With an Afghan general election just five days off, I went wandering through some old posts on this blog. In one from last September 16 I found this prescient passage:
...Unless the United States can craft a much more successful effort, reinforced by international diplomacy, to strengthen Iraq's central government, "we're midwifing the dissolution of the country," Steven Simon, a senior director of the National Security Council during the Clinton administration said.
He continued, "There are two things that every successful state in the Middle East has had to do to insure its viability. One is to stamp out warlordism, and the other is to suppress tribalism. Where that has not happened, you find unsuccessful states, like Yemen, for example - and now Iraq... We're creating dependencies in a decentralized state that will be at risk when we leave."
Note that Simon speaks of "successful" states. That's successful as in viable and functioning, not successful as in democratic. There are a great many functioning states in the Middle East that are still a far cry from democratic.
But if this is the formula for a successful state - the total eradication of warlordism and the suppression of tribalism - why are we tolerating a central government in Afghanistan that both cultivates and empowers warlords, that exists in a highly unstable, symbiotic co-dependency with creatures like Dostum, Hekmatyar and Gul Agha?
If we don't want a successful - as in viable and functioning - Afghanistan, what do we want? Or maybe we don't really "want" anything, maybe we've settled for the worst-possible option, maybe we're simply running on autopilot.
You may have noticed that completely missing from this discussion has been mention of Western (US & NATO) military intervention or the Taliban insurgency. That's because you could hypothetically wipe out the Taliban and remove all Western troops tomorrow and Afghanistan would still be just as far away from becoming a successful state as it ever has been since we arrived. The obstacles to a viable and functioning Afghan government are as great or greater from the inside than from without.
Warlordism enshrines tribalism and operates within a central government only out of convenience and only for so long as its demands are met. If tribalism is suppressed it guts the warlords' power base. Tribalism is the very lifeblood of warlordism. And so the warlords must seize the levers of power to prevent the evolution of a cohesive Afghan nationality, a multi-ethnic reunification.
The way things are shaping up the August 20th election seems to be a warlord popularity contest between Karzai and Abdullah. Karzai was, until very recently, seen as a shoo-in but then figitive warlord Dostum's Uzbek political party/militia (take your pick, it's both), split in his absence with half going over to Abdullah. In a nation where loyalty and treachery are two sides of the same coin, allegiance is an obscure concept. I'd bet that a lot of warlords are keeping a close eye on the Uzbeks to figure out which way to jump.
Which finally brings us to NATO and the Taliban. With all of this skulduggery going on in the rear areas, what do we hope to achieve on the frontlines? If we're not fighting to defend a successful central government, a legitimate, viable and functioning national administration, just what are we aiming to achieve?
I know we're fighting to hold the Taliban at bay and we're not doing too well at that. NATO is now falling back to defend Kabul and the provincial capitals. Gullible journalists may swallow the line that this is some new offensive strategy but falling back is just that - falling. We're not doing this to lure the Taliban into urban warfare where our big firepower advantages - our tanks, artillery and airstrikes - are neutralized. It's so obvious that it makes me cringe when I read the utter crap our supposed journalists mindlessly regurgitate on command.
For all we know the Afghan war may already be lost. As I've written before, in the type of warfare we're fighting, the issue is often decided long before our side, the government side, the heavy firepower and latest toys side, realizes we've lost. Our sheer supremacy in firepower ensures we cannot be defeated, at least not militarily. However insurgencies are political wars, not military wars. They don't have to defeat us, they merely have to survive relatively intact until we get fed up with our inability to achieve victory and simply leave. However our side will just keep up the pointless airstrikes and artillery barrages for years before we throw in the towel.
I think we may have lost this war in Kabul itself many years ago. We were a "no show" when we needed to truly dismantle the country's warlord power structure. It was the slackers in the rear echelons who sabotaged the guys in the frontlines, leaving them nothing worthwhile to fight for, no successful government to defend.
Maybe this election will be a second chance for us. Maybe if Abdullah pulls an upset win, this Pashtun-Tajik upstart might be one last best chance to take down the warlords. If so we'd better be willing to flood that country with the military and financial resources he's going to need. We lost the chance to do that eight years ago and we've been paying for that mistake ever since.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Friday, August 14, 2009
Here's a Real "Death Panel" - Big Oil
Despite all their apologies, despite all their claims to get it, Big Oil is about to launch a campaign aimed at derailing Obama's climate change initiatives. In other words, they're putting themselves on the other side on the most dangerous problem facing mankind. If you're looking for something akin to Death Panels, look no further.
From The Guardian (if you can stomach it):
The US oil and gas lobby are planning to stage public events to give the appearance of a groundswell of public opinion against legislation that is key to Barack Obama's climate change strategy, according to campaigners.
A key lobbying group will bankroll and organise 20 ''energy citizen'' rallies in 20 states. In an email obtained by Greenpeace, Jack Gerard, the president of the American Petroleum Institute (API), outlined what he called a "sensitive" plan to stage events during the August congressional recess to put a "human face" on opposition to climate and energy reform.
After the clamour over healthcare, the memo raises the possibility of a new round of protests against a key Obama issue.
"Our goal is to energise people and show them that they are not alone," said Cathy Landry, for API, who confirmed that the memo was authentic.
The email from Gerard lays out ambitious plans to stage a series of lunchtime rallies to try to shape the climate bill that was passed by the house in June and will come before the Senate in September. "We must move aggressively," it reads.
There it is. If you think we need to slash carbon emissions, even decarbonize our economy, for the future of your children and grandchildren, Big Oil has chosen to make itself your enemy and your kids' enemy and your grandkids' enemy.
Despite the real, and potentially cataclysmic consequences of failing to meet this challenge, Big Oil is bound and determined to use its wiles to undermine this effort.
It's time to draw lines and put Big Oil right where they insist on being - on the wrong side. If they insist on putting maximum profitability ahead of the welfare of the planet, so be it. It may be time to lower the lumber on these scoundrels.
From The Guardian (if you can stomach it):
The US oil and gas lobby are planning to stage public events to give the appearance of a groundswell of public opinion against legislation that is key to Barack Obama's climate change strategy, according to campaigners.
A key lobbying group will bankroll and organise 20 ''energy citizen'' rallies in 20 states. In an email obtained by Greenpeace, Jack Gerard, the president of the American Petroleum Institute (API), outlined what he called a "sensitive" plan to stage events during the August congressional recess to put a "human face" on opposition to climate and energy reform.
After the clamour over healthcare, the memo raises the possibility of a new round of protests against a key Obama issue.
"Our goal is to energise people and show them that they are not alone," said Cathy Landry, for API, who confirmed that the memo was authentic.
The email from Gerard lays out ambitious plans to stage a series of lunchtime rallies to try to shape the climate bill that was passed by the house in June and will come before the Senate in September. "We must move aggressively," it reads.
There it is. If you think we need to slash carbon emissions, even decarbonize our economy, for the future of your children and grandchildren, Big Oil has chosen to make itself your enemy and your kids' enemy and your grandkids' enemy.
Despite the real, and potentially cataclysmic consequences of failing to meet this challenge, Big Oil is bound and determined to use its wiles to undermine this effort.
It's time to draw lines and put Big Oil right where they insist on being - on the wrong side. If they insist on putting maximum profitability ahead of the welfare of the planet, so be it. It may be time to lower the lumber on these scoundrels.
Climate Wars? China and India Square Off in Himalayas
Asia's two emerging economic giants, China and India, have a lot in common. One thing is a common dependence on Himalayan glaciers for meltwaters to feed their key rivers. These glaciers are fast retreating thanks to global warming and a couple of other contributing factors but there's not a lot China or India can do to prevent that. They're going to have a hard enough time just trying to adapt to it.
Still it came as a surprise to read in today's Sydney Morning Herald of a border standoff underway between India and China along China's border with the Indian province of Arunachal Pradesh.
China lays claim to much of Arunachal Pradesh, a mountainous Indian province on the country's north-eastern extremity, and strategic experts in New Delhi warn that tensions in the remote border region are on the rise.
''Largely unknown to the rest of the world, India-China border tensions have escalated in recent months,'' says Brahma Chellaney, professor of strategic studies at Delhi's Centre for Policy Research. ''Things are getting really intense and from the Indian perspective outrageous.''
More aggressive border patrolling by Chinese forces including incursions into Indian territory has forced the Indian army to bolster its presence along the 3500-kilometre border, analysts claim.
The newspaper account suggests that China is beginning to play hardball.
...A day after this week's talks, India's foreign policy establishment was rattled by Indian media reports that a think tank linked to the Chinese military had called for India to be split into 30 independent states. The paper said that if China ''takes a little action, the so-called great Indian federation can be broken up''.
Still it came as a surprise to read in today's Sydney Morning Herald of a border standoff underway between India and China along China's border with the Indian province of Arunachal Pradesh.
China lays claim to much of Arunachal Pradesh, a mountainous Indian province on the country's north-eastern extremity, and strategic experts in New Delhi warn that tensions in the remote border region are on the rise.
''Largely unknown to the rest of the world, India-China border tensions have escalated in recent months,'' says Brahma Chellaney, professor of strategic studies at Delhi's Centre for Policy Research. ''Things are getting really intense and from the Indian perspective outrageous.''
More aggressive border patrolling by Chinese forces including incursions into Indian territory has forced the Indian army to bolster its presence along the 3500-kilometre border, analysts claim.
The newspaper account suggests that China is beginning to play hardball.
...A day after this week's talks, India's foreign policy establishment was rattled by Indian media reports that a think tank linked to the Chinese military had called for India to be split into 30 independent states. The paper said that if China ''takes a little action, the so-called great Indian federation can be broken up''.
This would be in China's interests and lead to more prosperity in the region, it said, according to reports. Countries friendly to China like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal could help ''different nationalities'' such as Tamil and Kashmiri people so that they can establish independent nation states of their own.
...In June the Governor of Arunachal Pradesh and former army Indian chief, retired general J.J. Singh, said up to 30,000 new troops would be deployed in the region. In June a state-run newspaper in China accused India of ''unwise military moves'' along the Arunachal Pradesh border.
Professor Chellaney says the border tensions are ominous. ''Any doubts that the Indian foreign policy establishment might have had about the threat posed by China have evaporated in recent months.''
How would we like it if Russia began egging on the Greenland Inuit to spark a seccesionist movement among Canada's Inuit? Not so much I'm guessing.
Right to Starve Women - And the Band Played on in Kabul
You know something? We're just going to have to take a big bite out of this shit sandwich we call Afghanistan. Eight years we've been over there fighting to keep this gaggle of sick bastards in power and we can stay another eighty and they're not going to change. They're religious fanatics and warlords and drug lords and common criminals and corrupt bureaucrats and cops.
The Afghan legislature passed a law that allowed a man to beat his wife if she didn't put out on demand. Boy didn't we raise a fury over that! We gave them one up alongside the head, didn't we? For sure. That's why the legislature passed an alternative measure. This time it's "no sex-no food." If a wife doesn't meet her husband's sexual whims, he can deny her food and sustenance.
From The Guardian:
The new final draft of the legislation also grants guardianship of children exclusively to their fathers and grandfathers, and requires women to get permission from their husbands to work.
"It also effectively allows a rapist to avoid prosecution by paying 'blood money' to a girl who was injured when he raped her," the US charity Human Rights Watch said.
You see the problem is to make Afghanistan a viable government we can't just take on the Taliban. We have to crush our friends too. They're every bit as vile. That means we'd be fighting both sides of the civil war that went into intermission when the Americans bombed the Taliban out of Afghanistan in 2001. Fighting both sides - that's what the Soviets tried, and how well did that work out for them.
So kiddies, including all you Afghan war supporters, here's the deal. We're not going to change these people - not the Taliban and not their Northern Alliance counterparts. You can't change one without changing both and we're not interested in doing that are we?
-----
A telling remark this week from Obama's special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke in response to reporters' questions about how the United States would know that it has won in Afghanistan. From the Washington Post:
Holbrooke said he preferred to use the word 'succeed' rather than 'win.' So what's success?
"It's really hard for me to address [the question] in specific terms," he said, "but I would say this about defining success in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the simplest sense, the Supreme Court test for another issue: We'll know it when we see it."
