trip. Some defence officials as well had inadvertently discussed the prospect in a briefing with Canadian Press journalists around the same time.

But Harper, talking to the media on March 1 after these reports surfaced, actually went out of his way to lead the media astray. Asked a general question about Afghanistan, he began his remarks this way: "Let me just say I do actually occasionally read the papers and, according to those papers, I've been to and from Afghanistan several times in the last couple of weeks. I don't have any plans to go there."

In fact, he did have plans to go there — plans he was making in February, as he subsequently told reporters who travelled with him to Afghanistan less than two weeks after that press conference. (There are times when for national security reasons, the media are indeed kept in the dark.)


Retreat, but never admit retreat.

This was a classic Chrétien strategy, which Harper has obviously borrowed. Its corollary is: "Learn from your mistakes but don't publicly acknowledge them."

His decision to ban media coverage of fallen soldiers returning to Canada sparked huge controversy, for example, so Harper subsequently declared that the ban was instituted at the request of families. When some of the families said they hadn't been consulted, Harper then said the ban didn't exist. At no point did he acknowledge that he'd reversed his position.

The disappearance of the medical wait-times guarantee from Harper's five-priorities list is another reversal that hasn't been spun that way. Now Health Minister Tony Clement is calling the guarantee a "process," not an end in itself.


Speak French first.

It was only a matter of weeks into Harper's prime ministership when everyone started to notice he always begins his public statements in French.

Harper has subsequently been asked about his French-first policy. He told La Presse and an Alberta radio interviewer that there are a number of reasons: French is Canada's first national language, he says, but the discipline of speaking it first helps him collect his thoughts.

"I have to think much more carefully, in a much more structured sense about what I'm going to say and how I'm going to answer questions. It actually helps me in a press conference, to do it that way," he explained to Dave Rutherford.

It doesn't hurt politically either in his continuing bid to woo Quebec.


If you want to avoid a course of action, challenge your opponents to provoke it.

Harper has only a minority government. On average, minorities don't last much longer than a year and a half in Canada. Earlier this year, Harper declared that he wouldn't call an election until October of 2009 — a full three years from now; basically, a majority-length term in office.
In declaring this, Harper was laying the groundwork to shame the Liberals and other opposition parties into postponing defeat of his government. He is banking on the Liberals wanting to avoid any negative media they might receive for provoking an election earlier than anticipated.

Former prime minister Paul Martin recently believed the same thing, however — that Canadians would punish any political parties who provoked a snap, winter election late in 2005. Martin is not prime minister any more.


Don't look to be liked, seek respect.

Harper is one of the most unsocial prime ministers since Pierre Trudeau. He doesn't try to radiate warmth or charm or likeability. At a recent 60th birthday party for his former communications director, the well-liked Tory consultant Geoff Norquay, video tributes were sent by former prime ministers Martin, Brian Mulroney and Joe Clark, as well as Quebec Premier Jean Charest. Harper refused repeated offers to send any message at all to the large Tory gathering.

As the once-Liberal, now-Conservative cabinet minister David Emerson observed to an ex-staffer earlier this year, Harper's interpersonal style is best described as "hard ass." His approach is disciplined and disciplinary, as is evident from the extreme fear that he's generated among potentially talkative cabinet ministers.

Short-term, this strategy has worked.

All of his signature traits, in fact, have had some significant short-term effectiveness. The question is whether they can work over the long term and help him secure the majority government he's bent on obtaining."

The Harperites and the U.S. Christian Right

If you're concerned about Stephen Harper's connections with the extreme right in the U.S., visit this link:

http://dawn.thot.net/harperstiestousa/

This is a well-researched and documented study of just how far the Harperites are engaged with some disturbing organizations.

A Blast From The Past - Trivia Fun

Okay folks, here are a couple of passages from a speech. This one is for the car and the Hawaiian holiday (in your dreams). Who said this?

"The way chosen by the United States was plainly marked by a few clear precepts, which govern its conduct in world affairs.

"First: No people on earth can be held, as a people, to be enemy, for all humanity shares the common hunger for peace and fellowship and justice.

"Second: No nation's security and well-being can be lastingly achieved in isolation but only in effective cooperation with fellow-nations.

"Third: Any nation's right to form of government and an economic system of its own choosing is inalienable.

"Fourth: Any nation's attempt to dictate to other nations their form of government is indefensible.

"And fifth: A nation's hope of lasting peace cannot be firmly based upon any race in armaments but rather upon just relations and honest understanding with all other nations."

And continued:

"The worst to be feared and the best to be expected can be simply stated.

"The worst is atomic war.

"The best would be this: a life of perpetual fear and tension; a burden of arms draining the wealt