Okay, if after eight years of waging war in a country you can't muster a coherent definition of "success" that's because success is nowhere on the horizon and you don't know if it ever will be. If you can't figure out what you're fighting for, if you can't point to the end zone or even the direction it's in, you're not in it to win and you're not going to win. Eight years, my God.
The Afghan legislature passed a law that allowed a man to beat his wife if she didn't put out on demand. Boy didn't we raise a fury over that! We gave them one up alongside the head, didn't we? For sure. That's why the legislature passed an alternative measure. This time it's "no sex-no food." If a wife doesn't meet her husband's sexual whims, he can deny her food and sustenance.
From The Guardian:
The new final draft of the legislation also grants guardianship of children exclusively to their fathers and grandfathers, and requires women to get permission from their husbands to work.
"It also effectively allows a rapist to avoid prosecution by paying 'blood money' to a girl who was injured when he raped her," the US charity Human Rights Watch said.
You see the problem is to make Afghanistan a viable government we can't just take on the Taliban. We have to crush our friends too. They're every bit as vile. That means we'd be fighting both sides of the civil war that went into intermission when the Americans bombed the Taliban out of Afghanistan in 2001. Fighting both sides - that's what the Soviets tried, and how well did that work out for them.
So kiddies, including all you Afghan war supporters, here's the deal. We're not going to change these people - not the Taliban and not their Northern Alliance counterparts. You can't change one without changing both and we're not interested in doing that are we?
-----
A telling remark this week from Obama's special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke in response to reporters' questions about how the United States would know that it has won in Afghanistan. From the Washington Post:
Holbrooke said he preferred to use the word 'succeed' rather than 'win.' So what's success?
"It's really hard for me to address [the question] in specific terms," he said, "but I would say this about defining success in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In the simplest sense, the Supreme Court test for another issue: We'll know it when we see it."
Okay, if after eight years of waging war in a country you can't muster a coherent definition of "success" that's because success is nowhere on the horizon and you don't know if it ever will be. If you can't figure out what you're fighting for, if you can't point to the end zone or even the direction it's in, you're not in it to win and you're not going to win. Eight years, my God.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
What Will Tomorrow Look Like?
There's a human trait called landscape amnesia. It's the tendancy to see what you've seen in the recent past as 'normal' while forgetting about what your world was like a generation or two in the past. But it's more than an amnesia, it can be an anaesthetic numbing us to rapid change that ought to be stirring us to ask what's going on.
Another bad year for the Fraser River sockeye run. There's barely a million, million and a half sockeye returned this year. Sounds like a lot until you realize there ought to be another nine and a half million that are nowhere to be found. Nobody knows what happened. Nobody has seen anything like this before. The run totalled 1.4 million last year, 1.7 the year before that.
Our Department of Fisheries is left guessing. One idea is that rising ocean temperatures may have sharply cut the availability of plankton the sockeye feed on but that's just a guess. Who knows, maybe we'll discover that new predator species have travelled up from the south to take the salmon, spurred on by the earlier collapse of salmon stocks in California and Oregon (both states have shut down salmon fishing entirely for the second year in a row).
We were all taken by surprise this week when 300-500 giant Humboldt squid washed up on Long Beach near Tofino. Those things are supposed to be in the Sea of Cortez down in Baja, Mexico. They shocked the good people of San Diego last month when a mass of them washed ashore down there. How and why the Humboldt migrated up here no one knows.
The once rare giant sunfish, normally from the south, is now spotted fairly commonly in BC waters. Anchovies have moved into regions normally inhabited by herring. Humpback whales now have to migrate into the Beaufort Sea because the krill have moved north out of the Bering.
We're seeing these events with our very eyes and they're occuring over a span of years, not decades. Our ecological landscape is rapidly changing. Makes you wonder how long it will be until we forget the way it was around here even ten years ago. Makes you wonder what tomorrow will look like.
Another bad year for the Fraser River sockeye run. There's barely a million, million and a half sockeye returned this year. Sounds like a lot until you realize there ought to be another nine and a half million that are nowhere to be found. Nobody knows what happened. Nobody has seen anything like this before. The run totalled 1.4 million last year, 1.7 the year before that.
Our Department of Fisheries is left guessing. One idea is that rising ocean temperatures may have sharply cut the availability of plankton the sockeye feed on but that's just a guess. Who knows, maybe we'll discover that new predator species have travelled up from the south to take the salmon, spurred on by the earlier collapse of salmon stocks in California and Oregon (both states have shut down salmon fishing entirely for the second year in a row).
We were all taken by surprise this week when 300-500 giant Humboldt squid washed up on Long Beach near Tofino. Those things are supposed to be in the Sea of Cortez down in Baja, Mexico. They shocked the good people of San Diego last month when a mass of them washed ashore down there. How and why the Humboldt migrated up here no one knows.
The once rare giant sunfish, normally from the south, is now spotted fairly commonly in BC waters. Anchovies have moved into regions normally inhabited by herring. Humpback whales now have to migrate into the Beaufort Sea because the krill have moved north out of the Bering.
We're seeing these events with our very eyes and they're occuring over a span of years, not decades. Our ecological landscape is rapidly changing. Makes you wonder how long it will be until we forget the way it was around here even ten years ago. Makes you wonder what tomorrow will look like.
And It's One, Two, Three, What Are We Fightin' For?
Next week's general election will reveal just how much good we've done in Afghanistan since 2001. I've been pretty negative about this poll but how about a second opinion? Here's how the Brookings Institute sees the situation:
...As governance continued to deteriorate and Karzai’s legitimacy based on the inadequate performance of his government continued to slip, Karzai progressively sought to cloak himself with other forms of legitimacy, instead of finding means to improve governance. Indeed, these other sources of legitimacy frequently clashed with efforts to improve governance. At first, Karzai appointed very conservative ulema in Kabul to claim religious legitimacy. Then he embraced nationalism – decrying both Pakistan’s machinations in Afghanistan and civilian casualties caused by NATO and even questioning NATO’s presence in Afghanistan at times. Most lately, Karzai has latched onto a renewed cleavage in Afghanistan between the old mujahideen commanders (with a checkered warlord history complicating their anti-Soviet heroism) and ex-Communist Afghan commanders who it turned out had better skills at governance in the post-Taliban era than many of the ex-mujahideen and tribal leaders. The high praise lavished by the international community on General Mohammad Gulab Mangal for his performance as governor of Helmand has become an emblematic thorn in the side of many of the former mujahideen commanders eased out of official power at the instigation of the international community for their poor governance, human rights abuses, and criminality.
Yet it was precisely these problematic power brokers to whom Hamid Karzai reached out in the 2009 pre-election bargaining process. In return for supporting his reelection, they were promised appointments in his cabinet, governorships, and other positions of power. The newly co-opted power brokers include Fahim who is running as one of Karzai’s vice president, Dostum, Akhundzaza, Jan Mohammand, Matullah Khan, Gul Agha Sherzai, and Mohammad Mohaqiq. Karzai’s co-optation of them assured that they would not run against him (notably Sherzai) and deliver important tribal and ethnic vote (Mohaqiq the Hazara; Mohammad, Khan, and Sherzai the Barakzai; Dostum the Uzbek).
If Karzai wins the presidential elections (whether in one or two rounds), it is difficult to see how the pre-election bargains will allow him to come back to the presidential Arg Palace with a clean slate and strong commitment and capacity for good governance. At the same time, the marked escalation of tensions between Karzai and the international community during the pre-election period (such as Karzai’s attacks on NATO for civilian casualties and his resentment at the U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry appearing at a joint press conference with his two rivals, Abdullah and Ghani) will make the relations between the Afghan national government centralized in the president and the international community difficult. At a time when close cooperation and coordination is necessary for the increased effectiveness of the counterinsurgency and reconstruction efforts, such a tense relationship will be a major impediment. Karzai may well have a tendency to perceive appropriate suggestions of how to improve governance as driven by a desire to undercut him.
But even if Karzai does not win the elections, improved governance in Afghanistan will not automatically follow. Although of mixed origin – part Tajik, part Pashtun – Abdullah Abdullah, even if elected legitimately, will struggle to persuade the Pashtuns that he genuinely represents their interests also and does not favor the northern Tajiks. While an effective non-Pashtun at the helm of the country could be a great force toward consolidating democratization and state-building in Afghanistan, he will be highly susceptible to charges of anti-Pashtun sentiments. A widespread Pashtun suspicion about the legitimacy of a non-Pahstun leader can complicate the counterinsurgency effort. Already the accusation that the non-Pashtun Northern Alliance has dominated the post-2001 government has fueled the Taliban.
Not very optimistic, is it? Karzai, it seems, can't rule without the crooks and the thugs. If his rival, Abdullah somehow pulls a rabbit out of his hat and wins, it's like pushing the "reset" button on the insurgency. From everything I've read, Abdullah would be the best guy for the country and for the Afghan people, but it's hard to see how he would be able to purge the legislature, the bureaucracy and the security services of the rampang corruption they're known for today.
So, to sum up, we're up to our alligators trying to hold back the Taliban as this criminal enterprise of a failed state continues to rot beneath our feet. Sooner or later we have to accept that, unless and until we find the resolve to overcome the scourges of warlordism and tribalism that plague Afghanistan, there is no hope - none whatsoever - of realizing a stable government for this country, democratic or otherwise. It will remain what it is today, an unresolved civil war on hiatus. What's the point of simply treading water when our treasure and forces could be deployed elsewhere in places where they could actually do some lasting good?
title credit - "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag"
...As governance continued to deteriorate and Karzai’s legitimacy based on the inadequate performance of his government continued to slip, Karzai progressively sought to cloak himself with other forms of legitimacy, instead of finding means to improve governance. Indeed, these other sources of legitimacy frequently clashed with efforts to improve governance. At first, Karzai appointed very conservative ulema in Kabul to claim religious legitimacy. Then he embraced nationalism – decrying both Pakistan’s machinations in Afghanistan and civilian casualties caused by NATO and even questioning NATO’s presence in Afghanistan at times. Most lately, Karzai has latched onto a renewed cleavage in Afghanistan between the old mujahideen commanders (with a checkered warlord history complicating their anti-Soviet heroism) and ex-Communist Afghan commanders who it turned out had better skills at governance in the post-Taliban era than many of the ex-mujahideen and tribal leaders. The high praise lavished by the international community on General Mohammad Gulab Mangal for his performance as governor of Helmand has become an emblematic thorn in the side of many of the former mujahideen commanders eased out of official power at the instigation of the international community for their poor governance, human rights abuses, and criminality.
Yet it was precisely these problematic power brokers to whom Hamid Karzai reached out in the 2009 pre-election bargaining process. In return for supporting his reelection, they were promised appointments in his cabinet, governorships, and other positions of power. The newly co-opted power brokers include Fahim who is running as one of Karzai’s vice president, Dostum, Akhundzaza, Jan Mohammand, Matullah Khan, Gul Agha Sherzai, and Mohammad Mohaqiq. Karzai’s co-optation of them assured that they would not run against him (notably Sherzai) and deliver important tribal and ethnic vote (Mohaqiq the Hazara; Mohammad, Khan, and Sherzai the Barakzai; Dostum the Uzbek).
If Karzai wins the presidential elections (whether in one or two rounds), it is difficult to see how the pre-election bargains will allow him to come back to the presidential Arg Palace with a clean slate and strong commitment and capacity for good governance. At the same time, the marked escalation of tensions between Karzai and the international community during the pre-election period (such as Karzai’s attacks on NATO for civilian casualties and his resentment at the U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry appearing at a joint press conference with his two rivals, Abdullah and Ghani) will make the relations between the Afghan national government centralized in the president and the international community difficult. At a time when close cooperation and coordination is necessary for the increased effectiveness of the counterinsurgency and reconstruction efforts, such a tense relationship will be a major impediment. Karzai may well have a tendency to perceive appropriate suggestions of how to improve governance as driven by a desire to undercut him.
But even if Karzai does not win the elections, improved governance in Afghanistan will not automatically follow. Although of mixed origin – part Tajik, part Pashtun – Abdullah Abdullah, even if elected legitimately, will struggle to persuade the Pashtuns that he genuinely represents their interests also and does not favor the northern Tajiks. While an effective non-Pashtun at the helm of the country could be a great force toward consolidating democratization and state-building in Afghanistan, he will be highly susceptible to charges of anti-Pashtun sentiments. A widespread Pashtun suspicion about the legitimacy of a non-Pahstun leader can complicate the counterinsurgency effort. Already the accusation that the non-Pashtun Northern Alliance has dominated the post-2001 government has fueled the Taliban.
Not very optimistic, is it? Karzai, it seems, can't rule without the crooks and the thugs. If his rival, Abdullah somehow pulls a rabbit out of his hat and wins, it's like pushing the "reset" button on the insurgency. From everything I've read, Abdullah would be the best guy for the country and for the Afghan people, but it's hard to see how he would be able to purge the legislature, the bureaucracy and the security services of the rampang corruption they're known for today.
So, to sum up, we're up to our alligators trying to hold back the Taliban as this criminal enterprise of a failed state continues to rot beneath our feet. Sooner or later we have to accept that, unless and until we find the resolve to overcome the scourges of warlordism and tribalism that plague Afghanistan, there is no hope - none whatsoever - of realizing a stable government for this country, democratic or otherwise. It will remain what it is today, an unresolved civil war on hiatus. What's the point of simply treading water when our treasure and forces could be deployed elsewhere in places where they could actually do some lasting good?
title credit - "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag"
An Election Worth Following
Hamid Karzai should keep his job in next week's Afghan elections but it's not going to be a smooth ride. And this being Afghanistan the election is fraught with intrigue and defections and plenty of murderous, barbaric villains.
Karzai's main opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, also a former Mujahadin, is a Tajik, the country's second-largest ethnic group with just over a quarter of the population. He's also an educated man, a medical doctor. Tajiks make up a lot of Afghan's white collar class - doctors, professors, bureaucrats, merchants and artists. The downside is they're mainly Shia Muslim in a nation that's about 80% Sunni.
The Pashtun, with 42% of the population, are mainly Sunni and everybody pretty much sees them as the natural rulers of the country. The other ethnic groups, Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara, Turkmen, etc. were just travelling through and decided to stay. That's why there are close to 30-languages spoken in Afghanistan today.
Karzai's main opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, also a former Mujahadin, is a Tajik, the country's second-largest ethnic group with just over a quarter of the population. He's also an educated man, a medical doctor. Tajiks make up a lot of Afghan's white collar class - doctors, professors, bureaucrats, merchants and artists. The downside is they're mainly Shia Muslim in a nation that's about 80% Sunni.
The Pashtun, with 42% of the population, are mainly Sunni and everybody pretty much sees them as the natural rulers of the country. The other ethnic groups, Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara, Turkmen, etc. were just travelling through and decided to stay. That's why there are close to 30-languages spoken in Afghanistan today.
Karzai is desperate enough that he's been seeking alliance with some of the most vicious thugs in his country's recent history including Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who's officially considered a terrorist on America's most wanted list and who, until recently, had his followers in an alliance with the Taliban.
Another Karzai backer is Uzbek strongman, the brutal General Abdul Rashid Dostum. The general has spent the last several months hiding in Turkey after beating the living hell out of former ally, Mohammad Akbar Bai, leaving Akbar Bai in hospital with internal injuries. That little spat happened in Kabul.
Dostum's deal seems to be a "get out of jail free" card and a power position in Karzai's government should he be re-elected. It's rumoured Hekmatyar, the guy known for throwing acid in girls' faces for not being Islamic enough, has been offered the same deal as Dostum. Won't that be a lovely trio.
Dostum, however, may not be able to deliver the Uzbek vote en bloc to Karzai. His political organization has fractured during his self-imposed exile to Turkey and up to half of it is said to have switched to Abdullah.
It's not often you get so many murderous bastards as these playing key roles in a national election and, depending on the outcome, these guys may well wind up holding the levers of power alongside Karzai.
France & Germany Lead World Out of Recession
France and Germany appear to have come through the recession. Both nations' economies grew, albeit only slightly, during the April-June quarter.
The banking systems in both countries took a real hit during the Made-In-America global meltdown. Canada's banks, by contrast, remained the strongest in the OECD, largely thanks to Liberal fiscal conservatism.
So ask yourself why France and Germany are bouncing back while we're still reeling. Maybe because we're joined at the hip to the US economy and we haven't cultivated the diversity in international markets that might soften the impact.
Remember Pierre Trudeau speaking about the mouse sleeping with the elephant?
The banking systems in both countries took a real hit during the Made-In-America global meltdown. Canada's banks, by contrast, remained the strongest in the OECD, largely thanks to Liberal fiscal conservatism.
So ask yourself why France and Germany are bouncing back while we're still reeling. Maybe because we're joined at the hip to the US economy and we haven't cultivated the diversity in international markets that might soften the impact.
Remember Pierre Trudeau speaking about the mouse sleeping with the elephant?
Les Paul - Dead at 94
The man who brought the world the electric guitar, Les Paul, has died at the ripe old age of 94.
Paul's death was appropriately announced by Gibson Guitars, long-time makers of the legendary - you got it - Les Paul guitar.
Draining India
India and its increasingly perilous freshwater supply are a formula for no end of trouble.
Ever since Western science brought India the blessings of the Green Revolution, the "world's largest democracy" has been rapaciously consuming its freshwater resources, mainly for irrigation. The problem is that Indian farmers, just like farmers around the planet, have become dependent on water resources, especially groundwater, that nature simply cannot replenish.
It's easy to grasp. If you're irrigating your fields from water pumped out of an aquifer at the rate of 10X per year but precipitation trickles back into that reservoir at only 1X per year, you're on a one way road to the very bottom of that reservoir. Eventually your agricultural production, that has become dependent on 10X per year of water is going to find itself with but a small fraction of its needs. That's when agriculture craters, leading to food shortages, triggering social unrest.
From BBC News:
Parts of India are on track for severe water shortages, according to results from Nasa's gravity satellites.
The Grace mission discovered that in the country's north-west - including Delhi - the water table is falling by about 4cm (1.6 inches) per year.
The finding is published two days after an Indian government report warning of a potential water crisis.
That report noted that access to water was one of the main factors governing the pace of development in the world's second most populous nation.
..."We looked at the rainfall record and during this decade, it's relatively steady - there have been some up and down years but generally there's no drought situation, there's no major trend in rainfall," said Matt Rodell, a hydrologist at Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center near Washington DC.
"So naturally we would expect the groundwater level to stay where it is unless there is an excessive stress due to people pumping too much water, which is what we believe is happening."
The Indian government is right, this is a genuine crisis. For, bad as the groundwater problem is, India also faces two other problems - disruption of the Monsoon rains and the headlong retreat of the Himalayan glaciers. When the country's food supply depends on pumping groundwater at plainly unsustainable levels and the mountain headwaters that supply its main rivers are in jeopardy and the Monsoon has become unpredictable/unreliable this is a house on fire.
India's dream of its own Industrial Revolution is little more than a dream without an abundance of water. Manufacturing of almost any sort demands massive amounts of freshwater, massive and reliable. To that add the wastewater problems - pollution and other contaminants that can render other surface water resources unfit for human or agricultural use. That's what China has been doing for many years.
Forget oil, water is the key. Water is life itself and the more densely populated the nation the more that's true. We know the Indians have a major water crisis in their cities. Some of the secondary cities haven't had municipal water since April and the current drought isn't going to make that any better. Residents have to rely on trucked water, creating the inevitable supply and demand pricing which is bad news for cities with a lot of urban poor. The UN maintains that the minimum freshwater requirements for hydration, cooking and hygiene is 20-litres daily. What if you can only afford half that?
Without plenty of water, India's dream of economic superpowerdom slips straight through its fingers - and down the drain.
Ever since Western science brought India the blessings of the Green Revolution, the "world's largest democracy" has been rapaciously consuming its freshwater resources, mainly for irrigation. The problem is that Indian farmers, just like farmers around the planet, have become dependent on water resources, especially groundwater, that nature simply cannot replenish.
It's easy to grasp. If you're irrigating your fields from water pumped out of an aquifer at the rate of 10X per year but precipitation trickles back into that reservoir at only 1X per year, you're on a one way road to the very bottom of that reservoir. Eventually your agricultural production, that has become dependent on 10X per year of water is going to find itself with but a small fraction of its needs. That's when agriculture craters, leading to food shortages, triggering social unrest.
From BBC News:
Parts of India are on track for severe water shortages, according to results from Nasa's gravity satellites.
The Grace mission discovered that in the country's north-west - including Delhi - the water table is falling by about 4cm (1.6 inches) per year.
The finding is published two days after an Indian government report warning of a potential water crisis.
That report noted that access to water was one of the main factors governing the pace of development in the world's second most populous nation.
..."We looked at the rainfall record and during this decade, it's relatively steady - there have been some up and down years but generally there's no drought situation, there's no major trend in rainfall," said Matt Rodell, a hydrologist at Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center near Washington DC.
"So naturally we would expect the groundwater level to stay where it is unless there is an excessive stress due to people pumping too much water, which is what we believe is happening."
The Indian government is right, this is a genuine crisis. For, bad as the groundwater problem is, India also faces two other problems - disruption of the Monsoon rains and the headlong retreat of the Himalayan glaciers. When the country's food supply depends on pumping groundwater at plainly unsustainable levels and the mountain headwaters that supply its main rivers are in jeopardy and the Monsoon has become unpredictable/unreliable this is a house on fire.
India's dream of its own Industrial Revolution is little more than a dream without an abundance of water. Manufacturing of almost any sort demands massive amounts of freshwater, massive and reliable. To that add the wastewater problems - pollution and other contaminants that can render other surface water resources unfit for human or agricultural use. That's what China has been doing for many years.
Forget oil, water is the key. Water is life itself and the more densely populated the nation the more that's true. We know the Indians have a major water crisis in their cities. Some of the secondary cities haven't had municipal water since April and the current drought isn't going to make that any better. Residents have to rely on trucked water, creating the inevitable supply and demand pricing which is bad news for cities with a lot of urban poor. The UN maintains that the minimum freshwater requirements for hydration, cooking and hygiene is 20-litres daily. What if you can only afford half that?
Without plenty of water, India's dream of economic superpowerdom slips straight through its fingers - and down the drain.
(The map at top shows agricultural water use by nation. The darker the red, the greater percentage of the existing water resources is taken for agriculture. The darkest red represents 90% +. India is shown in the 75-90% range. Unfortunately this is based on normal precipitation and doesn't account for the current droughts or the looming problem from the disappearing Himalayan glaciers. Every country in the two darkest colours is facing an eventual freshwater crisis. Nations in the second-lightest colour - such as the United States - are facing freshwater problems. Take a look at what's left - Northern Europe, Russia and Canada.
The map below shows current drought regions. When you match up water use from the map above with drought shown below, it gives you an idea which countries are burning the candle at both ends.)
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Give It To Them, Both Barrels. Make Your MP Start Working for You
This post is only for those concerned about global warming driven climate change. If that's not of interest to you maybe you would do better moving on.
If you are concerned, don't you think your federal government should be giving you a clear and reliable assessment of what our country and your region can expect from climate change. It's not fair to ask them to look into a crystal ball and see whether we're going to get a meaningful carbon emissions control treaty. But, even if we stop emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere tomorrow we won't be able to stop the warming processes already underway.
Our children and especially our grandchildren are going to live with the problems we've already created. Likewise, we have an obligation to start looking at the "best case" consequences so that we can plan and prepare at least some adaptation and remediation measures.
When it comes to the feds, there are no clean hands in this (perhaps except for the Bloc). The NDP and the Liberals have been utterly complacent, even indifferent in getting information out to the public from the climate change specialists we already have on the payroll at Environment Canada. Harper plainly doesn't want us knowing or talking about it and no one from the opposition ranks is putting a boot to Steve's backside over it either.
Maybe it's time you took matters in your own hands. Write to your MPs and demand answers. I've e-mailed my guy, Conservative James Lunney. The text of my message is below in case you might find it helpful in crafting your own e-mail. Feel free to take whatever you like.
Dear Mr. Lunney:
Climate change is already upon us. It's evident in the migration of southern species into the waters of Vancouver Island. Barely a month ago there was an uproar in San Diego over the appearance of Humboldt squid washing up on their beaches. Now they're washing up, by the hundreds, on Long Beach outside Tofino. The giant sunfish used to be a rarity in our waters and is now becoming relatively common. Anchovies are massing where we once saw herring.
Right now we have a new kind of El Nino that's being called El Nino Modoki because, unlike its predecessors it's not just present in the eastern Pacific but extends out far to the west.
What causes me to write is Hilary Benn, Britain's environment secretary.
Mr. Benn could serve as a role model to your government. About a month ago he released to the British public a "best case scenario" report on what they should expect by way of climate change over the next 50-60 years. It was 'best case' in that it was based on current emissions already in the atmosphere. Secretary Benn's report showed that most of Britain can expect an average two degrees Celsius of warming by 2070. Some parts in the south, including the City of London, can expect up to six degrees of heating.
Benn released his report so that the public and their local officials could begin discussing what's coming and then plan and prepare for it. There is much that can be done by way of adaptation and remediation but that's a generational challenge.
This week Mr. Benn did it again. His latest report concerns Britain's food security and the challenges climate change will bring. It calls for a radical restructuring of the way Britain produces and consumes food products.
I think Mr. Benn and his government are doing a wonderful job. They're treating the British public as intelligent and mature enough to handle this information. Mr. Benn is fulfilling his obligation to the British people. Not preparing and releasing this information would be a betrayal of the British people for it would delay the dissemination of knowledge they need now so that they can examine today's options before the passage of time forecloses them.
What is your government doing for the Canadian public? Mr. Harper has paid lip service to global warming as the greatest threat to mankind and then slammed the lid shut on the very sort of information Britons are getting from their government. It's not just Mr. Harper either. Ignatieff and Layton are going along with this approach. They don't want to talk about it either.
The real shame to this silent inaction is that Canada is uniquely positioned on the climate change issue. We're one of a mere handful of nations that has really good options. Compared to most of the world including the Middle East, South and East Asia, Africa, Australia, Central and South America we're positively blessed when it comes to this threat. We have far more possibilities in terms of adaptation and remediation. So why is this Conservative government not capitalizing on all of those advantages, truly looking out for the Canadian public? Why are you not giving us the same sort of information Secretary Benn is giving the British people?
You've got children. I've got children. We'll have grandchildren in due course. The future of Canada we leave to those grandchildren is being written today, written indelibly. We don't have any excuses for putting this off any longer.
Yours
Turning on Tidal Power
There are places along the east side of Vancouver Island that are structured like giant Venturi tubes, choke points where tidal currents get funneled in, producing powerful, even dangerous flows. There are places where fishing boats and orcas alike gather, waiting for the tide to change so they can dash through these narrows. Some of these flows are so powerful that they generate whirlpools big enough that, in the past, they were known to capsize unwary trawlers and send them to the bottom.
Even without the tides, the Pacific Ocean current sweeps these channels, funneled in through the Queen Charlotte Strait.
That's all energy. Free energy. Reliable as the moon itself. Two high tides, two low tides every day without fail. I've travelled through some of these spots in small boats and have marvelled at the awesome power that nature displays.
That's why I was excited to read at Grist.org today of an experimental tidal power project underway in Washington's Peuget Sound. The idea is for turbines to be placed on the seabed where they won't obstruct navigation and grabbing that energy as it passes by. This illustration gives an idea of the concept.
The project, a joint venture of the University of Washington and the Oregon State University is about to begin trials. If it works as well as expected it's hard to see why this same technology can't be put in place all the way from Quadra Island to the Queen Charlotte Straits. There's an almost unimagineable amount of energy that flows through all those narrows every day.
Even without the tides, the Pacific Ocean current sweeps these channels, funneled in through the Queen Charlotte Strait.
That's all energy. Free energy. Reliable as the moon itself. Two high tides, two low tides every day without fail. I've travelled through some of these spots in small boats and have marvelled at the awesome power that nature displays.
That's why I was excited to read at Grist.org today of an experimental tidal power project underway in Washington's Peuget Sound. The idea is for turbines to be placed on the seabed where they won't obstruct navigation and grabbing that energy as it passes by. This illustration gives an idea of the concept.
The project, a joint venture of the University of Washington and the Oregon State University is about to begin trials. If it works as well as expected it's hard to see why this same technology can't be put in place all the way from Quadra Island to the Queen Charlotte Straits. There's an almost unimagineable amount of energy that flows through all those narrows every day.
Well Duh! RCMP Shouldn't Investigate RCMP
We needed a report to understand this?
The RCMP Commissioner for Public Complaints, Paul Kennedy, has found it's "inappropriate" for RCMP members to investigate fellow RCMP members when allegations of sexual assault or incidents of serious harm or death come up.
Kennedy cited the Dziekanski fiasco and the case of 22-year old Ian Bush shot in the back of his head in "self-defence" by an RCMP officer while already in custody. There, 'fellow' RCMP officers waited seven months to interrogate the shooter and submitted written questions in advance to the shooter and his lawyer.
It's pretty hard these days to trust the RCMP to carry out their normal policing duties much less to trust them to tell the truth about it later. The idea of officers of this demonstrated character investigating their own is one very dark farce.
The RCMP Commissioner for Public Complaints, Paul Kennedy, has found it's "inappropriate" for RCMP members to investigate fellow RCMP members when allegations of sexual assault or incidents of serious harm or death come up.
Kennedy cited the Dziekanski fiasco and the case of 22-year old Ian Bush shot in the back of his head in "self-defence" by an RCMP officer while already in custody. There, 'fellow' RCMP officers waited seven months to interrogate the shooter and submitted written questions in advance to the shooter and his lawyer.
It's pretty hard these days to trust the RCMP to carry out their normal policing duties much less to trust them to tell the truth about it later. The idea of officers of this demonstrated character investigating their own is one very dark farce.
Glenn Beck's Sponsors Voting With Their Feet
Tens of thousands of people outraged at the maniacal filth spewed daily by FOX News' Glenn Beck have stood up and been heard. They've signed a petition to Beck's advertisers at ColorofChange.Org. It's working.
Beck is finally turning into a financial pariah. So far Proctor & Gamble, Progressive Insurance, Lawyers.com and now Geiko have dumped Beck and announced they'll not sponsor his show ever again.
If you haven't yet added your name to the petition, go here:
http://www.colorofchange.org/beck/
Beck's latest outrage is to tell his positively stupid viewers that Obama's hidden agenda in his social policies is "reparations." He's getting back at all those dirty White slavers. Yeah, sure Glenn.
Beck is finally turning into a financial pariah. So far Proctor & Gamble, Progressive Insurance, Lawyers.com and now Geiko have dumped Beck and announced they'll not sponsor his show ever again.
If you haven't yet added your name to the petition, go here:
http://www.colorofchange.org/beck/
Beck's latest outrage is to tell his positively stupid viewers that Obama's hidden agenda in his social policies is "reparations." He's getting back at all those dirty White slavers. Yeah, sure Glenn.
UPDATE - Beck's reeling. By some accounts upwards of 20-30 sponsors have now bailed on his show - even Wal Mart has dumped this cretin. FOX News says, no sweat, they've just shifted their ads to other shows BUT that's a dodge. Beck used to make FOX some serious bread. That's why they gave him prime slots in their airtime. Now he's approaching the commercial value of dead air. It couldn't happen to a more deserving creep.
Climate Migration Reaches Tofino's Beaches
Vancouver Island has received its first wave of a new climate migration - the mighty Humboldt squid, aka the Giant squid, Jumbo Flying squid and Red Devils. Hundreds of them have washed ashore on Long Beach outside of Tofino. Somewhere between 300 to 500 of them in the first wave.
Here's the thing. Humboldts don't belong here. Those who study them go to the Sea of Cortez along the Baja Peninsula. They made a big stir just a month ago when they started washing ashore in San Diego. It certainly got local divers', even surfers' attention (when they approach a diver the first thing they do is try to find out if the swimmer is edible). But San Diego is a hell of a lot closer to Baja than Vancouver Island is. We don't get Humboldt squid - but we're getting them now.
The Humboldts aren't the first southern species to begin migrating to our waters. The giant sunfish is increasingly being spotted in our waters. Anchovies seem to be moving northward into the traditional territory of the herring.
The point I'm trying to make is that climate change is happening. We're seeing the reality of it. Why won't Stephen Harper, Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton start treating Canadians decently and get us the information we need about what is already happening, what is coming and what we need to do to plan and prepare for the future in order to live with climate change?
Do we have to wait until there's some sort of environmental calamity for the Boys' Club in Ottawa to come clean with us on climate change? By the way, if you're into calamari I think there's some really good stuff available from Parks Canada.
Here's the thing. Humboldts don't belong here. Those who study them go to the Sea of Cortez along the Baja Peninsula. They made a big stir just a month ago when they started washing ashore in San Diego. It certainly got local divers', even surfers' attention (when they approach a diver the first thing they do is try to find out if the swimmer is edible). But San Diego is a hell of a lot closer to Baja than Vancouver Island is. We don't get Humboldt squid - but we're getting them now.
The Humboldts aren't the first southern species to begin migrating to our waters. The giant sunfish is increasingly being spotted in our waters. Anchovies seem to be moving northward into the traditional territory of the herring.
The point I'm trying to make is that climate change is happening. We're seeing the reality of it. Why won't Stephen Harper, Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton start treating Canadians decently and get us the information we need about what is already happening, what is coming and what we need to do to plan and prepare for the future in order to live with climate change?
Do we have to wait until there's some sort of environmental calamity for the Boys' Club in Ottawa to come clean with us on climate change? By the way, if you're into calamari I think there's some really good stuff available from Parks Canada.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Ignatieff = Dion? Oh Great!
It must be true, it's right there in The Globe & Mail. In terms of numbers, Iggy has steered the Libs right where Stephane Dion brought them - two leagues dead astern the Tories.
Now I'm not one to doubt the wisdom of The Globe but let's look at it this way. Trailing by two points when you're trying to become the top conservative party in Canada isn't all that bad.
"...the Strategic Counsel poll found they have lost the traditional edge among women, younger voters, and Canadians who live in cities and large towns, crucial to their hopes of victory. The NDP vote has remained firm.
“The Liberals have plateaued,” said The Strategic Counsel's Peter Donolo.
“The constituency that Ignatieff needs to rebuild is primarily more female, more urban, younger, centre and NDP voters.”
But those who don't back Liberals by reflex just haven't seen a reason to yet.
Some of Mr. Ignatieff's own advisers admit he has yet to offer a clear, defined political identity to grab them.
Maybe it's time for Iggy's team, the Liberal Party and a lot of those who hang around these blogs swooning over "Michael" to realize that if you want to have a winning Liberal Party, you start by being liberal. We already have a conservative party and Canadians haven't got the stomach for two.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ignatieff-earns-same-rating-as-dion-pre-election/article1248753/
Now I'm not one to doubt the wisdom of The Globe but let's look at it this way. Trailing by two points when you're trying to become the top conservative party in Canada isn't all that bad.
"...the Strategic Counsel poll found they have lost the traditional edge among women, younger voters, and Canadians who live in cities and large towns, crucial to their hopes of victory. The NDP vote has remained firm.
“The Liberals have plateaued,” said The Strategic Counsel's Peter Donolo.
“The constituency that Ignatieff needs to rebuild is primarily more female, more urban, younger, centre and NDP voters.”
But those who don't back Liberals by reflex just haven't seen a reason to yet.
Some of Mr. Ignatieff's own advisers admit he has yet to offer a clear, defined political identity to grab them.
Maybe it's time for Iggy's team, the Liberal Party and a lot of those who hang around these blogs swooning over "Michael" to realize that if you want to have a winning Liberal Party, you start by being liberal. We already have a conservative party and Canadians haven't got the stomach for two.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ignatieff-earns-same-rating-as-dion-pre-election/article1248753/
Monday, August 10, 2009
If We Don't Get It Right This Time...
This is the worst possible moment for the Three Scourges to dummy up on climate change and just what we have to be prepared to do about it.
We're a scant four months away from what may be our planet's very last opportunity to put in place an effective global warming agreement that might, just might, forestall cataclysmic, runaway climate change.
UN Secretary General Ban put the challenge in clear, even blunt terms. From Associated Press:
Speaking in Seoul, South Korea, Ban said Monday the world has "less than 10 years to halt [the] global rise in greenhouse gas emissions if we are to avoid catastrophic consequences for people and the planet.
"It is, simply, the greatest collective challenge we face as a human family," Ban said in a keynote speech at a gathering of the World Federation of UN Associations.
He said, however, there is cause for hope. Referring to a December meeting in Copenhagen, he said, "we have a chance to put in place a climate change agreement that all nations can embrace, which will be equitable, balanced, comprehensible."
What's the big rush? It's simple. Climate change is already setting in throughout less fortunate parts of the world and it will be arriving at countries like India, Pakistan and China within a decade.
If we're going to get a workable agreement it has to be in place while it's still possible to find consensus which means before global warming transforms into a global security problem. Once resource wars (they're already happening) reach a certain threshhold, wars over water and food, the window for consensus is closed and it'll be closed for good. Then it'll be time to start beating all those ploughshares back into swords.
Achieving consensus is going to require concessions from the West, there is no other way. But what public is going to support concessions if it doesn't grasp the problem, if it doesn't fully comprehend what is at stake? That, in turn, takes an informed population. It takes responsible political leadership getting reliable information to the public and facilitating the essential discussions and debates.
That should be happening right now and it's not. Stephen Harper has EnviroCan gagged thinking he can somehow benefit by keeping the genie in the bottle. He's doing it because he can. He's doing it because Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton are letting him get away with it. They're doing it because you're allowing Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton to get away with it too. It's time that changed.
We're a scant four months away from what may be our planet's very last opportunity to put in place an effective global warming agreement that might, just might, forestall cataclysmic, runaway climate change.
UN Secretary General Ban put the challenge in clear, even blunt terms. From Associated Press:
Speaking in Seoul, South Korea, Ban said Monday the world has "less than 10 years to halt [the] global rise in greenhouse gas emissions if we are to avoid catastrophic consequences for people and the planet.
"It is, simply, the greatest collective challenge we face as a human family," Ban said in a keynote speech at a gathering of the World Federation of UN Associations.
He said, however, there is cause for hope. Referring to a December meeting in Copenhagen, he said, "we have a chance to put in place a climate change agreement that all nations can embrace, which will be equitable, balanced, comprehensible."
What's the big rush? It's simple. Climate change is already setting in throughout less fortunate parts of the world and it will be arriving at countries like India, Pakistan and China within a decade.
If we're going to get a workable agreement it has to be in place while it's still possible to find consensus which means before global warming transforms into a global security problem. Once resource wars (they're already happening) reach a certain threshhold, wars over water and food, the window for consensus is closed and it'll be closed for good. Then it'll be time to start beating all those ploughshares back into swords.
Achieving consensus is going to require concessions from the West, there is no other way. But what public is going to support concessions if it doesn't grasp the problem, if it doesn't fully comprehend what is at stake? That, in turn, takes an informed population. It takes responsible political leadership getting reliable information to the public and facilitating the essential discussions and debates.
That should be happening right now and it's not. Stephen Harper has EnviroCan gagged thinking he can somehow benefit by keeping the genie in the bottle. He's doing it because he can. He's doing it because Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton are letting him get away with it. They're doing it because you're allowing Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton to get away with it too. It's time that changed.
Sarah Palin - You Knew She Wouldn't Be Out of Work Very Long
And there it is, the new Sarah Palin unveiled in her latest job - small animal proctologist.
Butt, instead of doing something even moderately useful, the Lizard Queen is busy spewing the most contemptible lies about Obama's healthcare proposals. From Truthout:
...The debate has trailed off into loon tune land, and it's the media's fault.
The lunacy was most clearly in evidence in former Gov. Sarah Palin's claim that President Obama's plan would force her to stand in front of a "death panel" to argue for the life of her baby with Down Syndrome. This "death panel" is a complete invention by Governor Palin. There is no twist or turn or contorted permutation of President Obama's plan that would prevent Ms. Palin from providing as much health care as she wants to her baby.
It would have made as much sense to claim that the transportation bill will deny medical care to her baby. After all, if the roads in front of her home are not properly maintained, and her baby has a medical emergency, then the transportation bill would have effectively sentenced her baby to death because she won't be able to get medical attention in a timely manner.
Butt, instead of doing something even moderately useful, the Lizard Queen is busy spewing the most contemptible lies about Obama's healthcare proposals. From Truthout:
...The debate has trailed off into loon tune land, and it's the media's fault.
The lunacy was most clearly in evidence in former Gov. Sarah Palin's claim that President Obama's plan would force her to stand in front of a "death panel" to argue for the life of her baby with Down Syndrome. This "death panel" is a complete invention by Governor Palin. There is no twist or turn or contorted permutation of President Obama's plan that would prevent Ms. Palin from providing as much health care as she wants to her baby.
It would have made as much sense to claim that the transportation bill will deny medical care to her baby. After all, if the roads in front of her home are not properly maintained, and her baby has a medical emergency, then the transportation bill would have effectively sentenced her baby to death because she won't be able to get medical attention in a timely manner.
Don't Those Brits Know We're Not Supposed to Talk About Climate Change?
Steve knows, Mike knows, Jack knows - we don't discuss the inescapable impacts of global warming driven climate change. Mum's the word, out of sight/out of mind, nothing to see here - move along.
The Brits are screwing everything up, leaving Canada's Unholy Trio looking like total chumps. First it was their Energy Secretary releasing a "best case scenario" report on the warming that's going to be experienced in various parts of Britain based on the carbon that has already been emitted to the atmosphere. We don't want to talk about those things in Canada. The Canadian people are happier, even if not necessarily healthier or safer, if they're kept in the dark.
Now that Brit Energy Secretary has done it again. This time Hilary Benn is calling for a "radical rethink" of the way his country produces and consumes food. He wants Britons to "think"? To think about food consumption and food security? Is he mad, a complete nutter?
That damned Benn and his reports. This time the government has issued a report outlining the very real threats to Britain's food security. From The Guardian:
The assessment showed that future global food supplies could be threatened by the impacts of climate change on where crops can grow, increases in the incidence of animal diseases and water shortages.
It also issued a warning over the depletion of fish stocks around the world, as well as the impacts on the natural world of expansion of crops grown for fuels and a growing population eating more.
But with rising yields in cereals and uncropped land that can be brought into production, the UK can contribute to global food security, the assessment said.
Across the world, it has been estimated that production will have to rise by 70% by 2050 to feed a global population of 9 billion.
...Benn said he wanted British farmers to produce as much as possible, but they needed to do so in such a way that took account of a changing climate and the need to tackle global warming emissions — to which agriculture is a significant contributor.
..."We need a radical rethink of how we produce and consume our food," he said. "Globally we need to cut emissions and adapt to the changing climate that will alter what we can grow and where we can grow it. We must maintain the natural resources - soils, water, and biodiversity - on which food production depends. And we need to tackle diet-related ill health that already costs the NHS and the wider economy billions of pounds each year."
Moments like this make you proud to be a Canadian, a free people where we don't have to think about the perils to come, comfortable in the knowledge that what passes for political leadership in our country isn't thinking about them either.
The Brits are screwing everything up, leaving Canada's Unholy Trio looking like total chumps. First it was their Energy Secretary releasing a "best case scenario" report on the warming that's going to be experienced in various parts of Britain based on the carbon that has already been emitted to the atmosphere. We don't want to talk about those things in Canada. The Canadian people are happier, even if not necessarily healthier or safer, if they're kept in the dark.
Now that Brit Energy Secretary has done it again. This time Hilary Benn is calling for a "radical rethink" of the way his country produces and consumes food. He wants Britons to "think"? To think about food consumption and food security? Is he mad, a complete nutter?
That damned Benn and his reports. This time the government has issued a report outlining the very real threats to Britain's food security. From The Guardian:
The assessment showed that future global food supplies could be threatened by the impacts of climate change on where crops can grow, increases in the incidence of animal diseases and water shortages.
It also issued a warning over the depletion of fish stocks around the world, as well as the impacts on the natural world of expansion of crops grown for fuels and a growing population eating more.
But with rising yields in cereals and uncropped land that can be brought into production, the UK can contribute to global food security, the assessment said.
Across the world, it has been estimated that production will have to rise by 70% by 2050 to feed a global population of 9 billion.
...Benn said he wanted British farmers to produce as much as possible, but they needed to do so in such a way that took account of a changing climate and the need to tackle global warming emissions — to which agriculture is a significant contributor.
..."We need a radical rethink of how we produce and consume our food," he said. "Globally we need to cut emissions and adapt to the changing climate that will alter what we can grow and where we can grow it. We must maintain the natural resources - soils, water, and biodiversity - on which food production depends. And we need to tackle diet-related ill health that already costs the NHS and the wider economy billions of pounds each year."
Moments like this make you proud to be a Canadian, a free people where we don't have to think about the perils to come, comfortable in the knowledge that what passes for political leadership in our country isn't thinking about them either.
Sunday, August 09, 2009
And This, Kids, Is Why It's Called "Rock'n Roll"
Call'em 'ancient' if you want but there's a reason that all of the top 10-concert bands of the last 15-years got their start before the 80's. It's because they were stage bands, they made their reputations and built their fan base performing live, putting on a show. Old, sure. Too old, never.
Pentagon to Congress - Wake Up, Climate Change Endangers Everyone's Security
Are global warming denialists enemies of their own countrymen, of the world itself maybe? They might just be that and more.
These rightwing miscreants have, at every turn, thwarted the warnings of scientists. They've used lies, half-truths and a host of distractions to confuse and paralyze public opinion and, in the process, they've delayed meaningful, effective action to combat greenhouse gas emissions by many years, time we could never really afford to squander.
Unable to come up with any valid scientific evidence to refute the reality of global warming, they've resorted to chicanery - pseudoscience and outright lies. They're still managing to spin their nonsense among the dim-witted, including some who hold high political office.
Guess who's not coming to the Denialists' Banquet? The Pentagon. In fact, the Pentagon is already war gaming global warming. That's right, they're war gaming it. They're taking it seriously and they're making it clear it's damned well time Congress did likewise. From The New York Times:
The changing global climate will pose profound strategic challenges to the United States in coming decades, raising the prospect of military intervention to deal with the effects of violent storms, drought, mass migration and pandemics, military and intelligence analysts say.
Such climate-induced crises could topple governments, feed terrorist movements or destabilize entire regions, say the analysts, experts at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies who for the first time are taking a serious look at the national security implications of climate change.
Recent war games and intelligence studies conclude that over the next 20 to 30 years, vulnerable regions, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and South and Southeast Asia, will face the prospect of food shortages, water crises and catastrophic flooding driven by climate change that could demand an American humanitarian relief or military response.
...The Department of Defense’s assessment of the security issue came about after prodding by Congress to include climate issues in its strategic plans — specifically, in 2008 budget authorizations by Hillary Clinton and John W. Warner, then senators. The department’s climate modeling is based on sophisticated Navy and Air Force weather programs and other government climate research programs at NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The Pentagon and the State Department have studied issues arising from dependence on foreign sources of energy for years but are only now considering the effects of global warming in their long-term planning documents. The Pentagon will include a climate section in the Quadrennial Defense Review, due in February; the State Department will address the issue in its new Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review.
“The sense that climate change poses security and geopolitical challenges is central to the thinking of the State Department and the climate office,” said Peter Ogden, chief of staff to Todd Stern, the State Department’s top climate negotiator.
Although military and intelligence planners have been aware of the challenge posed by climate changes for some years, the Obama administration has made it a central policy focus.
Gee, the Pentagon came to its conclusions without relying on the hoaxes of the IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change? Quelle surprise!
It's been estimated that climate change already claims a thousand lives each and every day, a number that's only going to increase rapidly over the next few decades. Some, such as Gwynne Dyer, even foresee the possibility of climate change-driven nuclear war.
Who's to blame? We all are in our own way. We in the West with our huge houses, our SUVs and our holidays abroad can't shirk our responsibility for the suffering we've already inflicted on others. We've been negligent of others in our behaviours and our appetite for consumption and waste. But there are a small number whose conduct has veered well past the realm of negligence, those who have, for money, sought to obstruct public acceptance of the truth - and consequences - of global warming driven climate change. There is no blind innocence or naivety among these people. They did what they did quite knowingly and in pursuit of their own vested interests. Surely the carnage of today and the carnage to come lies most heavily on their shoulders, right where they chose to place it.
What are we to do with these reprobates?
These rightwing miscreants have, at every turn, thwarted the warnings of scientists. They've used lies, half-truths and a host of distractions to confuse and paralyze public opinion and, in the process, they've delayed meaningful, effective action to combat greenhouse gas emissions by many years, time we could never really afford to squander.
Unable to come up with any valid scientific evidence to refute the reality of global warming, they've resorted to chicanery - pseudoscience and outright lies. They're still managing to spin their nonsense among the dim-witted, including some who hold high political office.
Guess who's not coming to the Denialists' Banquet? The Pentagon. In fact, the Pentagon is already war gaming global warming. That's right, they're war gaming it. They're taking it seriously and they're making it clear it's damned well time Congress did likewise. From The New York Times:
The changing global climate will pose profound strategic challenges to the United States in coming decades, raising the prospect of military intervention to deal with the effects of violent storms, drought, mass migration and pandemics, military and intelligence analysts say.
Such climate-induced crises could topple governments, feed terrorist movements or destabilize entire regions, say the analysts, experts at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies who for the first time are taking a serious look at the national security implications of climate change.
Recent war games and intelligence studies conclude that over the next 20 to 30 years, vulnerable regions, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and South and Southeast Asia, will face the prospect of food shortages, water crises and catastrophic flooding driven by climate change that could demand an American humanitarian relief or military response.
...The Department of Defense’s assessment of the security issue came about after prodding by Congress to include climate issues in its strategic plans — specifically, in 2008 budget authorizations by Hillary Clinton and John W. Warner, then senators. The department’s climate modeling is based on sophisticated Navy and Air Force weather programs and other government climate research programs at NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The Pentagon and the State Department have studied issues arising from dependence on foreign sources of energy for years but are only now considering the effects of global warming in their long-term planning documents. The Pentagon will include a climate section in the Quadrennial Defense Review, due in February; the State Department will address the issue in its new Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review.
“The sense that climate change poses security and geopolitical challenges is central to the thinking of the State Department and the climate office,” said Peter Ogden, chief of staff to Todd Stern, the State Department’s top climate negotiator.
Although military and intelligence planners have been aware of the challenge posed by climate changes for some years, the Obama administration has made it a central policy focus.
Gee, the Pentagon came to its conclusions without relying on the hoaxes of the IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change? Quelle surprise!
It's been estimated that climate change already claims a thousand lives each and every day, a number that's only going to increase rapidly over the next few decades. Some, such as Gwynne Dyer, even foresee the possibility of climate change-driven nuclear war.
Who's to blame? We all are in our own way. We in the West with our huge houses, our SUVs and our holidays abroad can't shirk our responsibility for the suffering we've already inflicted on others. We've been negligent of others in our behaviours and our appetite for consumption and waste. But there are a small number whose conduct has veered well past the realm of negligence, those who have, for money, sought to obstruct public acceptance of the truth - and consequences - of global warming driven climate change. There is no blind innocence or naivety among these people. They did what they did quite knowingly and in pursuit of their own vested interests. Surely the carnage of today and the carnage to come lies most heavily on their shoulders, right where they chose to place it.
What are we to do with these reprobates?
Isotope Meltdown
Just a few decades ago we put a man on the moon. Now we can't even maintain a reliable supply of radioisotopes for essential medical diagnostics.
Stephen Harper, whose "know nothing/do less" government has grossly mismanaged Atomic Energy of Canada's Chalk River plant, has brought Canadian production of isotopes to a grinding halt. There's talk of the Chalk reactor being up and running again by year's end but a lot of desperate customers aren't holding their breath.
Now it appears there are problems with Holland's Petten reactor that supplies fully half of all isotopes used in the United States. According to the Los Angeles Times, thousands of lives are in jeopardy and there are no answers in sight:
The shortage "is one of the greatest threats to our profession of modern times," said radiologist Robert W. Atcher of the University of New Mexico, last year's president of SNM.
The focus of this shortage is a short-lived radioisotope that most patients have probably never heard of -- technetium-99m, the "m" standing for metastable. With a half-life of only six hours, the isotope allows physicians to examine bones and blood flow, among other things, then quickly disappears from the body, minimizing the dose of radiation received by the patient. Because of its short half-life, the isotope cannot be stockpiled and must be used within a day or two after it is produced.
Every day of the year, nearly 55,000 Americans and tens of thousands of patients in other countries undergo nuclear medicine tests -- such as checking for the spread of cancer to the bones or monitoring the flow of blood through the heart -- most of them using technetium-99m. The radioisotope is attached to chemicals that allow it to bind to specific sites in the body, where it emits gamma rays that can be used to produce an image of the area.The technetium-99m used in these tests is produced in five reactors around the world, all of them at least 45 years old and none of them in the United States.
Three times within the last 18 months, the National Research Universal reactor in Chalk River, Canada, which normally supplies about a third of U.S. technetium-99m demand, has shut down because of leaks of radioactive tritium-contaminated water. On May 14, it shut down for the third time, and it will not reopen until the end of the year. Some experts suspect it will never reopen if a containment vessel is badly corroded.
Even if it reopens, its long-term prospects are not good. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said this year that the country would be out of the radioisotope business by 2016 because of repeated failures to bring a new reactor online. "We can't spend hundreds of millions of dollars and never produce an isotope," he said.
Last month, the Petten nuclear reactor in the Netherlands, which supplies half the U.S. requirement, shut down for a month for routine maintenance and it is expected to close for at least three months next year for repairs.
What's the answer? Don't ask Prime Minister Dopey. He's about as adept at handling the Chalk River crisis as he was in bracing Canada for the recession. With SHarper at the helm, we've all got reason to worry.
Glazed Eyed and Bushy Tailed
There's a movement afoot that would like nothing better than to establish, by any means necessary, a Christian world government. Unfortunately this isn't some bunch of cranks that gather in dank basements or sit hunched over their computers swapping fantasies on the internet. They're actually a very much established cabal of very prominent people including well known names in American federal politics, some top American generals and many leaders of industry and business. They've been around for 70-years and their reach today extends well beyond America's shores. They've modeled their organization on the pattern of the Mafia and Soviet Communism - the "cell" - and they believe their power lies in secrecy. This organization is the subject of Jeff Sharlet's excellent book The Family.
During the Bush years we began to get glimpses of the spread of fanatical Christian fundamentalism through the central government and even the Pentagon. There've been claims that the US Air Force academy itself is being transformed into a giant, fundamentalist Bible school for the future Masters of Mass Destruction.
And who can forget this character, Lt. General William "Jerry" Boykin? From BeliefNet:
During the Bush years we began to get glimpses of the spread of fanatical Christian fundamentalism through the central government and even the Pentagon. There've been claims that the US Air Force academy itself is being transformed into a giant, fundamentalist Bible school for the future Masters of Mass Destruction.
And who can forget this character, Lt. General William "Jerry" Boykin? From BeliefNet:
Boykin made headlines ...when it was revealed he had made numerous statements suggesting that America, as a Christian nation, is engaged in a battle against idolatrous Muslims. Enemies like Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein "will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus," Boykin said during an Oregon church gathering last year.
Appearing in uniform during a speech at the Oregon church, Boykin said: "Why do they [radical Muslims] hate us? Why do they hate us so much? Ladies and gentlemen, the answer to that is because we're a Christian nation." In another speech he recounted the time he chased down a Muslim Somali warlord who was bragging that the Americans would not capture him because Allah would protect him. "My God is bigger than his God. I knew my God was a real God, and his was an idol," Boykin said.
That Jerry Boykins? The same one implicated in the Abu Ghraib torture scandal?
According to testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee ...the prison abuse scandal grew out of a decision to give greater influence to the Defense Intelligence unit, led by Stephen Cambone, the Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence--and his deputy, Lt. General William G. "Jerry" Boykin.
But the really scary thing about Boykin was in a single, cast-off remark he made in one of his public appearances when he asked why George W. Bush became president even though his Democratic opponent won more votes?
“Why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him? I tell you this morning that he’s in the White House because God put him there.”
Okay maybe that sounds like wacky fundy drivel - until you understand that this is a cardinal tenet of The Family. They seriously believe that it's not the meek that God favours but the strong, the powerful. They hold as an unquestioning belief that God appoints his chosen people to power, whether those chosen go by the name of Lincoln, Ghandi, Stalin or Hitler. To these backroom potentates God did indeed elevate George Walker Bush to the White House.
These people aren't your mainstream fundamentalists. Sharlet points out that they distance themselves from ordinary fundamentalism, considering it "white trash" Christianity. You don't join their church. There is no Church of The Family as such, no pews, no altar. It's sort of like the Skull & Bones, you get recommended by a member, vetted and then, if approved, invited inside. Many of these people have money, a lot of money. Others have political power and influence. They use their money and their influence to help The Family and each other advance to greater wealth and greater power, all guided by their unique understanding of Jesus and God.
Sharlet points out that there is no such being as "Jesus" in America. There is Jesus.2.0 and Jesus.3.1, 3.3, 3.4 and 3.7, Jesus 4.0, 4.1 and 4.2 and Jesus 5.0. There are as many Jesuses as there are Christian factions, each manufactured, dressed, armed and accessorized to reflect what each group wants in their own personal Jesus. It's hard enough to believe in Jesus much less having to believe that your Jesus is better than everyone else's Jesus.
To The Family of course, Jesus is the Leader of the Pack, their pack - the rich and powerful. Jesus and his Dad, that would be God, aren't much interested in the retail or even the wholesale market; they want the Big Dogs. They even choose who's going to be a Big Dog and every Big Dog, no matter how murderous and evil, is their pick. Even George w. Bush.
The editor of the Charleston Gazette, James Haught, explored Bush's fanatical belief that he was the instrument of God's will in a piece he wrote for the Council for Secular Humanism entitled, The French Revelation, or The Burning Bush:
Incredibly, President George W. Bush told French President Jacques Chirac in early 2003 that Iraq must be invaded to thwart Gog and Magog, the Bible’s satanic agents of the Apocalypse.
Honest. This isn’t a joke. The president of the United States, in a top-secret phone call to a major European ally, asked for French troops to join American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God.
Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their “common faith” (Christianity) and told him: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”
This bizarre episode occurred while the White House was assembling its “coalition of the willing” to unleash the Iraq invasion. Chirac says he was boggled by Bush’s call and “wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs.”
After the 2003 call, the puzzled French leader didn’t comply with Bush’s request. Instead, his staff asked Thomas Romer, a theologian at the University of Lausanne, to analyze the weird appeal. Dr. Romer explained that the Old Testament book of Ezekiel contains two chapters (38 and 39) in which God rages against Gog and Magog, sinister and mysterious forces menacing Israel. Jehovah vows to smite them savagely, to “turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,” and slaughter them ruthlessly. In the New Testament, the mystical book of Revelation envisions Gog and Magog gathering nations for battle, “and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.”
Read more here: http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=haught_29_5
If you're interested in the infiltration of Christian fundamentalism into America's battlefields, read Sharlet's Jesus Killed Mohammed from Harper's: http://harpers.org/archive/2009/05/0082488
Has The Family spread into Canada's political structure? If it has, nobody's talking but that, after all, is the very credo of The Family. Steve Harper is known to have ties to the uber-right, fiercely secretive Council for National Policy, an organization founded by the Rapture-Boy himself, Tim LaHaye (of Left Behind fame), whose membership lists have been festooned with names like Falwell, Robertson, Dobson, Oliver North and the lesser known Ed and Elsa Prince of the Focus on the Family and Family Research Council, also the parents of one Erik Prince, the billionaire head of infamous military contractor Blackwater (now "Xe") who currently stands accused of being a fundamentalist Crusader and facilitating the slaughter of Iraqi Muslims. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090817/scahill
Oh Joy.
How to wrap this up? Maybe by repeating these words of warning from Chris Hedges on our new 'war without end,' our Grand Crusade:
The moral certitude of the state in wartime is a kind of fundamentalism. And this dangerous messianic brand of religion, one where self-doubt is minimal, has come increasingly to color the modern world of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Dr. James Luther Adams, my ethics professor at Harvard Divinity School, used to tell us that we would end our careers fighting an ascendant fundamentalist movement, or, as he liked to say, "the Christian fascists."
The Family, as Sharlet calls them, became the subject of brief controversy during the 2008 election campaign - brief and passing. We can only hope Sharlet's book fixes these top tier, backroom fundamentalists in the public eye, the one place they strive to avoid.
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Prince of Blackwater, Prince of Darkness?
I'm just beginning reading Jeff Sharlet's "The Family," an account of a covert, ultra-fundamentalist Christian movement operating behind the scenes in America's halls of power.
Sharlet is exposing this disturbing cabal of religious fanatics whose influence reaches to the heights of the American establishment and is spreading through the US military.
Now there are allegations that the head of Blackwater, a Christian Crusader, has supposedly murdered whistleblowers.
To get an idea of what malevolence these Uber-Fundamentalists are spreading inside the United States military, read Sharlet's "Jesus Killed Mohammed" here:
http://harpers.org/archive/2009/05/0082488
Sharlet is exposing this disturbing cabal of religious fanatics whose influence reaches to the heights of the American establishment and is spreading through the US military.
Now there are allegations that the head of Blackwater, a Christian Crusader, has supposedly murdered whistleblowers.
To get an idea of what malevolence these Uber-Fundamentalists are spreading inside the United States military, read Sharlet's "Jesus Killed Mohammed" here:
http://harpers.org/archive/2009/05/0082488
Monday, August 03, 2009
And Nobody Saw It Coming?
Either Stephen Harper utterly failed to see this recession coming or, worse, he did see it but froze like a deer caught in the headlights. The extent to which governments throughout the West were seemingly caught unawares by this made-in-America meltdown utterly strains belief.
Some of us knew. I just stumbled across this passage I wrote on this blog in September, 2006 in a post entitled Deutschland Uber Alles - Again? -
"...Think about that. The United States, for all its prowess, is a lumbering debt machine. It sells to the world vastly less than it buys from the world, roughly half a trillion dollars a year worth. America doesn't make what its people want and what it does make isn't wanted anywhere else. What it doesn't buy from the world it borrows, another half trillion a year for the federal government alone and plenty more for state and municipal governments. Hey, somebody is lending the American public the vast sums they're borrowing too. Do you see a pattern here?
America does generate a lot of money that goes into investment, just not in the U.S. America invests it's money in other countries, places like China, where the returns are better. The trouble is that this is a telltale symptom of a country in decline. It's happened to all the grand empires in the past - Holland, Spain and Britain, each in turn. When you pump your wealth into growing somebody else's economy instead of your own it's just a matter of time.
The American economy is now driven by its housing market and even the World Bank fears the global consequences of a burst bubble there. This is a fascinating phenonmenon, a veritable Mardi Gras of indulgence fueled by cheap rates and tax deductible mortgage interest. Fully half of new mortgages in California are "interest only." At the same time, American homeowner equity levels have never been lower. Americans use the mortgage-interest deductibility to expand their purchasing power. They siphon the notional equity out of their homes to buy - well, to buy all those BMWs and Infinitys.
Canada, of course, is a net exporter to the U.S. We have a substantial and potentially dangerous balance of trade surplus with America which buys something in the order of 70 plus percent of our exports. Thanks to NAFTA, we're tied to the American economy as never before. What do the Europeans buy from us, maple syrup? Here, we're a lot like the U.S. Canada runs a very large balance of trade deficit with Europe. Our economic ties to the European Union are broken.
We have a balance of trade surplus thanks only to our natural resources and to America's insatiable appetite for our fossil fuels. Without that, where are we? That's a question you need to ponder for a while.
Economically, America is the luxury cruiser and we're the dinghy tied fast and floating merrily along behind. The trouble is the cruiser has sprung a lot of leaks and is taking on water. If it sinks, it's taking us down with it. Let's see: we know the big boat is shipping water and may well sink. What should we do? The obvious thing would be to cut the line or at least leave it tied very loosely so that we don't have to go down if the cruiser sinks. Does that make sense?"
I wrote that in September, 2006 but that wasn't the first time I'd spoken out against the obvious Ponzi scheme underway south of the border. I'm pointing this out not to suggest that I'm brilliant but to show that anyone, including Stephen Harper, who didn't see this runaway freight train coming down the track is/was either delusional or grossly incompetent.
To not see this meltdown coming you had to believe that it was actually possible to defy gravity. It was that obvious - even to a layman. So, why was nothing done to protect Canada against the consequences of the inevitable? Steve - over to you.
Some of us knew. I just stumbled across this passage I wrote on this blog in September, 2006 in a post entitled Deutschland Uber Alles - Again? -
"...Think about that. The United States, for all its prowess, is a lumbering debt machine. It sells to the world vastly less than it buys from the world, roughly half a trillion dollars a year worth. America doesn't make what its people want and what it does make isn't wanted anywhere else. What it doesn't buy from the world it borrows, another half trillion a year for the federal government alone and plenty more for state and municipal governments. Hey, somebody is lending the American public the vast sums they're borrowing too. Do you see a pattern here?
America does generate a lot of money that goes into investment, just not in the U.S. America invests it's money in other countries, places like China, where the returns are better. The trouble is that this is a telltale symptom of a country in decline. It's happened to all the grand empires in the past - Holland, Spain and Britain, each in turn. When you pump your wealth into growing somebody else's economy instead of your own it's just a matter of time.
The American economy is now driven by its housing market and even the World Bank fears the global consequences of a burst bubble there. This is a fascinating phenonmenon, a veritable Mardi Gras of indulgence fueled by cheap rates and tax deductible mortgage interest. Fully half of new mortgages in California are "interest only." At the same time, American homeowner equity levels have never been lower. Americans use the mortgage-interest deductibility to expand their purchasing power. They siphon the notional equity out of their homes to buy - well, to buy all those BMWs and Infinitys.
Canada, of course, is a net exporter to the U.S. We have a substantial and potentially dangerous balance of trade surplus with America which buys something in the order of 70 plus percent of our exports. Thanks to NAFTA, we're tied to the American economy as never before. What do the Europeans buy from us, maple syrup? Here, we're a lot like the U.S. Canada runs a very large balance of trade deficit with Europe. Our economic ties to the European Union are broken.
We have a balance of trade surplus thanks only to our natural resources and to America's insatiable appetite for our fossil fuels. Without that, where are we? That's a question you need to ponder for a while.
Economically, America is the luxury cruiser and we're the dinghy tied fast and floating merrily along behind. The trouble is the cruiser has sprung a lot of leaks and is taking on water. If it sinks, it's taking us down with it. Let's see: we know the big boat is shipping water and may well sink. What should we do? The obvious thing would be to cut the line or at least leave it tied very loosely so that we don't have to go down if the cruiser sinks. Does that make sense?"
I wrote that in September, 2006 but that wasn't the first time I'd spoken out against the obvious Ponzi scheme underway south of the border. I'm pointing this out not to suggest that I'm brilliant but to show that anyone, including Stephen Harper, who didn't see this runaway freight train coming down the track is/was either delusional or grossly incompetent.
To not see this meltdown coming you had to believe that it was actually possible to defy gravity. It was that obvious - even to a layman. So, why was nothing done to protect Canada against the consequences of the inevitable? Steve - over to you.
So Many Questions - Unasked, Unanswered
Calling a court hearing in the middle of a summer holiday long weekend is the judicial equivalent of a midnight raid by the police. There's always a taint of skulduggery to it, of business transacted in the dark.
Yet the government of the day chose this past Sunday to get an Ontario judge to finally send Karlheinz Schreiber winging his way back to his native Germany. Regardless of the obvious merits of the extradition, the question that has not been asked and remains unanswered is "why Sunday?" Why not Tuesday when everyone is back at work and it's business as usual in the courts? What was so critical that this had to be sprung in the middle of a holiday weekend? What's that smell?
Former Mulroney aide Norman Spector writing in today's Globe & Mail recites a litany of questions unasked, unanswered that may now be buried with Schreiber's imprisonment in Germany:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/spector-vision/harpers-gamble/article1239972/
Yet the government of the day chose this past Sunday to get an Ontario judge to finally send Karlheinz Schreiber winging his way back to his native Germany. Regardless of the obvious merits of the extradition, the question that has not been asked and remains unanswered is "why Sunday?" Why not Tuesday when everyone is back at work and it's business as usual in the courts? What was so critical that this had to be sprung in the middle of a holiday weekend? What's that smell?
Former Mulroney aide Norman Spector writing in today's Globe & Mail recites a litany of questions unasked, unanswered that may now be buried with Schreiber's imprisonment in Germany:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/blogs/spector-vision/harpers-gamble/article1239972/
How About Free Car Insurance?
Nissan is about to launch the first, mass-produced all-electric car, the Leaf. It's lithium-ion batteries drive the car at speeds up to 90 mph at a nominal range of 100 miles. Recharging takes half an hour on a high-capacity recharger or about 8-hours one a home, 200-volt charger.
For most of us, the Leaf would meet most of our driving needs. Most but not all. It won't get you to medium-range destinations - and back. Most of us want to have that medium-range capability but maybe, just maybe, our provincial governments can solve the dilemma.
How about encouraging drivers to go electric by giving them an incentive that allows them to keep their gasoline-fueled vehicle without having to double up on their insurance and licensing expenses? Perhaps we need a "dual-fuel" license plate that can be easily switched from the electric "daily driver" to the gasoline car for medium and long-distance trips. Both machines would be licensed to the same plate.
Carbon taxes (they're coming folks, no matter how hard your political liar of choice assures you they're not) would take care of the rest, giving owners a powerful incentive to use the electric vehicle whenever possible.
It's a transitional idea. As electric vehicles evolve in range and power capabilities, the role of the fossil-fuel powered alternative will decrease accordingly. Eventually there may be no need for a "dual licence" incentive. But, until that day arrives, we can kick start electric automobile acceptance and this licensing option would seem to do a lot to help.
For most of us, the Leaf would meet most of our driving needs. Most but not all. It won't get you to medium-range destinations - and back. Most of us want to have that medium-range capability but maybe, just maybe, our provincial governments can solve the dilemma.
How about encouraging drivers to go electric by giving them an incentive that allows them to keep their gasoline-fueled vehicle without having to double up on their insurance and licensing expenses? Perhaps we need a "dual-fuel" license plate that can be easily switched from the electric "daily driver" to the gasoline car for medium and long-distance trips. Both machines would be licensed to the same plate.
Carbon taxes (they're coming folks, no matter how hard your political liar of choice assures you they're not) would take care of the rest, giving owners a powerful incentive to use the electric vehicle whenever possible.
It's a transitional idea. As electric vehicles evolve in range and power capabilities, the role of the fossil-fuel powered alternative will decrease accordingly. Eventually there may be no need for a "dual licence" incentive. But, until that day arrives, we can kick start electric automobile acceptance and this licensing option would seem to do a lot to help.
If Britain Can Do It, and California Can Do It, Why Iggy Won't You Force Harper To Do It?
I wrote Michael Ignatieff some time ago asking that he try to force Stephen Harper into doing for the Canadian people what Britain had done for Britons and what California is now doing for Californians - giving them honest information on what conditions we can expect from the global warming that is bound to come from greenhouse gases we've already released into the atmosphere.
Ignatieff's people had his environmental policy advisor respond by saying Harper is useless but completely ignoring my point.
What the British government and now the California government have done is to give their people a "best case" climate change scenario so that they can plan and prepare for adaptation and remediation. Our climate is changing and it is going to keep changing for the rest of this century even if we get an effective climate change deal in place tomorrow.
From The Guardian:
"We still have to adapt, no matter what we do, because of the nature of the greenhouse gases," said Tony Brunello, deputy secretary for climate change and energy at the California Natural Resources Agency, who helped prepare the report. "Those gases are still going to be in the atmosphere for the next 100 years."
The draft report to be released today by the agency provides the state's first comprehensive plan to work with local governments, universities and residents to deal with a changing climate. A final plan is expected to be released in the autumn.
...Most countries have focused on cutting greenhouse gases in the future, but researchers say those efforts will take decades to have an effect while the planet continues to warm. States have only recently begun to consider what steps they must take to minimise the damage expected from sea level rise, storm surges, droughts and water shortages because of the climate changes.
...The report warns that rising temperatures over the next few decades will lead to more heatwaves, wildfires, droughts and floods.
"We have to deal with those unavoidable impacts," said Suzanne Moser, a research associate at the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "We can't pretend they are not going to happen and we have to prepare for that."
To minimise the potential damage from climate change, the report recommends that cities and counties offer incentives to encourage property owners in high-risk areas to relocate and limit future development in places that might be affected by flooding, coastal erosion and sea level rise. State agencies also should not plan, permit, develop or build any structure that might require protection in the future.
If Stephen Harper had the decency to take the gags off our climate scientists at EnviroCan and have them follow Britain's and California's initiatives or if Michael Ignatieff was half the leader he pretends to be and did something to force Harper's hand, we too might discover that we're going to have to deal with changes in precipitation and temperature patterns and with sea level rise. After all, doesn't Canada have more shoreline than any other country on the planet?
But so long as Stephen Harper, Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton stick with their "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" charade we're not going to get the information we need and deserve, we're not going to understand the "best case" scenarios, we're not going to do the planning we needed to start years ago and we're certainly not going to take any concrete action to prepare for what's coming no matter how hard these supposed leaders pretend it's not.
Ignatieff's people had his environmental policy advisor respond by saying Harper is useless but completely ignoring my point.
What the British government and now the California government have done is to give their people a "best case" climate change scenario so that they can plan and prepare for adaptation and remediation. Our climate is changing and it is going to keep changing for the rest of this century even if we get an effective climate change deal in place tomorrow.
From The Guardian:
"We still have to adapt, no matter what we do, because of the nature of the greenhouse gases," said Tony Brunello, deputy secretary for climate change and energy at the California Natural Resources Agency, who helped prepare the report. "Those gases are still going to be in the atmosphere for the next 100 years."
The draft report to be released today by the agency provides the state's first comprehensive plan to work with local governments, universities and residents to deal with a changing climate. A final plan is expected to be released in the autumn.
...Most countries have focused on cutting greenhouse gases in the future, but researchers say those efforts will take decades to have an effect while the planet continues to warm. States have only recently begun to consider what steps they must take to minimise the damage expected from sea level rise, storm surges, droughts and water shortages because of the climate changes.
...The report warns that rising temperatures over the next few decades will lead to more heatwaves, wildfires, droughts and floods.
"We have to deal with those unavoidable impacts," said Suzanne Moser, a research associate at the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "We can't pretend they are not going to happen and we have to prepare for that."
To minimise the potential damage from climate change, the report recommends that cities and counties offer incentives to encourage property owners in high-risk areas to relocate and limit future development in places that might be affected by flooding, coastal erosion and sea level rise. State agencies also should not plan, permit, develop or build any structure that might require protection in the future.
If Stephen Harper had the decency to take the gags off our climate scientists at EnviroCan and have them follow Britain's and California's initiatives or if Michael Ignatieff was half the leader he pretends to be and did something to force Harper's hand, we too might discover that we're going to have to deal with changes in precipitation and temperature patterns and with sea level rise. After all, doesn't Canada have more shoreline than any other country on the planet?
But so long as Stephen Harper, Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton stick with their "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" charade we're not going to get the information we need and deserve, we're not going to understand the "best case" scenarios, we're not going to do the planning we needed to start years ago and we're certainly not going to take any concrete action to prepare for what's coming no matter how hard these supposed leaders pretend it's not.
Afghanistan - The Road to Peace
For years I've been writing that the biggest obstacle to sorting out Afghanistan was India or rather America's tolerance of Indian meddling in Afghanistan. I might just have been right.
Those watching Bill Maher's show, Real Time, this weekend were treated to a fascinating discussion of the Afghan problem by CNN's Aussie-born veteran war correspondent, Michael Ware. He stunned his host and panel by claiming that a negotiated settlement to end the insurgency/civil war may not be that far off. The key, said Ware is Pakistan or, more accurately, India and Pakistan.
Those familiar with this blog will know the scenario. Pakistan fears India, seeing it as its mortal enemy. India likes to keep Pakistan off-balance and wants Afghanistan as its "client state." That leaves Pakistan bounded by one known adversary on its eastern border and a potential adversary on its western border with the Indian navy capable of sealing off Pakistan's southern coastline at will. At one point India was even talking about sending troops to Afghanistan to help fight the Pashtun (Taliban) insurgency. Pakistan, home to what has been called the "Islamic Bomb," has a large army but its generals believe they need almost all of it to defend Pakistan's border with India. Pakistan doesn't really have the forces or the money to truly secure its border with Afghanistan.
The Northern Alliance thugs and warlords who prop up Karzai and who, collectively, are then propped up by NATO and the United States like the idea of Afghanistan being a client state of India. The US, which has its own agenda for India, mainly focused on containing China, has tolerated the Delhi-Kabul relationship.
Pakistan's generals and especially its military intelligence mafia, the ISI, knows that the West isn't going to win in Afghanistan. They know, beyond any doubt, that we're not going to defeat the Taliban no matter how many troops we send, no matter how many bombs we drop. It isn't going to happen and they know that we know it too. So it's in their interests to tolerate, if not directly support, the insurgency to keep Afghanistan destabilized until Kabul and Washington are prepared to deal. Meanwhile the Pakistanis are telling Washington that they can bring the Taliban to the table if the Americans are willing to meet Pakistan's terms.
Here's the deal. India out of Afghanistan entirely. No client state of India deal. Pakistan and Afghanistan to accept some sort of Pashtun state (half of the Pashtun territory is in each country). On the creation of an acceptable Pashtun homeland the Taliban, whose objectives have always been nationalist anyway, will drop the insurgency which will also avoid the civil war that was bound to resume when we left in any case.
When you boil that down, what does it mean we're fighting for in Afghanistan? In reality we're fighting for a few things and none of them are pretty. We're fighting to retain the power and influence the Northern Alliance thugs and warlords snagged when the US helped them drive out the Taliban in a half-assed and utterly failed effort to destroy al-Qaeda. We're fighting to preserve India's interests in Afghanistan as a client state for the purpose of destabilizing Pakistan. We're fighting because we can't think of anything else to do ever since we lost the war way back in 2003 when al-Qaeda was allowed to slip away and decentralize throughout the Muslim world, Europe and North America.
If Michael Ware is right and if Pakistan is able to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table we (the US) had better grab that opportunity and do what's necessary to make it work which will include laying down the law in Delhi and Kabul. India and the Karzai criminal enterprise need to know that their game is over - for good.
Those watching Bill Maher's show, Real Time, this weekend were treated to a fascinating discussion of the Afghan problem by CNN's Aussie-born veteran war correspondent, Michael Ware. He stunned his host and panel by claiming that a negotiated settlement to end the insurgency/civil war may not be that far off. The key, said Ware is Pakistan or, more accurately, India and Pakistan.
Those familiar with this blog will know the scenario. Pakistan fears India, seeing it as its mortal enemy. India likes to keep Pakistan off-balance and wants Afghanistan as its "client state." That leaves Pakistan bounded by one known adversary on its eastern border and a potential adversary on its western border with the Indian navy capable of sealing off Pakistan's southern coastline at will. At one point India was even talking about sending troops to Afghanistan to help fight the Pashtun (Taliban) insurgency. Pakistan, home to what has been called the "Islamic Bomb," has a large army but its generals believe they need almost all of it to defend Pakistan's border with India. Pakistan doesn't really have the forces or the money to truly secure its border with Afghanistan.
The Northern Alliance thugs and warlords who prop up Karzai and who, collectively, are then propped up by NATO and the United States like the idea of Afghanistan being a client state of India. The US, which has its own agenda for India, mainly focused on containing China, has tolerated the Delhi-Kabul relationship.
Pakistan's generals and especially its military intelligence mafia, the ISI, knows that the West isn't going to win in Afghanistan. They know, beyond any doubt, that we're not going to defeat the Taliban no matter how many troops we send, no matter how many bombs we drop. It isn't going to happen and they know that we know it too. So it's in their interests to tolerate, if not directly support, the insurgency to keep Afghanistan destabilized until Kabul and Washington are prepared to deal. Meanwhile the Pakistanis are telling Washington that they can bring the Taliban to the table if the Americans are willing to meet Pakistan's terms.
Here's the deal. India out of Afghanistan entirely. No client state of India deal. Pakistan and Afghanistan to accept some sort of Pashtun state (half of the Pashtun territory is in each country). On the creation of an acceptable Pashtun homeland the Taliban, whose objectives have always been nationalist anyway, will drop the insurgency which will also avoid the civil war that was bound to resume when we left in any case.
When you boil that down, what does it mean we're fighting for in Afghanistan? In reality we're fighting for a few things and none of them are pretty. We're fighting to retain the power and influence the Northern Alliance thugs and warlords snagged when the US helped them drive out the Taliban in a half-assed and utterly failed effort to destroy al-Qaeda. We're fighting to preserve India's interests in Afghanistan as a client state for the purpose of destabilizing Pakistan. We're fighting because we can't think of anything else to do ever since we lost the war way back in 2003 when al-Qaeda was allowed to slip away and decentralize throughout the Muslim world, Europe and North America.
If Michael Ware is right and if Pakistan is able to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table we (the US) had better grab that opportunity and do what's necessary to make it work which will include laying down the law in Delhi and Kabul. India and the Karzai criminal enterprise need to know that their game is over - for good.
Sunday, August 02, 2009
Does This Sound Familiar?
A British Commons committee has found that UK soldiers "were sent into [Afghanistan's] Helmand province on an ill-defined mission undermined by "unrealistic" planning and lack of manpower." From The Observer:
After eight years in Afghanistan, the west has failed to live up to many of its grander promises, while "mission creep" has imposed too many competing priorities on the armed forces, according to the Labour-chaired Commons foreign affairs select committee.
Meanwhile, it raises the alarming spectre of al-Qaida, which has shifted its focus into Pakistan, gaining access to Islamabad's nuclear arsenal.
The report concludes that, while the military campaign in Helmand may be gaining traction, Afghan support for the troops has been damaged by civilian casualties and "cultural insensitivity", while there is no evidence the war on drugs has reduced poppy cultivation. A weak, corrupt police force is driving Afghans back to the Taliban to seek justice, it argues, while cultural assumptions about women are barely changed.
The British report is telling, particularly compared to the drivel John Manley & Co. pumped out for SHarper a year back.
After eight years in Afghanistan, the west has failed to live up to many of its grander promises, while "mission creep" has imposed too many competing priorities on the armed forces, according to the Labour-chaired Commons foreign affairs select committee.
Meanwhile, it raises the alarming spectre of al-Qaida, which has shifted its focus into Pakistan, gaining access to Islamabad's nuclear arsenal.
The report concludes that, while the military campaign in Helmand may be gaining traction, Afghan support for the troops has been damaged by civilian casualties and "cultural insensitivity", while there is no evidence the war on drugs has reduced poppy cultivation. A weak, corrupt police force is driving Afghans back to the Taliban to seek justice, it argues, while cultural assumptions about women are barely changed.
The British report is telling, particularly compared to the drivel John Manley & Co. pumped out for SHarper a year back.
Yet Another American Strategy to Win in Afghanistan
After eight years of essentially screwing the pooch, America's military leadership wants to add another new strategy to the mountain of earlier strategies to win the war in Afghanistan.
The new strategy calls for more troops, lots more, and new roles with a focus on unconventional warfare and - wait for it - using the military to crack down on corrupt officials at the local level.
Now when you come up with a "new" strategy like this what you're saying is that the last strategy (aka "the surge") and all the previous strategies were duds. Surprise, surprise, didn't work. All those armchair generals and home schooled history buffs were right after all and all those gold braid generals with all those shiny medals and colourful ribbons were wrong, again and again and again.
Word has it that the White House is awaiting General Stan McChrystal's new strategy proposal with as much enthusiasm as they would have for contracting leprosy.
The new strategy calls for more troops, lots more, and new roles with a focus on unconventional warfare and - wait for it - using the military to crack down on corrupt officials at the local level.
Now when you come up with a "new" strategy like this what you're saying is that the last strategy (aka "the surge") and all the previous strategies were duds. Surprise, surprise, didn't work. All those armchair generals and home schooled history buffs were right after all and all those gold braid generals with all those shiny medals and colourful ribbons were wrong, again and again and again.
Word has it that the White House is awaiting General Stan McChrystal's new strategy proposal with as much enthusiasm as they would have for contracting leprosy.
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